The fever came after the silence.
Tharik remembered the sting of steel, the clash of blades echoing in the narrow tunnel, the sickly green fog of blood hanging in the air like rot made flesh. The shrieks of goblins had stopped long before he realized he was no longer holding his axe. He had stumbled — gods, he had screamed — but he stood his ground as long as his legs allowed.
And then, darkness.
When he woke, the pain was dull and distant, like an old friend tapping gently at his ribs. A haze blurred the stone ceiling, and the scent of alcohol and burnt herbs told him he was not dead — not yet. His body was weak. His limbs trembled. But the worst of it was in his chest.
He had survived.
Again.
They told him it had been weeks. That the wound had gone deep — across the stomach and the thigh — and that so much goblin blood had entered his system during the final stand that the healers feared he would turn. Not into one of the wretches, not right away — but into something close. A husk. A twisted parody of himself.
But he hadn’t. Not yet.
He remembered only pieces of that day. The defensive line buckling under the ambush. The screams of young recruits. How he’d taken command after Hela had been separated. How he had held the corridor for as long as he could, giving time for the wounded to be dragged away.
But he hadn’t saved them all.
Of the sixty-four who had gone into that tunnel, only twenty-two returned. The rest had been torn apart. Swarmed. Eaten. Or simply lost to the darkness.
Tharik didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried since he was a boy.
But the silence around his bed was louder than any grief.
They called it a victory. They said he had saved the mission. That the data they retrieved proved the goblins were rallying in deeper veins of the mountain. That the Council of Stone would be forced to listen now.
But Tharik felt no pride.
He had felt this before. The cold weight of surviving when others didn’t. He remembered two friends from the old tavern days — dead by his fault. He remembered the eyes of his squadmates in the peacekeeper days, when he cracked jokes to mask his cowardice.
But this wasn’t the same.
This time, he had stood.
And this time, the price had been steep.
Now, lying in his cot in the infirmary, he stared at the ceiling and counted the names in his mind. Not aloud. Never aloud. Just names. One by one. Some he had trained with. Others he had eaten beside. A few he had barely known — but they had bled the same.
He asked the healer to bring him a piece of coal and some paper.
He began to write letters. Not for sending. Never for sending.
One to Hela, who had not yet come to see him, perhaps out of guilt.
One to his brother, long dead.
One to a girl he barely remembered from the market.
One to himself, when he was seventeen, drunk and stupid and hopeful.
Each night, he burned one.
The other recruits still active came to see him in shifts. They avoided the subject. They joked about the goblin blood making him uglier. About how the healers had stitched him wrong and he might never walk without a limp. He laughed when needed. Smiled when expected.
But he saw it in their eyes.
They were waiting to see if he would break.
He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t afford to.
When he was able to walk again — barely — he returned to the training yard. The others tried to stop him. The healers warned him of tearing the wounds. But the old pain was welcome. He needed it. Every scar meant he had stood when others hadn’t.
The others began calling him “Stone-Blood.” A cruel joke at first. But it stuck.
The tavern from his peacekeeping days still stood.
He went back, once, limping through the narrow alleys, head bowed beneath the weight of new guilt. The barkeep, older now and slower, recognized him. Didn’t smile. Just poured him a mug and said nothing. Tharik drank in silence.
He didn’t laugh anymore.
But he stayed.
Outside, the war crept closer. The goblins were organizing. That was clear now. The recon reports were conclusive. Entire tunnels once thought lost were being cleared by creatures too well-armed, too disciplined. Something — or someone — was pushing them.
But the Council still hesitated.
It was not “sufficiently proven,” they said.
“Not actionable.”
“Premature.”
So the Legion acted in silence. Gathering maps. Sending scouts. Risking their own in what they called “ghost missions.”
Tharik’s name came up again. This time, with a mark.
Not of disgrace.
Of worth.
He had survived. And now, they needed him again.
