[Hereford Eye]

Watching the man work his metal is fascinating but Tari’s nature is to tug at problems. A major problem remains, why are she and Tuli still here? The message is delivered; is there something else they must do? If so, it is about time to be about it.
“Anna, from your knowledge, is there a reason Tuli and I should not return to our people?”
The woman turns away, the very act indicating some knowledge that she does not wish to share. The man halts his work to watch her.
“What do you know?” he demands.
“More than I am willing to say,” she snaps, “as you well know.”
“But, in the matter of Koldred, we have not even hinted in our conversations.”
“Have we not, oh, lord and master of the forge.? Have you now become my lord and master, owner of all my knowledge, my memories, my heart?” The latter words challenge the smithy air, as hot and as barbed as the sparks from the steel and hammer. Lucas head bows; he does not answer.
“There are many auguries concerning this time, Lucas. You know that well. You know your task well yet you ever shy away from the full meaning of what you must do.”
It is Lucas’ turn to hide his face, a shudder racking his body, knowledge of things to come. Tari is having none of it.
“This talking over our heads as if our intellects are as small in comparison to yours as our bodies are irritates, works hard against alliances, builds barriers to friendship.”
Anguish fills the room, both humans turning to address the Koldred ambassador. “Never from anger; never from spite, Kari. Lucas knows and I know and now – perhaps to your peril – you will know that forging the Spirit Blades requires a very special ingredient, a woman’s life blood.”
“Why to my peril?”
“Lucas must forge a blade for Koldred folk, for a Koldred hero, for the warrior of your race who plays a role in this great farce.”
“Farce?”
“I see it that way. The evil growing on the lower slopes of High Peak, preparing to engulf all who inhabit this land. The evil hidden in the tunnels below us that even the Earl has not yet discovered. The certainty that you and we together have a chance, though small, of ending the threat this time as our ancestors ended the threat last time. The farce is that the ending is never final, merely an intermission between acts, and life is ever so.”
Tuli’s interest matches Tari’s. “And we have a part in this, Tari and I? If women’s blood is involved then only Tari is accounted for; what I am going to do?”
Lucas growls with impatience: “Do you know so much of auguries, little hero? Are you certain you understand what the term might signify? How do you grow in your mother’s belly if not with women’s blood. Do you think your blood arrives here pure and not the result of many generations of Koldred men and women contributing bits and pieces?”
Tari pays little attention to Lucas grumbling. She is more interested in Anna’s knowledge. “There is another augury, isn’t there? You said as much to the Earl.”
“There are many auguries but one addresses your question.
The mightiest blade of them all
Is forged from the smallest of small.”
A quick look of understanding passes between Tari and Tuli. “From the smallest of small can only mean Koldred. There are none smaller than we.”
“That you know of,” Anna objects.
“Huh, there are smaller than Koldred? Who? Where?”
Anna laughs that no, she knows none smaller than Koldred but, then, she – just as the Koldred elders - does not know everything. Annoyed at the lecture in the midst of important conversation, Tari ignores the rebuke and travels down the path looking now to Lucas. “What does it mean “is forged from the smallest of the small”?”
This is not a conversation Lucas wants to continue. He looks to Anna for support. Anna sits in resigned expectation.

[Holbrook]

Earl calls for his general at arms. The general calls for soldiers, the soldiers come, go and look. The Earl goes and looks they search and prod, poke in dusty corners. They tramp down passages, narrow and wide, high and low. But nothing is found.

Growler moans and rings his hands. "It was here, there, no there.. " his voice pleads.

Growler is cursed and shoved into a cell, cold dark and bitter. Here his is to await his punishment.

The Earl is annoyed; too much folly, too much telling of tales and auguries. He stamps back to his hall his mind set on dinner and then dealing with soldiers who lie.

The General smiles as the Earl leaves and turns down a tunnel not there before. Harsh has witnessed all, frowned and chewed her lip. she follows not her father, but the General.

The General into the presence’s quarters walks, all honour and bowing to this master. Though chilled to the marrow by the knowledge of what this can do, to him, to others. But the General is sure others will be one with the presence, before he, he is too useful, too clever, too needed.

