“Keep your heads in the fight! They’re shadows-nothing more!” cried Garn. Ingara and Arngam had spread the word about the illusions, but the sight of hundreds of the eight-legged creatures scuttling across the surface of the carved stone faces was enough to send a shudder of revulsion through Ruen, and he didn’t have the emotional connection to the carvings the dwarves did.
The Hall of Lost Voices was not just a mining outpost. Garn had told him that the most famous dwarf smiths of Iltkazar-all of them gone now-had their faces engraved in the stones, a reminder to the miners what their sweat and sacrifices had ultimately done for the people in giving them the best armor and the finest weapons to defend their homes and families. The miners, smiths, and warriors together were the soul of the people.
Souls that were slowly being consumed by the Spider Queen’s army.
“Moradin! Strike these vermin down for their defilement!” shrieked Kreldorn, a wild light gleaming in his eyes.
The rest of the soldiers took up the shout, mingled with the screams of horror and pain from the wounded. The woman with the thigh wound let go of her flesh and jumped to her feet, screaming, “Iltkazar!” Phantom spiders covered her bleeding leg. She charged across the cavern, toward the drow army.
“Felsa!” screamed one of the dwarves near Ruen. He started to go after her, but Garn grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him.
“Let her have her way,” he said. “It’s her choice how she goes.”
Across the cavern, Felsa stumbled. Ruen caught a black flash out of the corner of his eye, as two crossbow quarrels tore into the woman’s neck. She fell on her stomach and died with her mace stretched out before her like an offering to her god. Ruen watched the blood pool beneath her.
“You well enough to be on your feet?” Garn said, pulling Ruen’s gaze away from the woman’s body.
“I’m fine,” Ruen said. He assessed his injuries. He’d taken a blow to the head from a bugbear’s club, and there was a faint ringing in his ears from all the noise in the cavern, but the pain from the drow spell was gone, leaving only a slight tremor in his hands. Ruen clenched a fist, closed his eyes, and took several breaths to calm his racing heartbeat. The chamber reeked of blood and bugbear musk, a thick animal stench that Ruen thought he would never be able to wash off his skin.
“Godsdamn dismal way to fight,” Garn said. He cast his gaze over the battlefield-looking for Obrin, Ruen surmised. Father and son separated soon after the battle began. Though Garn hadn’t mentioned him, Ruen could tell by the way the Blackhorn patriarch clutched his axe that his thoughts were with his son.
“There are dozens of us here and in the cavern to the south, and others who’ve fallen back with the wounded down the side passages,” Ruen said. “Obrin could be with them.”
“He won’t fall back, not unless he’s unconscious and they’re dragging his body away from the fight,” Garn said.
“Here they come!”
The shout came from the front lines. Ruen looked up to see bugbears and goblins swarming across the cavern. In response, a chorus of battle cries deafened Ruen as the dwarves surged up from their stone trenches.
Garn stood, opened his arms, and cried, “Give me your strength, Soul Forger. Father of the deep places and sacred stone, give me aid!”
Massive stones the dwarves had piled up as protection rose suddenly in the air and hovered ominously over the battlefield. Garn took a step forward, and the stones moved with him.
The attacking slaves saw the floating stones and staggered, breaking their charge. Behind them, the drow hissed and screamed in Undercommon, sending out webs of black lightning to prod them. They charged ahead, not so frenzied now, instead moving hesitantly, and let the dwarves slam into their lines in a crush of steel.
With a grim smile, Garn took another step forward. He swayed on his feet.
He’s weak, and it’s taking all his concentration to maintain the spell, Ruen realized. He stood and took up a protective stance ahead and slightly to the right of Garn. “I’m here,” he murmured. “Mind your spell. I won’t let them touch you.”
On impulse, he bent and slid his silver ring onto the dwarf’s smallest finger. Using it was a risk, but if Ruen was right about what Garn was about to do with his spell, it would give them an advantage.
Garn’s eyes widened as Ruen slid the ring over his knuckle, and a broad smile spread across his face.
“Let’s have some fun, then,” Garn said in a strained whisper. He made a fist and punched the air. One of the larger stones shot across the cavern, hit the ground rolling, and plowed into a group of four goblins, two of whom were killed instantly. Garn moved forward and wiggled his fingers, sending a hail of smaller stones against a charging pack of bugbears. They went down under the force of the smaller pellets hurled at lightning-fast speeds.
But the attacking force came in fast. Ruen spun to face a drow soldier darting toward Garn like an obsidian shadow, a rapier drawn and ready in his hand. The drow saw him and lunged, but Ruen slid to his knees, coming up beneath the drow’s guard. Energy and focus hummed from all his extremities. Ruen gathered the energy and drew it inward, funneling it all to his right hand.
Thinking, Everything is energy, he breathed in and out, and the power moved within him, building and swelling until he couldn’t contain it any longer.
Ruen drove his open palm into the side of the warrior’s leg. Dimly, he sensed the impact of the drow’s armor against his hand, but the pain he should have felt was absorbed by the energy and sloughed off harmlessly.
His punch was anything but harmless. Bone snapped, and the drow staggered, crying out in agony. Ruen came smoothly to his feet and thrust his other hand against the drow’s rapier hilt, pushing it above his head and away from Garn, the drow’s intended target.
Now that they were standing face-to-face, Ruen could look the drow in the eye. He saw the pain and hatred in the warrior’s face, but he also glimpsed a deadly resolve Ruen hadn’t counted on. Bones in the drow’s leg were shattered, but he would crawl on his belly to reach Garn if he had to. Ruen read that truth in the drow’s eyes.
His right hand tangled with Ruen’s as they fought for control of the rapier, and the drow used his left to fumble at his belt for a dagger. Ruen stamped viciously on the drow’s foot, and the warrior howled in pain. He started to fall, and Ruen tried to step out of the way.
Too late, he realized it was a feint. The drow leaped forward, wrapping his arms around Ruen’s waist. They hit the floor, but Ruen had the drow in strength. He flipped them, putting the drow on his back. The drow’s head cracked against the floor, leaving him stunned for a breath.
It was enough. Ruen reared back and drove his fist into the drow’s chest. He poured all his pent-up energy into the strike and felt it reverberate through the drow’s armor, a wave that passed through flesh, shattering ribs and breastbone. The killing wave reached the drow’s heart, and through his spellscar, Ruen felt the drow’s death a breath before the drow did. The coldness, the cracks in the drow’s life force, spread out from that one central point where his fist made impact. The warrior’s eyes widened, he opened his mouth, and then his gaze became a fixed stare. His rapier clattered to the floor.
Ruen rolled off the drow, shoving the body away from him. His hands tingled as if they’d been asleep. It was a familiar feeling, unpleasant but hardly alarming. It happened every time his monk abilities interacted with his spellscar.
The breath of life and the aura of death. Death always proved stronger, in the end, and it was no different this time. Cold seized his body, and his bones ached from fighting without his ring.
Ruen tried to ignore the sensations and sprang to his feet. Garn had moved a few feet away, hurling more rocks at the enemy. It was as if a storm had enveloped the chamber. Mighty cracks of thunder shook the foundations of the cavern each time the runepriest cast a stone down on his enemies. Garn’s eyes glowed with the light of his spell. Those same glows outlined the runes on his face, making him look more and more like an avenging spirit.