The meeting chamber stank of disinfectant, mold, and quiet desperation.
Tharik leaned against the stone wall near the door, arms crossed, his still-bandaged ribs throbbing beneath the leather. The council table before him was surrounded by surviving officers — some new, most scarred — and at its head sat Hela, her cloak draped over what remained of her left arm. A steel brace covered the stump where the infection had forced a brutal amputation. Her eye, the one she still had, burned like ever.
No one dared pity her. She wouldn’t have tolerated it.
“…three tunnel routes leading west from the Sulfur Trench have been compromised,” said Varn, a gaunt officer from the Second Cohort, voice clipped like his beard. “If they reach Krag’Dun, they could cripple ore routes. The High Council is… concerned.”
Tharik snorted. “Oh, the Council’s concerned. Did their wine shipments get delayed?”
A few heads turned. One or two smirked. Hela didn’t.
Varn looked up from the map. “Do you have something constructive to offer, Ironstone?”
“Sure,” Tharik said. He stepped forward, boots echoing over the carved floor. “We stop patching holes with our dead and take the fight to wherever those green bastards are breeding. You know, act like a Legion. Not a goddamn repair crew.”
“That’s not our call,” Varn snapped. “The Council wants containment, not escalation. If we push deeper, we risk open war. We don’t have the numbers.”
Tharik’s jaw tightened. “We never had the numbers. But at least the ones we had died doing something that mattered.”
Hela raised a hand. The room fell silent.
Her voice was gravel laced with frost. “Enough.”
Everyone waited.
She looked at Tharik, then back at the table. “The Council’s orders stand. We collapse the tunnels. Delay whatever’s coming. They send us coin, supplies, and enough metal to forge new blades. That’s the cost of their peace.”
She didn’t say she agreed. She didn’t have to.
Tharik didn’t answer. He just sat back against the wall, arms crossed again, staring at the flickering lanternlight.
They left at dusk.
Tharik’s unit was smaller now — twelve in total — all handpicked after the last disaster. They called themselves Stonefangs now, unofficially. An old word from the First Age, dug up in some ruin. It fit.
Veterans, mostly. None too pretty. One was missing both ears. Another had filed her teeth into points. They followed Tharik not because he inspired them — but because he never lied to them. And because he never asked them to go where he wouldn’t walk first.
At camp that night, they passed around rough bread and dried meat. Tharik sat by the fire sharpening his axe.
“Think we’ll actually make it back this time?” asked Rurik, a wide-shouldered dwarf with broken knuckles and a wheezing laugh.
Tharik looked up. “Not if you keep asking.”
That earned a chuckle or two. Rurik grinned. “Just making sure I don’t owe anyone coin.”
“You’ll be dead,” said a voice. “You won’t owe anyone anything.”
It was Lena, the youngest among them. Her humor was darker than most. She still braided her hair every morning. Tharik never asked why.
He let them talk. He never joined the jokes anymore, not really. But he stayed close to the fire, where the laughter sounded less like ghosts.
Before sleep, he walked the perimeter twice.
The tunnels they’d sabotage led through half-collapsed veins once used to supply Krag’Dun’s eastern forges. Now they were nests. They had reports — mostly from survivors half-mad with trauma — about what festered down there. Something new. Something breeding fast and smart.
Tharik knew the mission was suicide.
But he’d follow through. Orders were orders.
The attack came during the second demolition.
They had set the charges. The runes were active. But the ground moved before they could light them. Tharik felt it — that hum in his teeth, the way deep earth growled when it was about to bleed.
Then came the shrieks.
Not the wild, feral ones they’d known. These were coordinated. Echoed. Like war cries.
Goblins poured from vents above, not from the front. Ambush. Flanking routes they hadn’t mapped. Someone — something — had studied them.
Tharik’s unit fought like demons. They held the line at the central chamber while Tharik and Lena ran to light the final rune.
She didn’t make it.
