The Ransom of Dragons

by R.W. Ware

Grimwar Hammerstone crouched on the precipice of the Ashemoor River Basin gazing down at a bowl of stone and twisted trees bent like charred skeleton, where once thrived a lush forest. Now, not even crows roosted there. But atop a rock that jutted between the two waterfalls across the basin loomed the blackened remains of Ashekeep.

Behind Hammerstone, where the forest was still verdant, a twig snapped. He resisted the urge to spin. The men of his company were behind the tree line. No enemy would pass them unnoticed.

“Come forward, Will Hawkwood,” Hammerstone said, tilting his sword to lift the scabbard as he went down to one knee. “But keep low, else you would as well wave our banner.”

“Aye, Sir Grimwar,” Will said, his half-whisper like crackling firewood. “Sir Jacob sent me for to bring you this.” He proffered a fist-sized purse bound with a leather thong.

Hammerstone drew the thong open and reached in with gloved fingers. He found a single scale the color of charcoal, the base of which was still attached to muscle. “Looks like we’ve come to the right place, lad.”

“Bloody madness, us rescuing a dragon, lord.” Will cleared his throat quietly, and added, “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

“Aye,” Hammerstone said, thumping the blond longbowman on the shoulder, “just the task the king prefers for us. Now, come. Let’s see what the others have found.”

Hammerstone backed into the forest more quietly in full armor than Will did in in his archer’s tunic. Once in the trees, Will tiptoed and pivoted, struggling for balance, while Hammerstone trod gracefully in sabatons.

“God’s blood, Hawkwood,” said Brehton Lefwin, his gravelly voice unimpeded by his gorget. Were he not bald as a babe’s ass from his ears up, Lefwin could be confused for a bear in armor. “You’ll have the darkspawn looking for another dragon up here, you’re any louder.”

“Aye,” said Hammerstone, grinning up at the six-and-a-half-foot captain of his men-at-arms. “If he couldn’t shave a quim with a bodkin at two hundred yards, I might have him tend the horses.” Will was Hammerstone’s most senior ventenar and would’ve been centenar had a hundred archers remained in the free company.

Will grinned stupidly as he stumbled out into the clearing to mingle with the rest of the company.

Lefwin shook his head, spilling some of his thick, red beard around the gorget. “Can’t see a whore worth a penny lifting her cotte for that lad.”

“Can’t see how your horse carries you,” came a retort, though the voice was low enough that it could’ve come from any one of the ranks Hawkwood had joined.

“Well, Grimwar,” Sir Jacob Godhelm called, leading his warhorse through the underbrush and into the clearing, “what have you done to earn the king’s enmity this time?” Jacob stood half a foot shorter than Lefwin, but Hammerstone still had to look up to see him. Jacob had black hair with silver wings at his temples, and he kept clean-shaven. He’d been lithe when Hammerstone had first met him. In the decades since, Godhelm had needed his armor let out.

“You don’t find our current situation appealing?” Hammerstone said, and grinned.

“Oh, aye. Risking life and limb to liberate a creature which would readily devour me is always a desirable prospect.” He shook his head and crossed his arms over his breastplate. “I thought we were to rescue a princess.”

“Aye,” said Hammerstone, unable to resist a chuckle. “So she is.”

“I’ve known a few women who could presumably spew forth fire,” Jacob Godhelm said, “but none had scales and wings.”

“Her father is the Dragonlord, Jacob,” Hammerstone said, grabbing the reins of his chestnut courser and the cantle of the saddle. “The king has an accord with the creature.”

“Ah,” Godhelm said. “It is all plain under the light of that candelabra.”

“What is plain?” Lefwin asked, reining between Hammerstone and Godhelm.

Jacob shrugged. “The king is a mad as a barrel of badgers.”

“Unless we want bunged up inside that barrel,” Hammerstone said as he swung up in the saddle, “we need to find a way into Ashekeep.”

“For that,” Jacob said. “I may have an answer.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone studied the cave angling into the earth, with a mouth that was big enough to ride into. Godhelm and Lefwin loomed nearby. More scales littered the lichen-covered rocks and tramped grass. The six maples surrounding the cave had scratches, grooves, and rings stripped free of bark on the lower parts of their trunks. Hammerstone ran a gloved hand over them.

“This is where they took her,” Hammerstone said, standing. “After a fierce struggle, they anchored her to these trees. The numbers were great.”

“How do you know that?” Lefwin asked.

Hammerstone plucked an eyeball from the rocks. It smelled like curdled milk. He grimaced and held it forth for the others to see. The amorphous pupil in a swampy yellow orb clearly identified which creature it belonged to. “Only thing goblins have are numbers. But something else troubles me.”

“And that that would be?” said Godhelm, as Lefwin climbed up to the hilltop around the hole and gazed down upon them.

“Why didn’t she burn them, Jacob? That eye was torn out, the trees clawed, but not a single burn mark.” Hammerstone dropped the eyeball.

“God’s bones, Grimwar. You’re too close to the matter,” Lefwin called down. “It wasn’t goblins what subdued her.”

Hammerstone looked at Godhelm and nodded toward Lefwin. They climbed. Before he even reached the top, Hammerstone could see what Lefwin had. The bent grass was in giant footprints. Giants were rare, but even fewer could keep a dragon from its fire. It had to be a frost giant—and few men survived them without frost in their beards and winter gripping their hearts.

Godhelm said, “A frost giant and goblins? ‘Tis but a tilt with a quintain.”

“And it’s the king what’s mad, is it?” said Lefwin.

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone cupped his hands and imitated a raven’s call—the signal for Miles Everar, another ventenar of his archers. A moment later, the mousy-haired longbowman stepped into the small clearing. He eyed the cave, then Hammerstone.

“Lord?”

“Picket the horses half a furlong back,” Hammerstone said, coming down the slope. “Then send me your most fastidious scout. Someone who can go down this hole discreetly and bring us the lay of it.”

Everard opened his mouth as if to say something.

“He’s got to be a swift bastard, too,” added Lefwin, before Everard could speak. “It’ll be dark as a whore’s cunny down there while the sun is in the sky. At nightfall, only the vermin will see anything.”

“Swift man in a cunny, are you, Cap’n?” Everard asked, with a chuckle.

“Some day you may know what a cunny is like,” Lefwin said, descending the hill.

“No time for persiflage, lads,” Hammerstone said. What lay ahead was no easy feat. Not only did they have to rid themselves of a horde of goblins and a frost giant, they had to prepare to protect their charge against those who sent them. Who could forge creatures so hostile to each other into a unified force? A warlock? A witch?

“Grimwar has the right of it. Fastidious and clever over speed,” said Godhelm, “though all three qualities would be most fortuitous.”

“That’d be Thom Daguin, Lord,” Everard said to Hammerstone, after nodding at Godwin. “He were a thief afore he joined the ranks. Got hisself in a right tight spot with a nobleman’s wife and had the city guard hunting him. Fled through hidden passages and alleyways, he did, but didn’t fully escape till signing on with us.”

