It’s only now, looking back, that I truly understand what was happening behind that low, furrowed brow of his. Faurgar’s letter hadn't just diagnosed the fortress; it had diagnosed Mangratum himself. The Colonel didn’t just need to agree to the food—he needed to either lose in a fair fight or win while saving face. He desperately needed a bridge between his calcified pride and this new, bread-scented future.
But back then, in that stifling office smelling of oxidized copper and old bile, all I saw was a furious dwarf who nearly choked on our terms.
The words "Way-Masters" stuck in Mangratum’s teeth. It was physically painful to watch them tumble there, scratching his palate. He reread Faurgar’s letter three times, his fingers clenching the parchment until his knuckles turned as white as polished bone. In his eyes, I saw a flicker of that night three hundred years ago—as if Piothin’s ghost were standing over his shoulder, mockingly waiting for an answer.
He looked at the silent Forged sentries by the door, at the smoke-shrouded parade ground outside, and at the cracks in the walls he chose to call "scars of valor" rather than signs of decay. Then, with a stubborn, bull-like tilt of his head, he changed the subject. He didn't want to admit need. He wanted to admit strength.
"You come from Vellaris," he barked, his voice the sound of steel striking flint. "You bring us paper and the scent of another man's field. Do you think the Bastion has fallen so low that it buys into lines on a scroll? We’ve held this ridge for three hundred years without your advice or gnomish bows."
Mangratum threw the letter onto the table. It slid across the wood like useless trash.
"The next siren," he growled. "We fight for the count. Whoever puts down more wretches on the northern parapet decides the wording of the contract. Either I set the seal on your terms, or you rewrite it exactly as I say. None of this 'Way-Master' or 'exclusive access' nonsense."
He poked a short, calloused finger at me.
"Either I go against your Leonin. Or I and two of my Forged against all of you. Choose, 'One-Who-Answers.' Show me that your squad is worth more than just the ability to run through rotten tunnels."
I didn't even turn to my companions. I felt Faurgar’s icy, analytical gaze at my back and Gellia’s restrained, pulsing fury, but words were redundant. In places like the Bronze Bastion, respect isn't earned with ink. It’s torn from the throat of the enemy.
"One," I said, stepping forward, letting my claws slide from their pads. "I go alone."
"Bold," Mangratum smirked. "So they don't say I crushed you with numbers or status. There are no Colonels on the parapet, Priorin. Only those still breathing."
He reached into his belt pouch and tossed an object. I caught it mid-air. It was a massive bronze disk on a simple leather cord. Inside was a carved spiral that emitted a faint, steady warmth—like the even breathing of a sleeping beast deep within the mountain.
"For your recovery," Mangratum barked, turning back to his map. "You have an hour’s rest. The amulet will take the weight of the tunnels off you and patch the small holes in your hide. I don't need a weakling in the line who'll collapse at the first northern gust. In one hour: northern wall, third embrasure. Honest count. My scribe will be standing by. Me against you. Whoever gets the most frags owns the word."
The warmth of the amulet was strange—not burning, but deep and steady. It crawled toward my ribs, where the trail of the Defender’s spectral axe still throbbed. The pain began to fade, replaced by a sensation of density, as if my muscles were filling with molten lead.
"It’s not about magic, Flint," I said, putting the cord around my neck as the Hadozi hovered near me, suspicious of a trap. "And it’s not even about how many heads we take."
"It’s about the right to speak," Faurgar added quietly. "Mangratum needs to see that you aren't just another 'task force' from the capital. He needs to see a warrior who understands the price of every inch of this wall."
I sat on the cold stone steps, letting the amulet "level" me. It removed the tremors in my fingers and the noise in my ears. I was becoming part of the Bastion—cold and functional.
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Gellia checked the edge of her sword. "Don't be a hero, Priorin. Heroism often leaves gaps in the defense because one fool decided to lunge further than the rest. Just do your job."
"It’s not heroism, Gellia," I replied, standing up as my muscles hummed with strength. "It’s the count. Pure mathematics of survival."
The siren wailed again—short and sharp. Time was up.
The northern wall in battle is a massive rectangular stage where every foot of floor is paid for with exhaustion or life. Mangratum and I took the wide central section. To our sides, the Forged—Sinister and Gauntlet—stood like unmoving shadows.
From the grey haze below, the enemies appeared. Fungaloids. Shapeless, dirty-grey clusters rolling up the slope.
