Water drips in uneven intervals, echoing across the cramped, rubble-choked chamber where I kneel beside the wounded dwarf.

  His breaths rasp slower, each shallow exhalation rattling steam from broken vents. My earlier attempts to patch the severed hoses and reinforce battered plating have delayed death—but not by much.

  A wave of feverish heat passes through him, followed by tremors.

  Again, I trickle tepid water over exposed flesh, mindful of not spilling too much on the harness’s broken runes.

  It is flesh against failing machinery.

  Bandages soak with dark fluid at the edges, an mix of partial blood and dwarven coolant.

  He groans, unconscious but not at peace. His heartbeat flutters in irregular skips.

  I test the pulse, pressing a single claw-tip against his neck. The mechanical harness churns in quiet distress.

  My bony claws carefully prod the harness’s runic center, where the dwarven machine behaves erratically. If that battered core fails completely, no mortal means will keep him breathing.

  A cough spasms through the dwarf’s body, more blood lecking the inside of his visor. The entire chest plate shudders. One mechanical limb twitches uncontrollably, hammer gauntlet scraping the stone floor in a punishing rhythm.

  He’s dying.

  I wait, letting borrowed memories sift through possible solutions. Normal triage only buys moments.

  A shattered exo-harness, severed tubes, too many open lesions. Even with perfect conditions, perfect memories, a proper dwarven workshop, skilled runesmith, fresh supplies, his odds would be dire.

  I try to wedge another bit of scavenged wire around a leaking hose, but the material splits. The fluid gushes anew, and he groans, arching his back in torment. Sparks shower from the harness’s damaged lines. This precarious fix, battlefield remedy, can only hold so long.

  Time is harsh.

  This realm yields no miracle cures, no kindly clerics, no hidden stockpile of dwarven potions. I sense his life drip away with each labored exhale.

  My borrowed memories remember triage tents, frantic surgeons with saws and blades cursing their lack of supplies. But this is worse, half mechanical, half organic, dwarven magic woven through each gear. '

  I have neither the runic expertise nor the skill to mend him.

  He moans, eyes fluttering open behind a gear-shaped visor. Horror flickers as he registers my form, wolf skull, bony limbs, something of the grave that looms over him. But he’s too weak to resist. He just coughs, red foam flecking the brass edges of his helmet.

  I try pressing a bandage to staunch the new leak. The cloth turns dark within moments.

  He’s running out of time.

  Jaws clench.

  I am no physician. I a living memory of last stands, a thing of death given life. Yet since that rising Field of Broken Banners, I have came to do unspeakable things to preserve life, or to claim it.

  His harness cracks, vents sputtering. Runes flicker again, then dim. The sentinel’s chest twitches, struggling to draw another ragged breath.

  He will die soon.

  Carida’s presence lingers, reminding me that the living are fragile and worth saving. Her essence calming beneath monstrous power, but she does not speak in words, only in the weight of duty that tethers me to Haven.

  But she is not the only voice.

  The greatest fragment, Commander Ikkert’s remains hold no such warmth. His bones were taken from a soldier, from a commander who understood the dark reality of war. He offers no solution, only grim acceptance of battlefield truths.

  Sometimes, no mortal method remains. The memories within him show battlefields where the wounded were left to die if they could not walk.

  There is no regret in the echoes of his will, only efficiency, only the knowledge that sometimes survival means letting others fall.

  Yet more voices stir.

  The wolf bones. They prowl beneath my ribs, restless. The hunter’s instinct they lend me twitches at the scent of dying prey. Leave him. He is broken. A failing beast should be put down. Take his marrow. Strengthen our pack. They bade me eat him.

  My spine arches, vertebrae shifting involuntarily, as if my form itself considers it. The wolf skull resting within my own tilts, as though sniffing the air, testing if the dwarf is worth sparing or devouring.

  The dragon bones. Their slumbering power shifts, old, ancient, and cold.. Not hungry, but pragmatic. His bones are strong. They were tempered in battle, in metal. If his body fails, take him into us. We will be stronger for it. Let him burn away and let his form become ours. A corpse is wasted if left to rot.

  I feel it in the depths of my core, the way my own bones could stretch, how easy it would be to absorb him, to graft what is useful and discard the rest.

