SUMMONING

Directly above Tordek, Sandrine screeched.

It was a sound to shatter crystal and thrust seeds of agony into every tooth. The swarming goblins paused to shove their palms against their ears, many of them adding their own shrieks to the din.

Tordek glanced up just as one of the vampire's glowing short swords clattered onto the iron walk. Sandrine dropped the weapon as she reached around to clutch a wound in her back. Lidda scampered away from the spitting vampire spawn, no longer cloaked by Devis's invisibility spell. With another pernicious scream, Sandrine threw herself at the halfling, reaching out with a naked hand as she struck with the remaining sword.

Far around the walkway, Zagreb lurched forward to loom over Vadania. The druid fell to one knee as she struggled to navigate the corner and escape him. The half-dragon's greatsword rose high to strike, but before it could descend, the catwalk shuddered under a tremendous load it was never meant to bear. Gulo had clambered up the outside of the stairway and thundered along the walk, barreling straight into the monster that threatened his friend. He knocked the half-dragon back, and Zagreb redirected his swing. The blade fell across Gulo's shoulder, cutting deep into muscle and bone. The wolverine howled in pain, but the sound turned quickly to a roar of fury and his claws raked over the foe he had marked before.

Zagreb beat on the shaggy skull with the hard pommel of the greatsword, and Gulo ducked his head. That was all the room the half-dragon needed to step back, stretch to his full height, and raise the sword for a far deadlier blow.

This time, it was the elf who came to her friend's rescue. Waves of heat rose behind her from a huge cauldron of molten iron. With a harsh, imperious cry she conjured a swirling cloud of bats. They swarmed down from the cavernous ceiling to form a dark halo around the half-dragon's head. They squealed and flapped in his face, pelting him with their tiny wings and needle-sharp fangs. Their attack did little to harm the monstrous foe, but they turned his wrath away from Gulo and onto their own fragile but plentiful bodies.

Despite the terrible struggles of his companions above, Tordek faced even more outrageous odds on the foundry floor. There was no longer any question that he could prevail without employing Andaron's fell weapon. He gripped it tightly, feeling its unholy power surge even faster into his body, searing his veins and thrilling every nerve with a promise of dauntless power. Even as he reveled in the ecstasy of magic, a cold dread hung heavy in his gut, an ominous warning that not only did he tread close to damnation but already he had one foot in the Abyss.

He thrust aside his doubts, forsaking his soul for revenge as he hurled the hammer at the nearest cluster of goblins. It flew like a meteor. Bodies were hurled up and aside as the weapon crushed heads and shattered ribs. The hammer burrowed through the enemy ranks, curving around to slap its haft firmly back in Tordek's hand after completing its murderous arc.

With the hammer in his grip, Tordek heard all the hymns of war resounding in his head. He swung left and right, slaying with every stroke. He crushed helms, shattered shields, and reduced cold-wrought iron to powder. Without turning, he sensed the approach of enemies from the rear. He threw the hammer blindly, and he knew how many bodies it left in its wake when it returned unerringly to his grip. Tordek's kenning of the battle swelled farther, enveloping the entire forge. He knew the count of enemies, and a distant part of his mind even wondered at the incredible carnage. Goblins perished by the dozen with every toss of the weapon. Tordek knew without looking what transpired on the iron walkways above his head.

Sandrine grasped Lidda's hair and beat the halfling's head against the unyielding iron grate. Lidda struggled to slip her own short sword up into the vampire spawn's ribs, but every blow dazed her and splattered more of her own blood into her eyes.

Suddenly the vampire's grip was gone, and Sandrine shrieked again, more hideously than ever. The ruddy tip of Devi's longsword thrust out from her chest, just below one of her fine, white collarbones.

Devis grinned maliciously as he twisted the blade. In his other hand he held the short sword she dropped earlier. "Shouldn't leave these things lying around, sweetheart."

Sandrine dropped the second weapon and grabbed at the blade protruding from her body, but behind her Devis put a foot on her back and pulled the sword free, slicing her fingers to the bone.

Beside the iron cauldrons Zagreb ignored the winged rodents swirling round his head and struck instead at their summoner. His mighty blade hummed through another of the catwalk's support rods. The edges of the severed metal glowed red hot. The blow shook the walk again, knocking Vadania to the hard, iron platform. She raised her scimitar in a futile gesture of warding, but it would be as potent as a switch against a falling century tree. Again, and for the last time ever, Gulo rose up to catch the half-dragon's wrist in his powerful jaws. The wolverine bit deep, evoking a shout of intense pain from the winged ogre. Gulo shook his bloodied head and the greatsword clattered onto the catwalk. Fearlessly the wolverine threw his full weight upon his foe. Both of them hurtled over the railing and into the roiling cauldron, three feet below.

