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By Root 692 0

north, any of the border cities, any of the Dwarf or Elven cities, and any but the greatest of the Troll cities. There were people and homes and shops in Dechtera, but mostly there were the furnaces. They burned without ceasing, grouped in clusters throughout the city, defined in daylight by the plumes of thick smoke that rose from their stacks and at night by the bright, hot glow of their open mouths. They drank greedily of the wood and coal that fed the firings of the ores that passed into their bellies to be melted down and shaped. The hammers and anvils of the smiths clanged and sparked at all hours, and Dechtera was a city of never-ending color and sound. Smoke and heat, ash and grit filled the air and coated the buildings and the people. Amid the cities of the Southland, Dechtera was a grime-encrusted member of a family that needed more than wanted her, put up with more than embraced her, and never once thought to view her with anything approaching pride or hope.

It was an unlikely choice for the forging of their talisman, thought Kinson Ravenlock once more, for it was a city that cared nothing for imagination, a city that survived by toil and rote, a city notoriously inhospitable to Druids and magic alike. Yet it was here, Bremen had countered when the Borderman had first mentioned his concerns some days ago, that the man they needed would be found.

Whoever he was, Kinson amended, because although the Druid had been willing enough to tell them where they were going, he hadn’t been willing to tell them who they were going to see.

It had taken them almost two weeks to complete their journey.

Cogline had given Bremen the formula for the mixing of the metal alloy to be used in the forging of the sword that would be carried in battle against the Warlock Lord. Cogline had remained recalcitrant and skeptical to the moment of their parting, bidding farewell with the firm assurance that he expected never to see any of them again. They had accepted his dismissal with weary resignation, departing Hearthstone for Storlock, retracing their steps through Darklin Reach. That portion of their trek alone had taken them almost a week. Upon their arrival back in Storlock, they had secured horses and ridden out onto the plains. The Northland army had passed south by then, engaged in its hunt for the Dwarves in the Wolfsktaag. Nevertheless, Bremen was wary of those forces still deployed outside the Anar and took his companions all the way to the Mountains ofRunne and then south along the shores of the Rainbow Lake. That far west of the Anar, he believed, they had less chance of encountering those who served the Warlock Lord. They passed down across the Silver River and skirted the Mist Marsh before passing onto the Battlemound. Travel was slow and cautious, for this was dangerous country even without the added presence of the creatures that served Brona, and there was no point in taking unnecessary chances. There were things born of old magic living in the Battlemound, things akin to those that resided in the Wolfsktaag, and while Bremen knew of them and of the ways in which they could be combated, the better choice was to avoid them altogether.

So the trio rode south along a line that angled between the barren stretches of the Battlemound, with its Sirens and wights, and the dark depths of the Black Oaks with its wolf packs. They traveled by day and kept close watch over one another by night.

They sensed, rather than saw, the things they wished to avoid, things both native and foreign, things of land, water, and air alike, aware of the eyes that followed after them, feeling more than once a presence pass close by. But nothing challenged them outright or made any attempt to track them, and so they eased past the dangers of the Borderlands and moved steadily on.

So that now, at the close of the thirteenth day of this most recent leg of their odyssey, they stood looking down at the red welter of Dechtera’s industrial nightmare.

“I hate this city already,” Kinson offered glumly, brushing the dust from his clothes. The land about