Judeau yelped and instinctively grabbed a hold of Samina's arm as the floor beneath him suddenly shook and began falling away under his feet with a loud clank. The bounty hunter, however, merely gave him an amused look and held his elbow to steady him.

"Is this the first time you've ridden in an elevator?"

Noticing that their descent remained slow and controlled - if still quite noisy - Judeau sheepishly cleared his throat and pulled away. "Elevator? So that's what it's called?" He tried a quick laugh to disguise the faint tremble in his voice, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. "As far as I can tell, we're going down."

Being a good sport, Samina pretended not to have noticed his nervousness and played along with his unsuccessful attempt at being funny.

"True. 'Elevator' is what it's called in the Academy, but then again, over there it's a matter of magical 'lifting pads' meant to get important people quickly up the towers from ground level. The dwarves call these mechanical constructions zuk'vaz - which, I believe, means something like 'up-down'. How's that for logic?"

"Very roughly translated, yes," Thirgynn mumbled, frowning sternly at the closed doors in front of them. The miracle-worker had worn the same expression ever since he had met the two humans in the fungi garden, and Judeau was nurturing a growing suspicion that the dwarf was, in fact, quite acutely worried about something. What was worse, this something seemed to have everything to do with why he had come to collect the two of them, but the chalk-haired dwarf offered no explanations and persistently refused to answer any direct questions.

"Say, Thirgynn..." Judeau hesitantly tried after a short moment of nothing but mechanical rattling all around. "Are we in some kind of trouble?"

The miracle-worker seemed to hesitate for an instant, but then he grunted and gave a vague shake of his head. It really did nothing to ease Judeau's worries, but the dwarf's tight-lipped silence infected him and he said no more. As the elevator, up-down, or whatever the moving room was called, finally stopped they found Steelwing waiting for them on the other side of the door. The tall elf immediately fell into step next to the miracle-worker, who gave him a brief glance.

"Thank you for waiting."

Steelwing gave a curt nod in reply, unsurprisingly undisturbed by the situation. Judeau envied the silver-haired Crusader a little bit more than usual: He could feel his own mouth starting to go dry with nervousness.

The moving room had brought them down to the Deep City, home to almost all of the dwarves in the hold, and compared to the twilighted Inner City that they had just left, this one was a world of ink-black midnight. The only lights came from open doors in the blocky, windowless buildings to either side, a few decorative, glowing fungi, and the occasional lantern or glowball that some passing dwarf might carry. As they ran through the dark city, Judeau caught a glimpse of faintly shimmering water every now and then, as if luminous fungi grew just beneath its surface, and occasionally, a towering building would stand out among all the others, decorated with glowballs and crystals in such a manner that the light itself became a subtle work of art, scattering little rainbows through the blackness.

Actually, in spite of the stressful situation, Judeau felt that he would have wanted to stop and have a better look at all these hidden wonders - There were even more shapes and hints in the deep darkness around him that indicated statues, bridges, pillars and fountains, as well as lavishly decorated buildings - but the miracle-worker hurried on without pause and Judeau had to make do with brief glimpses and curious guesses as he followed the dwarf. If he were to stop to investigate anything he would most certainly be lost in a matter of seconds, and that was a very intimidating thought.

The few dwarves that they encountered reacted rather strangely to seeing them: Everyone, as far as he could tell in the darkness, stopped whatever they were doing to stare at them as they rushed by. Though most of them simply seemed to be bewildered, Judeau could practically sense the indignation radiating off of some others. The feeling of being on his way to something really unpleasant grew inside Judeau, and he couldn't help but heave a small sigh of discomfort. He almost jumped when he suddenly felt Samina's hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry," she murmured quietly. "If they were going to punish us for anything they wouldn't go through all this trouble, and they definitely wouldn't bring us down here. 'Sides, trust me: we would know if we had done something wrong."

He smiled instinctively and nodded, then realized that she couldn't see him in the dark and placed his hand over hers, instead.

"Thanks."

She pulled her hand away with an affirmative grunt, hurrying on behind Thirgynn. Judeau fell into step beside her, actually feeling a little bit better.

