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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.

 

 

 

Arkk stared at the burning wreckage, searching for any sign of movement among the myriad bodies strewn about.

Decades of travel carved out a small road between the trees, leaving a relatively clear, if narrow pathway between Elmshadow Burg and Harmony Burg. Trees loomed large, hanging over the path, providing some shelter from falling snow leaving the trail useable in the winter.

Evestani had been using it to resupply their army.

The Evestani soldiers in charge of guarding the transport hadn’t been worth the armor wasted on them. Five orcs, two gorgon, two dark elves, and a certain knife-wielding gremlin had handily dispatched the supply caravan’s guards. Arkk hadn’t even stepped in. The two dark elves were in charge today. He was present only to observe Kia and Claire’s handling of the situation.

Thus far, he was relatively pleased. Claire could stand to tone down how much she toyed with enemies who got in her way but Arkk couldn’t deny the effectiveness of their tactics.

Most of the supply caravan would be going back to Fortress Al-Mir. The dried and preserved army rations weren’t good but could still find use anytime they had to make excursions. The armor and weaponry could supply new recruits without consuming blacksmith hours. The dozen horses they captured would need a place to stay within the fortress but would certainly help in any future operations.

Lesser servants could eat anything that couldn’t be used, converting it to gold for later use.

“A hungry army is a desperate army,” Olatt’an said, trudging across the forest pathway toward him. He wasn’t part of the operation either. Like Arkk, he was here to observe how the team handled themselves. “Hitting one of these won’t do much. They’ll strain their rations a bit and tighten their belts, but they’ll live.”

“Hit a few more,” Arkk said, following along with his line of thought, “and they’ll start searching for alternate means of feeding themselves.”

“I bet they hit smaller villages. So far, in the interest of advancing across the Duchy as fast as possible, they’ve mostly ignored anything that wasn’t a large Burg that they could use as a foothold.” He turned to Arkk, flashing a toothless grin. “Unless those small villages have someone like you and Vezta defending them, an army will march over whatever pitiful defense they have. A village storehouse won’t have enough but it will feed the army until they march to the next village.”

Olatt’an, former raider that he was, counted as the foremost expert on such matters within Fortress Al-Mir. Arkk didn’t doubt a word he said. Nevertheless… “We’ll have Kia and Claire hit as many as they can. They’ll have to expand their search for other routes. Once is an accident but as soon as two caravans go missing on the same path, they’ll look for alternates.”

“Throwing villages to the wolves?” Olatt’an asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Callous as it is to admit, they won’t be marching across the Duchy if they’re acting like raiders,” Arkk said, lips drawn tight. “I have a plan for dealing with the larger army. Or at least diminishing the threat they pose. It won’t be ready until Zullie finishes charging up those high-quality glowstones she stole from the academy. They take a lot longer than the smaller test ones we had been using, so I’m not sure when she will finish.”

“Well, until that plan is ready, I might have a better solution to the Evestani raider problem.” Olatt’an paused, the old orc waiting until Arkk raised an eyebrow. “We beat them to it. Scry to find where they’re headed then clear out the storehouses before they get there.”

“That… could work,” Arkk said slowly, mulling it over. “I presume we would offer the villagers safety at the fortress.”

Olatt’an shrugged. “That’s your business.”

It was a good thing he had been expanding the fortress since Inquisitor Vrox’s attack. He had been doing it for control over the territory but it would work just as well to house more refugees. Depending on how many villages they had to step in to help, he might still have to expand more and more.

“Get back to the fortress,” Arkk said, “and get to the scrying team. Have them check on the Evestani army’s current position and begin making note of the nearest villages. Depending on how close they are, we might evacuate them immediately. I want a minimum of two days marching time between the army and their nearest possible target.”

“Think they’ll be happy to come along after you let them know how much the Duke hates you?”

Arkk couldn’t help his grimace.

They had lost a few people over that. A few of the humans who had joined up in Cliff. Not all of them but enough to be notable. None of the demihumans or beastmen wanted out. Still, even though Company Al-Mir had grown, four missing didn’t go unnoticed. Worse, they knew about the teleportation circles and, if they were smart, could infer weaknesses and use cases. It was some small consolation that none of the recruits knew where the fortress was.

Most of the refugees from out near Moonshine Burg hadn’t exactly been happy either but none complained. It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go.

Katja just laughed.

“For the villages we wish to evacuate, we’ll just have to impress upon them how thoroughly the Evestani will kill them. I hope they chose the more pragmatic choice.”

“And if they don’t?” Olatt’an asked, strong arms moving over his chest. “We just leave them and their food for the Evestani to take?”

Arkk shot the old orc a look. “We aren’t becoming raiders ourselves, if that is what you’re implying.”

Olatt’an held up his hands, shrugging. “I suppose one or two small villages won’t make a difference either way. But if they all reject your offer.”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens. I imagine the threat of certain death will convince most.”

“Fair enough. I’ll head back now then. Get the scryers working.”

Arkk dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Olatt’an trudged back through the forest toward the ritual circle that had brought them here. As he headed out, the two leaders of the expedition approached Arkk.

Claire barely spoke at the best of times. Her short brown hair bobbed with her movements, unkempt and uncared for as if she hacked it off at her shoulders with a rusty blade whenever it got too long, eying Arkk with her icy blue eyes. She paused before fully reaching Arkk, cleaning off her sword on the gambeson of a downed soldier.

Kia was the true leader of the group on account of her actually talking but she and Claire came as a unit. It was both of them or neither of them. The older dark elf had a mass of piercings in her ears, each gleaming in what little sun that managed to get through the branches of the forest.

“Area secure with only minor injuries sustained,” she said with a personable smile despite the slowly drying blood marring her face and blonde hair. “About three-quarters of the supplies survived and have been secured. The orcs are taking the wagons to the teleportation circle now.”

“Good,” Arkk said, clasping his hands together behind his back. “Have the wounded… Zullie is busy. Have them visit Hale. Minor injuries would be good for her to practice on.”

Kia nodded her head, sending her ponytail flipping back and forth. “If there is nothing else, I would like a bath,” she said, which earned a nod from Claire.

“Were there any issues working together with your team? Any tactical holes that you would like filled?” Arkk grimaced the moment the words left his mouth. He thanked the stars that Lexa wasn’t within earshot.

If either of the dark elves noticed or cared about his phrasing, they didn’t show it. Kia hummed, touching a dark fingernail to her chin. “The gorgon were a little sluggish—I think it’s the cold—but that wasn’t much of a problem. They petrified who I identified as the most troublesome opponents without issue.”

“Good. I expect you two to train with this team. Once I’ve got eyes on another supply caravan, you’ll be hitting it just like this.” With a wave of his hand and a muttered incantation, Arkk summoned a lesser servant.

Neither dark elf reacted to the unsightly monster appearing in their midst.

“You’ll be taking along one of these in future operations as well. I’ll make sure one waits in storeroom three for your team at all times. They won’t fight but they’ll eat all evidence left behind and destroy the ritual circles after you leave.”

“Stop by storeroom three for the slime monster before future operations,” Kia said, nodding her head. “Understood.”

“Excellent. Get your team back to the fortress.”

Kia saluted like she had been in a mercenary company for about thirty years. Which she had. Raven’s Claw company. Claire merely dipped her head in a barely-there acknowledgment.

Leaving them to their task, Arkk headed back first.

Of the four harpies rescued from the Duke’s manor, none were interested in joining Company Al-Mir. None were even interested in remaining at the fortress. Something about having been kept underground for far too long as it was and not wanting to spend another moment in yet another dungeon. Arkk offered a fistful of gold just for one of them to do a quick fly around in the Underworld and report back on their findings.

None had taken him up on the offer.

Arkk had taken them out to a random point via teleportation circle and let them go free. As much as he might want aerial scouts, he wasn’t going to force them into it.

He turned next to the fairies they had rescued. Unfortunately, he had learned that fairies did not so much as fly as they hovered. They didn’t mimic the swift, gliding flight that made harpies the ideal method of long-distance communication. Fairy flight needed the ground to push off. Once they got too high, they just couldn’t go any higher.

It would be little different than sending out a squad of orcs.

One fairy wanted to leave with the harpies. Two fairies joined up with him.

Given the supposed historical prowess for magic that fairies were said to possess, he had been interested in seeing whether the contract with Fortress Al-Mir revitalized that. The two fairies had been overjoyed, filled with awe and wonder, at their newfound ability to sling lightning bolts. Arkk found himself disappointed that, much like orcs or humans or any other who lacked the ability to cast magic on their own, the fairies wound up exhausted after a single spell, requiring several hours to get back in action.

The other rescues from the Duke’s manor weren’t all that notable. Most weren’t fighters and didn’t want to join the mercenary company. A few did join. Another gremlin, a few elves and one dark elf, a few orcs, and a handful of beastmen of varying species.

Arkk sat at his desk, poring over Company Al-Mir’s roster. Who would be best where? Some needed training. Who was best to do the training? Was it best to split up the demihumans and beastmen? Demihumans and humans could all benefit from a single instructor but beastmen often used their claws or even teeth as weapons in addition to daggers and swords—sometimes they were not able to hold weapons with the differences in hands.

Who could be cleared for guard duty in the Underworld? Who might be better used in the scrying team rotation? Which were magically adept enough to learn spells like Flesh Weaving? Did the strike team need additional members?

Did the food production need to be expanded again? Various wings of the fortress needed expanding. Some, such as the executive quarters, needed reorganization. There had been a minor altercation between some of the original raider orcs and some of the new hires. Did that need addressing or would they work out their issues on their own? Dakka advised toward the latter but…

There was much work to be done. Constantly.

Ilya was back and that was a great help. She, along with Katt’am, were managing all aspects of the refugees and other guests of Fortress Al-Mir, ensuring they had space, clothing, food, and other necessities. And ensuring no conflicts broke out.

Although she wasn’t part of Fortress Al-Mir, Alya had taken to assisting her daughter with the refugees. Arkk was somewhat surprised that elder elf hadn’t demanded to be released back into Cliff. Then again, with the Duke having thrown her into the dungeons, she was probably well aware that her time living there had passed. Whatever the case, Arkk was perfectly happy to have her off in the refugee section of the fortress. It was segmented heavily from the rest of the fortress and thus, he hardly ever crossed paths with the elf.

A light knock on his door had him setting his pen down. He didn’t need to use the link of the fortress to check on who stood on the other side. The light notes of the tapping had become quite familiar.

“Enter,” he called out.

Vezta stepped inside, demure and poised as always. “Message for you, Sir,” she said holding up a letter. With a movement of her fingers, she splayed out the letter to reveal a few more. “Several, in fact. John brought them back from Smilesville Burg.”

“Anything important?”

“One bearing the emblem of White Company. The Duke’s signet stamps another. The third looks like something from the Abbey of the Light,” she said, tone turning to distaste with that last admission.

Frowning, Arkk took the one with the Duke’s signet first, breaking the wax seal with a flick of his fingers. He unfolded the papers and quickly skimmed the text.

“A demand to appear before the Duke for trial and execution,” Arkk said, tossing it into the fire before he even finished reading.

“Trial and execution? Sounds as if there is little need for a trial.”

“Quite,” Arkk said, taking the letter from the Abbey. He expected it to be much the same as the first.

Sure enough, they were demanding absolution in a temple, containment of Vezta, and, following that, submission to the laws of the land under the Duke. Trial and execution, given the first letter. Shaking his head, Arkk almost threw it into the flames as well, only to pause as he noticed the signatory at the bottom.

Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox.

Arkk let out a small, depressed sigh. Had Vrox ended up agreeing with the rest of the Abbey? Arkk couldn’t really blame the man. Especially now that he knew the incident that had them up in arms was his fault. Still, he had hoped…

Skimming the letter again, Arkk’s train of thought stalled. “The word ‘trust’ appears eight times in a rather short letter,” he said slowly. “If I’ve decided to repent, I can turn myself in on the broken pier by the next full moon?”

“The next full moon is in two days.”

“When I met him in the tunnel, I told him to have all his suppositions and theories on the broken sky ready and for him to turn off his scrying protections so that we can read it. But we didn’t specify a location. I assumed we would be able to find him but…” Arkk placed the letter down on his desk. “Join the scrying team at nightfall every night until the full moon starts to wane. Check the broken pier in Cliff City for Vrox.”

“Is there a point?” Vezta asked, cocking her head to one side. “We already know what caused the disturbance.”

“Vrox can detect scrying, as evidenced by him waving at us before activating his protections the first time. He’ll know if we ignore him and I would prefer if he at least believes that we’re taking the threat to heart.”

“The Abbey are puppets of the Holy Light. They will be our enemies regardless of your relation with the inquisitor.”

“Having a man on the inside, helping us as much as he can, is valuable enough.”

“I see. Very well, Master,” Vezta said with a slight bow. “Perhaps we can find a suitable scapegoat to appease them for the time being.” Her lips curled back into a fairly vicious grin. “Wouldn’t it be amusing if we could somehow implicate the Golden Order in the incident?”

Arkk hummed, moving around his desk to dig out a fresh paper and a bottle of ink. “They don’t like each other already. From my understanding, the Abbey of the Light detests the Golden Order and vice-versa. It was one of the reasons for the previous war with Evestani. A whole war for just the two churches vying for dominance in the region. Which is a little odd given that the church in Langleey Village has the sigils of all three of the traitor gods on it.”

“Not so odd. I imagine they were united immediately after the Calamity, after their successful coup over the rest of the [PANTHEON]. But, in the years since, they may not have seen eye-to-eye. Resentment brewed. Disagreements turned hostile. They cannot act against one another directly so they use their pawns.”

Arkk only half-listened to Vezta as he scrawled out a short letter back to Vrox. One that essentially confirmed that he saw the location and, while he wouldn’t be able to show himself in person, he trusted that Vrox would do what he felt was necessary.

“Honestly,” he said as he finished up, “I think it would have saved the rest of us a lot of trouble if the gods just slugged it out between one another. Why drag everyone into it?”

“Not a wise action. The shattered sky—the shattered [STARS]—came about because of a disagreement in the [PANTHEON]. Or so I’ve gathered. It was well before my time. If they fought directly, there might not be a world left to fight over. They act through intermediaries specifically to avoid destroying more of reality.”

Arkk folded up the letter and poured a dribble of violet wax onto the surface, sealing it with the impossibly complex maze and compass rose that was Company Al-Mir’s insignia. “Alright, in that case, I take it back.” He paused, mind thrumming over possibilities. “If we were to somehow destroy all religion and evidence of them—likely an impossible task, but I’m just curious—what would the traitor gods do? They wouldn’t have anyone to carry out their will. Would they take action directly? Or would they just fade into irrelevance?”

Vezta shook her head, accepting the letter from Arkk. “Even if we were to do so, a mortal would eventually be born who aligned enough with one of them to become an avatar. At that point, they would begin to spread their influence again.”

“So they wouldn’t destroy the world. No, ‘if I can’t have it then no one can’?”

Vezta let out a small sigh. “Arkk. I don’t pretend to know the minds of incomprehensible beings. Anything is possible. And with the lengths that they went to in their betrayal of the rest, perhaps your scenario is more likely than my own.”

“I see. Well, I doubt it matters. Destroying knowledge of them to the point where there would be zero worshippers seems impossible without destroying the world anyway,” he said, shaking his head. “Have John get that on a Swiftwing back to Vrox… But hold a moment while I check Hawkwood’s letter.”

As Vezta nodded, Arkk broke the seal on the final letter. His eyes trailed down the page. Every line made the palms of his hands a little colder. Clammy.

“Golden magic broke the line Hawkwood and the Duke’s Grand Guard had been holding at Gleeful Burg. White Company in particular lost a full half of its army while the Grand Guard routed after a third perished.”

“Gleeful Burg?”

“Not as large as Elmshadow but it is one of the few large burgs left between Evestani and Cliff… Or Evestani and us.”

“So our strikes against their supplies?”

“Too little, too late. And now they’ve surely got their hands on Gleeful’s storehouses. Hawkwood burned Elmshadow’s before the retreat but was unable to do so at Gleeful.” Arkk clenched his hand into a fist, staring at the letter. Reading and rereading it.