He saw her pulled under. Heard her scream. Kept running.
The explosion buried half the swarm, but the price had already been paid.
Rurik fell next. Then Sarn. One by one, the Stonefangs broke — but didn’t run. They died where they stood.
Tharik didn’t remember escaping. He only remembered the smoke, the burning, the smell of cooked flesh.
He woke days later, ribs cracked again, skin torn.
Alone.
Again.
The next night, he took his axe, what little gear he had, and walked to the edge of the Legion camp without reporting in.
A captain tried to stop him. He didn’t argue. Just looked the man in the eye, and the officer stepped aside.
He wasn’t deserting.
He was going back.
But not for orders.
For vengeance.
For answers.
For every name he had never stopped counting.
And this time, he didn’t plan to come back.
There were no seasons in the Deep Roads. No dawns or dusks to mark the passing of time. Only the drip of unseen water, the creak of old beams under strain, and the cold that lingered like breath from a forgotten god.
Tharik had long stopped counting the days.
He wandered the tunnels like a shade in armor, cloak darkened by ash and blood, axe always near. The mark of the Legion still burned on his armor’s shoulder — now worn more like a warning than a badge. He spoke little. Slept lightly. Drank often.
Not to forget, but to keep the edge soft enough to live with.
The roads were mostly dead. Entire sections had caved in or were abandoned after the last daemon war, left to goblin rot. But even in decay, there were signs of old life. A rusted tavern sign swaying in still air. Crates of unused pickaxes buried beneath rubble. Stone hearths blackened from fire long extinguished.
He made camp in these places.
He ate what he could find or barter — dried meat, salt bread, fungus from mold-rooted barrels. When his wounds festered, he chewed moss soaked in grain alcohol and stitched himself with frayed twine. The pain was welcome. It reminded him he hadn’t gone fully dead inside.
Word began to spread.
Among the tunnelfolk — the brave few merchants and messengers who dared the half-safe routes — tales were told of a mad dwarf who lived in the dark. Some called him the Lantern-Shadow. Others, the Goblin Butcher. Most didn’t know his name.
But they whispered it with gratitude.
“He saved my caravan. Came out of nowhere, cut the beasts down like wheat.”
“He led us through the crags when our map failed. Knew every damn echo in those halls.”
“He drinks like a ghost and smells worse, but by the Forge, he sees them before they come.”
It was more than skill. He felt them now.
Sometimes it came as a twitch in the spine. Other times as a sour taste behind the tongue, or a pressure behind the eyes like old stone pushing in. He couldn’t explain it. But he trusted it.
Twice it had saved him from being gutted in his sleep.
Four times, it had led him to nests buried under false walls or hidden cisterns.
Whatever they had put in his blood that day on the ridge — whatever filth had wormed through his veins during the battle that nearly killed him — it hadn’t left.
It whispered now. Not in words, but in instinct.
He hated it.
But he used it.
He kept to the side roads when he could, the half-forgotten veins that once connected outposts, storage holds, and deepwater wells. The larger passages were overrun, too exposed. There were signs — always signs — if you knew where to look.
A broken lantern turned inward toward the wall. A trail of rust where no metal should be. A crackling pile of bones scraped too clean.
And sometimes… faces.
Dwarves left behind. Emaciated, twitching, covered in black fungus or pustules. Not quite goblins. Not quite themselves. Eyes hollow. Mouths filled with sounds that once had words.
He buried the ones he could.
Burned the ones he couldn’t.
One night, deep in the veins near Frosthall’s forgotten gate, he found an old waystation carved into the rock. The hearth was intact. So were the tables — scattered and broken, but carved with old runes of kinship. It had once been a Legion post.
He cleared it out, killed two scouts lingering near the roof beams, and made it a new base.
Here, he lit a small lantern each night. Just one.
Not for light. For memory.
Around him hung trophies — goblin blades, bone charms, dried glyphs. Not for pride. For proof. Proof that something still needed doing. That someone still remembered.
