The city they found after the coal mine was called Nel-Bartov, and though Krulm’venor had never been there in life, he had heard of it, even from so far away. It had been famed for the river of crystal that cut the city in half like a cracked geode on a truly massive scale.
It had been described as a work of art or a sort of natural cathedral, and dwarves had labored for lifetimes to cut and polish those giant crystals so that every ray of light that touched them rebounded through a dozen rainbows before fading away.
As a whole, the sight was said to be quite lovely and one of the true wonders of the dwarven world. Now, it was just a slaughterhouse, and that crystal channel was nothing but a colossal gutter for the blood of so many dead dwarves in the aftermath of his brutal assault.
That city wasn’t the only one either, of course, it was just the one that happened to be next. Cities were getting larger and closer together in this area. Krulm’venor knew why, of course, though he never said so out loud. It was because he was getting close to the capital of the entire underrealm: Forgeholm.
The fire godling wasn’t quite sure whether he was attempting to shield the place by hoping they didn’t find it or hoping that he would stumble across it before the Lich had a chance to prepare an appropriate stratagem and be crushed into so much smoldering scrap by the Iron City and their formidable armies.
It was the armies he discovered first, quite by accident. They first found a squad of red helmed defenders in the byway of Grigen-dol. It was nowhere special. It was just three dozen buildings carved along the wide part of a tunnel where two important paths of the underway met.
Krulm’venor had confused them for being the town watch, but he quickly learned his mistake. They fought much too fiercely and in a well-coordinated fashion for that. Even when he became forty and then eighty to outnumber them, they did not break or even show real fear. Instead, the thirty dwarves fought to the last with their shields held high and their banners raised, even as he set them alight.
That battle, fierce as it was, wasn’t enough to attract the Lich’s baleful eye. It took more and more to do that these days. Instead, it did not press itself into Krulm’venor’s mind until he found a unit of more than fifty dwarves out on patrol. Though that might happen anywhere in the under ways, he knew that it was really only likely near a city as large as Forgeholm.
The group marched in formation, five dwarves wide and at least ten ranks deep. It would be a formidable foe to face, even with fire and ferocity on his side. He could see the design of their tower shields and the way they were built to lock together. That wasn’t enough to deter Krulm’venor’s attack, though. At least not until he felt the Lich’s chill spread through him.
“What is it you’ve stumbled upon now?” the Lich asked in the cold, dry voice that the godling had learned to hate and dread.
“A small army out on patrol,” the dwarf answered honestly. “It is likely from a larger city.”
“The Iron City?” the Lich asked, penetrating directly to the core of the matter. For a moment, Krulm’venor wasn’t sure how it had done that, but then it realized that with all the dwarven souls it had devoured at this point, there was very little that the monster probably didn’t know.
“It’s very likely,” Krulm’venor admitted, “Though I have heard no word nor seen a sign, it is supposed to lay somewhere in this direction.”
“Then find it, but do not engage,” the Lich commanded. “Such a place will be impossible for a lowly worm like you to crack alone.”
“You are sending me reinforcements then?” the fire godling asked, disgusted at what new horror it might have to put up with.
It had seen the Devourer and other inhuman monstrosities that the Lich had created in recent years, and being close to something like that would be even worse than dealing with the hundreds of goblins that had already burrowed their way into his soul. As foul as they were, at least they were creatures that dwelled in the natural world.
“No, not immediately, at any rate,” the Lich said, studying the distant dwarves marching through the far cavern through his dead, flickering eyes. “Plans are already in motion, and until they are ready, they are nothing you need to concern yourself with. Simply learn what you can and stay out of sight until all is readiness. Only then can you strike the deathblow against the empire below.”
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Krulm’venor didn’t like the sound of that, but he also had no desire to ask any further questions. Instead, he simply nodded, and then, the Lich faded from his mind, leaving him with the sound of distant tromping boots and rattling plate mail echoing through the caverns ahead.
The Lich might have intended to be harsh, but it dawned on Krulm’venor as he stood there that he felt something he hadn’t felt in almost as long as he hadn’t felt real warmth. He no longer felt the need to march and kill in an endless spiral to stay one step ahead of the vengeful spirits that dwelled where his bone marrow should have been.