  His brass-woven flesh would melt into mine, his plated gauntlets twisted into my claws. The exo-harness could be reshaped, its plating woven into my ribs. The dwarves built him to endure. I could make that endurance my own.

  Wear him.

  The voice is neither wolf nor dragon, but something deeper, something that came before them, before the battlefield, before even Haven. A presence within my marrow, a thing of darkness in the darkness of the deep roads. Slip inside his skin. Walk into the dwarves' halls as one of their own. Let them believe you are their kind, their broken sentinel returned. They will not question a dwarf in armor, but they will question a walking corpse. Do not waste the gift before you.

  For a moment, I almost listen.

  It would be easy.

  His bones would settle into my own, the harness would become my shell. I could use his flesh as a mask, a false skin over the truth of what I am. The dwarves would see one of their own limping home, not a skeletal rising from the hell of forgotten roads. I could walk among them without fear, without war.

  I see it clearly, how my wolf limbs could compress, how my skeletal frame could be reformed into the tight proportions of a dwarf. How I could move inside him, use his own battered voice to speak in dwarven tongues.

  It is not just the hunger of the wolf, or the cold ambition of the dragon.

  It is something more.

  Something old, something that remembers what it is to take from the fallen, to claim what is left behind.

  But Carida lingers in my core.

  Insistent, unwavering.

  Moral center. Moral core.

  She does not speak, but her presence pushes back against the voices, against the instinct to consume, to take.

  Her presence alone reminds me.

  The living must survive.

  Not in pieces, not in fragments, not worn as another mask, but as themselves.

  Silence follows among all bones. I must choose.

  I do not take his bones. I do not claim his body as my own.

  I push aside bandages, pressing a hand to the pulsing break in his torso, feeling the uncertain throb of mechanical innards. Wires, fused ribs, half-living organs. He can’t sustain it alone.

  The memory of Lormenos’s proving path surfaces, echoing in these bones. How I spoke a wordless keening that was no breath, how power became voice, where darker magic merges with vow.

  It is not rightful healing. But it might preserve him.

  I bow my wolf-skull muzzle, letting my hollow jaws part.

  Carida’s presence flickers, not resisting this path. She knows the living matter. Even if the means are grim.

  A single breath is all it takes, though I have no lungs to breathe. Still, the act resonates with the flows of deathly power that animate me. My ribs stir, drawing from the old currents.

  I think of the bone devourer.

  It’s there. A possibility that runs counter to the usual slaughter.

  Memories of a fallen thing turned to ash that somehow lingers in marrow. I reject the worst memories. Instead I choose the thread that bridges gap between living flesh and the grave, to hold him steady at the threshold.

  He coughs again, back bowing in agony, each breath pulling him closer to the brink.

  His eyes open behind the gear-visor, wild with fever. He sees me looming, the faint glow from Aeternus reflecting in my hollow sockets.

  I ease a hand over the dwarf’s chest plate, ignoring the fresh stream of fluid that seeps around my claw. Beneath steel and flesh, his heart falter. He tries to struggle, but only manages a weak grasp at my shoulder.

  With my free claws, I pinch a portion of my own rib. Bone shards shift and click, protesting as I pry them loose. Pain does not exist in these hollow remains, yet the act feels unnatural, a piece of me forcibly severed. Pale energy flickers along the splintered edges, death’s power, the same current that animates me.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  There is no clean cut or graceful ritual. The contact is raw, a blend of battlefield triage and forbidden arts.

  The dwarf’s eyes crack open. He sees the bone shard in my claws. His gaze widens in horror, and he rasps something in dwarven. I cannot parse the exact word, but understand the panic in his words.

  I press the shard closer to his chest. The harness’s runic flickers intensify, reacting. The magic that animates these bones grates against dwarven wards.

  He tries to raise an arm in protest, hammered gauntlet twitching. Steam hisses from the hammered joints. I grab his wrist.

  There’s no time for explanation.

  Carefully, I position the bone shard over the failing valves in his chest. He can’t see the deeper workings, torn ventricle, shredded arteries, but I sense them, each beat echoing in my head.

  Then, I push.

  The bone goes into the raw space between metal and flesh. A wet sound, half squelch, half hiss of steam. The dwarf screams choked cry, eyes rolling back.