And the merchants came.
Wary at first, but then grateful. They brought word from the surface — of wars in the south, of storms in the sea, of the deepening silence near Krag’Dun.
They paid in maps, liquor, or silence. He asked for little.
But he listened.
He listened to rumors of entire patrols gone missing.
Of stone gates opening that hadn’t moved in centuries.
Of a darkness older than goblins taking root in tunnels where even vermin wouldn’t go.
He felt it, too. The hum was changing.
It was no longer a warning.
It was a summons.
And so he followed it, deeper.
Each tunnel felt older, angrier. The stone less carved, more grown. Goblins didn’t build what was ahead — they squatted there. Nested in rot they hadn’t created.
He killed them anyway.
But he didn’t roar when he fought. He didn’t curse.
He whispered.
Whispered the names of his fallen.
One for each kill.
The rhythm kept him sane.
But each step further meant fewer chances to return.
And Tharik Ironstone, Legion-born, shame-soaked and half-broken, began to wonder:
If the road truly had no end…
Would he still walk it?
The tunnel felt… different.
Tharik Ironstone had wandered the Deep Roads for months, but he had never seen anything like this. The corridor ahead was veined with fresh claw marks—deep gouges in the stone walls, wild and erratic, as if a horde had clawed its way through in a frenzy. The air reeked of something caustic, a scent that clung to the throat and made the skin itch.
Something was wrong. And yet… something pulled at him.
For days now, he’d been hearing fragments of a melody. First in dreams—soft, haunting, half-remembered. Then, faintly, in the waking dark. A song without words. A harmony he could not replicate, nor truly forget.
He couldn’t say why, but he followed it.
The tunnel spiraled downward, twisting like a burrowing worm into the heart of the mountain. Each step seemed colder than the last. His lantern flickered, throwing gold light on crystalline veins in the rock that shimmered like stars in a sky long dead. The further he descended, the heavier the air became—denser, pressing against his chest like a mountain’s weight.
Then the tunnel widened.
He stepped into a cavern vast beyond comprehension. The ceiling was lost to darkness, but the floor was lit by fungal growths—pale blues and ghostly greens pulsing faintly, like the breath of a sleeping beast. The beauty of the place was undeniable… but it was a hollow, corrupted beauty. The light revealed not peace, but old bones. Ancient dwarven armor lay scattered and half-buried. And something… watched.
Tharik felt it immediately. A presence. Older than stone. Hungrier than flame.
“This is no place for mortals,” he muttered, voice hoarse with unease. His grip tightened on his axe.
He moved cautiously, keeping to the shadows between the luminous mushrooms. The air shimmered faintly in the distance. Black stone rose in jagged formations—almost shaped, as if a titan had once stacked them into an altar.
And atop it… something stirred.
At first, he thought it was just shadow. Then it shifted. It breathed.
It was a dragon.
But not of any tale he’d ever heard.
Its scales shimmered with a black oil-slick sheen, as if its flesh bled shadow. Its wings didn’t end—they unraveled into mist, ever-shifting, half-formed. Eyes like twin voids gazed down, and though they had no light, they saw him. Not just his face, but his soul. His failures. His rage.
The creature opened its maw, and the sound that followed was not a roar.
It was a voice. And it spoke within his mind.
“Finally… a soul that walks willingly into the dark. Tell me, Tharik Ironstone—was it your will that brought you here? Or something deeper?”
The voice echoed not in the air, but in the marrow of his bones. Like broken bells and whispered lies.
Tharik tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. His muscles strained. He stood his ground, but his feet felt frozen.
“You have wandered long,” the dragon murmured, coiling like smoke. “Through the Deep Roads, through sorrow and slaughter. Against darkness… and against yourself.”
Its voice caressed his failures with precision.
“And what did it gain you? Your people drink themselves to sleep. Your gods offer only silence. Your blade grows dull with grief. You… are a weapon waiting to rust.”
