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“They killed my wife and son! Burned my farm. My daughter succumbed to the cold while fleeing and I lost three fingers and two toes!” he shouted, holding up his left hand.

“Our village tried to fight back. We numbered barely a hundred but there were only a few of them, come to pillage our food stores like any common raider. They did… something. Magic. The young men defending our village turned to gold and started attacking each other before turning on the rest of us.” The woman choked on a sob. “Only six of us made it to the next village over.”

The reaction of the crowd shifted. The undercurrent of anger still swept through the people. This time, it was accompanied by a sense of awe. Everyone knew that large burgs between the border and Cliff had been targeted. It was tragic but expected. Hearing that the invaders were targeting even small villages with their strongest magic sent a wave of shock.

Edvin, dressed in tattered clothing, let the silence hang for a few moments, making sure the feelings settled into the crowd. “I have a friend in the manor guard,” he said slowly, rubbing his hands together before holding them out over the open flames.

Today, following along with Arkk’s plan to stir up some discontent, he was out in the largest of the temporary shelters outside Cliff City. Tents dotted the landscape, built all along the road that led to the city’s gates. The materials for building the tents had come mostly from one of the wealthy merchants in the city. Donated freely. An act that allegedly earned the merchant a little ire from the Duke.

When he had come here a week prior, Edvin had fully expected a need to lie, cheat, and steal to convince people to rise against the Duke. There was anger here. He knew that going into it. But it was one thing to be angry, it was another thing entirely to do something with that anger.

And yet, the Duke was practically doing all his work for him. Between word getting out that he would rather let the people who had traveled all this way die of the winter’s cold, handing out insufficient scraps of food from his storehouses, and the vastly unpopular move of proclaiming publicly his new alliance with Evestani, Edvin was honestly not sure he needed to be here at all.

It wasn’t just the people out in the tent city either. He had been inside the city during his week here. Even though the normal citizens of Cliff hadn’t been directly affected by the war—they had yet to see the massive armies cresting the distant horizon—the sea of refugee tents on their doorstep was enough to know just how poorly everything had been going, how much destruction there had been across the entire Duchy. The guards were even less thrilled. Although soldiers were ultimately paid by the Duke, thus working for him, they were still people. Citizens of the Duchy like any other.

And the guards were a little more informed than the regular citizens. They knew of the losses suffered throughout the Duchy. The ones remaining here had seen others shipped out to fight the invaders. And now…

“The manor guards are gearing up for another of the Duke’s lavish parties,” Edvin said, voice deliberately soft and controlled. “A lot of you aren’t local, so you might not know, but the Duke used to have a big party every few weeks with merchants and travelers and anyone wealthy or interesting enough to catch the Duke’s eye. Tons of fine food and drink, looted from the taxes and tributes the Duke enforces on all of us. Everyone wearing pure silk dresses and clothes the likes of which we’ll never touch in our lives.

“He hasn’t had one since the war started. The last one had some uninvited guests show up. Assassins from Evestani. Killed half the guests and almost killed the Duke himself.” Edvin let out a cool scoff. “Now, my guard friend tells me that the top name on the guest list… guess who?”

Edvin let the question hang. Even if some village idiot had survived and made it here, he doubted his implications would go over anyone’s head.

“We’re starving out here and he invites the enemy to share bread and wine?”

“More than bread, I imagine,” Edvin said. “Pies and cakes and meat by the cartload. Shimmering ale served in crystal glasses. Plates encrusted with gold. Think of the largest festival you ever had at whatever tiny village you came from and you’ll be close to what the Duke feasts on every night. So for a special occasion like this, you probably can’t even imagine how excessive it will be.”

A discordant grumble swept through the crowd with Edvin’s words. He suppressed a grin, masking elation at stringing the crowd along with rubbing his arms up and down. It helped that it really was freezing out.

“I don’t know about the rest of you all but my mother always said not to shake hands with a man who just tried to stab you in the back unless you want a knife in your chest.”

“Good riddance,” someone barked out. “I’ll attend the funeral just to piss on his grave,” he said, earning a few chuckles.

“Ah yes. I doubt anyone will be upset to see him go. But the problem is his guests. Evestani comes in here with the guards swinging open the gates for them—”

“My burg, Tweeden, opened the gates for them,” one woman said, scratching at an eyepatch that covered one side of her face. “I heard the guards were killed and replaced with Evestani. They killed half the people—anyone who resisted—and took all the food for themselves. When starvation set in and people got desperate, they killed them as well. A few of us slipped away in the chaos.”

Edvin nodded his head. Although irritated at being interrupted, the woman’s story illustrated his point perfectly. “Evestani kills the Duke and takes over. Then what happens to us? At best, they ignore us fleeing elsewhere. We run, find somewhere new. The winter is almost over so maybe we survive in the short term, but we’ve got no time to build houses and till fields while running. What kind of crops can be grown in time to survive next winter—if we even make it to then.”

“That’s the best option?” an older man asked.

“There are other ideas,” Edvin said with a shrug “Maybe the Duke himself forces us out tomorrow—or just tries to kill us—not wanting Evestani to see our… unsightly camp. At worst…”

“At worst,” the same woman said, “they kill us on their way into the city just because we’re camped out front.”

That morbid thought left another silence in its wake as people considered what they had just heard. It didn’t last long, quickly devolving into questions of what could be done.

“Should we run now?”

“If you want to lose more fingers and toes.”

“We can work the fields once the ground thaws. Building up here—”

“Work for Evestani?”

“They killed my family!”

“Or the Duke?”

“Bastard!”

Edvin sat forward, hunched over the fire as the flames around him grew in intensity. He had said his part for now. Too much too soon and a fire would smother. He had to stoke it properly, feeding it the right amount of fuel at the right times until it turned into a raging bonfire the likes of which could burn down cities.

He would move on to one of the other main groups around the tents today. Tomorrow, a stop inside the city to meet with a few of the angrier groups of people, stoking their flames.

For now…

“What’s going on here? Is everyone alright?”

A familiar voice cut through the arguing, stalling his carefully stirred fire. He glared up at the woman with striped tattoos. Katja, the bandit lord of Porcupine Hill, was the other prong of their plan. Seated atop a small cart loaded with supplies, she smiled down at the group with the fakest, cheesiest smile Edvin had ever seen her wear. He was fairly certain that she only smiled for real when watching her enemies flee from the desert wurms.

Despite the fake smile she wore, her appearance sent relief through the crowd. In the week since she had first appeared here, Katja had become well known. Her distinctive appearance, the hulking Horrik always at her side, and her odd ability to gather up spare bits of food, blankets, and medicine for anyone who asked had made her beyond popular out here in the tent city.

Sure enough, she set into asking if everyone had everything they needed for the next day or two. Enough blankets, clothes, and food. With Arkk’s backing, she could get just about anything delivered within a day.

She was necessary, even if Edvin didn’t like her presence here. Still, she could have let the fire in the people burn for a little longer before she came to squelch it with her relief.

Then again, she also presented an opportunity.

“Katja!” Edvin said, enjoying the brief moment when her smile cracked and her true nature glared through.

She hid it well and quickly, smiling once again though a little more strained. “Yes? Edvin, was it?”

“You can get just about anything, right?”

“I have my contacts,” she hedged. Edvin had heard commentary in her wake, suppositions that she was some kind of outlaw. Nobody cared enough to make a fuss, however. Not as long as she was the best thing to have happened to this camp since it sprung up. “Evestani has started moving around again, making it a little harder to get some things…”

“I don’t need anything much. Maybe a sword? A pike or spear? Even a dagger.”

Katja stared at him, confused for just a moment before her eyes roamed over the rest of the crowd he had been speaking with. “Most weapons are being used, if you know what I mean. Why do you ask?”

“Just got to thinking about how safe we are and how safe we’ll be in the future. Not sure whether to be more scared of enemies afar,” Edvin said, waving his hand out toward the greater Duchy, “or those closer at hand.” He gave a pointed nod of his head toward Cliff’s main gates.

Katja crossed her arms, humming as she thought. “I… might be able to scrounge up a few weapons. Maybe some armor as well, if you’re interested.”

“Am I? Hell, even if I’m lucky and don’t need them, I’m sure I can sell them for a pretty coin later on.”

Nodding her head, Katja said, “I’ll see what I can—”

“Hold,” the woman with an eyepatch said. “If the offer is open, I wouldn’t mind some gear myself.”

“I can use a bow,” someone else said. “For hunting, if nothing else.”

“Me too!”

“And me…”

Katja held up her hands, placating. “Alright, alright. I’ll speak to some people. It might not be fast, but this war has left a lot of unused equipment in its wake. I’m sure some of it will have fallen off some carts transporting it around.” There was a bit of discomfort at the idea of looting the bodies of soldiers. Katja expertly swept that away with a direct look at one of the people around the camp. “Cearl, how is your daughter? Do you need some more medicine?”

And just like that, she was back to the revered figure that she wanted to be seen as.

Edvin scoffed as he stalked off. There were other flames to stoke.

Some people saw a fairy’s wings and assumed they could fly like harpies. That wasn’t true. Harpies had light, weak bones and large wings in place of humanoid arms that let them power through the gravity holding them to the ground. While small and lithe—roughly the size of gremlins, though not as stocky generally—fairies had thin wings that were narrow and flimsy. Their wings could move fast enough and in a specific pattern to create a small pocket of air as a buffer between the fairy and the ground. In other words, they hovered.

In Leda’s view, hovering was not a glamorous form of travel. Someone who spent time training up their hover could outpace a human for a short time but harpies and even horses were faster while humans would catch up once a fairy tired out.

Knowing and having made friends with a few of the Duke’s harpies in the menagerie, Leda sometimes daydreamed about what it might be like to soar the skies. Legends passed down in fairy communities of ages long past—before the Calamity struck—said that fairies could use magic to augment their flight, carrying them through the skies faster than hawks. It always sounded so thrilling.

Now, numb fingers dug deep into the icy scales of a dragonoid’s shoulders while the wind whipped her blue hair into a flurry, Leda could confidently state that flight was overrated. She was nestled between two massive wings on the dragonoid’s back. They swept up and down, beating down equally massive amounts of air. Every thump sent deep reverberations through Leda’s small body, threatening to throw her off the dragon. Only the thin straps of a hastily constructed leather harness kept her from falling to the ground down below.

The fall might not kill a fairy. Although she couldn’t fly, she could slow herself enough that she should be able to walk away with only minor injuries. That wasn’t to say that she would survive. Protectors down below might not take kindly to her presence in their world.

She was supposed to be scouting right now, looking for any landmarks or areas of interest. Leda could barely keep her eyes open. They were moving so fast that the wind had dried her eyes out and made them itchy and raw if she tried to look.

“Arkk was right. There is really one out here…”

Despite the wind’s roar in her ears, the dragonoid’s cool tone wasn’t much different than if she had been sitting right next to Leda. “One what?”

The dragonoid didn’t respond. She banked, dropping Leda’s stomach.

“There.”

Despite the itch in her eyes, Leda forced them open.

The desolation of the Underworld surrounded them. Everywhere she looked, it was the same, dirt desert that was all around the portal. Leda had no idea how far they had traveled but it didn’t look like that desolation ever changed. The only thing of note on the horizon was a tall tower of shadow. A little plot of land that the orange light above the hazy clouds just couldn’t touch. Though she hadn’t seen it up close, she heard that the village near the portal was somewhat similar.

The odd thing was that they were headed directly toward it. “I thought you couldn’t see!” Leda shouted over the wind.

“I see what I need to see. The Stars, though different in this world, guide me.”

Leda had no idea what that was supposed to mean. All she knew was that the tower in the distance was quite rapidly growing closer. It was a simple tower of shadowy stone, but its base was odd. Like it hadn’t been built where it now stood and had rather moved there. For such a tall structure, that should have been impossible.

But Leda had seen several impossible things since being rescued from the Duke’s menagerie. Even before, with that fissure in the sky.

The distant tower wasn’t so distant at all, anymore.

The dragonoid still barreled onward, not slowing.

Leda’s fingers, numb from the cold of the dragonoid’s icy scales, clung ever tighter. “We’re going to crash!”

The moment she spoke, the dragonoid angled her wings. Leda found herself pointing straight up at the sky, rushing higher and higher as the shadowy stones of the tower swept by underneath them. They crested the top of the tower, soaring high over it. Something in the air must have alerted the dragonoid to that fact for, without a word from Leda, she adjusted her wings again, stalling their climb and dropping them back downward.

The pair landed atop the tower with a thump.

Leda, arms shaking from the flight, unlatched the harness. She dropped to the smooth, shadowy stones without even trying to catch herself. Why she had ever thought going flying would be fun was a question she couldn’t begin to answer. Not just flying, but flying with a blind dragonoid. It was lucky they hadn’t crashed into the building. The dragonoid might have been fine, they were true monsters, but riding on her back, Leda would have been battered and broken by the bricks.

And they still had to go back… Would the blind dragonoid even be able to find the way?

Shuddering, Leda picked herself up, standing. The dragonoid stalked around the flat roof of the tower, head down like she was staring at the structure below them. Although the bricks looked like they had been cast from molten shadow, they were solid and hardy to the touch.

“Do you see a door? A hatch?”

Leda looked around and started to shake her head in the negative until she realized that the motion wouldn’t be seen. “No. Just flat bricks. They all look like they’re made of shad—”

The dragonoid didn’t wait for her to finish. She lifted a foot and slammed it back down. The entire tower shook and trembled but the stone remained firmly in place, even after the dragonoid continued stomping on the roof. Leda worked her wings, bringing her to a slight hover to keep from losing her footing because of the shaking ground.

“Magically reinforced. Someone is actively using it? Or is the magic in the air keeping it active? It seems inert, but…”

“What?” Leda didn’t understand a thing of what was being said. It was clear the dragonoid knew something.

Figuring she would be blown off again, it came as some surprise when the dragonoid turned to her. “This is a mobile fortress. A machine of war.”

 

 

The Greater Kingdom of Chernlock was made up of four separate states. The Kingdom of Chernlock to the southeast, the Duchy to the northeast, and two principalities on the eastern side of the peninsula. Shortly after the war began, the Duchy had sent for reinforcements which were just now arriving from the Kingdom to the south.

Arkk wasn’t sure where the communication breakdown occurred. From what he knew, based on what Vrox told him, the Abbey of the Light had pushed the Duke into this alliance. The main headquarters of the Abbey was down in Chernlock and had close ties with the King. So either the army in transit had not received alternate orders yet, the King disagreed with the Abbey’s recommendations, or the Abbey had splintered into two factions with only the local leaders pushing for this alliance. Whichever of the three options, scrying on the southern border of the Duchy was certainly an interesting affair. It almost looked like a war was about to break out between the Duchy and the Kingdom.

The King’s forces were being denied entry.

Then there was the poor state of the Duke’s Grand Guard. The effective army of the Duchy hadn’t escaped their few encounters with Evestani without suffering casualties. In the week since the decision to ally with the invaders, the Grand Guard had shrunk.

Deserters. People who didn’t agree with the Duke’s decision. Maybe they had lost people or their homes to Evestani’s assault, maybe they heard what Arkk had done to Gleeful Burg and just didn’t want to fight that kind of force. The army had split up and the deserters scattered. From scrying, it seemed like the deserters were acting more like brigands or raiders, needing food and supplies in the middle of winter while having nowhere to go.

That they had decided to turn around and start attacking the people they had been charged with protecting irritated Arkk. Nevertheless, the chaos in the Duchy was good for him. It was hard for Evestani, cowering in Elmshadow Burg, to launch a joint assault against him with an army that couldn’t even form a straight line without punching each other.

Besides that…

“There is opportunity in the chaos,” Arkk said, looking around his table of advisors. “The deserters need food and shelter. We can provide.”

The usual crew was present. Olatt’an, Rekk’ar, Ilya, Vezta, Zullie, Savren, Khan, Lexa, and Alma. Arkk had also invited a few others. Edvin sometimes joined meetings when Arkk felt he had input worth sharing. The conman sat between Lexa and Alma, looking pleased as could be for being included. Katja, the bandit lord sat at the table as well, trying to look unimpressed while clearly confused as to why someone not part of his employees was with them. Sylvara Astra looked around the assembled group with narrowed eyes, included because of her possible input and because her current stated goal was to ‘destroy the child-possessing monster of the Golden Order’ even before any other duties that the Abbey might saddle her with.

Alya had not been included. Ilya would tell her everything later, probably, but Arkk had no desire to listen to the woman who would probably run back to the Duke if given an opportunity. The newest member of Arkk’s minions was not present either. Priscilla, though she initially claimed to want to guide him, had been rather despondent as she languished in her private quarters deep within the fortress. He had ideas for her but he didn’t want to push too soon. Employee though she was at the moment, he doubted that would last if he offended her too much. Best to take things slow and make sure that she could be trusted and wouldn’t stab him in the back the moment she saw an opportunity.

“You plan to recruit the deserters?” Olatt’an asked.

“Recruit is the keyword, yes,” Arkk said with a nod of his head. “This is not an offer of housing as we’ve done for the various refugees we’ve taken in. They sign up or they get the boot.”

Rekk’ar curled a lip. “They deserted one army,” he said, most hypocritically given how he and Arkk first met. “You can’t trust them to stick around.”

“I’m hoping that they are generally good people who just can’t abide by the Duke’s actions any longer. We can provide needs, food, and shelter, but also a way to carry on a more noble fight than their current brigand-like activities. Evestani is our enemy. The opportunity to continue fighting them should entice at least some of the guard.”

Lexa’s sharp teeth gleamed as she grinned. “Failing the noble route,” she said with a scoff, “I’m sure more than a few would be happy to stick around for a little coin.”

Arkk dipped his head, nodding in agreement. He didn’t have exact numbers on the deserters. There were a few larger groups that were obvious and a few other less obvious groups in smaller numbers. Potentially, they could bolster Fortress Al-Mir’s numbers by several hundred up to a thousand if every single person who deserted joined up—which wasn’t likely. Maybe more if the deserters knew of other malcontents who were still with the Duke’s men. Already, he had the lesser servants expanding the fortress down below for food production and living quarters, among other necessities.

There was a small problem. While he was still mining from the vein of gold that lay deep beneath the fortress, the current output couldn’t sustain a gold coin a month for more than about three to five hundred additional people. He could—and almost certainly would—pay less than a full coin a month to the deserters. But that was only a delay to the problem. Having no idea how long that vein of gold would last was another issue. If it suddenly dried up and he had nothing else to fall back on, he would be the one experiencing desertion.

To that end, he was considering ways to recycle some of that coin. The orcs already had their small fight pit tournaments. He could expand that into company-sponsored fighting bouts where he could charge a fee to attend. Or large gambling dens where the house took a cut of the proceeds.

It was one of the reasons he wanted to speak with Katja. The bandit lord should have ideas for keeping men happy and in line.

“We’ll discuss the exact specifics of what we can offer later. For now, I want our most charismatic personnel ready to go out recruiting these deserters in short order.”

Edvin straightened his back, brushing some imaginary dust from his shirt. “I would be happy—”

“Not you,” Arkk said.

The smile on Edvin’s face turned to a devastated gawk. “But—”

“Edvin, Edvin, Edvin,” Arkk said, rounding the table. “I have a far more important job for you.”

“Oh.” He looked dejected for a moment longer before Arkk’s words finally registered. “Oh?”

“Desertions might be the most pressing of the Duchy’s problems, but they’re far from the only problems. Just yesterday, the Duke had to suppress a small group of troublemakers in Cliff. People, not soldiers, were as displeased with the Duke and the Abbey’s decision as everyone else.

“It was only a few people. Just a handful. Nonetheless, it got me thinking…”

“Oh…” Edvin said, this time with understanding in his tone. “You want someone with quick wit and a sly tongue to, shall we say, stir up a little more discontent?”

Arkk shook his head slowly. “Many who fled from Evestani’s march found their way to Cliff. Displaced and with their homes likely destroyed, they’ve got nowhere else to go. A whole city of tents has formed outside the walls. I can’t imagine many are happy that the Duke is now inviting their oppressors straight to the heart of the city, cozying up and sharing wine like old friends.

“I don’t want discontent,” Arkk said. “I want riots. I want the Duke to cower in the walls of his manor while the people flood the streets. So many that the few guards still in the capitol can’t just show up and arrest them. If possible, having the garrison guard join in would be ideal.”

