Naroz.

Naroz!

NAROZ!

Canth clenched his hands over his ears. The goblins' voices rasped and clattered as they frantically attacked the bars restraining them. Without a torch, the subterranean prison the Dwarf jailer had left them in lay under a curtain of pure black.

From somewhere, feet stopped, metal shrieked against metal, metal clattered against stone, and voices wailed. The sound of pounding and clattering grew louder until Canth could hear nothing but the sound. It overwhelmed the dark until he dared not even to extend his hand for fear it would graze the skin of some unseen horror.

Backing away from where he remembered the cell door to be, he bumped into another body and shrieked.

"What's happening?!" Castleia barked, presumably from beside him.

He jumped again as her voice unexpectedly broke over the torment of the goblins.

"I- I don't know," he managed, still backing away from where he remembered the cell door. His hand smacked the uneven stone of the wall and he felt a sharp corner rip the skin of his palm open. The feeling of warm blood against his skin was sickeningly comforting. His muscles quaked and shivered. His feet shuffled and stumbled. The cacophony of screams and black brutally assaulted his every sense. He other hand blindly batted at the dark beside him until it suddenly settled into another one.

Castleia quietly held his hand. Her skin was warm against his cold, shaking arm. Through the blinding black, she gently squeezed his hand.

Suddenly the goblins' screaming went silent.

Canth held his breath. Heavy footsteps plodded through the dark. Two sudden clangs bashed through the black as metal railed against metal. A spark fell, dying almost before Canth registered its light. Clattering followed as unseen bars were ripped from the hinges of the prison cells around the room.

Victories grunts and barks combined in a hum of excitement. Guttural voices barked back and forth in an unknown tongue.

The sound of several beats shoving and jostling each other followed. At last an army of footsteps plodded against the ground and faded up the tunnel, away from the cells.

Canth released his breath shakily. Castleia held his hand comfortingly as they waited for a breath.

Finally Castleia pulled led him forward. He heard a bump.

"The cell door has been ripped off," Castleia murmured.

As she led him into the center of the prison, she turned back in the dark. "See if you can find the torch. We'll need a light."

Wordlessly he tried to pull his hand away, but she continued to hold it.

"I'm alright now," he whispered.

"Good for you," she answered hollowly. "But we still do not want to get separated in the dark."

He nodded, embarassed, then realized she would not see him. Instead, he just put his hand out and let it grope for the metal conch that held the torch.

Castleia found it first. "The torch isn't here," she whispered. "It must've fallen."

Bending down, Canth let his hand search for the stick of wood, trying not to imagine what it would feel like to grasp the recently burning end. Luckily, his fingers closed around cool, smooth wood after a couple seconds of searching.

"I found it."

Bringing it up, he felt warmth emanating from the unseen smoldering tar.

"Blow on it," Castleia suggested. "There may still be embers enough to get it going again."

It took some nursing but soon a tender flicker of fire waivered at the end of the stick. After a few more minutes, a full head of flame wreathed the torchhead. Canth waved it around, surveying the room.

Twisted, shattered metal bars were strewn around the room. Hinges and bolts littered the stones, smashed and misplaced.

Beside him, Castleia gave him a wild look. Her eyes were wide and swirling in the torchlight, illuminating a vicious combination of terror, fury, and adrenaline. Mud caked one side of her face and her blonde hair was matted and tangled as it tumbled across her braced shoulders. She stooped to grab a gnarled metal bar. Testing the weight of the metal, she nodded toward the tunnel.

"I suppose we'd best be going?"

"Should we?" Canth questioned.

She looked back at him. "Politics, history, and introductions are your thing, scribbler. This is mine. If they come back, we are cornered here. We'd best not be here when they do."

"But why didn't they kill us when they had the chance? They saw us come in."

She shook her head. "I don't know, nor care. But we can't be here."

Picking through the metal heaps, she pushed toward the tunnel. Canth followed with the torch, gently waving the torch back and forth the survey the scene.

Only eerie silence met them in the tunnel. The muddy, stony tunnel floor was scuffed with feet, but Canth could not make out any tracks or even guess how many monstrous feet had plodded across it.

Suddenly Castleia stopped. "I guess we know why they didn't kill us."

"Why's that?"

She nodded to the left wall, near the floor. Canth followed her gaze and started.