Tharik clenched his jaw. The words struck true. Too true.
“But I see more.” The creature leaned forward. “I offer purpose. Power beyond the old ways. You will not serve. You will command. You will not follow. You will become. Take my gift, Tharik. Shape this world as it should be.”
Temptation clawed at his spine like talons.
He had lost too many. Carried too many graves on his back.
And gods, he wanted to matter again.
But even as his legs began to move—slow, unwilling steps toward the altar—something deep within screamed. This was no gift. It was consumption.
“Do not resist,” the dragon intoned. “You are already mine.”
He couldn’t stop. His feet were no longer his.
So he did the only thing he could.
With a guttural shout, Tharik turned his axe—not on the beast, but on himself. He brought the blade down and carved deep into his own thigh.
Pain bloomed like fire. Real. Anchoring.
He screamed—a sound of iron and anguish—and the dragon’s spell fractured.
The creature roared, the sound shaking the entire cavern, rocks falling from unseen heights.
“You dare!?” it thundered. “You dare reject me!?”
Tharik staggered back, bleeding, breath ragged.
“I’m no one’s pawn,” he growled, teeth bared. “Not anymore.”
He turned and ran, dragging his leg, blood trailing behind him. The dragon’s laughter followed, cold and endless.
“Run if you must, Ironstone. But you cannot escape what stirs. The winds from the South will bring fire. My children will awaken. And you—you will watch your world burn.”
He didn’t stop.
Not when the tunnel rose sharply, nor when goblin patrols caught his scent. He moved like a dying man possessed, driven by something older than fear.
Eventually, he collapsed at the edge of the cavern’s mouth. The wound in his thigh throbbed, black blood oozing from where dragon-taint had tried to root.
He bit down on a leather strap, tore cloth from his cloak, and tied a tourniquet tight.
Breathing heavily, he looked back once—into the dark behind him.
No movement. No music.
Only silence.
“…If the winds of the South bring blood,” he rasped, “then I’ll be the godsdamned storm they choke on.”
And with that, Tharik Ironstone stood again.
Wounded. Weary.
But not broken.
The twisting roads to Krag’Dun were as familiar as the creaks in his old bones. Yet Tharik Ironstone felt like a stranger with every step. The long months in the Deep Roads had carved more than wounds into his flesh. They had chiseled something into his spirit—something raw and unfinished. His gait was slow, uneven. The limp he’d earned at the altar of that black dragon was permanent now, though he wore it like another scar on the soul.
The gates of Krag’Dun rose before him like the memory of a god he no longer worshipped. Stone and iron, carved with the old sigils—cracked and faded now. The torches still burned, but dimly. As if the flame knew that its keepers had long since forgotten why it burned.
The guards stiffened as he approached. One of them, younger than the rest, fumbled with his halberd.
“By Vulkanar’s beard,” the older one muttered. “Tharik Ironstone? You—no, you were given up for dead. Lost in the tunnels. Months ago.”
Tharik said nothing. His eyes were hollow but steady, his axe resting across his back like a coffin lid. He walked past them in silence. The guards didn’t stop him. They just watched.
The streets were worse than he remembered.
Soot clung to the walls of homes like mold. Ash stained the cobbles. The forges once loud with hammer and flame now echoed with arguments, not iron. Faces in the crowd were drawn thin. Dwarves wandered without aim, no spark in their eyes, no pride in their step. An old woman sat weeping outside a shuttered bakery. Two children argued over a broken copper coin.
They had not rebuilt.
They had merely endured.
He stopped for a moment near the broken statue of a past general—its head missing, its plaque corroded. A drunk dwarf leaned against it, mumbling nonsense and weeping into his tankard.
Was this what was left?
No, Tharik thought. This is not how it ends.
He made his way to the one place that had never pretended to be anything but broken—the Smoldering Anvil tavern.
