The rest of the morning, as well as the afternoon, passed uneventfully. I watched as more wagons rolled through the mine entrance. From them came more sheets of white tents, spare weapons and armour, and a hundred shiny new pickaxes. As well as the wagons, two new platoons of soldiers arrived, plus two women in silk garb that could only be runesmiths. They had an extended argument, or maybe haggle, with Captain Lorsson, before making their way into an opulent tent, hung with long strands of silk.

I stayed well out of all the action, and stayed quiet through lunch and dinner. For a while, I thought we might not head into the hall of pillars today. I found a spot to relax at the left side of the mining cavern, far from the bustle of soldiers unloading what must be the last few wagons. The stone floor was cold and hard, but if I imagined hard enough it almost felt like a fluffy mattress and warm sheets, like I’d slept on as a child. Sleep began to take me.

“Orders to form up!” came a shout, barging me from my slumber. I rolled over, intending to ignore it. Maybe if I shut my eyes hard enough no one would be able to see me, and I could stay asleep forever.

No. My only friends was lost out there. I stood up, and stumbled through the camp, past marching squads of soldiers, half in armour half without, to the improvised parade ground between the tents and the rubble. The miners had gathered in a rough square, and I made my way to lurk behind them.

“Stony,” said Tradfast from behind. I jumped.

“What?”

“I heard a rumour about you making a fool of yourself at the triage tent.” He lowered his voice to a rough whisper, so only I could hear him under the shouting of orders and rolling rumble of marching dwarves. “Something about grabbing at your old shirt like it was your most prized possession. We both know why you did that.”

“So what?” I said. “I made a decent enough excuse.”

“No, you didn't. Especially now that you’re wearing a new one, with a suspicious bulge instead of an open pocket. Stop making yourself stand out. I’m not going to turn you in, but if you act like an idiot I can’t do much to help.”

I shrugged him off, but his words shook me. Had the other miners caught wind I was hiding something? I glanced down at my new shirt. I could feel the bulge where the sapphire was, but it wasn’t noticeable from the outside. Tradfast was just trying to scare me.

The sound of marching finally stopped, leaving the faint rushing of ventilation the only noise in the cavern. Through the sea of dirty heads before me, I saw Captain Lorsson stride out in front of the formation.

“Dwarves!” he said, sounding more like he was greeting a group of old friends rather than five hundred of the dwarfholds’ finest. “We will start the rescue operation now. First we will clear the rubble, before conducting a short expedition into the halls. Do not fear the ghosts. Some of our spears have been runed, and the men carrying them are our most experienced.”

The spears he was talking about stood out like marble amongst greywacke. Inscriptions wrapped around their steel heads like veins of silver. Two wielders were stationed at every corner next to us miners. What did his men think about us being the best protected?

“Move out!” said Captain Lorsson.

Lieutenants down the formation repeated the order, and we marched up to the rubble. From up close, the extent of the destruction became clearer than ever. Piles of rock slabs lay on top of the scaffold, matchwood and splinters spilling out from under them.

We split into groups of twenty; ten dwarves to clear the rubble and ten dwarves to guard. My group advanced to the scaffold, and we began to work.

I took a slab of rock in two hands, bent my legs and passed it to the miner behind me. It was handed back along a line of dwarves, before being dumped on a wheeled pallet tied to a great lizard-beast. The rock made a weighty crack as it hit the wood. The process repeated until the stack of rock was taller than I was, then the lizard-beast dragged our handiwork off. I paused to catch my breath. My white shirt was drenched in sweat and covered with dust, and I could feel more sweat tracing rivers down the side of my head. Before I could quite recover my strength though, another pallet dragging lizard-beast took the place of the last.

“Change!”

I took a step back and another took my place at the start of the line. Passing the load along was easier work than dragging the stone out myself, but not by much. By the time the next pallet was dragged off, my arms felt as dead as the stone we’d been clearing. The dwarves around me looked just as tired, panting, rubbing their arms, some squatting down for a brief rest.

Thankfully, after three more changes, the last of the stone was gone. The dividing wall must have been thin; I’d expected a lot more rock. Now the wood was exposed. I wiped sweat from my brow, and wrung more from my beard. We continued to work, until at last I was back at the front.

