Just as the terror threatened to swallow Kael whole, a warmth like courage poured into him and steadied his heart. Narya, the Ring of Fire, had wrapped him in its unseen mantle. Gandalf's timing was perfect.

Kael seized the moment. Instinct overrode dread. He lifted his staff and hummed the strange, lilting melody Tom Bombadil had taught him. With that music as a conduit, he summoned his Patronus.

Light struggled up like a candle in an oil-slick pit. It pushed back the viscous dark that clung to his skin and carved a pocket of breath and thought around them.

At the sound, the thing in the black faltered. Its whispering sharpened all at once, turning into a storm of needle pricks against the mind.

Herpo strained forward beneath them, bearing Kael and Gandalf in the wake of the panicked Balrog. The hunter had become the hunted, and its fear split a path through the pressure of the dark.

That formless gaze from the depths, cold, patient, predatory, fixed on them like frost. They ran anyway.

Time lost meaning. At last a thin glow showed ahead. The Balrog lunged for it. Herpo shot after. They burst from the black throat into cut stone. Dwarven work. Marks of chisels and hammers. The Nameless gaze pressed a heartbeat longer, then lifted like a weight taken off the chest.

Breaths shuddered. Relief shone wet in their eyes. Kael's back was drenched. Sweat or cold water, it did not matter.

"What was that?" he managed, heart thudding.

Gandalf drew a long breath. "Things that dwell at the world's roots and gnaw the earth's foundations." He left it there. "Enough. Forget them. They will not come to the surface before the end of days. Until then they do not deserve a home in our thoughts."

He turned his gaze ahead, hard as forged steel. "Ulmo's waters have snuffed the Balrog's fire for now. We must end it before the blaze returns."

The Balrog turned too. Hatred like molten rock burned in its eyes as it fixed on Kael and Gandalf. The panic from the abyss had curdled into a deeper frenzy, a survivor's fury at those who had driven it into that dread.

It roared, then spun and ran.

"After it!" Gandalf called, and they followed at once.

From the lowest deep, a spiral stair climbed like an iron screw toward the peak. The Balrog fled upward. Kael and Gandalf mounted the basilisk and gave chase. Their brooms had burned long ago.

They poured strength into each step, every spell thrown with care. The stair twisted on and on. They climbed, fought, and climbed again.

Even drenched and dimmed, the Balrog was lethal. Talons slashed. Its tar-dark form hit like a falling wall.

"Avada Kedavra!" Kael waited for the opening and sent the curse. It struck. The demon's scream tore the air. Fire dimmed in its eyes. Its presence sagged.

Herpo seized the moment and coiled tight, striking with its mind and then its fangs. Venom pumped into the demon's neck.

The Balrog howled and ripped the basilisk free with claws like iron hooks, flinging it aside. In that heartbeat, Gandalf's white fire drove into its waist. Holy flame seared deep.

The demon staggered. Sensing life itself waver, it fled again, scraping upward faster.

Kael and Gandalf were little better than wreckage. Robes hung in tatters. Burns scarred their skin. Every breath tasted of blood and smoke. Even with Narya's strength, the wear pressed on the soul. Kael's magic rode the edge. Without the Ring of Fire's heartening, he would have fallen already.

They did not slow. Not while the demon lived.

The stairs climbed on, a hundred flights and a thousand after that.

Then the stair split to a high cleft, and cold air struck their faces, raw and thin. They burst out into white.

They stood atop Zirakzigil, the Silvertine. Snow lay like a wide field. Wind bit like knives. Below, the world was cloud and mist. Before them rose Durin's Tower, a crown of worked stone on the mountain's brow.

Here, the Balrog's flame rekindled, weaker but wild. A fire whip formed, and wrath took shape in heat and light.

The lash ripped the wind and came down.

"Confringo!"

Kael drove his staff to its limit. The explosion met the whip and tore it to streaming embers.

Gandalf's staff blazed. His blast smashed the Balrog into Durin's Tower. Stone spidered with cracks. Carved walls ran like wax.

They pressed the attack. Kael's spells flared. Gandalf struck hard and sure. Herpo waited for another opening, eyes closed, ready to strike if eyes could meet eyes.

Wind roared. Snow spun. Then the eastern cloud heaved and parted.

A dragon burst from the mist and arrowed up.

Smaug struck the Balrog mid lunge. His tail hammered it back into the tower. The stone finally failed. Durin's Tower split and fell in slabs that buried the demon.

Its fire faltered and flared, then faltered again.

They did not give it breath. Kael, Gandalf, and Smaug pressed as one. Above Silvertine, fire leapt and light flashed. Dragon thunder shook the mountain. The sky churned and gathered itself.

Storm rose. Clouds compounded. Gandalf's face lifted in sudden fierce hope. He raised his staff.

"I am herald to wind and cloud, rider of thunder. Udûn's unclean fire, here in the heights, you have no place!"

His voice cracked like sky across the lonely crown.

Lightning as thick as a pillar fell and found the staff. Gandalf took the bolt into his hands and turned it in a blaze against the demon.

Terror showed at last on the Balrog's face. It drew up flame like a shield. The storm shredded it like smoke. Lightning tore through its bulk.

Time paused.

The undying flame guttered and went out like a pinched wick. Its true form, charred and foul, lay bare.

It gasped, inner embers darkening, cooling. It called to the fire, and nothing answered.

Gandalf stood shaking, face pale and scorched. "Kael. Its heart. Now."

Kael ran. The Balrog looked up at him with horror and despair. He seized Aeglos and drove the spear into the burning place of its chest with everything left in him.

The last cry ripped free of the demon, and it was like a mountain breaking. It rang the cliffs of Silvertine and went on and on, all rage and pain and ending.

The fire in its eyes went out forever. What remained was a tar-dark carcass that stank of brimstone.

Kael's legs gave way. He sagged where he stood, hands falling from the spear. Breath tore in and out. Every nerve burned. Magic was spent.

Across from him, Gandalf looked hardly better. Robes shredded. Beard scorched to stubble. Burns marked him head to heel. Even his staff was blackened, as if it had been held too long in a hearth.

Both men smiled anyway. They had done it.

They had slain the Balrog.