The door creaked open under his hand, and the scent of sour beer and stale sweat greeted him like a half-forgotten memory. Inside, the same low light. The same runes on the wall. Fewer patrons. More silence.
He stepped up to the bar, where Borath Tumbro stood polishing a mug. The barkeep’s eyes widened, and the mug fell from his hands, clattering to the floor.
“Tharik? By the Stone, you—you’re alive?”
Tharik sat with a sigh that felt like dust falling from mountains. “Just a beer, Borath.”
Borath hesitated, then obeyed. He poured the dark amber ale and placed it before him, staring the whole time. Tharik lifted the mug. The first sip burned slightly—just enough to remind him of the days before everything fell apart.
He turned on the stool to glance around the room.
No one met his eyes.
Ghosts of recognition danced on their faces, but no one spoke. No one dared. As if by naming him, they would summon whatever followed him from the dark.
Eventually, Borath broke the silence.
“What happened out there, Tharik? They said you vanished. We thought—”
“I almost did,” Tharik interrupted, voice like cracked granite. “The Deep Roads… took many things. But they gave something back.”
Borath frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Krag’Dun is in danger,” Tharik said, louder now, glancing at the patrons who still avoided his gaze. “And not just from goblins. There is something deeper. Something older. Something that breathes rot into the stone. The goblins dig like mad. I’ve seen dwarves twisted by the same corruption that poisoned the Daemon War. I saw a creature. A beast. And it spoke to me.”
One dwarf snorted from a far table. “Now you’re talking madness.”
Tharik stood abruptly, slamming the mug down. “Madness? You think I came crawling out of the dark for ale and sympathy? I’ve bled for this mountain. I’ve buried friends in her belly. I’ve heard the voice of something that waits beneath us—and it’s not waiting much longer.”
Murmurs rippled through the room. A few looked up now. A few remembered his name.
Borath wiped his hands on a rag. “So what do you want us to do, Tharik? March into the dark with empty bellies and broken axes? We’re miners, not heroes. And our council—they don’t listen.”
“I don’t need all of you,” Tharik said, his voice lower now. “But someone has to start. Patch the walls. Arm the guards. Call the old veterans. Reach out beyond the mountain—elves, humans, even halflings if they’ll listen. You think pride will save you when the ground splits open and something unspeakable crawls out?”
One dwarf by the window scoffed. “And you expect the surface folk to help? Hah. They abandoned us the first time. We don’t need them.”
Tharik turned to face him. “We do. Or we all burn.”
The room was quiet again. But this silence felt heavier. More listening than avoidance.
Borath finally asked, “And you? What will you do?”
“I’ll leave,” Tharik said. “Again. But not to hide this time. I’m going to find those who’ll listen. Fighters. Dreamers. Fools with nothing left to lose. If we can’t wake Krag’Dun, then I’ll rattle every kingdom from here to the southern coast. I won’t wait for the shadow to rise. I’ll meet it in the light.”
He left coins on the counter—more than enough for his drink—and made for the door.
At the threshold, he paused. The tavern was behind him. Krag’Dun above. The monster below.
“Remember this,” he said without turning. “If the lights glow in the deep again, don’t follow them. Because it won’t be miners holding the lanterns. It’ll be the things that wear their skins.”
And then he left.
The cold wind outside bit deep into his scars, but he didn’t flinch.
Behind him, Krag’Dun still slept.
But he was awake now.
And he would not let this world die in its sleep.
The ancestral halls of Krag’Dun echoed with the rhythm of hammers striking anvils and the dull murmur of voices debating trade quotas and ore tariffs. On the surface, it painted the picture of a thriving fortress—but Tharik knew better. This was no prosperity. It was stagnation gilded in tradition. The pride of their people had not vanished—it had simply calcified, buried beneath rituals and routines that had long since lost their meaning.