~
Khurakk clan Zoroin, High King of the dwarves, stood calm and collected with both palms firmly planted on the stone table, as he faced down the shocked uproar that his decision had caused within the war council.

He had been prepared for this from the moment that the idea had at first entered his mind, and he understood them, but he would not even have made the suggestion if he hadn't been convinced and he knew that this radiated off of him through his posture and determined, stoic silence. The council was indeed beginning to take notice now, and the loudest protests were finally quietening down. For the most part.

"Unacceptable!" High General Zurgin bellowed from his position further down the table. "I will not see this happen!"

Khurakk fixed the battle-scarred greybeard with a strong, unyielding glare. "Then you are free to leave, General. I stand by my decision."

Zurgin met his glare and matched it, his jaws working while he tried to put words to his indignation. Master Miracle-worker Gurnis, true to his habit, intercepted the conversation before the General managed to say something shameful in the heat of the moment.

"High King, just to bring surface-dwellers into the Deep City in a time of war is unprecedented, but what you are suggesting goes against every tradition there ever..."

"We don't need any longlings!" General Zurgin roared, rudely interrupting by banging his fist against the massive stone table with enough force to make it tremble slightly under the High King's hands. "We can handle this ourselves, just like we always have before!"

"No, we can't!" The High King's mighty bellow cut through the din and sent all the assembled into an attentive silence. Knowing that he would not be interrupted again, Khurakk lowered his voice to a more appropriate level and continued gravely: "That much is absolutely clear now. This enemy is not following any traditions, and if we hold to ours, we will lose. That is what you have all been telling me here today." To silence the irate protests he saw in Zurgin and some others before they could find enough space to voice them, he raised his voice again. "And do not try to tell me that you can not see it as well! This is not an enemy we can handle! Not on our own. To win this battle, we must do as the enemy and surprise them with something they did not expect, nor had a chance to plan for."

He straightened up and stared them all down, conveying his absolute confidence in the unorthodox, even scandalous idea, and spoke with collected forcefulness: "But if you all believe me to have lost my mind, that I am hearing echoes in the dark, and I no longer have your confidence, then it is fully within your rights to dethrone me and choose a new King. Until you do that, I am still the one you have entrusted with protecting and taking care of our people, and as long as I am High King I will do whatever must be done to accomplish just that. I will not and can not let our pride be the end of Yhakk'Zaran'Kil!"

He let his gaze sweep over the gathered dwarves, meeting their eyes. He lowered his voice again and spoke with earnest calm:

"Anything less would be far more shameful for me. For all of us."

The gathered greybeards looked back at him. Some resigned, some understanding, and some with varying degrees of anger, but not even General Zurgin - although seething with barely controlled rage - spoke up against him this time.

Khurakk let out a long breath through his nose and settled to wait. He knew that he still had the confidence of the war council, but allowed himself a moment to recognize that he may yet come to regret this action. He hoped not, but from this point on it was all up to those surface-dwellers - And regardless of what he knew and hoped about them, that thought was quite uncomfortable.

~
Judeau had no idea for how long they had been hurrying through the dark city, but his lungs and legs had started to ache from the forced pace.

He had kind of sensed it coming for a while, but the moment that the buildings around them suddenly gave way to the huge, open space still struck Judeau with surprise. He actually faltered for an instant as his senses automatically tried to ascertain the size of the open space around him. They failed.

A little ways ahead, he could see the gentle light of a glowball punctuate the deep darkness like a very tiny moon. At first, it seemed to be resting on top of a pillar, but as the group approached it Judeau realized that it was actually hovering in the air, poised just above the strong stone hand of the statue of a magnificent dwarf.

With a regal bearing that rivaled Steelwing's and an impressively thick and flowing mass of beard even by dwarven standards, the dwarf stood broad-legged on the chiseled top of a mountain that appeared to be in miniature - or perhaps it was the dwarf who was meant to be depicted as larger than life. The statue was in itself at least five times the size of a normal dwarf.

