“We're nearly here,” the captain of this caravan, the third I've ridden with so far, tells me. “Just another two short-hours after this stop.”

  I can already tell we're close, for we've recently gone through Jaeltham, which has become rather busier than I remember, judging from the flashes of light and bustle I saw as we bypassed its warrens. Even before then, I knew we were approaching our destination fast. I recognize the color of the stone here, and the cold, and especially the smell: of old, and damp, and hints of savage life.

  I thank the captain anyway and drink my beer. I've been honored with some of the best they have: the fourth degree runeknights' personal stock. I don't know what it's brewed from, but it's good.

  Yet even the best alcohol can't stave off my trepidation. Just what, exactly, am I going to find down here?

  We're called to re-embark and I take my position on the top of the lead caravan's roof. Apparently, I'm intimidating enough to work as a figurehead for them. No dithyoks or whippers will dare get in our way with me up here, or so I'm told. I remember the terror of the latter and am not so sure.

  We rumble along the road, quickly. Another caravan, a great train laden with rubble, thunders past us. Rock dust swirls and I cough. Runethane Halmak's miners have been busy, it seems—and have been told. I may not know exactly what I'm going to find, but I have the general picture. No more is this realm just the fort. It is the fort and a new city above it. A prosperous city too, judging by the number of caravans that have passed us thus far and are on our trail behind us.

  Brightdeep is its name, meaning a jewel of light and life at the very bottom of the underworld. I'm not sure such wording is a sensible choice. Brightness is what the darkness below wants to snuff out—it would not do to tempt it back up. Who knows what that deep sorcerer might understand? Perhaps new tendrils of shadow have snuck past the careful guards already.

  I try to stop imagining such horrors and concentrate on the tunnel in front. An orange glow appears along the walls, brightening gradually. We round a final turn and a circle of light appears, grows, and then I can make out detail. Dwarves are rushing about, most of them not runeknights. Sacks are being packed into boxes, which are lifted onto pallets, and into carriages. I am looking at a busy station.

  Then we are through and in. The smell hits me: it is unfamiliar to my memories of this place. Everywhere is the stink of sweat, mud, plant-matter, pungently cured meats. I look across the station, which has no less than ten platforms, and see the fruits of agriculture. Dwarves in mud-coated overalls haggle with runeknight traders to take their wares. Fat wallets of gold and silver change hands. At the far side, on a platform separated from the others, are cloaked cages which shake and clang. Monsters destined for the arenas—or perhaps to be let loose amongst the ranks of Uthrarzak's armies.

  “We're here!” the captain shouts up as he clambers out his cabin. “All thanks to you, honored runeknight!”

  “It's been an pleasure,” I say, climbing down. “Though I'm sure you'd have made it yourself.”

  “Oh, you never know,” he warns. “This place has gotten safer, but that doesn't mean it's safe. Anyway, take care and forge well.”

  “I will. Though I must ask: I thought you were coming down here for tin?”

  “Yes. But metals are a minor export. Most of the stuff brought up from here is for eating.” He glances to the platform with covered cages. “Or entertainment.”

  “I wouldn't trade in those if I were you. That tall cage—probably a dithyok.”

  “Don't worry about me. I prefer my cargo to keep still. It's tin we came down for and tin we'll bring up.”

  “Happy trading, then, and forge well.”

  With that remark, we part ways. I wander through the crowds somewhat bewildered. Farmers, masons, metalcrafters and runeknights alike avoid me, many with fearful glances at Life-Ripper's barbed twin points. Some are unnerved so much that they violently shoulder each other out of my path. I try to ignore all this commotion to focus on figuring out where I am.

  The station, I soon realize, is enclosed in an artificial cavern that likely did not exist when I was last here. There are a fair few exits and I take the one that looks the quietest. Being around so many other dwarves so suddenly, breathing warm stinking scents after rushing through the clean air of the caravan tunnels has made me feel hot and tense.

