The sounds of battle raged as Lorsson and I limped our way up the mountainside. Gem-fire blasts from the base of the dwarfholds sent their thumping booms across the desert, and the Gods roared as dozens of their minions were blown apart at a time. But the black mass of harbingers was barely diminished in number. Would there be anything left of the dwarves even after we laid hands whatever weapon sat in the crater above us?

A rough hand grabbed mine and pulled me up onto the path.

“Though you two were dead for sure,” said Tradfast, mouth a sullen grimace. “Buro’s already dashed on ahead. He really wants to get there before the priests do.”

“Of course he does,” I said, shaking Tradfast’s hand off. “How else are we going to ambush the priests? How else are we going to rescue the miners?”

Tradfast shook his head.

“Listen, Stony. I don’t think Buro has any intention of rescuing the miners. His only worry is himself and his King. And they’re no better than the priests. Don’t you see?” He leaned in close to me, eyes flaring and wild. “They want our bodies to possess, just like Buro did to Urist.”

I cringed back from his gaze. What the fuck was Tradfast thinking?

“Tradfast,” said Captain Lorsson sternly, “Buro’s been helping us, as has the King. If they wanted to possess us they could have done it any time they wanted.”

“I don’t really like them either,” I said, rubbing some more life back into my legs. “They’re using us, yes. But they’re using us to survive, because they have no choice. And think of what treasure lies in that mountain!” I licked my lips. “There’s nothing to worry about. Buro will help us save Airon and the others, then he’ll help us kill the Gods.”

Tradfast shook his head.

“And you think that King will stay in his sapphire forever? Ask him if he will.”

I rolled my eyes and took the sapphire from my pocket, opened my mouth to speak, and then hesitated. Tradfast could well be right. The King had told me barely anything. Just promises of treasure, and an end to the Gods and their priests.

But even if the big Overseer was right, it wasn’t like we had another choice.

“There’s no point in asking,” I said. “And if we don’t go to the tomb, Airon and all of the miners will die anyway. Can’t you see that, Tradfast?”

He pursed his lips and bunched his free hand into a fist.

“Just be ready to fight more than we bargained for, is all I’m saying.”

Edging around him, I resumed the trek up the mountain, dragging the point of my blade along the ground to steam off the sludge. I had come too far following the King and Buro to waste time doubting them now. There were other things to worry about, like if the dwarfholds would still be standing by the time we had finished in the tomb.

“How long do you think the army will last?” I asked Lorsson.

“I’m not sure,” he said, looking back at the dwarfholds and the horde of harbingers converging on them. “The army has fought battles against monsters before, but nothing close to this.”

“So not long then,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “I hope my family won’t perish before we make it to the tomb.”

“Yeah. I hope so too.”

I was only half thinking of the reward Lorsson promised his father would give me when I said that.

We continued to walk, the path looping away from the battle and the Gods, and then back to an angle perpendicular to it. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed dots of silver beginning to emerge out the base of the dwarfholds in great columns. Transfixed by the sight, my eyes wandered to see the battle in its whole terrible glory, and I walked forwards with only the vaguest idea of where the path was.

It was, incredible. Every dwarf in the holds must have been called out, a hundred thousand perhaps, ready to defend the mountains to the last. The clatter of steel on stone must be making a racket to overpower even the cries of the harbingers and the roars of the Gods. I heard the sound in my mind and let its thunder fill my head. I’d never been a particularly imaginative dwarf, imagination is not a quality useful to a miner, but for once I couldn’t help myself.

My foot met empty air for a heart stopping second as I nearly veered off the path. Shit! I couldn’t keep watching the battle. I hopped back, kicking up red flakes and dust. The mountain loomed ahead of me, the path to its peak cut off short at the lip of the great crater I had made out when we were further away. The rain ran off it in great red torrents, pouring down every side. Buro was halfway up the path now, cutting a steaming path through the red liquid running down with his sword.

“Moving fast for a dwarf with an injured leg, isn’t he?” said Tradfast.