He was wearing nothing but his beard and a blacksmith's large leather apron, but still the statue managed to communicate more nobility and pride than any King Judeau had ever seen. However, what captured Judeau's attention the most was the expressiveness of the stern yet gentle stone face - the very image of an artist concentrating very hard on putting the final touch to a beloved masterpiece.

Judeau couldn't help but give a low whistle of quiet admiration as they hurried by the monument. The lines were so exquisite and yet powerfully drawn, and the large statue gave such an impression of strength and stability - and somehow a lingering sense of warm, paternal affection - that for a moment it managed to distract Judeau from his nervousness altogether.

The scout kept glancing back at the monument as he ran on, and he would have run right into the huge stone steps that suddenly rose out of the darkness before him, if it hadn't been for the firm grip of Steelwing's hand around his arm, bringing him to an abrupt halt alongside the others.

It seemed as though their forced march through the dwarf Hold had finally come to a pause. With a faint blush of embarrassment that he hoped went undetected in the dark, Judeau sent a nod of gratitude that he knew the Crusader's dimly glowing eyes could perceive. He drew in a quick breath to try to fight the uneasiness that immediately came creeping back, focused his attention and tried to orient himself once more.

The faint light behind him only served as a distraction, as his eyes were trying to trick him into believing that they had a chance to see more than they really could, so he closed them and funneled his concentration into his ears instead. In the absolute darkness, his senses felt like they stretched out beyond his body: It wasn't so much the echo of anything, but more of a numbness in the space ahead that told him of the stone wall rising up before him, and it wasn't so much the sound of his teammates' breathing or the rustle of their clothes, as a strange but unmistakable sense of compact warmth that told him of their positions around him. They were apparently not going anywhere at the moment, so Judeau calmly let his senses stretch further out into the open space around him. It was just like scouting terrain on a cloudy late-autumn night.

Judeau wrapped his hearing around himself like a second skin, until he felt like he could count every step of the stairway before them. Every little subtlety of the air told him something about the room: The rock wall ahead of them was mostly flat and smooth, the space behind them still too huge to get any real perception of it, and the more he listened, the more Judeau became certain that they were not alone in the darkness. The dwarven sentries were very good at their job, though - Judeau wasn't even certain of what little irregularity in the air that told him of their presence, because they made no perceptible sound or movement. Nonetheless, he was absolutely certain that they were being intently watched from several directions.

A gentle hand on his shoulder and a concerned murmur in his ear made his focus snap back with a start:

"Judeau? You okay there?"

Taking a deep breath to calm his pounding heart, he nodded and whispered back to the bounty hunter: "Yeah. Fine. Why?"

"You weren't breathing. Are you still nervous?"

"Oh. No, I was just... listening. But thanks for the concern."

"Oh, okay. Sorry I startled you."

He smiled through the darkness, just barely able to discern the pale oval of her face in the faint light from the distant glowball.

"Don't worry about it." His smile widened self-consciously. "I guess that I'm still feeling a little bit skittish, after all."

Her hand returned to his shoulder and gave it a reassuring pat, and he could hear on her breath that she smiled back at him. Before she could say anything more, though, the silent air was interrupted by a deep, ominous rumble, and the darkness at the top of the stairs was sliced apart by a blade of clear, white light. As the group watched, the crack of brightness widened until it revealed itself to be a fairly small set of double doors, slowly opening outwards to admit a very stern-faced dwarf in elaborate armor who was holding a glowball in his gauntled hand.

Something about him said "Royal Guard" to Judeau. It could well be the air of authority and definite lethality about him, or just the mark of the axe and hammer crossed over an anvil, which was emblazoned every here and there on his impressive armor. The scout had seen that crest often enough during his stay in the Hold to feel reasonable certain of its association with the royal family.

The guardsman took one long look at the motley team, gave Thirgynn an almost imperceptible nod and then signaled them all to follow him with an economic, easy-to-interpret wave of his free hand.