"So, sort I am" The presence hissed.

"But not found?" The general confirms.

"Save are we?" The question asked, echoed by a inching of shadows round the general's bulk.

"To be sure." The General gulps.

"Auguries?"


Two so far are spoken out Before the end of all things there must be a beginning of new things.”

A lost woman must be found, an alliance of strangers must be wound.” The General ticks both off on his fingers, limed with sweat his hands, yet cold is the room,

"Know they what they mean?" spat the words are, cutting they are.

"No."

"Sure?"

"You better be, or else you will be rewarded." The general gulps and turns, making his way back.

The shadow in the corner moves, Harsh uncurls, wide eyed, panic ridden she runs. The presence laughs, for Harsh's hurried footsteps travel down tunnels layered with dust, colder, darker, deeper.

"No A lost woman will be found, and no alliance of strangers will be wound" The presence hisses in the darkness.

[Hereford Eye]

Outside the cavern of the forge, the sound of feet pounding through the tunnels begins to escalate. Gnarled Folk scurry by shouting to each other about some new crisis. None stops to explain the latest development so the two couples surrounding the forge are left to their own puzzles.
Tari takes a perch to allow unimpeded eye contact with woman, Anna, her mind reeling under the impact of information received but her will firmly set on seeing this mystery through. The Elders said she might play a part other than message bearer and this woman obviously thinks she knows what that part might be.
“If you’re thinking I’m connected with the smallest of the small,” Tari starts, “then I can see your reasoning. If it must be a lost woman to be found, we Koldred have been hidden away for security so that may constitute our race being viewed as ‘lost’ and therefore I could be the lost woman who must be found. There are great exercises of the mind involved in either line of thought. Very straightforward once you accept some basic premises”
Anna smiles agreement and encouragement.
“But, there must be more to your conclusion. The third augury said the blood of two women, did it not?”
“Yes,” Anna agrees. “I believe I am the second woman.”. Her comment receives “Hah,” of disagreement from Lucas who does not turn to the conversation. His hands work the precious metal, the weight and heft, the feel of health in the steel making mockery of the life it takes from those hands.
“Why do you believe you are the second woman?” Tari demands.
The question shocks Anna. She has never considered another possibility. That Tari asks the question is so unsettling her head drops to her chest, her mind going over her certainty searching for the basis of her belief.
“Were you lost?” Tari asks.
Lucas answers that no, Anna has never been lost. She has been in the center of her people’s history for a decade or more. She it was who found him.
“Are you small for your race?” Tari persists.
Anna’s eyes come up to re-engage the Koldred woman. “No,” she says. “No. I am not small.”
“You are a woman, though?” There is sardonic laughter in the question. Anna manages a grin as her mind whirls around the Koldred’s pointed barbs. “Yes, I am a woman.”
“If I fit all three criteria and you only one, then why do you believe you are the second woman of the auguries?”
Lucas lays down his tools, the metal he works, and turns to watch Anna answer. “Tari, I have been asking the same question for weeks and all I’ve managed is the sight of Anna’s bowed head. I, too, wish to hear her answer.”
Anna regards her three companions, shock still prominent on her brow. Yes, Lucas asked but Lucas’ questioning could be disregarded. He knows nothing of auguries or women. He is a simple smith. Well, not simple, he works the precious metal.
A time to consider the facets of her answer and then the answer arrives in a wondering voice: “It must be me! I am the one who knows all the auguries and what they are meant to lead us towards.”
Tuli, quiet throughout this time thinking of the meaning of woman’s blood, laughs without humor: “But, Lady, you are not lost.”
“And you are not the smallest of the small,” Tari adds, then waits for whatever explanation or tale the big person might make. The answer does not come, not this time, because the Earl chooses this moment to burst into the cavern. Two guards accompany him fanning out to roam through the great cavern of the forge searching in dark and secret places.
“Have you seen her? Have you seen Harsh?”
Lucas answers, his eyes following the guards search. “She was here; we talked, and she departed saying she was required at her loom for the next hour.”
“That was where she was when I left. We went looking for a myth and all I have found is that Harsh is missing.”
“Myth?” Tuli asks.
“Not nearly as important at this moment as where my small daughter can be. How could a girl of her education and intelligence disappear in the tunnels and caves she has played all her life? How could my small treasure turn up missing?” The Earl’s panic grows as he watches his men approach, their heads shaking a negative reply to the question he does not ask.