“That… Although my talents are beyond inconsiderable, that is a tall order.”

Arkk clapped the man on his shoulders. “I can’t think of anyone else with the ability to incite ire like you can, Edvin.”

Katja snorted at the statement, making Arkk turn to her.

“And you’re going to help,” he said.

“Excuse me? I’m not one of your toy soldiers.”

Arkk stepped away from Edvin, approaching Katja. Not too close. Horrik, her bodyguard and ever-present shadow, shifted behind her in a way that wasn’t quite threatening while still being warning. “You shared with me your vision of the future. Queen Katja, was it? Why not get a jump on that dream right now?

“The Duke has never been popular. He held the Duchy together well enough. Now, however? Get your people spread throughout the city and the refugee camps, posing as the displaced, to help Edvin drum up his riots. Put yourself at the center of it all, maneuver and lie and cheat and whatever else it is that you’re best at. Make contact with merchants and other elites, garner their support, and, at the peak of everything, make sure you’re standing in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s so easy to say,” Katja said with a shake of her head. “Pulling off a coup will be harder than a few honeyed words.”

Arkk just shrugged. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Or simple. Now was the best time for riots and what were riots but a precursor to a full coup. Even still… “Do it right and you’ll have the support of the people, the power of the wealthy, and whatever aid I decide to lend from the shadows.”

“And I suppose you expect me to wear a collar around my neck? I usually like to be the one holding the leash.”

“Frankly, you would be hard-pressed to be half the pile of refuse that the Duke is. Keep the Duchy running smoothly and don’t ally with my enemies and you’re free to do whatever you want.”

Mostly. There were a few things he might lean on her for. However, given her former past as a slave and stated distaste for slavers, employment of non-humans, and track record of successfully running a criminal empire, he figured that she could hardly be worse than the Duke.

Katja hummed, thoughtful and considering. She glanced back to Horrik. Not for one of those silent communications that people sometimes had, more like she was using his face to help organize her thoughts, maybe considering the whos, hows, and logistics of such an endeavor.

“I’ll consider my options.”

“Consider fast. Edvin is moving out tomorrow along with a few others from my employ to help. Drumming up support for yourself will be harder if you suddenly pop out of nowhere at the end.”

Katja nodded, leaving Arkk to turn back to the rest of the table.

Presuming this plan worked perfectly—which Arkk would never plan for—the Duchy would be tied up for the foreseeable future. Potentially permanently if Katja did manage her takeover. Even without that, angry people and a confused army from the Kingdom would keep them off his back for a little longer.

“That still leaves Evestani and the Golden Order,” Ilya said, following his thoughts. From the frown on her face, he doubted she was all that pleased with his plan. Less the assault on the Duke—she would probably not blink an eye if Arkk suggested outright assassination—and more the person he planned to put in his place.

There might be better choices out there but Katja wanted the job and Arkk did not. Managing Fortress Al-Mir and dealing with all the baggage it came with was more than enough for his plate, thank you very much.

“Evestani’s regrouping army is under the protection of the golden avatar,” he said, looking to Zullie and Savren. The former shook her head while the latter just shrugged. Outside of Savren examining Agnete and her flame magic over the last few days, neither had any real starting point for dealing with the magic of avatars.

So he looked to Sylvara Astra.

“The Abbey of the Light—or rather, the Inquisition of the Light—collects anathema and uses those magics against their enemies. I don’t suppose you know of anything that the Inquisition may have in their stores that can fight off an avatar of the Heart of Gold?”

Agnete, being one of those anathema, wasn’t extremely knowledgeable about much of what the inquisitors worked with beyond things that involved herself. Arkk was hoping that Master Inquisitrix Astra would have a little more light to shed on the subject.

“The Abbey of the Light carries out numerous experiments and investigations into any magic we do not understand. Through these experiments, Binding Agents are developed that nullify such powers. Purifier Tybalt’s Binding Agent took the form of the bracers you saw. Agnete’s is the… ice marble,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the terminology.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“The Abbey may or may not have research on abilities demonstrated by the Golden Order’s anathema user. If so, I am unaware of that research,” Sylvara admitted. “If, as you suppose, the Abbey has splintered between the branches in the Kingdom and the Duchy, the Ecclesiarch Manfred Engel at the Grand Temple may be willing to lend us aid. If the Abbey as a whole is unified against the one who caused the fissure in the sky, on the other hand…”

“Contacting them would be dangerous? The worst they can do is say no. Or ignore the request entirely.”

Sylvara shook her head, locking her red eyes on him. “Every bit of additional information about a subject helps the oracles hone in on truth and dispense with distractions. It might not seem like much but a delivered letter, the contents within, the direction the letter came from, and even the paper type or ink type used will let them pinpoint facts about you.”

She clenched her teeth, rubbing the palms of her hands against her knees. One hand was still that of a clawed monstrosity, currently wrapped with black linen to hide it away. Sylvara glared at it like she had just remembered it. She hadn’t objected to it. In fact, she had requested Hale be allowed to continue healing her in order to get her out of the wheelchair she was in. “I shouldn’t… tell you that,” she bit out. “You are anathema. But that golden-eyed abomination… If the Abbey has allied with such a creature, it has failed in its mission.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. “If we sent you away from here, to a safe burg or even a smaller village where I have never been, would you be able to write to the Ecclesiarch or your superiors or whoever you need to ask questions? Ask about their stance toward me, Evestani, and perhaps relay the story of your encounter with the golden-eyed being that you told me and ask if they have a way to counter the possession at the very least.”

“The oracles may discern that we are working together. They may set a trap or feed false information.”

“A risk,” Arkk said with a frown, “but as it stands, we have no information. Nothing ventured…”

“I’ll consider the best method to gain information,” Sylvara said with a nod of her head.

“Consider fast,” Arkk said again. He turned to the rest of the room. “Other topics. Zullie, how goes old magic research?”

“I have an experiment I would like for you to test. A new spell.”

“Good. We’ll see how it goes after this. Our new friend may be able to assist with that topic. She claimed to know old ways and such,” Arkk said with a nod before turning to Savren. “Effects of undoing the Calamity on both the Underworld and our world?”

“A dearth in definite data denies denouement. Source of sorcery starts several stratums separate from our subject of scrutiny. I require resources in the form of redundant realms for review.”

Arkk stared at him a moment, parsing his words. “You want to travel to a different plane for experimentation?”

“Right.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, glancing at Vezta. “We did suspect there would be clues over there. The Protectors have us stalled but with Priscilla’s aid… She is blind but she could carry someone and, together, search the land over there for anything else of interest. I’ll ask her if she is willing.” Arkk turned, looking at the orcs in the room. “Any news on the Protectors?”

“A new one showed up yesterday,” Rekk’ar said with a shrug. “That makes five sitting around and watching us. Still no sign of hostility.”

“Sending out scouts might provoke them. I’d still prefer to ally with them rather than fight. Maybe we can try talking beforehand. If that fails… We’ll be sure to be ready.” Everyone stationed on the other side of the portal could cast a minimum of two lightning bolts before collapsing. That, combined with some assistance, would have to be enough.

“Ilya,” Arkk said, looking at the tall elf. “Any trouble among the refugees?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. I’m not sure how but word got out that the Duke is allying with Evestani. That’s going over about as well as you expect.”

Arkk crossed his arms, looking back to Edvin and Katja. “Look out for volunteers to leave for Cliff. Slipping in a hundred more people will only bolster the riots.”

Ilya did not look impressed. Her silver eyes glared. “You’re going to use them? Poor people who have nowhere else to go?”

“I’m asking for volunteers. Just like I asked for blacksmiths and cooks. They’re free to return here after if they wish. They really only need to show up once things in Cliff heat to the point of boiling over—it might not be for weeks yet. I’m not kicking them out or getting rid of them.” He shook his head. “It’s just something to feel out among them. Anything else of immediate importance?” Arkk asked when Ilya didn’t speak for a second. He looked to Khan and Alma. The former looked half asleep, utterly blissful, while the latter still sat on the edge of her chair like she had no idea what to do with herself.

“Alright,” Arkk said. “We have our plans. Let’s get to them.”

 

 

The dilapidated ruins of the false fortress were more than they appeared. Initially, when designed to fool Vrox, the ruins had looked like a weather-worn version of the regular fortress. Agnete’s arrival burned away the enchantments on the walls and floor, leaving them little more than regular stone which promptly burned and turned to slag under her fire. As she continued through the corridors, the burned fortress walls and floors lost connection with the rest of Fortress Al-Mir and reverted to bare dirt and earth.

Anticipating the possibility that the inquisitors might return to investigate the ruins, Arkk had been careful when reclaiming the false fortress. Lesser servants, when claiming territory, automatically reinforced the walls and floors with stone tiles and glowstones. Rooms such as the foundry, private quarters, canteen, and so on, were like layers on top of the base foundations. So he had designed a ‘room’ to go over the top of all the corridors that appeared to be little more than crumbling dirt tunnels.

The further in one went, the less burned and husked they would find the false fortress. Once they reached the point where Agnete had stopped, things would look more or less like a worn-down version of the rest of Fortress Al-Mir. There wasn’t much in the empty rooms, however.

There were only two locations of note. One was a circular brickwork pit, designed to look like the [HEART] chamber. It had no floating maze-like sphere hovering over the pit and, while the real [HEART] chamber didn’t seem to have a bottom, the false version was merely deep. The other room was the teleportation hub. Six ritual circles would take anyone who used them out of the fortress and to a variety of small clearings. Once upon a time, those clearings each contained six more ritual circles leading out to six more clearings. Each of those had more teleportation circles that went to the other clearings, making a big messy maze that didn’t have a proper exit.

The initial plan with the teleportation circles had been to ‘escape’ the inquisitors. Arkk could have led them on a merry chase throughout the false fortress before teleporting himself directly back to the real fortress, leaving behind the impression that he had taken one of the six circles. The inquisitors wouldn’t have known which circle was real—none of them were—and would have been forced to give up the chase, departing with the impression that Arkk had escaped to elsewhere in the Duchy.

That plan had not survived contact with the enemy at the time. In a way, it was good that they had never been discovered. It kept the exact method by which Arkk moved through the Duchy a secret.

Now, all the clearings had been more or less destroyed by wind and weather and animals. The room itself was still there within the false fortress, safe and secure underground.

It was there that Arkk teleported in, appearing in one of the ritual circles but using the free movement within Fortress Al-Mir rather than the circle.

If this dragonoid was loyal to Evestani, he wanted to give away as little as possible. Best to disguise his movements wherever he could.

The dragonoid, at the moment, was stumbling around the dirt tunnels. To further confuse any intruders, the tunnels were a maze. Arkk wasn’t sure if the dragonoid had noticed that they looped back around; she had been wandering in roughly the same two hallways for the last six hours.

Arkk stretched out an arm, extending the oily tendril just a little too far before remembering himself. The doors in the false fortress didn’t open on their own. The whole purpose of the place was to look abandoned. Like how Fortress Al-Mir had been before he took over. Thus, manual doors.

Moving through the maze of the false fortress with a surety of step that no one else would be able to replicate, Arkk reached the looping corridor that the dragonoid was in after only a few minutes. He stared through Vezta’s eyes, noting how perfectly she could see in the dark.

The dragonoid, one hand dragging along the wall, walked away from Arkk. Now that he had a frame of reference in the rest of the fortress, he could tell that she wasn’t actually that large. She stood about a head shorter than he did, maybe about the size of Vezta, and had her massive wings folded up to the point where they were just twin tentpoles sticking up over her shoulders. He had no idea how they fit all shrunk up like that. By all means, she should barely be able to walk through the corridor.

She was a woman. The icy coating over her body didn’t hide her chest and she didn’t appear to wear clothing over the top of the ice. It was a bit odd that she had a chest. Most lizard-like beastmen didn’t have them. Gorgon did. They were the odd species out in that regard. Perhaps because they all came from different worlds?

Arkk lightly cleared Vezta’s throat. It wasn’t quite the same operation as clearing his throat. Her throat just didn’t work the same way. Nevertheless, it made a small noise.

The dragonoid whipped its entire body around so fast that it was almost like she had teleported in place. Her wings spread to fill some of the corridor and the ice-like scales coming off her cheeks glinted in the few dim glowstones that lit the false fortress. Vezta’s eyes let him see her frosty breath. What surprised him most were her eyes.

They were iced over. Milky and dead.

“Who approaches?” the dragonoid called out. Her head turned like she was scanning the hallway yet didn’t stop when she crossed over him. “Announce yourself!”

No wonder it had taken her weeks to find the entrance to the false fortress. Or… how had she found it? Blind, circling high in the air, Arkk couldn’t see how she would have ever noticed.

“I know you’re there. There is something strange about you. The light of the Stars, brought low…” the dragonoid murmured. “Speak! Or has your tongue frozen over in my presence.”

Master, Vezta said from within, the creature awaits a response.

Arkk drew a breath into Vezta’s body, licking her lips. Which was certainly an odd thing to think about—possession really made everything weird.

“You invade my home and make demands?” Arkk said, projecting as haughty of an attitude as possible. Confident and firm. If there was one thing he had learned from his encounter with the gorgon, it was that a little spine went a long way when dealing with a potential hostile. “State your name and purpose and I shall respond in kind.”

The dragonoid took an aggressive step forward.

Arkk held position. There were twenty paces between them. Unless the dragonoid really could teleport, he could move far faster than she could cross even five paces.

But the dragonoid did not continue. She paused and a thoughtful look crossed her features. “Your home? You’re the Keeper of the Heart. Or a minion?”

The dragonoid knew about that, it seemed. Was that a good or bad sign? Either way, Arkk didn’t respond. He waited, watching the dragonoid as she brought up a hand to her mouth. Her hands were… odd. Arkk couldn’t quite tell if they were normally claws or if the ice coating her hands was simply in the shape of taloned claws.

She came to a decision, stepping forward without anger or aggression. She sniffed at the air a few times before her lips parted into a wide smile filled with sharp teeth. “I am Priscilla,” she said, planting a hand on her chest. “The first daughter of the late cryo dragon Lagorn.”

That seemed cordial enough, Vezta said. Perhaps she has traveled to join us?

That would certainly be the optimal outcome. “Arkk. Keeper of Fortress Al-Mir.” If she already knew this was a fortress, there wasn’t much point in hiding it.

“The Keeper. Finally.” She started forward again. The movement and the way she spoke made Arkk tense, unnerved at the eager tone. “The very Stars led me here. They showed me the way when I got lost and—”

The tension vanished in an instant as Priscilla’s foot knocked against a small lump on the uneven floor of the false fortress. Bits of loose rock and stone kicked up into the air, accompanied by a pulsing warning from the [HEART] that his domain was under attack. Priscilla’s arms pinwheeled through the air and her wings spread out, but they knocked against the corridor walls before they could fully extend.

She fell flat on her face with a grunt.

Arkk stared, eyes wide. Possessing Vezta, he could feel her incredulity.

Priscilla didn’t move. She went so utterly still that Arkk felt a pang of worry for the creature despite their reputation for violence and viciousness.

“Um…”

“Fine! I’m fine.” Using her wings, not her arms, Priscilla pushed herself back to her feet, dusting her front off with her hands as best as a blind person could. “I sought you out for one reason and one reason alone,” she said, trying to carry on as she had before. The haste in her speech felt more like embarrassment than anything natural. “Lesser keepers pop up all the time. Ones blessed by the Stars are few and far between. And likely running out. There may never be one like you again.

“Thus, you require a guide. Someone to keep you on the correct path. I know the old ways. I know the ancient tongues. I know how things are and how things were and how things should be. The world is broken. You might not believe it. You might not see it. But I can see things—”

“You want to revert the Calamity?”

The dragonoid’s icy eyes blinked twice even as she stared slightly off from where Arkk actually stood. “Oh. You… know? Are you…” She paused with a confused frown drawn across her face. “The Stars brought low,” she murmured before her eyes widened. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? I thought the last of you died centuries ago.”

“I’m just a human, but you could say—”

“Human?” Confusion, anticipation, excitement, and even embarrassment all twisted away into a fierce scowl. “A human? Blessed by the Stars? Impossible. While I smell human on you, you don’t smell human.”

Arkk pressed Vezta’s lips together into a thin, worried grimace. He had a feeling that the next few words would determine whether or not this dragonoid would contract with Fortress Al-Mir or try to kill him to leave the power open for another she could guide.

“The one you smell is of the Stars,” Arkk said, speaking firmly. “Vezta. My chief advisor and guide. She lent me her body for this meeting, knowing you would be more hostile to humans than anything else. She is also the one who chose me for the Heart of Fortress Al-Mir.”

Priscilla clenched and unclenched her icy claws as she paced back and forth in the corridor. Arkk watched carefully, ready to teleport the moment she turned her ire in his direction. She mumbled to herself as she moved, grumbling under her breath. “Why a human? There must be others more worthy. They caused this…”

She pivoted on her foot and slammed her fist into the wall. Arkk could feel the tremor from where he stood yet the wall, despite looking like a rough dirt wall, still held tight to its reinforcement magics. The dragonoid didn’t leave a mark. Which Arkk took as a good sign. At least she wouldn’t be as bad to deal with as Agnete.

“You, human,” she said, pointing a clawed finger in the completely wrong direction. Had she gotten turned around during her pacing? “You are possessing the Servant of the Stars? Vacate the body immediately.”

Arkk lightly cleared his throat, making the dragonoid whip around fast enough that her tail thwacked against the wall.

She hissed as she dropped into a combat stance. “An ambush?”

“No, just me still. Are you actually blind?”

“I see what I need to see, human,” she said, spitting the word but slowly straightening to her body into a slightly more relaxed pose. “I see the guiding light of the Stars, I see the burning hearts of my kin, and I see the fear in your heart at my presence. Vacate the servant and allow me to ask questions without your poisoned tongue in the way. Do so and you will have nothing to fear from me until my questions have been answered.”

It could be a trick to get you in a more vulnerable position, Vezta said. Not likely based on what we have seen, I will admit, but the possibility exists.

That was true. It could be a trick. Arkk doubted it. Practically the first thing that the dragonoid had said was that he—or rather, Vezta was of the Stars. She sounded more like an ardent believer in the Light, except replace Light with Stars, than she sounded like an assassin of the Evestani Sultanate.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t in danger. Frankly, between the Abbey of the Light and the Golden Order, Arkk was sick and tired of religion. Maybe that was an odd thing to say for someone who had literally talked with a god but…

Arkk ended the spell. He reappeared in the real world, blinking a few times at just how dark the corridor was. Red light from his eyes illuminated the corridor a little better than the faint glowstones but it was a far cry from what Vezta could see.

Vezta, at his side, reverted her pose from his wider stance to her usual prim posture with her hands clasped together at her waist.

“Very well,” Arkk said, speaking in his own voice. “Ask your questions.”

“Before that,” Vezta cut in, “allow me to answer your most likely inquiries and save us all a great deal of time. What you heard earlier was true. Arkk is the master of Fortress Al-Mir and he has proved himself to be a most adequate master. Already, we have earned an audience with the Lock and Key. The crystalline portal functions once more, though it is currently locked to the Underworld. Our progress has been stalled by the war but that is a temporary setback. I do not doubt that we will emerge victorious and continue our work.

“And I will suffer no insults toward my Master.”

Priscilla’s sharp teeth clanked as she clamped her jaw shut, cutting off what likely would have been an insulting retort. After seething for a moment, she opened her mouth. “Why? Why a human?”

Vezta turned her head, looking at Arkk with a kind smile. “He was in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s it?” Priscilla asked after a moment of silence. “Luck?”

Rather than respond, Vezta simply turned her head back to the dragonoid, regarding the woman with a cold look. She cocked her head to one side as if trying to decide what to do with her. A fairly useless gesture with someone who was blind if she was trying to communicate something.

“Luck doesn’t make someone worthy, they must desire the power, seize it, and wrest it. There must have been someone else—”

“And who would you suggest? Yourself?” Vezta cocked her head to the other side, stepping forward.

