The pair walked side-by-side around a chaotic jumble of barrels, crates, broken mining tools, and earthy detritus. The walls were old, wet stone, and the ceiling wept from stress-opened seams every dozen feet. Here and there they had to wade through ankle-deep puddles. Their way was illuminated by a mad variety of sources: torches here, sputtering oil lamps and lanterns there, and down this hall they saw flickering electric bulbs mounted on sparking poles, casting dull yellow light on cavernous work sites. Rough voices echoed everywhere: dwarven curses, mostly.

Even the most fervent cussing was done at a harsh whisper, though. Everyone, even Radek, felt the weight of the Glaith River above, ominous. Not for the first time, he imagined the black water discovering their intrusion - rushing in down these halls, drowning them all for their impudence. The moment stretched. It didn’t happen.

He didn’t tell his companion, Roxanna, about his fears. She would have scoffed at him for a coward. He didn’t think she would call him a fool though: his personal doomsday vision was a real possibility. She just wouldn’t have cared so much. Her loyalty was beyond all consideration of her own life, even in the face of Flint’s batshit idea to build his secret empire less than a mile under the roaring Boilerworks and the river that fed them. Radek was a sworn soldier now but she was more akin to a zealot.

Of course, he understood why.

The pair - Radek and Roxanna - were two of the Secret Grahf’s three most trusted lieutenants. They’d known him when he was just a man called Flint Skovik, before he’d consumed some otherworldly substance that turned him into the monster he was now, and before he’d killed his predecessor and stolen her criminal empire beneath Ettermire.

Flint had recently discovered that his blood carried a portion of the transformative power Swaysong had worked upon him, though at a much lesser degree. Radek had once been a petty horse thief, cutthroat, mercenary, and vagabond. Ratty, thin, yellow-toothed and of relatively simple intellect. Now he was a lean, lethal, sharp-eyed hunter of men. Focused. Wolfish. The change in him was significant, but he - unlike Flint - was still human. And his upgrade paled, also, in comparison to Roxanna’s.

The woman that walked beside him now bore no resemblance to the wretched creature he’d first met, before Flint’s gift. The Roxanna he’d known was a broken, skeletal, and contemptible wraith. She’d had an arm severed, and hobbled on crutches and a peg leg. Her hair had all fallen out as a result of malnutrition, and her skin had been yellowed, parchment-like. She used to weep openly, but dryly, at her own reflection. Flint had forced Radek to care for her for a time, and he’d wanted to smother her every minute of every day. As far as Radek understood it, she’d been a Salvic noble tortured, starved, mutilated, and imprisoned by her own family.

He hadn’t believed it until recently, when Flint’s gift restored Roxanna to her humanity and beyond. This woman was tall, buxom, with impressively muscled limbs and shoulders, and hair as red as a pirate’s sunset. She had viciously beaten back death on her own, but it was Flint that had elevated her to something like a valkyrie afterward. That, Radek figured, was the source of her devotion to him. He’d rescued her, which was heroic enough, but then he’d restored her dignity too. That was gods-work, in her estimation.

So he kept his tongue when the urge struck him to question Flint’s infallibility.

Thankfully the walls held long enough for them to find the king of the Aleraran underground. He was in a large, hollowed out chamber not far from the central hub of the unfinished tunnels. He’d carved a cell for himself out of the chaos by stacking up black-painted crates in a rough square, four-high and sixteen across. There was an oversized cot there, along one ‘wall’ with crisp, clean sheets neatly folded atop it. In the center of the area was a long wooden table, with maps and plots and blueprints laid out and pinned down beneath tarnished candle-holders and moldy books. And all along the outside of the cell, otherwise, were Flint’s homemade self-torture machines.