Searing gobs of iron splashed over the edges to fall on the thinning goblin horde. They screamed in agony, and the first cowards among them broke and fled from the hall.

Vadania threw herself against the railing and screamed Gulo's name to the flaring cauldron. Her scream was in vain, for her friend died instantly in the molten iron. The carcass, engulfed in sheets of flame, still clutched his foe's limbs and slowly dragged the monster toward a shared death.

Zagreb, nearly invulnerable to heat, gasped for breath in the thick, suffocating iron. He struggled to pry Gulo's baked jaws from his arm and dig the claws from his searing flesh. The infernal heat seemed powerless to harm him, even as it incinerated Gulo's body.

"No, you don't," murmured Vadania, reaching for the fallen greatsword. It took all of her strength to raise the weapon above her shoulder, but once it was firmly in her grip, it seemed to grow light and facile in her hands. She raised it high, holding its long handle like the haft of a spear. She thrust its blade at Zagreb's face. The point struck his eye and though it could not penetrate to harm one who wielded it, Vadania threw her weight behind the weapon and pushed Zagreb's head below the bubbling surface. The liquid metal rushed into his gaping mouth. When he rose back up, it began to cool and solidify.

Vadania stabbed again, managing to thrust his head once more into the molten iron. The monster might be immune to its fire, but she saw his body twitch in suffocating spasms as he gagged for breath with a mouth and nostrils plugged by iron.

"If you won't burn," she shouted, striking him down again and again, "then drown, you abomination!"

She struck one more time, forcing the head below the surface. Finally, though she stood poised with the sword, she struck no more, for Zagreb did not rise again.

Across the catwalk Sandrine howled at the two tormenters who closed in on her, one on either side, each wielding one of the short swords she had dropped. Lidda clutched her own sword as well, while Devis held his bloody longsword pointed at her eye.

"I'll kill you both!" she shrieked, pawing at her wounds. "Before this is done, I'll kill you by inches!"

"Now, now," cautioned Devis, "that's not a pretty thing to say, is it?"

She whipped around to face him, just as he had calculated, and Lidda plunged her sword into Sandrine's back. The blade barely missed the vampire's spine, but it sizzled through her undead flesh.

Devis darted in and hacked at her slender neck. He knew that Andaron's sword could not cut Sandrine's flesh, but he hoped he might knock her off balance. The blade passed through a sudden mist as Sandrine vanished. The cloud lingered tantalizingly where she had stood, then floated toward the ceiling.

Lidda readied her bow just in time to fire a single, useless arrow through the gaseous foe, but then the mist vanished into one of the hidden vents in the cavern wall.

"I hope it's noon out there," Lidda spat after the retreating enemy. She turned back to Devis and shrugged. "I lost track."

Together, they hefted Andaron's short swords and looked down at the battle below. It was a hurricane of bodies with Tordek at its eye. A lightning bolt in the form of Andaron's hammer flashed out and back, leaving carnage in its wake.

"Let's go," said Devis.

They ran along the catwalk and descended toward the battle.

Vadania was there ahead of them, wielding Andaron's greatsword as lightly as a willow wand. Though her face was wet with tears, her eyes were a terror to behold—cold as ice and hard as granite. Devis and Lidda joined her and the three of them cut a swath toward the forge, leaving mounds of goblin dead marking their path.

Without realizing the transformation, they were soon caught up in the same battle-glee that buoyed Tordek. They marveled inwardly at their killing power and delighted in the sounds of tearing flesh, shattering bones, and dying screams. The remade weapons rang with glory and glowed with insatiable lust for combat.

Too soon, only a few hardy goblins lingered in a wavering circle around the blood-spattered warriors standing amid mounds of corpses. The goblins hesitated, unwilling to advance to their doom. As they wavered, blinding light burst upward from the lines of the pentacle surrounding Andaron's forge. The surviving goblins cringed, then fled in terror from the unholy radiance ringing their foes.

Only Hargrimm remained to stride past the heaped dead. Tordek rushed him, but the barghest rose high above the floor with a casual gesture. Levitating near the center of the circle, directly above the radiant forge, Hargrimm shouted out his triumph and his rapture.

"At last-, my master, the sacrifice is sufficient!"

