When Jon rushed to her side, he found Elise still breathing but very pale. He sat there beside her in the dirt while the healers explained that they’d done everything they could for her.

“The wound was very deep,” an old man explained, but Jon couldn’t hear him as he went into details as to how they’d use hot steel to stop the bleeding or a poultice to ward against infection.

Jon could only see her torn and bloody shirt as all the man’s words ran together, and eventually, he left them alone, or rather, as alone as they could be while surrounded by hundreds of men, dozens of whom were also dead or dying. As the leader, it was his job to be resolute, but it was all he could do not to cry as he cradled her mournfully.

The rest of the morning went on like that. People came and went with reports, but he listened to them blank-faced before saluting them and sending them on their way. Someone thought to erect an awning over him and Elise, but he didn’t notice until he was already sitting in the shade. The truth was that he was completely exhausted, and he probably wouldn’t have been able to do much for anyone, even if his heart wasn’t about to break.

People were bringing supplies here from the train, and medical wards were being set up for the people that could be saved, but Jon couldn’t bring himself to care. The final count came out to 46 dead and 81 wounded to one degree or another. Almost a third of their total force was bloodied by the fiendish dwarven weapons that not even his powers had been able to shelter them from completely.

But Jon would have gladly let more die if Elise had come out of this unharmed. Instead, all he could do was watch her and the slowly emptying lake beyond them.

The waters had settled down, and at least for now, the valley was filled with water almost all the way to the sea. Only the remains of the cannery and a few trees still stood above the water line after the torrent that had destroyed everything. They were the only things that interrupted the perfect, placid, brown mirror that the battlefield had become.

Well, not the only imperfection. Jon looked off to his left, to where the ventilation tower had stood for so long as he lived on the Pearl Islet. It was gone now, but he was certain that the hole it had left behind was still there and still helping to drain the endless tide he’d sent its way.

That was the other reason for his plan, though he’d never even told Rian about it. None of them understood how the dwarves used forges to heat the air up giant chimneys or that even the shape of the trains below was made to push air around.

In the deeps air was an even bigger problem than food, and Jon had just filled who knew how many tunnels with water. With a ventilation tower of that size, he’d probably drowned a whole city. In fact, it was close enough on the map to the Mithril Throne in…

Jon’s thoughts trailed off as Elise’s eyes fluttered, and she looked sightlessly at the sky.

“D-did we win,” she murmured, managing a weak smile.

“We did, baby,” he smiled back, too widely, as his dread evaporated into pure relief.

Just because she managed a few words didn’t mean she was going to make it. If anything, her ashen skin said that this might be his last chance to say goodbye.

He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. Instead, he just stroked her hair and smiled while tears of joy ran down his face.

Whenever she asked about specifics of the battle, he demurred because he didn’t want to upset her. Instead, he stroked her hair, gave her water, and told her she was going to be okay.

“I’m not going to die,” she promised him. “And I’m not that fragile. You can tell me the truth.”

The aggravation in her voice told him that she might get more upset by not giving her some answers instead of giving them to her, so he relented. He told her, “There were less than fifty men killed and twice that wounded.”

“And on the side of the—” she coughed, and when he wiped her mouth, he noticed there was blood in it. “When will they attack again.”

“There’s no one left to attack us again,” Jon said hesitantly, not sure how she would take that news.

“But…” she gasped as she tried to process it. For a moment, he worried he’d told her too much, but she smiled wanly and said, “It’s a true miracle then. Was it your fire magic? Did you show them that dwarven magics could never top those wielded by humans?”

“I promise to tell you every last detail when you’re feeling better,” he smiled. “But for now, you need your rest.”

“But I’m not…” Elise tried to insist she was fine, but she didn’t even have the strength for that. Instead, minute by minute, she struggled to keep her eyes open, and though they continued talking until the moment she lapsed back into unconsciousness, he still worried that each breath would be her last.

It was only when her breathing was even and her sleep was deep, that he finally stood up and grabbed a passing young man by the arm.

“If she shows any signs of distress at all, you call for a healer, and then you run and find me. Is that understood, son?” Jon demanded.

“But I was—” he started to protest.

“I don’t care what your other orders were. This is more important,” Jon insisted. “I have things that need to be done, and I can’t do that unless I’m sure Elise is okay. Do you understand?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Y-yes, sir,” the young soldier answered, immediately moving to Elise’s side, letting Jon move about the camp for the first time in hours. In the time since he’d stopped paying attention to the world around him, everything had changed.

Tents had been set up, including a pavilion where his leaders were debating something fiercely, and cook fires had been started to feed the hungry men. The real problem seemed to be water, ironically, since the train was parked so far away right now, and because of the flood, there was no closer source of clean drinking water.

Jon would have to fix that, but first, he’d have to make sure no one was trying to betray him while his back was turned and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He strode into the tent, noting with approval that the map of the area was laid out on the table.

