I try not to let his gaze affect me, truly, I do. It doesn't matter, I'm telling myself. He's probably been watching since the beginning. And he'll be able to examine my craft at leisure once the testing is done—the judges will obey his inevitable order to hand it over.

Yet my logic cannot cut through the dark fog of fear now upon me.

Just barely I manage to finish the outer poem. I read over it, shading it from Vanerak's view with my hands. The quality tails off toward the end—anyone could tell that. Yet the runes are twisted into shape now, and I have no wire left to change them with, and even if I did have the wire, it would make no difference. Fear has constrained my powers.

Why? Why am I so afraid? He's been here this whole time, surely! It's the memories: of my examination to become a runeknight, of him sacrificing the prisoners, of his theory of death.

Hands shaking, I step back from the anvil. I grimace. These runes will have to do—and because I couldn't work out a way to have the first poem be only five stanzas, I'm going to have to order another rod after all. I request it from Daztat, along with some fur and glue to line the helm's inside.

“After tax, that brings your money to a nice round nothing,” he says with a smile.

“Make sure the metal gets here quickly, please.”

“Of course, of course.”

I anneal the outer part of the craft, though not in fireflea oil. I don't trust myself to pull off solution hardening with such a difficult shape. Instead I just heat it and quench in water. This is still a tricky process, and the metal warps slightly. Gently I hammer it back into shape, or at least try to—I can't quite get it perfect.

Another mistake. They're starting to add up. Visions of my craft being crumpled to ruin intrude. I clench my hands to stop them shaking.

At least re-making the sixth rod goes well. Finally, all I have left to do is graft the runes. I look at the timer: just over one long-hour has passed. Again I feel like I'm rushing this. I tell myself to go slowly and carefully when grafting.

Rune by rune, I fuse the platinum and silver to the titanium. Incandesite flashes, the red-orange a familiar sight. Heat rushes through my hands with each graft, a comforting sensation, and a little of my fear fades away. My poem is still a good one, above the level of a fifth degree's for sure. I improved down in the fort. I'm better than Vanerak remembers me being.

Finished. Nearly all the runes are grafted. Now I just have to wait until the sixth rod is hardened, graft its runes, and weld everything together. That'll be a difficult process, and I'm feeling horribly fatigued, so once more I lie down beside the furnace and close my eyes.

I cannot sleep. My body refuses to relax under the gaze of Vanerak. It's instinct—no being can sleep with a predator watching. Only after curling up as tightly as I can do I finally manage to drift off, into fretful dreams.

I'm woken by a great cheer. The arena shakes. The noise is that of a thunderous rockfall, a cave-in. I jump to my feet in panic for my life; I fear that I will be buried in the collapse, like on the hunt for the white jelly, and this time I have no armor to turn the heavy blows.

A few seconds pass and my shock calms. I realize what the sound is from. I look up at the crowd. None look back. Their cheers are directed to the other side of the arena.

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“Impressive!” Batarast shouts. “Most impressive!”

The senior guildsdwarves around him applaud loudly. “All thanks to your guidance, guildmaster,” one says.

“Yes. My guidance and my blood.”

“I've never seen a hammer quite like it,” says another. “A very original design.”

“A bit too original, to my old eyes, mayhaps.”

“I think it'll do the job. The traitor's only a fifth degree, after all. And from a backwater at that.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yes,” another guild member says. “I went to get a better look at his craft the other hour. It's no match.”

“Did you?” Batarast says suspiciously. “It looks too weak?”

“I'd put money on victory by obliteration, if bets were allowed.”

Batarast grunts with disapproval. “Too easy a victory won't bring much honor.”

“Oh, I think it'll bring more, guildmaster! To crush the traitor in a single blow will be a feat that echoes down the ages. Your son will be celebrated! And our guild also!”

“Yes, yes. Let's not celebrate too soon. The head may be complete, but he still has to pull through with the handle.”

“Still, I think another round of hot beers are in order.”

“Hah! I have no quarrel with you there.”

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What could he have done to bring so loud a cheer? Maybe he's finished already. I take a look at the sand timer and see that there's still another half a long-hour until time—so about a day and a half by the reckoning I'm used to. He doesn't seem the kind to rush, so probably he isn't done quite yet. Just the main form of his weapon has become apparent. It must be a real monster to have brought a cheer so loud—it's still continuing, like an aftershock.

