A final CLANG rang through the forge, but it resonated unlike any ordinary hammer-on-anvil. Instead, it carried a strange, soul-piercing echo, as though some distant star itself had answered the call from deep within the cavern.
Karrion froze, hammer suspended mid-strike, staring in awe at the budding blade resting on the anvil. Its molten-red surface looked as if frozen lava, yet beneath lay veins of living, pulsating starlight. At that moment, a wave of power rippled from the forge's heart—less a violent blast than a stone dropped into stagnant water—spreading unseen shockwaves through the chamber's stone and into the choking gloom beyond.
Before Karrion could marvel further, Thalia's sharp intake of breath cut through him. Normally so composed, she visibly trembled beneath her cloak. She had felt it—not merely the ordinary heat and force of the furnace, but something answering that burst of starlight, something ancient and angry.
Raine, propped uselessly against the cave wall, sensed it too. The oppressive gloom at the entrance seemed to stir and come alive. A chorus of faint, venomous whispers rose with the wind—shrieks of hidden spirits that churned the air like icy needles at his ears. The fetid stench of corruption swelled, flooding in through every crack to mingle with the furnace's heat. On the cave walls, dark moss writhed upward, forming ghastly, contorted faces that glowered at the forge's glow.
"By the beard of the mountain!" Karrion muttered, finally snapping to clarity. He whirled to face the gaping fissure in the rock. "They've been drawn here."
Thalia's voice, barely above a whisper, confirmed his fear: "Not mere blight-spawn…"
The black mist parted, and figures emerged—walking, not crawling, their heavy, dragging footfalls scratching the stone like rusted razors.
At first glance, they were once knights, but every inch of their bodies had been ravaged by corruption. Their armor hung in tattered shards, dark ichor oozing from every seam. Their hollow helmets still bore the five-pointed sigil of the Starborn Order, now tarnished and dripping the foulest sludge. Worse still, faint flickers of sickly starlight pulsed in their chestplates and gauntlets—as if the very magic they once wielded had been perverted to sustain this unholy mockery of life.
Raine's blood ran cold. His people's honored symbol, now fused with decay. The sight tore at his heart.
A guttural roar erupted from the foremost wretch: a knackered blade thrust forward as its rotten hand, tipped with poisonous claws, aimed straight for Raine's throat.
"Watch out!" Thalia shrieked, lunging forward to place a trembling palm into the air. A ripple of pure shadow formed into a flimsy barrier that took the brunt of the undead knight's poisoned thrust. The blade bit through the dark ward with a sizzling hiss, spitting acrid sparks. Though it shielded Raine, the ward shattered, leaving him only milliseconds to flinch aside.
The narrow sword's point scraped Raine's neck, sending a cold spray of hair and dread slithering down his spine. Pain and grief almost drove him to his knees.
"Stop this!" He choked out, sword incredibly shaky. He had grown up revering these knights as paragons of valor. Now they fought him—victims and villains both—caught between duty and corruption.
Thalia surged forward, flinging out tendrils of living shadow that writhed around a second approaching corpse-knight. For a brief moment, the undead warrior's star-forged plate glowed as its flickering star-sigils fought against the darkness, wrenching free from her grasp. Thalia staggered, a spurt of blood staining her lips.
Her power was spent, and Raine's strength even more so. Between them, the two defenders were stretched perilously thin. Each fallen blow, every desperate shield, chipped away at their will.
And all the while, Karrion hammered on, oblivious to the surrounding maelstrom, forging their only hope: the nascent Starflame Blade. Each crash of metal was an anthem of defiance; each spark a star reborn under his resolve.
But now, a smaller, lithe figure—a former page or squire—slipped through the clash to strike from Karrion's rear. The dwarf tensed, sensing but not quite seeing the threat, as the cursed blade lunged for his unguarded back.
Raine's heart thundered. He wanted to cry out, to push Karrion away, but his body would not obey. All he could do was watch the silent tragedy unfolding: the corroded blade of a starborn comrade raising to fell the steadfast dwarf who had become their improbable savior.
In that moment, the cavern's echoes swelled with a single thought: Live, or all is lost.