Walking through a few seemingly deserted hallways meticulously decorated with paintings, carvings and tapestries full of gilded, silvered, bronzed and jeweled details (at least as far as Judeau could determine as the exquisite art glinted by in the light from the glowball) the small team finally arrived at a pair of ornate steel double doors. Here the dwarven guardsman handed the glowball over to Thirgynn with a salute and went over to stand with his back against the wall, facing the doors from the other side of the small anteroom.

Thirgynn just stood there for a moment, looking down at the glowball in his hand. Then he muttered a few words in dwarfish and the bright sphere rose up into the air to hover steadily above his head.

"Vontar hazt," the miracle-worker sighed with a stoic resignation that did absolutely nothing to calm Judeau's nerves. The chalk-haired dwarf then put his strong, stubby hands on the polished steel handles and pulled the heavy doors open, before anyone had had a chance to think too much about worrying.

But what waited for them in the huge, dimly lit chamber beyond made Judeau's stomach tighten painfully and relocate itself to somewhere in the vicinity of his larynx. Futilely trying to force it back down to its proper position by swallowing repeatedly, the scout followed his comrades into the crowded room.

It was occupied by a huge, octagonal table by which - seated four by each side - intimidatingly stern-faced dwarves sat in grim silence. He could only barely see them in the light from the glowball, but the unmistakable yellow glow of thirty-two pairs of dwarven eyes gleamed intently at him, robbing him of even the hopeful illusion that he wasn't at the very centre of their grim attention.

Thirgynn halted before the big table and saluted, then sent the hovering glowball over to hang above Samina with a small gesture, and hurried off to stand behind one of the seated dwarves. It took Judeau another two seconds to recognize that it was Taskkarr � and that he wasn�t, in fact, sitting down. Every one of the dwarves around the table was standing up, and every one of them had another dwarf standing just behind them. A quick survey of the otherwise rather bare room suggested a complete lack of chairs of every kind.

The dwarf standing directly across the table from them, cleared his throat, and Judeau immediately recognized the Khazuvon. His voice was level but somehow sounded deeper and more potent than earlier - It could just be the acoustics of the room, or it could be Judeau�s own hopped-up imagination � when he addressed them all in turn:

�Samina, Dwarf Friend. Honored Steelwing. Mister Judeau. I am sure you are wondering why you have been brought here.�

�We do,� Samina answered, and Judeau couldn�t help but admire how cool and collected she sounded. He decided to imitate the Crusader for now, and stand perfectly still and silent until spoken to - Partly because he certainly didn't trust his voice right now, but mostly because the order in which the Khazuvon had addressed them had made it quite clear just how the three of them ranked in this room.

Samina could have the floor, he didn't mind at all.

The High King nodded curtly and carried on:

�You understand that this is against procedure, but you do not yet know just how much. You will, but we must begin from the start. Bear with our explanation before you ask any questions.�

Samina nodded. The High King gestured at a white-bearded dwarf standing directly to his right. �Explain the situation, Master Miracle-worker Gurnis.�

�Yes, Khazuvon." The elderly dwarf paused for a moment and then looked up at the three non-dwarves. "This Hold stands before an unprecedented crisis. Last night, on the moment when magical instability was at its greatest, we suffered a strategic and immensely powerful magical attack. Our Great Runes would have protected us, and to some extent they did � however, the attack was not aimed at the Hold itself, but directly at one of the Great Runes which suffered such heavy damage that it has been significantly weakened, to the point of failure."

The white-bearded dwarf paused for a moment again, and made a small gesture in Judeau's direction. The scout suppressed a small twitch.

"We believe that Mr. Judeau, with his active demonical curse-rune, got caught up in the resulting surge of chaotic magical energies. It is of some interest to us, actually, as this backs up our theory that the forces used in the attack were also of demonic origin."

Everyone knows about that? Judeau watched the dwarves mutter and exchange glances across the table. Apparently there was no such thing as privacy when it came to demonic curse-runes freaking out on you around here. Well... all things considered, that did make sense.

"Thank you, Master Miracle-worker Gurnis," the High King said, turning to another elderly dwarf with a steel-grey beard-braid beneath a face criss-crossed by scars. "High General Zurgin, explain our current tactical situation."