He climbed the broad stone steps toward the Hall of Elders, flanked by walls etched with the deeds of heroes now forgotten, their names smudged by time and soot. The flame braziers burned brightly above the iron-clad gates, as if in defiance of the rot within.
Tharik’s grip tightened on the worn leather of his axe-strap.
They won’t listen. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be silent.
Inside, the chamber was vast, domed, and lit with flames dancing in golden sconces shaped like snarling drakes. A heavy table of carved obsidian anchored the room, surrounded by seats occupied by the most powerful voices of Krag’Dun. Some wore armor polished to ceremonial shine. Others, velvet robes stitched with the sigils of ancient clans. All wore expressions of wary authority.
As he entered, the conversation faltered. Dozens of eyes turned to him—some wide in surprise, others narrowed with suspicion.
“Tharik Ironstone,” said Rorik Deephammer, his voice cutting like a chisel across stone. He was thick-necked, with braided beard rings that clinked softly as he leaned forward. “You return from the dark. Many thought you dead.”
Tharik did not bow. He stepped forward, his armor creaking, stained with old blood and black ash.
“I come with warning,” he said, his voice steady despite the weight in his chest. “There’s something stirring in the Deep Roads. Goblins by the thousands, but not like before. Organized. Obsessive. Driven. I’ve seen them digging in spirals, burrowing toward something.”
A chuckle rose from the end of the table.
“Goblins?” scoffed Thaldir Goldpick, his tone laced with mockery. “You walk out of the dark whispering tales meant for hearths and ale? They’re vermin. Always have been.”
Tharik’s jaw tightened. “They’re tools. And something is wielding them. I saw it with my own eyes. A black wyrm forming from shadow and rot. It spoke to me—not with words, but with a voice that cut through the soul. It offered power. Promised ruin. And it’s still down there, waiting.”
“Enough,” Rorik snapped, slamming a heavy fist on the table. “We don’t have time for hallucinations. We have border disputes. Grain shortages. Trade negotiations with Throlgar Hold.”
“And what will you trade,” Tharik growled, stepping closer, “when there’s nothing left to sell but your bones?”
That drew silence.
Then, slowly, another voice: “Let him speak.”
Velgor Emberflame. The eldest of the council. His beard was streaked white, but his eyes still burned with memories of war.
Tharik nodded his thanks. “Krag’Dun is blind. We keep staring upward, fearing wars with elves and men. But the old threat still festers beneath us. You remember the Daemon War, Velgor. You remember what happened when we ignored the signs.”
Velgor looked down for a moment. “Aye. I do.”
But even his support only went so far.
In the end, the council offered a compromise: a single scouting mission, a token force with limited supplies. More a gesture than an act of defense.
Tharik left the chamber with his hands empty—but his resolve full.
That night, the Smoldering Anvil was louder. Word had spread. His name had become a murmur passed from one ale-cup to another. Some laughed. Others remembered.
Borath poured his ale without a word. When he finally spoke, it was low.
“You told them?”
Tharik nodded, draining half the mug in one pull.
“And they?”
“Did what they do best,” Tharik muttered. “Ignored it.”
Borath sighed. “Same mountain. Same stone. You sure you’re not mad, Tharik? Speaking of dragons and darkness?”
“I was mad before,” Tharik said, a rare, bitter smirk touching his lips. “Now I’m just awake.”
He looked around at the crowd. Faces full of caution, doubt, hopelessness. Dwarves who once forged legacies, now drinking to forget they had none.
“I won’t ask them to believe,” Tharik said. “But I’ll make them remember what belief looks like.”
The next morning, before the sun crowned the mountains, he donned his patched armor and stood beneath the forges one last time. The firelight flickered across his face, lighting eyes no longer dull with drink or despair. His axe, once dulled by disuse, now gleamed with new edge.
He didn’t say farewell.
He walked out of Krag’Dun without a banner, without orders—only purpose.
And when the wind cut across his face as he crossed the threshold, he whispered:
“Let what must come, come.”
