Hargrimm's voice swelled to fill the room and echoed back down with a tangible wave of force. "Come, glorious Gruulnargh, master of these tools of destruction. Command us!"
The ground trembled and cracked. Tordek and the others leaped to get outside the circle just moments before the stones between the arms of the pentacle fell away, revealing an endless pit beneath the forge. A firestorm swirled within that abyss, roiling up to spill upon the demonic circle. Where it splashed out, it pooled and congealed. Each new, lapping wave of the hell-stuff solidified over the previous layer adding to the amorphous figure that grew slowly and steadily before the forge.
"At last," called Hargrimm, lowering himself to the ground outside the circle. "The summoning is irrevocable, and we are brothers in arms. Rejoice, for you have all earned a place at the heel of Gruulnargh the destroyer."
"Never," spat Tordek. He raised the hammer and hurled it at Hargrimm's head, but the weapon glanced away as if deflected by an invisible shield.
Hargrimm smiled and backed away nonchalantly, gesturing at all the remaining corpses. The bodies withered to ectoplasm that flowed into the burning circle, feeding it with ever more souls.
"There is no need to squabble now. We shall all be rewarded for our part in this triumphant moment. Do not think otherwise. After all, you contributed as many sacrifices as I."
Tordek's heart grew cold at the barghest's words. The faces of his companions grew pale.
His eyes wide with horror, Tordek staggered back from Hargrimm. He stared for long moments as the master demon took shape. Lumps of magma gradually transformed into scabby tentacles studded with tiny, yellow spikes.
Tordek looked down at the hammer in his hand. He looked back up at Hargrimm, against whom this mightiest of weapons was useless. His eyes continued farther up, toward the heavens.
The barghest smiled back at him. "Even you must see the irony, Tordek, brother of Holten," he said. "Accept the destiny that you forged with me."
Tordek's gaze came back down to Hargrimm, and a grin creased his face. "Accept yours," he said coldly. He flung the hammer as high and as hard as his mighty arm could throw it, far above the barghest's head.
Hargrimm followed the hammer's flight upward and saw it smash through the bottom of the cauldron in which the half-dragon had drowned. A pillar of fiery red molten iron rocketed downward toward him. The barghest threw himself to the side with superhuman effort, and he almost escaped.
Zagreb's flaring corpse smashed Hargrimm's legs flat against the floor with a horrible sound of crushed bones and searing flesh. Sizzling iron splashed across the floor and over Hargrimm's broad back, burning black holes into his body. Oily smoke rose from his wounds in ruddy purple swirls stinking of brimstone.
Tordek spared only a brief, grim glance at his dying foe before turning toward the urgrosh that tumbled from Hargrimm's hands to skitter across the floor.
"Quickly!" he yelled to his friends. He held out a hand to receive the returning hammer, and it slapped firmly into his grip, smoking and glowing. Tordek stepped haltingly toward the forge, then paused while gazing down at the weapon.
Its steel body gleamed pure and silver in the hellish light of the charnel house that had been Andaron's Forge. Such beauty, Tordek thought, and such power.
He looked up at the monstrous figure of Gruulnargh, at its lashing tendrils and half-formed mouths. He glanced at his friends, who rushed to his side while struggling to elude the partially formed demon's grasp.
Tordek closed his eyes and hurled the hammer toward the forge. Guided by his will more than by his arm, the weapon smashed through a closed iron door and plunged into the nova-bright heart of the infernal fire.
Gruulnargh shrieked, and tornadoes erupted across the chamber. The monster's sulfuric breath stung their eyes and choked their throats. Its tentacles whipped blindly in all directions, seeking betrayers, for its eyes had yet to form on this plane.
As one, Lidda and Devis tossed their short swords into the hole in the forge made by the hammer. Vadania flung the greatsword moments later, shaking her hands as if to clear them of some lingering filth.
The demon's body swelled and throbbed. It accelerated its materialization by thrusting up bone and sinew without benefit of flesh and skin to support them. Ghastly organs bobbed from its nether portions, screaming with mouths of their own until half-formed eyeballs burst out of the wet surfaces to search for targets. Skinless tendrils shot out with blinding speed and latched around Vadania and Devis. They were lifted from the floor and waved madly through the shimmering air. Lidda narrowly escaped the powerful clutch by tumbling out of reach.
Only the urgrosh remained of Andaron's arms and Tordek dived toward it. He clutched the iron shaft in both hands as the demon's tendrils whipped around his legs and spiraled up to squeeze the breath from his lungs. In the instant before they could pin his arms, Tordek hurled the weapon toward the opening. It tumbled awkwardly and struck the edge of the opening but fell inside the sundered forge.
The last weapon vanished with a fiery flare.
Gruulnargh's roars turned to screams and squeals as the five doors of the forge burst open and flames spewed across its partially formed body. Tendrils writhed uncontrollably, dropping Devis and Vadania to the floor, where they scrambled away from the dying demon. Tordek struggled to follow them, but powerful limbs and jaws clamped tightly on his leg.
The trapped dwarf twisted around to see an enormous worg. Its crushed and useless legs and the black burns on its back left no question as to its identity. Despite the crippling wounds, Hargrimm clawed his way across the floor to Tordek's body. Orange eyes seethed with hatred. Scarred jaws opened wide.
Tordek punched Hargrimm's lupine skull, but even bolstered by Andaron's gauntlets, the blow was trifling in the face of the demon's infernal rage. The dwarf twisted away, reaching for his axe. He saw the weapon and knew he could reach it, but Hargrimm dragged Tordek back, away from the weapon's hope of salvation.
A thudding sound grabbed Tordek's attention and he saw an arrow jutting from Hargrimm's neck. An instant later, a crossbow bolt pierced his cheek, and then a wound exploded on his canine snout from a sling bullet creasing his skull.
The dwarf heard Lidda's voice shouting something, but he needed no prompting. A sharp kick propelled him away from the tenacious worg, then the axe was in his grip. He swept the blade past his feet and felt it connect with snapping jaws. In a moment he was standing above his crippled foe with the axe gripped in both hands. Tordek looked down into the face of hate and met it with his own undying enmity.
"You want to be with your master?" he said. The axe swept down toward Hargrimm's neck but the barghest heaved itself forward with powerful front legs. Its fangs caught hold of Tordek's greave and clamped tight, but a mighty blow of the axe sliced away the lower jaw. The second strike severed the monster's spine, and the third sent the giant wolf's head rolling away from its body.
"Join him in hell," spat Tordek as he wiped his axe blade on the worg's wiry fur.
When Tordek looked up, the last of Gruulnargh's burning body was seeping back down through the gate. The magical portal itself was shrinking. Its circumference was now barely wider than the forge. As the glowing border of the pentacle touched the solid iron base of the furnace, the earth shook again.
Afterward came a long minute of silence in which Tordek heard only the clatter of falling pebbles and his own labored breathing. Gradually, and then with growing urgency, his companions gathered their belongings and joined him. Together they watched the last infernal radiance die out from Andaron's forge. Its hellish fires extinguished at last, leaving the giant cavern pitch black.