The scarred dwarf sent the three non-dwarves a glare that almost incinerated them where they stood, and this time Judeau couldn't help but twitch as if he had been poked with a small needle, but the grizzled dwarf nonetheless began speaking in a deep, clear growl:

"We can weather any siege for an infinite time, and anyone choosing to battle us inside the mountain must be either insane or insanely stupid, and can have no hope of winning in any case. But this is neither of those situations: With the attack on the Great Rune, we are now assuming that their plan is nothing less than to bring the whole mountain down on us. With one of the Great Runes gone they have only to mount another attack like the one yesterday to bypass the other Runes and bury us all in our homes, without losing a single soldier of their army. In other words, we have a year to defeat their army or they will get us on the next Night of Oaths when the unpredictable magic fluctuations make the Runes vulnerable.�

The greybeard had turned back towards the table as he spoke, as if he was addressing his peers instead of the three non-dwarves, but his voice still carried a heavy tone of hostility and indignation. Even more so when he turned back towards the three of them and barked:

�A year is of course plenty of time to mount a counterattack and wipe them all out, and this is what we would normally have done - but as you have seen they have a very large number of troops, and they are supported by the most formidable magic force we have yet encountered. And� it is the opinion of the council that we do not have enough fighters in this Hold to win an all-out battle outside the mountain. Our reinforcements have been cut off, as have our communication with the other Holds. Even if they would know exactly what is going on here, which is unlikely, they will not be able to help us in time.�

High General Zurgin took a deep swig from a bottle that somehow appeared in his hand and turned away again with a brusque finiteness that was hard to misinterpret. The High King nodded curtly at him.

�Very concisely put, High General. Thank you.�

The general responded with a smoldering glare and barked a few words in Dwarfish, which made the High King�s eyebrows furrow in disapproval.

�Yes, I know how you feel,� he rumbled in return, �But you will speak the Common Trade Language while the surface-dwellers remain in this room.� Berated, the scarred greybeard lowered his gaze with an angry snort and the High King turned to the non-dwarves again.

�So, as you can see, we are in a very difficult situation right now. In fact, we have been unable to come up with a solution, and that is why I have called you.� He cleared his throat and tapped his fingers lightly against the table a few times. �We are aware of the differences between us and most surface-dwellers, and though we often think of these as advantages on our part, we understand that sometimes it makes communication and comprehension between our races somewhat difficult. It is our hope that by accepting this once-only invitation to our war council, you specially honored surface-dwellers can contribute with your different ways of thinking to help us solve this problem.�

He paused again, and then gave them a very direct look, the steadiness of which was belied by the faint emotional tremble in his low voice:

�We are asking for your help.�

Samina took half a step forward and gave the High King a respectful nod. The confident smile on her face had neither pity nor haughtiness, and she spoke with calm, earnest reverence. �We are honored. Of course we will help in any way we can. We thank you proudly for your confidence.�

�Pah!� General Zurgin snapped. �You have yet to prove yourself, human!�

Samina turned her smile at him. �Well then, let�s hope I do. Shall we get down to business?�

�Yes, let us.� The High King seemed to relax a little, and he motioned them to come closer. �Step up to the table. Do you have any questions?�

�Hold, Khazuvon.� The speaker this time was the dwarf standing on the left side of the High King. He had the longest beard of all those gathered, adorned by many small braids from which hung glinting objects, and his face was so wrinkled that the shadows caused by the faint light from the glowball made the deep grooves stand out like spider web tattoos against his skin. He pointed one stubby finger at Judeau as he continued speaking in a deep, gentle voice:

�We all know Dwarf Friend Samina and the Honored Crusader Steelwing, and what we owe them in gratitude, but this one has never even sat foot in a Hold before. Why is he here? How has he proven himself worthy of this trust?�

A quiet murmur of agreement followed the aged Dwarf�s question, and Judeau froze mid-step. In the face of all these questioning, disapproving gazes, his stomach tied itself into a painful knot and he felt sweat break out on his forehead.

