“Slag heaps all around the valley. Like giant mole hills. They’re covered in plant growth pretty quickly, but they’re easy to see if you know what to look for.”

“All that time in the dark.”

“Yeah.”

Dastion was shorter than Vince remembered, but also wider, stronger, like a boulder pulled out of the ground and now rolling across its surface. He heard the dwarf breathing as he paused ten steps away from them, a heavy sound like stones rolled in a bucket, but redolent of strength, not weakness. He wasn’t breathless, but drew air in and out with hungry heaves. His hair and beard had grown wild, forming a complete halo around his dirt-smeared face. His eyes were narrow against the weak light, and Vince wondered what it must be like to exist underground for so long, the way lit only with occasional torches and fires. He wore heavy leather clothing, cracked and thick with dust, and on his hands were surprisingly light, tight gloves. They were made of a material Vince could not identify.

The dwarf nodded once, and Vince and Angela nodded back.

“Raining,” Dastion said. He looked curiously at Angela, but asked no questions.

“It is,” Vince replied.

Dastion looked up at the sky, eyes squinting tighter as his mouth opened to catch raindrops. He spat the water out and wiped his mouth.

“Euch. Plain. Water I drink is full of minerals. Takes days to filter down below, longer. One place I found, the water takes ten years to permeate down through the rocks. Thirteen strata, seven impermeable, it has to run down them, forms channels and dissolves salts and minerals. Best damn water you’ll ever taste.” His eyes opened wider, his stare much further away, and Vince thought he already wished he was back in his mines.

He must have surfaced for something.

“You know what’s happened?” Vince asked.

“Why else do you think I came up? No other reason to come up here.”

“Food?” Angela asked. “Company?”

Dastion snorted. “Enough food down there for a lifetime, if you know where to look. And my own company is best.”

“Mallian controls her,” Vince said.

“Oh,” Dastion said. “Fuck.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I knew she was gone. There are cracks in the Fold, deep down in its foundations, and they’ve started growing wider. Tremors where there shouldn’t be. I guessed it could only be that crazy fairy bitch has left us alone.”

“She went of her own accord, but the Nephilim took control of her, back in the world.”

“The world,” Dastion said. “Haven’t thought about that place in a while.”

“So why come here, to us?” Vince asked.

“In the hope that we can go back,” Dastion said. He nodded behind him, and through the rain Vince saw other shapes hiding in the trees. “We’ve all been a meal for the fairy at one time or another.”

“Even you?”