He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

“If their pattern holds, they will spend a short time further securing the burg as their new forward operating base. They’ll launch minor attacks on smaller burgs in the area, both to gather food and to keep the defending armies on the back foot. With Hawkwood’s losses…”

He clenched his teeth, turning to the map on the wall of his office. Angry gold marks indicating the advance of Evestani covered more than half of it already. Zullie wasn’t ready to deal with the army. They needed those supply line strikes to slow down their advance enough to buy time to charge those glowstones. Otherwise, his plan would fail…

They needed more time.

As long as Evestani had food, they wouldn’t stop.

He had to get rid of their food. If not en route… then at the source.

“Get me Agnete.”

 

 

Arkk sat at the meeting table, fingers clasped together in front of his mouth while he looked around the room over the tops of his knuckles. It was a typical meeting. Vezta stood just behind him and Ilya had taken her usual seat to his right. They were joined by Zullie and Savren, Olatt’an and Rekk’ar, Khan, Lexa, and Alma—the latter being a new addition representing the majority of the beastmen.

Of the usual crew, Agnete was missing. She was recovering from the exposure to Vrox’s ice marble in her quarters.

Alya stood tall on the opposite side of the table from Arkk. She had been offered a seat but had chosen to stand instead. Like accepting the chair would be a sign of condoning this place.

Arkk took his eyes off Alya for a moment, looking at Ilya. “Is all that true?”

“I saw it with my own eyes. It was like the canyons out near Moonshine, except high in the sky, with jagged edges and stars shining down despite being in the middle of the day. And that…” Ilya shuddered. “I think it was an eye. I swear it stared directly at me.”

Arkk turned to his other side, raising an eyebrow at Vezta.

The servant shook her head. “There should be no reasonable way for anyone of this world to interact with the [STARS]. Even the [PANTHEON], even Xel’atriss has been unable to meaningfully interact with the realm above.”

Alya flinched at the use of the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE].

Arkk ignored the matriarch, turning back to Ilya as the younger elf began to speak again.

“I don’t think it was that. Like Mom said, the eye was massive. Larger than the moon. Those stars you described after possessing Vezta were tiny—or, at least, distant.”

“Possessing?” Alya all but whispered, eyes widening as she looked between Arkk and Vezta.

Arkk continued to ignore her, looking from Vezta to Zullie. “Could it have been Xel’atriss? Poking through?”

“It wasn’t designed to do anything like that,” Zullie said, sharing a look with Savren.

“Our ceremony, commandeered by a celestial, could create whatever causes it craved.”

Vezta nodded along with Savren’s words. “A god intervened in our ritual. The effects could have been anything.”

Arkk turned back to Ilya. “Seven days ago?”

“Yep,” Ilya said with a wan, I-told-you-so smile. “It was you, wasn’t it.”

Arkk closed his eyes and sighed. “I think I lied to Inquisitor Vrox,” he said, earning a small chuckle from Zullie. “Alright. How credible is his suggestion that the one who… broke the sky will end the world?”

“Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, may not be the most personable of the [PANTHEON],” Vezta said, sounding genuinely offended. “She would never seek harm. The Eternal Silence, the Red Horse, or the Laughing Prince, perhaps. Not Xel’atriss.”

“And you don’t intend to end the world,” Ilya said. She paused and looked to Arkk with a slight frown. “Right?”

“Of course I— Why do you sound so suspicious?”

Ilya reached over, nudging Arkk in the ribs with her elbow. “Teasing,” she said, silver eyes glinting with humor. That humor didn’t stick around for long. “Some of what my mother had to say does concern me, however.”

“Hold that thought for now,” Arkk said. “We’re not quite done with this apocalypse talk.” He turned back to Vezta, Savren, and Zullie. “The gods might be perfect and infallible,” he said, not quite sure if he believed that or not. He didn’t have enough experience. At least three of them seemed fairly fallible though, the three traitor gods. “We aren’t. How likely is it that we accidentally bring about the end of the world? That we already have by opening that portal.”

Zullie, Savren, and Vezta all looked at one another. Throughout the rest of the room, other glances went around. Rekk’ar leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. Lexa drummed her fingers on the table in a nervous tick. No one spoke. No one had an answer.

Alma flattened her ears against her head, sighing. “Why am I even here? I’m not a spellcaster or a cleric. I don’t have anything to contribute.”

The brilles over Khan’s eyes shifted, letting him look over to the shorter werecat. “Jusst ssleep,” he said as the odd scales around his eyes closed once again. “They’ll let you know when they want ssomething.”

Arkk gave the two a flat look, which Khan ignored but made Alma’s ears flatten down further. They were here to keep their respective groups informed of the goings on of the fortress. But Alma wasn’t wrong. This was a meeting for those magically inclined. Inviting everyone to every meeting was probably unnecessary.

Shaking his head, he looked back to the casters. “The main concern that I can see is the level of ambient magic in the Underworld.”

“We don’t know for certain whether the ambient magic is why that world is the way it is,” Zullie said. She motioned to herself and Savren. “We’re spell and ritual researchers, not a part of the magienvironmental corps. I can give you a few names of those at the academy who might be more knowledgeable about that kind of stuff. Doubt they’d be willing to join though.”

“Until we do get some experts, we’ll assume for now,” Arkk said. “We need to watch the portal, see if any magic is leaking over. If it isn’t, or it is at such a tiny rate that it will be a thousand years before it affects this world, we don’t need to worry about it in the short term.”

“And if it is something of immediate concern?”

Arkk pressed his lips together. “Let’s just find out if it is, first.”

Zullie nodded her head and looked at Savren. “I’m sure we can come up with some way to measure the effects of the portal on this world. We can set up a few monitoring wards. One right next to the portal, another further away. Maybe more dotted around the Duchy to see any far-reaching effects.”

“Make it happen.”

Rekk’ar leaned forward again, resting a fist on the table. “This doesn’t solve the issue of the armies bearing down on us. Again, we’re focused too much on your little portals and not enough on the people trying to kill us all.”

Arkk interlaced his fingers, staring at Rekk’ar as his mind churned.

“Our situation is worse now,” Rekk’ar continued, taking the attention as an invitation to speak his mind. “If your friend inquisitor was right, the Abbey is going to try to get the Duke to stand down and turn his blades on you. After burning down his manor, he might even be happy to do it.”

“Suggestions?” Arkk asked.

Rekk’ar thumped his fist against the table. Not angrily. It was a rhythmic, pensive thumping as he considered. As he thought, Arkk turned to the rest of the room.

“Kill ’em all first,” Lexa said with a casual shrug. “You already invaded the Duke’s manor. Just go back and finish the job.”

Alya sucked in a breath, eyes wide at the gremlin’s suggestion. “You would lop off the head of our armies in the middle of war?”

“They aren’t our armies,” Lexa shot back, glaring up at the tall elf. “Like the orc said, might not be a war if they join up with the enemy. I admit, I’m not a big war person. Just a humble thief.” She pulled out a dagger from somewhere inside her jacket and started trimming one of her fingernails with it. “But when a few thieves have a little turf war, taking out the leaders is a perfectly valid tactic. Force the rest of the group into your own.”

“I doubt the Duke’s Grand Guard would be all that happy to join us after killing the Duke,” Ilya said with no small amount of sarcasm in her tone.

“What about the Evestani?” Olatt’an asked. As everyone’s heads turned to him, he sat up straighter, looking less like the lax old orc and more like a proper warrior. “I imagine the Duke is furiously consulting with the entire academy and the inquisitors to make sure you can’t attack his manor in the same way again. But the Evestani likely lacks such foresight or protections. Can we tear their throats out? Maybe absorb their armies if they were forced into it.”

“The golden-eyed boy is a concern,” Arkk said with a frown. “As long as that thing is driving the army forward, I doubt they’ll stop even if we somehow manage to blow up the entirety of Evestani’s leaders.”

“The Heart of Gold’s avatar,” Vezta said, “is likely the cause for this war. At the party, you may recall that it saw me and had a reaction to me. While it was clearly planning the war in advance, now that it knows for sure, I doubt it will stop unless we kill it or it destroys us.”

“It’s already demonstrated an ability to possess others at a distance. Unless we figure out where it truly is, killing it permanently might be impossible.”

Rekk’ar let out a low chuckle, shaking his head slowly. “All this talk of gods and leaders and avatars. You all are missing the forest for the trees. You don’t need to kill an unkillable avatar to stop the army.” He splayed out his hand on the table, five fingers sliding forward slowly. Bringing over his other hand, he slid a single finger toward the five. He clenched that one finger into his fist and the five, slowly advancing fingers came to a stop. “An army, even a magically enhanced one, marches on its stomach. If the stomachs are empty, the march stops.

“Every burg they’ve captured acts as a storehouse and a waystation, but the army hasn’t spent time reinforcing or defending those points with their hasty advance.”

“Destroy or capture the supplies and they’ll have nothing,” Arkk said, nodding his head.

“And with Evestani’s army starving to death, the Duchy can clean them up. Unless they join forces, in which case we destroy the Duchy’s supply lines. Our magic lets us move with impunity. We can strike anywhere, any time.”

Arkk nodded his head. That was a much better plan than standing around in Elmshadow waiting for an assault of thousands. Supply caravans would be defended, of that Arkk had no doubt, but Company Al-Mir had ample experience in fighting down moderate groups of armed opponents.

“Draw up plans,” Arkk said, looking between Rekk’ar and Olatt’an. “Get into contact with Hawkwood—preferably before word of the Duke’s incident reaches him—and find out the best places to strike. He’ll know better than us. We can scry locations and send out strike teams.” He waited a moment, looking around the group. “Any other pressing matters? No? Zullie, Savren, get on those rituals. Rekk’ar, Olatt’an, get planning for attacks. Everyone else is dismissed except Ilya and Alya.”

Arkk watched the room disperse. The two orcs walked out, quietly talking to one another. Lexa hopped up and headed out with them, trying to interject in their conversation. Khan uncoiled from his stone and slithered out, barely opening his eyes in the process. Alma practically fled.

No. She did flee.

She was generally well regarded among the beastmen, having been known to most before Arkk’s recruitment in Cliff City. Unfortunately, she had the assertiveness of a skittish flopkin. It wasn’t just this meeting. Every meeting since he had decided to include her had gone something like this. Which was probably Arkk’s fault for threatening her with Vezta upon their first meeting. Even now, she wouldn’t so much as glance in Vezta’s direction if she could help it.

He would probably need to find someone else to fill that position. Perhaps someone from the manor’s dungeons?

He needed to deal with that too. Some—most, probably—would join with the refugees in the far wing of the fortress. Some would join up. Kelsey, the ox beastman, was interviewing them at the moment, checking in on each. Arkk still needed to personally see to at least those who wanted to join Company Al-Mir.

And then he needed to gather everyone except the essential guards for an announcement.

He had done it. The Duke was his enemy. Officially. Even if the Duke kept his focus on Evestani for the moment, Company Al-Mir were sure to be branded outlaws. Responsible for those under his banner, Arkk couldn’t leave them ignorant. Some would surely desert. It was some small comfort that the fortress was underground. Nobody would be able to point out where he was located if he dropped them off via teleport rituals near Cliff City.

The false fortress was still in place and open to the surface. Arkk hadn’t touched it since the inquisitors romped through it. If he were Vrox—or Sylvara or any other inquisitor—Arkk’s first step would be to return and see if there were any clues left behind that might let them find him. Assuming they didn’t know that he hadn’t left in the first place.

The door slammed shut, leaving Arkk with a pair of elves and one ancient monster.

“So,” he said, looking from Ilya to Alya and back.

Getting back to the fortress had taken some time with how many people they had to move through each teleport circle. Arkk had already done some casual catching up. Ilya was… not exactly healed completely. The Flesh Weaving had done a number on her, though it saved her life, and left her with a tension in most of her stomach and chest that just wouldn’t go away.

He would have to send her to Zullie later. The witch was more skilled with the spell than Arkk was. She might be able to repair or at least alleviate the problem.

“You ventured into the Cursed Forest,” Alya said, tone barely concealing her anger. “Ilya told me. You found…” Her silver eyes flicked over to where Vezta had stood during the meeting.

Arkk couldn’t help narrowing his eyes at the judgment in her voice. “You took me in when my parents died. Thank you for that. But that was fifteen years ago. You have no right to come back and—”

“Arkk—” Ilya started.

Her mother cut her off. “Levi took me as tribute,” she hissed. “Paraded me around in front of anyone he wanted to impress like I was a piece of fine artwork.”

Arkk rolled his eyes, not sure if she was complaining or just complimenting herself. “Yes, you sure looked upset at the party. Vizier. Be honest now, how much trouble would it have been to leave him if you wanted?”

“It isn’t that simple,” she said, shaking her head. “I couldn’t leave. I had responsibilities. Levi began confiding in me early on and grew to trust my opinions. I tempered his worst traits, pulled strings behind the scenes, encouraged meetings between the Duchy and Evestani and even the Tetrarchy.”

Arkk stood, slamming his palms against the table. “When you were off playing politics, did you even once think of us? Of Ilya? I remember, after you were taken, we cried ourselves to sleep for weeks.”

“Arkk…” Ilya said, resting a hand on his arm.

“I lost my parents. And then I lost you. And Ilya…” Arkk clenched his teeth together. “I remember being curled up in bed with Ilya one night. We promised that one day… One day, we would go to the capital city, break into the Duke’s dungeons, and rescue you from his cruelty.” Arkk let out a low, sardonic laugh. “Guess I fulfilled that promise, didn’t I?”

Alya crossed her arms, face stony. “With the aid of abominations and anathema magic.”

“Not even a thank you? It isn’t too late to put you back, you know. We could teleport you right onto the Duke’s drawbridge and I’m sure you’d be back in your cushy cell in minutes.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Ilya said, pulling Arkk back from the table. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and wrapped him in a tight embrace. “It’s alright,” she whispered into his ear. For a long moment, Arkk just stood, leaning into Ilya’s arms. It relaxed him more than he could say.

Everything had been so stressful lately. The war and the portal and the golden-eyed child and…

“Thanks,” he whispered back, feeling all that stress melt away. It wouldn’t last forever. Even now, as he pulled out of the hug, he could feel it returning. Still, that moment of reprieve was worth both their weights in gold.

“Mom and I talked,” Ilya said, running her fingers through her silver hair. “I… We still have things to work out. But she does have information on… this place.”

Arkk couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Anathema, abominations, apocalypse, and horrors from beyond the stars. Yes, yes. I’ve heard it all from Master Inquisitor Vrox. As you heard in the meeting, I’m taking the possibility of apocalypse quite seriously. But most of everything is nonsense spoken from a position of ignorance.”

“Position of ignorance?” Alya said, judgment back in her tone in full force. “You, being led astray by that creature makes you more ignorant than most.”

“Oh yes, because you know anything more than the one doing it all,” Arkk said with a sneer. “That unnatural moon in the broken sky? I’m pretty sure that was the literal god I was speaking with at the time. I had a nice sit-down and cup of tea with a being larger than this plane. I think I’m more qualified than most to know what I’m talking about.

“You, on the other hand, are running off… What? Thousand-year-old prophecies?” Arkk said, shaking his head. “Prophecies likely handed out by the ones responsible for the sorry state of the world.”

“Sorry state?”

“Fairies can’t use magic when they used to be one of the most magical beings alive. Dragons and their relatives can’t procreate. Dwarves and hundreds of other magic-dependent species have gone extinct. Magic itself is likely dying and…” Arkk stopped himself and looked to Ilya. “Ilya knows what we’re working toward. If she hasn’t told you yet, she’s welcome to. I, however, am not particularly interested in what you have to say nor am I interested in explaining myself to you any further. I have administrative duties to attend to.

“Ilya can show you to the canteen and I have prepared a room for you next to the rooms Yavin and Nyala are staying in. A proper room, not a dungeon cell. There is a tailor if you need additions to your wardrobe and…” Arkk shook his head, stopping himself before he explained everything away. “Ilya knows where everything is.”

“What are you going to do?” Ilya asked.

“Meet with those we rescued from the Duke’s manor. Let people know that the Duke hates us. Then…” Arkk looked to Ilya, raising an eyebrow. “How would you like to see an entirely new world?”

