Before the glow of the magma shore, fifteen runeknights and their Runethane stand. The light reflects darkly on their armor, darker in the scars and dents. The first battle was a fierce one—yet nearly a victory. If only Vanerak's lieutenants had not given futile chase; if only they had not relented their pressure on the demons.

  He will discipline them later. The midst of battle is no time to injure morale, and the battle has not ended. This is a time for inspiration.

  A few words are needed. For the second time in less than half a long-hour he steps out in front of his soldiers and lifts his mirror-mask.

  For the first time, I see his face. It is not disfigured, not badly scarred, but all the same disgusts me; revulsion crawls in the pit of my stomach.

  His lips are the color of blood, his teeth like rows of blunt axeheads. His eyes are a little widely spaced, and so cold blue they are almost gray. His slate beard hangs heavy and dead-seeming, and his flesh from which it grows looks dead also, like chalk-dusted leather.

  He looks without question the part of a murderer. It is easy to imagine cold and cruel commands issuing forth from those raw-flesh lips. Those cold eyes did not blink, I'm sure, when he ordered Pellas' guts to be torn out through her armor.

  Now that I have seen his face, I can imagine him having no other. It suits him just that well.

  “My dwarves,” he intones. Even with no metallic ring from his mirror-mask, his voice remains like cold steel. “The demons were on the brink of defeat when the lesser runeknights broke. They remain on the brink of defeat now. We slaughtered many hundreds of them, and we did so in the center of their stronghold. They threw all their might against us, and now but a few remain. Think: if hordes of them were still being held in reserve, they would have chased us down by now, but instead the survivors hang back to lick their wounds.

  “We remain but a few also, yes, yet you are my strongest, my elite. It will be no difficult task for us to break the demons' ranks then break into their secret places. Not with me leading you—and not with the runeforger here also.”

  He points at me. I flinch in surprise—I was not expecting this.

  “With his runes he has created a weapon of first degree quality. It is too valuable an asset to be left on the shore for this coming fight. Do not believe this means I trust him entirely. He is still the traitor and must be watched with suspicion. Yet he does mean to fight. He did not run, at least. If he fights well enough, perhaps I will even be so kind as to give him a further degree of freedom.”

  I bow low. “I thank you greatly for this opportunity, my Runethane. I will not squander it.”

  “You are welcome,” he replies curtly. His eyes remain cold.

  Of course, I do not believe this promise for even a second. Vanerak turns back to the rest of the runeknights:

  “You have little to fear and everything to hope for. We are on the brink of a great discovery. I make no exaggeration when I say that what we find may change dwarfdom forever. Within the demons' stronghold lies the origins of our noble caste, and of our runic magicks also. Within are answers, which are far rarer and more precious than metal or gems. You enter those upper chambers with me, and you enter into legend.”

  He slams down his mirror-mask and raises his pollaxe high above his head. A cheer erupts, deafening for coming from so few. Nazak leads it—he is almost screaming. Helzar is loud too, a terrible hissing screech issuing from her helmet. Halax starts to chant, giving shape to the yelling:

  “Legend! Legend! Legend!”

  “Ueala! Ueala! Ueala!”

  I chant too, throw all my breath into the words. I compete with Nazak, try to sound louder even than he. I must convince the other dwarves to trust me. They must not doubt. They must let their guard down in the heat of battle, take their eyes off me for vital moments, for if I am to commit the slaughter I plan, I must kill one by one.

  Not all here participated in the murder of the Association, true. But if Vanerak had ordered them so, each would have helped without question. Their loyalty to him is guilt by association.

  Vanerak lowers his pollaxe and the chant ceases instantly. He turns, applies his heat-mask and breathing tube, and wades into the magma. Nazak yells the order for everyone else to do the same, and we obey. Light vanishes and is replaced with that not-view of heat: light that is not light spreads out before me, void that is not black extends above. This is not the heat-mask I made, but a slightly better one—I feel uncomfortable equipping it.

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  My breathing tube is also not my own make, and looks rather thin. I secure it after a second's hesitation. My breath is cut off momentarily then sweeter air fills my mouth. Both crafts seem to be working fine.

  Slick crunching steps sound, cold bootprints open in the light, and I follow the rest of the runeknights in.

  I feel a slight crush and heating, then both forces are repelled. We begin to swim-crawl through the magma. I watch my hands and observe the familiar halo of not-color, of life-heat. It enraged the demons greatly, made me a target on my first dive, and also proved something of a weapon against them. I observe the other runeknights and see that about a quarter have copied the concept. Wrappings of similar not-color envelop them too.

  Maybe I should feel flattered, but my heart has no room for such an emotion. One half holds hate, the other fear. That is all.

  My arms begin to ache a little. We are swimming quite close to the surface, where the magma is a little thinner and harder to grip and pull on. This is for safety, I suppose: the shorter our cables, the less the risk. And the less pressure on the armor too. Some of the second degrees' harnesses are quite badly damaged, and some even bear the marks of hurried welds, as if their wearers were in the middle of desperate repairs when the order came to form up on the shore.