“You trust him?”

“Aye, lord,” Everard replied with a nod of obesience. “Been with the Steeljacks these four years. Had plenty of chances to run, did he, but never once did he leave a man in a spot. And he confesses hisself to the friar on the sabbath, he does. Were he what found a way out of the Deadgate Canyons.”

Lefwin whistled. “By the devil’s prick, that was a fight! Thought the whoresons would pick our bones clean on that day.”

Hammerstone nodded, remembering crossbolts and spears flying from atop the close cavern walls as vividly as if it were yesterday. He thumped Everard on the shoulder, and said: “Aye, that is the proper man for the task. Tell him bring only his seax.”

“Aye, lord.” The mousy ventenar bowed quickly and slipped back into the woods like a seasoned hunter.

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone watched Thom Daguin shuffle along the descending slope, like a fox raiding a rabbit warren. When Hammerstone learned that Daguin could imitate a vast array of animal calls, he decided if there were immediate danger, Thom would squawk like a jaybird; if the course were clear, he’d trill like a starling. Thom Daguin’s coal-black hair and sun-browned skin helped the archer scout fade into the shadows.

“Brehton,” Hammerstone said, “have the men-at-arms fell branches and make pikes. The bowmen can help.”

“Archer’s stakes?” Lefwin nodded and grinned.

“Aye. Small ones, like pikes.” Hammerstone thumped Lefwin’s shoulder. “Two sets. One around the camp and picket line, and about thirty to be brought here. I want a line leveled at whatever comes out of that cave entrance.”

“Bleeding dragon’s teeth,” Lefwin said, nodding his approval. He spun and marched off at the double.

“You expect trouble at the camp?” Godhelm said, voice barely above a whisper. He scanned the treetops and then met Hammerstone’s gaze.

“Jacob,” Hammerstone said with the grin he wore into battle, “doesn’t trouble always seek us out? And there is something familiar here, a darkness I recognize in my guts.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

By the time Hammerstone heard the trill of a starling echoing out of the mouth of the burrow, Lefwin’s men-at-arms had brought the last of the stakes and stacked them to the side of the archer’s stakes already tilted toward the hole. A moment later, Thom Daguin crept out of the shadows, forearms blocking his squinting eyes. The bowman smelled of curdled milk, dragon scat, and stale piss. Hammerstone took a few steps back. Daguin shivered, and his beard and eyebrows were wet.

Daguin said, “Frost, lord. About thirty rods in, it gets colder than the devil’s pizzle. Afore I reached the lair, I crept on a layer of ice.”

“Brehton,” Hammerstone called to his captain, “get this man some brandy.”

Rubbing his arms and shivering, Daguin stuttered his thanks.

“God’s tears, Grimwar,” Lefwin said, handing Hammerstone a clay costrel with a cork in it, “the man smells like he swam in a privy.”

“That is because I’ve sent him into one,” said Hammerstone. Then, handing the costrel to Daguin, he said, “Take a goodly draft, and then tell us what you learned.”

Daguin took a swig, grimaced, and then took another. After a third, he handed the costrel back. “Thank you, my lord.” Daguin sat on one of the boulders and rubbed his hands together. The skin had a blueish cast to it, with purple under his fingernails. “The tunnel winds like an adder, but it widens along the way. Walls are rough and pitted deeper like an oak. If we’re to go down there, my lord, we’ll have to steady ourselves on them. But if anyone holds on too long …” Daguin held up the fingers he was still trying to rub warmth into. A longbowman needed his fingers.

A chill crept into Hammerstone’s bones, but he decided it was only in his mind. They were unprepared for a winter campaign. The men would suffer. Had the king known they were to face a frost giant? “What of the lair?”

“The burrow opens up, my lord,” Daguin said, and Hammerstone noticed that the lad’s teeth had stopped chattering, “to a fair-sized cavern before it reaches the true lair, and it were guarded, so I did not enter.”

Lefwin threw his hands up and sputtered, but Hammerstone held his hand up to quell his outburst.

“I heard the darkspawn, though, lord,” Daguin said, a grin lifting his swarthy cheeks. “Muttering about guarding the ice hole, they were, afraid the dragon would get her fire back, lord. Said she’d roast them like suckling pigs, chains or no. Chattered about a secret way under a waterfall. It were that way most of them came in.”

“And the frost giant?” Lefwin said, with an explosion of pent-up breath.

Daguin shrugged. “Afore I could hear more, one of ‘em says it smells something what don’t belong. Figured best to get what I heard to you afore they found me.”

“You did fine, lad,” said Godhelm. “Now we know there is a second ingress to find, and defend, should the need arise.”

“Sir Grimwar?” William Hawkwood said from the edge of the forest.

“Aye?” Hammerstone said, looking over his shoulder at Hawkwood.

“The pickets are strung and the stakes planted. The men are wondering if we’re to make camp,” Hawkwood said.

“Go and fetch Miles Everard and bring him back,” Hammerstone said, watching Hawkwood slip stealthily back into the forest. His fumbling seemed to come and go.

“You’re pitching camp?” Godhelm asked.

Hammerstone winked and said, “I have an errand for Everard, a task for Hawkwood, and would that Friar Marcus see the men shriven.”

“A good plan,” Lefwin said.