Fortunately, the argument seemed to be about whether or not they could linger here or if they should push the advantage and strike before the enemy knew what had happened. For once, Jon found himself on Cristoph’s side and said, “There will be no hiding what happened here. It will ripple out in a thousand ways, and the more people hear of it, the more likely they will be to surrender or face annihilation.”

“But… you can’t do that again, can you?” Rolm asked. “That was just a one-time thing, right?”

The men all looked at him nervously. They’d always known Jon was dangerous, but after what had happened today, some of them looked afraid.

“Let me be clear with you, gentlemen,” he said, radiating confidence. “That was not magic. That was one large explosion and an even larger dam.”

“Well, that’s a relief, I—” Christoph started.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have other tricks planned for the journey to the White City in the days ahead, should we need them,” he continued, pausing a moment to let everyone wonder. He never wanted his men to think he didn’t have a trump card or two up his sleeve, even if it wasn’t true.

The conversation continued after that, and by the time he came back out to check on Elise almost an hour later, he noted that most of the water had dried up and the mud flats now spread all the way to the sea. One day the lakes that made this region would return, but it would not be until the land was allowed to heal from all the damage the dwarves had done.

There was only a hole where that lonely tower had once been, and he noted that the rush of water had made it quite a bit larger than it had once been. Jon kept his eye on it even after he returned to Elise’s side.

In his absence, they’d gotten her onto a cot, and he was sitting there with a thin vegetable broth when she woke up again after a few hours of keeping his mournful vigil.

“I wasn’t sure you’d ever wake up again,” he confessed eventually, once he was done feeding her a few bites and was sitting there just happy to hold her cool hand.

“I’d never leave you,” she whispered. “Now tell me about the victory, please. I must know Jon because, honestly, this doesn’t feel like a victory to me.”

Jon sighed, in agreement. This camp felt like a pall hung over it. It was what he would have expected if they’d been forced to retreat. So, against his better judgment, he started to tell her the story. He explained why people were so unhappy and told it all in broad strokes, starting with the firestorm and the explosions.

He told her everything, except for the part where he almost died a few times. He left those out, both because he didn’t want to frighten her and because he felt guilty that he’d taken such risks but came through the whole thing unscathed while she was lying on death’s door.

He thought that she would protest or, say, react poorly the way so many others had when he got to the flood and the dam, but she just squeezed his hand and murmured, “Ah, so that’s where Rian went off to. Very clever. Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he is,” Jon said, even though he had no idea if it was true.

They talked for a bit about the drowned army, and it was only partway through that conversation that he mentioned the ventilation tower and how there was only a large hole in the ground.

“Ventilation tower?” she asked. “You mean that thing in the swamp?”

“Yeah, the dwarves use structures like that to let the bad air out,” he said nonchalantly. “It’s connected to cities and rail tunnels to keep things circulating. They have them scattered all over the place if you know where to look.”

“Wait,” she balked. “You knew that? You knew if you destroyed the dam, you would flood their cities, Jon? What were you thinking? We’re supposed to be fighting soldiers, not women and children!”

A thousand images of life in the deeps flashed through his mind, but mostly it fixated on what Khaghrumer would look like underwater after its forge fires were extinguished, and the faint glow stones began to dim as they were submerged in muddy water.

If he’d been working in the rail yard when that had happened, he probably would have been the last survivor because dwarves rarely learned to swim. Eventually, though, he would have been pinned to the ceiling by the rising tide until the city was submerged, and there was nowhere left to breathe. He almost felt bad, but then he remembered the powder mill, and all the other terrible things they’d done to him.

He didn’t tell her that, though. He just said, “Dwarves have a lot of protections for these sorts of situations. I probably just fouled a few lines and prevented them from shipping more soldiers into our path. I doubt that I drowned any cities.”

That was a lie, though. He was fairly certain he had.

“Jon…” she sighed. “Don’t you see if we win like this, we’re no better than they are.”

“We can talk about it when you’re feeling better,” he promised, “But let’s focus on something more cheerful… like the way that the cannery is completely demolished.”

That made her smile briefly, and he propped her up, so she could see the ragged wreckage for a moment from her bed. The conversation continued after that, but it was tense, and even though she’d taken the news of their apocalyptic victory well enough, he knew she wasn’t likely to be as accepting of everything else.

He slept fitfully there by her sickbed, and each time he nodded off, he dreamed that she had died. Still, in the morning, he woke up to find her breathing and thanked all the gods for saving her.

Even though she didn’t die, something inside her did. She might have survived the night, but there was a coldness in her eyes the next morning when she finally woke up. He’d told her what he’d done, and he could see that it had wounded her as deeply as the shrapnel had.

That was okay. That chill was a small price to pay for her life. In time, he was sure she’d come to understand why the choice he’d made was hard but inevitable. Just the same, though, he decided he was going to hold off on telling anyone else for now though. The men were already surly and unhappy about the way the battle had played out.

They needed a few more victories that were more comprehensible before he told them the truth: they hadn’t just defeated the dwarven army on the battlefield today but a good portion of the kingdom below. They would never recover from this, but that was okay - Jon didn’t want them to.