“Shut up,” I snapped back. “You know who he is. Who knows what he’s capable of? Just try to trust my judgement until we end this, alright?”

Tradfast barked out a laugh. “Trust your judgement?”

I bit my tongue, and took a quick glance back at the dwarfholds.

The horde of harbingers had nearly reached the army now - but the dwarves had not formed up properly, their silver lines ragged and bent. I imagined what it must be like to be one of those dwarves now, swept up in a battle beyond their understanding, against foes so numerous as to be incomprehensible. I thought of what it must be like to be one of the soldiers in the front line. To have nothing but a steel spear point between you and a ravenous horde of four-armed lizards. It had been awful enough just facing one of them, so how must it feel facing thousands? And with less than an hour’s notice!

I shook my head; I had to focus on the mountain. Already the path was steepening, and the red rain poured down in a river here, caught by the remains of a low stone wall at either side. I plunged my sword into the ankle-high blood rushing at me, and the blade made a savage hiss as it evaporated the gross liquid. Vapour boiled up into my eyes and mouth, and I turned my head away, coughing. Through the red mist I could see that the harbingers had impacted the dwarf lines.

A shiver ran right through my heart as the dwarves were beaten back. My imagination transformed the hiss of steam in my ears to the clash and clank of metal armour against metal armour as dwarves blundered into each other, the cries of the dying, the savage roars of the triumphant harbingers, the boom of gem-powered weaponry and finally the awful roars of the Gods.

“Faster Stony!” shouted Captain Lorsson from behind me. “Or we’ll be too late!”

“I’m trying!” I screamed, suddenly back in the moment. Blood rain splashed into my eyes as I pushed forward harder up the mountain. No matter how much I evaporated, more blood pushed against my ankles, driving me back even as I tried to push forward. Tradfast shoved me to one side and took the lead.

“If you need something down properly, you do it yourself!” he shouted, and drove forward swing his blade back and forth across the river as his trunk-like legs pushed his up the mountain harder than I ever could. “Put your swords away, you two, and save your energy!”

Glad to rest my arms, I sheathed my blade. Now all I had to do was follow the hiss of steam from Tradfast’s blade to keep my path. But that gave my eyes an excuse to wander back to the dwarfholds. I tried to stop them, to cast them away from the battle, but it was impossible.

The dwarves were being totally overwhelmed. Line after silver line threw themselves into the press of harbingers, but from our vantage point high on the mountain it was clear that it was making little difference. The silver lines buckled one by one, and the harbingers pushed forwards.

“How can they ever hope to survive?” asked Lorsson, mouth open wide, not even caring about the foul rain falling onto his tongue.

“Don’t they have any sort of plan?” I shouted, suddenly angry. The dwarves down there were just like me. If I had chosen the army instead of the mines, it might well have been me down there. Couldn’t the dwarves at the top think of a better way to hold off the assault than this?

“They must have a plan,” said Lorsson. “They must do.”

But despite his hopeful words, all the optimism had gone out of his voice.

After a painful while however, the strategy of the dwarves did change. The silver lines making their way to the front of the mountains stopped advancing, and instead formed up around a few dark holes in the mountainside -- the main entrances to the dwarfholds, vast cavernous gaps through which, on normal days, timber poured in and stone chips out.

“They can hold the harbingers off better in small groups, rather than long weak lines,” said Lorsson. “Someone must finally have decided on a plan of action. I wonder if it was my father.”

He smiled again, but I couldn’t return his hopefulness as the harbingers piled into the valleys. Sometimes the blob would rear up and take a third dimension. With a pang of sickness I realised that they must be climbing on top of each other, in a pile of muscled limbs and razor claws. What must it look like to the dwarves down below? To see a wave of lizard-bodies bearing down on you, knowing that no matter how much steel encased your body or how sharp your rune enhanced blades were you would simply be crushed, must be the most terrifying thing a dwarf could see.

“Buro’s made it into the mountain!” shouted Tradfast. “Hurry the pace!”

