There was a blue flash, and a surge of energy snapped at my fingers, singing the hair on my knuckles. I fell backwards, tangling myself in the leather straps again. They held on to me like the belts a doctor might tie to a restless patient, tiny runes on them beginning to light up. Below me I heard a rattle as the sapphire fell far into the depths of the machine. Then the whole contraption began to whirr, vibrate and rumble, like a hundred cogs turned within.

“Stony!” screamed Lorsson. “Get out of there now!”

“No,” came another shout. Buro, from above. “You must stay in there! Grab onto the straps!”

I did so, squeezing the leather with all my might. The soft surface felt warm, almost as if it was alive.

Another clang shook the machine, then another even bigger one that sent shockwaves through the metal struts.

“Don’t listen to Buro!” shouted Lorsson. “We’re on our way up!”

Through a gap in the floor, view half obscured my blades and needles, I saw them clambering up the machine towards me. Lorsson’s metal armour weighed him down, and Tradfast soon overtook him, his huge hands and arms straining the metal and making the embedded gems flicker as he passed.

“Stop!” I shouted, wriggling a little to stop the leather strap squeezing me. Whatever this weapon was going to do, it needed its operators held in securely. “You’ll break it! Go away!”

“This is not a weapon!” screamed Tradfast. “The King is going to kill you, and all of us too!”

“It’s a damn weapon!” I yelled. “Why is this so hard for you to accept? Is it just too hard to admit that it’s your fault your miners died?”

“Stony!” shouted Lorsson. “Cut those leather straps away from yourself!”

“No!” I yelled. “This machine’s here to help us!”

The moment the words left my mouth, a strap from one of the other five chambers whipped out and wrapped around Lorsson’s leg. He shouted out, and fumbled for his blade, but before his hand even reached the hilt another strap struck his fingers. There was a painful smacking sound, then he lost balance with his foot and swung around backwards, hanging on with only one hand.

“Lorsson!” shouted Tradfast. “Pull yourself away from them!”

The Captain roared and swung himself back around. Again, he reached for his blade but a strap lashed out, this time wrapping around his hand and squeezing, the little runes in the snake-like skin flashing yellow. Lorsson cried out in pain.

“Shit!” said Tradfast, and began to reverse his climb, fumbling for his sword as he did so.

“Don’t bother!” shouted Lorsson. “Rescue Stony, and get to the head of the machine with him.”

“Idiot! If Stony doesn’t want to be rescued, I’ll just finish this myself!”

I clenched my jaw and shook my head. The fools! Any moment now this whole metal edifice would climb its way out of the mountain and lay waste to the Gods with its blades and poison. The straps were here so we wouldn’t fall out. Lorsson and Tradfast had to be wrong; if this machine wouldn’t kill the Gods, what meaning did Airon’s death even hold?

“Stop fighting!” I shouted. “The thing’s trying to protect us!”

“Stony!” screamed Captain Lorsson. “If you still don’t believe me, look up!”

I gazed up and into the machine. Blades spun and whirred, scraping against lengths of metal to sharpen themselves. Pulleys hauled up bags of poison, and on every strut those strange helical runes switched on and off, creating endless chasing lights. Everything shook and wobbled. Some of the screws holding in the blades were coming out and most of the poison containers leaked. But I didn't see Lorsson’s point.

A needle, long as my arm, glinted above my head. A tiny drop of orange dripped from it and landed on my shoulder.

“Ow!” It burned and hissed, giving off the same stench I’d smelt before, but much stronger. When the vapour puffed away, a tiny hole had appeared in the fabric of my shirt. Another glint caught my eye, and another. A dozen needles had appeared above my head, each one slowly pushing into the chamber.

“Shit!” I screamed, and desperately pulled and grabbed at the leather straps holding me down. But the runes in them only grew brighter, and their strength firmer. My sword! I looked down at it on my hip, tried to wiggle my wrist in enough to draw it. But even if I could reach, there was no room for me to pull it out.

“No! Buro, you bastard!” A hard nub of metal smacked against my thigh, and I screamed even louder, expecting a piercing pain and a flood of evil chemicals to shoot into me. But it was my dagger, not a needle.

Arm muscles nearly tearing with the strain, I inched my hand in enough to wrap three fingers over the handle. I drew the short, hollow blade and slashed through the leather straps like they were no tougher than paper.