“What?” Priscilla took a step backward. The muscles in her cheeks twinged like she was blinking but her eyes didn’t quite close. “N… No, I—I can’t…”

“No? Are you not worthy?” Vezta said, stepping forward again. “I can see what I need to see as well as you can. I can see the scars. No, not your eyes,” Vezta said as Priscilla brought a hand toward her face. “You’ve done it before. You contracted with a [HEART]. Perhaps had one of my sisters at your side? And where did that get you? Here you are with your eyes dead and your [HEART] cold. I might not have seen your reign, but I can guess. You were corrupted. Delved into the power offered and wanted more, more, and more. Hating humans as you do, you must have turned the power of the [HEART] against them and waged war until…

“Until your [HEART] cracked.”

Priscilla’s head snapped back like she had been struck.

Vezta’s sun-like eyes burned as a smile spread across her face. “Guessed right, did I? Who cracked it? Your enemy’s blade after your incompetence drew them into the center of your fortress? One of your minions in a bout of rebellion? Or… Did you do it yourself, seeking ever more power beyond your own limitations?”

“No! No, it wasn’t like—”

“Arkk may not be the most optimal master. He may not make the best decisions in every situation—”

“Hey…” Arkk said, weakly.

“But he is a loyal and kindhearted master. He does the best he can. That is enough for me. Enough for Fortress Al-Mir. He hasn’t succumbed to corrupting temptations, nor has he engaged in depravity of the sort that would cause such injuries on you.” Vezta sneered, glaring at the blind dragonoid even as the latter stumbled back with practically every word.

Arkk had never seen Vezta like this. She rarely got angry. Rarely raised her voice. Even when she did, it wasn’t… this. Vezta’s fury wasn’t as palpable as someone like Agnete’s might have been. She made it plenty apparent in her lashing tongue.

The wild and vicious choler backed Priscilla over another bump on the uneven floor. This time, she didn’t even try to fight gravity, letting it slam her into the ground. Her blank eyes stared up at the ceiling even as the rest of her body went still.

Vezta stopped her forward assault just a pace away from Priscilla’s prone body. Arkk followed along, frowning as he looked over the two.

“Vezta,” he said, voice soft.

The Servant of the Stars let out a sigh, shaking her head slightly as she looked down on the catatonic dragonoid. “Master, magnanimous as he is, will forgive you for your crimes even if I argue for your execution. But only if you kneel, scrape your face on the ground, and lick the soles of his boots.”

“You don’t need to lick my boots,” Arkk said instantly.

“Kindhearted and loyal,” she said with another sigh.

With a shake of his head, Arkk looked down at the dragonoid. She had hardly moved since falling. Had she hit her head? He was a little concerned despite her recent vitriol against him purely because he was a human. “You… don’t look like you’re in much of a state to discuss things further,” he said. “I’ll be back in—”

“No,” the dragonoid said. Her voice, soft and lofty, came with a mist of icy crystals on her breath. “I understand.” Rolling over, she tried to dig her claws into the dirt floor. The loose rock moved but the actual floor underneath remained static under the magical reinforcement of the fortress.

Arkk tensed, worried she would lash out at him.

She slammed her head into the ground, bowing in front of him. “The Servant is right. I have… wasted my worthiness. All I can do is help you.”

Her words hung in the air, accompanied by a ping through the [HEART]. A link formed. Without accepting payment—much like what Ilya had done when they first found Fortress Al-Mir—Priscilla entered into his employ.

Arkk pressed his lips together, not sure if he was disappointed or not. On one hand, it felt like he had just pressed someone in distress into his service once again. On the other, Priscilla was an old being who claimed to know the old ways. Did that include magic? Or literature? She was blind but if she could give a key to translate the tomes in his library, who knew what he might discover.

“Normally, I would interview you, discover where you can be best used, give a tour of the fortress, and other onboarding tasks. At the moment, you look like you need some time to yourself.” Arkk looked over to Vezta.

Besides that, he had a few questions for the servant.

“I’ll find you a room. We’ll onboard later tonight.”

 

 

 

Arkk stared at the distant Elmshadow Burg with his lips pressed into a thin line. Everything had been going so well.

Elmshadow’s keep had been ruined in the initial defense of the burg and it had not been repaired. With the white mist obstructing his scrying, Arkk wasn’t able to determine exactly where the majority of the Evestani occupiers would be stationed. A few refugees in Fortress Al-Mir, originally from Elmshadow, had given him a few ideas of possible locations within the burg, so he had targeted them.

The first two boulders fell unimpeded, crashing straight to the earth with all the destructive power their weight carried. He then ran into the problem of a hazy defense springing up around the burg, much like the one at the initial assault of Gleeful. He figured it would take less effort to break. The moment it sprung up, it was weak and flickering. Six boulders would probably have been enough, rather than over a dozen at Gleeful.

Now, well into six or seven dozen boulders, Arkk stared at the golden dome that surrounded the burg.

It had sprung up just as the normal defense had failed. And it was not taking any apparent damage.

In some ways, it was a relief. Arkk hadn’t been sleeping well ever since Gleeful. He still didn’t think it had been the wrong thing to do. It had stopped Evestani’s advance and the destruction they left in their wake. Having seen reports on the aftermath, the thousands dead at his hands, that was a small consolation.

It had taken nearly twenty days to recharge the glowstones. Almost a week longer than the initial charging time with Zullie working on her own. Zullie had spent a majority of the early days training volunteers to work the ritual circles in the Underworld without damaging the stones. Hopefully, now that her apprentices were trained up, the next charging time would be faster.

“Pack it up,” Arkk said, looking around the group with him.

The apprentices Zullie had taken on had probably been expecting to learn some proper magic, rather than rote memorization of a repetitive task, and Arkk planned to ensure they received some instruction. For now, Vezz’ok—the orc who had assisted with the ritual—worked alongside an elf named Hyan and two former bandits who had ditched Katja in favor of working under Arkk, Morvin, and Gretchen. Vezz’ok hauled the large crate of glowstones back to the teleportation circle while the other three dismantled the bombardment ritual.

Arkk moved alongside Agnete, the latter standing guard between the circle and Elmshadow. Much like at Gleeful, they were at the bombardment ritual’s maximum range so he wasn’t expecting any return fire from the burg. Still, best to be prepared with the one person who could deflect that golden beam. If it could even reach all the way out here.

Though, as long as that golden dome stood, Arkk doubted they had anything to fear.

He had discussed his encounters with the golden avatar with his circle of advisors. The consensus was that their opponent couldn’t work his powerful magic back-to-back. It was why only one ray of gold had been fired at the keep, one ray at the wall the next day, and one large ray at Gleeful with only smaller rays after that. It was somewhat surprising that this golden dome had lasted as long as it had. Arkk figured it was just more efficient to defend than to attack.

He would question Zullie and Vezta on the matter later. Agnete was the only other expert on the powers of avatars and expert was stretching the term.

Her ember-like eyes stared at the golden dome without blinking.

“Thoughts?” Arkk asked, deciding to get her read on the situation in advance.

“The power of the Heart of Gold seems versatile,” she said after a long moment of continued staring. “I burn things. Purifier Tybalt… detained things.”

“We only knew him for a day or two,” Arkk said. “He might have had more tricks up his sleeve.”

“I would prefer if he didn’t. I burn things,” she said again, more despondent this time.

“You deflected one of those rays of gold at the keep over there,” Arkk said, gesturing in the direction of Elmshadow.

“Luck. And fire. And I nearly died for it.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. That was true. She was here now because she was the only one who had managed to put up a defense, even as incomplete as it had been. It was a danger. She could easily die if she tried again and was even a fraction less successful.

“Those dreams you’ve been having since opening the portal, they haven’t given you any… I don’t know, guidance?”

Agnete turned, raising an eyebrow above the smokey skin around her eye. “Putting stock in dreams, are we?”

“I spoke to a god.”

“Outside a dream. This… It’s more like… inspiration?” She paused, frowning to herself. “I’ve always liked creating things. Heating sand and molding it into glass sculptures was one of the few ways I could use my heat without destroying everything around me. One of the few ways the inquisitors allowed, when they were feeling generous. Maybe that makes sense now knowing who my patron is.

“These dreams are more like ideas for other things I could make.”

“I’ve stopped by the foundry on occasion.” Perr’ok and the other smiths loved Agnete. They had viewed her as a nuisance at first, sitting inside the forge or hovering over their shoulders, but as time went on, they started to notice improvements in their work when she was around.

Perr’ok had come to him, asking him about the phenomenon. Agnete didn’t seem to be working any magic yet, while she was present, they created products faster, made stronger metal, and even found supplies, such as a box of nails, filled even when they knew they were almost out.

“You can’t tell me everything is normal there,” Arkk said, offering a small smile. “Not everything is so… flashy,” he added with a wave of his hand toward the distant golden dome. “I’ve almost thought about having you permanently stationed at the smithy just because of how efficiently everyone works in your presence.”

“Coincidence.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it isn’t just that. You’re making something. Components for something larger, not simple glass sculptures. Metal cogs like what that ritual circle uses to guide the targeting matrix,” Arkk said with a nod toward the partially dismantled ritual circle. “And you made the wheelchair for Katt’am.” The orc she had burned during the invasion of the false fortress.

Agnete nodded her head. “Among the inspiration I’ve been having, I thought I could make him metal legs that would allow him to walk, run, even fight again. But perhaps he would prefer Hale’s solution instead.”

Arkk grimaced. Hale, with Astra’s permission, was trying to fix the inquisitrix’s body. It… well… Arkk wasn’t sure he would consider the inquisitrix wholly human anymore.

Mentally peering into the prison section of Fortress Al-Mir, he couldn’t help but wince at the hand Astra now sported. While her arm looked muscular and rugged but otherwise mostly normal, her hand looked more like… like the Protector’s hand. It was covered in a violet chitin, hard and rugged. Her fingers flexed like the articulating plates of metal armor and were tipped in long, black nails that grew to a sharp point no matter how much she tried to file them down.

Hale was temporarily off the task of healing Astra until she could figure out why she hadn’t been able to make a more normal hand. And why she hadn’t stopped once she realized the extent of the changes she was making.

“I don’t know if many would prefer that solution,” Arkk said slowly. “Do you think you can make working legs that… well, work better than wooden pegs stuck to someone’s limbs?”

“I haven’t tested them myself, obviously. I’m almost finished. I’m just… not sure how to approach a man I injured with something that may not work well.”

“What’s worse? An awkward conversation or Katt’am remaining bound to the wheelchair while your creation collects dust? The worst he can do is say that he prefers the chair to—”

“Sir,” Vezz’ok said, coming up from behind Arkk. “We’re finished. The others are already back.”

Arkk glanced around and found the small clearing on the side of the southern Elm mountain to be empty. He nodded, summoning a lesser servant with a muttered incantation. “Then we shouldn’t dally here.”

Once back in Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk separated from Agnete and Zullie’s apprentices. The latter had some assigned studying to return to while Agnete would likely head back to the foundry. If she really needed someone to push her into speaking with Katt’am, he would step up. For now, he would let them work it out between them.

After a quick meeting with Ilya and Vezta to ensure that nothing vital was going on at the fortress, Arkk started his rounds.

He was trying to get out and among his employees more often now. He wanted to know them. To learn everyone’s name and at least some of who they were. If…

If he ever had to add names to the memorial wall, he wanted to be able to say at least a few small words about them.

He found John and Yavin in the small carpenter’s workshop, working away on crafting arrows. Alma and Kelsey were eating in the cafeteria, talking casually with Lyssa and Kia, of all people. Lexa was giving Nyala pointers on throwing daggers in one of the training rooms. The fairies in his employ, Leda and Camilla, were actually spending their downtime in the Underworld. They weren’t on guard or construction duty—there wasn’t any ongoing construction as they had finished a full wall around the archway and, while there were a handful of Protectors watching from a distance, none had tried to get too close.

Arkk was starting to get comfortable with their presence. It seemed that as long as he didn’t venture further into their domain, they were content to leave him alone. He was free to head in and drain the abundant magic for his glowstones to his heart’s content. Useful for now, even if this latest bombardment had been nullified, but he did still want to look for other old magic and relics. Or even convince the protectors to join him.

As for the fairies, it was difficult keeping them out of the Underworld. Three other fairies from the refugees had signed up with him just to be able to spend time out in the Underworld. They were drinking in the magic-rich atmosphere like a man who crawled across Chernlock’s desert and stumbled into an oasis. So far, none had been able to cast more spells than usual because of their time in the Underworld, much to Arkk and Zullie’s disappointment. There didn’t seem to be a downside and it made them happy, so he was content to leave them to their wants.

Rekk’ar and Dakka were in the underworld as well, mostly taking the assignment to guard the walls as a chance to kick back and relax. The former continually warned the others not to let their guards down and yet Arkk often found him leaning back in a chair with his feet on a table.

Olatt’an, strangely enough, was in the library with his nose in a book. Not just any book but one of the ancient books from the original fortress, transcribed to modern parchment because the old books had been falling apart. He couldn’t read it. Arkk confirmed that much when he saw what book it was.

Zullie sat a few seats away, completely ignoring the orc. She had ideas about old magic but wasn’t quite at a point to test those ideas. Unable to create new verbal spells without more samples of the language used, she was trying—and succeeding—in turning the verbal spells into rituals. Specifically, the lesser servant summoning ritual. She hoped to use the ritual circle to then reverse engineer how the verbal version of the spell functioned which might open doors to the creation of more short spells.

Which Arkk was all for. With all this golden magic being thrown around, he felt his current repertoire was lacking.

Rounds coming to an end, for the time being, Arkk stopped in the scrying room before ending the day. Luthor was on duty. The chameleon with a stutter was hard to parse on occasion. Not worse than Savren. He was getting better. As one of the beastmen who came with Alma’s forced recruitment, Arkk needed good places to position the man. Scrying was low-stress and didn’t require talking with a whole bunch of people, just the others on duty.

“S-sir!” Luthor said, still stuttering.

“Anything to report?” Arkk figured the answer would be no. He had stopped in upon getting back to the fortress and nobody had come to him or called for him via the link in the time between. So he was a little surprised when Luthor slowly nodded his head.

“I… wasn’t sure if it was u-urgent or not. I-I decided not because nothing worrying is happening bu-but… the dragonoid found the false fortress.”

Arkk blinked, quickly checking the false fortress with his sight as Keeper of the Heart rather than a scrying ball. Sure enough, the dragonoid had her wings folded back as she walked through the deliberately dilapidated section of the fortress. She walked strangely, slow and stumbling while keeping one hand always on the wall. Then again, it was dark. The false fortress was designed to look like old ruins and the few glowstones in the area were dim and barely put out any light.

Arkk had preternatural senses within Fortress Al-Mir. He figured that a dragonoid would have decent night vision as well but it wasn’t looking that way now.

“Huh,” he said with a small frown.

The dragonoid had been flying circles around the Cursed Forest for a few weeks now. She had flown directly over the entrance to the false fortress a number of times—as well as the hatches near the local burgs—but had never once tried to gain entry. He had almost started to believe that the dragonoid wasn’t here for him. Given that nobody present was quite sure how to deal with a dragonoid, he had been content to ignore the situation so long as it wasn’t actively acting against him.

Now… Well, he probably shouldn’t have been ignoring the situation. But there always seemed to be something more pressing going on.

“In the future, if you’re unsure whether something is urgent or not, contact me. I don’t think this is urgent—” Not unless it could squeeze its rather large wings through one of the tiny tunnels that connected the false fortress to the rest of Fortress Al-Mir. “—but I would rather know than not.”

“Y-Yes. S-sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Arkk let out a small sigh, taking in the chameleon beastman’s downcast expression. “It’s fine. My fault for not being clear enough. Go, take a few minutes break. I’m going to be borrowing the crystal ball anyway.”

Teleporting away with the crystal ball, Arkk reappeared inside the main meeting room. His main advisors popped into place around him. Zullie and Savren looked irritated at being interrupted. Olatt’an simply closed the book he had been reading, placing it on the table. Alma, Ilya, and Lexa tensed up, alarmed at the unannounced relocation. Khan let out a long, annoyed hiss but otherwise swiftly curled around the warm rock that acted as his chair. Agnete, hunched over like she had been working on something in the foundry, actually let a small wave of heat flood into the room before she reigned herself in. Finally, Vezta assumed her usual position at his side without any visible distress.

Rekk’ar, Dakka, and a few others of note were over in the Underworld and thus he was unable to directly teleport them. If something happened that they needed to be informed of, he would send a messenger.

“There is no grave emergency and we’re not being attacked,” Arkk said, aiming to calm the alarm of some of his advisors. “I think.”

“You think?” Olatt’an said, leaning forward.

In lieu of an answer, Arkk activated the crystal ball in the center of the table. The image in the glass wasn’t anywhere as clear as the image in his mind, yet the silhouette of the winged, scaled humanoid still stood out against what little background light there was.

“The dragonoid is in the false fortress,” he said for anyone who had worse eyesight. “Now is probably the best time to deal with it. I’m considering collapsing the entrance and, maybe, the entire false fortress, but I’m open to options. Especially as the latter option will cause disturbances on the surface that people will take note of.”

“Dragonoids are said to be physically resistant,” Olatt’an said. “I’m not sure a little dirt and rock will be enough to injure it.”

“Stranded stationary among silt and stone, suffocation will set in shortly.”

“Um…” Alma shifted in her seat, making Arkk glance over to the half-werecat. She had a single finger raised into the air. Upon realizing that she had everyone’s attention, she hunched her shoulders. With a deep breath, she looked up, meeting everyone’s eyes… except for Vezta’s. “I’ve been thinking since the last meeting. Are we sure it is an enemy?”

Arkk blinked and, with a small frown, looked around the room.

“Maybe… we could try talking to it?” Ilya hedged.

“If the supposition is incorrect,” Vezta started, “the prowess you have claimed they possess presents a threat to Arkk that he may not be able to escape from.”

Vezta didn’t know anything about dragonoids. While they existed pre-Calamity, they weren’t something that her previous master had much experience with and thus, she didn’t have experience either.

Zullie, still looking annoyed, raised her brows. “I’ve been wanting to see that possession spell in action again,” she said. “This seems like a perfect opportunity.”

“I’m not going to put someone else in danger just to keep myself safe.”

“What about… Can you possess a reanimated creature?”

“Your undead horse?” Arkk pursed his lips, considering the idea for far longer than the idea actually warranted. “I wouldn’t be able to speak. Would I?”

The skeletal horse had no meat and muscle, so it stood to reason that it wouldn’t be able to make any noise, let alone human speech. Then again, it somehow moved without meat on those bones.

Maybe it could talk?

“Could also try the corpse of that Protector sitting in the dungeons. If you can possess the undead, I could try reanimating that. Oh. Can I try anyway?”

Arkk grimaced. The horse had been useful. It was a one-off thing. Turning that one-off thing into a pattern… Well, necromancy was a high anathema in the eyes of the Abbey of the Light. They already hated him so it probably wasn’t going to get worse and…

If animating a dead Protector saved some of his own, living men—and himself, in this case—then he certainly could make excuses.

Ilya wasn’t looking happy with Zullie’s suggestion. Few were. Khan looked utterly unbothered and Savren looked intrigued. Olatt’an had a heavy scowl on his face, probably because the spells came from the black book owned by the orc’s former chieftain. Agnete…

Didn’t look as bothered as he would have expected from a former inquisitor. Then again, her experiences with the inquisitors hadn’t been the best.

“There is merit in trying to speak with it instead of jumping to conclusions,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll wall off the exit to the false fortress, just to keep it from leaving. But I suppose we can try to figure out a safe method of speaking with it. Does anyone have suggestions other than diving into necromancy?

“Anyone?”

 

 

 

Hawkwood grimaced as the bandages came off. The end of his left arm looked like he had held it under a windmill’s grindstone. The healers had done what they could, turning the pulped meat into something resembling a hand. That alone was a miracle, even if he doubted he would be able to use his hand ever again.

And yet, he had to consider himself lucky.

White Company was a shadow of its former self. Even now, a full accounting of the dead was incomplete. Two thousand were dead in the mud and snow. Some had been blown apart by those rays of gold. Some had turned to gold, slaughtering their former comrades as statues. The rest had died in the rout, fleeing from the Evestani’s yannissar horsemen.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” said Abbess Beryl as she tended to his wounds. Even she couldn’t keep the grimace off her face. “I don’t know that I can do anything more. Maybe an adept or a bishop could—”

Hawkwood waved her off with his good hand, forcing a reassuring smile. “You did what you could. Go. Tend to others. I’m hardly the most injured.”

