He thrust aside his doubts, forsaking his soul for revenge as he hurled the hammer at the nearest cluster of goblins. It flew like a meteor. Bodies were hurled up and aside as the weapon crushed heads and shattered ribs. The hammer burrowed through the enemy ranks, curving around to slap its haft firmly back in Tordek's hand after completing its murderous arc.
With the hammer in his grip, Tordek heard all the hymns of war resounding in his head. He swung left and right, slaying with every stroke. He crushed helms, shattered shields, and reduced cold-wrought iron to powder. Without turning, he sensed the approach of enemies from the rear. He threw the hammer blindly, and he knew how many bodies it left in its wake when it returned unerringly to his grip. Tordek's kenning of the battle swelled farther, enveloping the entire forge. He knew the count of enemies, and a distant part of his mind even wondered at the incredible carnage. Goblins perished by the dozen with every toss of the weapon. Tordek knew without looking what transpired on the iron walkways above his head.
Sandrine grasped Lidda's hair and beat the halfling's head against the unyielding iron grate. Lidda struggled to slip her own short sword up into the vampire spawn's ribs, but every blow dazed her and splattered more of her own blood into her eyes.
Suddenly the vampire's grip was gone, and Sandrine shrieked again, more hideously than ever. The ruddy tip of Devi's longsword thrust out from her chest, just below one of her fine, white collarbones.
Devis grinned maliciously as he twisted the blade. In his other hand he held the short sword she dropped earlier. "Shouldn't leave these things lying around, sweetheart."
Sandrine dropped the second weapon and grabbed at the blade protruding from her body, but behind her Devis put a foot on her back and pulled the sword free, slicing her fingers to the bone.
Beside the iron cauldrons Zagreb ignored the winged rodents swirling round his head and struck instead at their summoner. His mighty blade hummed through another of the catwalk's support rods. The edges of the severed metal glowed red hot. The blow shook the walk again, knocking Vadania to the hard, iron platform. She raised her scimitar in a futile gesture of warding, but it would be as potent as a switch against a falling century tree. Again, and for the last time ever, Gulo rose up to catch the half-dragon's wrist in his powerful jaws. The wolverine bit deep, evoking a shout of intense pain from the winged ogre. Gulo shook his bloodied head and the greatsword clattered onto the catwalk. Fearlessly the wolverine threw his full weight upon his foe. Both of them hurtled over the railing and into the roiling cauldron, three feet below.
Searing gobs of iron splashed over the edges to fall on the thinning goblin horde. They screamed in agony, and the first cowards among them broke and fled from the hall.
Vadania threw herself against the railing and screamed Gulo's name to the flaring cauldron. Her scream was in vain, for her friend died instantly in the molten iron. The carcass, engulfed in sheets of flame, still clutched his foe's limbs and slowly dragged the monster toward a shared death.
Zagreb, nearly invulnerable to heat, gasped for breath in the thick, suffocating iron. He struggled to pry Gulo's baked jaws from his arm and dig the claws from his searing flesh. The infernal heat seemed powerless to harm him, even as it incinerated Gulo's body.
"No, you don't," murmured Vadania, reaching for the fallen greatsword. It took all of her strength to raise the weapon above her shoulder, but once it was firmly in her grip, it seemed to grow light and facile in her hands. She raised it high, holding its long handle like the haft of a spear. She thrust its blade at Zagreb's face. The point struck his eye and though it could not penetrate to harm one who wielded it, Vadania threw her weight behind the weapon and pushed Zagreb's head below the bubbling surface. The liquid metal rushed into his gaping mouth. When he rose back up, it began to cool and solidify.
Vadania stabbed again, managing to thrust his head once more into the molten iron. The monster might be immune to its fire, but she saw his body twitch in suffocating spasms as he gagged for breath with a mouth and nostrils plugged by iron.
"If you won't burn," she shouted, striking him down again and again, "then drown, you abomination!"
She struck one more time, forcing the head below the surface. Finally, though she stood poised with the sword, she struck no more, for Zagreb did not rise again.
Across the catwalk Sandrine howled at the two tormenters who closed in on her, one on either side, each wielding one of the short swords she had dropped. Lidda clutched her own sword as well, while Devis held his bloody longsword pointed at her eye.
"I'll kill you both!" she shrieked, pawing at her wounds. "Before this is done, I'll kill you by inches!"
"Now, now," cautioned Devis, "that's not a pretty thing to say, is it?"
She whipped around to face him, just as he had calculated, and Lidda plunged her sword into Sandrine's back. The blade barely missed the vampire's spine, but it sizzled through her undead flesh.
Devis darted in and hacked at her slender neck. He knew that Andaron's sword could not cut Sandrine's flesh, but he hoped he might knock her off balance. The blade passed through a sudden mist as Sandrine vanished. The cloud lingered tantalizingly where she had stood, then floated toward the ceiling.
Lidda readied her bow just in time to fire a single, useless arrow through the gaseous foe, but then the mist vanished into one of the hidden vents in the cavern wall.
"I hope it's noon out there," Lidda spat after the retreating enemy. She turned back to Devis and shrugged. "I lost track."
Together, they hefted Andaron's short swords and looked down at the battle below. It was a hurricane of bodies with Tordek at its eye. A lightning bolt in the form of Andaron's hammer flashed out and back, leaving carnage in its wake.
"Let's go," said Devis.
They ran along the catwalk and descended toward the battle.
Vadania was there ahead of them, wielding Andaron's greatsword as lightly as a willow wand. Though her face was wet with tears, her eyes were a terror to behold-cold as ice and hard as granite. Devis and Lidda joined her and the three of them cut a swath toward the forge, leaving mounds of goblin dead marking their path.
Without realizing the transformation, they were soon caught up in the same battle-glee that buoyed Tordek. They marveled inwardly at their killing power and delighted in the sounds of tearing flesh, shattering bones, and dying screams. The remade weapons rang with glory and glowed with insatiable lust for combat.
Too soon, only a few hardy goblins lingered in a wavering circle around the blood-spattered warriors standing amid mounds of corpses. The goblins hesitated, unwilling to advance to their doom. As they wavered, blinding light burst upward from the lines of the pentacle surrounding Andaron's forge. The surviving goblins cringed, then fled in terror from the unholy radiance ringing their foes.
Only Hargrimm remained to stride past the heaped dead. Tordek rushed him, but the barghest rose high above the floor with a casual gesture. Levitating near the center of the circle, directly above the radiant forge, Hargrimm shouted out his triumph and his rapture.
"At last-, my master, the sacrifice is sufficient!"
Tordek felt jarring, icy guilt spread through his gut. It chilled his bones and cooled the fury that charged his limbs with strength. Hargrimm's exultation made clear the meaning of Andaron's warning. They, Tordek and his companions, who risked so much to stop Hargrimm, had unwittingly become the instruments of their foe's triumph.