[Holbrook]

“Myth?” Anna repeats Tuli’s words her eyes locking with Lucas’

“Yes, but not important, my daughter is.” The Earl snaps and commands his guards to search again.

“Where did you go in search of this myth and was the nature of it discussed in Harsh’s hearing.” Tari asks her voice gaining speed, the movement of her hand to point a near blur to all eyes save Anna’s

“Down…..” The Earl’s hand waves vaguely in a direction.

“Where was Harsh when you talked of it?” Tuli repeats his fellow Koldred question, but his voice is the buzzing of an insect. He frowns and looks at Tari. She is looking at the others, the moving of Lucas mouth is slow, the tones booming, indistinct.

Her eyes widen and a hand goes to her pocket.

“No…” Anna says, her voice higher, sharper, more like a Koldred than one of that race. “You search, with speed in the smaller tunnels away from.” Anna turns again to the Earl asking where. He gives directions, these Anna repeats to Tuli and Tari adding, "Look with your hearts not your eyes, "The two wee folk nod, but both have frowns on their brows, then they vanish, so fast are there movements.

Anna smiles then gags, the colour gained in her cheeks by the forging of the metal blanching. She shudders and almost falls. Lucas is at her side, his arm round her waist. She looks into his eyes seeing the question hearing his harsh words.”You are not yet whole, your strength not returned.

“It is of no matter it has begun.” Anna cried.

In the land below high Peak

The larvae stirred in their slick cases, tails flicking as nature’s command forced them to emerge. Squirming, intertwining they forced their way up to the surface.

The earth grew colder as the worm’s offspring neared the surface, some still only partly formed baulked, reluctant to press further. These sort shelter in the moist lower levels of the ground curling up, their life force failing, bodies becoming food for the others.

A gill-feathered head broke through the thick covering of snow, drawing in large gasps of winter-tainted night air. The creature’s scales rasped as it dragged itself over the lip of the fast forming crater, as others of its ilk struggled to join it.

The worm spawn turned lidless cinnamon eyes upon the world and hissed the hunger generated by its birth. One of its nest mates slithered by, a young female intent on the fleeing form of a bellowing cow.

Blind survival surged through the newly emerged male and he lunged, taking the tail of the female in his jaws crushing scale and bone. The female screamed her head snaking round, forked tongue lashing the night as she strove to strike her attacker.

He bunched his coils, seeking to ensnare her, wet half formed wings beating forwards in a vain attempt to protect the delicate area of his gills. But she had bitten deep, teeth ripping into the heart shaped feathered lungs, draining the rich life giving blood from his veins.

He released his hold on her tail driven by blinding anger, seeking in his death throes to tear her in two. Sensing his coming attack she looped her front coils, using still weak wings to lift his target clear of the ground.

His bloodied muzzle closed on empty air as she severed his spine with the sharp crunch of closing jaws. The female roared her victory, as she lowered her head to feed, swiftly stripping the flesh from the male’s body.

Theirs had not been the only battle enacted on the frost hard snow. Some two hundred worm spawn now gorged themselves on their brethren. Within days they would mate, by the time spring touched the land it would writhe under a carpet of the creatures.

[Hereford Eye]