“Sorry,” she said again, bowing her head as she ducked out of his current quarters at a smaller burg.

Delightful was a smaller burg well out of the expected warpath of the Evestani army. White Company needed a chance to recover and recuperate. Delightful provided a relatively safe location to do so.

Of the two thousand still alive, the healthiest thirteen hundred had been folded into the Duke’s Grand Guard, leaving seven hundred wounded with Hawkwood. The war continued, after all, and bodies were needed. Their tactics were changing somewhat.

The Duke’s guard was pressing most anyone they could into their service. The vast majority didn’t have weapons, armor, or training. For the new tactics, that wasn’t needed. The Evestani army did slow when faced with a large force, thus the Duchy merely needed to appear large enough to pose a threat. Most of the actual soldiers were branching off, targeting the smaller detachments of the Evestani army that were spreading out in the wake of the arrowhead that was their main force.

It was a strategy that would let them help the rest of the Duchy, even if they did cede ground to the main force. They just couldn’t deal with an army ten thousand strong and the various golden magics that Evestani’s Golden Order employed. One or the other and they would have a chance. Not both.

Of course, it was a delaying tactic. Delaying the problem of having to deal with that army. It would reach Cliff eventually and unless someone worked out a way to stop them, that eventually would be sooner rather than later.

A knock at his door had Hawkwood shifting in his seat. The movement made him grimace as a thrum of pain worked its way up his left arm. At this point, amputation might be preferable to the pain that came anytime he moved. He would have to see if it dulled over time. But that was neither here nor there.

“Enter,” he called out, pulling a random report in front of him to make it appear as if he had been doing something other than brooding.

His adjutant, Neil, stepped into the room with a fresh stack of papers held out in his hands. “Good evening, Sir. How’s the arm?”

Hawkwood looked down and forced his fingers to flex, bracing to keep the pain off his face. “Getting better,” he lied. Knowing their commander had been permanently maimed would plunge the remainder of White Company’s already low morale.

He honestly wasn’t sure that White Company would exist in the next few weeks. Besides the uncertainty of the war causing complications in the future, his healthy men were with the guard now. Only those too wounded to hold a spear were in the burg. Hawkwood didn’t want to let it fall apart.

He wasn’t sure he would have a choice.

“I don’t suppose any of that is good news,” Hawkwood said, noting the distressed look on Neil’s face. Perhaps his show of strength hadn’t been as convincing as he hoped.

Neil hid his distress as he stepped forward. Using his fingers to keep the stack of parchment separated, he divided the stack into three smaller piles and placed them on the desk one at a time. “Reports on enemy movement, reports on allied movement, reports on White Company’s current state, and… a letter from Arkk,” he said as he placed a single letter to the side of the three stacks.

Hawkwood felt a flash of unfair irritation at the mention of his fellow company leader. He knew that Arkk lacked the numbers to make a difference. The magic he used, however, could have come in handy. The teleportation circles, fear totems, the scrying, the gorgon and the flame witch, and his pre-Calamity monster… Would Company Al-Mir have made a difference in defending Gleeful Burg?

Probably not. Elmshadow had fallen even with Arkk’s presence. The Golden Order’s magic was rumored to be that of a god of old. Some ancient dug-up slates of knowledge or a library of old scrolls. Theories were wild and varied but the true source mattered little. In the end, Arkk’s anathema couldn’t stand up to the magic of the gods.

Shaking his head, Hawkwood left the letter from Arkk on the desk as he picked up the report on White Company. The company was his responsibility, after all. His duty.

The report wasn’t anything out of the expected. It mostly consisted of a list of names. Some were of those who had an improvement in their condition. Too many of the names belonged to those who succumbed to their wounds.

Hawkwood placed the report back on the desk with a sigh. He honestly didn’t know what to say at this point. The whole war had been a disaster beyond even his most pessimistic expectations. Nobody had been prepared for a winter attack, nor for that golden magic.

The report on allied movements was roughly what he expected it to be. There were a few successes in the new tactics. Evestani seemed caught by surprise at their smaller detachments having to face down proper soldiers rather than whatever local guard the various villages and burgs could put together. Reading on, Hawkwood blinked.

There were… a few too many successes. Some without even the posturing for a fight that was more common than actual battles. In a few cases, it seemed like Evestani had abandoned the burgs on their own. Not to advance, but to pull back.

Switching over to the report on Evestani’s movements, he confirmed that. Evestani pulled back almost all of its smaller detachments. It was a little early to tell for certain but following the path of the smaller armies, it looked like they were retreating toward Elmshadow, holding up inside the large burg. Something had happened but the report…

His eyes snapped toward the end of the report.

Gleeful had been destroyed. The cause was unknown but the vast majority of the Evestani army had been caught within.

Hawkwood’s eyes flicked over to Arkk’s letter, suspicion welling.

The man had said that he was working on something that would change the course of the war. Could he…

Hawkwood broke the wax seal with the maze pattern and skimmed through the letter, looking for keywords. His eyes locked onto multiple mentions of Gleeful Burg. He started reading a little more around each. Finishing the letter, he leaned back in his chair.

“He did it,” Hawkwood said, closing his eyes. It took a long moment to remember what day it was.

It had been just shy of three weeks since White Company had been routed from Gleeful Burg, abandoning it to the Evestani army. Based on the date in Arkk’s letter, it had been just shy of two weeks since the entire burg had been leveled to the ground.

How long had the war gone on so far? It felt like years but… It had only been two months since the disaster at the Duke’s party. Hawkwood felt a sudden wave of exhaustion hit him. One tempered only by the contents of the letter.

“Sir?”

“He didn’t say how, but Arkk buried Gleeful Burg along with the Evestani army stationed there.” Hawkwood let out a small laugh. “He seems to be feeling some guilt about it. I empathize with his guilt over the civilians but I can’t help the feeling of elation. Those bastards near destroyed White Company. Every burg they occupy is facing starvation issues from too many people. It’s…”

Hawkwood laughed again, only to suck in a pained breath as he moved his wounded arm just a little too much.

“They’re pulling back to Elmshadow Burg. Evestani, that is. If Arkk can repeat whatever he did at Gleeful, this war might be over. It might be over now. These reports aren’t exactly fresh.”

Ever since taking up residence at Delightful Burg, the Duchy treated Hawkwood more as an afterthought than an active military commander in need of information. Which was fair enough, he supposed, even if it was irritating.

Hawkwood opened his mouth, about to ask his adjutant if there was any wine left in Delightful. At the very least, Arkk had given Evestani a black eye. Hawkwood was more than willing to celebrate that.

A tapping on his door had him pausing. It was a harsh, rigid knock. Familiar. The knock of a harpy’s talon.

“Come in,” Hawkwood said while gesturing for Neil to open the door. Harpies didn’t often remain around human settlements for the sole reason that most door latches weren’t designed with them in mind. Whatever harpy was out there likely had an escort. Neil was just in case it didn’t.

A Swiftwing with a letter already in talon held it out for Neil to accept.

“The Duke’s seal,” Neil said once the Swiftwing departed, holding out the letter for Hawkwood.

Staring at the diagonal bars on the wax, Hawkwood frowned and snapped open the wax. “Let’s see what our illustrious Duke has to say about our good fortune.”

Unfolding the parchment, he started reading with the expectations of a change in direction for the war in light of the main Evestani force’s demise. Halfway through, he stood abruptly, throwing the paper to the table with clenched teeth. There certainly was a change in direction.

“That bastard,” Hawkwood said, slamming his fist into the table.

He felt the sudden jerk of his body tenfold in his arm. Enough to make him grind out a pained groan. The pain stole some of the strength from his legs, making him topple backward. Were it not for Neil swiftly making his way around the desk and guiding his fall, Hawkwood might have ended up on the floor rather than back in the seat that had gone sliding back with his sudden stand.

“The Duke is claiming that he was in armistice talks with Evestani when tragedy struck Gleeful Burg,” Hawkwood ground out through clenched teeth. “Now he’s allying with the enemy to direct their forces at the one responsible for striking at both nations. Company Al-Mir. I’ve been summoned to Cliff to report on everything I know of them and their operations.”

“You’re…” Neil paused, frowning to himself. “You aren’t going to go. Are you?”

Hawkwood drew in a deep breath, thinking. “I don’t know if I can refuse.”

“White Company is loyal to you, Sir. Not the Duke.”

“Be that as it may, a good portion of White Company is with the Duke’s Grand Guard. I wouldn’t put it past them to make their lives miserable if I don’t show. Damn it,” he hissed. If only Arkk had managed his feat a few weeks earlier, White Company would still be mostly intact.

“I don’t believe Evestani would be content to stop here,” Hawkwood said, wishing he had a little more information. “Whatever they said to the Duke to get him to agree to an armistice or this alliance has to be temporary at best. They just want Arkk out of the way. Maybe buy themselves a reprieve while the Duchy wears itself out attacking a new target.”

“Perhaps,” Neil said slowly, “send someone in your stead. Claim injuries for your inability to travel. I can offer whatever platitudes the Duke wishes to hear while you organize and decide on the correct course of action?”

Hawkwood nodded his head. “I need time to think. Time to contact Arkk and understand the full situation. If you’re willing to buy that time for me, I will accept.”

“I’ll prepare for travel immediately,” Neil said, bowing himself out of the room.

Hawkwood looked down at the letter again, rereading the small bit where the Duke claims he successfully fended off an attack perpetuated by Arkk within Cliff City. That… couldn’t be right. Could it? The armistice talks were obviously hogwash. Why add that detail in?

“What have you gotten yourself into,” he murmured to himself.

Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox planted his cane on the last of far too many steps that led down from the Grand Old Church. Built on top of a small island jutting up from Cliff’s oceanic bay, it stood as an impressive testament to the people’s devotion to the Light. That or the undoubted slave labor that had hauled several tons of bricks over to the island when it had been built a few centuries ago.

As impressive a sight as it was, Darius didn’t particularly like it. It had always been too much. Too opulent, too large, and too many stairs to climb to reach the actual building. He liked it even less so now that he needed a cane just to be sure that he didn’t tumble down the excessively long staircase. The injuries he had sustained because of the assassins weren’t healing as well as they should.

Part of that was likely that he had left the event early in an attempt to chase down Arkk. He shouldn’t have even been on his feet at the time. Now, he was paying the price. Perhaps now and for the rest of his life. There had been no improvement in the past two months.

There was still work to be done. He couldn’t sit about.

Or, that was what he told himself. As of late, he had been finding it more and more difficult to engage with his peers. Now that the Duke had announced a formal alliance with the Evestani Sultanate to hunt down the one Darius had been advocating and defending, he doubted he would be anything more than a pariah at best.

It was through his efforts that the Abbey of the Light hadn’t sent out every inquisitorial team after Arkk immediately following the reveal of the horror from beyond the stars at the Duke’s party. The lack of action was considered a poor move in retrospect by the higher-ups of the Abbey. There were a few who still consulted with him. Douglas, his chronicler, primarily.

Passing a pair of priests, one of whom looked freshly returned from the war with his arm in a sling and the side of his face scarred like he had been dragged behind a horse, Darius gave them a polite nod of his head. The conversation between them died once they saw him. They passed without word or acknowledgment. Which was roughly what Darius expected.

Word had spread beyond the inquisitorial circle. Nobody wanted to be associated with the one who had advised against assailing Arkk.

Taking a breath, Darius moved across the bridge. Ever since the last full moon a week after his encounter with Arkk underneath the manor moat, he had been stopping at the same spot with no protections against scrying active. He hoped that Arkk would have found something after scrying on all the information Darius had provided related to the false moon in the sky fissure. Even if he hadn’t found the true culprit behind that incident, some evidence pointing anywhere else might help the both of them.

Though, at this point, Darius doubted it would matter. The Abbey of the Light was not infallible. The oracles didn’t see perfect visions. The men in charge were just that, men. Mortal and flawed. When faced with the threat of the Evestani Sultanate continuing their unstoppable march across the nation, it was easy to think they would choose to uphold the alliance, using Arkk as a scapegoat to force both armies to work together.

Darius walked toward a lone pier, the old fishing trawler having sunk half into the harbor, making this pier unusable as a dock. It was the furthest dock. At one point, there had been plans to clear the wreckage. That had fallen by the wayside and, once the non-humans moved in, the entire area fell into disrepair, left abandoned by the city’s leaders. Now, it acted as a shanty town right in the middle of Cliff, further reducing the appeal of clearing the dock.

Out here, people avoided Darius for different reasons. He was a human, which wasn’t automatically a bad thing for those living here, but he also wore relatively fine clothes. The uniform of an inquisitor was well known to the point where anyone who saw him would know that he wasn’t someone they wanted trouble with. As long as he wasn’t investigating them, they would duck their heads and avert their eyes.

Case in point, a lizardman and an orc both shifted away from him upon spotting him, diverting their path down a small alley well before he neared.

Things were changing, however. There were a few stares in the shadows. A sphinx, lounging outside one of the buildings, eyed him as he passed with curiosity rather than fear. His frequent trips through the area must have been noticed.

Reaching the pier, Darius headed to the far end. It had become routine at this point. He even knew which of the worn wooden planks to not step on. Nothing had broken under his weight thus far. A few boards were still a little suspicious.

A week after his latest encounter with Arkk, he had been down this pier with a small glowstone and all his notes on the fissure in the sky. It had been nearly a month since then. In fact…

Tonight might be the second full moon since then.

Perhaps it was time to end this charade. A month, Darius had bought Arkk. A month, Arkk had failed to deliver on his search for information related to the fissure. A month hence and Arkk, assailed by the armies of two nations, would likely fall. He well knew that the Abbey of the Light was researching as much as possible, coming up with countermeasures to the tactics and magics that Arkk employed. From the planar magic that allowed him unparalleled mobility to the clairvoyance scrying offered, the petrification of a gorgon’s gaze to the flames of Purifier Agnete.

If the Abbey was conducting such research—and coming up with results—he knew that the Golden Order would be doing the same.

The latest stunt of burying Gleeful Burg was being considered as well.

Darius planted his cane between his feet, standing on the far end of the pier. A slight breeze, reeking of that oceanic salt, brought a chill wind from north of the city. His long coat fluttered in the wind. Dots of mist over his glasses made him frown in annoyance.

There was nothing out here. He wasn’t sure what he expected. A letter pinned to the wooden piles or an incognito messenger. Maybe one of the non-humans from the shantytown delivering a note. Something to indicate that he could continue to trust in his profile of Arkk.

Pulling open the lapel of his coat, Darius carefully rubbed his glasses against the fabric, clearing away the dots.

After this, he would return to the church and….

Turning, Darius froze.

The sun dipped below the large mountain that gave Cliff its name, shrouding the shantytown and the pier in shadow. The sun had yet to set fully, letting him see, it was just a heavy shadow.

Yet that shadow was heavier still along the wood of the pier. The dots in his vision were back. Except, instead of blurry spots on his glasses, they were bright golden lights that did nothing to disperse the dark shadow around them.

An oily tendril stretched out of the shadow before reaching back in, pulling more and more tendrils out in twisting knots. They formed together, merging like an oily blob into the rough shape of a human.

“Good evening, Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox.”

“The horror from beyond the stars,” Vrox said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.

Was this it then? The betrayal of the trust Vrox had placed in the farmboy? He had sent his monster—Vezta, if he remembered correctly—to carry out his dirty work.

Darius was alone on the end of the pier. There was nowhere to run but into the water. In the frigid winter and with his bad leg, diving in might well be a death sentence for him. And there was nothing to say that the horror couldn’t follow him. There were none of his inquisitorial allies in the vicinity and he doubted he would get any assistance from the shantytown. They were more likely to join with Arkk. He well knew that many already had.

Instead of an attack, the horror adopted the facade of a petulant frown. “Horror from the [STARS]. Or of the [STARS],” she said in a tone clearly annoyed.

Darius flinched at her words, feeling like the sound carried far more than the mere words she spoke yet those words were beyond the simple understandings of a mortal mind.

“Beyond the stars makes no sense,” she continued. “There is nothing beyond the [STARS].”

Darius winced again but forced his normal smile into place. “I’ll be sure to update the Abbey’s lexicon once I return,” he said, projecting all the confidence he didn’t feel given the situation. “I presume you came for more than complaints over word choice. Be on with it, horror, or be gone.”

The horror paused, straightening her spine. If she even had a spine. Tilting her head to one side, she frowned. “My master sent me to convey his most sincere apologies.”

Darius tensed, leather gloves creaking as they gripped his cane. “Arkk didn’t come in person?”

“With the Duke’s recent edict of an alliance, he has been… busy. Preparations to make, people to kill. You know how it is, I’m sure.”

The smile slipped from Darius’ face. “Be on with it, horror. Don’t drag my death out longer—”

“You?” She cocked her head to one side again, clearly a practiced movement. One she likely picked up from being around humans. “No, no. I have no orders to kill you. As I said, I am here to convey an apology. My Master wishes to apologize for unintentionally deceiving you on your previous encounter.”

Darius blinked twice. First, in mild relief. Maybe it would have been for the best given what his life had turned into, but he had no wish to die. Second, in disappointment. “He lied.”

“Unknowingly and unintentionally. Arkk genuinely did not know about this fissure in the sky and was honest in his intentions to assist you. It was not a ruse to escape. That said, we have since discovered that we were likely responsible for the event.”

“You… How could you not know?”

“Fortress Al-Mir exists underground. It has no windows to the surface. In addition, at the time of the event, we were rather preoccupied with holding an audience with a god.”

Darius clamped his jaw shut. That… had to be a lie. “Only the Ecclesiarch—”

“Oh no. No, no. I’m sure your Ecclesiarch professes to hold tea parties with the Holy Light every weekend. We entreated with Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. Master of boundaries and borders. She is likely the one who caused the fissure to appear.”

“This is… heresy. Blasphemy. Both.”

The horror dismissed his accusation with a casual shrug of her shoulders. “My Master wishes for you to know that, while the incident was our doing, after all, neither us nor the Lock and Key wish harm on this world. Our goals involve restoration, not destruction.

“That is the end of the message I was told to deliver. Good evening, Master Inquisitor.” She dipped her head in an insincere bow and started to turn.

Darius stepped forward, cane tapping with his step. “That’s it? You come to admit more crimes and… What does he expect from this? I must inform my superiors and he must know that, so why?”

The horror canted her head once again. She stared. Thinking? It was hard to say. “Please note that the following is my suspicion and not anything that was directly conveyed to me: I believe Arkk has grown fond of you. I believe he is genuinely sorry to have placed you in an unpleasant position by asking you to continue defending him even though he was, in the end, the one at fault.”

Statement over, she bowed once again. Turning, she started walking away only for the shadows around her person to reach out with thick, oily tendrils that appeared to pull the main body down into the pier. In the blink of an eye, there was nothing but shadow and even that dispersed back toward the city.

Darius stared after the horror, unmoving for the longest time.

He…

He didn’t know what to do. Arkk, the great fool, was the cause for all the concern. Darius had suspected even after Arkk claimed ignorance but…

The man told that thing to come here and tell him with no ulterior motive? No trying to get him to report more falsehoods to his superiors? He even brought a name. Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. The name meant nothing to Darius but the Abbey’s archives were vast. If he informed his superiors of that name, it was entirely likely that they would dig up information, maybe clues as to the source of the horror and Arkk’s unlikely rise to sudden power.

And, beyond that, countermeasures to that rise to power.

Arkk had just come out here and told him. Even with the war going on. Even with the war now turning toward him and him alone.

Darius…

He needed time to think.

 

 

Arkk didn’t like leaving the fortress behind while an active threat circled his territory.

In the short time it took to gather a team, the dragonoid hadn’t managed to find even the false fortress. It just looped around overhead, continuing even as night began to fall. It was a good thing its ice-covered body glinted in the twinkling stars and moonlight or else the scrying would have been much harder. He was a little surprised that it kept up its search even as night fell. Some beastmen couldn’t see well at night, others could. He supposed dragonoids fell in the latter category.

Confident that his scrying team would alert him if it found anything that posed a real threat, Arkk had gone along with his other plan.

It was high time to get rid of the Evestani threat. They weren’t quite to his territory but they were close enough that he wasn’t at all willing to let them continue.