  I walk down the gently sloping corridor. It's square in construction and engraved only with simple shapes. A cheap, functional path. The floor is covered in dried mud that isn't quite dry enough to turn to dust, and which has been ravaged by footprints. This is a relatively quiet tunnel, yet there's still plenty of traffic. Farmers, mostly. Intrestingly enough, most don't have the almost translucently pale skin of the deep dwarves, nor white-blonde beards. It seems there's been a great deal of migration.

  I wonder how Nthazes feels about the newcomers, and if the changes have bothered Jaemes' research much—I dearly hope both are around.

  After about an hour's walk I emerge into a wide, low cavern. It looks natural by the ripples and curvature of the walls, and is lit dimly by glass lamps filled with phosphorescent blue insects. The glow illuminates row upon neat row of mushrooms, each nearly exactly the same size and shape. Farmers wander between them, watering, inspecting, and along one row, pulling them out and heaping them into carts. Raised sections of stone have trapdoors set into them. There are no space-wasting houses here. Everything and everyone is dedicated to the task of growing.

  All is soft mud but for a few thin walkways. Fascinated by the scene, I wander along, looking left and right, drinking in the sight and sounds. My anxiety fades, and a sense of freedom comes upon me, as it sometimes does recently. To be able to wander around here, a farm!

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  Runeknights have little to do with agriculture, no matter how vital it is. I've never given more than a passing thought to how our food and ale starts out. Even here, I honestly still don't care much—but it is invigorating to look at something new, something I've never seen before, and also to see people at peace. Children are running around and wrestling in the mud that swamps their parents' crops. Everyone seems to have a healthy layer of fat on them, and the male farmers' beards are long and thick. No one seems at all sickened by the pervasive scent of dung.

  “Honored runeknight!” a sweaty-faced farmer shouts up at me. He's holding a crude prong with two points, almost a parody of my weapon. I don't take offense to it.

  “What is it?”

  “I beg your pardon, but, ah, I might ask what brings you to this humble cavern of ours? We're not much suited for violence, us grower types. I don't think many will want to join your guild, if you've come a-recruiting.”

  I shake my head. “I'm just wandering. Don't worry about me.”

  “Has there been some kind of attack? Does something threaten us?”

  “No, I don't think so. Why?”

  “It's odd to see runeknights about here, honored one. Just that.”

  He sounds rather terrified. Well, I suppose to an ordinary dwarf, I am terrifying. Maybe this farmer has never spoken to any runeknight over about seventh degree.

  “I'm not from around here,” I explain. “I am trying to find some friends—they're down in the fort. Do you know where the fort is?”

  There's no use asking this one about Hayhek and the others. I doubt they would choose to live here, of all places.

  “The fort? The cursed fort?”

  “Cursed?”

  “With the darkness. That's why the guardians live down there, isn't it? To stop it boiling up again, like the last time, when it killed the old Runethane. Not so long ago.”

  “Yes, that's the place. How can I get there?”

  “Has something happened?”

  “Not at all. I'm just looking for my friends. They're deep dwarves. Nothing's happened.”

  He doesn't look convinced. “Well, if you say so, honored runeknight. I'm not one to question you.”

  “So how do I get there?”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon, but I don't know. You should go to Brightdeep first. There'll be a way from there I'm sure. It's exit number five from Farmer's Station. That's the most direct route. Just head straight back the way you came.”

  “Straight back?”

  “I'm not lying or trying to pull a trick on you, honored one! Just go straight back. There's no way through here. This is a dead end. Ignore the ladders: their trapdoors are sealed tight. No ways through them anymore, thank the Runethane.”

  Ladders? Memories flood back, of climbing rusted rungs in the darkness while screams echoed behind. I glance around and spot a set, immediately recognize them, and indeed this entire place, changed though it may be.

  This is part of the cavern-complex above the fort once known as the Mushroom Farm. And for the fort to be considered distant from here, we must be quite far up the layers too. I'm shocked—this was deadly wilderness. It was suicide for even senior runeknights to go here alone, and as for ordinary, unarmored dwarves wandering here, let alone children! Unthinkable.

  Now even this higher layer has been totally civilized.

  “Thank you,” I say to the farmer. “I'll be off now then. Farm well.”

