Plodding slowly over the well worn bricks of one of the Mournamel's main roads, a small dwarf garbed in a cowl of blue blinked past the light drizzle of rain.

 

In the Mournamel Mountains,  the shadow of the Great Plateau loomed ever large over the once great peaks of the Low World. Kazerizz, once the largest of its range, now languished under the wall that it had once laboured to protect. Still, the dwarf had climbed far to the paths of his eastern cousins, and the land stretched for many thousands of farleaps to the south, only cut off by the eventual rise of the Rizvala Deurinit, the Darkrange in the Veroline tongue. 

 

It had been many years since anyone of his home’s court had last made the trek into the east. It wasn’t for lack of interest or want, of course, it was just that every hold was so preoccupied with its own problems and affairs that it never seemed to loom important. This was true enough even among the stellocks, or the open air settlements, of the west kingdoms which had been left almost entirely to their own devices so that Morevechi could focus its attentions to the depths. It was only when Rknor had finally noticed that the traders had ceased to trickle in from the outer realms that he had decided to seek them out, though not without the worried badgering of his household.

 

And now, seeing what was left of the stellock he walked through, Rknor cursed that he hadn’t come sooner.

 

Several hundred dwellings were arrayed in an order circle around the central shrine, each one built of stout square blocks and dug into the stone hill the settlement was set in. Strangley, while he’d passed a small wall with a splintered gate on the north side, that had been possibly the only real structural damage to the village. The doors and windows of famously expensive dwarven glass were all destroyed and the houses looted, but there was no sign that a determined enemy had put the settlement to the torch, nor were there any visible bodies to be found. Still, refuse flew through the street, the fireplaces were cold, and the armoury stood open and empty.

 

It was as if the entire population had just gotten up one day and went further east, leaving the stellock for looters and opportunists.

 

He whistled an urgent tune to himself as he passed through the centre of town. A lungfox scattered at his approach, bounding gracefully the other way out of town. Behind it, the final peak of the Mountain Hold stood against the sky, its tall square turrets barely visible on Kazerizz’s slopes.

 

A small but obvious pillar of smoke rose from the side and wafted slowly through the sky.

 

With a newfound sense of urgency, Rknor sped up to a jog towards the mountain. His sword jangled against his back, and the sound of jingling chainmail scattered the last few animals hiding around the alleys.

 

“Osrk eh rizvelo.” Rknor muttered. 

…

With one final heft, the door pried open and brought the dry smell of stone with it.

 

The grand hallway was massive in all both dimensions, and roughly four stories tall in the centre causeway and two otherwise. Countless pillars flanked the main road, while housing blocks and petty industries reached up to the roof beside it. Doors and house fronts were built into the side of the higher levels of the central hall, and there were small gardens and park blocks of the green lowlander plants for every few dozen houses. Beautiful windows and works of crystal, some clear and pure, others clouded and colourful, wove themselves in spirals through the halls. Broken statues of glass and stone were strewn in pieces and chunks across the bricks, but never near their stands and pedestals. Runes shone bright yellow and white in the dark, but dimmer than Rknor remembered from his prior visits.

 

Every once and a while a small mound of fresh ashes unmoved by wind or tunnel breeze caught his eye.

 

Rknor took one last glance at the hall he had just left, taking in the utilitarian gates, walls, and unset traps that he had needed to traverse to make it deep inside. There had been more ashes then, but he still hadn’t seen an actual body. Only discarded weapons and piles of dented mail.

 

He continued down the main road, making for the keep he knew lay at the end. As he went further in, the signs of battle grew more and more obvious, and soon he could not take four steps without passing a huge heap of ash, a shattered golem, or a sooten house. 

 

The dull fear in his mind turned to vengeance as he kept on, and his features hardened into something indistinguishable from the statues he passed. He held his sword halfway down the blade, and the runes glowed brighter on the hilt. 

 

The cavern walls closed in around the road as he passed the main of the city, leaving only a slow descending hallway in front of him. Eventually even the houses and doors in the upper layers smoothed out to straight stone walls in the deep, and Rknor once again was forced to climb through broken gates and magic blasted walls in order to progress deeper into the fortress. Some of the thicker and more impressive fortifications had warranted siege weapons to crack, and the remains makeshift rams and even the rare abandoned onager lay abandoned on the bricks. In yet other places, the tunnel rapidly shrunk to the size of a dwarf, and at these chokepoints dozens of tunnels had been mined or blasted to get at the other side and widen the entrances. The ash piles were largest around these.

 

And then, after one such chokepoint, Rknor caught sight of the last proper bastion of Kazerizz. The cavern expanded again to a wide plain  devoid of cover or obstruction, and great walls were raised in front. Turrets carrying terrible weapons and countless crossbow slits looked down over the rough-hewn field, and there were hundreds of pock marks in the stone to mark the expenditure of their ammunition. Overhead, there was a building carved into the sloped ceiling several dozen metres over the wall, and yet more ballistas and murder holes commanded a supreme view of the field. A large section of this had been blasted away and had fallen onto the field below. The keep itself was raised in several squarish tiers behind the walls, with higher turrets as to send fire upon the backs of the exterior walls if needed. Huge sections of this fortification were destroyed, marred heavily by both magical and physical damage.