“Careful,” Arkk said as Eiff’an and Orjja lowered a thick wooden plank down to the ground. Lines of brass on its surface linked up with adjacent planks as the two orcs latched it in place. Stepping away from it, they hurried back to the teleportation circle to gather up the next plank.

Arkk knelt at the edge of the platform, grasping hold of a small brass nub that stuck up. Rotating it around and around caused interlocking gears to turn a larger section of the forming circle.

He looked off into the distance, narrowing his eyes as puffs of white mist clouded in front of his face with every exhale.

Gleeful Burg had managed to get their fires under control in the six days since his assault. The Evestani occupiers had sent out scouting forces to every village within a day’s ride, likely searching for more food. Ilya’s efforts at evacuating all the surrounding villages and hauling their food stores, livestock, and anything else of value back to the fortress had paid off. Evestani found nothing. Their resupply caravans weren’t arriving thanks to Kia and Claire’s strike teams.

They weren’t in an all-out panic just yet. They must have had some food supplies outside the burg’s warehouses. Likely food brought with the army. Even with that staving off hunger, for the time being, they were getting a bit more frantic about searching nearby villages. They had to be running low.

Arkk adjusted the brass knob, altering the angle and distance as the orcs placed the final plank in its slot. The maximum distance he could set was barely enough. Since that avatar seemed to be able to detect anathema like the teleportation circle, he had appeared at the furthest distance possible.

The orcs brought in glowstones and placed them on the wooden planks where people normally stood to power the assembled ritual circle. Glowing magic spread out through the brass but a small modification made by Zullie and the blacksmiths kept the ritual circle from activating before he was ready.

Arkk made a few final corrections, double-checking his work with a crystal ball set to view the entire burg from far overhead. White mist inside the ball partially obscured most of the central keep and its surroundings. It was the same tactic they had used near Elmshadow to hide their camp from scrying. Unfortunately for them, while good at hiding some low-to-the-ground tents, it couldn’t hide the tall keep all that well.

Arkk let out a long breath, creating a stream of misty air.

This was it.

There were civilians in the city. Regular citizens of the Duchy. The Evestani army wasn’t leaving them alone. They were acting like raiders and pillagers, taking whatever they wanted from the people who were unable to stop them. They weren’t the target of this. Nonetheless, Arkk held no doubts that they would suffer because of what he was doing. They would have suffered anyway.

He planted his hand on the fresh modifications to the ritual circle.

How did one fight an army with only a few hundred employees?

By not playing fair.

Arkk pulsed magic through the ritual circle. The four glowstones dimmed just a hair. He adjusted the brass knob, just a little to one side, and pulsed his magic again. Then adjusted the knob and pulsed. In the span of a few seconds, he repeated the action a dozen times, draining the glowstones down to a barely visible dim glow.

“Swap!” Arkk called out when he felt his next attempt at pulsing the ritual circle fail.

Orjja and Eiff’an hurried forward, exchanging the expended glowstones with fresh, brightly lit ones.

As they worked, Arkk focused on the crystal ball.

The first boulder dropped a few seconds after he finished, slamming down against an invisible barrier around the keep. It broke apart, crumbling to pieces just as a second boulder hammered down. A third and fourth quickly followed. Then a fifth and sixth. More and more. Each impact following the first made that barrier flicker. Some bits of rock and stone fell through, even while most of the crumbling boulders slid off toward the middle of the city.

Even at the distance he was at, the absolute maximum range the boulder drop ritual circle allowed, he could hear the delayed impacts. They sounded like distant thunderclaps rolling over the hills.

Arkk had been on the other side of this very ritual circle at Elmshadow, working with several others to power the defenses of that burg. He knew the strain and stress that even a single boulder caused. He almost felt bad for the poor spellcasters who had likely been chatting idly in their defensive ritual circle right up until that first impact.

Now, they would be scrambling. People would be rushing to wake all the reserve spellcasters, getting them to move into the ritual circle as soon as one collapsed.

When Arkk had been defending Elmshadow, Evestani had only launched one boulder every few minutes and then only for a short while before their spellcasters had to rest.

As soon as Orjja and Eiff’an moved clear of the ritual circle, Arkk started up again. Another dozen house-sized boulders manifested high over Gleeful Burg, letting the force of gravity carry them straight down.

Before the second of the newest volley could slam into that shield, a blinding ray of gold, wide and large, went straight into the air.

That wave of boulders never made it down. Nothing impacted. Just as the rays of gold obliterated streaks of land, they took out the falling rocks as well. And yet, despite that, Arkk had to laugh. “Swap!” he said.

From his experiences in both Elmshadow and Gleeful, Arkk didn’t think the avatar could use that strong blast of magic in rapid succession. After blasting away an entire street, the avatar had swapped to thin, narrow beams rather than the wide blasts.

And Arkk still had a whole crate of glowstones.

From their perspective, it must be like he had found hundreds of high-level spellcasters, all operating multiple ritual circles.

Another dozen boulders started toward the keep in short order. The first hit the barrier, causing it to flicker. The second shattered it.

Ten more boulders fell, pelting the keep to rubble. Arkk didn’t stop there. As soon as the orcs moved new glowstones in place, he carried on, directing another dozen in the area around the keep. Most of the soldiers were concentrated just outside the keep’s inner walls. Some, however, were stationed at the burg’s outer walls. From earlier scrying, Arkk felt he had a fairly good idea of where most troops stayed at night.

None of his identified targets were spared. With the barrier down, he didn’t have to waste half a dozen boulders on a single target.

In less than thirty minutes after teleporting in and getting everything set up, the majority of Gleeful Burg was little more than a pile of rocks. Arkk tried to avoid the areas where he knew the civilians of the city had been relegated. At the same time, he spared not a single thought of mercy toward the Evestani.

He doubted he got the entire army. It was likely he wouldn’t even know how much damage he had done until days later after Evestani dug out any survivors. He still felt that he had done some damage. The largest concentration of their army in the Duchy was, hopefully, no more. Hopefully, Hawkwood and the Duke’s Grand Guard would be able to move in and begin reclaiming burgs and territory.

As the last of the glowstones faded, Arkk stood up, fingers tingling from how hard his heart pounded in his chest. “Pack it up,” he said, crushing his fingers in his grip.

Stepping through the door to the library, Arkk found Zullie seated at one of the large desks. She was shifted to one side of her chair, arm fully on the table from her elbow to her chest, with her head resting against her knuckles while her glasses sat off to one side. She didn’t move as he entered the room. Her eyes didn’t even open.

Hale sat a desk away, nose in a book. Arkk recognized it as one Zullie had recommended to him. A treatise on magical theory for ritual construction. It was thanks to that book that he had been able to craft a few of the specialized circles he had used. She looked up upon his arrival.

Noticing that Zullie hadn’t moved, Hale sighed. “She came in about five minutes after you left, opened her book, and immediately fell asleep.”

Acknowledging Hale with a nod, Arkk cleared his throat. Then cleared it a little louder. “Zullie,” he tried, keeping his voice soft. He didn’t want to startle her but he did have a few things to discuss. “Zullie.”

The witch’s entire body jerked. Her head fell off her knuckles, dropping to her chest before she caught herself. She pressed herself back in her seat with both hands flat on the desk. Arkk caught a brief moment of alarm in her eyes before registering the situation around her.

Heaving out a sigh, Zullie closed her eyes again. For a moment, Arkk thought she was going to go back to sleep. With another shake of her head, she looked up to him.

“You’re back.”

“Are you alright?”

“Of course.” Zullie picked up her glasses, straightening them on her nose. “How was it?”

Arkk pressed his lips together. Back at the fortress, far from Gleeful Burg and the possibility of the golden-eyed avatar blasting him off the face of the world, an unpleasant nausea had settled in.

There had been between eight and ten thousand people in the Evestani army. Anywhere from one to five thousand citizens of the Duchy depending on how many fled, how many were killed, and how many welcomed their new masters with open arms. Arkk still didn’t know how much damage he had done. Yet…

“Gleeful Burg has been buried under a layer of rubble.”

“Oh.” Zullie yawned. “Good. The glowstones performed as I expected then?”

“Each group of four got about twelve usages out of the ritual circle, give or take. There were—”

“Only twelve?” Zullie said with a frown. She blinked twice, looking down at the book open on the desk. Shoving it aside, she grabbed a parchment and quickly scrawled out a few notes. “You should have gotten sixteen to eighteen boulders out of each group.”

Arkk just shrugged. He didn’t particularly feel up to arguing at the moment. The ritual circle had failed after twelve most every time. Only once had he gotten thirteen. Given that he hadn’t designed or even sketched out the ritual circle—it had been premade—he didn’t think he could be at any fault for the discrepancy.

Frown turning to a scowl, Zullie returned to the parchment. She tested out the equations in a few different ways, substituting a variable here or there to try to figure out what went wrong. Hale scooted over, peering over her shoulder with obvious interest. Arkk would normally have been the same. Now, he just felt too drained.

“Can the glowstones be refilled with magic?” Arkk asked, interrupting her calculations.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I’m not going to.”

“Is there danger in refilling them too many times?” he asked, suddenly a little more concerned.

“Oh yeah. A major danger that I won’t get any research done,” Zullie said, scratching out a few notes on the parchment. “Not going to lie, Arkk, I like being here. There’s always something interesting to research. But I did not sign up to babysit a bunch of rocks. And they do need babysitting. Leave them too long in those charging circles and they’ll crack. Or worse, explode.”

Arkk let his shoulders drop as the mild tension bled out. “Then get someone else to do it.”

“Who?” Zullie said. She turned her head, looking at Hale for a moment before shaking her head in the negative. “The only ones qualified are me and maybe Savren. For near two weeks, I’ve done nothing but stare at a bunch of rocks and I’m tired of it. Looking into how to fill them was good. Doing so is not. Give me something fun to work on again. Let’s go back to the old magic. Staring at rocks left me lots of time to think and I think I’ve worked out a few options for spells based on the three we know work—”

“Stop, stop. I am interested in old magic. But unless you’re about to say you’ve come up with a spell that can replace that bombardment ritual, we still need those glowstones. Even if you have,” he continued, not letting her get an argument in, “having someone else able to launch dozens of boulders at once would be even better. If Evestani rallies whoever is left at Gleeful and joins up with one of the other detachments of their army, we might need to do this again.”

Arkk hoped not. Just doing it once felt like it had taken a lot out of him. Not magically. Emotionally.

If they had to do it again, he would do it differently. While the army was on the move or camped out in the wilderness between burgs. In retrospect, he should have left them their food so that they would continue and he could have hit them later. But… the situation had just felt so… dire. Like if he had waited, Evestani would have reached Fortress Al-Mir.

Maybe they would have. But… Fortress Al-Mir, with its enchanted walls and maze-like layout, would have afforded him the time to figure out a better solution.

Throwing the doubt from his mind with a shake of his head—what was done was done—Arkk looked to Zullie. “You turned away everyone who showed up with an interest in magic. I know you think they would be useless for research purposes but can you not take on a few assistants? Go find some of them and teach them how to work the glowstone ritual. Then we can talk about old magics.”

Zullie bit down on her lip, slowly looking over to Hale.

The young girl’s eyes widened almost comically. She shook her head back and forth. “I… uh… Arkk has me working on other things.”

“Do I?” Arkk asked, mildly bemused.

“You wanted me to fix that inquisitor.”

Arkk opened his mouth, paused, then clamped it shut again. Hale’s face went entirely impassive and unreadable. Which, thanks to knowing her for years, Arkk could read easily. On anyone else, it would be a knowing smile.

Pressing his lips together, Arkk sighed. Although tempted to leave Hale to Zullie’s mercies, he looked to the witch and said, “Find someone other than Hale.”

Zullie groaned. “What do you mean, fix the inquisitor? I already healed her as good as she’s going to get.”

“That’s a good point. Both of us should go and watch what Hale is doing when she asks Astra if she can fix her hand.”

Hale flinched at the emphasis on getting permission but nodded her head.

Zullie just stared at Hale, suspicious.

“You’ll see when we do it,” Arkk said, cutting off Zullie’s impending question. “Helping her might be the most immediately pressing matter at the moment.”

Getting those glowstones charged back up would be important but given how long it took, losing a little time now wouldn’t matter in the long run. Meanwhile, Sylvara Astra was both injured and actively in pain. And she might be able to help with their dragonoid problem, which Arkk imagined would be something she would more willingly do if he healed her.

He was tired. Exhausted. He wanted to go to his room and lie down, rest a little before the next big emergency.

Helping Astra wouldn’t just help her, however. If Hale proved her method of using the spell was safe and viable, she could help others as well. Several had been injured in Gleeful and would surely be grateful to receive additional aid beyond what minor healing they had already gotten. Beyond his employees, there were plenty among the refugees who were injured.

And then… there was the fact that Flesh Weaving wasn’t designed to heal at all, but designed to mold the body into something beyond. He could easily picture Dakka and some of the other orcs asking Hale for some extra muscle mass, height… extra arms? Eyes on the backs of their heads? Arkk wasn’t sure what all the possibilities were.

Arkk peeked in on Astra, checking on the prison. She was still awake. That was a good sign. Hopefully, she would remain so.

“I’ll see if she is feeling up to it. If she is, we’ll observe Hale’s work. If not, I want you to train others in the glowstone rituals. Come up with a few names while I’m gone.”

Before Zullie could argue, Arkk teleported down to the lower prison levels, raised his hand, and knocked on the inquisitrix’s door.

 

 

“There is a problem.”

Arkk let out a small sigh, looking up from his desk to find Ilya wearing a grim expression. “Of course there is. Did Evestani manage to get a shipment of supplies in? Did they figure out the teleportation rituals and are using that to either attack or resupply? Or maybe the protectors have decided they’ve suffered our presence in the Underworld long enough…”

The grim look on Ilya’s face shifted to one of consternation as she folded her arms. “If you would calm down for a moment, I could tell you and you could stop panicking over nothing.”

“Right. Sorry, I…” Arkk shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“The scrying team, during one of their periodic sweeps over the Cursed Forest, noticed a dragonoid flying overhead. They noted it as an anomaly but it wasn’t doing anything and there is nothing on the surface that would be visible from the air, so they didn’t report it right away. That changed when, an hour later, it was still there, now circling in what looks like a search pattern.”

Standing, Arkk said, “We’re moving to the scrying room.”

He didn’t give Ilya a chance to protest, teleporting both of them instantly.

Dragonoids were humanoid dragons. Beastmen dragons, essentially. They were rare, mostly because they wound up hunted down whenever they showed themselves. According to stories he had heard and what he had learned himself since becoming a mercenary captain, dragonoids, when spotted, were immediately targeted by the greater Kingdom of Chernlock with all kinds of bounties going out on them. Otherwise, villages and even whole burgs tended to go up in smoke.

They didn’t like humans, demihumans, or other beastmen. Just dragons and other dragonoids. Near as Arkk could tell from a few scattered testimonies and reports, they blamed the other races for the decline of dragons. Given that it was the Calamity that caused the decline of magic and magical species, Arkk doubted anyone but the traitor gods were at fault.

Unfortunately, this was something he had to deal with. Especially because Sylvara Astra’s stated mission at Elmshadow Burg had been to hunt down a dragonoid suspected of working with Evestani.

The Master Inquisitrix was currently unconscious in a medical prison on the lower levels of Fortress Al-Mir. Zullie, as the most adept in wielding the Flesh Weaving spell, had done the best she could to fix up the damage caused by that golden-eyed avatar. Even with that, nobody was sure if the inquisitor would wake again.

The scrying room of Fortress Al-Mir was a small room with dim violet glowstones embedded in a maze-like ceiling. It was a recent construction, one made only after the war had started when he realized that they needed people watching outside the fortress at all hours of the day. He only had two crystal balls, both left over from the original fortress, and had eight people assigned in shifts, trained to look through them. Non-combatants, beastmen mostly, recruited from the refugees who nonetheless wanted to help with the war effort.

Ilya, though slightly jarred at the sudden location change, recovered quickly enough and waved Arkk over to a half-flopkin, Harvey. The beastman sat next to a tall pedestal topped with one of the crystal balls, long bunny-like ears lying flat down the back of his head.

“Is the dragonoid still there?” Ilya asked.

The flopkin nodded as he adjusted the view in the crystal ball. “It started circling over the north end of the forest, near Smilesville. So far, it hasn’t attacked the burg, nor can we find any trail of destruction that might indicate where it came from.”

Arkk leaned close to look into the crystal ball. An act that startled the poor flopkin. He hadn’t noticed Arkk’s appearance in the room.

“Arkk, eyes,” Ilya hissed, making Arkk blink.

On Arkk’s second blink, a faint red glow vanished from the surroundings. “Sorry,” he said.

Inside the crystal ball, a winged humanoid drifted about. For a moment, Arkk thought she was entirely cloaked in a thick white wool. Like a flying sheep. A closer look revealed that suspicion false. The white gleamed in the sunlight. Hard facets caught and reflected light. A slight misting trailing behind the moving dragonoid reminded Arkk a great deal of the effects of the ice marble, constantly outputting an aura of cold. In this case, rather than an aura of cold, it was probably ice shavings from the dragonoid, falling into a mist-like cloud in its wake.

Arkk couldn’t tell exactly how big the dragonoid was. It was high over the Cursed Forest, making it difficult to see its size relative to anything on the ground. That said, its wings were massive in comparison to its body. If Arkk assumed that its body was average for a human, one roughly his size, its wings would have stretched from one end of the canteen to the other. At least three body lengths per wing.

If it was larger than a human… it could possibly reach from one end of the temple room to the other.

“An hour ago, I thought it was just flying through the area,” Harvey said. “Something to keep an eye on but not to worry about. Now…”

“Search pattern,” Arkk said, repeating Ilya’s words from earlier. “It is too much of a coincidence. That dragonoid is looking for us.”

“If there isn’t anything visible from the surface, can we ignore it?”

“That isn’t quite true,” Arkk said, holding his chin in one hand as he peered at the icy dragonoid. “There are the hidden entrances near the burgs and then there is the entrance to the false fortress.”

“The hidden entrances are hidden, aren’t they?”

Arkk shrugged. Reaching out, he let a touch of his magic brush against the crystal ball. The image within fizzled as he took control, readjusting the viewpoint to the hidden entrance outside Stone Hearth Burg, Arkk stared at it from the overhead view. It was an old-looking shack. “We’ve had to build them up since I have people actively visiting the burgs to collect letters and other information,” he said. “They don’t really look different than a farmer’s tool shed, but that might be enough to catch our guest’s notice.”

“So, plan?”

“For now, keep watch on it every so often. Let me know if it does anything unusual. I’ll have the lesser servants drag some shrubberies over the few trap doors we have.” He looked over to Ilya. “Have John stop by the Stone Hearth garrison and see if they have any more information on dragonoids, how to take them down, and whether or not this particular one has had any reports about it.”

Dragonoids were powerful. Although the Calamity had rendered them sterile, they retained their personal magics. Much like gorgon, they had innate powers. Guessing based on this one’s appearance, Arkk guessed that they were dealing with some kind of ice dragonoid. Agnete might work against it but, at the same time, she was particularly vulnerable to the ice marble. If she found herself at a similar disadvantage against this dragonoid… Well, he had to hope that lightning or petrification would work.

Master Inquisitrix Astra had likely intended to use her purifier to counter the dragonoid. The Jailor of the Void’s avatar was dead now, nullifying that possibility.

Perhaps she had alternate solutions? There was an old village adage about putting eggs in one basket, though he wasn’t sure that a prestigious inquisitor would have heard that one.

“Keep up the good work,” Arkk said, patting the flopkin on the shoulder. With that, he teleported down to the medical prison.

Hale, watched over by a pair of gorgon guards, stood hunched over the Master Inquisitrix. She muttered under her breath, moving her hands in a circular motion that Arkk associated with the Flesh Weaving spell, though not quite right.

The two gorgon, Vissh and Jann, stirred at his sudden arrival. They quickly settled back down without a word once they realized who he was. Arkk didn’t say anything either, simply watching Hale work.

It was… strange. Hale twisted and pulled at the stump of the inquisitor’s dismembered arm, stretching it out into something resembling but not quite matching her other, intact arm. She wasn’t just mending flesh, knitting it back together, but instead created flesh. Arkk could see the muscles coiling together, tighter and thicker than a human arm should be. Bone cracked, spaced apart, and fresh material filled in the gaps, elongating it. Fresh skin rolled over the top, though even that was wrong and different. Thicker than normal. From all the injuries he had seen on his employees, Arkk would have likened it to orc skin rather than human skin.