  “And you forge well, honored one!”

  I walk out the mud-filled cavern, away from the slopping noises and stench of dung all the way back up to the station. I move through the thronging dwarves until I find the fifth exit, the busiest one, and take it down.

  It's a wide thoroughfare, yet for all its space it's still crowded. Carts, hand or pig-drawn, occupy the center, and those on foot have to squeeze away from them. There's a fair few runeknights here: lower ones on guard duty and senior ones leading the richer trading parties. They give me strange glances. The strange designs of my armor and weapon, not to mention their strange runes, are drawing attention. Good attention, or bad? I remember Runethane Ytith's warnings.

  After a half hour or so, the thoroughfare's walls widen away and I'm in a grand hall. The roof is fairly high, supported by dark pillars, each of which has been well-carved with images of various deeds. Some I recognize as depictions of the deep dwarves battling against the darkness. I see one face, even, that reminds me of the delusional Runethane Yurok.

  This grand road is not simply a road to Brightdeep, I quickly come to understand, but is Brightdeep. I am in a city mined directly into the rock. Doorways have been cut into the walls. Most seem to be for private houses, but many have signs hung over them advertising drinking halls, entertainment establishments, and shops of all kinds.

  I come to a kind of wide crossroads or town square. It's two hundred yards across on either side and I am awestruck. How long did it talk to mine all this out? It's been just over ten years, I think, since Runethane Halmak was given this realm to make his own. That's not such a long time. He's been busier than I ever imagined.

  But there are no signs of the fort itself, and no signs of Hayhek, Ithis, and the rest of those who fled Vanerak either. I won't find either wandering alone. I need to ask someone.

  A senior runeknight is sitting on a bench at the center of the square, his back to a bright waterfall that runs from roof to floor, eating some kind of meat pie. His armor—bronze enruned very finely with gold and copper. I approach him:

  “Good day.”

  “Day? You must be new to Brightdeep, friend. We don't use days around here. Just hours—those who even bother with that.”

  “Oh, I well remember. But you don't look much like a deep dwarf.”

  “No.” He pats the sheath of his sword. Bright runes are glowing through the translucent leather. “I'm from Allabrast. You?”

  “Above even there.”

  “I see. And so what brings you so deep below, traveler?”

  “I've been here before, you know. Not to Brightdeep, but the fort against the darkness. I assume you know of it.”

  “Of course.”

  “So how do I get to it? I have a few friends I have to meet.”

  “Get to it? Well if you really want to see, just go down the stairs in front of our Runethane's castle. Left-hand road from here.” He points. “The Guardians Against Darkness won't let you go very far, though. You need to be one of their own.”

  Guardians Against Darkness? They never had a name before, did they? I wonder why they've taken one.

  “Believe it or not,” I say, “I am a member, or close enough.”

  “Really?” the bronze-clad runeknight says, raising a bushy eyebrow. “You don't look like one. You look like you're better equipped for slaying dragons than the darkness.”

  “They'll recognize me. Thank you for your help.”

  “It's no problem. Good luck.”

  “One more thing, though.” I grow nervous. “Speaking of newcomers—have there been many lately? Especially ones in tungsten armor, like my own?”

  “No, no one like you. Why?” He frowns. “Should we be expecting some? Runethane Halmak will have to know.”

  “There may be some on their way, yes. Separate from me. Should be. Should.”

  “Any reason why?”

  “They are fleeing the realm of Runethane Vanerak. There was a great battle. He lost.”

  “I see. That is interesting news. Worrying news. Was the battle against Uthrarzak's forces?”

  “No, against denizens of the magma sea. Will you tell Runethane Halmak? To prepare for their possible arrival?”

  “I'll tell him of what you said. It's my duty to. But it's not my place to ask him to prepare for this or that. Only the elders of our guild advise him.”

  “Of course. Thank you anyway.”

  "You're welcome. Buy me a drink some time."

  "I will."

  I turn away, sick with worry, and make my way down the road he indicated.

  TWO YEARS OF RUNEFORGER

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