Tordek felt jarring, icy guilt spread through his gut. It chilled his bones and cooled the fury that charged his limbs with strength. Hargrimm's exultation made clear the meaning of Andaron's warning. They, Tordek and his companions, who risked so much to stop Hargrimm, had unwittingly become the instruments of their foe's triumph.

Hargrimm's voice swelled to fill the room and echoed back down with a tangible wave of force. "Come, glorious Gruulnargh, master of these tools of destruction. Command us!"

The ground trembled and cracked. Tordek and the others leaped to get outside the circle just moments before the stones between the arms of the pentacle fell away, revealing an endless pit beneath the forge. A firestorm swirled within that abyss, roiling up to spill upon the demonic circle. Where it splashed out, it pooled and congealed. Each new, lapping wave of the hell-stuff solidified over the previous layer adding to the amorphous figure that grew slowly and steadily before the forge.

"At last," called Hargrimm, lowering himself to the ground outside the circle. "The summoning is irrevocable, and we are brothers in arms. Rejoice, for you have all earned a place at the heel of Gruulnargh the destroyer."

"Never," spat Tordek. He raised the hammer and hurled it at Hargrimm's head, but the weapon glanced away as if deflected by an invisible shield.

Hargrimm smiled and backed away nonchalantly, gesturing at all the remaining corpses. The bodies withered to ectoplasm that flowed into the burning circle, feeding it with ever more souls.

"There is no need to squabble now. We shall all be rewarded for our part in this triumphant moment. Do not think otherwise. After all, you contributed as many sacrifices as I."

Tordek's heart grew cold at the barghest's words. The faces of his companions grew pale.

His eyes wide with horror, Tordek staggered back from Hargrimm. He stared for long moments as the master demon took shape. Lumps of magma gradually transformed into scabby tentacles studded with tiny, yellow spikes.

Tordek looked down at the hammer in his hand. He looked back up at Hargrimm, against whom this mightiest of weapons was useless. His eyes continued farther up, toward the heavens.

The barghest smiled back at him. "Even you must see the irony, Tordek, brother of Holten," he said. "Accept the destiny that you forged with me."

Tordek's gaze came back down to Hargrimm, and a grin creased his face. "Accept yours," he said coldly. He flung the hammer as high and as hard as his mighty arm could throw it, far above the barghest's head.

Hargrimm followed the hammer's flight upward and saw it smash through the bottom of the cauldron in which the half-dragon had drowned. A pillar of fiery red molten iron rocketed downward toward him. The barghest threw himself to the side with superhuman effort, and he almost escaped.

Zagreb's flaring corpse smashed Hargrimm's legs flat against the floor with a horrible sound of crushed bones and searing flesh. Sizzling iron splashed across the floor and over Hargrimm's broad back, burning black holes into his body. Oily smoke rose from his wounds in ruddy purple swirls stinking of brimstone.

Tordek spared only a brief, grim glance at his dying foe before turning toward the urgrosh that tumbled from Hargrimm's hands to skitter across the floor.

"Quickly!" he yelled to his friends. He held out a hand to receive the returning hammer, and it slapped firmly into his grip, smoking and glowing. Tordek stepped haltingly toward the forge, then paused while gazing down at the weapon.

Its steel body gleamed pure and silver in the hellish light of the charnel house that had been Andaron's Forge. Such beauty, Tordek thought, and such power.

He looked up at the monstrous figure of Gruulnargh, at its lashing tendrils and half-formed mouths. He glanced at his friends, who rushed to his side while struggling to elude the partially formed demon's grasp.

Tordek closed his eyes and hurled the hammer toward the forge. Guided by his will more than by his arm, the weapon smashed through a closed iron door and plunged into the nova-bright heart of the infernal fire.

Gruulnargh shrieked, and tornadoes erupted across the chamber. The monster's sulfuric breath stung their eyes and choked their throats. Its tentacles whipped blindly in all directions, seeking betrayers, for its eyes had yet to form on this plane.

As one, Lidda and Devis tossed their short swords into the hole in the forge made by the hammer. Vadania flung the greatsword moments later, shaking her hands as if to clear them of some lingering filth.

The demon's body swelled and throbbed. It accelerated its materialization by thrusting up bone and sinew without benefit of flesh and skin to support them. Ghastly organs bobbed from its nether portions, screaming with mouths of their own until half-formed eyeballs burst out of the wet surfaces to search for targets. Skinless tendrils shot out with blinding speed and latched around Vadania and Devis. They were lifted from the floor and waved madly through the shimmering air. Lidda narrowly escaped the powerful clutch by tumbling out of reach.

