Halbrecht did not bother to move.

  The voice that called from the corridor behind him was too rge for the space it occupied.

  "Which one of these Ankharad freed the Demon Lord?"

  It sounded like judgment being lowered into pce.

  Something heavy struck stone once, then again, each footfall slow enough to make the pause between them meaningful. The torchlight in the hall shifted strangely. For one disorienting instant I thought another section of wall had begun to move.

  Then Danzig stepped into view.

  The scale of the Forge suddenly made sense.

  The overbuilt thresholds, the deep-set hinges on the side passages, the absurd height of certain inner arches, the broad spans of corridor that seemed extravagant by any standard. Standing in the doorway, Danzig turned all of that from abstraction into purpose.

  He was enormous.

  Not merely tall, but broad, too: shoulders like stacked masonry, arms thick as pilrs, hands that looked capable of lifting anvils as if they were prayer books. His beard, braided once and now partially loosened, hung over a breastpte scarred by age and fresh damage alike. One side of it had been split and repaired in haste. The skin visible beneath was lined with old burns and newer wounds.

  Beside me, Rocher's posture changed at once. Evelyn pushed immediately off the wall, dropping to a low crouch. Seraphine lifted Pulseweaver by a fraction, and the air in the room seemed to tighten around the gesture.

  Halbrecht, by contrast, only turned slightly and extended one hand with casual precision.

  "This one," he said.

  I had just enough time to understand that he meant me.

  Danzig moved.

  For a man of his size, he crossed the room with a speed that made no physical sense. One stride. That was all it took. An enormous shadow fell over me, a pair of hands closed beneath my arms, and suddenly the ground was gone.

  My breath left me in an abrupt, humiliating noise as I found myself dangling several feet above the stone like an unruly child. For an instant I was certain he meant to dash me against the wall.

  Rocher's sword hissed half from its sheath. Evelyn's knives fshed silver in the low light.

  "Wait," Lumiere said sharply.

  There was enough command in her voice that both of them stopped.

  Rocher looked one heartbeat from driving his bde through Danzig's wrist regardless of scale or consequence. Evelyn had shifted so that if I fell she would reach me before I struck the ground.

  But they held.

  Danzig held me at arm's length and stared directly into my face.

  I started to kick, then stopped.

  His eyes were wrong.

  Close enough now, I could see it: the cloudy white film over his eyes, the scars that crossed his brow and cheek, the rough healing of injuries that should by any sensible measure have killed him. His expression was not one of hostility, but intent.

  He wasn't lifting me to threaten me.

  He was simply trying to see.

  The realization arrived just as Lumiere stepped forward.

  "Not all of our efforts ended in failure," she said, speaking quickly, before anyone else could make the present arrangement more disastrous. "We managed to draw the Martyr himself back from the brink."

  Up close I could smell iron and old smoke on him. His gaze did not quite settle. It drifted, searching.

  "Though by that time," she continued, "the miasma had already worked too deeply into him. His sight has gone. Much of his hearing as well. But by the Goddess's grace, he survived."

  Danzig's mouth split into a grin.

  "I'd sooner bme a proper Kharad constitution," he said. "You Ankharad worship some strange gods."

  His voice, unlike the booming demand from the corridor, was warm with rough humor. It rolled through the room like distant stonefall. He turned me slightly left, then right, giving me an appraising once-over that was made only marginally less insulting by the fact that he was doing it while half blind.

  "Hm," he said.

  His thumb brushed against my waist.

  I went rigid.

  He had found the line beneath Rocher's borrowed shirt where the stiletto sat hidden against my side. The edge of the hem lifted slightly beneath the enormous pad of his thumb. Nothing in his manner suggested impropriety. He was as matter-of-fact about it as if he had discovered a tucked napkin.

  "You're hiding something, aren't you, little one."

  Every eye in the room was suddenly on me.

  I did not bother pretending otherwise. Slowly, carefully, I reached down, drew the stiletto from where it rested against my hip, and lifted it so he could see.

  The metal caught the brazier light in a thin, dark gleam.

  Danzig's grin widened.

  "Well now," he said. "It's rare for Phymera to deem not one but two Ankharad worthy in such a short span. She must be getting soft in her old age."

  Before I could decide how to feel about that, he set me down again.

  I had the brief and distinctly irritating sensation of needing to remember how standing worked. I steadied myself before anyone could catch my elbow, though Rocher was very nearly there already.

  Across the room, I caught Halbrecht staring at me.

  Not with ordinary surprise. With real shock. His gaze had fixed not on my face but on the dagger in my hand, and for one revealing instant all of his careful composure had deserted him.

  Then he finally saw it for what it was: something small and unassuming.

  His body eased back by a fraction. The shock vanished into a slow, knowing smile.

  "Now that you've seen all avaible options, great Hero," he said to Danzig, "what is your opinion?"

  The room seemed to hold its breath around the question.

  Danzig's humor faded. Not entirely. It still lingered at the edges of him, some old resilience too stubborn to leave. But reluctance entered his expression as tangibly as shadow crossing stone.