Ilya sucked in a breath. “I gathered from the meeting but… you got it working?”

“The world isn’t quite what we hoped, but it is different.”

Pressing her lips together, Ilya glanced at her mother. Although she got a disapproving look in return, she still turned back to Arkk with a nod of her head.

“Excellent. I’ll come find you once I’m finished.”

 

 

“You have two options,” Arkk said, addressing the assorted demihumans and beastmen. And two humans. “You go with me or you stay and hope the Duke is in a good mood. After I burned down his ballroom and half the rest of the manor, I doubt he is in that good of a mood.”

He stood in the so-called menagerie with Vezta at his side while Agnete worked her magic at the far end of the corridor. The hall had no appreciable differences from that of the dungeon. It was a cramped corridor with doors on either side leading to small, cell-like rooms, each with a bucket and a mat of straw. The doors locked from the outside and…

Well, if it wasn’t meant to be a prison, it certainly wasn’t a very good attempt.

“I know none of you know me and that might make the decision difficult. Know that you’ll, at the very least be treated like people rather than cattle.” He paused for effect, looking over the crowd of people. It wasn’t the best place for giving a speech. Too narrow, too long. He wasn’t even sure if people toward the stairwell could even hear him properly. “If you wish to take that chance, remain here. Otherwise… I imagine you will find greater leniency if you sit quietly in one of the dungeon cells.”

Arkk waited a moment.

Not one of those present moved toward the door. That, he felt, was telling.

He did, however, note more than a few shooting glances toward the tall elf standing well away from him. Alya hadn’t yet had a chance to yell at him for whatever she thought he had done. The second Vezta walked back into the dungeon, Alya had clammed up. Even now, she was staring at the servant with a look of horror on her face. Arkk was fairly certain that the only reason she hadn’t fled was Ilya at her side, holding tight to her arm.

Well, Ilya and the fact that the way out of the dungeons had been sealed. Arkk guessed that the Duke was barricading the place until he felt he had enough men on the other side to take on Agnete. Or the assistance of the Abbey.

He wasn’t going to get the chance to try.

The heat at Arkk’s back faded, leading to him turning. “Enchantments removed,” Agnete said as she stepped away from the far wall, voice unusually breathy. She was enjoying flexing her powers, although this time, she was being far more careful.

In the ballroom earlier, she had burned through the stone all on her own with no aid from Vezta or a lesser servant. Here and now, she had to keep things toned down to avoid incinerating everyone in the cramped hallway.

“Good. I know it isn’t your forte… if you could cool the wall down as much as possible, that would help speed things up. The lesser servant is eating the stone properly from the other side, but the heat…”

Agnete turned back to the wall. Once made of large brickwork, it was now little more than molten slag. The entire corridor felt like sitting next to an open bonfire on an already hot and windless summer day. Once again, Arkk was regretting leaving the marble behind. Not because he needed to use it against Agnete. Simply because having it in his pocket would keep the sweat from running down the side of his face.

He couldn’t imagine how the two werecats in the room were feeling. Then again, perhaps their thick fur helped insulate them from the heat.

Closing her soot-covered eyes, Agnete drew in a deep breath just like she had done at the war council. The heat in the room immediately took a dip and the glow from the mushy brickwork faded. The scars lining Agnete’s face took on the glow in its place and the heat around her jumped. Overall, the temperature wasn’t quite as bad as before.

More than that, the lesser servant was somewhat less hesitant to eat through the stone. It could handle a bit of heat. Just not literal lava.

“We’re burrowing a tunnel into the dungeons,” Arkk explained as the lesser servant ate around a few warm spots, letting them cool while still making progress. “Once outside the manor’s wards, we will be using a ritual circle to transport everyone well out of the city. It is quite a simple process. You step into the ritual circle and one of us activates it. You’ll reappear elsewhere. We need to go quickly. I’ve no doubt the Duke is furiously scratching his head, trying to come up with ways to make all our lives more miserable.”

As he finished speaking, the smooth, near-glassy surface of the former brickwork cracked and broke. As soon as it started crumbling, Arkk directed the lesser servant away. It scurried back down the tunnel and the burrowed inside the ground. No need to frighten anyone any further.

Alya might just have a heart attack.

“Vezta, take the lead. Get through the portal and make enough room on the other side for this group.”

“Understood,” she said, bowing before turning and descending the melted slope of stone into the darkness. Her burning suns remained visible even as the rest of her ended up cloaked in shadow.

“Agnete, head up the rear. Unless someone decides to stay behind, feel free to leave a… parting gift.”

Without a word, Agnete nodded her head. Despite the cramped space, everyone found a way to give the purifier plenty of room as she strode through. No one wanted to touch someone who had just melted through solid brickwork. Especially not when her feet were leaving bright red marks in her wake.

“Everyone else, come quickly and mind your footing. The tunnel will slope downward in about a hundred paces and slope back upward a short distance beyond that.” He turned, looked to Ilya, and held out a hand.

Although she took hold of his offered hand, she pursed her lips in a way Arkk was quite familiar with, having seen the same reaction more times than he could count. A mixture of disappointment, exasperation, and just a pinch of relief. The disappointment faded as she laced her fingers with his, only to return in force when she practically had to drag her mother forward. At least it wasn’t directed at him now.

“Not quite the rescue you were hoping for?” Arkk asked as they stepped into the tunnel. An uttered spell, learned from Zullie, brought a mote of light to his fingertips, letting him lead the way.

He didn’t bother checking to see if the rest of the captives were following. If they didn’t want to come, that was their problem. Arkk wasn’t going to force them.

“Not exactly,” she whispered back. “To be honest, I didn’t expect to see you for weeks at least. The last report I heard was that you were fighting alongside Hawkwood.”

“How did you go from getting war reports to being locked up?” Arkk looked to his side, frowning while trying to keep a sneer off his face. “And the Grand Vizier as well.”

“Arkk,” Ilya admonished.

“I don’t…” Alya started, sounding… confused. Lost? Uncertain. “I don’t even know where to begin. The things Ilya has told me. And then the sky…”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. “Sky?”

Ilya took a breath and let it out in a clipped sigh. “Long story short, when the sky broke, we decided to go to the Fortress. I’ve been sitting on my ass long enough. I’m healed enough,” she said quickly, like she thought he might tell her to go take a seat and rest up some more. “We barely made it five steps when Woldair noticed our intent to leave. He took it a bit personally,” Ilya said with a glare at her mother.

“And locked you up,” Arkk finished.

“The Duke hasn’t been happy with her since the party. Maybe even before that.”

“Levi has been under great stress,” Alya started, only for Ilya to let go of Arkk’s hand and whirl on her.

“Don’t even defend him. He threw us in the dungeons!”

“Not a defense,” Alya said, sorrow lining her features. “Just an explanation. He saw what we were doing as a betrayal.”

“Betrayal? You, maybe. I’m not some trusted servant or retainer. He had no right—”

“You were here at my request. For healing.”

“That doesn’t mean he could throw me into prison,” Ilya snapped back “Throw me out of the manor, sure.”

“He saw you as an extension of me. Knowing that Arkk was in possession of a dangerous artifact in the Cursed Forest, he likely—and correctly—concluded that you would know something.”

“Why would he know…” Ilya trailed off, eyes narrowing in hostile danger. “You told him. You told him what I told you, didn’t you? I can’t even… believe you.”

“Don’t judge me, daughter. You don’t know what I went through—”

“Oh yeah. How tragic, living the high life. Probably jumped at the opportunity to ditch our miserable little village.”

Alya clutched a hand to her chest. “You weren’t alive when the last war ended thirty years ago. You don’t know what it was like. A religious war of fanatics against fanatics. The Abbey of the Light and the Golden Order using the common people as pawns to try to wipe each other out. I saw an opportunity to help prevent another war from rising and I took it at cost.”

“Well good job with that!” Ilya snapped.

Arkk wisely kept his mouth shut during their argument. He had left Ilya in her mother’s care weeks ago and yet it was clear that they still had a few things to work out. Not that Arkk blamed Ilya for that. He more than agreed with her. Alya up and leaving without so much as sending a letter back home had him clenching his fists.

Thankfully, neither spoke again, both fuming after their argument.

He let things cool down for a moment before, as neutrally as possible, asking, “What happened to the sky? It broke?”

Both elves whipped their heads to him. For a moment, he thought he was going to get both shouting at him. Instead, their silver eyes held nothing but confusion.

“You don’t know?” Ilya asked first.

“Know… what? Last I saw, the sky was… the sky? Didn’t notice anything off about it.” He tried an easy chuckle, hoping to defuse some of the remaining tension. “Don’t see much sky in Fortress Al-Mir,” he said as a joke.

“I thought for sure it was something you had done,” Ilya said with genuine confusion. “Undoing the Calamity or something.”

“We did do the ritual, but…” He trailed off, frowning as he felt a link wink out of existence. “Hold the thought. The lesser servant just died.”

Ilya tensed, looking around the tunnel. Her fingers twitched like she wished she had her bow. “How? Where?”

“I don’t know how, I wasn’t paying attention to it. It died too quickly for it to throw out a warning over the link. But it was going to collapse the tunnel behind us so that none of the Duke’s men would follow.”

“Great. We’re being followed?”

“Agnete is fine,” he said, checking up on the purifier through the link. “Nothing is attacking her yet. Vezta is already through the teleportation circle, widening the cavern at the other end for our group. You’re the only one who knows how they work. Get everyone through. I’ll head back and help hold off any attackers with Agnete.”

“Will she even need help? An enclosed space like this…”

“Better safe than sorry.” Arkk leaned in, pulling Ilya into another hug. “We’ll talk back at the fortress. Sorry for leaving you behind. I won’t do it again.”

“You better not.”

Arkk fell back, letting Ilya and Alya go on ahead. Turning, he squeezed past the train of captives. There were around fifty in total. Maybe just shy of that number. “Follow the elves,” he said as he made his way back. “The shorter of the two knows where to go.”

They didn’t part ways for Arkk quite as well as they had made way for Agnete back in the dungeons. To be fair, they tried. Just because he wasn’t offloading a furnace of heat didn’t mean they wanted to get too close to the guy with glowing eyes. It was just that the tunnel wasn’t meant for groups of people. It had been constructed to quickly escape the Duke’s manor, not to live in.

When he got to the rear, Agnete turned to him with a single raised eyebrow.

“The lesser servant was killed just as it started collapsing the tunnel. We might have incoming.”

“Died from flames?” she asked. “I did set the entire menagerie aflame as we were departing.”

“I suppose that is possible. It may have even been crushed—although, that would be odd. I’ve collapsed a lot of tunnels and no other lesser servant died in the process.”

“Better prepared than unprepared,” she said, raising an arm. The flames barely contained within the scars on her skin surged forth and flooded the tunnel behind the group.

Arkk shied away, raising an arm to shield his face. Even though Agnete was several paces behind the last of the group, he still heard a yelp of surprise. Some urgent whispers followed and, with no small amount of shoving, the group hurried on. Or at least compressed.

There was nothing a normal fire would burn inside the tunnel. No wood or tallow. Just rock and stone. That didn’t stop Agnete’s flames. They burned everything. The stone, the dirt, even the moisture in the air that had likely seeped through from the moat around the Duke’s manor.

The fact that he could feel the humidity dry up meant that this tunnel probably wasn’t as safe as it should be. It was a good thing they wouldn’t have to use it again.

If they did need to get into the manor through tunnels again, he would start fresh. And likely deeper in the ground.

Agnete let the flames around her die out while keeping the tunnel alight. They were at the lowest point in the tunnel right now, directly beneath the moat. Arkk had to hope that the structural integrity would hold for ten more minutes.

“If there are pursuers,” Agnete said, “they’ll have a hard time reaching us—”

A rush of cold air blew through the narrow tunnel, coating the walls in frost. The flames snuffed out in an instant and the heat died. Agnete sucked in a sharp breath, hands clamping to her arms as she wrapped herself up like she was trying to ward off the cold. She opened her mouth, trying to speak, but her voice caught in her throat.

The cold sent a shiver up Arkk’s spine but didn’t incapacitate him as it did Agnete. He narrowed his eyes, looking into the dark of the tunnel. With the slope, he couldn’t see far. He didn’t need to see the source. He had seen this before.

He had used this before.

“Inquisitors,” Arkk said with a scowl.

Agnete managed to nod her head.

“Go. Hurry. I can’t have you dropping into the fetal position now.”

Her voice croaked as she forced words out of her throat. “I can fight—”

“Against one of those ice marbles?”

Her jaw clamped shut. The burning light in the scars on her skin and even the embers in her eyes were dimmer than usual. Dimmer than Arkk could remember having seen before.

“Go,” he said again. “I’m not helpless. Slave Natum.”

With the uttered incantation, a trio of lesser servants popped into the tunnel. They immediately burrowed into the floor. With the moat overhead, it was too risky to try to collapse the tunnel. An accident here could see everyone in the tunnel drowned or simply crushed by the water.

Agnete backed up, leaving Arkk alone. She couldn’t go far with the crowd and narrow tunnel but she was at least less likely to get caught up by the chill from one of those ice marbles.

As the lesser servants worked to dig deeper, Arkk pulled out the metal rod and quickly inscribed a ritual circle on the wall and another on the floor.

Blue-white light gained prominence at the other end of the sloped tunnel. Arkk finished the second ritual circle just as the black boot came into view, followed quickly by a cane tapping against the ground.

“Master Inquisitor,” Arkk called as the man came into full view. “Been a while. How’ve you been?”

Darius Vrox came to a stop at the lowest point of the tunnel. In one hand, he held onto a cane. A different model than the one Arkk had seen him with previously. This time, it was smooth black wood—maybe even from from Darkwood Burg—topped with a silver handle and a light blue glowstone. Its appearance had Arkk wary; the staff used in Zullie’s demonstration of her projectile shield had looked quite similar, if a little rougher.

In his other hand, an icy blue marble hovered just above his palm. Despite Arkk’s best attempts, he had never managed to make his float like that. It would have been nice given that contact with skin was rather painful.

The man was alone, thankfully. Arkk wasn’t sure that he would have been able to handle Chronicler Greesom if the man had used that attack-reflecting shield.

“Arkk,” Vrox said, no hint of his usual smile on his face or in his tone. “What do you think you’re doing, betraying the trust I had in you like this?”

“When we last parted, I gave you a message to pass on to someone important to me. Imagine my surprise when I find the Duke has thrown her into the dungeons.”

A flash of irritation crossed Vrox’s face. That had been news to him. He quickly schooled his expression. “Then you should have come to me. We could have figured something out.”

“I’ll be honest, the option did not so much as cross my mind.” He gave a casual shrug, trying to avoid showing the tension he felt all up his back. “Besides, I wouldn’t suffer Ilya’s imprisonment a second longer. Meetings and negotiations would have taken far too long. And I doubt the Duke would have released her anyway.”

“You…” Vrox clenched his teeth. “You don’t get to walk away from this, Arkk.”

“Oh? Try me.” Arkk forced a smile of his own. “When you head back with your tail between your legs, you can tell the Duke to go thank the Evestani. Were it not for this war, he would not have survived our encounter.”

“You can tell him yourself. Submit, Arkk. You don’t win here.”

Arkk slammed his hand against the wall, flooding the ritual circle with magic. A deep violet glow spread around the hastily carved ring.

The ground shuddered under Vrox’s feet. Were it not for his cane, he might have fallen.

“Do you know what is directly above us?” Arkk asked. “Why this tunnel slopes so deep into the ground?”

Vrox glared from behind his glasses as he took on a wary stance. His eyes roamed from the magic circle on the wall to the ceiling of the tunnel. Arkk could see the exact moment Vrox realized what he was implying. The man’s eyes widened and he even took a full step backward.

“You wouldn’t.”

“You’ve seen me teleport without aid before, Vrox. I did it right in front of your face in Langleey then again when we fought in my old headquarters. Right in the middle of combat. This tunnel exists to escape from the wards around the Duke’s manor and, guess what? I’m on the far side of the moat here.” Arkk swept his foot forward, placing it in the other ritual circle he had drawn.