I ignored him. He was the one setting the damn pace. And again, so what if Buro made it into the mountain first?

“Look!” cried Lorsson. “Look at the dwarfhold entrances!”

I turned to look where the pointed. The lines of dwarves had parted, giving the harbingers a clear path into the mountain.

“What are they doing!” I shouted. “The harbingers are going to get in!”

“Wait,” said Lorsson. “That can’t be right. They must have-”

The instant before the harbingers reached the entrance of the cave mouths, a multicoloured beam of light shot out from each passage, a rainbow of pure obliteration. The beams tore through the harbingers, as well as a few dwarves who didn't make it out of the way in time. In an instant, thousands upon thousands of lizard bodies were turned into dust, and fires bloomed all around the forested valleys. The beams faded, and criss crossed roads of ash littered the battlefield. A second after the beams were gone, their thunder reached us, shaking the very air. I put my hands over my ears and gasped.

“What was that?”

“They must have rigged the gem-weaponry to explode,” said Lorsson, shaking his head sadly. “The damage to the inside of the mountains must be immense.”

“Oh. Can they do it again? Can they turn it on the Gods?”

Again, the Captain shook his head.

“No. I think they just used everything. Only steel and runes are left. And our good dwarves carrying them, of course.”

I gulped. Most of the harbingers were ash-dust, charcoal or burning torches. But their creators still remained.

“We’re nearly there!” shouted Tradfast. “Another fifty metres!”

I could see the lip of the crater now, and a little square cut into it where the path led. What could be inside? A tremor shook the mountain like a pile of jelly and I fell to my knees.

“What the fuck is it now!” I shouted, scrambling up.

“The Gods!” cried Lorsson, pointing to them. “Look at the Gods!”

I stared, eyes open so wide my eyeballs felt like they might pop out of their sockets. A drop of warm rain fell into the pupil my left one and I didn't even blink.

Each God was rearing up, two thirds of their bodies upright in the air, heads pointed at the dwarfholds like snakes ready to strike. Their mouths were shut, and in the absence of their roars, an eerie silence held spell over the landscape.

“What are they doing?” I whispered to myself, half afraid that if I raised my voice they’d turn to me. Still they stayed silent, and staring down at the lines of steel-clad dwarves. I was glad not to be a soldier more than ever, glad not to have thousands of gigantic lizard eyes staring into my own.

Then as one, the Gods tilted their heads towards the sky and opened their mouths. The sky above them trembled and warped, the red faces screaming there melting away into silver spirals.

A million things poured out of the sky and flew towards the dwarfholds. Enormous boulders, seeds, fountains of water and massive vines lashed from the sky and fell in slow motion towards the steel-lines.

“Run!” shouted Lorsson at the army, who stood still, too shocked to move.

I took his order to heart though, and sprinted onward. All I could think was how glad I was not to have that hail of power aimed at me. I watched it from the corner of my eye.

The path flattened out and I stumbled, falling forward. Red flakes met my face.

“Get up, Stony. We’re there,” said Tradfast, panting and huffing. I turned my gaze up, and saw him bent double in the entranceway, puffing and wheezing, his skin and clothes bright red. “Did you see what happened to the dwarfholds?” he choked out. “My eyes sting too much to see.”

“They’re all dead!” I blurted out. “The Gods killed them.”

It must have been true; No dwarf could have survived what I just saw. The Gods were doing what had between foretold in the caverns beneath the city. They were tearing down the works of dwarf. Doubtless they had wanted to eradicate the dwarves first with their harbingers, but decided to take a more personal route after their armies had been defeated.

“No,” said Captain Lorsson. “No, Stony, you’re wrong. I don’t think the dwarves are dead, I think--”

“Come on, Stony, Tradfast, Lorsson,” came a voice from within the crater. “We don’t have much time.”

“Buro!” I said. His voice was distant and echoey, like he’d made it quite far in already.

“Yes, Stony. Everyone, come in quickly. The priests are already here. They’re on their way to find the weapon -- and destroy it.”