  "My opinion," he said slowly, "is that I will continue to lend my support to you."

  Seraphine's head snapped toward him.

  "What?"

  Pulseweaver came up in a clean, practiced line, angled not at Danzig but past him, straight toward the Bishop.

  The response was immediate.

  Metal flowed out of the floor beside Halbrecht in a gleaming surge and rose into the shape of a soldier before my mind had fully caught up with the movement. One moment the space had been empty; the next a figure of living silver stood there with shield raised, its featureless face turned toward Seraphine in perfect obedience.

  Danzig exhaled through his nose and stepped between them, one rge hand lifting in a pcating gesture.

  "Easy," he said. "Easy. Against the Demon Lord, we must set our differences aside. Only by our combined strength do we stand a chance."

  Halbrecht gave a soft scoff.

  "Combined strength?" he repeated, as if the phrase itself offended him.

  The metal soldier shifted. Its shield rippled and lengthened, the surface thinning and curving until it had become a bow in its hands. Behind Halbrecht in the corridor, more silver bodies were already emerging from the stone: one, then two, then several, their limbs unfolding into archers' shapes with unnerving fluidity. Arrowheads formed from their own forearms, bright and hard in the torchlight.

  "Nothing can stand before me," Halbrecht said. "Not the creature's speed. Not its flight. I alone can handle what's next."

  His eyes dropped to the stiletto I still held.

  "We have already observed the results of your leadership," he said. "Where you have failed us, I shall succeed."

  Seraphine's face went white with anger.

  "We wouldn't have failed," she said, each word sharpened down to an edge, "if you hadn't intentionally sabotaged us."

  Halbrecht pced one hand against his chest in mock offense.

  "Sabotage?" he said mildly. "A grave accusation. Do you intend to support it with anything beyond wounded pride?"

  His gaze moved over all of us, calm and almost indulgent.

  I felt my teeth come together hard enough to ache.

  He would never admit it. He didn't need to. By now the chamber where everything had gone wrong would be buried under tons of fractured stone and warped iron.

  He tilted his head toward Seraphine.

  "And of course, our esteemed Sage has reason enough to cast aspersions elsewhere. It is frightening how often great responsibility is accompanied by convenient excuses."

  Seraphine staggered, lowering Pulseweaver by a fraction.

  For a second, I thought she was conceding the point.

  Then she raised it again and fired.

  The shot cracked through the room in a nce of pale force.

  Danzig moved with startling speed for a man who had moments ago been preaching restraint. He stepped across the line of fire and caught the spell full in the chest.

  The impact hurled him backward.

  He struck the wall hard enough to shake dust from the lintel. Stone groaned. The bench split beneath one of his shoulders.

  For one suspended instant no one in the room seemed able to reconcile what had just happened.

  Then he ughed.

  It burst out of him huge and delighted, rolling through the chamber until even the metal archers in the hall quivered. He pushed himself upright amid broken wood and drifting dust, spped debris from one shoulder, and gave Seraphine an approving nod.

  "Well," he said, "it has been quite some time since I caught one of those. Felt like Nyxara herself had struck me."

  Seraphine blinked. It was the closest I had ever seen her come to losing the thread of her own anger.

  Danzig adjusted the torn edge of his breastpte as if being flung into masonry were merely a conversational interruption.

  "I'm gd to see the Sage of this era is so lively," he said. "The Sage of mine was already bedridden by the time we set out. She could only send her apprentice in her stead."

  His clouded gaze turned, not quite precisely, but near enough to Seraphine.

  "That passion, though," he said. "That seems to have endured."

  There was no mockery in it. Halbrecht looked annoyed that the moment had not ended in his desired outrage.

  Danzig, by contrast, seemed almost... satisfied.

  His clouded gaze moved from Seraphine's still-raised staff to the silent line of metal archers forming in the corridor, then to Rocher's hand hovering near his sword. He gave a small, thoughtful grunt, like a smith testing the ring of newly forged steel.

  "In the face of a greater threat," he said, "we cannot afford to be enemies. The time for reckoning is ter."

  Lumiere and I gnced at each other.

  The phrase struck me with uncomfortable force. It was, in essence, what I had argued at Crossreach, what I had asked others to accept. Set aside what can be settled ter. Survive the rger threat first. There had been truth in it then.

  There was truth in it now.

  Danzig spread his hands slightly, as if offering something rather than imposing it.

  "I am currently instructing Halbrecht in the use of his weapon," he said. "He has reach. Numbers. A form of resilience your current forces do not. You—" His head turned toward me with unnerving accuracy. "You too carry one of Phymera's chosen bdes. You are welcome to join us."

  My stomach tightened.

  He went on before any of us could answer.

  "If you truly believe we are better a man down, then prove it," he said. "Prove to me that the other is not needed."

  For a moment no one spoke.

  The challenge settled over the room with more weight than an outright threat might have. It was not merely strategic. It was personal. Deliberately so.

  Halbrecht smiled, small and cruel.

  "An excellent suggestion," he said. "If the substitute believes herself sufficient, let her demonstrate it."