I took hold of a bundle of wood scraps. They were nowhere near as heavy as the stone had been, and the work continued quickly. A few more handfuls and I’d be back to carrying. Just a few more.

A soft groan sounded from beneath an intact layer of planks.

“Help me... Help me...”

“There’s someone here!” I shouted.

With two hands I grabbed the bit of platform and lifted it up, straining with both arms and legs to do so. Under it was a miner, alive. Two supports had fallen against each other, forming a triangle that must have protected him from the falling debris. Not entirely protected though; his right leg was bent at the lower portion. A nasty break.

“Give me... water,” he rasped. His mouth was coated in grey dust, and he coughed. A soldier gave the poor sod a sip from his metal canteen.

“What’s this here? A survivor?”

I turned around to see Lieutenant Horir standing behind us, stroking his spike of a beard with one hand. It looked freshly oiled, and his uniform was immaculate besides a very light sprinkling of dust. Bastard. Standing around while others got their hands dirty, just because he’d been rich enough to buy a commission.

“Yes sir,” said the soldier. “He needs medical treatment.”

“He does. Take him to the triage tent, there’s a few other survivors being treated there as well.” The lieutenant sounded almost bored. Looking at the grotesquely twisted leg, did he not feel anything?

“I don’t know if he’ll be able to pay, sir. Getting a broken leg set is expensive.”

“That’s not our problem.”

There was the answer to my previous question then: he didn't feel anything.

“But sir, what about what Captain Lorsson was saying. He said miners we found were to be given money for medical expenses.”

“That’s Captain Lorsson’s problem then. I’m certainly not paying for it, and I doubt you have enough. Tell our idiot Captain to go along to the triage and sort things out.”

Idiot? Had one of the Captain’s own officers called him an idiot in front of an ordinary soldier?

“Yes, I did call him that,” snapped Horir. I realised that my mouth was open and I’d spoken aloud. “And it’s none of your business, miner.”

“Sorry,” I said, cursing myself mentally. Tradfast was right, I needed to be more careful.

“Soldier! Carry the miner to the triage tent.”

The soldier pursed his lips, and replied softly. “Yes sir.”

“What are you gawking at?” said Lieutenant Horir to me. “Get back to work.”

I turned back to the heap of rubble and began to pull out some more smashed timber, making sure to grab the smoother parts rather than the splintered. An idiot... Captain Lorsson was going to have to be very careful.

***

It took a couple hours to clear away the rest of the scaffold. More bodies were discovered, many more, with heads smashed open, guts spilled, life-blood drenching the debris. I shut my eyes whenever I glimpsed one, and the soldiers were kind enough to deal with them, and I gained a new appreciation for them.

Now the rubble was cleared, the soldiers who’d laid down their weapons and armour re-equipped themselves, and we all formed into a column. The miners and I, shiny new picks in hand, stood near the front in loose ranks, led by Tradfast.

Captain Lorsson gave the order to advance.

The moment we made it through the jagged portal where the scaffold had once stood, the true scale of the place hit me. Looking from within the mine, the pillars had appeared huge like thick logs, but now we were in close I realised I’d been totally long. They were as thick as towers, and spaced much further apart than they’d appeared. If this was a forest, it was a forest for giants.

I gazed up to see where the ceiling was, but despite the glow of hundreds of the soldiers’ lamps, it was out of sight. I became dizzy, the wide open space threatened to suck me in and up, its sheer vastness incomprehensible.

“Ah!”

A tall miner in front of me cried out and stumbled to the floor. Two soldiers stepped in, spears angled down at the spot he’d tripped.

“What’s going on?” asked one.

The miner scrambled to his feet, palms held up in front of him.

“Nothing, nothing, I’m fine. I just tripped.”

The soldiers drew back their spears and fell back into the march. I looked at where the miner had stumbled. An iron fitting, rusted beyond recognition lay there, with a hole next to it. What had it been for? I took a wide step around it; I didn't want anything to do with the mysteries this place held.

A strange smell surrounded us and became more potent the further we advanced. Half the acrid stench there had been when Captain Lorsson cut the ghosts apart on the way back to the mines, half dried blood. I wrinkled my bandaged nose at it, the cast shifting and pulling at my skin.