Only the urgrosh remained of Andaron's arms and Tordek dived toward it. He clutched the iron shaft in both hands as the demon's tendrils whipped around his legs and spiraled up to squeeze the breath from his lungs. In the instant before they could pin his arms, Tordek hurled the weapon toward the opening. It tumbled awkwardly and struck the edge of the opening but fell inside the sundered forge.

The last weapon vanished with a fiery flare.

Gruulnargh's roars turned to screams and squeals as the five doors of the forge burst open and flames spewed across its partially formed body. Tendrils writhed uncontrollably, dropping Devis and Vadania to the floor, where they scrambled away from the dying demon. Tordek struggled to follow them, but powerful limbs and jaws clamped tightly on his leg.

The trapped dwarf twisted around to see an enormous worg. Its crushed and useless legs and the black burns on its back left no question as to its identity. Despite the crippling wounds, Hargrimm clawed his way across the floor to Tordek's body. Orange eyes seethed with hatred. Scarred jaws opened wide.

Tordek punched Hargrimm's lupine skull, but even bolstered by Andaron's gauntlets, the blow was trifling in the face of the demon's infernal rage. The dwarf twisted away, reaching for his axe. He saw the weapon and knew he could reach it, but Hargrimm dragged Tordek back, away from the weapon's hope of salvation.

A thudding sound grabbed Tordek's attention and he saw an arrow jutting from Hargrimm's neck. An instant later, a crossbow bolt pierced his cheek, and then a wound exploded on his canine snout from a sling bullet creasing his skull.

The dwarf heard Lidda's voice shouting something, but he needed no prompting. A sharp kick propelled him away from the tenacious worg, then the axe was in his grip. He swept the blade past his feet and felt it connect with snapping jaws. In a moment he was standing above his crippled foe with the axe gripped in both hands. Tordek looked down into the face of hate and met it with his own undying enmity.

"You want to be with your master?" he said. The axe swept down toward Hargrimm's neck but the barghest heaved itself forward with powerful front legs. Its fangs caught hold of Tordek's greave and clamped tight, but a mighty blow of the axe sliced away the lower jaw. The second strike severed the monster's spine, and the third sent the giant wolf's head rolling away from its body.

"Join him in hell," spat Tordek as he wiped his axe blade on the worg's wiry fur.

When Tordek looked up, the last of Gruulnargh's burning body was seeping back down through the gate. The magical portal itself was shrinking. Its circumference was now barely wider than the forge. As the glowing border of the pentacle touched the solid iron base of the furnace, the earth shook again.

Afterward came a long minute of silence in which Tordek heard only the clatter of falling pebbles and his own labored breathing. Gradually, and then with growing urgency, his companions gathered their belongings and joined him. Together they watched the last infernal radiance die out from Andaron's forge. Its hellish fires extinguished at last, leaving the giant cavern pitch black.

Vadania rapped a sunrod on the floor. Its illumination highlighted a fifth figure in their solemn cluster beside the forge. It was the translucent image of Andaron himself, no longer formed of the pages from his own chronicle. He looked at each in turn, a growing expression of puzzlement creasing his visage.

The earth trembled again, this time shaking loose a huge stalactite from the ceiling to burst upon the floor. The catwalk squealed in protest as it buckled and slumped.

"What are you waiting for, fools?" shouted Andaron's ghost. "I've given you your reward, the deed is done, and I can't hold this place together much longer. Run!"

"Which way?" yelled Tordek.

The ghost shot him a look of supreme annoyance. "The way out, unless you care to join me in eternity." He closed his eyes as if in tortured concentration. His image sank once more into the earth, heralding another jolt of the ground.

"This way," cried Lidda, running toward the mineshaft. Devis was already there, pushing bins of forgotten ore off the remaining sledge.

Vadania hesitated only an instant before chasing after them, and Tordek was hard on her heels.

"This is suicide!" Tordek shouted. "We survived the first time only through a miracle. This time the whole place is coming down. We'll be buried alive."

Despite his complaint, he helped Devis shove off the last of the bins. Together, they spun the sledge around and pushed it to the edge of the shaft through which they had plunged once before. He complained again, "It was a miracle."

"Yeah?" said Lidda, climbing on board. "If anyone's earned a miracle lately, it's us."

Devis jumped on behind her, and Vadania behind him, leaving Tordek to give them a push. He threw his full weight and strength behind the effort, shoving the sledge over the edge and leaping aboard at the last moment.

"Moradin!" he cried. "Please?"