I�m not even supposed to be here? But I didn�t exactly get to choose! What�s going to happen? Have I heard too much already? Are they going to punish me somehow?

"The Dwarf Friend has vouched for him, High Priest Vonzarik," Taskkarr's familiar voice rumbled. "As do I. He is a part of my team. He�s also a clever sort, for a human, so having him here will be a benefit to us."

The High Priest inclined his head towards Taskkarr and smiled amiably.

"If the Zur'Vorh vouches, I will not question."

The High Priest's acceptance set off a murmur of vague consent through the assembled dwarves, but Judeau still sent a nervous glance over at Samina for some sort of confirmation. He found her looking back, and upon eye contact she gave him an encouraging smile and a get-over-here nod, and he gratefully walked up to stand next to her by the low, massive stone table.

Samina squatted down, putting her a bit lower than the average dwarf, and rested her elbows on the table for support. Judeau hesitantly followed her lead while she briskly addressed the assembly:

"Okay, a quick summary of the situation?"

The Khazuvon turned to the side and spoke to one of the dwarves in the back. "Tactician Yrgnir."

A vaguely familiar-looking dwarf with vividly red beard saluted the King and stepped forward from the outer circle, the others moving aside to allow him in.

"Yes." He stood still for a moment, gathering his thoughts while stroking a braided moustache. "On one hand, we now know what the tchun'ni are planning. The dilemma is that we don't know how to stop it. If we don't find a way to drive them off before the next Night of Oaths, the Hold will fall."

"Right. Now, what was that about no reinforcements?" Samina asked. The tactician grimly shook his head.

"The steam tunnels have been razed by demons, and reconstruction will take far too long. We also can't send magical communications outside the Hold due to a barrier spell."

"Hm," Samina said, a thoughtful frown on her face. "What about sneaking a portal mage out through the enemy lines to relay a message?"

"Even if we were to succeed in doing that, no Hold would be able to respond in time - not with a force large enough to handle this enemy, at least - as long as they are restricted to moving across the surface."

"But surely you have other allies to call on. Humans, for example."

"No." the reply was quick and definite, and accompanied by a bitter murmur from the crowd. "We can not call on the humans this time. First of all because we want as few surface-dwellers as possible to know about our vulnerability, we can in no way risk that others might decide to exploit it - merely that we are entrusting you with this knowledge is considered dangerously foolhardy by some. No offense intended, of course, it's just that... you are surface-dwellers. And secondly, because human allies would be just as useless against this foe as any dwarven reinforcements."

"Really? Why do you say that?"

The tactician paused for a moment, furrowing his eyebrows at Samina in confusion.

"Say what?"

"That they wouldn't be able to handle the enemy."

"Because of the overwhelming magic support, of course. It is far more powerful than we ever could have anticipated."

"Huh." Samina nodded and pinched the bridge of her scarred nose. "Of course. That goes without saying, I guess, after almost taking out one of the Runes... I wonder just how they can muster that ridiculous amount of power, anyway."

"Ah yes. That is the true crux of the matter. We don't know, and we're prevented from finding out. If we could just secure that information, we would be able to start thinking of ways to do something about it."

"Okay, so� you are prevented how?"

"Magically shielded. Any divination spell cast on this area-" The dwarven strategist pulled out a long stick from under the table and used it to circle a spot on the tabletop, almost next to Samina's elbow. "-fails."

Judeau looked closer and suddenly realized that there was a shallow relief carved into the smooth table: a perfectly detailed map of the Hold and its immediate surroundings above ground. He recognized the general shape of the Inner City, the absurdly huge gates that led to the outer Trade City, as well as the narrow mountain path he and the others had used when they arrived to the Hold. Here and there around the perimeter of the table, Judeau could see sprinklings of small, flat triangles, either blackened, silver or gold-colored, but they were heavily concentrated on the area closest to the three of them, where the map showed the layout of the main road and the Trade City. Judeau deduced that these triangles represented the enemy, whereas the copper triangles, placed on the outermost gate, the Trade City and all the various small offshoots from the Hold (Watch points, he assumed), represented structures lost or damaged.