To Gnarled Folk eyes, Tari and Tuli, returned to normal behavior, are blurs moving down the tunnels adding new substance to the myth now circulating among the people of a terrible ghost sucking the life of folk. Their passage adds ambulation to the ghost, uncertainty and fear to the Gnarled Folk. The thing can be anywhere?
For Tari and Tuli, the slowness of the Gnarled Folk, their inability to get out of the Koldred pair’s way adds a degree of difficulty to the passage and a feeling of pity for beings condemned to move through life at half-speed. As quickly as they move, Tari and Tuli’s eyes dart here and there in nook and cranny as they pass. Koldred on a hunt miss very little important.
Conditioned by dealing with Gnarled Folk, even the presence is not prepared to react to their appearance in and disappearance from his cavern. The astonished hiss he murmurs is little different from his routine so the guards in his caverns are not aware of anything amiss until the one near the door feels the presence’ touch.
“Be more alert, fools,” comes the hissed command, “beings move in the tunnels. Send war parties down, now. Find the Koldred; bring them to me.”
His command is punctuated by the screams of the guard too near the door who now finds himself joining the presence. The fortunate three leap through the door to obey the command.
Tari and Tuli move on, downwards, marking the wall as they go to leave a map for the return journey.
Ahead and below, a small Gnarled Folk form huddles at the end of an abruptly closed shaft. How she arrived here, other than panic flight, she has no clue. Where her father might be is not nearly as high in her concerns as where the general might be and even the latter’s location is not as important as where that thing might be.
Accompanied by terrified sobs, Harsh wonders if they are tracking her. They ought to be, she thinks, since she knows where the thing is and that the general also knows. She knows enough of adult behavior to realize her situation is not good at all. They must capture her to keep her from talking to her father, of warning her father with all she knows.
That she should have remained at her loom crosses her mind but is quickly replaced by the pride of knowledge. Anna said she had a part to play in this drama; she forsook her loom to discover what that part might be. Just doing her duty.
“You don’t suppose,” she thinks, “that my duty is to be a sacrifice? That I am to be captured, subjected to all manner of horror as a lesson to my father and all the Gnarled Folk?” This kind of thought brings more sobs and more terror.
“Stop,” she commands herself although her body is slow to obey. “I am the Earl’s daughter and I cannot be so childish.” Her body seems to willing to entertain the idea if not yet ready to cease its uncontrolled shivering. “I must warn them.”
Her mind agrees forcing her body to consider new behavior. The shivering gradually subsides but her legs are not yet ready to support her weight. They need a bit more convincing.
“I need to get to Anna. She will know what to do. She is the only one in the Lower Realm who has an inkling of what to do. She certainly will not be looking for me so I must got to her.”
Resolution gives way to strategic thinking. “Where am I?” is the first consideration in any plan she might devise. Her answer to the question is not reassuring. “I have no clue,” she admits to herself. “I am down as low as Gnarled Folk have gone,” she adds pleased that one dimension of “where am I?” is answered.
I”I have my knife,” she adds. “I can defend myself.” At 14, Harsh is nearly grown, blessed with the strength of youth, equipped with rudimentary training in self defense. Defending herself is possible though not high on the probability scale. “I may be better than I think or they realize,” she consoles herself.
The time arrives when she can stand, when she can start feeling her way back up the tunnel. The starts and shivers at every turn do not defeat her will. Lacking a torch, she moves slowly, feeling her way through the obstacles.
“I am a part of this,” she reminds herself. “I will not die a lost little girl. I have a role to play.”
The mantra keeps her legs moving.

[Holbrook]

While the smallest of the small seek the lost in the tunnels, work in the forge continues.

The Earl's gates are nearly complete. Lucas rests for a while, forcing bread in his mouth, washing it down with mountain cold water. He would prefer ale, but his hands must remain sure.

Anna, paces, hands twisting, eyes half closed as she mumbles." Time running out. The body as it is must do the job. The spirit must drive it."

Lucas shakes his head, Anna in a glance catches the movement and snaps " You disagree?"

Lucas sighs " You have disgarded the heart."

"No I have not, the heart drives the body it...."

"Rubbish!" Lucas' voice cut through Anna's words. "I do not mean a piece of flesh, I mean the heart, the seat of feeling, of love, of friendship. The organ some dismiss, some use, some abuse, some abandon. Yet none disputes its power but you."

"It has no place...." Anna begins.

"Then why do this if the heart has no place? Why risk all?"

"Because it is right and just... I... "Anna fumbles for words.

"Empty words, you do it because you care, because your heart tells you to fight, to risk for others. Others that have no knowledge of you, care not for you, but you care for them. Don't deny it, I see it in your eyes."

"If I cared, would I seek to complete the auguries would I seek to...do this" Anna's voice dropped and she whispered, " Before they can steel their hearts They must steal her heart."

