The Iron Hold's feasting hall thundered with songs and clanging mugs, the heavy scent of ale and roasted boar thick in the air. But amid the laughter and pounding fists, Damien sat stiffly at the long stone table, his eyes rarely straying far from the great iron doors.
Around him, dwarves sang of ancient battles — verses of dragons slain, mountains conquered, and brotherhood forged in blood. Yet, even with their newfound alliance, Damien's instincts pricked at every shadow that shifted too quickly, every voice that lowered into a whisper.
At his side, Liora spoke in hushed tones, barely heard over the din. "You feel it too," she said. It wasn't a question.
Damien nodded slowly. "Something stirs beneath these stones. Not treachery... not yet. But something old."
He watched King Barendd laughing boisterously at the head of the hall, slapping his warriors on the back with pride. Yet, even Barendd's eyes, keen as a mountain wolf's, darted now and then toward the hidden passages leading deep into the bowels of the Hold.
It was not only outside forces that threatened them. Damien realized with a slow chill: whatever haunted the dwarves was already inside the fortress walls.
Rionach leaned in between bites of salted meat. "The scouts say tunnels below the forge-works have been sealed," she muttered. "Some dwarves missing. Strange noises at night. Barendd forbade anyone to speak of it openly."
Damien's fingers curled tightly around his mug. He stared at the golden liquid without seeing it. "How deep do those tunnels go?"
"Deep enough," Liora whispered. "Deeper than memory."
Suddenly, the hall's massive braziers guttered. A hush rippled across the room like a cold wind. In the eerie silence, a faint, grinding sound echoed from beneath the stone floor — a slow, groaning churn of earth and something older.
The dwarves stiffened in their seats. Weapons were discreetly loosened in scabbards.
Barendd rose to his feet, his chair scraping loudly against the stone. His voice, when it came, was grim and steady:
"Tonight we drink to our future. Tomorrow, we fight for it."
But Damien caught the subtle change in his tone — the deep unease curling beneath his bravado.
After the feast, Damien gathered his companions in a side chamber lit only by a single oil lamp. Liora, Cador, Rionach, and Joara clustered around a cracked table.
"We can't afford surprises before battle," Damien said, keeping his voice low. "If the Hold itself is compromised, we're finished before we march."
Liora leaned forward, voice barely a whisper. "The old dwarven legends speak of The Deep Song — a cursed melody that echoes through the lowest tunnels. Those who hear it vanish… or return changed."
Joara shivered. "I heard something outside the walls while tending the horses. A humming… low, like a heartbeat in the rock."
Cador grunted. "Legends or not, I've fought creatures shaped by worse things than cursed songs. If there's something down there, best we face it before it faces us."
Damien stood. "Agreed. We find the source tonight."
**
By the third bell, they moved silently through the Iron Hold's deserted lower levels, cloaks drawn tight and blades ready. Liora's staff cast a faint, wavering light ahead of them.
The deeper they descended, the colder it became. Cracks in the stone exhaled bitter winds. And from somewhere below, a sound: faint, rhythmic, like the beating of a massive heart.
The tunnels twisted like veins. Ancient dwarven carvings lined the walls — proud scenes of kings crowned and demons slain — but here, they were marred, defaced by deep claw marks.
"Something broke through from below," Rionach muttered, tracing the gouges with a gloved finger.
Damien crouched by a collapsed archway. Black dust coated the floor, as if something had crumbled to ash. Among the debris, he found a twisted iron emblem — the mark of the Iron Hold's ancient elite guard.
"They died here," he said grimly. "Whatever this thing is… it's been feeding on the dwarves themselves."
A new sound emerged — a faint, discordant humming, drifting like smoke through the darkness. It wasn't in any language Damien knew, but it clutched at his mind, tugging at fear and longing in equal measure.
Joara staggered, clutching her ears. "It's... beautiful," she gasped, her eyes going wide and glassy.
Damien caught her before she could stumble forward into the dark. "Hold fast!" he barked. "It's not real!"