  His limbs convulse, hammered gauntlet flailing before clanging uselessly to the floor.

  Eyes squeezed shut, mouth open.

  I stay still. The shard of my bone writhes between his flesh and metal plates, burrowing near battered organs. Through that link, I guide necromantic energy to clamp failing vessels, to prompt half-dead tissue to keep pumping.

  At once, magic bleeds from my shard, seeping into his failing tissue. I imagine the bone threads latching around his heart’s trembling walls, forcing each spasm into a steadier rhythm.

  Vessels re-knit under a pale glow that merges unnatural life with mortal coil.

  He jerks, chest arching, mouth open in a silent scream. The harness sparks violently, dwarven runes flaring in response to the alien power.

  I grit my bony jaw, focusing on the memory of healing not as an act of creation, but as a fierce refusal to let life slip away. The lost knowledge of field medics merges with grim nature.

  His limbs spasm. The harness flares once, runes scorching with sudden life.

  He screams again, and I continue.

  He is too far gone for any lesser measure. The only path is the same power that pulled me from the battlefield’s soil.

  He tries to shout, face contorting in horror. I see his eyes roll back, dwarven resilience warring with the unnatural force binding him.

  Steam blasts from a vent in his shoulder, metal plates trembling. My bone shard pulses, bridging the gap between mortal heart and monstrous power. Each surge of energy knits small tears in flesh, coaxes dwarven blood to flow along new paths, bypassing the worst ruptures.

  I hold him firm, preventing his thrashing from dislodging the shard.

  He coughs again, fluid speckling his lips. Then the coughing eases, replaced by a shocked rasp.

  The dwarven runes along his harness flicker strangely. They are not designed for this brand of magic. Their original forging recognized elemental flame, dwarven craft, not the hush of a battlefield grave.

  For a moment, they protest.

  I maintain calm, guiding the necromantic flow just enough to sustain vital function.

  No overshadowing his spirit, no seizing control.

  Only a tether.

  After a minute, his body settles, breathing steady if still shallow. His heart flutters, then finds a slower, more even rhythm under that bone shard’s compulsion.

  At last, I sever direct contact.

  The bone fragment remains embedded, a pale curve bridging harness to chest.

  He jerks, brow furrowing, and gasps a single dwarven word.

  His breathing continues. Weak, but stable.

  In the hush that follows, I realize how quiet the corridor has become. The water-drip from broken pipes seems distant. All my focus hangs on whether that necromantic graft of bone will hold to life.

  A moment passes. He breathes.

  And again.

  He is not saved, but no longer dying.

  Held in state between by borrowed power.

  I pull away, letting him rest against the dusty floor. His eyelids flutter.

  He tries to open them, but remains half-lost in delirium, pinned between normal life and this unnatural tether.

  I shift my shape, letting wolf-limbs revert somewhat to a more stable upright stance.

  My posture still crouches near him, claws tapping stone.

  He stirs, wincing. His visor rattles, steam venting from the battered helm’s side. Then, with a raw exhale, he speaks, voice laced with terror:

  “What—what are ye…?”

  The last word cracks into a cough, but I hear the question. He sees the shard of bone protruding from under his chest plate, still faintly glowing.

  His eyes hold a flicker of revulsion, and dread.

  I have no mortal voice.

  No living breath. Since Lormenos’s domain, I carry a different speech, that keening wind-sound forced from hollowness.

  A death-rattle that shapes words by will alone.

  I lean over him, letting that hush gather in the empty spaces of my ribs. A sigh of bone and magic. My jaw shifts, snapping once, then forming an approximate shape of speech.

  It emerges as a whisper of grave-wind, more felt than heard:

  “Protector.”

  He flinches at the unnatural resonance, something keening like scraping on walls. I see the harness runes spike in alarm, then subside.

  His gaze darts to the bone shard embedded in his chest. He tries to move away, to push the foreign object out. But even that feeble attempt leaves him panting.

  Rusted hinges groan as he forces his mechanical arm up an inch. A hammer gauntlet clangs uselessly, trembling in air. He cannot muster the strength to strike me or tear free. His battered flesh is bound partly by the necromantic tether.

  “Y-you bound me…with that?” he manages, voice shaking. “A curse…?”