A wizened corpse hung loosely from the stone wall, just high enough for its feet to touch the floor with its boot tips. Two glassy eyes stared upward toward the ceiling, expressionless above a face petrified with horror. The hilt of a rusted, broad-bladed sword jutted from just below his sternum. His once-white beard was soaked a dark, almost black, crimson that reeked of iron and sweat. A small, triangular dagger hung from a limp hand. The pathetic, dangling weapon somehow made the scene even more disturbing.

"Dold," Castleia murmured. "The goblins had others to kill besides us."

Canth gaped.

She untangled the dead Dwarf's dagger from his fingers and tested its weight. "Here," she passed him the metal bar she had carried.

"What? I don't know how to use this!"

She squinted at him. "If someone looks like they will kill you, swing. Hard." She started to turn around and turned back. "Or me."

They picked carefully back up the tunnel. As they ascended, noise started to travel down from the world above. It was entirely incomprehensible – a demonic, incoherent cacophony of violence.

At least they breached the steps that led to the upper world. As their heads poked through the top of the tunnel, Canth took a step back.

It was as though hell had ascended from some lower world through the Dwarven tunnels to scorch the surface. Fires consumed the meager Dwarven camp. Some of the tunnels blossomed scorching red tongues of flame that belched in crackling wraiths from the bowls of the earth. The smell of smoke and ash mingled with the must of mud and cold mountain air into an etherworldly feeling.

Amid the dancing fires and flickering shadows, a hundred different battles raged. Silhouettes of short Dwarves twisted and raged against larger, stooped foes. In the blazing lights, each appeared as little more than a black specter against a backdrop of flame.

"What the hunt," Castleia muttered. The dagger twisted nervously in her hand as her wide eyes took in the scene.

"Where do we go?" Canth whispered.

The gates that had loomed so glaringly in the daylight were all but invisible in the seething night.

Before Castleia could answer, the thumping of heavy feet rapidly approached from behind. Canth whirled and blindly swung his metal bar as fiercely as he could.

Even before he had finished turning, he heard a thud, felt a shock travel up his arm, and the clattering of broken bones.

Behind them, a goblin reeled, clawing at his face where blood and teeth trickled through his fingers.

Castleia leaped at the monster, who threw its gore-strewn hands up to catch her. One claw slapped across her face awkwardly but the other failed to connect before she sunk Dold's dagger into its eye.

Wrenching the blade out, she whirled. "We need to go. Now." A gore-stained handprint marked her cheek.

"But where?" Canth spun, searching through the carnage for any semblance of the gates.

"I don't care but not here."

She grabbed his arm and steered him away from the mouth of the tunnel through the hellish din.

Few noticed them. The goblins had directed their attention to the Dwarves that raged against them. Short, whirling combatants entirely guised in plates of armor, the Dwarves were nearly as terrifying as their opponents. Blood sprayed from a hundred different battles, slickening the ground until Castleia and Canth were slowed to a near crawl through the carnage.

As they crawled, heavy feet suddenly charged after them. Canth turned again, his metal bar raised.

A chainmailed hand shot up and wrenched the weapon from his grasp. Twisting it out of his grasp, two eyes glared up from under a foreboding Dwarven helm.

"Don't be ridiculous," a vaguely familiar voice scoffed. "Where in the Nine Halls do you think you're going?"

"Out of here," Castleia spat back. "We have no interest in dying in your battle. Prey, we haven't even fought our own yet."

Theror nodded, his helm clanking. "I thought as much. You'll need these, I imagine." The Dwarf unslung a familiar round shield from his back and handed it to Canth. "I believe this was yours." He unclasped a thick sword from his belt, pommeled in bronze and carved with the shape of a gem on its hilt, which he handed to Castleia. "And you'll know how to use this it seems."

Castleia warily shook her head. "Give it to the scribbler." She fingered her knife. "He'd be useless with dagger anyway."

Theror sized him up. "Hmph. I don't doubt you're right. Yours then," he said, handing the weapon instead to Canth.

The three stood on the edge of the battle for another heartbeat, uncomfortably sizing each other up.

"You're just letting us go then," Castleia interrogated, eyes narrowed with suspicion. "After the chains and the forced marches and the mud prison. You are arming us and letting us go."

Theror's fingers stroked his beard. Heavy metal plates were formed to the stubby joints, clicking slightly in the din of the fires and battles. Smoke reeked and hazed the air between them, but Canth saw the firelight dancing across his eyes through his helmet.