Another violet circle lit up brighter than the one on the wall. With it, another tremble rocked the ground underneath Vrox’s feet. Even though the ground shook, he shot a fearful look at the tunnel’s ceiling.

“I can escape a torrent of water. How do you think you’ll fare?”

The ice marble bobbed up and down above Vrox’s upturned hand. He was probably wondering if he could freeze all that water at once. Arkk… wasn’t sure. He hadn’t exactly undertaken many experiments with his marble.

Perhaps he should. It was a tool more useful than just as a restraining device for Agnete.

He quickly checked on Ilya and Agnete, the only two employees he had in this tunnel. The former was at the ritual circle and was already helping people teleport through. Transporting large amounts of people was exhausting work and it showed on her face, nevertheless, she kept up a determination worthy of praise as she teleported one person after another. Her mother watched at her side with disapproval riddled over her features. Agnete, at the back of the group and looking better now that she was away from the cold, could help him measure how many more people had to go through the circle.

Arkk had to delay a little longer.

“Back away, Vrox. I don’t actually wish to kill you,” Arkk said, honestly. Maybe it was a bit strange but Arkk didn’t see Vrox as a proper enemy. Not like the one who fired off those rays of gold. “Turn around and make your report. We got away despite your best attempts.”

Vrox clenched his teeth. The step forward was a surprise.

Was he calling Arkk’s bluff?

Arkk hoped not. The bluff was all he had.

Neither ritual circle did anything. There hadn’t been any time to scribe out a true circle. They were just enough to glow.

The ground shaking was thanks to the lesser servants directly beneath Vrox.

But instead of raising his weapon in an attack, Vrox’s fingers just tightened around his cane. “The sky,” he said with all the seriousness of a man delivering news of a deceased soldier to a widow. “Was that you?”

Arkk blinked. “That is the second time someone has asked me that question. I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. The sky… broke? Or something? I haven’t noticed anything like that.”

“Impossible.”

“Ever since you invaded my fortress, I’ve been having to do a lot of construction,” Arkk said. Might as well use the chance to further that lie he had crafted. “Our current home is underground as the one you invaded was. Not a lot of opportunity for cloud watching while underground.”

Vrox stared for a long moment. Even from the distance they were at, Arkk could still see his eyes daring back and forth as if he could spot Arkk’s lie. But Arkk hadn’t lied about anything.

“You don’t know,” Vrox said, speaking as if the answer surprised him even though he was the one who said it. “You genuinely don’t know. That’s…” He clenched his teeth. “The rest of the Abbey is under the impression that you and your horror from beyond the stars are at fault. They’re considering betraying the Duchy and the greater Kingdom of Chernlock, throwing in with the Golden Order to exterminate you. This stunt you’ve pulled will not endear them to you any further.”

Arkk blinked. Then blinked again. “That… How could they do that? What of all the priests and abbesses providing healing and miracle support to the army?”

“Recalled. Assuming the pontiff cannot convince the Duke to align with Evestani and hunt you down as well.”

Arkk swore under his breath. “Wh… Convince them not to!”

“I’ve presented my testimony and analysis of your character. I already spoke in your defense—you aren’t the type to harm the everyman, thus you wouldn’t be trying to bring about the apocalypse.”

“Apocalypse? What happened?”

“The sky broke,” Vrox said, turning his head upward as if he could see through the stone and water. “And if you truly are not the culprit, the real villain will be free to act with impunity while two religious orders and their respective countries assail you.”

“I… damn.”

“Damn. Yeah. That’s putting it lightly.”

Arkk tossed a glare. “And what do you suggest? You aren’t telling me this for fun.”

“Submit,” Vrox said. He gestured around the tunnel with his cane. “With this disaster, my testimony of your character will be called into question and thus remove one of the last voices against turning the full might of the Abbey against you. If you come into custody, it may be our only option to allow the Abbey to continue searching for the true culprit.”

“Or they’ll stop searching entirely, thinking that they already have the culprit in hand.” Arkk shook his head. “And they would likely force me to hand over Vezta. I won’t.”

“Arkk, see reason—”

Arkk placed his free hand on the wall opposite from the already glowing ritual circle. There was nothing inscribed there. There hadn’t been time before Vrox appeared. That didn’t stop the sudden tension in Vrox’s shoulders as he stared at Arkk’s hand.

“Turn around and leave,” Arkk said. “I would rather not kill you.”

“Arkk… Please. I am limited in my options.”

“Do what you must. Follow the Abbey’s edicts if you have to. But…” Arkk hummed. “If you want to help, find a place on your own and drop your scrying protections. Let’s say nightfall on the next full moon. Have a paper written out with all your suspicions and theories on who this culprit might be or just what happened. Then I can search on my own.”

“To what end? That won’t stop the Abbey’s decision on you.”

“If I deliver the culprit to your hands, the true culprit, that exonerates me, does it not? I have resources you don’t. I can search with freedom. Vezta might even know something that could help locate this culprit.”

“That won’t satisfy them in the short term.” Vrox paused then frowned.

“Then I’ll just have to search quickly.”

Vrox swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. “This is a dangerous game.”

“No more dangerous than your options. But less dangerous to me personally.”

Vrox opened his eyes and lifted his cane. Arkk tensed, only to frown as Vrox simply turned around. The inquisitor didn’t speak. He simply walked away.

Arkk waited a long moment until the last of that blue light faded around the curved tunnel. Only then did he remove his hands and foot from the ritual circles he had drawn.

He turned and sprinted down the thankfully emptied tunnel, heading for the ritual circle.

The lesser servants immediately started eating into the walls and ceiling at that lowest point of the tunnel. He couldn’t risk Vrox changing his mind. Agnete, with a flame providing light, stood alongside Ilya and Alya around the teleportation circle. The only three left in the tunnel.

“Go!” Arkk shouted. “Quickly. Alya first!”

“Arkk, I—”

Something broke behind him. Two of the three lesser servants died. This time, having been paying attention, he knew it was because of the water.

“No time,” Arkk shouted back as the sound of rushing water and crumbling stone threatened to drown out his voice.

And drown him.

Agnete, quick on the ball, snuffed out the flame and practically threw Alya into the ritual circle. She vanished the second she was fully inside it.

“Vezta pulled her out of the endpoint,” Arkk shouted. Vezta had been doing that for each of the people, making sure none were in the way of any follow-up teleports. “Go!”

Agnete didn’t hesitate, stepping into the teleport circle next. She vanished and Ilya took her place, quickly vanishing as well.

Arkk jumped onto the ritual circle, activating it the second he saw Ilya step out on the other end.

An ankle-deep slurry of water spread out into the newly expanded waystation chamber, flooding over the other ritual circles in the room. One circle would lead near the academy, another near the Cliff’s Edge stayover. Arkk had half a mind to destroy both, just in case. But not until Zullie made it back from her academy run.

With all the commotion at the Duke’s manor, she should have an easy time of it.

“Everything going alright?” Vezta asked, tilting her head as she looked at the thin layer of water on the floor.

“Get everyone back to the fortress,” Arkk said, slowly turning to Alya and Ilya. “Then we’re going to talk about this sky thing.”

 

 

The Duke’s throne room had recovered in the weeks since the attack on the party.

Arkk wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not. Even with all the death and destruction ravaging the Duchy as a result of the war, the Duke still found the time, resources, and manpower to remove all evidence of the attack. The floor gleamed with fresh polish. The tiles and brickwork which had been destroyed in the explosions had either been repaired or replaced. Even the chandeliers were back up, though the glowstones were perhaps not quite as bright as they had been.

If the meeting taking place had looked anything like the party Arkk had attended, he would have been tempted to take several steps back and let Agnete sweep her flames through the entire hall.

Instead, it looked as if he had intruded upon a war council. A massive table had been set out, filling much of the floor space of the throne room. People lined its sides. Though many chairs had fallen and the people had backed away upon Arkk’s entrance, they hadn’t yet fled from the room. At least, most of them hadn’t.

Some, the more militaristic of the gathering, had even drawn weapons, though they hadn’t advanced into the inferno.

Arkk could think of several reasons why the council would be held here instead of at the garrison. Aside from the Duke’s vanity, much like the Abbey’s churches the manor could not be scried upon, its walls were reinforced to the point where even servants couldn’t eat through them, and it did serve as the heart of the Duchy.

Much as he might wish to lop off the head of the Duchy, it wasn’t a wise idea at the moment. Not in the middle of a war. He had to grit his teeth and bear with it. In the future… Well, they knew they could get inside. Perhaps the inquisitors would come up with countermeasures for Agnete. Perhaps not. That was something to worry about in the future.

For now, they stopped advancing into the room, leaving a short space between them and the table. Arkk motioned to his side.

Agnete did not obey immediately. From speaking with the former purifier, he well knew that flames affected her. In the company of the inquisitors, she had exceedingly little control and frequently lashed out at Vrox and anyone else nearby. Especially when they tried to dampen her flames. Since employing her—contracting her to the [HEART]—that side effect of her abilities hadn’t affected her quite so much. Arkk wasn’t sure if it was a mechanic of the betrayal mechanism that wouldn’t let anyone attack him without first breaking that link or if it was that the [HEART] stemmed from the same source as her powers. The [PANTHEON].

Closing her eyes, Agnete drew in a deep breath. With it, she took in much of the ambient heat.

Which Arkk appreciated. He was sweating buckets and not just because they were barging their way into the Duke’s manor.

“Duke Woldair,” Arkk called out the moment he felt he would be able to speak without choking on the heat. “Release the captive in your dungeons and I’ll leave peacefully.”

The Duke, back at the far end of the room near his throne, shrugged off a pair of guards who were trying to escort him away. “I remember you,” he said, pointing a finger. “The so-called rising star of the mercenary companies. Company… Mirror… something.”

“Take us to the dungeons.”

“Oh, you want to see the dungeons, do you? Guards!”

There weren’t many guards in the room. The main entrance to the throne room was still blocked off by flames. A few reinforcements had been slowly funneling into the room from side doors. A few of the braver guards advanced.

Agnete snapped her fingers. The dimming flames erupted and orange fire billowed out from her like waves of the ocean crashing against Cliff’s shores. Guards went tumbling back, scurrying away. A few dropped their weapons in the path of the flames. The metal turned to slag even as Agnete clasped her hand into a fist, pulling back the fire.

Arkk’s ears picked up the start of an incantation. “Electro Deus,” he said before even spotting the caster. A lazy flick of his wrist sent one of the war council into convulsions. He barely put any power into it. Today’s objective was not to kill the leaders of the war.

Lightning still crackling between his fingertips, he pointed at the Duke—who wisely shied away behind one of his bodyguards.

“One of my employees was here as an honored guest. And now you’ve thrown them into your dungeons. Release them. I won’t ask again,” Arkk said, projecting as much authority as possible into his voice.

This would have been so much easier if they could have just burrowed into the lowest points of the manor. Not knowing what might be on the other side, Arkk hadn’t been willing to risk it. Having seen the explosive entrance they made into the ballroom, he felt entirely justified with that decision. While he could have guaranteed that they wouldn’t have blown up Ilya’s cell, he didn’t know how many other cells were filled or… potentially worse, where the wine cellar was. Flames and alcohol didn’t mix well.

Looking around, Arkk wondered how much of the manor would survive this little incursion. There wasn’t much smoke as a result of the flames burning magic more than wood or anything else. Nonetheless, he could see cracks forming in the brickwork from the heat. Some areas, mostly the floor underneath Agnete’s bare feet, had turned molten.

If they cooperated fast enough, there would still be time to get a caster to sweep through the place with a water spell. The longer they waited…

The longer they waited, the more likely reinforcements would arrive from the garrison.

Arkk had no desire to fight through an army today.

“Vezta,” he started, only for one of the war council to shout at the Duke.

“Levi! That is a purifier. Your men can’t stand against her,” he said. An older man with thin glasses and a fine suit. Not a military man. He had shoulder-length ‘page boy’ hair that curled lightly at the ends, though his hair had clearly seen better days in his youth. A merchant? Some other advisor. He stepped away from the line of advisors, hand gripping the hem of his suit. “I’ll take them. If they extinguish their fires.”

The Duke leveled a thunderous glare at the man, which was really all Arkk needed to trust him. Slowly, he lowered his arm. With a nod of his head to Agnete, she closed her eyes. This time, she drew in a great breath of air, as if filling her lungs beyond their normal capacity.

The flames around her shrank to embers. They didn’t completely vanish. A tapestry hanging from one wall still burned and the molten footprints trailing into the room didn’t go anywhere. The heat lingered as well. Still, the situation at least looked better.

However, when Agnete opened her eyes, they were glowing almost as much as Arkk’s did. The same was true for the scars along her face and arms. She had somehow managed enough control to keep her uniform from completely burning away, even though her boots had not survived.

The Duke’s fingers clenched into tight fists. “I’ll have your head for this, Joyce.”

“Better my head than everyone’s,” the newly dubbed Joyce said, straightening his back. “The people cannot afford to lose our council at this stage.”

“You—”

“If you wish to keep your head, Duke Woldair,” Arkk said, “you won’t interfere.” Turning to the older man, he said, “Lead us.”

The man took a breath and stepped further away from the rest of the war council. He motioned with a hand to one of the doors on the side wall.

Arkk looked to Agnete. For a moment, he thought of having her stay behind and keep an eye on the council. If they tried anything, she would be ready to handle it. But then he decided against it. If she were with them, they could blast through the dungeon and into the tunnel, removing any need to trek back through the manor.

It was also safer to not split up.

The door brought them to a hallway. Not the servant’s corridor that Arkk had gotten himself lost in the last time he was at the manor, just a regular hallway. They moved in silence. Nobody else came across them. Presumably, any guard would have rushed to the throne room while any servant would have run in the opposite direction.

Joyce stopped at an unassuming door and grasped the handle. “This leads to the dungeons and the menagerie,” he said with a small note of distaste in his tone.

Arkk wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or not, so he just nodded his head.

The handle rattled under his grip but the door didn’t open. Joyce swore under his breath. “One of the guards will have a key—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Arkk said, taking a few steps backward. “Agnete.”

The former purifier stepped forward and planted a hand on the metal around the handle. The brass first blackened and then began to glow red. It steadily brightened until it started dripping. Slamming her shoulder into the door, it swung open.

“Neat trick,” Joyce said with a scowl.

“I’m just full of them.” Arkk stepped into the opening. Average-quality glowstones adorned the ceiling, lighting the way down a spiraling flight of stairs. It was a tight spiral with a ceiling lower than would be comfortable for anyone too tall. “What is the menagerie?”

“Servant quarters for the non-human staff.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, thinking back to the entertainment at the Duke’s party. Most hadn’t looked all that happy to be there. Were they paid? Arkk remembered Ilya’s initial observations of the Duke’s manor just after they first came to Cliff. A harpy had tried to escape the grounds and had been magically stopped. He doubted they were treated all that well.

Would they want to leave? Seek employment elsewhere?

Arkk couldn’t deny that, after seeing the Underworld, having a harpy on his payroll sounded great. Someone who could fly overhead, scouting both for more of those Protector creatures as well as any additional settlements in the area. Or just any landmark in general. He hadn’t quite realized how much he had come to rely upon scrying until he couldn’t do it anymore.

“Are the staff in their quarters at the moment?”

Joyce looked back over his shoulder with a frown, looking Arkk up and down. “I’m not quite sure what information you’re fishing for but you requested an escort to the dungeons. I am here to prevent needless death, not assist you.”

“And yet, if you return to the Duke, it doesn’t seem like you’ll be keeping your head.”

“As I said to him, better one than all given the war.” He stretched his back, cracking his neck. “I’m an old man. Fought in the last war. Spent the intervening years as a knight errant. In light of a few prominent deaths, the Great Marshall reached out to me to see if I had any insight. Unfortunately, Evestani have drastically changed their tactics and strategies. I’m the least useful member of that council.”

“So you lay down your life for the rest of them. Taking the risk for others in my hands but inevitability in the Duke’s.”

“Unless I misjudged you at the party, I didn’t think you would kill me.”

“We met at the party?” Arkk asked, frowning in thought. “I’m sorry, I met a hundred people that night and then the attack kind of blotted the rest of the night from my mind.”