 

Soon, it became clear to him that the lights in the keep were not the usual yellow and white, but instead the orange and red of fire. It flickered in the crumbling alcoves and collapsed verandas, as if some fiery devil had claimed it as his home.

 

Rknor slowed and pulled his helm out of his pack before he continued, and drew his cloak hood over it. The runes across his armour flared to life with a short command word, and Rknor took a second to readjust to the increased strength and speed, as well as to test his magical shield with a small spell. Satisfied then, he jogged up the keep steps with his greatsword held in both of his gauntleted hands.

 

He pushed open the main keep without a noise and stepped inside, and almost immediately his worst fears were confirmed.

 

The hall had seen better days, and lay in ruin. Collapsed pillars, cracked tile, and endless detritus was spread over the floor, and the once shining runes of the throne in the back were slashed and dun.

 

Hundreds of dwarves lay sprawled across its smooth tiles. There were very few golems here now, and most of the dwarves past the first few dozen metres were unarmoured. Clouds of flies buzzed through the air, and the sharp smell of blood pervaded the room. In the centre of the room, King Deifkamor’s body lay in shining skysteel gilded armour, and a bearded axe with one blade crossed him. His bodyguard was in a line beside him, their limbs hacked and cruelly slashed.

 

There were dead humans there too, and dozens of faling corpses. The men were armed with simple bows and wicker shields, and the falings were adorned with magical artefacts and wands-staves. All of them wore leather and mail.

 

And in front of the throne was a bonfire and great piles of ash, with only a single tender to watch it. Rknor felt cold fury at the sight.

 

It was a Faling, Lord of the East. He wore great great plates of armour over his body and his feathers were painted silver and black. Each of his four arms had bracers of steel and a skirt of leather to cover its shoulders. A long helmet with uneven mail fell over his head, and a shield to match him leaned against the wall. His legs were bowed back, and one Rknor could see that one had been smashed in the fighting before. He held a spear in one of his hands to act as a cane, and it gleamed with runes of casting.

 

As Rknor watched, he dumped another four dwarves into the fire.

 

“I can hear. A Blue one. Not Mourn.”

 

The Faling didn’t turn to face him, but continued to pile bodies into the fire. It clicked its beak with every pause, and it spoke plateau-speak haltingly. Rknor doubted it knew dwarven.

 

“I am Rknor, son of Karizsil.” Rknor announced.

 

The monster turned to look at him, and Rknor could see a dull pain behind its fish-like eyes. It beheld him for a while, and Rknor could see the glint of recognition in its gaze.

 

“I am Nanaw King.” It clicked. “To small ones, now: Movashowa.”

 

Lie Reaper. Rknor thought. An evil name. 

 

It turned away from him to pile more bodies into the fire, and Rknor began to approach with his weapon held in front.

 

“I, Alone.” Movashowa said. “Palick-men dead, walls, axes. No fieldwork, no faling lords. Dwarves burned out. All dead in dark, far from Sun. The moors, quiet.”

 

Rknor stopped.

 

“Why?” He asked. “Kazerizz did nothing.”

 

Unlike the veroline, the dwarves were not explicitly at war with the men of the east or the Faling kings, or at least not consistently. And while Rknor hadn’t been here for several decades, he had known the old King as a brother, and knew that he would have not started this. Even more confusing, despite being a faling and as cruel as that species tended to be, King Nanaw had a reputation as a scholar among the eastern lords, not that of a butcher. Rknor couldn’t understand why he’d betray them like this.

 

The Faling looked at him again, and Rknor could see that the pain he’d noticed earlier was not entirely physical. There were tears in the birdman’s eyes as he beheld Rknor.

 

“The Lord demands.” Movashowa clicked. “No other reason.”

 

Rknor grew afraid at the mention, and he remembered what he had dismissed back in the villages he’d passed.

 

“The Lord?” Rknor asked. “What lord? The Lord of the Deep? Has he returned?”

 

“The Lord.” Movashowa said simply.

 

Rknor looked about the room again and drew quiet. The mountain weighed heavy on the air, and for a moment he could not move but for rage.

 

“Then Palick deserves what it got.” Rknor said finally. “And what it will get.”

 

Movashowa nodded. Leaning against the wall, he drew his spear above his head and cracked it over his knee, leaving only a broken pole to use as his cane. Then, he looked back at the dwarf.

 

“You may. Kill me. No kingdom to rule. Task is done. Small friends dead. No reason, no desire. No fire, no light in the deep dreams.” He paused, and looked around the room at the piles of bodies remaining. “But first, burial? Is last honour.”

 

Rknor’s sword tip faltered, and though the fury or desire for revenge did not leave him he bowed his head.

 

“It is not enough. Nothing can be. But I will help, and then you will die.”

 

“As is Right.” The faling said.