Sixty years on Iron Pass taught Karda Flintvein one thing: boring keeps people alive.
Then the mountain awakes.
Hundreds of miners come fleeing down from Emberhollow with something following them - burrowing creatures in numbers the pass was never built to face, and behind them a monster larger than the gatehouse itself.
Karda has thirty soldiers. Relief is sixteen hours away. And the walls are already starting to crack.
Karda isn't a legendary warrior. She's a veteran Stonewarden who knows every weak joint, bad patch of mortar, and killing ground in Iron Pass because she's spent a lifetime watching nothing happen.
Now every boring year of gate duty matters.
As the brood tears the fortress apart and the System pushes Karda's hard-earned abilities somewhere they've never gone before, holding the line will demand more than strength. It will demand sacrifice, stubbornness, and one final decision every dwarven fortress is built for - but no defender ever wants to make.
A standalone progression-fantasy novella from the world of The Soulbound Saga, featuring earned progress.