He chuckled. “Hawkwood introduced us. Thank you for saving his life.”

“Hawkwood is a friend and mentor.”

“Mhm… Though perhaps I did misjudge you. Attacking the center of the Duchy like this? Even if the Duke spares me, I’ll be forced through a hundred droll meetings on you in addition to Evestani.”

“I personally believe the Duke is a blight on the Duchy. Moreso now. One of my companions was injured in the attack on the party and I left her here for medical care. Imagine my disappointment when I found out she had been thrown into the dungeon.”

Joyce hummed again, sounding a little more thoughtful this time. He didn’t say anything else before they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Left door, dungeons. Right door, menagerie.”

Arkk frowned. “Is it just a coincidence that they’re located next to each other?”

Joyce just shrugged. “I brought you here. Good luck,” he said, turning back to the stairs.

“I can get you out of here,” Arkk said. “You can either come with me or go back to your errant wanderings. You don’t have to submit yourself to Woldair’s mercies.”

The man just shook his head and continued ascending the stairs. He did pause after a few steps, turning back. “I imagine you won’t have very long alone. The Duke is surely gathering up the entire guard contingent and all the spellcasters he can scrape together.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Even if it wasn’t strictly necessary. Arkk had already guessed that this reprieve was only temporary.

Joyce disappeared up the spiral, leaving Arkk with Agnete and Vezta.

“Agnete. Open the doors. Vezta, go see if anyone is home in the… menagerie. Make a soft sell to anyone present. Push a little harder on harpies or anyone else capable of flight.”

“Understood, Master,” Vezta said with a bow as Agnete started melting the locks.

“Don’t take too long. I want us gone in… ten minutes. We’ll go through the dungeon floor and meet up with the tunnel that way. I’ve already got the lesser servant in position—it’s close, somewhere underneath the menagerie floor.”

Agnete shoved open the door to the dungeon with her shoulder just as she had done with the stairwell door. She turned to the other door only for Vezta to form a maw of razor teeth at the end of her arm. The door gave her a brief pause but turned to splinters under the rotating teeth.

“Reinforced stone. Regular doors,” Vezta said with a shrug before stepping inside.

Letting her carry out her task, Arkk stepped into the dungeon with Agnete at his back. He almost expected a guard of some sort. instead, he just found a long, poorly lit corridor with several heavy doors on either side. A small window of bars on each door let him peek inside.

The first door on the left held a small fairy. The waifish demihuman sat on the floor of her cell, arms hugging her bent knees. A dark elf sat in the cell on the right, an eyepatch hiding one eye. He looked like he had seen his fair share of fights. Another dark elf sat in the next cell on the left. The next on the right was empty.

Arkk scowled as he passed more doors, peeking into each. Why were there so many held here? Criminals should be held at the garrison. The average thief or even murderer wouldn’t be here. Arkk doubted assassins would be either. Most likely, these were people who had simply offended the Duke.

“Open all the doors,” Arkk said, nodding to Agnete. “All the occupied ones, anyway.”

“Can’t say I expected anything else,” Agnete said with a faint smile touching her black lips.

Some part of this likely resonated with the former purifier. She hadn’t been held in a literal prison but with that ice marble held over her head every moment of her life, she might as well have been. If some of these people were violent murderers held here for some reason… well, he would deal with that later. It might be somewhat hypocritical to turn anyone away with how many criminals he was sheltering.

As Agnete started popping open cells, Arkk moved down the corridor, peeking into each and every cell. He knew exactly where Ilya was thanks to the employee link but he still wanted to check.

Sure enough, by the time he reached Ilya’s cell toward the end of the dungeon corridor, he had only passed a single human. Everyone else was either a demihuman or beastman.

Even though he had already confirmed through the employee link that Ilya was fine, Arkk couldn’t help the relief he felt upon seeing her sitting in her cell, resting on a pile of moldy straw in the opposite corner from the bucket. She had her eyes closed but a few quick knocks on the door had her on her feet in an instant.

She glared at the barred window in the door for just a moment. Her eyes widened. “Arkk?”

“You sound so surprised. Didn’t think I would come for you?”

“I only pulled on the link an hour ago.” She leaned close to the door. “How did you convince the Duke to release me so fast?” Pausing as a frown touched her lips, Ilya’s tone took on a note of admonishment. “Your eyes are glowing.”

“Yeah. Turns out a few sets of glowing eyes can be pretty convincing. Stand back,” he said, even as he moved out of the way.

Agnete stepped forward and placed her hand against the door’s handle. Not having cooled down between each door let her heat the metal nearly instantly. As soon as it was soft enough, she shoved her shoulder into it, popping the door open.

Ilya gave Arkk a raised eyebrow as she moved back to the now-open door.

“What?”

“I take it convincing the Duke involved a lot of fire.”

“A bit,” Arkk said, pulling Ilya into a tight hug. One she didn’t pull away from. “I’m sorry I left you here for so long. The war has been… hectic.”

“Not just the war,” she said, hands on his back. “I saw it. The sky.”

Arkk broke the hug first, pulling back. “Sky?”

“The… that wasn’t you?”

Arkk gave a confused shake of his head. Before Ilya could say anything, he held up a finger. “You’re going to have to hold that thought. My job convincing the Duke might not have been as thorough as I would have liked. We need to get out of here before they start dumping poison down the stairwell. Or however they plan to deal with us.”

“Wait! My mother.”

Arkk clenched his teeth into a tight grimace. “We don’t really have time to run around the manor—”

“She’s not in the manor,” Ilya said, stepping out into the hall. She looked one way and then the other. “Oh. You’re freeing everyone.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, it’s…”

She trailed off, looking to the door Agnete had just popped open.

Alya stepped through, wearing a fine dress that had clearly seen better days. The tall elf still managed to affect an ethereal grace that Ilya hadn’t quite managed. Her silver eyes trailed after Agnete.

The purifier ignored her, moving on to the last few doors.

Alya’s head turned toward Arkk. Those silver eyes landed on him and widened. Likely at the bright red glow in his eyes. She sucked in a breath that was more of a hiss than a regular breath. “You…” Alya stepped forward, tall and imposing but lacking any real means to threaten him. She still reached out a hand that turned into a shaking, clenched fist.

“What have you done, Arkk?”

 

 

Sylvara Astra clutched at the stump of her left arm, teeth clenched in pain as she staggered through the forest.

Tybalt was dead. Sylvara would bid him good riddance if his traitorous final act hadn’t cost them so much. Then again, those golden beams had opened up the city of Elmshadow well enough on their own. His help had hardly been needed.

Ludwig had been missing since the day Elmshadow fell. The chronicler could be dead or he could have made away with the retreating armies. Sylvara didn’t know and, with the way things were going, she doubted she would ever know. She could hope but that wasn’t much consolation.

A thin ray of gold blasted a tree to smithereens to Sylvara’s left. Splinters of wood exploded outward, catching her in the side of her face. Snow clinging to the branches scattered to the air as the rest of the tree came down. Her boots slid on the slick ground, forcing her to throw herself backward to avoid being crushed.

What was consolation was knowing that the Evestani army was without their heavy hitter.

He had been chasing her for the last three days.

She wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.

With the snow in the air swiftly settling, Sylvara threw herself behind another tree. It obviously wouldn’t help protect her but she could hope that it would obscure her. The Evestani purifier equivalent was not infallible. She would never have survived if it was.

Sylvara focused on her breathing, trying to still it. Three days with no rest, no food, no sleep. She was at her limits. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to seek shelter. Either she would meet her end at the golden rays or she would collapse into the snowy ground and never awaken. Now that she wasn’t moving, closing her eyes alone was enough to make her feel like they would never open again. Her eyelids were so heavy.

Sylvara chomped down on her own cheek. The pain was enough to snap her eyes open once again.

Not yet.

She couldn’t die yet.

Reaching into the tattered remains of her inquisitorial uniform, she withdrew a long strip of white paper. Despite the dirt, sweat stains, ash, and everything else, the paper still looked pristine as she removed it from the internal pocket. Lettering marked with a luminous ink glittered on the surface, though the actual words were impossible for mortals to decipher.

A miracle, captured and contained for later use.

If she were going to die, she would just have to bring down that Evestani purifier with her.

Sylvara tensed. The sound of snow crunching under light footsteps made her suck in a breath and hold it.

“Done running?”

Sylvara grimaced at the lighthearted tone of the slightly accented voice. It sounded like a child. It was a child—she had seen him during her fighting flight. Perhaps no more than thirteen years of age, a young boy with glowing box-like tattoos around his bald head. But hidden within that young face was a relentless pursuer.

She had thought the Evestani purifier would give up after the first day. Even if it was using the same magic that the armies used to avoid the cold, it was still a child. They wore easily. Surely they grew as hungry and thirsty as Sylvara felt.

A bright, golden light filled the forest. For a brief moment, Sylvara figured she wouldn’t see the next moment.

More snow filled the air as a tree crashed to the ground somewhere behind her. It sounded like a large tree but she didn’t see a single branch. It must have fallen away from her.

She didn’t know exactly where the Evestani purifier was but if it fired off another beam, she might not get a chance to do anything.

Sylvara bit down on the paper and then used her hand to rip the sheet in two.

Blue-white light wrapped around Sylvara, bringing comfort and strength. Both had been sorely lacking in the last few days. It wouldn’t last long. Seconds. Maybe a full minute if she was worthy. She pivoted around the tree just in time to avoid a golden beam blasting through it that would have taken her head off.

The boy stood in the open between two trees, one of which had been knocked askew by the first falling tree. Missing one arm—taken by Arkk if the man’s testimony had been accurate—he adjusted the angle of the other, aiming it toward Sylvara.

She moved in a blur, crossing thirty paces in three smooth steps. The ray of gold went high and wide as the boy struggled to follow, blasting a hole in the forest’s canopy.

Sylvara slammed the shoulder of her missing arm into the boy’s chest, pinning him against one of the trees. She grabbed his wrist with her arm and wrenched it aside. A series of tangible cracks filled the air as his wrist and elbow broke along with his shoulder.

He didn’t cry out. He didn’t scream or shout or even get a little watery in his eyes.

He grinned.

Sylvara lifted a leg, slamming her knee into his side with enough force to pulp bone. She clipped the tree she had him pinned to, filling the air with splinters again.

The impact sent him skidding across the snowy forest floor, slipping from her grip with a few extra broken bones in his arm. One leg twisted in the complete wrong direction as he came to a stop.

Sylvara stepped forward, ready to stomp the boy’s head until it popped, only to stagger.

The blue-white light surrounding Sylvara faded away. She felt better. Not healed—her arm was still missing and she could still feel that gash in her thigh—but better. More energetic, more alert, more awake. Maybe that wouldn’t last, it could just be a brief burst of adrenaline, but she thought she might be able to stumble her way to a village.

But first…

She clenched her teeth and balled her fist.

The boy was on the ground. He couldn’t flex his wrist let alone move his arm. He just stared, one leg twitching at random.

“There will be more,” he said, tone almost conversational. There was a note of strain but nothing that indicated he was in pain. “You saw it, didn’t you? That hole in the world?”

She had seen it. It was the only reason she was alive right now. The sky broke right when this purifier had her cornered. It had distracted him long enough for her to get away. Not just away but get a lead that led to this three-day nightmare.

Sylvara didn’t respond. She moved over, drawing a short dagger. The end of the blade had broken off at some point. It would still work.

“I imagine we’ll be allies when we next meet. The Ecclesiarch will have seen it. How could he not? Whatever fear gripped his heart when he heard of Evestani’s armies marching across your Kingdom must pale in comparison to what he must have felt that day. You’ll have new orders to work with me. Won’t that be a treat… The world is ending if we don’t stop it. You realize that, right?”

Sylvara said nothing as she knelt next to the purifier, gazing down into his glowing gold eyes. She raised her dagger.

“Well, see you around, I suppose.”

The light in his eyes faded before Sylvara could strike. His interlocking square tattoos on his head faded and dimmed.

A scream split the air, startling Sylvara back a step. It wasn’t just a shout. It was a cry of pure and absolute pain, terror, and agony. The boy’s brown eyes darted around, filling with tears. He tried to move but what little he managed only made him scream harder. His voice was already turning to a rasp as he ruined his throat, only pausing his scream to suck in fresh air.

What manner of evil was this?

That purifier… hadn’t been this boy from the start? Possession was the first thing that came to mind. Arkk had said it back in Elmshadow but she hadn’t believed it. Only ghosts and gods could possess others and neither fit with what she had seen. Those tattoos…

A fresh scream startled Sylvara from her thoughts.

She clenched her teeth.

The boy’s body was battered and broken. He couldn’t move. Even if she dragged him to a village, she doubted he would survive. In the unlikely case that he could be nursed back to health… what would stop that purifier from possessing the boy once more?

Leaning forward once more with her blade at the ready, she could see the awful horror in the boy’s teary eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She dragged her blade across his throat.

The screams in the forest cut out.

After a minute, the gurgling died off.

Allies, that purifier had said? To stop the end of the world?

Sylvara stood, arm trembling.

Exhaustion was setting back in. But she wasn’t dead yet.

And she couldn’t let herself die here. There was a purifier in this world that needed to be excised.

Duke Levi Woldair paced back and forth in front of his throne, listening to the court jabber on. Advisors, nobles, and generals all sat at the long table, giving out various reports. The vast map of the Duchy, spread out over the table, was covered in little painted markers denoting active combat, force concentrations, and settlements that had not reported in as of late.

The initial foray into the Duchy—His Duchy—had slowed in the last week. Ever since that…

That…

Levi stumbled just thinking back to it. He tried to blot it out of his mind. He had seen the mind healers of the Abbey but they had done nothing. If anything, they were as disturbed as he was, if not more so. If they couldn’t help themselves, how could they help him?

It was like merely seeing it had torn a hole into his mind just as it had torn a hole into the sky. He could almost feel it in the back of his skull, writhing and twisting.

Shaking his head, Levi turned and focused on the table, seeking distraction from the dire events bearing down on the Duchy.

Olah Faran stood at the table, gesticulating with both hands and the entire top half of her body as she made a report. King Abe Lafoar was marshalling his forces to reinforce the Duchy but they had run into weather trouble. The cold winter was not kind to large armies or their supply lines.

Useless.

The Duchy bled. Broken in two. If the King or his precious princes thought the barbarians at the gate would stop at his borders, they were dead wrong. Yet they dragged their feet. Evestani’s Golden Order had come up with a solution for the cold, surely the Abbey of the Light could as well.

Levi looked around the room, scowling. Normally, such a meeting would warrant the presence of Pontiff Bernardin or one of his underlings as a representative of the Abbey. Ever since that…

That thing.

Ever since that thing had happened, the Abbey’s upper level leaders had holed up in their church and had hardly left. He hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were playing at. The Duchy didn’t have time to let them—or him—have panic attacks. Everything was burning down now.

Levi clenched his teeth as Olah took her seat, allowing Viscount Wesley to take the stand. The Viscount started blathering on about droll matters entirely irrelevant to the war effort. Who cared that some nobody village out in the east had been hit by raiders? That happened all the time. None of the villages would be standing anywhere if Evestani’s army resumed their marching.

That was the one good thing about that thing. Evestani’s momentum had ground to a halt. Their main force stood firm just past the Elm mountains but the Duchy was rallying everyone they had. The army had already met up with White Company’s forward force. The Order of the Claymores was merging with them. First Legion and the Burning Shadow mercenary companies were keeping some smaller Evestani detachments at bay.

Why this, why now, why attack?

Things had been going so well. Yes, there was some bad history between the nations. But that was history of a previous generation. He had met the sultan and shook the man’s hand. He had even been set to wed the second daughter of Evestani’s sultan. Had they accepted his gifts of food and resources knowing they would use those resources against him?

Those were a spiral of thoughts he had been down many times in the past few weeks. He tried not to dwell on them now.

“Astrologist June believes we will see a warming in the weather in around six weeks,” the representative from the Cliff Magical Academy said. “There will be a brief resurgence of cold about a week after followed by steadily warming weather after that.”

Six weeks.