  I can take them! I can kill them! My ruby heats further. Vigor surges through my muscles and I no longer feel any ache. Only a few hours and we will be in battle. My bident is ready. It is still unnamed, deserves a good one, but none I have thought of so far have been fitting.

  When the slaughter comes, that is when I will know what to call it.

  As Nazak proceeds through the magma with the remnants of the army, a sadness takes hold of him. Less than ten short-hours ago he swam out with hundreds under his command. Now he swims out with a dozen.

  Why did they flee? He fought hard for them, fought hard with them, leading from the front. He thought they trusted him! Respected and liked him. He respected them too, liked them also—loved them, even. Yes, he loved them as he did his own brothers, who burned to death all those thousands of long-hours ago in the black dragon's fire.

  And they repaid him through betrayal. Worse, they betrayed him for the loathsome Zathar, the traitor whose hands are dyed in blood and ashes.

  It is not his fault, Nazak tells himself. The Runethane simply pushed them all too hard. He knows he should not criticize their leader, yet a Runethane with such strength as Vanerak simply cannot enter into the feelings of lower degrees.

  If only Nazak had found some way to make him understand the impossibility of what he was asking them to do, again, and again, and again.

  Well, it is too late for such regrets. After the victory, after they rebuild, maybe he will have new dwarves to lead and protect and win the trust of. For the time being, duty is all that's left to him—duty to kill the demons, and to kill the traitor the moment he betrays them, inevitably, for a second time.

  At the base of Halax's field of not-view, the familiar shapes of broken walls and jagged points of pillars make themselves clear. Unlike Nazak, his thoughts are not of his fellows, nor of the fight ahead, but of the distant past. The pictures engraved upon the blocks and bricks and slabs below tell of a realm like none other.

  They tell of a realm with no runeknights. Indeed, it seems to be a realm with no soldiers of any kind. No armor is depicted, no weapons either. Everyone is dressed in fabrics, so well-carved they seem to blow in solid stone winds. And the carvings sing too, with voices almost audible. The runes describe what they are singing, Halax is sure, for generally when a picture is accompanied by runes, it is a picture of dwarves with mouths open.

  Perhaps the runes do not even describe words, but rather tones and rhythms. Maybe this was a time before words, though that seems a little unlikely.

  The truth will be uncovered soon. Halax glimpsed runes barely legible in that final corridor. He hopes to be able to use them to translate the unreadable ones.

  So much to learn! So much to study! And if Runethane Vanerak has truly figured out the secret of Zathar's runeforging, even more possibilities will open up. This new age, Halax thinks joyously, will be one of unparalleled excitement.

  The black pillars reach higher, up into the vision of Helzar. She is focused on Zathar and her hands itch. He who took her voice will suffer. All the suffering she has inflicted on others, which she believes to her very heart-strings to be but a tenth of what she suffers each time she speaks—all that pain will be but a hundredth of what she will inflict on Zathar. He will watch as every one of his traitor friends is torn on her barbs. Nazak will not kill him—Helzar will not allow this. Zathar must suffer as no dwarf has ever yet.

  After nearly a full short-hour of swimming, broken pillars and hollowed towers stab up blackly from below. We have entered the city proper. Every wall is decorated with pictures. They are blurs to me, yet even so I can tell they are the most expert carvings I have ever passed by. Whoever the builders of this city were, their masons surpassed ours to an incredible degree. The old master mason—wherever he is—would weep to see them. Maybe he already has, before those that have been dragged out the magma into our caverns.

  The towers reach steadily higher. Still we see no demons and Vanerak increases our pace. He seems uncharacteristically eager.

  Something odd appears in my heat-vision. I frown and adjust my heat-mask, thinking it has detached from my visor somehow, but no. The strangeness remains: all the not-light ahead of us is cut off totally. Before is a wall of void and Vanerak is swimming directly for it.

  My eyes widen. Horizontal rods of heat appear in the cold, extend lengthily. Corridors! And as we get closer, curvature becomes apparent. We are heading toward a vast tower, a cylinder that could encompass one of the pillars in Allabrast many times over.

  Vanerak dives suddenly. We follow, moving almost vertically down after him. A wide gap—wide for us, though not compared with the tower—comes into view below. Heat extends far into it.

  A wave of heat hits us, warming me even through my armor. Blazing spheres appear in the tower entrance and flood out fast. I shout in terror—there are many of them, a hundred, a true horde.

  The demons are here. The final battle is upon us, and it appears that Vanerak exaggerated their losses. Like sparks from a mass of semi-molten metal suddenly dashed to the floor, they swarm upwards to engulf us.

  I aim my bident—and in the same instant name it: Life-Ripper.

  Its thorns will pierce dwarf and demon both to rend them from within. And if it should catch a weapon, it will tear apart the living power of runes and metal also.

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