The whole process was probably not very pleasant for Astra. It was a good thing the woman was unconscious.

Hale cut off the spell when the arm was roughly the same length as Astra’s other arm, sealing it off just before where the hand would be. Hale stumbled back, sweating profusely from her brow. She moved to wipe her forehead on the sleeve of her white tunic, only to catch sight of Arkk.

Her eyes widened. Taking a trepidatious step backward, she bumped into Astra’s cot and shot a quick glance at the woman like she was wondering if it wasn’t too late to undo what she had just done.

“How did you do that?” Arkk asked, stepping forward to inspect the fresh arm.

Zullie was far more adept than Arkk was at the spell and even she hadn’t managed to regrow an entire arm. Minor differences aside—it felt more like holding Dakka’s arm than a human’s—if it worked… There were several in his employ and among the refugees who were suffering from large injuries that Flesh Weaving hadn’t been able to help to this extent.

“You and Zullie don’t use the spell right,” Hale said in a near whisper, as if worried that she would be in trouble.

She was in trouble. Not for making the arm but for working on an unconscious person without even his say-so.

“The book explained how to use it but I think you ignored that part,” Hale said, touching the tips of her fingers together. “And Zullie either doesn’t want to catch your ire… or she finds the spell less interesting than other spells in the book.”

Arkk shot Hale a look, watching her wilt. “How do you know what the book says? Zullie wasn’t supposed to let you read it.”

“She didn’t!” Hale said, stepping forward. Her twin ponytails swung side to side as she shook her head. “Zullie didn’t do anything wrong. I read the book before she was even here, back the night the orcs attacked.”

“You said you didn’t know how to read.”

“I didn’t. But you had Zullie teach me after.”

“And you remembered the words enough to… retroactively understand them? Is that what you’re saying?”

Hale looked down and shrugged. “They just kind of stuck in my mind. Especially after Zullie taught me the spell, I just… knew.”

Arkk drummed his fingers on his arm, frowning down at Hale. “Have you tried other things from that book?”

Hale shook her head back and forth.

“Good. Don’t. There are a lot of bad things in that book,” Arkk said, voice firm enough that Hale flinched. Letting out a small sigh, he bent down and patted Hale on the shoulder. “And I understand that you’re just trying to help, Hale, but you can’t just go give a human an orc arm.” He paused, considered, then added, “Not without permission.”

“You told me to see if I could help at all. I did. That’s what the spell is for. It doesn’t want to heal. It wants to make things stronger. Better.”

“It doesn’t want anything,” Arkk said.

Hale stomped a foot against the ground. “Then why can’t you do that?” she said, pointing to the regrown arm.

Arkk didn’t have a good answer for that. He knew the spell wasn’t a healing spell, even if it could be used like one. The spell wanting to do something was ridiculous. However, the spell had been designed to do something else. To someone a little less experienced in magic, perhaps that felt like wanting.

Just what was Zullie teaching the impressionable girl?

As for the spell… he would have to reread that book again. At least the section related to Flesh Weaving. A little refresher on what the spell was designed to do might make it fight him less when healing. Or… Well, Ilya had yet to regain a full range of motion because of her mangled stomach. She was walking around and carrying out administrative duties well enough but putting her in any kind of a fight wouldn’t end well. But if she could be…

No. No way would Ilya agree to have her body molded into that of an orc’s. Or anything else.

A raspy voice broke Arkk out of his thoughts. “Noisy.”

Arkk blinked. Hale hopped back, startled. Astra stirred on the cot, though she didn’t move much beyond her eyes. Those red eyes glared out, lacking focus as she tried to turn her head. She didn’t make it very far before her face twisted in a pained grimace and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“I’m alive?”

“You sound disappointed,” Arkk said.

“You would be too if you were in half as much pain.”

“Sorry. We’ve done what we could.” He glanced toward Hale, frowning again. “Maybe a bit more than we should have. But that gold ray—”

“How long?”

“You’ve been in and out of unconsciousness for the last five days,” Arkk said, teleporting a waterskin to him. This wasn’t the first time he had this conversation with the inquisitor. She usually had a few moments of lucidity each day.

Astra tried to force herself up. Unlike the last few times, she managed thanks to her new arm. “Water,” she said, voice still rasping.

She reached out to grasp the offered waterskin, only to freeze. She reached out with her new arm… which lacked a hand. Staring at it, she slumped against the wall. Arkk moved forward and caught her before she could fall off the cot.

“I… can fix that. I think,” Hale whispered. “I just needed a rest.”

“We’ll talk later,” Arkk said before teleporting Hale and her gorgon bodyguards away, leaving him alone with Astra. Looking at the woman, he took her only hand and planted it around the neck of the waterskin. “You’ve been awake a few times,” he said. “Do you remember anything?”

Astra didn’t respond right away. She tipped the waterskin back, using her new arm to help hold it up. Arkk watched, trying not to look surprised at how naturally she moved the bulky arm. It was like she had been born with it. Right up until it slipped from the end of her stump. She lost her grip with her hand.

Arkk teleported it away before it fell.

Astra coughed twice, more in surprise than anything, and slowly shook her head. “Flashes. Fire. Golden light. Pain,” she said with a grimace, eyes searching the room. “This feels familiar.”

“You’ve woken a few times. Sometimes even long enough to eat.”

“I see.”

“I came here to try to wake you again,” Arkk said. “And I’m sorry for jumping right into questions but a problem has arisen and I’d like to know some answers before you lapse again. Do you remember hunting a dragonoid?”

“Is that really the most pressing issue?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it is an issue and you’re the only one with answers. Every other problem has people working on it.”

Astra pressed her lips together, closing her eyes. She waited long enough to answer that Arkk worried she had passed out again. Just as he was about to try to jostle her, she breathed out. “A suspected dragonoid was spotted coming down from the North Sea, freezing a trail of ocean water in its wake. This was just after the war started. Normally, mercenary companies would be hired to handle it. With the war, my task force was dispatched instead. Purifier Tybalt was to detain the dragonoid.”

“He is dead, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t. Good riddance. He was always engaging in unauthorized use of his abilities.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, wondering what might have turned out differently if the inquisitors had gotten rid of Tybalt earlier. If not for Tybalt, Elmshadow might not have fallen. Likely wishful thinking. Those golden rays had done more damage than Tybalt had.

“Anything else on the dragonoid,” Arkk asked, hoping for something.

“Given the direction it came from, it was first suspected to be a scout for the Evestani army. No idea how they would have convinced it. There were no reports of it attacking villages. That doesn’t mean it didn’t, just that the war caused enough chaos for a few reports to go missing. Based on its known flights and words from the oracles, it was searching for something.”

“I wonder what,” Arkk said, tone flat.

Him. Or Fortress Al-Mir. One or the other.

“Beyond that,” Astra continued, “I don’t know much. We never caught up with it before…”

“Elmshadow.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose you have a plan for getting rid of it without your purifier?”

She opened her eyes, strands of silver-blue hair hanging over her face. “Yours not up to the task?”

“Just trying to examine every possibility,” Arkk said, leading to Astra chuckling but not saying anything else.

That wasn’t nearly as much information as Arkk was hoping for. It was searching for him. The why was less certain. Was it working with the Golden Order? Or something else? Dragonoids, theoretically, would want the Calamity undone to restore their ability to procreate along with whatever other abilities had been stripped from them. Yet they were not known to be friendly toward humans and he, despite the occasional glowing eyes, was human.

Get rid of it? Approach it?

This was his territory. He could move about at will. Just as he had done with Inquisitor Vrox at Langleey, he could confront the creature and, if things proved hostile, get away in an instant. But then the dragonoid would know he was here and, unless Agnete could fight it or it was vulnerable to his lightning bolts, he didn’t have a great plan for getting rid of it.

He was about to ask a few more questions when he felt an urgent tug over the employee link. The distance away was familiar. Someone in the Underworld. He followed it back to Zullie. After a quick check on all the guards over there—none were panicking or engaging in combat—he let out a small sigh. The last thing he needed now was for the Protectors to try to fight.

If it wasn’t an attack on their little outpost, then Zullie must have finished her task.

Sure enough, she stood next to a crate of brightly glowing glowstones. All large, head-sized rocks that had been charged up with all the ambient magic over in the Underworld.

They were ready.

Arkk made sure that Astra was steady where she sat against the wall before he stood. With a wave of his hand, he pulled a small tray of bread and beans from the kitchens. “Try to eat something,” he said, setting the tray on the cot next to Astra. “And maybe try to stay awake. You’re safe here, though please understand that I can’t just let you wander at will.”

Astra looked down at her own legs. Or rather, her sole remaining leg. Hale hadn’t fixed that issue.

“Funny,” Astra said.

“I’ll check on you again shortly,” he said, teleporting straight to the portal room.

It was time to change his plan ever so slightly. To play a little less fair. If that golden avatar thought its magic was strong… Well, it hadn’t seen anything yet.

 

 

“On behalf of all of Company Al-Mir, I would like to thank you all for coming to pay tribute to our fallen brothers-in-arms.”

In the six and a half months that Fortress Al-Mir had been in operation under Arkk, there had only been one death. Kazz’ak, one of the original orcs, perished while fighting the slavers at Moonshine Burg. According to Rekk’ar, his death came about due to his own stupidity in treating the slavers as farmers subject to a raid rather than fellow raiders.

Arkk wasn’t completely sure that the explanation was true. He doubted Rekk’ar would downplay any failures he perceived in Arkk. Yet Arkk still felt that something he could have done to prevent the death. More training, for instance.

Now, Company Al-Mir lost four more.

“The actions we take are never easy. Company Al-Mir, since its inception, has stood for the people. We defended Darkwood Burg from malicious monsters.”

Farr’an. One of the original orcs. He had gone with Arkk to Darkwood Burg when they had been looking for Gretchen, the viscount’s daughter. He had fought the other Keeper of the Heart’s minions alongside Arkk. Arkk wouldn’t say that he knew him all that well. The orc was familiar enough that it twinged at his heart.

“We helped those who had nowhere else to live in safety and security, offering a home and shelter.”

Vezz. An orange-scaled gorgon—one of the few who had voted to kill Arkk back in the Silver City mines. Not that Arkk held that against them now. If any of the gorgon harbored resentment from his invasion of their one-time home, they didn’t show it. Vezz had been slightly more abrasive than others, disliking most non-gorgons, and yet he still volunteered for the mission in Gleeful Burg.

“We removed bandits and slavers who were terrorizing the small villages of the Duchy.”

Yatt’el. Another of the original group of orcs. This one hurt a little more. He hadn’t died in direct combat. While Arkk couldn’t claim to fully understand orcish culture, he did know that a warrior’s death was something respected. Dead was dead, in Arkk’s opinion, but not everyone saw it that way. Yatt’el had died in what was effectively an accident. He had the bad luck to have taken the full brunt of the flames from the bomb.

“Many of you decided to join us because of these virtuous acts. Helping those who couldn’t help themselves.”

Finally, Luc. Losing those who had been with Arkk for months hurt but losing someone new was a different sensation entirely. Luc was a beastman of an unknown type—he had feathers for hair but human hands and no wings—who had joined along with the majority of recruits before the Duke’s party. Losing someone so new felt like a betrayal. Arkk had a responsibility. It was his job and duty to see his employees safe at the end of every mission.

“And then the war began.”

He had failed.

Arkk stood at the center of a newly constructed room. One he had designed himself over the last three days. A fairly simple room. White stone walls with several columns standing in rows. The far wall held a simple blank slate. It wasn’t a large slate, though there was room for expansion if necessary.

He hoped it wouldn’t be.

“None of us expected it. None of us wanted it. And yet, when the call came for those willing to take on a dangerous mission to stymie the relentless advance of killers and raiders disguised as a nation’s army, you all stepped forward.”

Pressing his hand to the wall, Arkk engaged the only bit of magical architecture that he had included within this room. It wasn’t anything as fancy as popping an entire home out of the ground. Simple lettering carved itself into the slate.

“The act of willingly entering into a dangerous environment, knowing its danger well in advance, is by its very nature an act of heroic self-sacrifice for the sake of others. It is here where we honor those who paid a far greater sacrifice.”

The Cenotaph. An empty mausoleum dedicated toward those who had fallen. None of those who had died in Gleeful had their bodies recovered. Kazz’ak, though buried far in the east of the Duchy, had his name on the wall of the fallen as well.

About half of the permanent residents of Fortress Al-Mir stood inside the room with their faces grim, respectful, or simply neutral. There were no tears. Kia had spoken of Farr’an, stating that the warrior had saved the rest of her team with his sacrifice. Joanne had similar things to say about Luc and Vezz. Nobody else had all that much to say.

“Company Al-Mir has been made lesser in their absence. It will be felt in our halls, our minds, our hearts.”

These weren’t grieving widows or mournful children. All those who had a choice in signing up knew that this was a mercenary company. There was danger. With the war, it was impossible to keep everyone safe. Losses were expected.

“But I will not be one to lie down and accept our losses with a hung head. These men fought for something. Whether that be for a better duchy, honor, or distant family. Their sacrifice bought time. That time has been and will be used. It will not be in vain.”

Not everyone could come. It was important that the crystal balls not be left unattended and the Underworld needed its constant posting of guards to make sure the Protector didn’t slip through the portal. Some had simply declined to attend. If the rest of the gorgon were mourning, he couldn’t see it. Orjja, the orc closest to Farr’an, was in her quarters, obviously morose about losing her friend. Most of the rest of the orcs didn’t seem to care all that much. Their raiding origins and the way their previous chieftain acted meant they weren’t all that friendly with one another in general.

“Company Al-Mir will strike back tenfold for their sakes and when we do, Evestani will cower. Today, however, we stop and take a moment to honor our dead,” Arkk said, finishing the speech that he had prepared. The words felt… hollow. Vapid and vacant. Like even he was doing this because he thought it was expected of him.

He had no real idea how to handle a situation like this. How did Hawkwood handle it? The man had lost a significant chunk of White Company. Hundreds so far. Did he have a memorial for each? Doubtful.

In fact, Arkk doubted Hawkwood had done anything similar thus far. He probably wouldn’t until the war was over and done with. They would then have some large event commemorating everyone who died throughout the war. Assuming Hawkwood survived. If he didn’t… Well, wouldn’t be his problem, would it?

Something like this… it wasn’t for the dead. Unless some necromancer invaded the fortress, they were dead and gone. Nothing would bring them back as they were.

A speech like this, a cenotaph, the gathering. It was for the living. Those who continued to serve Company Al-Mir needed reassurance that they wouldn’t just be tossed aside like a chunk of rotten meat. Their mission wasn’t futile. They wouldn’t be forgotten.

The curt, respectful nod from Joanne as she left the room assured Arkk of that more than anything else.

Arkk remained where he was, standing at the head of the room with a stony face as the last few in the room departed. Ilya, who stood to the side of the room during his speech, approached. She didn’t speak. Her elbow bumped into his and her knuckles brushed against his hand.

That was enough to get him to look to his side.

Ilya offered a wan smile. “You alright?”

“Fine. I took a knock or two. Got some scrapes and cuts. Between Flesh Weaving and Vezta’s ministrations, I’m as healed up as can be.”

Turning her smile to a small frown, Ilya said, “That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know.” Arkk drew in a breath and let it out, trying to force out his emotions at the same time. “I thought that maybe, with all our fancy magic and resources, we might get through a war without any real casualties.”

“Idealistic thinking has its place. But this is war.”

Arkk couldn’t help but snort. “No kidding.” He shook his head. “I think I need to take a walk around the fortress. Not teleport directly to who I need to speak with, just walk and see and be seen. Take in the general temperament of the employees.”

“That is probably not a bad idea. It might even be good to make it a regular thing. To walk around like a normal person, that is.” If Ilya’s earlier smile had been strained, the one she adopted now was positively brittle. “Not that I think all the changes are bad things but… you have changed since… inheriting this place. All that fancy magic might have gone to your head a bit.”

“I’m glad you’re back. And not just because you help keep my head level,” Arkk said, flashing a smile of his own that he didn’t quite feel. “Is there anything I need to be aware of before going on a walk?”

Ilya shook her head. “The Underworld seems quite still. Eerie, if you ask me. One of the Protector things got a little closer but stopped and turned back when the guards readied weapons.”

“Maybe it wanted to talk?”

“Careful of that idealistic thinking,” Ilya chided. “Evestani sent out a small detachment to one of the neighboring villages.”

“As expected. I presume they found nothing?”

Ilya nodded. “It was one that we had already evacuated.”

“Good. Let’s keep a step ahead of them while we can.” Arkk cracked his neck back and forth. Standing for the entire memorial had put a small kink in his back. “I think it would be good to stop in on the refugees during my walk. They aren’t official employees but they live here for now.”

“Probably not a bad idea. Though…” Ilya waved a hand toward his eyes. “Might want to tone down the glow. Employees seeing that is bad enough. You’ll frighten anyone else.”

Arkk blinked, drew in a breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the color of Ilya’s face changed ever so slightly, lacking a red hue that he hadn’t even noticed. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Good. Do you want me to go with you on your walk?”

“I always want you at my side,” Arkk said, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

Ilya didn’t protest, though she did roll her eyes. “Your tone implies a ‘but’.”

“But…” Arkk dropped his arms to his sides. “I think I want to be seen on my own for the time being. I don’t want to give the impression that someone is forcing me to be one of you normal people,” he said, making sure the teasing was apparent in his tone.

Besides that… Even though it had been three days, something about the memorial just made it a little more real that he had lost people. He felt like being left alone to his thoughts for at least a little while.

“Fair enough,” Ilya said, walking off. “I’ll head back to the scrying team and keep an eye on things for you. I’ll let you know if something crops up.”

Arkk watched her go, eyes drawn to the swishing of her hair. He waited a long few moments, letting her get further away. He was headed in the same direction, after all. Walking out now, following after her, would just make things awkward after having already said their goodbyes.

Though, as he waited, he looked down at himself. With a thought, Arkk teleported to his private chambers and removed his clothes, switching the finest black threads he had for a casual earthy green tunic. Although nicer than most anything he had worn before Fortress Al-Mir simply on account of having been made by the lesser servant who acted as a tailor, it was much more akin to something he would have worn back in the village.

He stayed in his room for a long while, deciding to let everyone who had been at the memorial settle into wherever they were going to be afterward. Some had duties to attend to. Others were free for the time being. Arkk occupied his time reading over troop movement reports on his desk. The largest concentration of Evestani was positioned at Gleeful at the moment but they weren’t the only invading force, just the spearhead.

If he let himself, he would have spent the entire day hunched over his desk. Forcing himself to stop, Arkk headed out for a walk on his own two feet.

He casually meandered, venturing through the library where a fairy was scowling over one of Zullie’s books on magical theory. For those who hadn’t been able to wield magic before contracting with Al-Mir, even a single lightning bolt was exhausting. She was trying to figure out why and maybe find a few other spells that she could cast. Arkk wished her luck and asked to be informed if she figured out good spells. Anything that could increase the abilities of those who could use magic would be invaluable in combat.

The smithy was a flurry of activity. Both contracted employees and uncontracted refugees hammered away at the anvils, repairing armor damaged in Gleeful as well as building new armor for anyone who, as of yet, had none. A lot of refugees were plenty pleased to help out in the war effort in any way they could. Most every village had at least one blacksmith, so with all the villages he had evacuated, they had a fairly sizable workforce sweating away in the warm chambers.

Agnete worked as well. Not just as fuel in the furnace, but working on her own project.

Her work wasn’t armor. She was making thin tubes with more tubes able to slide inside them.

Upon asking about the project, she paused, stared off toward the main forge, and shrugged. “Ever since we opened the portal, I’ve been having odd dreams. I decided to try to make something from the dream.”

“Dreams?”

“Nothing bad. At least, I don’t think so. It feels good, even. Something I can do to right some wrongs.”

“So… what is it?” Arkk asked, looking at the pile of wheels.

“I’d rather not get hopes up,” she said, speaking softly as she continued filing away. “If it works, I’ll let you know. It might be nothing more than a dream.”