No man wanted to go into battle unshriven, and the Steeljacks faced unholy foes.

~~~~~§~~~~~

But, my lord,” Hawkwood groaned at Hammerstone, as he held on to the rope lashed around his waist and stood on the edge of the basin over one of the thundering waterfalls, “someone must have surer footing than me.”

“Those men are holding your line,” said Hammerstone through a tight grin. “Now, you’ve got a good eye and I need use of it. If we don’t find a better way in, we all go down that icy burrow, slipping straight into the dragon’s lair. Get a little wet or get frostbite on your fingers. Being an archer, I figured you’d choose the bath.”

Hawkwood grumbled quietly and planted his heels against the ledge.

“There’s a good lad,” said Godhelm, a couple of yards from the ledge.

“Daguin nearly lost his fingers to frostbite,” Hammerstone said to Hawkwood, while looking two furlongs to the left, where the other archer leaned backward over the abyss, “and he’s going over the edge. It’s time.”

“Get your raggedy arse moving,” Lefwin said, striding toward Hawkwood.

Hammerstone watched his ventenar go over the edge. Daguin had already gone over.

“God’s teeth, Grimwar,” said Lefwin, tromping toward Hammerstone. “I’d have chosen the freezing slope.”

“I wager Grimwar has designs for neither,” said Godhelm, leaning against the bole of a young maple. He looked a little smug for Hammerstone’s liking, but he was right.

“As usual, Jacob, you prove more than a pretty face. You’d fare well at court.”

“Bah,” said Godhelm. “I’d rather get stabbed int the groin than enter that pit of gold-encrusted vipers.”

“I’d choose neither in that as well,” Hammerstone said, and then turned to Lefwin. “I need to know if there is more than one under those waterfalls, but I’ve no intention of going in through the burrow or falls.”

“Does your imp-humping plan have anything to do with the errand you sent Miles Everard on?” Lefwin squinted at Hammerstone, as if trying to work out if a gold coin was authentic.

“Aye,” said Hammerstone, tilting his head back to look askance at Lefwin. “You are welcome to join me, unless you have a preferred route.”

“My preferred route is through a brothel,” said Lefwin, waggling his eyebrows. “Since that is not an offer, I would hear your plan.”

Hammerstone thumped Lefwin’s shoulder. “I thought we might enter by the gatehouse.”

“Mother of God! Just trot right in through the portcullis. We’ll be as exposed as a pig’s bollocks.”

“We’ll have a distraction, Brehton,” said Hammerstone. “You’ve never been one to worry over such matters.”

“God’s blood. How would we even approach them?”

Scratching came from the underbrush. “Ah, the answer to your query arrives.”

Miles Everard led three men carrying a scaling ladder from the forest. They kept a few yards away from the ledge, as Hammerstone had instructed, and set their burden down once the last rung cleared Godhelm’s sabatons.

“This do, my lord?” Everard asked.

“Aye,” said Hammerstone. “How long until there are four?”

“The lads are working on it now, they is, lord,” said Everard, nodding. “Half an hour’d be a generous guess. Every man accounts hisself well.”

“Good,” Hammerstone said. “Have the archers slick their cords in fat, including the spares under their hats, and keep their sheaves in rain bags.”

“Aye, lord,” said Everard.

Hammerstone added: “I’ll need an arrow tun packed with faggots and pitch.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone offered Will Hawkwood a hand up as the archer reached the ledge and hauled him to his feet. Hawkwood looked and smelled like a wet dog. He shook his head and wiped his mouth with a wet sleeve. Hammerstone held the costrel of brandy out to his ventenar, who accepted it, pulled the cork, sniffed it, and grinned.

“This takes the sting off it, lord.” Hawkwood took a deep draft, and began to tilt backward for another, when Hammerstone grabbed his arm.

“One to warm your blood, but no more. We’ll need our wits about us.”

“Aye, lord,” said Hawkwood, corking the clay costrel and handing it back. He wiped his mouth with the same wet sleeve. “‘T’were this waterfall what had the secret entrance. No guards in sight. The waterfall were so loud, we could march an army through and be quiet as ghost farts.”

“Where does the tunnel lead?” Godhelm asked.

“Up, Sir Jacob,” Hawkwood said. “Rises like a full haycart with nothing in the traces. The tunnel lets out in a hall what’s lined with columns. Were a few armored guards posted, so I didn’t dare go too far. I didn’t see no faces, mind, but they was a too tall for goblins and too short for giants.”

“God’s bones. How tall were they?”

“Like you and me…” Hawkwood’s face screwed up for a heartbeat. “Well, more like me and Sir Grimwar. Weren’t none of them what could be confused with a bald bear.”

“Men-at-arms?” Godhelm asked. “Not hobelars?”

“Aye,” said Hawkwood, fidgeting. “Don’t see how they could’ve gotten horses in there.”

“Through the burrow, you sack of suet,” growled Lefwin.

“Well, I didn’t see none,” said Hawkwood. “Besides, wouldn’t the dragon have eaten them?”

“Not with the frost giant, Cold makes dragons lethargic.” Hammerstone said, and thumped Hawkwood’s shoulder. “Put on something dry enough to fight in.”

Everard cleared his throat.

“Miles?”

“Lord, the tun what you asked for is here. Packed with faggots dipped in pitch, just like you asked.”

“Good. Brehton, get your men ready. Everard, your archers are to set the stakes facing the burrow. Leave enough space to roll the tun through. Have Daguin and a torchbearer take it most of the length. He knows the way. Just before the ice, he’s to light the pitch and set it rolling free. When they get out, plant the last stakes, and defend that burrow at all costs.”

“Aye, lord,” said Everard, and he spun to pass the orders down the line.

“I sense a familiar blackness, Jacob.” Hammerstone slung his shield across his back.

“Avice?” Godhelm said.

“Aye, and it’s time to sort this out.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone kissed the silver crucifix that hung from leather thong around his neck, and then tucked it under his breastplate, as he waited for William Hawkwood to descend a body’s span before starting down the ladder after him. Hammerstone had never been fond of siege ladders. The taller they stretched, the weaker they were also. They bowed in the middle and made cracking noises that popped louder than damp logs in a fire.

“We ain’t going in through the waterfall, lord?” Hawkwood said, keeping a steady rhythm descending.

“Would you like to?” Hammerstone said through gritted teeth, gripping the rails as he felt the next man start down. “It can be arranged.”

“No, my lord,’ Hawkwood said.

“Curious that that route isn’t guarded,” Hammerstone said, picking up his pace. Hawkwood just avoided having his fingers stepped on. The archer picked up his speed. Hammerstone, happy to have something else to concentrate on, said. “I can think of only two reasons for that. The first is that it is such a well-guarded secret that no other would learn of it, but goblins cannot be trusted with secrets. The second, given Daguin overheard goblins speaking of it, is because it’s a trap.”

Hammerstone stepped off the ladder and headed toward the men who amassed at the base of the keep’s rear wall. Will Hawkwood matched pace with Hammerstone toward the keep.

“If it were a trap, lord,” Hawkwood said, voice a keen edge above a whisper, “wouldn’t that mean they knew we was coming?”

“Aye,” Hammerstone said in a harsh whisper, as they huddled next to the wall with Lefwin, Godhelm, and several other men-at-arms. “They knew someone would come. You don’t invade a dragon’s keep and kidnap its offspring without expecting a violent answer. We’re here to give it to them. Now string your bows and make yourselves ready.”