The area indicated by the red-bearded tactician was behind the bulk of the army, on top of a cliff overlooking the battlefield and the Hold's main gate. It was a perfect place to keep officers, tacticians and ranged support (alright, it would have to have a pretty absurd range, but since Judeau knew next to nothing about how magic worked, he didn't dare to count the idea out), however... it did not seem entirely unapproachable. Assuming a small group of skilled scouts could make it past the sentries to the east, then use that crevice there to get deeper in behind the lines... dashing over that small area might be a problem, but once cleared the team would have complete cover by the cliffside itself all the way up to...

Judeau cleared his throat and asked, before the nervousness of interrupting the silence could steal into his voice:

"What about scouts? Are they also prevented by magic?"

The tactician (and pretty much everyone else in the room) looked up at him for a few agonizingly slow seconds, and then answered with a small frown on his face that was a bit hard to interpret.

"Technically, a scout with the right protection spells could probably slip unnoticed through any magical traps, shields and alarms, but only because there would most likely not be many such counter-espionage measures in place. They would know that we, while being the foremost experts on underground stealth and guerrilla warfare, have never been able to manage these tactics in surface-combat."

"More like never bothered to learn," Taskkarr's deep bass voice suddenly interrupted. The attention of the entire room shifted to the demon hunter, who seemed completely oblivious of it. Taskkarr was leaning forward on his knuckles, his eyes peeled on Judeau with an intensity that almost frightened the human. "They would never expect us to send out a skilled scout. They would never expect that. It would definitely work. Who knows what he could find out!"

A new sort of silence settled over the room at Taskkarr's words, and slowly, every head turned back towards Judeau again. The scout looked around in surprise and a rising sense of dread, only to find that even Samina and Steelwing were gazing at him with calculating eyes.

"What, me?!" He asked, and heard his voice involuntarily break into falsetto at the last syllable.

Samina's eyes grew large, as if she just woke up from a reverie of some sort. "Oh, that's right... you are probably the most skilled scout in the Hold, actually..." she said, as if the thought only now occurred to her.

Judeau realized his mistake as a breeze of surprised murmurs passed through the chamber, punctuated by the Khazuvon quietly asking Taskkarr if that was true.

"It is." Taskkarr nodded. "He used to hold command over the scout troops of a very notorious army once. Didn't you, Judeau?"

"Um..." Judeau could feel the first pinpricks of cold sweat break out on his back. "I... I... But that was months ago, and... I..."

Realizing how pathetic he sounded, he resolutely shut himself up at that point and took a deep, slow breath. Forcing himself to disregard the press of eyes and expectations on him, he created a small bubble of calm around his own thoughts and asked himself one simple question:

Why wouldn't I be able to do it?

Sure, it had been a while since he last went on a scouting mission, but he knew very well that his skills hadn't suffered for it. In fact, with Steelwing's training they might actually rather have improved.

He could visualize himself taking the path his eyes had followed on the map, scurrying over open ground, climbing through the narrow crevice, avoiding the guards... The more he thought about it, the more the idea excited him. The only problem he could see was that he didn't have much information on the enemy creatures that he would have to avoid somehow, but that could be... Oh crap.

Judeau looked up, not bothering to try to hide his regret. "I can't do it. I would, but I can't."

Taskkarr frowned at him across the table. "Why not?"

Judeau blinked in surprise and held out his hand, showing the dwarves the rune burnt into his palm. "Because of this. I'm like a walking dinner bell to that army, aren't I?"

Caught up in the moment, Taskkarr had clearly forgotten about the curse. He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels, somehow managing to look both annoyed and mildly sheepish as he merely grunted in reply. An unorganized general discussion erupted throughout the room, but silenced after only a few minutes by the sound of a gentle, clear jingle.

The ancient High Priest shook his sleeve once more and the soft sound drew everyone's attention to his wizened face, but the only one that he paid any attention to at all was Judeau. With a soft smile, he held out his hand towards the scout.

"Come here, young human," he said, his soothing voice calm and deep like an underground ocean. "Let me have a look at that curse."

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