“If you need any help…”

“Some of the smiths are helping me in their spare time, teaching me techniques and the like. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

“Very well,” Arkk said, clasping his hands behind his back. Before leaving the smithy, he chatted with Perr’ok and a few of the refugees, making sure that they had everything they needed as well. A few requested a larger smithy, if possible. Enough skilled people were working now that it was starting to get crowded.

One thing Fortress Al-Mir was not lacking was space. The lesser servants in the gold mine were having to go farther and deeper lately. He might have to figure out alternate or additional sources of income before long. An expansion to the smithy still sounded like a worthwhile expenditure.

Fortress Al-Mir had several areas that were usually in a state of activity. Training rooms, the canteen, and the fight pits were perpetually bustling. Arkk visited each, chatting with his employees about various things they might need or how they were handling themselves. He tried to not focus on just those close advisors of his—he saw them every day.

The orcs, recruited thieves, and even some of Katja’s men who weren’t proper employees had set up various gambling games in the area around the fight pits. Dakka, Arkk knew, was a frequent visitor and victor of both the pits as well as the occasional round of cards.

They weren’t quite so busy today. A contingent of guards were stationed over in the underworld and most of those who had gone to Gleeful were still resting up after their ordeals there. The pits were completely empty, though Arkk did find Dakka and Raff’el seated with a pair of Katja’s men at one of the card tables.

Every single person at the table was cheating in some way or another. Observing the game for a few moments, Arkk was fairly certain that his orcs had allied against the two bandits. He kept noticing subtle cues passed back and forth.

He then noticed the bandits doing the same thing when one turned to sneeze, passing a card to one another in the process. If the look shared between Dakka and Raff’el was anything to go by, they noticed. But they weren’t calling them out on it.

What was it? A game of who could cheat better?

“Mind if I sit in for a hand or two?”

Dakka jolted, almost knocking over her drink as she stood to salute. Arkk did not miss the card slipping to Raff’el as she did so. “Boss? Didn’t know you knew how to play.”

“I don’t,” he said, pulling up a chair. They had games in Langleey Village. Nothing like this, however. “Go on, finish your hand then deal me in.”

“Uh…” Raff’el shot a pointed look at the two bandits. “Not sure this is the kind of game you want to get into.”

Arkk reached into an empty pocket, pulling several gold pieces from the treasury straight to his hand. He stacked them up on the table. “Come now, I can handle it. I’m a quick study.”

“Let him!” One of the two bandits said, eying the gold. Arkk didn’t know either by name. Just one of the few dozen people Katja had brought over from Porcupine Hill.

“We’ll go easy,” the other said.

The group finished up their hand, explaining the rules to Arkk at the same time. It was a kind of matching game where certain cards were worth more than other cards. You could make matches through drawing from the stack or off other players via a trade or the discard pile. It was important to not accidentally give away anything more valuable than you were getting. A complication when one didn’t know exactly what cards someone else might have. The game ended when someone knocked, indicating they thought they had the highest value hand at the table, at which point every other player would have one more turn before it was time to lay the cards down.

“So,” one of the bandits asked as Arkk got dealt his first hand. “Any idea how long this war thing is going to last? Not going to lie, I’ve been missing the sun.”

He was probably asking only as a distraction. Arkk felt no need to ignore the question. “Evestani is pushed in deep. Rooting them out at this point is not going to be simple.”

Arkk played a few hands normally, just getting a feel for things. The two bandits were clearly trying to bait out increases in the bet from him while Dakka and Raff’el looked like they were trying to help him out through discards or trades without actually involving him in their cheating. It was a nice sentiment that they would do so with money on the line, but entirely unnecessary.

Talk continued throughout the games. For every word on a mundane topic, three were exchanged on the topic of the war.

It quickly became apparent that the bandits were focusing their attentions more on Dakka and Raff’el, not viewing him as any kind of threat as they tried to block or steal the various discards that the two orcs made. Which, to be fair, wouldn’t be a challenge at all under normal circumstances.

These weren’t normal circumstances. This was Fortress Al-Mir and Arkk was the undisputed master of the fortress.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Arkk said in as conversational a tone as he could manage at the end of one hand, “what is the highest value hand possible?”

“Three emperors, three kings, and a wildcard to make four emperors,” Dakka said. “But the odds of that are so low…” She trailed off, narrowing her eyes.

She was right to be suspicious. Especially because the hand was literally impossible with the way things currently were. Dakka had an emperor card under the leather vambrace she wore on her left arm. One of the bandits had another hidden under a fold of his jacket. Arkk could see everything in the fortress. He owned everything in the fortress.

He waited for a few more hands to pass, letting the comment fade somewhat into people’s memories.

Then, on the next hand’s shuffle, Arkk did a little shuffling of his own. Swap a card here. Swap a card there. Like he could move people, crystal balls, and gold coins, he moved cards. He let one round go by to get some extra bets in, drawing and discarding a queen—which was quickly nabbed up by one of the bandits, much to Dakka’s consternation—before he slid in his heap of gold coins, knocking on the table in the process.

“Got something good there?” one of the bandits asked with an easy chuckle.

“I think so,” Arkk said, looking down at his hand with a small smile.

The two bandits looked at each other. One shrugged and gave the other a nudge. Surprisingly enough, that wasn’t cover for passing a card around. It was a genuine nudge.

One of them folded his cards. The other met his stack of coins with the pile in front of him. Raff’el looked like he was about to push in his stack as well, only for Dakka to shake her head. Both folded.

“I think,” Arkk said, laying down three kings, three emperors, and a wild card. “I think I am done playing fair.”

 

 

Lightning crackled in the air, hopping from one soldier to the next. In a second, the bright flash faded and twelve men clattered to the ground. Arkk didn’t spare them a second glance. He beckoned, waving at his employees.

Claire, along with an injured orc and a gorgon, hurried across a gap between buildings.

The dark elf clutched a hand to her arm, stymieing the flow of blood from a wound. Jorr’or looked like he could barely walk, being dragged along more than anything. While Vissh didn’t look too injured, Arkk could feel a level of pain in the link coming from the gorgon.

Yet there was no judgment in their eyes. No accusations about how he could have shown up earlier or sent more support. Claire gave him a thankful nod of her head as she headed into the older house he had emerged from. After they helped Jorr’or onto the teleportation circle, Claire hopped on next and vanished. The gorgon quickly followed.

Arkk didn’t join them. With a muttered incantation, he summoned up a lesser servant. It ate through the evidence of the teleportation circle as Arkk hurried out of the small home.

Claire’s group, albeit unknowingly, had been traveling a mere street over from Kia’s half of the strike team. He had provided Claire with an alternate escape but Kia was still heading toward one of the original escape points. Vezta provided another alternate teleportation point, closer to where Kia’s team was headed, but the servant had gone to reinforce Joanne’s group.

Arkk rushed through the streets, stepping over bodies. Not all the dead were his and Company Al-Mir’s doing. Some were regular citizens of Gleeful Burg who either hadn’t escaped before Evestani moved in or simply decided to stay. They were just left in the streets to rot and feed the rats.

It was a warning.

Evestani hadn’t put everyone to the sword. Not in this nor any other occupied burg. At least not yet. As far as Arkk could tell, as long as they didn’t cause trouble, the Evestani left most citizens alive.

They did displace a lot of them. The entire keep and its surrounding buildings had been cleared out. The outer wall of the burg and all the people who lived along its perimeter had been relocated as well, cramming the people in small groupings throughout the city.

What he was doing now would get more killed. Even if Evestani continued to leave them alive, the food was gone. They would starve. But… Arkk had a feeling that they would have starved anyway. The army needed supplies and it was doubtful that they would share with the civilians.

It was possible they would kill the citizens after this. A retaliation. A message. Don’t mess with us or we’ll kill everyone. Arkk… had to believe that they were already dead. Better this way than Evestani marching forward to do the same to other burgs and villages.

He had to believe that.

“Electro Deus,” Arkk intoned, blasting a crossbowman off a roof before he could loose a bolt at Kia’s group.

The other dark elf had a larger force at her side. One more gorgon, Vezz, and six orcs.

Two had already died. One in the initial blast, one later on during the escape.

Innately aware of where his minions were, Arkk waded into battle with no hesitation. He didn’t have to take even a split second to decide whether a target was one of his or not. Soldiers fell, crossbowmen seized and misfired, and a spellcaster turned to stone—though that last one was Vezz’s doing.

The tide turned with Arkk’s appearance.

Kia jammed her sword through the stomach of someone who should have been wearing armor. She wrenched it out the side of his body with a flourish, sending blood across the muddy street in an arc. Hakk’ar bashed a helmet in with a heavy hammer. A glob of caustic venom sailed through the air, splattering across someone’s arm, forcing them to drop their sword.

They could likely have taken care of everything on their own. Kia and Claire’s group were made up of experienced raiders. Arkk’s intervention just facilitated a faster and safer resolution.

After looking over the street with narrowed eyes, Kia hurried over to Arkk. “Claire—” she started, only for Arkk to hold up a hand.

“Already back at the fortress,” Arkk said, not stopping as he hurried across the street to one of the abandoned homes. The door was locked. Or jammed. A long spell blasted the door off its hinges. “Inside quickly,” he said, waving a hand to draw Kia’s entire group over to him. “You’ve done well. Hale is waiting to tend to any injuries on the other side of the ritual circle.”

One by one, the orcs and gorgon stepped through the teleportation point. Kia stayed behind, watching each to ensure they got through. As soon as Zojja made it through the portal, she looked at Arkk.

“We lost Yatt’el and Farr’an.”

“I know,” Arkk said, voice hard.

“Yatt’el went up in flames with the warehouse. Farr’an covered for us, blocking a path while we fought through another group. I watched him fall. He took out three armored soldiers on his own before succumbing.”

Arkk just nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak. Those two weren’t the only two who died tonight. They were the only two who had likely died because of him. If he hadn’t made those bombs so volatile, the crossbowman wouldn’t have been able to detonate it. The entire group could have stayed together, fought better. Yatt’el wouldn’t have been incinerated.

Kia, somehow, managed a smile. Or… perhaps it was that she didn’t feel all that much at their loss. Since their joining, Arkk had felt that Kia and Claire were… a little off. Emotionally. They were a little too hungry for a fight and the latter rarely spoke. Even though Kia was leagues more personable than Claire, Arkk was fairly sure it was an act.

In a war like this, Arkk didn’t much care. As long as they were loyal to him and weren’t harming anyone at Fortress Al-Mir. They could spill as much blood in battle as they wanted.

Kia didn’t say anything else. She hopped onto the teleportation circle and vanished.

Arkk didn’t move for a long moment, standing in the dark, abandoned home. The only light came from the roaring orange flames consuming the city. He scanned through everyone still in the city. Agnete and Lexa. Joanne and her group. Vezta. Dakka was out along with her team and now Kia and Claire’s team were safe.

Agnete and Lexa were still headed toward their target. Theirs was the only one not aflame.

Was it worth it to continue? Would they be in danger if they did? Should he pull them back now, before they wound up in over their heads? Three teams had successfully burned their assigned warehouses already and lesser servants had consumed a few of the smaller stores in all the chaos.

They weren’t in trouble now. The city was alert. He couldn’t scry on the keep but he did not doubt that whoever was in charge had noticed what they were targeting. With three storehouses down, there was only one main target left.

The real question was whether or not Agnete and Lexa could handle themselves. All Agnete needed was a glimpse of the storehouse and it would go up in flames. Lexa, with her stealth-based magic, could get them out.

They could do it. That was why he had sent only the two of them.

The lesser servant from the previous ritual circle made it to the abandoned building, curling around Arkk’s legs as it headed toward the ritual circle. It would be ready to consume it as soon as he left. And he needed to go.

While Vezta was assisting, Joanne’s group needed more help.

He stepped toward the ritual circle only to feel a tingle on his arms. A strange sensation of his hair standing on end. Some deep well of power formed elsewhere in the city and it was…

Arkk’s eyes widened.

It was just like at Elmshadow.

He dove backward, throwing himself out of the abandoned home and into the muddy street, hands over the top of his head.

The sound went dead. The distant roars of flames fell silent. Shouts and clattering armor went still. The general noise of wind and settling buildings stopped in its tracks as the entire world held its breath.

A ray of gold filled his vision. It wasn’t hot. No heat burned at his back.

The sound came rushing back in a deafening cacophony. As if every sound that stopped during that brief pause had to make up for the time lost. Arkk grit his teeth, forcing himself up and out of the mud.

The abandoned house was gone. As were its neighbors. And their neighbors. An entire row of the street had turned into a shallow trough.

Gritting his teeth, Arkk threw himself to his feet.

Vezta was assisting Joanne’s group. They were practically on the other side of the burg. She hadn’t noticed the golden beam or his situation. Once she returned to the scrying team, she would immediately provide an escape. Arkk didn’t know how long that would take. Joanne’s team was bogged down heavily at the moment.

The scrying team would alert others to his situation. They lacked the ability to rapidly craft teleportation circles so they would use one of the preexisting ones to send reinforcements through.

Arkk pivoted, scanning the newly changed layout of the city around him. He knew the map. He had scried the burg enough on his own to know it well enough. He knew where the concentrations of Evestani forces were holed up, which routes they would likely take to reach the towering infernos, and which areas might be safer.

He took a few steps, breaking into a run. There were no soldiers around in the immediate area but after that golden light, some would surely—

“Leaving so soon?”

“Electro Deus,” Arkk snarled, throwing his arm toward the voice before even turning his head.

Blinding, overpowered lightning split the air with a sharp, deafening crack. The violet bolt of lightning crackled through the air.

A flash of golden light deflected it, sending it off into one of the remaining buildings on the other side of the street. The wood and stone blasted to pieces. Bits rained down onto the muddy street.

“You caught me off guard with that before. Never again.”

A child stood along the edge of the trough. A middling teen girl who couldn’t be any older than Hale. She stood in a casual pose with an easy smile on her face. The glowing gold tattoos around her shaved head and matching eyes were more than enough to keep Arkk fully on guard.

He wasn’t Agnete. He didn’t have a way of avoiding that golden ray. When told of the problem, Zullie hadn’t managed to come up with anything beyond ‘don’t get hit’.

“I thought I smelled anathemic magics around here,” she continued, looking off to where the abandoned building had been standing a few minutes before. “Naughty, naughty. You do realize that pokes little holes in reality, right? They leak all sorts of unpleasant magics and take forever to heal back up.”

Lightning crackled between Arkk’s fingertips, just waiting for him to sling it off toward the child once again. That deflection had him wary. It was too similar to Chronicler Greesom’s defensive magic. Arkk’s employees had wound up injuring themselves more than the inquisitors during that encounter. Neither Greesom nor this child had reflected his lighting at him directly but both cast it off to the side.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” Arkk said. If the child wanted to talk, talking would buy him time to think. “Seeing as we’re enemies and all.”

A dozen other spells flicked through Arkk’s mind. Nothing offensive. Anything that directly struck the child could turn against him. The child wasn’t invulnerable. Assuming it was the same being from the Duke’s party and Elmshadow, Vezta had killed the ones at the party and he had blown the arm off the one at Elmshadow.

Judging by the tattoos, Arkk had no doubt it was the same person. Just possessing… a child.

A flash of anger coursed through Arkk at the thought. He didn’t like the idea of possession in general. While he had possessed both Vezta and Zullie, they had both offered prior consent. The latter for research purposes and the former simply because she viewed it as a kind of honor.

Had this child agreed to be a puppet? What about the one from Elmshadow? Arkk had taken that child’s arm. Had the golden-eyed being released the child, discarding the boy as soon as he lost some of his use?

Arkk forced his jaw loose. He was getting distracted by his own anger. That wasn’t productive for the immediate situation.

Returning his thoughts to spells, he considered. Something like the Road of Stability he had used at the Duke’s party… something that enhanced its user. Those kinds of spells would work.

But the incantations were long. Long enough that someone who did not need to speak words would be able to fling off a ray of golden light at him well before he could finish speaking.

Arkk needed a moment. A slight chance. A distraction. And if he had a distraction, wouldn’t a lightning bolt to the skull be a better option?

It was a child. It didn’t deserve…

Arkk clenched his teeth.

He had to decide quickly. A distraction was on its way.

Arkk kept the lightning curling around his fingers. Constantly funneling magic into the spell to keep it going without having to repeat the incantation. Every instant would be important.

The golden-eyed being had said something during his thoughts, something he hadn’t quite registered in his anger. Unable to reply to it, Arkk had to keep the conversation going. Just a bit longer. “You’re the one from the Duke’s party? The assassins?” Arkk asked.

The girl raised an eyebrow. “You…” She paused. “You can’t be this ignorant. You haven’t figured out what I am yet?”

“You’re an avatar of the Heart of Gold.”

“Oh good. I had a genuine fear that [Servant]/[sliver]/[STAR]-[slave] hadn’t bothered to tell you anything.”

Vezta. He was talking about Vezta.

“Awfully considerate of you to worry over me. And here I thought you wanted to obliterate me,” Arkk said with a casual wave to the trough that had cut through the burg.

“You are, ultimately, inconsequential. You are a mortal. You will die eventually. You’re just an obstacle on the path to [her].” The child chuckled. A very… uncanny chuckle. It was not the kind of laugh a normal child would give, but rather someone far older. More jaded than a child should be. “I should be thanking you. We knew there was one more unaccounted for. By dragging her out into the light, we can finally—”

A spiraling column of flames erupted into the skies, filling the night with a bright red-orange light. Even from the distance he was at, Arkk could feel the heat wash over him, warming him from the otherwise chill winter air. The familiar sensation of Agnete’s fire spread across the clouds.

He had told her to make it big and showy. More in the hopes of cowing the army, maybe even burning the whole of the keep down.

The child tensed, on guard. But her guard was focused on the flames in the distance, not on Arkk.

The lightning had been dancing between his fingertips, curling around his arm, fueled by minutes of constantly pouring magic into the spell to keep it going… Arkk barely twitched his fingers and the lightning was gone. It careened through the air in the blink of an eye, slamming into the child with the force of a hundred of his most powerful bolts. The resulting thunderclap boomed over the burg, stronger and louder than any Arkk had heard before.

He fell backward from the shockwave, landing in the mud, entirely unable to see thanks to the spots in his eyes. Arkk blinked his eyes several times, trying to clear the seared bolt of lightning only to remember that he didn’t need eyes to see himself. Like at the Silver City mines, Arkk focused on himself with the link from the fortress.

It didn’t offer a good field of view. Just a top-down perspective like he was scrying on himself from a point directly overhead. It was enough to get him on his feet and oriented in the direction he needed to go. He didn’t know what happened to the golden-eyed being or the possessed child. They were too far from him for his current perspective to see.

The fact that he wasn’t dead from a ray of golden light was telling.

Hopefully, it had been quick.

Arkk started running. He assumed that most guards would be focused on the inferno at the keep. That didn’t mean he wanted to stick around in this Evestani-infested town even a moment longer.

He made it a street over from the teleportation circle before he started to feel that build-up of tingling magic on his arms once again. Gritting his teeth, he veered off from his current course, throwing himself between two buildings.

Another ray of golden light crashed through the city, taking with it another narrow slice of land, buildings, streets, and everything in between. It was smaller than the previous ray, not enveloping the entire street. That just meant that debris came crashing down as the buildings collapsed, forcing him to duck and dodge as he dashed through an alley.

“Electro Deus,” Arkk muttered, panting heavily. He didn’t fling a bolt of lightning straight away. Aside from knowing the direction the beam had come from, he didn’t have a target. Instead, he just funneled magic into the spell once again, hoping that overcharging it like before might let it penetrate whatever defenses the golden-eyed being could come up with.

A much narrower beam of gold light tore through the building Arkk had his back against. Not even as thick as Arkk’s arm. It swept a few paces, slicing a small hole into the building. The cut wood behind Arkk cracked and broke, falling and collapsing into itself. The building opposite Arkk suffered the same fate.

He ducked down, crouching low as part of the wall fell.

Another thin beam of light did the same to the buildings on the opposite side of the fresh chasm.

He was… mostly certain that he had made that thing upset.

Blinking his eyes a few more times helped his vision return. It wasn’t perfect but it was enough to see by. With a grimace, he peered around the side of what was left of the building.