From the blackness ahead, something moved — slow, deliberate.
A figure emerged, hunched and wrong. It was clothed in rusted mail, its beard ragged and matted with blood. Its eyes burned an eerie green, and its mouth hung open in a silent, endless scream.
It had once been a dwarf.
Now it was something else entirely.
More shapes slithered behind it — dozens of them, crawling from cracks and hidden doors, their twisted forms whispering that same deadly lullaby.
Cador unsheathed his greatsword with a metallic ring. "No time for plans. Fight or die!"
Damien's blade flashed free. "Protect Joara and Liora!"
The first of the creatures lunged — and the true battle for the Iron Hold began.
Perfect — let's continue Chapter 15 with an intense battle scene as Damien and his companions fight for survival!
The first creature hurled itself at Damien with unnatural speed, its claws glinting in the flickering light. Damien sidestepped smoothly, his blade singing as he severed the thing's arm at the elbow. It didn't scream. It didn't bleed. It simply lunged again, heedless of its wound.
"They feel no pain!" Damien shouted, slashing a brutal arc that took its head.
Cador fought like a living storm, his greatsword cleaving two of the creatures in half with a single swing. "Hold the line!" he bellowed, backing toward the narrowest part of the tunnel. "Force them to bottleneck!"
Liora was already chanting, her staff pulsing with sickly blue light. Rionach stood at her back, twin daggers flashing like silver snakes. Joara crouched low, loosing arrows with deadly precision, each shaft striking clean through an eye or mouth.
But for every creature they felled, three more took its place.
Damien parried a rusted axe, countering with a brutal stab through the thing's chest. Its body crumbled into ash the moment it hit the ground.
"They're drawn to the song!" Liora cried. "We must silence it!"
As if summoned by her words, the tunnel beyond them split open like a wound — and from the darkness, a massive figure emerged.
Towering over the twisted dwarves, clad in cracked obsidian armor, came the Wraith-Lord. Its crown was fused to its skull; its face a void of green fire. In its hand, it wielded a massive hammer that radiated malice.
The humming grew louder — oppressive, suffocating.
Damien felt his vision blur at the edges. His blood screamed for surrender.
No.
With a furious snarl, Damien summoned every ounce of his will, driving back the haze. "Cover me!" he roared to his team. "I'll face it!"
"You're insane!" Rionach shouted — but even as she said it, she cut down two more creatures trying to reach Liora.
Damien charged.
The Wraith-Lord swung its hammer in a wide arc. Stone shattered where Damien had stood a moment before. He rolled, slashing at the creature's side, but the blade merely sparked against its black armor.
Stronger than I thought.
The Wraith-Lord raised its hand — and the broken dead around it surged forward like a living tide.
Damien fought without thought, without hesitation. Steel met corrupted flesh, sparks flew, and blood — black and thick — splattered the ground.
Liora shouted a word of power. A circle of runes flared beneath the Wraith-Lord's feet, binding its legs in chains of crackling light. It roared in fury, the sound shaking dust from the tunnel ceiling.
"NOW, DAMIEN!" Liora screamed.
Without hesitation, Damien leapt, blade flashing like a shard of the moon. He drove it deep into the Wraith-Lord's exposed throat, bypassing the armor entirely.
The creature let out a strangled, gurgling wail.
Its body shuddered — and then began to dissolve into a cloud of green mist.
The lesser creatures, sensing the death of their master, shrieked and fled into the darkness, their song collapsing into discordant howls.
For a long moment, silence reigned, broken only by the harsh rasp of breathing.
Damien stumbled back, wiping the black ichor from his blade. His muscles burned. His heart hammered like a war drum.
"We... we won," Joara said, her voice small in the vast tunnel.
"No," Damien said, staring into the darkness beyond. "We survived. For now."
The Iron Hold still trembled with ancient forces. And Damien knew — this victory was only the beginning.
They had awoken something deeper, something far more dangerous.
And it was waiting.
---