On we went, and then: tap tap tap. Was that sound of a pick? I listened, trying to hear over the sound of marching, one hand next to my ear to aid me. Tap tap tap Excitement jumped through me. It was coming from one of the pillars. Perhaps they’d gotten trapped in it somehow.

“Captain Lorsson! Can you hear that?” shouted Tradfast. “It could be the miners! We should head towards it.”

“So soon?” said Captain Lorsson. “It could be a trap.”

It was soon, that was true. But my heart didn't let me believe it was, and apparently neither did Tradfast’s.

“We haven’t heard noise from the ghosts before. And we’re here to find the miners.”

“Alright. We’ll advance towards the pillar. Right turn!”

The lieutenants elaborated, and like a snake, the column began to turn. I stumbled around, bumping shoulders with a few other miners. One’s shoulder powered into my chest, knocking half the wind out of me.

“Careful!” I said. I caught a glimpse of Bushy-Beard’s face in the lamplight, his eyes full of grim promises.

“You be careful.”

I clenched my fists, and unclenched them. There was no way he’d do anything here and now. I rubbed the new bruise on my chest, a complement to the ones on my sides.

The tromp of five hundred boots echoed around the cavern, punctuated by the occasional curse as someone tripped over one of the iron fittings in the floor. The pillar grew in size, looming over everything. The tap tap got louder.

“Hello!” called Captain Lorsson, cupping his hands next to his mouth so the sound would carry over the marching.

“Who is that?” called Tradfast, doing the same.

There was no response. I looked down at my feet, growing nervous. The sapphire wasn’t cold, so there were no ghosts nearby, right? No, everything was fine.

But I looked up just in case they were, and now the pillar was close and huge enough that I could make out every detail. A primal dread, an ancestral dread that warned me everything about the thing was bad, filled me.

The base of it was a house-sized pair of scaly feet, each one ending in three wickedly curved stone claws. A hundred pairs of arms were arrayed all the way up to the sides, curled up and ending in long, taloned fingers. Just by looking at them, it was as if I felt them sinking into my belly coldly, rending my guts out in streams of red. Far above, its head gazed down, two distant eyes scrutinising me like I was an ant that could be stepped on at any time.

My heartbeat accelerated; blood rushed to my head. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, and red circles spun in them. I began to sway.

No!

I broke away my gaze to look at my feet. Around me, other miners did the same, shaking their heads and muttering.

“Soldiers! Right turn to advance around it! Don’t look at it directly.” If Captain Lorsson was affected by the stone monstrosity, he didn't show it.

We came around the corner, the tap tap growing louder and faster.

The miners before me suddenly recoiled. I collided with the one directly in front, nearly pushing him over.

Was it the ghosts? My heart missed a beat. No, no, otherwise they’d be screaming. It must be something else. I craned my head to see over, and nearly recoiled in shock myself.

A little hole was opening in the scaled foot, and something, glinting green and red, blinked inside it. Drops of melted stone, white fading into orange, dripped down the side of the pillar. As I watched, the blinking got faster and faster, until I realised the thing inside wasn’t blinking, it was moving. Banging in and out of its little hole, tap tap tapping until the sound was a blur of noise. I gasped. It was a gem.

“It’s a gem!” shouted Captain Lorsson. “Quick, miners!”

“Come on boys! This is what we’re here for!” shouted Tradfast, and he strode out of formation towards it.

The miners around me turned to each other, muttering.

“Is that safe?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Should we--”

Tradfast spun around, pickaxe held high in his boulder-like fists. “Get. A. Move on!” he roared, voice echoing past the pillars. I sealed my lips, despite not having said a word, and we began to advance on it, one slow step after another.

Tradfast stopped a couple meters in front of the gem, and help up his pickaxe, the tip wobbling from the tremor in his hands. Little globs of sizzling orange jumped out at him, falling short by mere inches.

“Let me show you what us miners can do!”

Tradfast swung his pick with a roar. It bit into the pillar with a crack, ripping off a hard grey scale of stone from underneath the gem -- now revealed in the glowing lamplight as an emerald. The chunk of stone fell onto the ground, and the emerald bounced off it once to fly at Tradfast. He took an ungainly step back, and the gem fell quivering at his feet. Molten stone dribbled out of the lizard-pillar-thing’s ankle, hot orange blood as if from a flea bite.