Levi stared at the representative. An older warlock by the name of Duvat. It had been nine weeks since winter settled in but only about six since the war began. In just six weeks, Evestani had ripped through half the Duchy, free to move at will thanks to their magic while the defending forces had to contend with the weather. If they got their momentum again, they could be at Cliff City before the first snow melt.

Even once the weather started to warm, apparently in six weeks, it wasn’t like winter would vanish overnight. Some areas of the Duchy would stay cold. The north especially. Cliff City, tucked in the shadow of its namesake, often had snow on the ground well into when the rest of the land started growing their spring crops.

Would it be too late? How soon would the King’s army be able to join up with the defense? It was a long way between Cliff City and the heart of Chernlock. The King’s army was moving but not fast.

They were likely to show up too late.

He turned to the side, opening his mouth to speak to his most trusted advisor.

Only to stop.

She wasn’t there. Not anymore.

Trying not to scowl, the Duke merely waved a hand, gesturing for the next speaker to take the stand and report on whatever else was going wrong at the moment.

Would it kill them to have some good news for once?

“We received a notice via Swiftwing harpy,” the Great Marshall said. A young man for his station, even younger than Levi was. “It claims to be from… The Avatar of the Golden Heart.”

Levi’s eyes scanned around the room, once again wondering where the representative of the Abbey was. This sounded like a religious matter and, until recently, he had very little interest in religion beyond paying lip service to keep important people happy. Presumably, this avatar was something akin to the Ecclesiarch of the Abbey of the Light. The leader of the Golden Order.

So he nodded. “And? I presume there was more to the letter than an introduction.”

The Great Marshall placed the letter on the table. It was too far away for Levi to see the actual text but he could easily see the large, loopy lettering in gold on its surface. “In short, it demands our immediate and unconditional surrender followed by our full support in consolidating our forces against the one that threatens to rip our world into pieces.”

Levi flinched despite himself. The threat had to be referring to that thing. There was no other possibility. “‘Rip the world to pieces.’ Those were the exact words used?”

The Great Marshall nodded his head.

“Hand it over,” Levi said, stepping toward the large table. The Great Marshall, seated halfway down the table, passed it along. Each of the advisors quickly glanced over it, eyes on it exactly as long as it took to pass to the next one down.

Levi accepted it from his spymaster, a man he had once thought to be competent before all this mess with Evestani. He stared down at the golden lettering, eyes roaming over the text. He didn’t quite internalize it, however, thoughts swirling about distracting him from the actual words.

Immediate surrender. Threat to the world. Those were a dangerous combination to put to paper. Especially here among the leaders of the Duchy. If someone got it into their head that this threat could only be resolved through Evestani or just that surrendering would see them earning concessions, he would be in danger of waking up to find a knife buried in his back.

“Evestani has slaughtered our people, our armies, and our fellow kin with no regard for weeks. Now they have the gall to call for cooperation? This ‘Avatar’ of the Golden Order was wise to send a letter. Had he come himself or even sent a messenger, their skulls would be on a pike outside the gates.”

Levi drew himself up, walking back and forth to force his advisors’ eyes on him. “The Abbey is not unaware of this threat. They are assessing the situation and the proper response to what we all witnessed several days ago,” he said, not entirely telling the truth. The Abbey was probably doing that but they had neglected to inform him of their goings on. Much to his chagrin. “We will follow their plans in dealing with whatever threat there may or may not be. But we will never bow to the slaughterers of the very people who have placed trust in us to see them to safety.

“If any of you have objections or, Light forbid, sympathy for these—”

A rumbling in the floor cut off his speech. Levi’s eyes widened even as those at the table stood, fear obvious in their faces.

The manor had been attacked before. But that had been through infiltration. He had gone over every last individual with access to the manor and ensured there wouldn’t be a repeat. Only the most essential servants, guards, and staff remained behind and only the trustworthy from those categories. His staffing had dropped by three-quarters. There was no chance they had missed someone.

Yet he could hear alarmed shouts coming from outside the throne room.

Guards were moving. His advisors and leaders were backing away, all except the Great Marshall who had drawn his sword. His most trusted bodyguards were already moving around him, readying a defensive line that would allow him to retreat out of one of the side doors.

Levi didn’t move, locked in place. He stared in the direction of the noise, teeth grit.

The far doors to the throne room blasted open, throwing back the two guards who had been working to secure them. Immediately, a sweltering heat rushed through the chamber. Orange fire licked at the walls as three figures moved into the now-open doorway.

The light from the fire was too bright, too intense to get a good look at the figures. It swept around them as they almost casually walked further into the room. The heat alone was enough to keep all the guards backing away and yet they weathered it without apparent difficulty. All he could see were their shadows and, as they approached…

Their eyes.

One stood wreathed in fire, eyes glowing like the embers in a raging bonfire. One stood with red eyes, glowing as a demon’s might. The last…

The last had eyes like burning suns, set into a slice of the night’s sky.

Just like that…

That…

That thing.

 

 

 

Despite the looming threat of the so-called Protector, work continued within the Underworld.

A few things had changed. They were focusing on smaller areas that could be built up quickly while under plenty of protection. Lookouts patrolled constantly. Drills kept the guards on their toes. Zullie had even taken to cycling through everyone on guard duty, ensuring that they could all cast at least one lightning bolt without passing out.

Not everyone had passed that little test but at least those who hadn’t now knew that they needed to be sure that their lightning bolts would be debilitating or else they needed to not use the magic at all. It also let them set up every patrol so that at least two people capable of casting the lightning spell were in each group.

They had seen two more of the creatures. The same, carapace-covered tall monsters that all shared the same mind. So far, they had done nothing but stand and stare, watching the portal. Arkk was content to let them for the time being. They weren’t attacking. As far as he could tell, they weren’t gathering their forces to marshal an attack.

They simply watched.

The being he had spoken with said that exploring the world would put him in peril. Perhaps, as long as he didn’t leave the portal, they would leave him alone. He would have to leave eventually but for now, he could hold back on seeking that source of power.

Savren thought they were curious more than aggressive, not that he still had an active connection to their gestalt. He was still trying to sort through his thoughts and pick out what he remembered about them before passing out following the mind reading ritual. Arkk had apologized for putting him through that.

Savren shrugged it off. It, according to him, had been one of the most fascinating experiences of his life.

He had used different phrasing.

With the guard in place and no apparent danger in the immediate future—on either side of the portal since Hawkwood combined with the Duke’s men had managed to stall the Evestani’s relentless march—Arkk was experimenting.

A lot of things didn’t work in the Underworld due to the completely magic-saturated air. Ritual circles spontaneously activated, making them dangerous to be near unless specifically designed for this world, scrying failed, and gorgon couldn’t seem to petrify anything. Not even regular human volunteers.

He used a metal rod to draw a ritual circle into the orange dirt of the Underworld, sketching out a circle. A fist-sized glowstone from the fortress sat in the center, one dim and relatively lifeless. It had been completely dark before bringing it through the portal, but that had been several days ago and it was still practically black.

Glowstones stored magic and emitted it slowly in the form of light but they typically had to be mined deep underground in solid rock, which would keep their stored magic from leaking out. It was possible to charge them, but not easily. The average spellcaster would collapse from exhaustion well before even a small glowstone started glowing enough to function as even a middling light source. Glowstones weren’t uncommon but they weren’t common either, which was why most villages and even larger burgs had a plethora of candles, glowstones were only used in wealthy merchant homes and keeps.

Glowstones of a purity that would work for magic wands like the one Zullie used were even rarer and charging them up once the stone’s magic depleted was nearly impossible. That Zullie had one at all was something quite special.

Until now, hopefully.

Arkk drew out the ritual circle carefully, ensuring the venting components were drawn in well before any parts that would direct or control the magic. He worked from the inside out. Every little mark went down with hesitance. As soon as the array was complete enough, the ambient magic would activate it.

Sure enough, after one more swipe of his metal rod, an illumination coursed through the lines in the dirt. Arkk quickly dragged the rod through the dirt, finishing the component he had been working on. The glowstone in the center started brightening, its faint violet light turned intense.

Arkk didn’t stick around to watch any longer. He dove behind a sheet of metal set up just to the side of the array and covered his head with his hands.

And waited.

And waited.

He didn’t hear any snap, crackles, or pops. No explosions either. That was… good?

Arkk didn’t move from his position of cover. First, he looked down on himself with his Keeper link. That afforded him a view over the metal barrier.

The ritual circle was fully illuminated and, within it, the glowstone glowed a brilliant and almost white light. But it wasn’t exploding. On the opposite side of the circle from him, a slightly dimmer green light puffed with regularity. Like Old Man Kenton smoking his pipe after a hard day’s work in the fields, clouds of green flew up into the air. The motes dissipated after drifting a short distance, spreading back out into the ambient air.

Arkk waited another minute, just to check that the venting was working properly. Slowly, he stood and looked with his own eyes.

Glowing glowstone. Venting motes of magic. No explosions.

Good?

“Zullie,” Arkk called, standing and backing away a bit. “I think I got it.”

The witch, hunched over her own ritual circle well across the empty desert from Arkk, stood and adjusted her rectangular glasses. Her ritual circle was an attempt at getting the teleportation circles working in this world. Even if they just wanted to head to that nearby village again, it was a fair walk away. The idea that they could be ambushed by the Protector en route made the idea of teleporting straight there all the more appealing.

So far, she hadn’t been having any luck. The teleportation circles normally inscribed a mirror of themselves at the destination location to form the spatial link. Here and now, that distant inscription wasn’t working at all.

Although slightly more annoying, Zullie figured that manually drawing out the destination circle would work. However, that would require someone to trek out to the destination to do it. Better than nothing but…

Arkk shook his head and focused on his project as Zullie hurried over. Stormed over, more like. He made the cautious judgment not to ask how her teleportation circles were coming along.

“I think I got it working,” he said again as she stepped up alongside him.

“It hasn’t shattered this time,” she said with her teeth visibly clenched. Definitely not the time to ask about her project. “That’s an improvement.” It sounded like she had to fish that compliment out of her throat with a hook and ended up snagging her stomach on the way.

“I didn’t quite get the assortment array in place before it triggered but it seems to be working properly enough.”

“Didn’t I say to carve out the assortment array early on so that it wouldn’t be a problem?”

“I did that in the first few but…” Arkk gestured around him where the shards of other test glowstones were scattered around the outside of the circle. “I decided it was the least important component based on… ahh.. was it Razlegram’s theorem?”

“Razzlegere,” Zullie said, somewhat absently as she stalked around the circle. She used her own rod to, carefully, adjust a few markings on the inside of the ritual. The puff-puff-puff of the venting motes of magic steadied out into a smooth stream. The overall brightness of the glowstone in the middle dimmed along with it. Not enough to bring it down to a normal level, just enough that it didn’t look blinding.

“That looks better,” Arkk said, hoping the compliment in return might improve the witch’s mood. “Think this will work more permanently?”

“Possibly. Let’s see if we can extract the stone intact,” she said, stopping next to the metal shield that Arkk had hidden behind. Leaning up against it was a pair of long metal tongs that looked like oversized shears with flat pads on one end. She picked them up, stopped at the edge of the circle, and glanced back. “Actually, you do this.”

“Me?”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. I’ll put up a projectile shield,” she said, turning and handing the tongs off to Arkk.

“The one that we can’t see through.”

“That thing is bright as the sun.” It wasn’t. “You’ll be able to see it.”

“Alright…”

A few uttered words from Zullie and the shifting haze of her projectile-blocking spell swiftly surrounded them. It was a good idea, Arkk had to admit. The whole reason for the metal shield was because these things tended to spontaneously explode. So, squinting at the bright light through the haze, he stretched the tongs out of the swirling sphere and grasped at the glowstone.

It took three tries but he managed to move it out of the circle and set it carefully down near the shield.

Zullie, kept up the shield for a moment longer as if worried that the glowstone would suddenly destabilize. When it didn’t, she dropped the shield and cautiously stepped closer. Taking the tongs from Arkk, she prodded it a few times, shrugged, and then picked it up with her bare hands.

“Oh. That’s a bit warm. Looks good though. Really good.” Her earlier irritation wasn’t anywhere in her tone. She started grinning. “You know what this means?”

“More magic wands. Maybe some capable of casting Electro Deus?”

“No. Well…” She paused in thought. “Maybe. But I wasn’t even thinking like that. No, these can power large rituals in place of people. Get a dozen of these and we could run that ritual again without other people—”

“We are not running the ritual again,” Arkk said.

“No, that’s not… Just an example. Any ritua—”

“Hold that thought,” Arkk said. Someone was calling to him over the employee link. It didn’t feel like an emergency. Nobody was hurt or in a fight.

It also felt distant. Not a problem in the Underworld then. He scanned through the fortress, making sure there were no problems there, before following the link further and further away. Aside from a handful of people he had stationed in the nearby burgs for the purpose of collecting mail, Arkk only knew of one employee that was away from Fortress Al-Mir.

He found himself looking in on Ilya. She looked fine. Safe. Healthier than she had the last time he had checked in on her. His relief turned to ice as he took in the greater picture of where she was. Of why she had called for him now after having spent the last month in the Duke’s manor.

Ilya sat in a small cell, containing only a pile of moldy hay and a bucket. Red-faced and angry, she shouted something at the door. The link didn’t let him hear what that something was.

“Your eyes are… doing that thing again,” Zullie said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. A blink of his eyes and he was back in the Underworld, standing next to the ritual circle. “Brighter than I’ve ever seen.”

Arkk didn’t even bother trying to calm himself down. Lightning crackled between his fingertips, the sound of which made Zullie take a step back.

“Arkk?”

“Get a sketch of the working design to the blacksmith. He’ll make us a permanent version like that boulder drop ritual.”

“What happened?”

“I have business in Cliff.”

“Oh? Oh. Is Ilya alright? Or did something happen to the Duke?”

“Ilya is… safe. For now. I’ll decide whether or not something needs to happen to the Duke when I get there.” He turned and started for the portal after checking on the location of a few other employees. “Let Rekk’ar and Olatt’an know that they have command until I return.”

“Hey,” she said, keeping up with his furious march, “if it is at all possible, would you mind stopping by the academy while you’re in the neighborhood? We’re almost out of the spell-quality glowstones I brought with me. The academy has a bunch of depleted ones sitting in storage.”

Arkk paused and looked to her. He didn’t want to delay for a moment. He didn’t want to search through the academy to find out where the storage area was or where in the storage room the glowstones would be. There were still three lesser servants in the back of the academy, fruitlessly searching for evidence of it being a proper fortress. He could redirect them but that would still leave them searching.

“Inform Rekk’ar and Olatt’an. The former is in the Underworld headquarters, the latter is in the fortress canteen. Meet at the teleportation room.”

“I’m going with you?” She glanced back to the ritual circle test area. “What about that?”

“It can wait,” he said, turning and continuing back through the portal. Zullie followed for a few steps before deciding not to pester him further at the moment. She broke off toward the nearly finished headquarters building.

As he made his way through the Underworld—the ritual circle test area was a safe distance away from anyone and anything that needed to survive an explosion—nobody approached him. In fact, most of his employees backed away, especially the newer recruits. The guards on either side of the archway remained stiff and didn’t turn their heads toward or away from him as if afraid that doing so might draw his ire.

A small part of him didn’t like them being so afraid of him. Even though his eyes were glowing, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t Arkk. At the same time, he had to mentally thank them for their awareness. If he suffered more delays, he likely would snap at them.

As soon as he stepped through the archway and made it into the comforting aura of Fortress Al-Mir, he teleported. He reappeared in the teleportation chamber, deep within the maze of wings he had been constructing throughout the Cursed Forest. Vezta appeared alongside him at the same time, not at all surprised or upset at having been pulled away from whatever she had been doing at the time—he hadn’t checked.

“Emergency?”

“Not life or death, yet. At least not for anyone a part of Fortress Al-Mir. I need a ritual chain to Cliff City, specifically the tunnel we had been planning on using for Plan D.” He held out his hand and pulled a crystal ball to his waiting palm, which he immediately handed over. “Once that is done,” he added as an afterthought, “a teleportation circle as close as you can reasonably get to the academy.”

“Understood,” Vezta said, bowing.

He didn’t stick around long enough to see her raise her head.