"You accused me earlier asked me have I now become your lord and master, owner of all your knowledge, your memories, your heart? I tell you Anna there are other ways of stealing a heart."

[Hereford Eye]

Tari and Tuli race through the caverns, the tunnels, marking trail as they move ever downward. A split in the path sends one Koldred one direction, the other holding place for a moment, the speeding in the in the alternate tunnel. No stone unturned, they vow. Harsh must be found.
Behind them moving at a much slower rate but inevitably forward a small party of Gnarled Ones, sworn in service to the general, acting from total fear of the presence. They too are thorough. They, too, leave no stone unturned. Their sole mistake is to not look low enough on the walls, to not notice the Koldred marks/ Had they noticed and translated the message their downward progress would be swifter knowing that following the Koldred would lead them to Harsh.

Harsh moving upwards, the Koldred moving downward, paths must eventually cross and they do. For Harsh there is a blur of movement, high squealed voices, a flurry of tugging and pulling that does little to settle her shattered nerves. Reason says the activity must be friendly; memory produces tidbits about Koldred speed; her heart tells her to follow the guidance provided.

“She is terrified,” Tari tells Tuli. “We must slow down.”
“She is following us and better she be afraid and alert than confident. We will be followed; you know that.”
“Yes, but if one of us took the draught, slowed down, we could help Harsh, provide encouragement.”
“And lose the sole advantage we have against the force moving to intercept us.”
“You are right,” Tari concedes, “I know. But I cannot help but feel compassion for this youngster.”
“Her chance at safety improves if we remain who we are.”
“I agree but that does not mean I revel in our decision.”

Upwards they move, one or the other Koldred moving ahead of Harsh to scout the caverns, to identify the enemy and the enemy’s movement. Harsh moves as quickly as her tiring frame allows. It has been a while since she ate or slept and the messages come all too frequently from her overworked form. Soon, she must rest.
Tuli returns in a burst of speed and excitement. “Two hundred yards, no more.”
“How many?”
“A dozen, at least.”
“The thing?”
“No; no sign of the thing.”
Tari turns to Harsh. When she speaks she attempts the slow down they parodied so long ago in their own tunnels beneath the snow.
“Hhhaaarrrssshhhh, ssssiiitttt dddoooowwwnnnn.”
Harsh hears a high pitched squirt of noise that seems to tell her to sit, an idea she does not to hear twice to agree that it is precisely what she wants to do.
“Ttttthhheeeeyyyyy ccoooommmmeee.”
“Who comes?” she asks, nervous tension almost prodding her to her feet.
The squealed “Eeeennnneeemmmyyyy” does little to brace her, knocks her back to a sitting position. “Already?” she cries, in disbelief bordering on despair.
“Wwwwaaaiiiittt aaaaannnndddd wwwwaaatttcccchhhh!”

The Gnarled Ones posse comes round the corner to espy their Quarry sitting on the ground before them. She seems to be crying, refuses to look at them, acknowledge their presence. The leader growls approval and start forward to be met by a blur from the side of the wall, incredibly fast, moving up and away from him.
“What the….” He starts to say but no more air rumbles through his vocal chords. It escapes in a hiss from a growing red smear just below their location. The Gnarled One’s hands rush to the gap, feel the blood, feel the gash from which it pulses, then fall away in utter dejection. The Gnarled One’s body follows the hands to the floor, sprawling in mid-corridor, an obstacle now to his squad’s progress.
Those immediately behind see the blood but did not see the movement that produced it. They are alert now, more careful, stepping across their fallen comrade but keeping their eyes on Harsh. She is important in this tunnel; nothing else.
There is not time to reconsider their evaluation. Two more blurs, another pair of gashes in Gnarled One’s throats and two more soldiers join their fallen comrade.
“The Koldred,” one mutters and turns to go back up the passage.
“The presence,” says one behind him who stops his retreat and turns him again towards Harsh. The stalwart has not time to see opposing blurs meet in front of him and then disappear up the corridor. He does have time to feel the gash in his neck and the hole in his great belly. He, too, falls as so much garbage on the cavern floor.
Eight Gnarled Ones turn in terror and fly back up the tunnel.