“Well done!” cried Captain Lorsson, and he put his hands together. “Give a cheer for the miners!”

The soldiers banged their spears on their shields, creating a ratatat rumble that rolled throughout the ancient pillars, and into the far depths of the hall.

I couldn’t see why they bothered. The gem had practically come out on its own, like it was searching for us rather than the other way around. Like my sapphire, there was something strange about it. Damn! If only I’d been able to run away and pawn the damn thing.

As for the applause, well, I didn't know if the ghosts could hear but I didn't think we should risk it.

Captain Lorsson, beaming, strode out of formation towards Tradfast. He grabbed his hand and shook it.

“Now this is what we’re going to accomplish from now on. Miners mining, soldiers protecting, and at the end we will all share in the spoils.” He swept out one hand, waving over the whole formation. “All of us! Rich and poor alike.”

I wondered what expression Lieutenant Horir was wearing.

“Thank you,” said Tradfast. He had the straight lips and slightly bewildered eyes of someone a little put out. Lorsson didn't seem to notice, and he unclasped his hand to pick up the emerald.

“Ah, it’s a little hot!”

Obviously. It’d just melted its way through solid stone. He held it aloft, and it shimmered red in the light. Did it contain the same inner etchings I’d noticed on my sapphire? I was too far away to tell, but I suspected it might.

“Not bad for our first one, don’t you think?”

Only someone as rich as Lorsson could call a gem of such beauty and worth ‘not bad’. Two miners who’d sunk to the back like me stared agape, and there was no doubt the rest of the crowd, and probably the whole army behind us, had much the same expression.

An icicle thrust its way into my heart, parting the meat and freezing everything solid. I clutched at my chest, gasping. No, not an icicle, my sapphire.

I raised my pickaxe, ready to strike out, but above me was only the blackness of the ceiling. The ghosts were still nowhere to be seen. Had the sapphire just reacted to its smaller cousin? I stood up straight, grimacing at the chill but trying to act as natural as possible.

“Ah!” shouted Lorsson, and he flung his hand out, dropping the gem. A vague drift of smoke wafted from his hand, which he shook as if trying to extinguish an old-fashioned wood torch.

“It’s got even hotter,” he said.

Maybe it really was reacting with the sapphire.

Tradfast squinted at the emerald, and gave it a tentative prod with his pick. The stone around it began to glow. “It’s melting through the rock again,” he said.

“Show us what you miners are made of, Tradfast. Don’t let it get away.”

I frowned. None of this made sense. First it had melted through the pillar, and practically leaped towards us. Now it was trying to bury itself back in the floor. Was it trying to escape from something. I forced my gaze up to the pillar, just in case the ghosts were coming back.

They were.

“Ghosts!” screamed a soldier. “Behind the pillar!”

I threw myself to the ground, and the dwarves around me did the same, crying out in terror. The five hundred soldiers shouted a war cry, and the sound of shields clattering and thumping against each other reached my ears, followed my the slide of wood against metal, and the soldiers stuck their spears through the gaps to form a hedge of metal thorns. The sapphire’s chill went beyond pain and numbed all feeling in my breast. I rolled my eyes up to see what assailed us, and let out an involuntary cry of terror.

A vortex of colour swirled above, thousands of ghosts spiralling in a storm of colour. From the frenzy of their bodies’ movement and their wide open mouths, they should have made a hurricane roar imbued with the shrill screams of lost souls. Instead they were totally silent.

Captain Lorsson drew his sword. “They won’t come near us! Don’t worry.”

But his blade, no matter how much its runed edges glittered, was like a toothpick compared to what whirled above. They edged closer and closer, a kaleidoscope corkscrew. Each one of their dark eyes was fixed on the emerald, which was now halfway into the floor.

“Steady, dwarves!” said Captain Lorsson. But the forest of spears shook like the wind of terror rushed past each stick.

“We can hold them!” shouted the Captain. “Do not falter!”

But I knew it was impossible, and so did they. The ghosts came, a waterfall of colour pouring down in a silent thunder.