“Why, Sir Grimwar,” said Lefwin, putting a hand on his chest in mock adoration, “I had started to think you weren’t attending this bloody ball.”

Hammerstone drew his sword and smacked Lefwin’s backside with the flat. “No, Brehton. I’ll not make it easy for you. You’ll have to actually earn notice this day.”

Before Lefwin could answer, Hammerstone started along the right flank of the keep. He held his sword low, aligned with the ground. Rings of charcoal-black bricks surrounded the loopholes high in the wall, where once dragons had spewed forth streams of hell. Long ago Ashekeep had been the domain of men.

Godhelm and Lefwin led half the men around the left flank of the keep and would meet Hammerstone at the gatehouse—if they weren’t attacked along the way. But Hammerstone had little fear of that. The crucifix was ice-cold against his chest, and that could only mean Avice was near. She wouldn’t be satisfied with killing him; she’d want to take as many of his company with him as she could. So, Hammerstone wasn’t surprised when the others met up with him without incident.

Only an incomplete arch remained where once stood a guardhouse and portcullis. Like the loopholes, dragonfire had cooked the stone in such an unnatural heat, that the remains were a type of obsidian. Hammerstone knew something even darker watched from the shadows of the crumbling mullioned windows, as they strode into a courtyard that was overgrown where it wasn’t parched and barren.

“It’s too quiet,” whispered Godhelm. He walked in a slight crouch, his head tilted upward.

“Aye,” said Hammerstone, staring at the mouth of the cavern that used to be the keep’s door. “To lull us into complacency, no doubt. Good cause to remain alert. There is evil in this place. Once we enter, Jacob, take your men-at-arms to the right; Brehton, you and yours to the left. I’ll keep Will and Thom Daguin with me. Remember, our objective is to free the dragon, so, if I should fall—”

“Mother of God, Grimwar,” Lefwin said, “you have a way of inspiring confidence in the men.”

“If I should fall,” Hammerstone reiterated, “fire arrows will weaken the frost giant so that an ax may fell it.” He unslung his shield and slipped his arm into it.”

“I know that look, Grimwar,” Lefwin said, leaning closer. “You think she’s here?”

“Aye,” Hammerstone said, his voice low. “I know it. I can smell her scent as thick as on our wedding night.”

“You cannot save her, my friend.” Godhelm put a hand on Hammerstone’s shoulder. “She has gone too far.”

“I know that, Jacob.” Hammerstone’s head bobbed once. “I would pay almost any price for the power to do so, but Avice long ago succumbed to darkness.”

“I’m sorry, Grimwar.”

“God’s tears, Grimwar,” Lefwin’s voice was a low rumbling thunder, “Let’s free the beast and be done with this godforsaken place. Leave it to the devil for all I care. There are better fortunes elsewhere.”

“We are sworn men, Brehton,” said Hammerstone, taking a deep breath and standing up straight. It did no good to wallow in torment, and the men mustn’t see weakness before a fight. And there would surely be a fight. “Whatever the king’s orders be. Will, Thom, with me. Jacob, you and Brehton rendezvous with us when we discover the way to the hall Will found.”

Hammerstone’s men flowed into the foyer like a swift moving stream: the sound of their armor ;ole turbulent waters echoing off the walls. They had entered many a breach, but this was the first uncontested. Hawkwood and Daguin had arrows nocked in their bows but scurried across the stone floor with the surefootedness of archers accustomed to secretly positioning themselves for ambushes.

Hammerstone led them into the shadows, keeping them close enough for Hawkwood to indicate when he spotted something familiar. Daguin’s skills in unraveling mazes would come into play from there. Cracks ran along the walls and through the heavy columns leading to the vaulted ceilings, where dragons re-shaped the guts of the keep to accommodate their girth.

What was a grand corridor had become a crumbling tunnel, off to the left of which opened the great hall. Broken chandeliers swung from heavy chains, like empty gibbets, and the torches left in the crushed wall sconces had long since guttered out.

Welcome. The whisper of a woman’s voice, playfully giggling, rode on a draft that swept through the hall, undulating the ragged remains of tapestries on the wall. There immediately followed a grumbling like great stones sliding against one another, from behind them.

“We’re being swallowed up!” A panicked voice cried.

Hammerstone turned to see Robert Wells, one of the men-at-arms, leaning out of the hall, staring agape toward where they’d entered. Godhelm and Lefwin made it there before Hammerstone, and he had to push past them to see. What he saw caused his heart to pound so hard it jounced him like a carriage ride on a country road. The bricks had shifted so they were positioned like a pike’s teeth, which slowly closed the way out.

“Mother of God!” Lefwin bellowed and started toward the entrance where the blocks ground themselves together.

Hammerstone grabbed his captain’s arm. “The trap is sprung, and there is but one way out: We must complete our mission.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

“That’s one bastard of a trick,” said Lefwin, his breathing heavy, a vein throbbing on the right side of his forehead.

“Aye,” Godhelm said, clapping Lefwin once on the back, “but a distraction it is, nonetheless.”

“Sir Grimwar,” said Hawkwood, from behind the dais on the far side of the hall. The throne lay on its side, halfway down the three long steps. “There’s a passage here what goes down.” He held the rags of a tapestry aside, revealing a fire-blackened entrance. The dragons had not forced their way into that hole but made sure no man hid there.

Grimwarrrrr. It was Avice’s voice on a breeze heavy with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg—her smells.

“Brehton, Jacob, follow Will into the tunnel,” Hammerstone said, urgently. “Miles will be starting his attack any moment. Take the men and go. I’ll be along shortly.”

“Grimwar,” Godhelm said, the concern evident in his voice, “you cannot …”

“I know. Now, go. The men need you.”

Most of the men had already gone into the tunnel, and when Godhelm finally followed behind, Hammerstone spun in a half-crouch, holding his blade angled slightly toward the flagstones.

Smoke of a moldy green and oily black seeped up from the stones and down from the shadows and began to sway like a slithering serpent as it grew thicker, more solid, feminine.

“How I’ve missed you, Grimwar,” Avice’s voice came from the form before he could see the mouth from which it issued. “I long to be in your embrace, to feel the heat of your breath on my neck, your girth within me.”

“Darker things occupy those places now, Avice,” said Hammerstone. He knew the ways that she seduced, and that it was a weakness in him that longed for her to be the woman to whom he betrothed, but he couldn’t turn away. It was like an opium den in the orient, where its victims were imprisoned by the smoke of their hookahs, the walls of their cells being soft linen. “Your heart is as barren as the desert.”

“Not so, husband,” she said, as the smoke drifted away, leaving her standing in the doorway wearing a tight black dress, which left her shoulders bare and her breasts straining against the neckline. There was no wimple on her head, and her long tresses fell around her face as silkily as they did on their wedding night. “Were not my heart still yours, would I have created this ploy to get you here?” She lifted her hands beside her head and rolled her wrists, a nonchalant motion to the walls of the great hall.