"Don't swing at the mass!" Mangratum roared, gripping his colossal two-handed hammer. "Wait for contact!"
I saw the Colonel in action for the first time. He didn't carry a shield. His shield, forged from the same dauntingly dark metal as Gellia’s sword, floated in the air on its own. It orbited him like a living satellite, intercepting arrows and magical flares with a dry clang while the dwarf swung his hammer with both hands.
I didn't strike at the fungi. My gaze caught the ones rolling them—the "Pushers." Long, unnaturally thin bodies hiding behind the spore-clusters.
I worked with short, precise downward slashes. My task wasn't to break the clusters—which would release the poison—but to sever the tendons of those pushing them. Behind us, Mangratum’s scribe scribbled frantically on a tablet, recording every kill.
Suddenly, a nightmare rose from the haze. A Chromatic Knight. His armor looked cast from a world turned inside out—dull, with signs of unnatural wear. Pulsing vines visible through the gaps in the metal. On his belt hung flasks of neon-bright, toxic paint.
He didn't need ladders. He painted his own. With one wide sweep, he drew a thick line of glowing ichor across the wall of the Bastion. It hardened instantly, turning into a solid ledge. The stone itself seemed to bend to his rules.
He aimed for the right flank—the veterans' zone. They were unprepared; they thought the traps would handle it. But the traps were off for our duel.
"Right side!" I shouted.
I lunged from the center. The Knight was already stepping onto the parapet. I dove under a whistling vine-whip. My first strike severed the creature's hip tendons. With my heel, I crushed his last flask, letting the paint spill uselessly down the wall. My blade entered his chest at an angle. The armor gave way with the sound of breaking ceramics. The painted stairs crumbled, and the Knight fell into the abyss.
I turned back. Mangratum was breathing hard. He had seen it all. The count was tied.
A new shadow emerged. A skeletal Unicorn—a mass of bones covered in grey skin, with a black horn and empty sockets. It moved in a wide arc toward the junction of the wall and the tower. If its horn struck there, the flank would collapse.
Mangratum didn't hesitate. He abandoned the "easy" kills in the center.
"I’ll take it!" he barked to the Forged.
He dropped to a lower tier. I saw him intercepting the Unicorn’s charge with his hovering dark shield, taking the monstrous momentum. While the shield held the horn, the dwarf went to work, crushing bone and neck with rhythmic hammer strikes. He was exciseing a tumor threatening his home.
He knew that by leaving the center, he was losing the "race." But he chose the wall. It was the choice of a leader.
The center became mine. "Strands"—creatures with bone-shovels for hands—began carving their own stairs into the mountain itself, hacking at the parapet like it was wet soil.
I entered that "quiet rage" Faurgar once spoke of. No roar. No flair. The world shrank to three targets and their trajectories.
- Target One: Cut the knee. Finished with a short, economical strike.
- Target Two: A thrust to the groin, a sidestep. The axe sang.
- Target Three: A leap. I twisted mid-air, driving the blade into the neck-seal.
I saved a young dwarf who was being dragged over the edge. I didn't think. I just moved.
The siren wailed a second time—long and mournful. The assault was over. The mist began to retreat.
The wall went deathly quiet.
"The count..." whispered one of the survivors.
The scribe, pale but professional, stepped to the edge of the gallery. He checked his tallies one last time.
"Mangratum—Seventeen," he shouted. "Priorin—Eighteen."
I exhaled. Not in triumph, but in relief. One point. The exact price the Colonel paid when he abandoned the center to save the tower.
Mangratum stood nearby, pressing a bloody strip of cloth to his neck. His hovering shield slowed to a halt. His eyes were clear, devoid of malice. He looked at the scribe’s tablet, then at me. He didn't argue. Dwarven honor was as monolithic as the mountain’s foundation.
"Accepted," he rasped. "I keep my word. Scribe, prepare the seal. We go for the bread."
I nodded, lowering my axe. We both knew the real winner wasn't the one with the higher score, but the one who ensured the wall stood for one more day.
The Margin of Honor. The one-point difference (18 to 17) is the most important part of the chapter. It highlights the difference between a Gladiator (Priorin) and a Commander (Mangratum). Priorin was optimized for killing, but Mangratum was optimized for saving the wall. By choosing to stop the Blighted Unicorn, the Colonel intentionally lost the contest to ensure his fortress survived.
Chromatic Knight sets up a new recurring enemy type—fighters who use magical pigments to rewrite the battlefield's geometry.
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