“Dakka,” he said, reappearing at the training room. The orc in question sat up from where she had been doing exercises on the floor, took one look at him, and immediately scrambled to her feet, back unusually stiff. “Teleportation chamber, five minutes.”

“Gear up?”

“That would be best. Get two of the gorgon to go with you. Zharja and Jann. You three are on protection detail. Zullie will be there shortly. Follow her directions.”

“Sir.” She nodded her head.

By the time she looked back up, he was out of the training room. He used the metal ritual rod to knock against a warm metal door.

“Enter.”

He didn’t bother opening the door before teleporting inside.

Agnete, resting on a cracked stone slab that looked a little too soft to be actual stone. The nearly molten rock deformed as the former purifier sat up. For all his urgency, Arkk had to take a moment and wonder if that kind of bed was comfortable. Then again, any normal bed would burst into flames the moment Agnete relaxed so perhaps it was the only choice. She could hold the heat in—she had done so while working with Vrox—but maybe trying to keep the heat down was worse than a molten slab of rock.

Shaking his head, he refocused, noting the way the scars on Agnete’s face started burning a little brighter.

“Trouble?”

“Maybe. Are you feeling up to an expedition?”

“In the Underworld?”

Arkk shook his head. “The Duke’s manor in Cliff.”

“Are we expecting a fight?”

“I would prefer to be in and out before anyone notices but best to be prepared. That’s why I’m here. I’m planning on going immediately.”

Agnete swung her legs off her slab, leaning over as she ran her fingers through her wild black hair. Glowing red streaks trailed behind her fingers before dimming back to the dark black. “I’m good for this,” she said before looking down at herself. “We have time for me to get dressed?”

“Call for me when you’re ready. I’ll move you straight there.”

Arkk teleported back to the ritual room. There were a series of six ritual circles for teleportation outside the fortress. Each headed off in a different direction. Two went directly to the nearby burgs, one headed west, though that one was marked with a sign reading ‘DO NOT USE’ for the time being. They had destroyed all the ritual circles in that direction to keep any possibility of the Evestani army from finding them.

The circle chain leading toward Cliff City had been partially destroyed as they hadn’t wanted any inquisitors to stumble across them. Vezta, out in the wilderness between the fortress and Cliff, was almost finished repairing the line.

A mental command to one of the dormant lesser servants that he had left in the city on their previous visit woke it from its slumber. They had come up with several plans for various situations, mostly escape routes to get away from the Duke or inquisitors.

The tunnel for Plan D dug deep underground, burrowing below the moat around the Duke’s manor. It didn’t reach all the way to the manor—they hadn’t wanted to alarm anyone too early—so it needed to be extended. The lesser servant in the tunnel promptly began eating into the rock, digging at an upward slope.

As long as they had done their planning right, the tunnel would open directly into the manor’s dungeons.

Agnete pinged him over the link just as Vezta finished the final teleportation circle at the far end of the tunnel. They couldn’t go too close to the manor for fear of warding but the walk through the tunnel wouldn’t take long. He teleported Agnete straight to him. She now stood dressed in thick boots and a black uniform similar to the one she had worn as an inquisitor. The ends of its sleeves were already smoking.

“Just us?” she asked, looking around.

“Vezta is at the far end,” Arkk said, gesturing to the Cliff portal.

“Operational parameters?”

“Rescue. I’ll explain more once we’re there. There shouldn’t be any danger before the final portal.”

Agnete nodded, stepped into the ritual circle, and flashed her magic into the ring. She vanished with a small puff of smoke, taking the heat with her.

Arkk considered waiting a moment. Dakka and the gorgon were on their way. However, Zullie had only just disentangled herself from explaining the situation to Rekk’ar. Olatt’an wouldn’t take as long but even that was longer than Arkk wanted to stick around for.

Zullie would figure things out on her own.

Arkk stepped into the teleportation ritual. The comfort of the fortress remained behind as he reappeared in a dark chamber, lit only by a few dim glowstones. The underground room wasn’t part of the fortress, it was just a waystation keeping the ritual circles hidden. He stepped out of one circle and into the next.

A dozen hops like that and he found himself in the final tunnel. It lacked any glowstones to keep it lit, leaving the long tunnel in complete darkness. That didn’t stop him from seeing either of his companions. Agnete’s smoldering scars and the embers in her eyes let him see her. Vezta’s burning yellow suns were a little more obvious, dotted all around her body.

Both turned to him upon his arrival. With his glowing red eyes, he stuck out as well.

He almost wished some of the Duke’s guards were down in the tunnel with them, just to hear them scream as they ran off. Perhaps they should drag the Duke himself into the tunnel, kicking and screaming. Alya too—he couldn’t believe that she let them lock up her daughter. What had happened to the woman who took him in when his parents died? Had she always been like this and he just hadn’t noticed in his youth? Or had she always been a snake in sheep’s wool?

Arkk was beyond livid at the moment and didn’t even bother trying to think lighter thoughts.

A swirl of flames wrapped around Agnete’s outstretched hand, illuminating the tunnel and ruining the effect. It was probably for the best. The floor in the tunnel wasn’t the smooth tiles of Fortress Al-Mir. They didn’t want to trip over the uneven rock. Especially once they reached the downward slope that would take them under the moat.

“Let’s go,” Arkk said.

As the trio walked, he explained everything that had led to this. The call from Ilya and the cell she seemed to be held inside. He didn’t know the whys, hows, or any other reason she would be locked up. Up until now, she had been treated as an honored guest as far as he had been able to tell. The sudden shift…

Could the Duke have been assassinated and now Evestani was taking over? Mind magics? Threats of that golden beam striking the city if they didn’t comply?

A thousand other possibilities ran through Arkk’s mind. All were equally useless. They would find out soon enough.

Or…

Not?

“Vezta,” Arkk said, pausing in the tunnel. “The lesser servant has hit a roadblock.”

“A roadblock? Underground?”

“Its teeth are sliding off the stone. It was eating through it just fine but now it’s like… as if I were trying to eat the rock.”

“Magically reinforced stone,” Vezta nodded immediately. “Like the walls of Fortress Al-Mir. I suppose we should have expected this. Good thing we didn’t need to use the escape route earlier.”

“We need it now,” he said through grit teeth.

The heat in the tunnel turned scalding, forcing Arkk to take a step away from Agnete. “My flames melted the enchantments off the fortress walls,” she said, burning embers looking at Arkk.

Arkk hesitated to say anything. Turning up the heat in an enclosed space didn’t sound like all that smart of an idea. He hadn’t even brought the ice marble with them—Agnete had never displayed any signs of needing it. But she was right. Her fire had melted the walls of Fortress Al-Mir during their invasion, severing the Heart’s connection to the false fortress. If the magical reinforcement here were anything similar, she would be able to eat through it.

“I’m redirecting the lesser servant,” Arkk said. “I think toward the ballroom. My only real point of reference is Ilya, though, so it could be off. I don’t want to break into the dungeons and flash boil Ilya or any other captives that might be down there.”

“Master, we might have to fight through some of the manor if we don’t emerge in the dungeons.”

Arkk nodded. He had already figured that. Between his lightning bolts, Agnete’s flames, and Vezta’s Veztaness… They would have to have something special to stop their group. They were the three singular powerhouses of Fortress Al-Mir.

If they didn’t care about killing their opponents, he doubted anything short of an army would stop them. While he did not doubt that enough reserves were reinforcing the city in case the Evestani army split apart and some detachments went through to Cliff, he doubted they would be in the manor long enough for that to matter.

“Any problems with fighting?” he asked, looking to Vezta and Agnete.

The latter shook her head slowly, flames gaining brightness and heat.

The former allowed a small smile to grace her features.

“Then let us go rescue Ilya.”

 

 

Savren stood alone in a dark room with a large yet simple ritual array scribed out across the floor.

Every species had variances in their minds, how they thought, and even what, exactly, constituted as thought versus reflexes or instinct. Among circles he frequented, among the libraries he had plundered for texts on the mind and clues that would lead to him curing his curse, he had found ancient analysis, documentation, and even dissection of humans, demihumans, and a large number of beastmen.

They couldn’t crack open the captive creature to analyze its brain structure. Nor could they converse with the creature to get an idea of how it thought. Not once throughout the night had it so much as twitched. Arkk had posted guards in the prison room specifically to watch for any sign of it awakening while he was asleep.

Arkk wasn’t sure if Savren’s circle would work. The mind mage said that he was basing it off drider brain patterns. The spider-like beastmen had similar carapace and multiple limbs, though this creature lacked the many legs and bulbous belly. There was a vague, superficial similarity.

Hopefully, that was enough. A lot of magic was based on symbolism and representations. It was why Vezta had participated in the boundary ritual; she, a being from another plane who had physically visited the Underworld in the past, represented a connection.

“Ready,” Savren called out to the empty room. Arkk couldn’t hear him through the employee link but the single word he spoke up to the ceiling couldn’t have been anything else.

Arkk plucked up the prisoner and teleported it straight to the center of Savren’s circle. At the same time, Arkk moved himself and Vezta out of the prison, joining Savren in the room. The tall creature didn’t shift once because of the movement. If it did suddenly move, Arkk had to be ready to teleport himself, Savren, and Vezta away.

Savren had already explained how the ritual would go. He didn’t waste words explaining again. Stepping up to the point of the circle intended for the mind reader, he knelt and placed his hand on the ground.

Vezta, hands clasped together at her waist, stood a few steps away. She steered clear of the circle and walked along its edge, every one of her eyes locked on the creature. Arkk stayed still, watching and waiting as the ritual circle began to glow.

The creature remained still. Savren, on the other hand, did not. The man’s face twitched and twisted, grimaced and gaped. He snapped his hand back but Arkk could practically see the magic clinging to his fingertips like sticky slime, keeping him linked back to the ritual circle.

“Something wrong?” Arkk asked, ready to teleport at a moment’s notice.

Savren turned his head, neck bent at an unnatural angle. He had to hunch one shoulder to look at Arkk. “Invaders.”

Vezta tensed, lowering her stance to be ready for combat.

The creature still hadn’t moved.

Arkk drew in a breath. This was not how it was supposed to go. Savren was supposed to read the creature’s mind and report back with the answers to the questions that Arkk and the others had come up with. Or as many as he could answer.

“Savren, are you in there?” Arkk asked.

Was Savren being hurt? Would it hurt him to teleport him? He thought it shouldn’t, based on everything he had learned from Zullie about ritual circles, but he also didn’t think that Savren should have been able to stand up while keeping the ritual circle going. Those sticky trails of magic connecting his hand to the ground were surely the cause. Would teleporting sever them or just stretch them?

“Savren. Human. Invader.”

“Am I speaking with the… creature?” Arkk wished he had a better name for it.

“Guardian. Protector. Speaking. Human. Invader.”

Arkk glanced at Vezta. The cadence was somewhat similar to how she had spoken before Arkk had connected with Fortress Al-Mir. But it lacked that oomph of shoving concepts straight into his mind. These were just words.

“Can you ask it who it is? Perhaps what it wants?” Arkk asked. Although Vezta had gained the ability to communicate normally, he had not gained her ability to use the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE] in exchange.

“[Query]/[Question],” Vezta started, still tense yet remaining outside the circle. “[Identification]/[existence]/[guess who]?”

Savren, still hunched at an unnatural angle, flinched at Vezta’s words. “Old. Words,” it said with a sudden strain in its tone. “Protector. Am Protector. I am Protector.”

“Should I be worried that it is getting better at speaking?” Arkk grumbled to Vezta. She didn’t even shrug. Her attention was evenly split between Savren and the creature. The Protector? Louder, Arkk said, “Who or what is it that you protect?”

“Protector of Life. Protector of Under Land. Protect the Lady Shadow.”

“The Cloak of Shadows,” Vezta said, mostly unnecessarily. “Is the Cloak of Shadows still… active in the Underworld?”

Savren twitched but didn’t respond. One of the five strands of magic linking his hand to the ritual circle snapped. Stress? Or…

“We might be on a time limit,” Arkk whispered to Vezta. Then, louder, “We entered your world seeking aid and help. We mean no harm to your people, the land, or the Cloak of Shadows.”

“Trust. Impossible. Betrayal.” The voice coming from Savren’s mouth paused a moment then restarted. “The Lady Shadow, betrayed by trusted Keeper of Her Heart.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not that Keeper. And frankly, after seeing the state of your world, I don’t think you can turn away offered help from anyone.”

The voice didn’t respond but another one of the strands snapped, leaving just three.

“Are there others like you? Other people in that world?” Arkk asked with a slight urgency to his tone. “The village where we encountered each other didn’t seem to have anyone in it but if you’re some protector, I doubt you’re protecting nothing.”

“Protection comes in many forms. Answer this, Keeper: How where was why able to breech the Archway?”

“We intend to revert the Calamity. The bindings of the planes by the traitors in the Pantheon,” he added, just in case they didn’t call it the Calamity in the Underworld. “I entreated with Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, and she saw fit to grant me the boon of traveling between worlds to gather allies and knowledge.”

“Gods,” the Protector said. A haze of clarity returned to Savren’s milky eyes as another of the strands snapped but the Protector reasserted control. “Traitors all. Poor Lady Shadows.”

Vezta visibly bristled. She was about to speak but Arkk put a hand on her arm. They didn’t have time to get into a theological argument.

“Your body hasn’t moved in a day and a half,” Arkk said. The time on this conversation might be running down but that didn’t mean it had to be the only conversation. “Aside from a missing leg, which we treated as best as we can, you look uninjured. Do you have any tips for healing you?”

“Healing unnecessary.”

“You’ll die if you sit there and don’t eat or move.”

“The body in your possession is already dead in all ways that matter,” it said as the fourth strand snapped. The haze in Savren’s eyes kept moving in and out of focus. He was probably trying to fight off the ritual if he was still conscious under there. “Explore the Land of Shadows at your own peril, Keeper. We will protect.”

Arkk shoved his confusion into a little black pit and focused on trying to get something meaningful out of this conversation. “We’re trying to help. We haven’t attacked anyone that hasn’t attacked us first and—”

The final strand snapped. The glow around the ritual circle snuffed out and Savren, hunched in an odd position, yelped and fell backward onto the ground.

Arkk’s teeth ground together even as he rushed over to his employee. “Are you alright?”

Savren had his hands clamped over his eyes as he rocked his head back and forth. “I… I… I…” He smacked his hands into his cheeks. “Hive. Hive heads having harmonious hammer. Hammer?” he said, lowering his arms from his face.

The haze in his eyes was gone entirely but a trickle of blood leaked from the side of his nose. He stared up at the ceiling in confusion but with enough awareness that Arkk didn’t think his brain had been completely scrambled.

“A collective mind?” Vezta asked, stepping between the unmoving creature and Arkk. She had her back to them but an eye on her spine kept careful watch.

Savren snapped his fingers and pointed at Vezta. “Correct!” he practically shouted. “Connecting craniums called to the collective and, craving control over the corpse, caterwauled caterwauled caterwauled…” Savren smacked his hands into both of his cheeks. “Communicated with my consciousness.”

“Are you alright?” Arkk asked again, a little more concerned.

“Confused. The collective overcame my curse and caused counteraction, comeback, counterblast, backlash.”

“So it wasn’t the creature that… knocked you silly? But your own curse?”

“Correct,” Savren said, groaning as he pushed himself to a sitting position. He ran the back of his hand along the bottom of his nose, smearing the blood across his cheek without doing much to clean it. Wobbly as he was, Arkk helped to support his back. “I sawwww them,” he slurred. “Saw their sights, standing in their stations. Some spied the soldiers at the s… something something.”

Arkk blinked in confusion for a moment before tensing as understanding hit him. “They’re watching the portal?”

Savren nodded twice, only to hang his head into his hands.

“Rest. A respite is required. I’ll right myself rather rapidly but only after repose.”

“I’ll send you to your chambers if you want,” Arkk said, already teleporting the creature back to its prison cell. The Protector had said that it was dead but Arkk wasn’t going to trust the words of a potential enemy and leave it lying about.

“Rest, yes. I… require rest.”

Arkk teleported Savren away. He would have Larry bring him something to eat and check on him. But first, he and Vezta reappeared in front of the portal.