“You seized a dragon to draw me here?” Hammerstone knew from the questioning lift of her eyebrows and toot-filled grin that, aside from darkness, Avice had only madness left within. Hammerstone stood to his full height, though he shifted his right foot forward but rested his weight on the left. He kept the tip of the blade angled down and his grip loose, so that he could lift and thrust the sword in the beat of a heart.

“Ever you underestimate me, my love,” she said, a smile lifting her pale cheeks to eyes that turned black as a spilled inkpot. “I did not seize but one dragon—although she is feisty enough, confess—I seized an entire brood.”

“You lie,” Hammerstone said through tight lips. “I saw the effort it took to restrain the creature. You don’t possess even the power to restrain a lone dragon without henchmen. You think I would credit you the power to restrain an entire brood?”

Avice floated closer, putting her palms together before her chin. She seemed more real at that moment, only a few wisps of smoke curling up from the bottom of her dress. “It takes little effort to contain a brood until they hatch, my love. But you are correct in one aspect: I am not alone.”

She drifted slowly closer as she spoke. Hammerstone waited patiently, giving nothing away, as he readied himself to plunge his blade into his wife’s heart—a task he should’ve done long ago. Instead, he scrunched his forehead and allowed his mouth to go slack, as if he were shocked at the revelation. He didn’t know about the dragon’s nest, but it was clear why the Dragonlord had come to the king. Men had a far better chance to infiltrate without endangering the brood, than did a dragon attacking.

“My lord is no more trusting of a woman’s abilities than you,” she said. Her grin soured for the briefest of moments. She was just beyond the point of Hammerstone’s sword. “I wasn’t sent to contain dragons, my love. I was sent here to contain you, while your men are slaughtered.”

Hammerstone did several things in one motion. He slid his foot forward and brought the sword up hard and fast, angling to pierce her just below the breastbone and drive the point into her heart. The blade found no purchase. He spun it to slash first one way and then the other. The maneuvers were done so swiftly that they cut lines through the smoke that made up her form.

She was an illusion.

Her eyes widened, horror-filled, her mouth open in surprise, and then her eyes settled on him and she smiled. She threw her ghostly head back and screeched in laughter. “It seemed so real…” and she broke out in laughter again.

The men! Jacob! Brehton! The thoughts pierced Hammerstone like bodkin-tipped arrows. As he turned and bolted into the descending tunnel behind the dais, all he could think was: What horrors are they walking into?

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone found Thom Daguin waiting in a hallway of columns and suits of armor. “Turns out Will’s guards was suits of armor the whole time, lord.” He knocked on a helmet. “Sir Jacob sent me back to guide you.”

“Then lead on. There are corrupt things afoot,” Hammerstone said, feeling the urgency ripple through him, starting from his stomach. “Will said their eyes glowed.”

Daguin shrugged. “Didn’t see no glowing myself, lord. Mayhap a trick of light?”

Hammerstone grunted, glancing at the armor, and then motioned Daguin on. He didn’t trust those suits of armor, whose gambesons and trousers did not look empty. Daguin moved a tapestry between columns and dipped inside. Hammerstone followed. They had entered a wide, stone staircase and descended in a spiral twisting to the right. Ensconced torches lit their way.

The sounds of battle began to reach them. Low clinking at first—metal on metal; metal on stone—followed by roars and battle cries, all of which grew louder as Hammerstone descended. The clank of his own sabatons on the uneven stairs was drowned in the cacophony of battle.

Hammerstone snatched a torch from its sconce. “There is something worse than we suspected down here. A trap laid for us by something a witch fears.”

Daguin pulled a wooden cross from below his plated shirt, kissed it, and then let it fall on his chest. He couldn’t grab a torch, Hammerstone thought, because an archer needed two hands. “Merciful Christ, Sir Grimwar, what could make a witch tremble?”

“If we get free of this, I will ask Friar Marcus,” said Hammerstone, “but those things that come to mind would require faith in God and Christ to overcome. Prepare yourself, Thom, we are about to discover the answer.”

Screams, growls, grunting and hissing filled the lulls in the clashing of weapons. Shadows rippled along the walls at the base of the stairwell. Something hit the floor at the base of the steps, clattering like segmented armor.

Hammerstone took the last few steps swiftly, torch held high in his left hand, sword akimbo in the right. He came to a halt, his sword blocking a maul’s downward swing from crushing Godhelm’s helmet and shoving the torch into the face of a dark elf. Thom’s bow thrummed just behind hammerstone’s head, and the elf stumbled back, eyes rolling up toward the shaft jutting from its forehead. Then Thom came down the steps and offered a hand to Godhelm, who was still struggling to get up.

“They were waiting for us, Grimwar,” said Godhelm, as he scooped his sword from where it leaned on the base of the stairs. “If not for Miles Everard’s diversion, we’d have been clustered at the bottom of the staircase and slaughtered to a man.”

The vast cavern held the dragon chained to the far wall, and a mass of goblins and dark elves battling Hammerstone’s Steeljacks between. Two tunnels led to the right of the dragon, and one with a barrel of burning pitch just past its mouth to the left. The frost giant stood next to the dragon’s head, no doubt its cold emanating to keep the dragon in check.

The goblins crawled along the walls and leapt over one another, ferociously attacking with ragged claws and teeth, swinging cudgels, stabbing javelins, and lunging with long daggers. Everard’s archers fought in two ranks: one in front using short swords, and one behind that loosed bodkins at the goblins that scaled the cavern walls or leapt over the tide of their own kind. Some of the darkspawn scored hits on the first rank of archers but were quickly dispatched by the nearest bowman.

Lefwin’s men-of-war and hobelars hacked into the numbers of goblins and ranks of elves. The elves were less in number, but they were lithe and clever and deft with spears and swords. The battle was tight there, so many combatants that it was hard to follow. Due to their light armor, the hobelars took the brunt of the damage. Yet, those men were as brave and skilled as any of the Steeljacks. Godhelm’s men had tried to outflank the dark elves and barely held the darkspawn at bay.

Hammerstone found Hawkwood’s men surrounded by goblins in the center. “Thom, choose three archers and dip a handful of arrows in that burning tar. It would be best to get clumps of pitch on your arrows.”

“Aim for the frost giant?” Daguin asked, as Hammerstone laid his firebrand into the back of one goblin and punched the point of his sword through another.

“Aye,” Hammerstone called over his shoulder, drawing his blade free of one foe to spin and take the head from the next. “And do not stop until the giant falls or he is burning.” Then he turned and yelled, “Jacob, with me!”

Hammerstone and Godhelm hacked an opening through the goblins that were closing Hawkwood and his archers off from behind. The nearest archers who’d turned to see the killing, pressed forward with renewed conviction cheer of defiance. Godhelm’s men-of-war joined them to hack a deep enough path into the goblin and elf ranks to merge with the group of archers.

“Will,” Hammerstone bellowed, “take your men behind Jacob’s men-at arms, and once there, by God, be archers!”