The golden-eyed being had taken on a new form. An older boy stood at the far end of the road. Late teens. Maybe even in his twenties. He had the same tattoos around his shaved skull but, this boy looked… in poor condition. Welts, cuts, and other marks marred his body. Like he had been strapped to a pole and whipped. The tattoos around his head looked raw and had streaks of red all around his shaved head. They had been bleeding recently.

The boy, looking off after the most recent beam of light, whipped his head toward Arkk as soon as Arkk revealed himself.

He raised an arm, golden light forming at the tips of his fingers.

Arkk slung his lightning bolt. It wasn’t as charged as the previous one and that came through in the dampened crack and less blinding light. Nevertheless, it forced the boy to swipe his hand, deflecting the lightning off to the side.

He immediately lowered that hand and raised his other, forming another light at his fingertips.

Arkk sucked in a breath, wincing in prescient knowledge of his own bisection. He threw another lightning bolt. This one weak in the wake of the previous, not having been even mildly charged up.

The boy didn’t even dodge, seizing slightly upon it striking him but otherwise ignoring its effects as he continued to build that golden glow at the end of his fingertips.

A crossbow bolt slammed through the boy’s extended arm, sending the beam of gold off into the skies.

Arkk didn’t question his good fortune even as the boy snapped his head toward where the bolt had come from. Instead, he repeated the incantation, “Electro Deus,” and threw out a fresh bolt at the golden-eyed boy.

It struck at the exact moment another blast of golden light fired at the source of the crossbow shot.

A scream echoed off the half-toppled walls of the buildings around Arkk.

The boy went into a seizure, crumpling as black smoke wafted from his form.

Dead? Not? Arkk didn’t move to find out. His eyes were drawn to the scream.

A woman. Not one of his minions. At first, Arkk didn’t recognize her, figuring she must have just been a civilian who had picked up a fallen guard’s crossbow. She wore tattered clothes and had a grime-covered face. One of her legs, along with half her side, sat in the mud apart from the rest of her, cut off by that last golden beam. She was missing an arm as well, but bandages around the stump meant she had lost it well in the past.

It was her grimace-set face, brimming with determination like she could pull through having been cut in half, that clicked in the back of Arkk’s mind.

Master Inquisitrix Sylvara Astra.

His first instinct was to leave her. Abandon her. She was, likely, an enemy.

But she had saved his life.

Swearing under his breath, quickly checking every relevant employee of Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk made the decision. He sprinted across the open terrain, down and back up the shallow trough that the large golden beam had cut. The golden-eyed being hadn’t gotten up. Arkk assumed he was dead or injured enough to not matter for at least a few minutes. There was probably another tattooed child waiting in the wings but, for at least a moment, he was safe from golden rays of light.

He swore the Flesh Weaving spell under his breath.

The Inquisitrix was missing a leg, part of her hip, and her forearm. Her shoulder and chest were still intact, as were the vital organs contained within. She had probably lost something important along with her hip but Arkk didn’t have the time to do any in-depth repair. He swept his hand over her fresh wounds, sealing them shut and little else.

She didn’t speak upon his approach or while he was healing her, leaving her face locked in that determined grimace. Her eyes glared daggers at him like she resented being saved.

“Leave me,” she said without unclenching her teeth. “Just promise you’ll kill that bastard. The real one.”

“I can promise that. But you aren’t being left behind.”

The second he finished speaking, a teleportation ritual carved itself into the ground at his side. Vezta appeared within.

She didn’t have a comment. She didn’t ask what he wanted. As if she could read his mind, she reached out with long tendrils and grasped hold of the inquisitrix. Arkk summoned a lesser servant in the short time it took them to disappear before hopping on the teleportation circle himself.

The lesser servant was likely unnecessary. Just before he vanished, he could feel the hairs on his arms rising on end once again.

The lesser servant blipped out of existence in a blast of golden light.

 

 

“Gleeful Burg has four primary storehouses and several smaller, secondary storehouses. Two of the main storehouses are within the inner keep walls. Evestani has set up anti-scrying warding within the walls of the keep.” Arkk took a breath, looking around at his assembled team. “Unfortunately, that means it is too risky to teleport inside.”

Arkk had yet to see evidence but Vezta was quite confident that teleportation rituals could be warded against. Generally in such a way that the one trying to teleport would end up more of a mess to clean up than a person. If anyone had access to that kind of magic, it would be an avatar of the Heart of Gold who seemed a little more in tune with the god than either of the other two avatars Arkk had seen.

“The smaller storehouses are already being taken care of. I have lesser servants poised to consume everything within on my signal.”

“That tactic won’t work on the larger storehouses?” Dakka asked, standing at the head of one of the four groups.

Dakka led a team of black-armored orcs. The ones she had been working with and training with the most. Since opening the portal, they had been guarding the other side. Now, he needed them here. Some of the fresher recruits were keeping an eye on the Underworld as Arkk had deemed it slightly less of a hostile posting.

The Protectors were still watching the portal but none had moved within a certain range of it, giving it plenty of space.

Four gorgon joined Dakka’s group, providing long-range support and the ability to petrify anyone too troublesome to deal with directly.

“The larger storehouses are under heavy guard. Lesser servants are weak to the point where one would lose a one-on-one fight against a goblin. Burrowing up from underneath the storehouses might be able to do a bit of damage but they would be discovered and the guard would be doubled. We need to do this in one decisive strike.”

“Question,” Kia said, raising a hand. “While I appreciate the trust you have in our skills…” She paused to motion back to the supply caravan strike team. They were team two in this operation. “I’m not quite sure how we’re going to destroy a warehouse full of food with swords.”

“You won’t,” Arkk said. Reaching under the table he stood in front of, he hefted up a large clay jar. It stood about as high as his knees and weighed as much as a young pig. “Agnete, Zullie, and I whipped this up over the last three days. It is… a bomb, effectively.”

More than one of those watching took a respectful step backward.

“This one is empty,” Arkk said with a small smile. “Real ones contain an alchemical solution known as liquid fire, a ritual array scribed into the walls and lid, and a glowstone to power the array. Do not try to open them,” he said, emphasizing the words as much as possible. A small metal clamp around the rim kept the lid on but it was always best to make sure they knew. “Not unless you can survive an inferno raging around you that most common magics can’t extinguish.”

Despite his assurances that the jar was empty, the entire group looked like they very much wished this little speech was taking place in a much larger room.

“They work by rotating the lid until the arrow notch lines up with the notch in the rim of the jar. At that point, you have five minutes to get away before everything goes up in flames. They cannot be turned off once activated—by design—and they will go off if the jars are cracked or otherwise destroyed. However, they are fairly hardy. You’ll find it hard to accidentally break them. Probably avoid dropping them,” Arkk added.

“Oh good,” Joanne said. She was one of the former members of the Order of the Claymore and the current leader of the third task force. “Try not to drop the bomb while wandering into the stronghold of an army.”

“Ideally, none of you will actively engage in combat of any kind. You sneak in, you plant the jars, and you get back to the teleport points before anyone knows you were there.”

“Ideally,” Joanne said, sounding like she was trying to hold back a more scathing statement. “I was with the Claymores for five years. Spent about seven years before that in various smaller companies. I’ve seen how badly things go to shit in ideal scenarios. So what’s the realistic outcome here?”

Arkk pressed his lips together, looking around the room. Several of the newer recruits behind Joanne nodded their heads. A lot of them weren’t all that happy with the Duke situation. He could almost see their second thoughts about sticking around. Then again, even Dakka was looking a little nervous.

With good reason. An army of nearly ten thousand stood inside Gleeful Burg. If something went wrong…

When something went wrong…

“Realistically, I’m expecting at least two of the storehouses to survive unscathed. Your lives take priority. If you encounter unexpected resistance or even an odd complication that looks difficult to resolve, you are to abort at once and escape to the nearest teleport point.” Arkk turned back to the large map hanging on the wall. One sketched from scrying on the burg. He pointed out the eight violet circles spread across the city. “We’ve identified several possible ingress points, which will also serve as your egress points. Memorize them, please.”

“I gotta question too,” Lexa said, holding her hand in the air. Her fingertips barely made it up to anyone else’s chest. Her group wasn’t so much a group as it was just her and Agnete. A stealth expert and… well, Agnete. They were headed to the deepest, largest storehouse. “You keep saying ‘you’. Are you not coming this time?”

“No. Vesta and I will be staying behind. I was getting to that—”

Joanne clearly didn’t like that. “The strongest spellcaster and the monster aren’t supporting us?”

“I didn’t say that,” Arkk said, holding up a hand to forestall any further complaints. “When you all joined Company Al-Mir, you may recall that you entered into a magical contract. One that allows me to detect when you’re in trouble. I will be using that extensively and actively during this operation. Vezta can scribe a ritual circle as complicated as a teleportation circle in an instant as long as she knows the location. Together, we should be able to reinforce or extract any group that needs help.” He paused, looking around. The explanation mollified most of the worried looks. “Obviously, we cannot be everywhere at once. Try to avoid needing our help if at all possible.

“If you need an escape and cannot get to one of the indicated points,” Arkk said, pointing at the map. “Find a place to hide. We’ll get you out. There are a lot of abandoned or otherwise uninhabited buildings in the burg. If you cannot find a place to hide, we’ll likely ambush whoever has you pinned and fight until you can extract yourselves or find a place to lie low, at which point we go back to the main teleport junction outside the city and reexamine the needs of the situation.”

Arkk clasped his hands behind his back, moving back and forth in front of the groups. “Some of you have a lot of experience in mercenary companies. I respect that. However, if you’re new and haven’t fought with Company Al-Mir before, know that we do things a little differently. Teleportation and scrying,” he said, popping a crystal ball into his hand as he held it out, “change the game. We appear suddenly, hit hard, and get out. Minimal danger to us. Maximum damage to the opponent. This operation is no different.”

“It has been an effective tactic on those supply caravans,” Kia said with a grin. In the three days that Arkk had been planning this operation, her strike team had taken out another two caravans. “Wish we had even one of those back in Raven’s Claw.”

“Uh…” Lexa shifted from foot to foot. “You said you can’t teleport into the keep.”

“Correct,” Arkk said. He looked from Lexa and Agnete to Dakka’s group. “Your two groups won’t have direct support while inside the keep. Dakka, your group will be in charge of storehouse three.” He pointed at the map. “It is right on the keep wall. You will be tunneling up from underneath with a lesser servant, planting the bomb, and then escaping as quickly as you can. Minimal time inside the keep.”

Dakka’s lips curled, baring her tusks. It wasn’t a hostile look directed at Arkk, more of just a reaction to the dangerous assignment. “Understood,” she said.

There was a possibility that the stone of the keep would be warded like that of the Duke’s manor. Arkk hoped not. Otherwise, Dakka’s group would be on a rather short excursion. He didn’t have a backup plan for getting around that kind of warding without Agnete to burn the enchantments away.

“Lexa, Agnete. You two are taking warehouse four. The one deep inside the keep. It’s also the largest storehouse, making it the highest priority target.”

“Just us,” Lexa said with a grimace even as Agnete simply nodded her head.

“You won’t need to carry bombs with Agnete. A small team, especially one with your abilities, is better than sending in a full force. With your magic, Lexa, you’ll be able to slip away a whole lot easier if things go wrong. But yes, you won’t have support for the majority of your part of the operation.”

Lexa twisted her little mouth into a frown before her eyes gleamed. “I want double pay for coming back alive.”

“Double?” Arkk said, tapping a finger on his chin as if thinking it over. “Well, if you insist—”

“I do.”

“I had been considering triple pay for everyone. But I can do double for you instead.”

“Wait… no—”

“Joanne. Your team has warehouse two. It sits right on the river that runs through the burg. Tunneling into it may prove problematic because of that. Not wanting to alert the enemy, I haven’t tested just yet. You’ll either be going in through teleport point one or six, depending on whether or not it can be tunneled into.”

“Can’t your monsters just eat the ground and dump it all into the river?” the mercenary asked.

“I did consider that. The river has a frozen layer of ice covering it, unfortunately, thick enough that unless I tunnel through that, all the stores will just sit on top ready for reclamation. I’ll have better information as we near the operation time, so make plans for either point. Or, if you have better ideas, let me know.” Arkk turned to the last group. “Kia, Claire. Your strike team will be taking warehouse one. Its location isn’t particularly tricky but it is heavily guarded. Expect a fight.”

Arkk took in a breath, looking over the assembled groups. “The scrying team is available to answer questions on enemy forces and city layout if you need more information. Memorize the map and, especially, the teleport points. Come up with plans that suit your teams’ skills. You have until tomorrow evening at sundown.” He paused, sending the crystal ball back to the scrying room. “Come to me if you have more questions. If you think certain people will be useful to your groups and they aren’t required for essential operations elsewhere, come to me with those requests as well.

“With Kia and Claire’s strikes on their supply lines, this should lock the Evestani army in place and keep them from traipsing about the Duchy at will. It will be dangerous. But it will save a whole lot of people.” Especially with Olatt’an and Ilya evacuating nearby villages. “It also buys time. Zullie is working on a solution for the army and a weakened army will be much easier to deal with.”

He looked around one last time, pausing long enough for any additional questions. When nobody spoke up, he nodded his head. “Let’s show these invaders why it was a mistake to set foot into the Duchy.”

Claire drew back her bow, held it for a beat of her heart, and let the string go. The light twang of the bowstring paled in comparison to the gurgling cry of a storehouse guard. The guard next to him turned, opening his mouth to shout. His entire form turned to gray stone, silencing his alarm before it could begin. The momentum of his turn kept the statue moving. It wobbled and fell, shattering against the ground.

Grin spreading across her face, Claire loosed another arrow. It jammed straight through the gap between another man’s hauberk and helmet, puncturing his throat as he turned to see what the commotion was about.

Kia and one of the orcs—Claire hadn’t memorized their names—ambushed another pair of soldiers who stood around the outside of the storehouse on the opposite corner. Their fight was a little noisier, not as smooth as Claire’s, but the orcs had strength to spare. The orc, using a pick-like weapon, jammed it straight through a guard’s helmet while Kia carved a man’s head from his shoulders. Another orc and gorgon were fighting behind Kia. The initial arrow had been their signal to go.

It was… a little disappointing. Their ambush had been too successful. Too easy. Even if someone had shouted, it was entirely probable that nobody would have come to investigate. A massive inferno licked at the clouds on the other side of the burg. One of the other teams had either burned their target or dropped their clay pot.

Either way, with everyone staring off in the distance and soldiers leaving their posts to rush toward it, their job had been disappointing.

The moment that thought crossed Claire’s mind, a massive rumble shook the ground. Another billowing inferno stretched to the sky, this one much closer. Inside the burg’s keep, which probably meant the orc’s team. Theirs was supposed to be the easiest of the four, even if they had to get into the keep to get it done.

Either way, a grin spread across Claire’s face as her ears twitched. She nocked another arrow. One towering inferno at a storehouse was an accident. Two? That was a pattern. People would investigate and…

Claire loosed an arrow just as a pair of boots rounded the corner of the storehouse.

The guard rounding the corner was just a bit taller than she expected. The arrow struck him square in the chest, knocking him back a step but not puncturing through his plate armor. While he stumbled back, another guard stepped around the corner with a crossbow already raised.

The gorgon at her side slithered in front of her, taking the bolt against the metal pauldron on its shoulder. The gorgon reared back and spat a globule of caustic venom. Claire could hear it sizzling through the air before it landed straight on the guard’s helmet. Some of it must have splashed through his eyeholes. He promptly started screeching, dropping his crossbow to claw at his helmet.

Claire eyed the gorgon with mild envy even as she leaned around it, loosing another arrow into the first guard properly this time.

“Incoming!” Kia shouted from behind.

Glancing back, Claire frowned. Two orcs were carrying one of the heavy pots between them as Kia, an orc, and another gorgon defended. Claire loosed an arrow over her partner’s shoulder. It might have grazed her ear but it slammed straight into the eye socket of a man with a golden tabard. Kia didn’t even look back, immediately taking the unexpected opportunity to bring her sword down on a pike before it could hit her orc companion.

“Our sside,” the gorgon next to Claire said, making her whip her head back around.

Three guards had learned from their fallen comrades. They rounded the corner with shields raised. Pikes poked out from between the shields, leveled at Claire and her gorgon. The one in the center lowered his shield just enough to catch a glimpse.

That was enough to turn him to stone. He fell forward, tripping the man on his right as he shattered. The short stumble provided all the opportunity Claire needed to unleash another arrow.

She wanted to ask the gorgon if it could turn the petrified pieces back to normal… just to see what it looked like.

The gorgon slithered after the arrow Claire unleashed, contorting its flexible body around the one steady pike to wrap the guard in a crushing embrace. Metal deformed as the embrace tightened. The guard within tried to scream but quickly focused on just trying to breathe. An endeavor he wasn’t quite successful with. The gorgon released the crumpled armor and broken limbs, letting it clatter to the ground as it returned to Claire’s side.

“We need to go, now!” Kia shouted from the opposite side of the storehouse. “They’re trickling in but we’ll get overwhelmed once more real— No!”

The two orcs who had been carrying the clay pot into the storehouse stepped outside. A soldier at the far end of the street, nowhere close to Kia or Claire, raised his crossbow at the same time. Claire nocked and loosed, but not before the man pulled the trigger. The bolt sailed toward the orcs. One got a shield up and the other dove toward Claire. The bolt careened past both.

Claire’s sharp ears heard the distinct sound of a clay pot shattering inside the warehouse.

Eyes widening, she threw herself to the ground. Heat and fire erupted from the mouth of the warehouse. A shockwave rippled over her, knocking the gorgon back further. The shockwave passed but the air still rushed overhead. The heat felt like being in the same room as that flame witch.

Raising her head, Claire scowled. A constant stream of fire rushed down the streets, igniting homes and houses in its way. She could see people—regular people, not guards or soldiers—fleeing from the buildings. Citizens of Gleeful Burg? Or noncombatants from Evestani?

A child collapsed further down the road, flames licking at the back of his clothes.

Claire didn’t even blink. Arkk would have known about them. He had been the one scrying on the city. If they were civilians, they were just necessary sacrifices to ensure the Evestani army stopped here.

Her attentions were drawn to the orc that had dived out of the way. His back was on fire even as he crawled forward, away from the rushing flames of the storehouse.

“Petrify him,” Claire said as the gorgon got back to its… feet? It didn’t have feet.

The gorgon stared, not arguing. A moment later, the orc stilled. The flames burned a few moments longer, perhaps taking out his gambeson, before they died out as well. There was no way she would be able to carry a stone orc. She doubted the gorgon could either, not even if they worked together. Kia and her part of the team were cut off. Hopefully still alive but on the other side of the flames.

“We need to find our own escape,” Claire said, looking around, remembering the map. “Unpetrify him. He’ll have to walk on his own. If he can’t, we’ll offer the Light’s mercy.”

The gorgon visibly bristled at the idea of killing their own companion. The way it stiffened irritated Claire. She would expect the same in turn. Better than being caught and put through torture to find out what they knew. Snapping her fingers, she caught the gorgon’s attention.

“No time,” she said, waving a hand to the burning warehouse. “If the whole burg didn’t know we were here before, they do now. I bet we have less than two minutes before we’re overwhelmed to the point that not even Arkk can help.”

That Arkk wasn’t here now was somewhat telling. Either someone else needed help more—Kia or maybe one of the other teams—or he thought they could get out on their own. Or he had been taken out while helping someone else.

Whatever the case, that got the gorgon moving. It promptly unpetrified the orc. To the credit of the orc, he didn’t start screaming or otherwise panicking. And he was awake. The gorgon helped him to his feet, looping its lanky body under his shoulders to help support him.

Claire was already walking. There were two egress points close to this storehouse. One was cut off by the wall of flames. Kia would likely head toward that one. Claire wasn’t sure for how long the fire would burn and wasn’t willing to risk sitting around in the hopes that they would die off before the army had them surrounded.

Bow nocked but not drawn, she moved ahead of the two, keeping her eyes and ears on alert for any sign of danger.

All the while, she grinned.

The thrill of being completely surrounded. The uncertainty of their possible escape. The notion that they would be deemed expendable and left behind. This was what she lived for.

Just when she had been thinking those strike missions against supply caravans had been getting boring, Arkk went and threw her into this.

She couldn’t have asked for a better excursion.