“They will regroup up ahead,” Tuli says, wiping his blade on an enemy tunic.
“Yes, their fear of the thing will get the upper hand. They will turn back on us.”
“We need to get Harsh past them before their fear of the thing exceeds the terror we produce.”

Harsh feels the tugs and pulls, is startled to see a water bottle and food in her lap, donations from Gnarled Ones no longer her enemies. She stands, drinking great gulps, emptying the bottle. Chewing on the rations, she follows the tugs and pulls up the cavern floor.

[Holbrook]

The general curses, berates, hammers with his fists, those that bring him bad knews and dead bodies.

"Koldred" the word is said in the same way a child mentions a monster under the bed. A deep seated fear, one that has suddnely become very real.

"Find them! " The General snarls hiding his fear. For he fears the presence, the dark shadow lurking not far behind him. He fears to be come one with it, fears what it might do, but wants it also. The General wants to rise with the presence, to have others at his feet. To be what the Earl denied him. To lead armies against lesser races, like the Koldred. Yet the Koldred are the bogey man. The devil in the tunnels. The killer of those sent to fetch a child.

The presence shudders and the General fears it shudders with anger, at him.

But is it?

what does the presence fear? Does it, it know the meaning the meaning of the word. It knows power, understands control. Desires both, believes it should know all. Is it the not knowing all that it fears?

Is that its weakness? Not knowing all about the smallest of the small? Not knowing all about a small female knotted one. Not knowing why the smith works the Arian and why the woman needs him too to make her whole?


What of the worms that twist and turn on the soil snow below the mountain? What caused them to be? Does the presence know of them? Yes it knows and welcomes them. The beasts’ heads are turning to him. They are the cancer, the outward sign of the presence being in the world. They are his mindless tools they will do as HE commands. They will not whimper and fear like the knotted ones, will not bargain for place and position. The worms will do as he wishes. Hard to kill, but driven to kill the worms are an extension of his hands.

[Hereford Eye]

Working the metal, completing the Earl’s door takes more from Lucas than he could have imagined. There is physical drain from the heat of the forge and the closeness of the cavern, the strength applied to mold and meld, shape and form. Add to that the emotional drain this metal requires from those who dare to tame it. It is a constant war of domination, “you think you are strong, man? I am strong” the metal declares and the man says “yes, I am strong, strong enough to twist you, turn you to the form I desire,” only to watch as his desire changes, merges with the metal’s desire so the door becomes something more than either dreamed.
Ascribing sentience to molten metal is the task of fools or poets, not smiths, but Lucas cannot separate his mind from the thought. The metal has a will he has not previously encountered and he cannot bend it to his own. He can seek its cooperation but he cannot demand. It is a terrible lesson for a smith to learn; it counters all his training, all his experience. Yet, at the end of the task, he knows the beauty to be mounted in the Earl’s entryway is not so much of his doing as it is the very metal itself willing to take this shape.
The Earl sits in glum appreciation, astonished and pleased in one segment of his soul that finally, after all these years, his door is finished. Yet the pleasure has no power to wash away his fear for his daughter. She has not returned. His general has not yet returned and now the rumors of the myth are spreading a flood of panic through his realm. He told his retainers to spread the word that no monster exists in the places below the Lower Realm. They tried to obey his will but rumor was receiving impetus from souls claiming to have seen the myth, souls petrified with a fright all too contagious.
“Is this the role she was to play?” he asks the woman, Anna. “She is to be the source of my undoing. Is that it? At my moment of triumph she will bring me low.”
“You care for your daughter, Earl. Do not mask your concern with these false demons. She deals now with the true demon I warned you about. But, that is not her task. She will not face it directly. The Koldred will bring her back. But, then the role she must play becomes more terrible.” Anna gazes into the Earl’s eyes, undaunted by his power, unwilling to give less than truth, reluctant to break his heart.
“If not directly, then how?” the Earl begs. “Losing her for this short time is more than I can bear. What more can there be?”
“She will be force that keeps your people free.”
The Earl brightens. “She will be a warrior then. You have a prophecy that says she will lead our people.” Hope shines in his eyes but finds no reflection in Anna’s.
“You have heard the prophecy,” Anna says. “She is the woman who is lost who must given her heart to the cause.”
“What does that mean, give her heart to the cause?”
“Lucas will forge a spirit blade and she will give it life.”
“No,” the Earl says just a beat in ahead of Lucas’ own negative response.
“Why my daughter? Why not you or some other woman.....or even the Koldred? Why not someone else? She is all I have.”
“I did not write the prophecy, Earl, I simply live it.”
The Earl’s head snaps up, his eyes needles pricking Anna’s soul: “You live it, do you? What cost do you pay when I must lose a daughter, my only daughter, my only child?”
“I will pay, Earl. Never fear that my burden will equal yours. And do not fear that your daughter is on the woman who was lost. Two blades will be forged requiring two spirits and then two to bear them into battle. The chosen bearers will not be unscathed by their task. That is certainty.”
“Then I will bear my daughter’s blade.”
“The prophecy indicates otherwise, my lord.”
“Who, then?”
Anna bows her head; Lucas shudders. The Earl stares at nothing at all, dumbfounded.