  A bubble of blackish fluid drips from the corner of his mouth. Panic surges behind his eyes. He must realize he’s not alive, not anymore. Though with his body half grafted to machine, it is nothing new.

  My bones hold no pity in the human sense, but the vow that drives me resonates with his fear.

  I do not want him lost. I do not want him broken.

  Careful, I place a single claw—dully rounded now—on his mechanical forearm, an approximation of a steadying touch. Again, I shape words from that hollow rattle.

  “Not, curse. Purpose.”

  He stiffens at the words. The harness plates shudder. Dwarf runes spark again.

  I cannot blame him for the horror twisting his features.

  Through his eyes he sees only monstrous wolf-skulled skeleton having jammed a piece of bone straight into his chest, animating him like a puppet.

  Still, he’s breathing, and the pain lessens. The harness no longer stutters, no fresh leaks spill. He stares at me, half delirious, half furious.

  “Demon arts,” he mutters, voice rough with exhaustion. “Skeletal beast, some necromancer’s spawn, I'll kill ye!”

  I let the hush fill me again, forging a reply. Words do not come easily; I must shape them carefully.

  “Not demon.” A pause, then: "Protect living. Haven."

  He coughs, turning his head away as if to deny what he hears. Perhaps he expects a trick. Yet he looks, confused. Reassessing. Questioning whether he's dreaming.

  Our surroundings drip with quiet tension. The dwarf tries to regulate his breaths. Each inhalation remains shaky, but it’s no longer faltering outright.

  The bone shard pulses faintly, merging with battered dwarven sinews, coaxing the heart to keep beating.

  He licks cracked lips, wincing. A flush of fever tints his cheeks. “…What is your name…?” he finally asks, though not with trust, only desperation to label the monster in front of him.

  I stare, memories unraveling. The greatest fragment is Ikkert, but though his bones have guided this frame the longest, his name is not mine.

  I hold only borrowed titles: death’s champion, the vow that remains. Still, from the echoes of soldiers, I find a single phrase we once used among ourselves:

  "Bones many. Death's Champion," I manage a reply.

  He grimaces, pain or fear tightening his features. "Ach. Too grand for my tongue. Need something..." His voice catches, coughs. Fresh blood flecks his visor.

  I wait. Let him name what he sees, if he must. It changes nothing of what I am.

  "The Blackened," he manages finally. "For those scorched bones of yours."

  I do not accept or reject. Names mean nothing to borrowed fragments. Purpose remains unchanged.

  He frowns, uncertain of what comes next. Then something flickers in his expression—faint acceptance that communication is possible.

  His hand strays to the bone shard in his chest, a reminder that some things have no labels.

  Outside, water drips from the overhead cracks. The hush of darkness envelops us. We remain in that unlit room, kneeling in dust and old dwarven ruins.

  Moments stretch. He tries to lift his mechanical arm again, testing function. The fused hammer gauntlet lifts an inch, no more. One final cough shakes him, but he swallows the agony.

  “I am, Eimhar Gearabhain,” he says, voice trembling. “A scout from, Maha Marr.”

  I tilt my skull, considering the name. “Maha Marr” again.

  He tries to push himself upright. The harness whines, newly anchored tubes straining. My bone graft pulses, sending a jolt that steadies him.

  He exhales a shaky breath. He hates that he’s reliant on this hold, but he cannot deny it’s keeping him alive.

  “Tell me truly,” Eimhar rasps. “Am I a thrall? Some undead puppet?”

  I place a bony hand lightly on the bandage near his chest, feeling the harness quake with each breath.

  “No, will is yours,” I say in that rattle-voice. “Life, borrowed from me, but still, yours.”

  He closes his eyes. Silence wraps him. Whether he believes or not, he can’t argue now. He’s too weak to undo it.

  A minute passes as he struggles with the weight of unnatural existence. Then, with dwarven grit, he opens his eyes again.

  His eyes flicker, pain and suspicion warring in equal measure. "What do ye want?" he manages finally, each word an effort.

  I consider my answer. Purpose remains clear, even if means do not. Haven needs aid. The old roads could provide it. But there are no dwarves here, only echoes of their passage.

  "Serve Haven," I say, my rattle-voice filling the chamber. "Need dwarves. But no dwarves."