That night, Tharik sat alone beneath the old arch of the Forge-Tunnels, just outside the first defense line of Krag’Dun. The torches flickered dimly on the walls, casting slow shadows. In his hands, he held a bundle of old letters — some with broken seals, others never opened, others never sent. Names etched in memory now lost to flame and time.
He unraveled one. The parchment was worn, creased a hundred times over. It was addressed to Garim Stonecleft, his first comrade to fall in the Deep Roads, the one who died screaming under Tharik’s watch when the Legion first descended into the dark.
“Brother, I still hear your breath in the dark places. I know you’d call me a fool for walking back into this. But I don’t know what else to be. I failed you. I still carry that weight. And I think… I always will.”
He didn’t finish reading. He threw it into the brazier beside him, watching as the flame consumed it, curling the edges of the page, devouring the ink like time devours memory.
Steps echoed behind him. Familiar, even after all this time.
“You always did pick the darkest corners to sit in,” came a rough, steady voice.
He turned. Hela Brokenstone stood just beyond the firelight. Her silhouette was solid, immovable as the mountains. Her left sleeve hung empty — the arm gone since that cursed mission. But she still stood tall, still radiated iron will.
Tharik rose slowly, offering no salute. Only a nod.
“Hela.”
“You really came back,” she said, walking closer, stopping at the brazier. “I wasn’t sure it was real when I heard.”
“Real enough,” he muttered. “Though some days, I wish it wasn’t.”
They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the hiss of fire and the low wind through stone halls.
“I read your report,” she said at last. “And I’ve spoken with the scouts. Those who returned.”
“Not many of them,” Tharik said quietly.
“No,” she agreed. “Not nearly enough.”
She looked at him now, the single eye still sharp beneath the lines of exhaustion. “What you saw… the size of it. The song. The dragon. If even half of that is true, it’s more than just a legion’s problem.”
“It’s more than a kingdom’s problem,” Tharik replied. “You know that.”
She nodded slowly. “I do. And I believe you, Tharik. I do. But belief doesn’t make it easier. The Council won’t act without proof. And proof of that size…” She shook her head. “We’d need more than a battalion. We’d need an army. Or a pack of madmen willing to die trying.”
“You’ve commanded madmen before,” he said, with the trace of a smirk.
“And most of them followed you,” she replied, returning the smirk with something like fondness.
He fell quiet again. Then: “I’m leaving.”
“I know,” she said. “And I won’t stop you.”
He looked at her, surprised.
“You’re not the same dwarf I trained, Tharik. You’re not hiding from your past anymore. You’re carrying it, scars and all. That kind of fire… we don’t see it much anymore.” She paused, then added, “I’ll make arrangements. Quiet ones. If you’re right—and I think you are—we’ll need to act. Not tomorrow. But soon.”
Tharik felt a strange pull in his chest. Gratefulness? Loyalty? Or simply the knowledge that someone still believed in him when even he doubted himself?
“They’ll need more than soldiers,” he said. “That thing I saw… it wasn’t meant to die by steel.”
Hela’s voice dropped, the words heavier than stone. “Then find what can kill it.”
They clasped forearms, the old warrior’s gesture. She gripped him tightly, and even with one arm gone, her strength had not faded.
“Go,” she said. “Gather who you must. Seek what the anciãos are too afraid to face. And if you find the proof—send word. We’ll answer. You have my word.”
Tharik nodded once. “Thank you… commander.”
She let out a rare, tired laugh. “Just don’t die before you do something useful.”
“I’ll try not to.”
He turned from her and walked back into the shadows. His axe heavy at his side. The echoes of songs and screams from the Deep still playing faintly in his ears. He didn’t know where the road would lead. But he would walk it.
Not as a soldier.
Not as a drunk.
But as a dwarf who saw the fire dying and chose to carry it, alone if needed.
Chronicles of Astravara 
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