It wasn’t quiet peace, thanks to the tribe of green skins in his soul, but it was something, and he stood there long after the patrol had left, glorying in his ability to do nothing at all. It was only when the darkness and silence were once more absolute that he continued on.
This time, the skeletal fire godling moved forward, looking to avoid trouble instead of causing it. It was a strange sensation. Until now, for years, since long before the siege of Rahkin, or even before that when he’d sacked Hugelden or Siddrimar, he’d constantly acted with a spear against his back. ‘Move forward or face the consequences.’
It wasn’t even an unsaid threat. His very bones were itching to torture him.
Now, suddenly, he could do what he wanted as long as he could ignore the gibbering voices of the creatures that lived in his head. Now, he could walk slower and appreciate the subtle signs of dwarven society, from the well-trod stone paths to the subtle graffiti he spied along the most common thoroughfares as he got closer to the city.
Of course, the closer he got, the harder it was to stay hidden. There were smaller outlying communities and, along some routes, significant traffic. There were more guards than usual, too, but that was his fault. He’d spent years down here ravaging the world in every direction, and since there were never any witnesses left behind, it was impossible to say what the dwarves believed was happening.
Krulm’venor found it unlikely the All-Father didn’t know, but then, he’d never been a religious scholar. Perhaps that was why the Lich no longer wanted him to kill where it could be avoided. Perhaps that was how the god might catch his scent if he wasn't careful.
In the end, it didn’t matter. If he moved slowly and carefully, there was almost always a way to avoid killing the dwarves that crossed his path. Even when they caught a glimpse of the blue fire burning in his eyes, he could simply move deeper into the darkness and wait for the dwarves to move on.
There was only one case in the weeks that followed where he was forced to kill anyone at all. He’d come around the corner at the same time as an older dwarf leading a long mule train. Thinking quickly, before the man could scream, Krulm’venor snapped his neck, letting him fall dead on the ground. He could have simply left the graybeard there.
It would have been a strange death, but nothing that pointed to him directly. In the end, he decided to let the howling mob within him out to rip both the corpse and his pack animals to shreds, though. This was both because it would be viewed less suspiciously as a random goblin attack, which the metal jaws of his minions would perfectly replicate, and because they’d been caged in his mind for so long that they were howling out of control at that one death, and he no longer felt like fighting them.
He couldn’t. This was who he was now.
He didn’t join them, though. Even as half a dozen metal goblin skeletons killed and screamed in delight like any tribe of goblins would, he picked through the wreckage that had once been this peddler's life, examining artifacts that reminded Krulm’venor of a home so far away that he no longer remembered it.
He examined the man’s short sword, which was oiled heavily enough that he was sure it hadn’t been used in quite some time but sharpened down enough that it had obviously seen hard use over the course of its life. All the man’s possessions told a similar tale. The cloak had been expensive once but was now threadbare, the boots had been resoled more than once, and the buttons, well…
Krulm’venor had spent what felt like half a lifetime shredding and burning dwarven cities as punishment for all of his failures as a god and man, but during those activities, he was a force of nature, and when he was done, there was nothing left behind but ashes. Here, though, right now, as he sat there amidst the blood at the gore that his doppelgängers were causing, all he could do was study that small brass button, admiring the details and its perfect symmetry.
It wasn’t particularly fancy, and though it was stamped with the crest of a dwarven clan, he didn’t recognize it. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that it had done its job. It might have done it for decades or even centuries. There was really no way to know. It was polished, though, and clean save for a single drop of blood. It was what he should have been before he walked down the long, dark road that led him here.
Krulm’venor mourned what could have been and held that button tightly even as he disbanded his tribe and started walking away again. He still had to figure out exactly where the Iron City was and where its gates and defenses were located specifically. After that, he could lie low and do what he wanted with his own time for once.
He could spend his time planning the best way to attack or trying to figure out what it was that his dark master was up to. He could even sit there and listen to the voices in his head babble until he went completely insane. What he couldn’t do, though, was let go of that damn button or stop thinking about all that it symbolized in his savage, miserable life.