"Letting you go? No, not so much as that."

His fist shot out, grabbing each of them by the collars of their tunics and yanking them down to his level. Canth nearly yelped at the sudden wrench while Castleia just silently recoiled, lifting her dagger threateningly.

"I'm sending you away. That way," he wagged a finger toward where the high peaks of the mountain stabbed deeper into the night-clad heavens. "To the king. Blaze Thergyn's pride," the Dwarf spat. He shrugged reluctantly. "But perhaps this was Naroz's plan all along. In any case, King Gerdyn is elder and wiser than his son. Tell him everything you've seen here today. He will know what to do."

"And he will believe us?" Castleia challenged.

"Show him the sword, and he will."

"How will we know how to get there?" Canth said.

Theror chuckled darkly. "The Dwarves see all above and below the mountain. Climb up." He pointed again. "Bar-Tegon is the largest peak in Tegonograth and at its summit sits Gerdyn's throne. They will find you before you find them, however, so do not fear of missing him."

As they spoke, a goblin bolted from the swirling fray, charging toward them. Four arms, two sprouting from each bulbously disjointed shoulder, slashed through the air frantically with long, mangled talons.

Theror instinctively released them and reached for his sword, forgetting it was in Canth's hands. The boy acted of his own instinct, turning the creature aside with his shield and slashing across its back with the Dwarf's heavy blade.

The goblin dropped with a scream.

"Well done," Theror mused.

Canth panted, suddenly out of breath. His eyes locked on the dully shining metal. A thick ruby droplet slipped from its edge to plop against the ground.

"Go on then," Theror said, shoving them toward the wall. "Follow the barricade and you'll reach the gate. Go through, climb, and do not look back. We will send a hawk when the dust settles, but I wager you will give a better account than any of our soldiers can scratch in paper."

"And what will you do?"

The Dwarf reached above his shoulder, drawing the short shaft of a broadheaded ax from an unseen sheath in the rear of his armor. "I'll find Thergyn. The forged fool has probably already been caught in a burrow."

From what Canth remembered of the raging prince from the prior afternoon, he could not imagine Thergyn ever being caught. Before he could muster a response, however, Castleia grabbed his arm and they were off.

The battle faded to Canth before they had left the stone encirclement. Fires still burned. Blood was still shed and mingled in the dirt. A gentle light of dawn peaked between the hills to reveal the violence in a sickeningly innocent glow.

But his thoughts were torn instead to the blood on his hand. The sword weighed heavier in his hand than it had before. Blood shouldn't weight this much, he shuddered. For some reason he immediately regretted the thought.

Led by Castleia, the two began picking up the rocks. Much to their relief, relief that came upon retrospection, the sheer faces of the mountain dropped off into the valley rather than rising up into the mountains' summits. From where Theror had already led them, the mountains rose up in steep paths made treacherous only by the shifting stones that covered the crude surfaces. Every rock was frigid to the touch until their fingers were numb, but Canth's hand had gone numb before ever touching stone despite the hot life that dripped from it.

Or perhaps because of it.

Perspiration gathered as they climbed, forming a clammy film on his palms and brow. The sun gradually rose over the heightened, desolate landscape until the cold rocks shone with new color. The day slowly emerged in beauty, but it could not displace the haze of exhaustion and terror that had settled into Canth's mind. The sunlight felt distant from the desolation of battle and stone as though the two scenes did not quite meet where they seemed to touch.

After several hours of climbing, they reached a broad plateau in the winding mountains. Castleia pulled herself up and dropped to the ground, resting her back against a crude granite face.

Canth reached for a handhold and pulled himself up. Looking back, he saw the gore from his hand left in its wake a crimson handprint that was already darkening into a maroon stain.

His lip upturned in a humorless grin. I always wanted to leave a mark on the world. Guess now I have. As he stared out over the sweeping, stooping landscape that plunged downward from where they had come, he shivered again. I always thought it would be in ink.

From far below, his eyes made out a black column of smoke rising through the clear skies. Several fires burned in orange pinpricks against the muddy slopes of the mountain, but the sounds and sights of battle had disappeared.

Thank you for reading this far!! Wow, two chapters in a week; I must be on a roll XD I'm seriously excited where this story is going though and hope you are too. If you have any thoughts, please let me know! In the mean time, happy reading.