[Holbrook]

In the silence that follows Lucas watches as the gates are mounted. Fitted snuggly to stone mounts, metal pins firmly driven in.

The workmen close the gates to see if they fit , that each is hung matching the other in drop and height. A soft click fills the mightly hall, as the gates close. A hall the Earl boasts can sit a thousand to feast in comfort. A hall in which a race can shelter in time of trouble.

The click rumbles through the stone, Lucas turns his head as the vibration travels. A dwarf, one of the eyes of the enemy, the presence is about his duties to the one that should command him, seeking to enter the hall from on of the smaller doors to the rear.

The dwarf steps through the doorway and screams. His is pinned by a blue glow, the glow of worked Arian metal. A companion behind him, loyal to the Earl, echos the presence's agent's cry. Yet this loyal man can step round his companion, who caught like a fly in a web. The loyal man tries to pull his companion free and into the hall, but he cannot, so he pushes. The presence's agent falls back and runs, his eyes wide with fear.

The loyal man calls after, confused and frightened himself.

Lucas speaks, calling out; the feeling inside him now welded like the metal he had worked. "The gates are honest, the gates are true, the gates seal this place, here safety is assured for those that wish it."

"And here must the swords be made, not in shadow, not out of sight. All must be aware of the price, all must be aware of what we fight." Anna adds, her form now solid and sure, hair fine, eyes bright, she is whole. Her body has the strength it needs. The power within makes her skin glow, she is more God now than woman, yet linked to what will be, not all knowing, not never ending. Still a woman; for Lucas this is more than he can bare. Words not spoken, freindship not acknowledged add to his load.

The Earl, having watched what his dream of mighty gates has brought forth calls for all his people to gather, to enter the hall, if they stay there, or return to their homes this is their choice, but he would know who is loyal, who is not and who knows the enemy's lair.

Below the mountain in a Castle, the presence is testing his reach and control;

"Can you feel them?" Harry panted, his breath hissing out of his helm.

"Aye, the buggers are… Ware!" George bellowed, as the air in front of them exploded into a haze of tumbling writhing ribbons, all blessed with a triple row of teeth. The creatures’ gills worked franticly drawing in air; their bodies arched and curved, avoiding contact with the walls and floor, pale lidless cinnamon eyes intent on their perceived pray.

Harry turned three foot of silvered metal slicing deep into the tangle, the worm spawn raged and shifted, their fan like wings beating the air as they fell too gorging on the wounded. George whooped and hacked his way forward cutting through the spawn’s thick skin, the sound of the creature’s flesh sizzling at the touch of steel enveloping him.

The passage was awash with the beasts the air thick with the sound and smell of them. George felt his feet slip on the gore slick metal, heard Harry bellowing, and then screaming. He slashed forward with his blade, bracing a hand on the ore clad wall, trying to see his companion.

Harry’s body jerked, a puppet controlled by a madman. His helm had come loose, falling back, the opening jammed with the arm thick bodies of worm spawn, as the fought each other to consume the man within his metal case. George howled and hacked at the coiling bodies, his mind bursting with the pain of his friend’s death