I check on the sixth rod and see that it's nearly the same shade as the others. Not quite ready, so I go over my runes again to make sure there are no mistakes. There are none, yet still I despair. I know that but for my sudden fear of Vanerak, they could be far superior.

I should have waited for that fear to die away. Mostly it's gone now. It was just shock. What the hell is there to be scared of? I feel angry at myself; he already knows my abilities.

Time to start linking everything together. I take a thin welding stick and melt the tops of the five rods together with thin streaks of incandesite. It goes fairly evenly, yet the seam is still quite visible. Welding is a skill I need to work on—if I survive the trial. Next I link the bottom loop, then the middle. Again, it goes as well as I've ever managed.

But the runic power feels weak. Every runeknight can tell how well the energies within a piece of equipment flow when he touches it, and in my craft they are not so vigorous. I remind myself that the final stanza of the poem isn't yet linked, and neither is the long first poem, yet even so, I can't help but feel disappointed in myself.

Glumly I graft the final stanza to the sixth rod and link it to the rest of the framework. Still the power isn't flowing quite well enough. I check the time. Only about another four short-hours have passed.

I groan and sink down against the wall. Once more I've rushed my craft, fallen back on my bad habits. I should have treated the rods one at a time. I should have taken time to calm myself after I noticed Vanerak's stare. I should have welded at a quarter of the speed I did. I should have done better at every stage of the forging.

So I take as much time as possible with welding the outer skin to the inner framework. I line up every grain of red-orange incandesite with sub-millimeter precision. I take minutes to line up each and every touch with the welding stick. A full short-hour passes before I'm finished welding just one strut.

No trance takes me. This is grueling. I don't think I've ever taken such painstaking care before in my life, and certainly not on welding.

Three rods welded, and I sleep. When I wake I see that I still have the better part of a day left, so I slow down even further. Despite my best efforts though, I still finish with several short hours to spare.

I hold my craft in my hands and grimace. Not good enough, this is still not good enough. It's a fine helm, but it's not of third degree quality. Middling fifth.

All that's left now is to glue in the fur lining. I take just as much care with this as I did with the welding. Every part of a craft is vital, I remind myself. Even the bits that don't seem that way.

Done. I look at the sand timers: there are still two short-hours left. I wait for them to pass in silence.

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Vanerak looks upon Zathar's craft. To his five century-old eyes the metalwork is shoddy, uneven, bent in an ugly fashion and horribly ragged along the welds. Acceptable work for a fifth degree, barely acceptable for a fourth, and far below what is expected for the examination for third.

The runes, though! Vanerak had begun to doubt his memory over the past thirteen years. The power to create new runes has been lost forever. Every runeknight knows this. Surely Zathar had just come across a rare dictionary? Or at best made a series of happy errors?

But Zathar's latest craft confirms it: in the young dwarf is some of the power of the runeforgers—or Runeforger, that knowledge is also lost.

For proof, Vanerak has had a complete set of dictionaries of Utast Second script, the one Zathar is using, brought to him. Half of the runes on his helm are not written in them, despite the fact that Utast Second is fully documented, the ruins in which it was found picked apart more than a millennia ago.

Zathar has extended the script. Improved it. How he has done so Vanerak cannot even begin to fathom.

Once Zathar is in his hands, he'll have to undertake a very thorough investigation indeed.

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It's finished. The handle is done and welded. Barahtan wipes the sweat from his brow. What a craft! His head aches from exposure to too much lead dust—no matter, his guild has medicine for such poisoning, and his symptoms aren't bad enough to affect his accuracy. Not against an immobile target.

The air is shaking; the crowd is chanting his name.

“Ba-rah-tan! Ba-rah-tan! Ba-rah-tan!”

“Bright-gold-flame! Bright-gold-flame! Bright-gold-flame!”

He gives them a wide smile and strains to lift his craft above his head. The applause deafens him.

Barahtan shifts his gaze to his father, looks him directly in the eye.

“Just watch what I'm capable of,” he says. “You just watch what I can do.”