The one he was using today was comprised of two metallic pillars set six feet apart, perhaps originally designed to shore up mine ceilings. An incredibly thick metal pole rested atop the pillars, welded sloppily to them at their tops and running parallel to the floor, perhaps ten feet up. Flint hung from the pole by his hands, slowly raising and lowering himself with his knees curled back - pulling himself all the way up until the pole tapped his upper chest, and then lowering all the way down until his arms were nearly straight. There was a thick-linked, straining network of chains wrapped around his hips, and it seemed that they were attached at the other end to a mess of lead cannonballs. Radek could not guess at the weight, except that it would easily crush a man to death.

Flint was naked from the waist up, except for a thin layer of sweat, and Swaysong had stripped him of his humanity. Sure, he was in the basic shape of a man: arms, legs, torso, a head. But his physique would shame statues promoting the heroic ideal, and then it was given orcish proportions. He had demanded limitless potential for feats of physical might from his body, and Swaysong had transformed him to accommodate the request. He was easily a foot taller than he’d been when Radek had met him the first time those many years ago, and more than twice that wider, and who could guess how much heavier.

He made little sound as he exercised, except for the softest sigh as he lowered himself from the bar each time. His work was not effortless, but it was inexorable. Roxanna folded her hands at the small of her back and raised her chin an imperious fraction of an inch, and waited in silence. Radek kept his tongue, and watched.

Eventually, Flint released the bar with one hand, and unfastened the chains from around his hips. The metallic net and its captive weights clattered to the ground with an indescribable cacophony, kicking up dust and creating a miniature crater. The brute released the pole and dropped down beside the discarded weights, and shook the sweat from his colossal arms.

“Speak,” he said with his back turned to them.

“There’s been an assassination,” Roxanna said. “Pourux Idelle is dead. Adam Maldu had his contract fulfilled.”

Flint turned, full eyebrows rising toward his naked scalp. “Idelle was out of bounds,” he said. “The contract was verboten. Who broke the concord? One of ours?”

“No,” Radek said, glancing at Roxanna. She’d been about to speak, but her mouth snapped shut. “It wasn’t a local crew, but they knew about the ban. They did it anyway.”

Flint’s face was impassive, but he didn’t speak for a long moment. Radek knew why.

“The Hands,” the brute said in a growl.

“We can’t be sure…” Roxanna said slowly, shifting a little.

“It’s a safe bet,” Radek argued, this time staring straight ahead. In his peripherals, he saw her glare over at him. “When we refused the contract and informed the grahfs, Maldu had nowhere else to go. Nobody local would touch that contract, and the Houses would have steered outside crews clear. Nobody small-time would have had the resources to hit Idelle. Who else has the balls to defy the grahfs, the Houses, and us, and has the know-how to actually get the job done? It was the Hands, Boss. They’re here.”

Radek watched Flint mull this. He and Roxanna both knew how Flint felt about the Crimson Hands. Rumor was that the Hands had somehow successfully poisoned Luned Bleddyn years ago, and that she’d died in Flint’s arms. Radek didn’t need rumor to know that Bleddyn was the one pretty bright spot in Flint’s evil life. Radek wasn’t there to see Luned die, but he saw the aftermath alright. Flint had bloodied his hands on any one of Luned’s enemies that crossed his path in a months-long rampage that left dozens dead, from Ixian Knights to government figures from Radasanth. The Hands had, thus far, eluded him.

He was not likely to be circumspect.

“I will keep the grahfs away from Maldu,” the brute said at last. “You will follow him. Watch him.”

“Why him?” Radek said.

“Because he will need to pay the Hands,” Roxanna said with a sigh. “It was detailed in the contract Maldu tried to sell us. They will need to meet on neutral ground to complete the transaction.”

“You will find the meeting place,” Flint said. “Quietly, and quickly, without the Hands knowing we know. And then you will kill Adam Maldu, and we will meet the Hands in his place.”

“They won’t give us anything,” Radek said slowly, unable to keep the dubious tone out of his voice.

Flint flexed his grip, turning his gaze down to his oversized hands.

“Perhaps I’ll find satisfaction in trying.”