  Eimhar's face falls. He looks away, jaw clenching. A long moment passes before he speaks again, voice heavy with bitterness.

  "The kingdom fell," he says. "We fell back to Maha Marr."

  Silence stretches. I wait, sensing more. He swallows, mechanical arm twitching.

  "Tally Ho," he mutters. "He burns."

  The words strike a chord.

  He burns.

  A cryptic phrase, yet one I've encountered before, etched in dwarven runes on a sealed passage deep beneath the earth.

  I lean closer, my hollow sockets fixed on the dwarf's face.

  Eimhar closes his eyes, as if the memory pains him. He takes a shuddering breath, the bone shard in his chest pulsing with each inhalation.

  "Brannug o'Clannfaust," he says, voice heavy with reverence and sorrow. "High Thane of Clan Faustain, the last king to unite the forge-cities under one banner."

  I wait, sensing more to the tale. Eimhar swallows, his mechanical arm twitching.

  "Three years past, something stirred in the deep. A calamity to rival the demon king's rise on the surface. It burst from the rock, a tide of nightmares that threatened to devour us all."

  He pauses, jaw clenching. I remain still, absorbing the weight of his words.

  "In our darkest hour, Brannug invoked an ancient covenant. He called upon Domhrann, the Forge God, to descend and merge with his mortal form."

  Eimhar's voice trembles.. "Domhrann answered. His divine essence poured into Brannug, creating a living conflagration. Together, they threw themselves into the Foundry's heart, igniting Domhrann's own divinity to burn back the darkness."

  Silence falls, broken only by the drip of water from the cracked ceiling. I process the implications, a mortal king becoming the avatar of a dwarven god, sacrificing himself to save his people.

  Eimhar's face twists in pain. "The kingdom still fell. Thousands perished. We retreated to Maha Marr, leaving countless dead behind. But Brannug's sacrifice sealed the deepest horrors away. He burns eternal, a living ward against the nightmare below."

  I nod, piecing together the fragments. A divine fire, a king's final stand, a desperate retreat. The echoes of Haven's own struggle resonate in the tale.

  "Maha Marr," I ask once more. "Refuge of the dwarves?"

  "Aye," Eimhar confirms, exhaustion seeping into his voice. "Sixty thousand souls, maybe more, clinging to life behind our final walls. While in the deep, Domhrann's flames still rage, a reminder of what we lost, and what we dare not unleash again."

  "What now?" Eimhar asks, voice ragged.

  I have no more words. Only the hush of ancient stone and distant dripping water.

  He sighs, a sound half-caught between resignation and dread. With a grunt, he tries to push himself upright. The harness whines in protest, steam hissing from cracked valves.

  "Help me up," he says, jaw clenched. "Lords of my ancestors, forgive me. I walk with death itself."

  I reach out, offering a bony hand. He hesitates, revulsion flickering across his features. Then, with a grimace, he grasps my fingers. The hammered gauntlet trembles against my skeletal digits.

  I pull, careful not to jostle the bone shard embedded in his chest. He rises, unsteady, leaning heavily on my frame. The harness creaks, pistons straining.

  "Where?" I ask, my rattle-voice echoing in the chamber.

  He winces at the unnatural resonance. "Maha Marr," he says, each word an effort. "I must return. Report what I've seen."

  I nod, adjusting my grip to support his weight. He sways, mechanical leg dragging. The bone shard pulses, sending a jolt of necrotic energy to stabilize him.

  We take a step, then another. His breaths come shallow and fast, pain etched in the lines of his face. But he does not falter, dwarven determination driving him forward.

  I match his pace, guiding us through the ancient tunnels. The darkness presses close, broken only by the faint glow of my bone-light.

  Eimhar's gaze darts to the shadows, as if expecting horrors to emerge at any moment. His hand never strays far from the bone shard in his chest, a constant reminder of the unnatural force sustaining him.

  "The road will be long," he mutters, more to himself than to me. "And dark. But I must see it through."

  I do not reply. There is no need. We both understand the weight of duty, the grim necessity that drives us forward.

  And so we walk, the dwarf scout and the skeletal knight, bound by strange magic and a shared purpose. Ahead lies Maha Marr, the last refuge of the dwarves.

  Behind us, the echoes of the fallen kingdom fade into silence, lost to the depths of the earth.