The city they found after the ine 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 bored for lifetimes to cut and polish those giant crystals so that every ray of light that touched them rebouhrough 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 sughterhouse, and that crystal el was nothing but a colossal gutter for the blood of so many dead dwarves iermath of his brutal assault.

  That city wasn’t the only oher, of course, it was just the ohat happeo be . Cities were getting rger and clether 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: Feholm.

  The fire godling wasn’t quite sure whether he was attempting to shield the pce by hoping they didn’t find it or hoping that he would stumble across it before the Lich had a ce to prepare an appropriate stratagem and be crushed into so much sm scrap by the Iron City and their formidable armies.

  It was the armies he discovered first, quite by act. They first found a squad of red helmed defenders in the byway en-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 fused 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 they to outhem, they did not break or even show real fear. Instead, the thirty dwarves fought to the st 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 khat it was really only likely near a city as rge as Feholm.

  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 learo hate and dread.

  “A small army out on patrol,” the dwarf answered holy. “It is likely from a rger city.”

  “The Iron City?” the Lich asked, peing directly to the core of the matter. For a moment, Krulm’venor wasn’t sure how it had dohat, 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 y somewhere in this dire.”

  “Then find it, but do not ehe Lianded. “Such a pce will be impossible for a lowly worm like you to crack alone.”

  “You are sending me reinforts 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 i 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 iural world.

  “No, not immediately, at any rate,” the Lich said, studying the distant dwarves marg through the far cavern through his dead, flickering eyes. “Pns are already in motion, and until they are ready, they are nothing you o yourself with. Simply learn what you and stay out of sight until all is readiness. Only then you strike the deathblow against the empire below.”

  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 pte mail eg through the caverns ahead.

  The Lich might have inteo 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 o mard kill in an endless spiral to stay oep 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, aood there long after the patrol had left, gl in his ability to do nothing at all. It was only when the darkness and silence were once more absolute that he tinued 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 stantly acted with a spear against his back. ‘Move forward or face the sequences.’

  It wasn’t even an unsaid threat. His very bones were itg to torture him.

  Now, suddenly, he could do what he wanted as long as he could ighe 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 stohs to the subtle graffiti he spied along the most on thhfares as he got closer to the city.

  Of course, the closer he got, the harder it was to stay hidden. There were smaller outlying unities and, along some routes, signifit traffic. There were muards than usual, too, but that was his fault. He’d spent years down here ravaging the world in every dire, and sihere were never any witnesses left behind, it was impossible to say what the dwarves believed was happening.

  Krulm’venor found it uhe All-Father didn’t know, but then, he’d never been a religious schor. Perhaps that was why the Lio longer wanted him to kill where it could be avoided. Perhaps that was how the god might catch his st 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. Evehey 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 a all. He’d e around the er 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 poio him directly. In the end, he decided to let the howling mob within him out to rip both the corpse and his paimals 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 trol at that oh, and he no longer felt like fighting them.

  He couldn’t. This was who he was now.

  He didn’t joihough. Even as half a dozeal goblions 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 examihe 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 simir tale. The cloak had been expensive o 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 dohere was nothi behind but ashes. Here, though, right now, as he sat there amidst the blood at the gore that his doppelg?ngers were causing, all he could do was study that small brass button, admiring the details and its perfect symmetry.

  It wasn’t particurly fancy, and though it was stamped with the crest of a dwarven , he didn’t reize it. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that it had dos job. It might have do for decades or eveuries. There was really no way to know. It olished, though, and 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 ahat button tightly even as he disbanded his tribe and started walking away agaiill 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 onbsp;

  He could spend his time pnning the best way to attack to figure out what it was that his dark master to. He could even sit there and listen to the voices in his head babble until he went pletely 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.