Ember laughed at her luck as she stalked the tunnels under the obsidian mountains.

All around her marched the automatons of Azazel’s army, each with picks, drills, and dynamite at the ready. Ember herself strode among them in Zoot, the automaton in which she could ride. Zoot held a shovel in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other, and his eyes lit up the black tunnels.

And shined upon the back of the first dreila she’d ever seen: Koshek. Dreila like him had been in the most terrifying of tales children told around the burning trash barrel for as long as she could remember. All any child ever claimed to have seen was those glowing red eyes in the dark. Most of the time they merely saw someone they love get snatched up in the shadows. But now, Ember was able to watch this monster’s every step. Everything she knew about these demons told her she should bash him over the head immediately. But her king had ordered her unit to trust Koshek, and she was already committing enough insubordination just by joining the battle.

Besides, King Ozz had ordered them to follow Koshek specifically because he knew these tunnels, and Ember was already unsure of how to get back out from this far in.

“Could you lower those lights just a little?” Koshek called back to the whole automaton unit. “I see better in the dark. You’re blinding me.”

Ember lowered Zoot’s head just a little, casting it across the dreila’s lower back. She dared not lower the lights any further, though, lest she lose sight of him. One thing the children always said about the eyes of a dreila: you never wanted to lose sight of them in the dark. How much more so when one only had a view of its soot-black back?

Bits of black, glass dust crumbled from the ceiling to her right, and obsidian shards fell. The clattering noise covered Ember’s voice as she whispered, “Zoot, ask Koshek draw sword.”

Zoot’s booming, mechanical voice resounded in the tunnels, “Koshek, please draw your sword.”

The dreila stopped in his tracks and his red eyes came into view as he turned his head to gaze back at Ember and Zoot. “Why? Did you see something?”

The only sounds in the tunnel at the moment were the running automaton engines echoing down the stone halls. Did Ember dare whisper? Would Koshek or the others hear her voice and realize that she was a child in a place she should not be? Whatever her fears, she was all in now. Once she’d made Zoot speak there was no turning back.

She whispered as quietly as she could, “Zoot, say, ‘I’m having trouble seeing you.”

“I’m having trouble seeing you,” came Zoot’s vibratto reply.

“And drawing your sword…”

“And drawing your sword…” Zoot repeated.

“Might make…”

“Might make…”

“You easier to spot.”

“You easier to spot,” Zoot concluded with a confident not. Ember wasn’t sure if that was his nod or her own.

Koshek chuckled and Ember heard the sound of a blade leaving a leather sheath. But she saw nothing.

“Shine higher,” Koshek commanded.

Ember tilted her head up to shine light and saw the shadows dance on the wall in the shape of a curved blade in Koshek’s hands, but the blade itself was too dark for her to spot until she squinted. Koshek waved the sword back and forth, and the simple motion made the blade disappear from view.

“I don’t think this is going to help much.” Koshek sheathed his sword and turned to lead the way again, but this time he lifted his knees high and stomped with every step so they could hear him. The automaton unit followed.

Further into those tunnels, the stench of sulphur from brimstone wafted up into Ember’s nostrils, and her eyes fell upon cracks in the ground through which she could see the glow of molten rock.

“His majesty was cleverer than I thought!” called Koshek’s voice from up ahead. The dreila stood with his back to a wall of collapsed rubble and obsidian splinters. “He collapsed this passage. We need to get through to the tunnels on the other side.”

Koshek moved aside as several automatons rushed forward to check the structural integrity of the tunnel. A voice like a locomotive engine said, “We can’t use dynamite here. It’ll bring the ceiling down on us. Bring those drills and picks. We’ll get through this mess.”

Ember stepped forward to help with the dig, but too many automatons got in her way and arrived there first, immediately setting to work to remove the obstacles in their path.

“Uuuuuuuuuwaaaaaaannnn…”

The whispery voice snaked down the halls behind them, and Ember’s blood froze.

Koshek cursed loudly and drew his sword again. “An uwan? In these tunnels? Damn!” He pointed at Zoot and three other automatons. “Come with me. We have to deal with this NOW!”

“What’s an uwan?” one of the automatons called out.

As if to give a partial answer to the question, a shard of black glass flew off the ground and smashed itself upon the automaton’s chest. Another automaton lifted off the ground and crashed into the wall twice before his comrades managed to get hold of him.

Ember saw a distant glow moving through the tunnels, and streams of fire roared around the corner. The blaze struck one of the automatons, turning his metal shell red hot.

Koshek and the companions he chose ducked low and hurried down the corridor, toward the source of the streams of fire. Ember followed as the other automatons gathered stones in the way behind which they could take cover.

“We’re in its territory!” Koshek called back to Ember and the others. “The uwan will not tolerate trespassers!”

All Ember knew about this “uwan” the shadow-skinned demon was talking about was that it was casting spells at her companions, even though they could not see it. That was enough to know that it was dangerous and that it needed to be destroyed, but she still felt the temptation to demand to know exactly what it was. For now, though, she had to trust the demon leading them through the dark.