“Get off me!” I screamed, flailing around wildly, until enough of the straps had gone

dark and fallen loose for me to clamber from the chamber. I looked down, fighting off vertigo as I tried to understand what was happening. Tradfast was halfway into one of the chambers, his strength no defence against the three straps pulling on each limb. Lorsson was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear his screams coming from the chamber below Tradfast’s.

"Lorsson!" I shouted. "I'm coming for you!"

"No! Save yourself.” His voice alternated between broken and sleepy. Had the poison needles torn through his armour and stabbed into his veins already? “Get to the top of the machine. Turn it off!"

“Listen to him, Stony!” shouted Tradfast. “You need to get to Buro and stop this thing!”

I tightened my grip on the struts, and began to shiver. This had all gone so wrong. It wasn’t supposed to have happened like this. I was meant to kill the Gods and save Airon. How could this have happened? The squealing of gears and Lorsson’s agonised screams blended together inside my skull. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening!

“Stony!” screamed Lorsson. “You have to--”

His scream was cut off by a high pitched whine and a sound like scissors slicing through steak. He gave a final moan, and fell silent.

Lorsson was dead. Yet another dwarf killed, and, I suddenly realised, perhaps the closest dwarf I’d had to a friend besides Airon.

“Stony!” shouted Tradfast. “Switch the machine off, and kill Buro! Do something fucking useful for once!”

I narrowed my eyes. Tradfast was still not fully in the chamber, and his voice remained loud and vital. The needles hadn’t stabbed him yet. He was right. I did have a chance to be useful.

“I’m coming to get you!” I cried, and began to clamber down. More straps lashed out at the big dwarf, wrapping around his torso. I gritted my teeth. Every movement of my limbs, every half-metre I moved down and across, he was pulled a little further into the darkness. But he wasn’t so far away.

“Stony! You won’t make it in time. Go for Buro!”

“No! You were right about everything, Tradfast. From the very beginning! I was a fool, and I can’t do this without your help. Keep fighting!”

“Idiot! Leave me!”

“Shut up!” I pulled myself across the final half-metre. Now Tradfast was within sword reach. Tightening my grip on the strut with my right hand, curling my toes until they hurt against the metal band against my feet, I reached to my hip and drew my sword. Flakes of red drifted off it in a scattered cloud, and it scratched sparks from the machine as I drew it across my body awkwardly. I focused my eyes on the straps curling around Tradfast’s arm - there was only an inch between his wrist and the metal side of the chamber. If I missed I’d take his hand off.

“Get to the fucking--”

I swung down, only saw the sword and that one inch of leather straps in my mind. I sliced through it a mere hairsbreadth from Tradfast’s wrist. He ripped his arm free, and plunged it into the chamber.

“Idiot!” I cried. “What are you doing?”

“Drawing my own fucking sword!”

Tradfast unsheathed the gleaming steel, and hacked his other arm and torso free. “Get off me!” he yelled, and put both hands on the encircling strut of the chamber, sword held awkwardly against the metal, and began to pull himself out. His face turned bright red and the veins on his neck bulged. His legs must have been completely ensnared.

“I”ll help you!” I said, fumbling to put my sword away so I could clamber closer. But he didn't need me. With a roar of fury, he pulled himself free of the chamber, the leather straps around his legs snapping.

He hung there for a moment, panting in the cold, slightly acidic air.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “I was ready to die, you know.”

“I don’t care,” I said, sliding my sword back into its sheath. “We need to get Buro and stop this thing.”

“Yeah,” he said, breathing heavily. “Yeah.”

Lorsson’s death hung in the air between us for a few seconds. I opened my mouth to say something, but decided against it.

I began to climb, feeling the metal against my hands vibrating faster. The smell of acid intensified too burning my throat until I was coughing and trying not to breathe in too deeply. I wondered how poisonous it was. I shook my head and continued my ascent, one pull of the arm at a time.

Buro was still sat in the head of the machine, poking and pressing at the panel in front of him.

“I’m going to kill you!” shouted Tradfast. “I’m going to cut your guts out!”

But his words had no effect on the possessed dwarf. He pressed and flicked away at whatever was in front of him, brows narrowed in concentration and concern. Perhaps his original plan was to have all three of us killed in the machine, and he was having to change something now only Lorsson had been caught. Or perhaps he needed to adjust something to prevent the ancient machine falling apart. Whatever the case, we had no way of knowing how soon he’d finish.