~~~~~§~~~~~

The armored men tromped forward behind Hammerstone and Godhelm, slashing the enemy with renewed fury. Hawkwood and his archers stepped back into the opening the men-at-arms left for them and executed the practiced tactic. The archers, finally allowed to use their honed skills, freed arrows from the bags that hung at their hips, nocked, and drew.

“Low!” Hammerstone called, and his men bent low to attack legs and groins. It was designed to clear the way for a volley of arrows.

“Loose!” Hawkwood called, and thirty bowstrings thrummed.

The volley sounded like an angry swarm of bees flying over Hammerstone and plunging into the dark elves and the goblins around them.

A hail of firelight flashed from the tunnel Everard’s men guarded. Goblins scurried from that engagement toward Hammerstone’s pocket of men, likely to reinforce the darkspawn’s dwindling numbers. A few of Everard’s archers joined the four with Daguin, dipping their arrows in pitch and loosing at the frost giant.

Whether from toiling bodies or burning pitch and fire arrows, Hammerstone could not tell, but the cavern warmed. Only a handful of elves remained. The goblin numbers dwindled.

Hammerstone pressed toward the dragon. A nearby goblin gave a horrendous shout, and the darkspwan peeled away from the assault on Everard’s men to add their support to those attacking Hammerstone’s group. As for Everard, his surviving archers joined Daguin’s and raised the number of fire arrows in a volley fifteen before the bodkins were spent.

Hammerstone caught a glimpse of Everard’s lads dipping their swords in the burning pitch and rushing forward. Goblins fell in great numbers. The survivors retreated, scurrying along the walls, wriggling into cracks and crevices and the tunnel behind the flailing frost giant.

“God’s blood, Grimwar, but this was a fight!” Lefwin, ax slick with goblin blood, and his men collided with Hammerstone’s, as they made for the frost giant.

“You’re limping,” Hammerstone said, stabbing a dark elf struggling to rise.

“Bastard goblins thought to have my balls for hors d’oeuvres,” Lefwin said.

“Would’ve done a fair amount foraging in those parts. A Goblin could starve seeking a main course.” Hawkwood huffed and laughed.

“Fed him my ax, you insolent whoreson!” Lefwin bellowed. “Like a taste?”

With a fist half the size of a man, the giant hammered an archer flat. Roaring, riddled with enough arrows to look like an enormous porcupine, the giant still stood. Archers chopped into its crystalline flesh, for their blades couldn’t pierce its skin stab through the giant’s skin. It was not until the men-at-arms joined the fray that the giant fell under the weight of the Steeljacks.

A few paces from the last throes of the dying giant, Everard and his archers joined Hammerstone. Sweat rolled off Hammerstone’s forehead and into his eyes. He squinted and wiped them with a gloved hand.

“Alarm!”

Hammerstone turned to see one of the suits of armor from the corridor, plunge a flamberge encased in green flames through an archer. The body fell off of the sword as if it were hot suet.

The enemy had a face of shadows and eyes of hellfire. Eight more of its kind emerged from the stairwell, with blades or axes aglow with the same unnatural flame.

The men-at-arms and hobelars around the giant’s corpse, turned and charged the shadow knights. Twenty experienced, battle-tempered men rushed in under Lefwin’s lietenant John Rolleston’s command. Lefwin stepped forward, but Hammerstone held an arm in his path.

“No, Brehton,” Hammerstone said. “Form the men up around the dragon.”

The shadow knights cut the men down as if they were scything a field.

“God’s tears, I will not let my men—”

“You’ll do as I say! They’re not your men; they’re mine. We have a mission to complete, and that dragon is our only chance.” Hammerstone rarely asserted his rank on Lefwin—he seldom had the need—but he had seen that evil blade cut through Rolleston and refused to lose Lefwin that way.

“The links of that chain are too heavy to lift,” Lefwin said, careful lest he slip in blood and offal of friend or foe. “How in God’s name do we free her? And how much bloody strength can she have?”

“I suspect Grimwar has an idea,” said Godhelm, casting a glance over his shoulder. The man knew Hammerstone well. “He has that look about him.”

“What we need is to either capture one of those weapons,” Hammerstone said, as he reached the frost giant’s corpse, “or to cause those blasted knights to cut the chains while trying to cut us.”

The nine shadow knights marched forward in a wedge formation, the flamberge wielder at the point, eyes now glowing the same green at his sword. The red trim of their black tabards swept over the bodies as they glided over them as if floating.

“Will—” Hammerstone began, until he saw a group of archers, with their backs to the dragon, draw back their bowstrings.

“Loose!” Will Hawkwood cried, and twenty shafts buzzed overhead to riddle the shadow knights with bodkins. “Ready. Draw. Loose!” Hawkwood called again, and another volley slammed into the shadow knights.

The first three in the wedge fell, and the next two stopped, looking down at shafts sticking out of their tabards. The four behind them simply swept around their pierced comrades and continued as if nothing had happened. They were hell-born things without expressions, and the emptiness was unnerving. More unnerving was the leader and the stricken shadow knights rising again, the blood from the floor swirling up around them like long crimson pennants that disappeared into the shadows of their helmets before the bodkins fell free, clattering off armor and the stone floor.

“By all that’s holy,” said Hawkwood. “Them’s what we had left, Sir Grimwar.”

“When they reach us,” Hammerstone said over his shoulder, “you and your archers withdraw. Work your way around behind them and retrieve the arrows you can and go down that tunnel.” He nodded to the larger of the tunnels behind them. “There is no more you can do here. But that tunnel opens on the dragons’ nest. Protect it until we rech you.”

Hawkwood opened his mouth and Hammerstone thought he would ask a question—but he backed away, said, “Aye, Sir Grimwar,” then started barking orders.

“How do we defend against those weapons?” asked a man-at-arms.

“God’s teeth,” Lefwin bellowed, thumping the soldier in the back of the head. “By not being in their bloody path!”

“Draw them to the chains,” Godhelm called.