More streams of fire barreled down at them from the darkness, and they all ducked low as the intense heat passed overhead. Shadows danced around the tunnels, both from the wild flames and each automaton’s panic. Ember tripped on a jagged rock and stumbled forward, into the nearest wall. Zoot’s chest and face dented, but Ember was unharmed.

When she turned her head again to see what was going on, Zoot’s glowing eyes illuminated humanoid shapes in the dark, moving toward them. Charging them, in fact.

Ember lifted her right arm and Zoot raised his sledgehammer over his head, ready to defend them from whatever lay ahead.

A low rattling sound, followed by something between a hiss and a growl.

Zoot’s lights illuminated rotting, decomposed faces of the creatures running their way. They were corpses lifted up to their feet as if marionettes on magical strings.

“Necrolytes!” cried one of the automatons.

Ember threw her arm forward and Zoot brought the sledgehammer around to crush one’s skull.

While Ember and Zoot stood with the right arm extended, another of the undead creatures threw itself onto Zoot’s shoulder. Ember staggered around in the tunnel, her automaton companion crashing into the walls.

The necrolyte lifted a jagged piece of granite in its hand and stabbed Zoot with it over and over. From within Zoot’s body, Ember could see Zoot’s armor denting inward in sharp points. She failed to restrain a scream of fright, then threw Zoot’s shoulder up against the opposite wall. The weight of the automaton’s body crushed the necrolyte’s bones.

Behind her, Ember heard the sound of a drill tearing rotting flesh and dry bones.

Then of a pickaxe piercing a skull.

Then countless more shambling footsteps. She turned just as another swarm of undead leapt upon she and her companions. She swung out her shovel and cleaved off a necrolyte’s head. The skull bounced off the wall and smacked into another necrolyte’s chest.

Ember and her companions flailed and thrashed to fight off the onslaught of undead.

A rock connected with Zoot’s head. It spun around to face backward, and Ember could no longer see through the eye slits.

Blind and terrified, all of Ember’s movements grew more erratic. She swung at every hint of a sound, her shovel sometimes scraping metal.

More of those horrible, rattling growls from all around her. More stones striking Zoot’s iron body. Ember bit her lip and forced back tears as she fought with all she had, lost in the darkness and surrounded by death.

“Hold!”

She thrashed about again, and she heard her comrades’ metal feet moving away from her. The hammer and shovel hit only open air, until the shovel scratched the stone walls around her.

“I said hold!” came the voice again. This time, Ember recognized it as Koshek’s voice and she stopped. The inside of Zoot’s head echoed as steel fingers grasped it and turned it so he was facing forward again. Ember could once again see through the slits just under his lantern eyes.

“There’s no more undead,” Koshek said. “Quick! Get to the source, before something else happens!”

Ember’s mind was awash with so many questions, but before her mouth had even opened to ask them, the automaton unit rushed off to follow Koshek deeper into the tunnels. She found herself swept up in the clockwork tide and carried away to the next fray.

The group of them stumbled out into a huge, round room. A blue glow permeated the air, illuminating the floating bits of silver and black dust. The floor was carved into a spiral, circling down to the center where rested a pewter-colored metallic orb.

“Uuuuuuuuwaaaaaaaaaaaannnn…”

The voice came from all around, but was strongest from the metal orb in the center of the room.

A whisper from the shadows nearby, “There it is.”

Ember jumped at the noise, only to realize that it was Koshek’s voice.

“Give me a stick of dynamite,” Koshek whispered to one of the other automatons.

Behind her, Ember heard the sound of something being slipped into the dreila’s dark hand. For just a moment, it occurred to Ember that if the dreila had meant to sabotage the automatons’ contributions to the battle he had just received the perfect tool to do so. She prepared to reach out and seize his arm, but a rumbling sound from near the metal orb snapped her attention back.

Rocks fell from the ceiling and gathered themselves in the shape of a large, vaguely humanoid figure. No sooner was the golem assembled then it charged at the cluster of automatons at the entrance to the cavern.

The automaton unit charged in turn, hacking away at the golem’s solid body with their pick-axes and grinding it with their drills.

“Uuuuuwaaaaannn…”

As the automatons fought back against the golem, the tunnel shook and more stones fell from the ceiling, forming a second golem. Then a third. Then a fourth. Soon the tunnels were filled with a cacophony of noise, stone banging metal and metal grinding stone. Ember smashed her sledgehammer into the bodies of the golems over and over, but for every one golem that fell, two more took its place. The ceiling grew higher and higher above them, causing the echoes to grow louder with each passing moment. Golems smashed automatons to pieces and crushed their adonium cores.

Just when the noise and violence reached a crescendo, an explosion rocked the cavern, and threw Ember and her compatriots on their backs. Smoke and dust filled the cavern, and Ember coughed as it entered Zoot’s visor.

When the dust settled and the smoke faded, Ember looked up to see a small crater in the center of the room, and the shattered pewter orb scattered about the cavern. Koshek stepped into the middle of the cavern and kicked the metallic bits, which sparked and whimpered.