Hammerstone turned toward the dragon, walked up to the round membranes below a row of her horns and above her cheek, and said, “It’s time to wake, Princess. We need you to fight.”

~~~~~§~~~~~

She rolled her head and a clear set of eyelids slid open. “I am weak,” she said. Her voice like the low rumbling of thunder.

“The frost giant is dead,” Hammerstone yelled over the din. “He cannot quell your fires.”

The shriek of metal on metal drew Hammerstone’s gaze. The men-at-arms and hobelars engaged the shadow knights. Swords and axes screeched against metal, thumped against the tabard-draped cuirasses, and severed an arm or leg. The maimed shadow knights stood still as blood from the cavern floor rose in wet ribbons to reconnect their severed parts. Their dark comrades forced the Steeljacks back until the wounded shadow knights were battle ready.

Hammerstone realized that the blood used to heal the enemy was that of his men who had fallen in battle. The thought of his men’s blood being used in such a way made him clench his fist tighter around the hilt of his blade. Then it struck him like a couched lance: blood magic. That was what Avice must have summoned them. She hadn’t been in the great hall; she’d been distracting him until she could gather the blood she’d needed. He’d been a fool.

“Fight, damn you,” Hammerstone yelled to the dragon. “Burn the bastards where they stand.”

She raised her head lethargically and opened her mouth but only jetted two streams of liquid. “I have no fire,” she said, defeated.

“Your brood is in danger,” Hammerstone said urgently. “You must fight!”

She tugged sluggishly at the chains. “Without fire, I am useless.”

“Can I set fire to your stream?” Hammerstone looked around for the torch he had dropped in the last push.

Perhaps,” was all the dragon managed.

“I need a torch!”

A hobelar screamed. Hammerstone turned in time to see a shadow knight’s blade cleave another man’s head from his shoulders, after passing through his sword. Another hobelar managed to take a shadow knight’s head—or whatever filled their helms—on a patch of floor devoid of blood. The body staggered toward the nearest streak of crimson, but the other Steeljacks hacked it apart.

They had drawn the enemy toward the chains, but lost good men to do so. The archers moved among the bodies behind the shadow knights, plucking arrows from bodies, walls, or the cavern’s floor.

“Here’s a bloody torch,” called Lefwin, from near the frost giant’s head. He lobbed it to Hammerstone.

A shadow knight chopped his glowing ax down. Lefwin sidestepped, flinging his shield up to ward off the blow. The ax cut right through the shield and severed the lower half of Lefwin’s arm. Screaming, Lefwin swung his own battle ax. He hacked off the shadow knight’s arm as it drew back. Before the shadow knight could heal, Lefwin backhanded his ax into the shadow knight’s armpit, and scooped up the glowing ax by the mailed fist still grasping it. He planted the blade in the shadow knight’s head. The helmet fell, and the rest of the suit of armor crumpled into a pile. The mailed fist fell from the haft, but Lefwin caught the ax before it hit the ground.

“Spray your jets,” Hammerstone yelled at the dragon. “Now!”

The dragon opened her maw and did. Hammerstone thrust the torch up into the stream. The jets caught fire, and the flames lit up the whole cavern. Fire traced along the jets back to the glands in the muscles of her jaw, and she raised her head and stood on shaky legs.

Hammerstone ran to Lefwin, who had fallen to his knees. His face pale, eyes wide, Lefwin he gripped the ax so tightly that the leather of his glove creaked against the haft.

“We have to seal the wound,” Hammerstone said. He did not relish what he needed to do. He leaned his sword against his friend’s cuirass and offered the grip of his dagger for Lefwin to bite. “We’ve no time to argue, Brehton.”

Lefwin bit down on the leather-wrapped handle of Hammerstone’s dagger, nodded, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Hammerstone took a deep breath and then buried the torch in the stump of Lefwin’s arm, where the elbow had been. Lefwin’s scream was muffled by the dagger’s handle. The ax fell from his hand.

Hammerstone picked up the shadow knight’s ax. “You stay here, Brehton. I will wield this, and leave you my sword in its stead. Stay and regain your strength.”

Lefwin moaned, laying back on the cavern floor. The dragon tugged at her chains. The cracks webbing from the wall anchor gave testament to her returning strength. Hammerstone turned to face her.

“I have fire!” the dragon said in a triumphant roar.

Hammerstone hacked the ax through her nearest chain link.

The battle was fierce. The men had learned the lesson Lefwin had purchased at so high a cost. Godhelm baited a shadow knight while other Steeljacks attacked it from behind. They maimed the enemy so fast that Godhelm wielded its sword before ribbons of blood could rise to heal it. The shadow knights discovered the tactic too late, and lost a third, before putting their backs together.

Hammerstone turned to join the battle, but stopped when the dragon said, “The witch does not seek to ransom. We are shields against my father and the other dragons. What she wants is the heart of Ashekeep. That which drew my grandsire to this place when it was called Corbenic: The Lance of Longinus.”

Hammerstone spared her a glance. The din of battle behind him thrummed in his veins, beckoning him. “The Spear of Destiny?”

“The same,” she said. “Before I grew so weak, she asked me where it was hidden. I overheard her telling someone that it bears the blood of Christ.”

Blood magic. What more powerful blood is there? Could she use it as a lodestone to find the Holy Grail, pervert the cup of Christ?” Hammerstone had an idea of what Avice’s plan was all about.

He turned back to the fight, knowing it was part of Avice’s plan, and decided the knowledge was best kept close to his tabard for the moment. He’d been a damned fool to think he could save Avice; the loss of their daughter Ivette to the plague had cracked her mind. Avice wanted to cup of Christ to resurrect their daughter. Prayers had failed, she said, so she was foolish enough to think she could circumvent the will of God.

~~~~~§~~~~~

“Good of you to join us,” said Godhelm, as Hammerstone moved next to him.

Something Hammerstone couldn’t see was happening. The men had faltered. Several screams rose, then a bellow that sounded, like a hundred voices, growling, screaming, yelling, laughing madly all at once. Swirling black smoke billowed from the center of the Steeljacks, as from a barrel of burning pitch.

Helmets and armor clattered to the cavern floor. The men-at-arms closest backed away, pushing those behind them. Hammerstone and Godhelm pushed their way to the fore. The shadow knights that hadn’t perished were combining into one, massive figure. Six sets of eyes became one with five sets in orbit around it. The horrific, oily-black thing spoke from a void where a mouth should be, in a voice comprised of many whispers.

“Be steadfast, men,” Hammerstone called. “We have killed three of their number, and this one too shall fall.”

“Fool,” it said in a voice at once a boom and a whispering hiss. “You cannot kill what doesn’t die.” It lifted giant arms out to its sides, if a dark miasma with glowing eyes can be said to have sides, and from the toppled armor, three inky spirits with glowing eyes wafted up and into its mass.

“God’s bones!” Lefwin bellowed. It startled Hammerstone because he hadn’t heard his captain approach. “How do we defeat it?”

A shiver ran through Hammerstone. If indeed they couldn’t kill it, could they defeat it? It was spirit, of that, he was sure. Hammerstone raised his crucifix kissed it.

The creature recoiled. It was a swift reaction: a momentary pause in the smoky whirlwind of its form, the multiple sets of eyes narrowing, as it flinched back.

“Your god is not here,” it said, leaning forward, spreading arms that ended in claws wide, like a bear about to attack.

Hammerstone felt a dart of cold fear jab at his heart. The cavern brightened and darkened as dragon fire erupted in bursts behind them. The shadow thing seemed to wane in the brightness and wax in the dimness. It and Avice were there for the blood of Christ.

Hammerstone grinned. It so feared God that it shrank at the mere sight of the cross. Its utterance was an attempt to shake his faith. That was not easily shaken. Hammerstone had been granted command of the Steeljacks to fight things men of lesser faith could not.

The dragon’s chains crashed down behind Hammerstone. The cacophony was deafening in the cavern. Flames rolled over Hammerstone’s head like hot storm clouds on a strong wind. The shadow giant shrunk in the light. Hammerstone stepped forward and swung the ax through the oily form.

As when Hammerstone swung his sword at Avice, the ax blade swept right through the shadow giant, parting the curling smoke into halves. The laughter of many voices followed. And Hammerstone held up his crucifix and kissed it again and—while the shadow giant cringed back—touched the cross to the blade of the ax. When they met, a flash like lightning nearly blinded Hammerstone. Bolts of blue and white danced around the ax, the green glow faded, leaving a mirror finish behind.

The Steeljacks all brought out their crosses and kissed them. All of the Steeljacks were men of faith: They were the king’s force against the wicked. Faith hobbled the shadow giant. The crosses didn’t affect the shadow spawn until they were used to channel the faith of a true believer.

Then Hammerstone knew how to defeat the shadow giant.

“Brehton, Jacob, get the men below. Protect the nest. Spread the word to the archers that their faith is their shield.” Hammerstone swung the ax at the shadow giant again, but this time it dodged the arc of the blade.

“God’s blood, Grimwar—” Lefwin bellowed, only to have his words cut short.

“Aye,” Hammerstone yelled. “That is what Avice is after, and what we must protect. Now go. We shall join you shortly.”

“What? The blood of Christ?” Lefwin blinked and shook his head.

“Aye. Go. I’ll explain shortly.”

“We?” asked Godhelm.

“Me and the dragon.” Hammerstone said, as Steeljacks swept around Hammerstone, heading toward the tunnel the archers had gone down.

“My name is Siroc,” the dragon said, and blew covering fire at the shadow giant.

Godhelm and Lefwin nodded and backed away, turned, and made haste. Godwin measured his pace with Lefwin—who would never ask help of another man—in case he faltered. Lefwin clung to Hammerstone’s sword and had none for leaning against.

Hammerstone swung the ax to keep the shadow giant at bay while the Steeljacks filed into the tunnel. Siroc drew a breath so deep it brought her onto her hind legs. The shadow giant tried to round Hammerstone and make for the tunnel, but Siroc sent a jet of fire across its path. Hammerstone swept the ax blade through the enemy’s smoky legs. Where it clove off, it dissipated into the air. The giant shrunk some, bellowing in multiple voices.

“Go,” roared Siroc, pushing between Hammerstone and the shadow-thing. “I’ll defend the rear.”

Hammerstone grunted assent and made for the tunnel. The roar of fire and the pounding of Siroc’s stomp echoed behind him. The flickering light revealed the curve of the descending slope.

Rounding the curve, Hammerstone found the tunnel widened. The din of battle grew sharper as he descended. Raising the ax, Hammerstone ran from the mouth of the tunnel, directly into combat. The goblins must have lain in wait, for Hammerstone ran headlong into a raging battle.

Men and monsters fought among the waist-high, tan eggs, covered in random brown splotches. Sconces at four even intervals on the walls lit the chamber in shimmering waves. Lefwin leaned on a stone in the center of the chamber, around which the eggs made rings of concentric circles. He held Hammerstone’s sword and swung it into any unlucky goblin near enough. His face was pale again, but there was no safe place for him to rest.

~~~~~§~~~~~

Hammerstone nodded his approval as Hawkwood and the archers mingled among the hobelars and men-at-arms, using the armored warriors as foils against the goblins, as they were trained to in battle.

“Ah, Grimwar,” called Godhelm from just off to the right, as he drove the tip of his sword through a goblin’s mouth to pierce the back of its head coated in slime. “Good of you to join us. Dilatoriness is becoming a habit.”

“Whatever do you mean, Jacob?” Hammerstone hacked the head off an attacker behind Godhelm which the knight couldn’t have seen. “My timing is impeccable. The only habit I’m developing is rescuing you.”

There was no space for the archers to use their main skills in this cavern. It was not high enough for Siroc to stand on her hind legs. Hammerstone was surprised the dragon had found room enough to lay eggs. So, the archers attacked low, while the hobelars and men-at-arms fought high, and it was only the sheer numbers of goblins that kept the skirmish from ending.

The goblin forces were weakening, some of them broke, running along the walls like spiders escaping a hovel full of cats. Until a flash of white light at the side of the chamber opposite Hammerstone, faded to reveal the floating figure of Avice. No tendrils of oily smoke surrounded her as they did in the great hall, or as they had with the shadow giant. But the tatters of her dress whipped round her pale flesh, like a wind-shorn standard, her hair like a pit of black vipers snapping all around her face.

“Form your lines up!” Avice shrieked at the retreating dark spawn. Her voice made the hair stand on the back of Hammerstone’s neck, like winter winds blowing down the back of a sweaty gambeson. “There are far worse things awaiting those who flee than death.”

“God’s blood, Grimwar,” Lefwin said, scuttling toward Hammerstone, “I hope your plan is sound, because we lack time to accomplish much.”

“Aye,” Hammerstone said. He’d intended to learn from Siroc where the Spear of Destiny was to be found—it was the only way he could envision defeating the shadow giant—but he hadn’t had the time. It must be in that cave. Crosses maked the surrounding entrances, suiting a chamber that held such an important relic. And where better to guard the artifact than among the eggs of a dragon’s brood? He had to find the spear’s resting place and retrieve it before Avice and her horde could … or the shadow giant arrived. “But time is what I most need. Time to think.”

“What would you have us do?” Godhelm asked, over his pauldron, while he clove a space between a goblin’s neck and shoulder.

“Kill the goblins and Avice,” Hammerstone said, matter-of-factly. “That would be of great help.”

“Only that?” Lefwin asked. “Sure you don’t want us to kill that shadow monster, too? Maybe clean your armor?”

“Aye, but that will be a sufficient beginning,” Hammerstone said, but his attention was otherwise focused. Instead, he was looking at the three entrances to the chamber he hadn’t entered from. Between them, the torches burned, but the crosses over each were so deeply engraved in the stone they seemed to have no end. Hammerstone spared a glance over the arch through which he’d entered and found it the same. The width of the recesses were as wide as gauntleted fists. Could one of them hold the spear?

Godhelm blocked a blade swung at Hammerstone’s head. Hammerstone swung his ax under the goblin’s arm as if he were felling a tree and severed its top from its legs. Though the goblin horde had been reinvigorated by Avice’s threat, Hammerstone and his men fell into the rhythm of slaughter. They had faced enough supernatural foes that close quarters served the Steeljacks better than their enemies.

Hammerstone rejected those crosses as the Spear of Destiny’s hiding place—the dragons couldn’t reach into the depths, let alone a man—but their importance couldn’t be dismissed either. The thought nagged at Hammerstone: Four crosses, one above each door. What could it mean? Two thieves were crucified with Christ on that day. Hammerstone tried to remember Friar Marcus’s telling, while he dodged blades and cleft heads and arms from whence they sprouted. Two thieves, on each side one …

“Give me the ax,” Lefwin said, bumping into Hammerstone’s left shoulder. “You look like a lad at his first wood pile.”

Hammerstone planted the ax blade in a goblin’s head and took the sword from Lefwin, who grabbed the ax haft and pushed the body away from the blade with a foot. Lefwin stumbled a couple of steps, but Hammerstone stepped in front of him to pierce an exposed chest. The familiar weight of his sword felt comfortable in his hand.

“Enough of this,” Avice yelled, her voice a shriek. Her eyes had rolled back into her head, and she dipped her head so that her chin touched her chest. “I will not be thwarted when we are so close to the prize. Destroy the nest.”