Nothing had attacked the archway so far. He checked the moment Savren said that. The link to his employees let him easily see the other side even if he couldn’t teleport there directly. No one was under attack. But being watched made him nervous.

He stepped through the portal. “Check the perimeter,” he said with a glance at Vezta.

She nodded and headed off while Arkk made his way across the small and still-forming courtyard to the main headquarters.

It had only been a few days but Fortress Al-Mir was working hard to secure the far side of the portal. Lesser servants scurried about, carrying bricks and wood to the various construction sites. Flopkin volunteers joined them, hauling material. Some of the more constructive recruits along with a handful of refugees—whom he had ensured knew that this was purely voluntary and that they would be paid for their labors—were putting together walls and buildings around the archway.

Right now, the headquarters was still just a large tent. In a few weeks, barring these Protectors assaulting them, they would have the start of a permanent keep out here.

“Rekk’ar,” Arkk said, shoving a flap aside.

The orc, boots off and feet on the table, jolted. He lurched out of his chair and looked around, bleary-eyed, for any possible threat. Finding nothing but a few of the other orcs in the room chuckling at him, he let out a low growl as he bared his tusks. “What?”

“Double the guard. Regular check-ins. Anyone who can’t be reinforced in about thirty seconds needs to be pulled back to the tent and the archway.”

Rekk’ar’s anger at being woken from his nap shifted to wary concern. “What’s going on? Incoming threats?”

Arkk shook his head. “Not immediately. I have it on good authority that more of the creatures that attacked us at the shadow village might be watching our activities here.”

“The big thing you dragged back? They don’t seem so tough.”

“They’ve got tough skin and their strength will make them dangerous to small numbers, but they can be overwhelmed.” Arkk turned slightly to the side. “Orjja, there are two orcs on patrol around the other side of the portal. Take Kia and Claire with you and bring them back closer.”

The orc saluted and, along with the two dark elves, hurried out of the tent.

“Rekk’ar, get the guard—”

“Wait. Full report on the methods you used to take down the previous creature.”

Arkk crossed his arms, a little irritated at being interrupted. However, Rekk’ar had a point. They needed to know how to fight them. “Get Olatt’an to give you the full details. Every orc in my employ should be capable of casting at least one Electro Deus lightning bolt. It might drain them to the point of requiring rest but a well-placed bolt to the head seems to have killed the one we dragged back.”

“Thought you said it was still alive.”

“It killed the body but left the mind. Or vice-versa. Honestly, not sure. They have some kind of hive mind, so each of them knows what happened to the rest. If we start flinging enough lightning bolts, they will either get the hint or they’ll die.

“However,” Arkk continued after taking a breath. “These things claimed to be protectors of the land and people here. I still think there is a chance to negotiate. If one attacks, defend yourselves. If you see one just watching or even peacefully approaching, get me immediately.”

Rekk’ar squared his shoulders and nodded his head. At least he was taking the situation seriously. He immediately turned and barked out, “Luthor.”

“Y-Yes?” The nervous beastman’s scaled skin shifted through a few colors. He had been deftly avoiding anyone’s eyes ever since Arkk walked into the room. “Sir?”

“Go wake the second shift early. We’ll adjust scheduling shortly but for now, I want everyone up and on guard.”

“M-Me?”

“Yes, you,” Rekk’ar said, tone flat as he shot an irritated glance toward Arkk.

Arkk could only shrug. He wouldn’t have normally hired Luthor. Unfortunately, he had strongarmed Alma into Company Al-Mir and he came as a package with the half-werecat and their oxen companion.

“O-Okay. I can do that,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “I can do that. Just wake up a dozen angry orcs. It’ll be fine.”

“Get moving!” Rekk’ar barked out.

With a clipped yelp, the chameleon beastman bolted from the headquarters tent.

Rekk’ar glared after him, shaking his head in a disappointed manner once the tent flaps fell back to their resting position. “What do we do about the construction?”

“Keep it going as long as it can be guarded. The workers are the most vulnerable but having proper buildings to fight from is too valuable to stop.”

“Thought you said those things could climb walls like a spider?”

“They can, but they might not be the only things out there. These things are protectors of something and protectors from something.”

Rekk’ar grumbled to himself, arms crossed. His eyes drifted away from Arkk and toward his thoughts.

“Something on your mind?” Arkk asked.

“Just a suggestion I’m sure you’ll ignore.”

“I don’t ignore your advice. I just… don’t follow it all the time.”

“Ever.”

“Not true. There was… I listened when you…”

“Save it.” Rekk’ar looked at Arkk and put all his effort into rolling his eyes. “Recall everyone here and destroy the archway.”

Arkk’s frown at being unable to come up with an instance where he had listened to Rekk’ar remained firmly in place, though his reason for holding it turned to one of incredulity. “You’re right. Going to ignore that one.”

“Why?”

“Why? Are you serious? After all the effort it took to get here—”

“And we’re spending even more effort to stay here. Our personnel, not numerous to begin with, are split between here and the fortress. We’re expending resources and time and, potentially, lives just to maintain a presence here. And for what?

“We have an army bearing down on us back in our world and yet here we are, dithering about in the dirt of a desolate—”

“Please don’t do the Savren thing,” Arkk interrupted with a sigh, shaking his head. “And I get it. I am well aware of the pressures. But…”

Arkk took a breath and sank into the chair next to the one Rekk’ar had been dozing in. With everyone in the headquarters having been sent out, it was just him and Rekk’ar, free to talk and argue without anyone’s authority being undermined. Even still, he wasn’t quite sure how to broach the topic he wanted to bring up.

So he just came out and said it. “I talked with a god.”

“What.”

“Between wanting to ensure we weren’t attacked from the other side of the portal and dealing with the Protector, there hasn’t been time to call a proper debriefing. Especially because I didn’t think it mattered. But I talked to a god.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. What.”

“Crazy right? That’s another reason I haven’t called a debriefing. How exactly do I explain this without sounding like the village idiot?”

“Try.”

Arkk took another breath. “That ritual Zullie and Savren cooked up? It didn’t open the portal. One moment Vezta and I were sitting there in the middle and the next… It was there. I didn’t get a good look with my actual eyes before Vezta smothered me and I can’t be sure that what I saw later was how it looked. Regardless, we… communicated. Talking isn’t quite the right word.”

Rekk’ar leaned forward, hands on the table. He squinted his eyes at Arkk, oddly concerned rather than suspicious or angry. “Has the stress of everything finally gotten to you?”

“Funny,” Arkk said, tone flat. “Vezta can verify everything. When I call the meeting, I’ll have her explain. I’m sure she’ll do a better job.”

“Perhaps you ought to lie down.”

“Funny,” Arkk said again. “The point is, the ritual didn’t directly open the portal. It was the god, specifically in response to our request for aid in both reverting the Calamity as well as in repelling Evestani’s army. There has to be something here. I don’t know if it is the Protectors, some other people, or knowledge lying about.

“There is something here.” Arkk frowned, feeling rather like he had in the presence of that being. It was probably just his mind recalling things now that he was talking about it. Still, some small part of the back of his mind felt like a boundary had shifted. Some wall between ignorance and knowledge. “There is something here,” he said again. “I can feel it. Some power off in the distance.”

He turned his head, not looking anywhere in particular yet still staring toward one corner of the tent. It was something… familiar yet alien all the same. Perhaps he hadn’t been attuned to it properly at the time, panicked and ignorant as he had been, but it felt almost like the ambiance around the [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir before he connected with it.

If there was another intact and functioning heart here, claiming it could be a vast boon.

 

 

“Well,” Arkk said, peering into the prison cell he had constructed specifically for the creature. “It still hasn’t moved.”

Zullie hummed to herself as she ran a scrub brush down the horse’s side. Little bits of meat scraped off, leaving the bare white bone beneath. Arkk watched in morbid fascination as the skeletal horse shuffled in place. Its movements didn’t look anything out of the ordinary compared to a regular horse being brushed. If Arkk were to judge, he might even say that the skeletal horse was enjoying it.

The problem was that it was a skeletal horse.

When Zullie had used her spell, the meat turned fetid in minutes. Far faster than normal. The skin frayed apart, the eyes shriveled up, and the stomach, heart, lungs, and everything else in the belly slopped to the ground with a wet, disgusting squelch. The walk back ended up knocking loose most of the remaining bits of hair and flesh and now…

Now Zullie was doing manual labor, clearing away the last scraps of flesh.

No one else would touch the thing so it really was up to her and her alone. The lesser servants looked at it with wary eyes.

Even Vezta stood to the side, eying the risen horse with ill-concealed disgust.

Arkk didn’t want to question her lest she realize what she was doing and stop. The ride back had reeked of stewing, rotten meat. If she intended to keep the skeletal horse around for any length of time, Arkk would feel much better about it if it was just clean white bone. So he couldn’t afford to stop her.

“I said, is it dead?”

Arkk blinked, forcing his gaze away from the empty eye sockets of the horse. “What? No. I don’t think so. The fortress doesn’t think so, at least. It is counting it as a prisoner which, I feel, requires the creature to be alive.” He sighed. “It makes me feel a bit bad. We just charged into this thing’s home and kidnapped it.”

Zullie paused. “It attacked us. I distinctly remember you saying that we came in peace.”

“Yeah. What if it didn’t understand? What would you do if a bunch of heavily armed warriors showed up on your village doorstep and started making strange noises?”

“I didn’t see any others. Bet this thing attacked or otherwise displaced whoever used to live in that village.”

Arkk crossed his arms, thinking while tapping his foot against the ground. With a snap of his fingers, he plucked Lexa from the canteen and dropped her directly in front of him. The gremlin jolted, starting at the sudden relocation. She whirled around only to freeze still as the skeletal horse leaned its skull down toward her.

Perhaps like it was sniffing at her. Except the skeletal horse failed to displace any air as it didn’t actually breathe.

Zullie started chuckling to herself as Lexa took a few stiff-legged steps backward.

“You saw it on the way back,” Arkk said with a frown.

“I didn’t think we were keeping it. I thought it was an emergency situation. Now she’s grooming it?” Lexa made a face. “And what’s all over the floor?”

Arkk glanced down to find strips of desiccated flesh littering the floor.

“The servants will clean it later,” Zullie said. “Got to get all this flesh off so it doesn’t stink.”

Arkk gave a few vehement nods. The sooner the better.

Lexa stared. Glared. Her sharp teeth were framed in a severe mix of a frown and a recoil of disgust. Gathering some of her courage, she stepped forward and grabbed hold of Arkk by his belt. She dragged him away from Zullie and the skeletal horse to the corner of the room. Reaching up, Lexa grabbed his shirt and dragged him down to her level.

“If I ever die,” Lexa said, wide eyes boring into him, “she is not allowed anywhere near my body. Am I understood?”

Arkk glanced back to Zullie as the witch started polishing the horse’s skull. She hummed happily. Probably the happiest he had ever seen her and that included while working on her research projects. It was… eerie. Did using necromancy spells make one more comfortable with… that? He would have to ask Savren and hope he could parse the answer.

For now, he leaned down to Lexa. “I will on the condition that if I die, you don’t let her get near me.”

Vezta leaned over the two, nodding along. “I am not sure if I could be… revived like that. Nevertheless, please keep my corpse well away from any necromancers.”

Lexa stared at Vezta then back to Arkk and firmly nodded her head. “Now, send me back. I was enjoying a nice, cold ale with—”

“First, tell me what you found in the village.”

Lexa winced and took a step back. “Well, I thought it would be good if we had warning in case a second of those things showed up. We couldn’t see into the village from the outside so I went in…”

“I didn’t ask why you went in, although that was going to be on the list, but what you found.”

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Lexa glanced around.

Arkk tapped a finger against his elbow. “Just spit it out. I’m not going to be mad. Probably. Your motives for ditching the fight are a little suspect—”

“Honest,” Lexa said, snapping back at Arkk. The uncertainty in her stance had vanished, replaced with indignation. “I wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be overwhelmed. I couldn’t say anything because, you know, fight. At first, I was just keeping watch not far from the rest of you. A few of my spells let me see a little better inside that dome—but only while inside it.

“I saw the fight turn in our favor and decided to do a little more forward scouting.”

“Alright. I’ll believe it. Then you started peeking through houses? What did you find?”

Lexa dropped her gaze back to the floor. “I… don’t know.”

“Memory problems? A spell or—”

“No. I remember. It’s just… In one house I saw a family sitting around the table, eating a meal. The family looked humanoid but I couldn’t tell if they were actual humans or some demihuman variant. They were perfectly normal, sitting there. Wouldn’t have seen it as out of place in any town or village in the duchy.”

“I’m sensing a but…”

“It was fake. Like…” Lexa looked around and moved closer to one of the glowstones set into the wall. She held out her hands, linking her thumbs together, and then looked down at her shirt. A shadowy facsimile of a bird flapped its wings over her clothes in time with her moving her fingers.

“Like a shadow puppet,” Arkk said, staring down at her.

“Yeah.” Lexa let her arms drop to her sides. “Every house was the same. Fake people doing fake things to look like they were real. I don’t have any proof. Maybe they’re just weird beings not like anything here—it’s a whole other world, you know?—but… I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something there putting on a show. Whether that show was for it or me, I can’t answer.”

Arkk tapped his fingers against his elbow some more as he turned to Vezta. “Thoughts?”

The pre-Calamity monster shook her head, despondent. “It is strange. The [UNDERWORLD] I knew is nothing like this Underworld. Were it not for the shadowy pillars and that dome around the village, I might have thought we managed to connect to the wrong place. The centuries have clearly not been kind to the land or its inhabitants.

“When I was there last, it was a lush forest with a long river running through the middle. The trees were odd. Similar to those around Darkwood—I wonder if there is any relation—and the river was as black as it is today. There were three primary inhabitants. Gorgon, who were relatively unchanged from those we have in our employ, Dark Knights—who felt relatively similar to orcs but… not quite—and the keth. The latter were devoted servants of the Cloak of Shadows. I suppose a decent analogy would be something like crabs.”

“Crabs?”

Arkk, confused, looked to Lexa. The gremlin shrugged her shoulders, just as confused as he was.

“Aquatic creatures,” Zullie said. She stripped the outer layer of her robes as she approached their group. Probably a good thing given the bits of flesh that had clung to it. “Like giant spiders with these little snappy claw things and hard shells. They’re considered a delicacy in Cliff.”

Deciding to take the Cliff local at her word, Arkk nodded. “Alright. Water spiders with claws. A bit frightening.”

“Giant water spiders,” Zullie corrected.

Arkk shuddered. “Anyway… Moving back to the story. These water… keth lived with orcs and gorgon. What next?”

Vezta shrugged. “Not much else to say. I knew things would have changed over the years, which is why I didn’t lay down exactly what we might find in advance, but I didn’t know how much. I thought we could find more gorgon allies at the very least. It’s… concerning.”

“Question,” Zullie said, adjusting her glasses. “How did each of these species handle magic? Or, focus on the keth. I have a good idea regarding gorgon and orcs, assuming they haven’t changed too much.”

“The keth were the favored of the Cloak of Shadows. They wielded her gifts as easily as you breathe.”

“And there aren’t any in this world because none ever traversed the archways before the Calamity?”

Vezta shook her head. “No. My former master had a whole detachment in his army. Assassins.”

“Then I posit that, upon the Calamity cutting off the other realms, they perished like so many other magical species. Likely because they could no longer access their god’s magic.”

“I cannot argue against that theory,” Vezta said. “From what I’ve learned on our travels, there are no magically dependent species alive today except myself. Or creatures like fairies, who have entirely lost their magic.”

“So,” Arkk said, looking to Zullie. He was fairly sure he knew where she was going with this. “Our prisoner is one of the keth?”

“Impossible,” Vezta said. She cupped her hands and moved them together, stopping before they touched. “They were smaller. Much smaller.” Looking down, she frowned at Lexa. “Even smaller than this one.”

“And yet, a magically sensitive species stuck in a world where the levels of magic just keep going up and up and up wouldn’t change and adapt? Or grow? I’m not an expert on magibiology but I did take the required courses at the academy. I know the theories. I will bet a lot on our captive being a keth. Or a descendant of the species.”

“Okay,” Arkk said. “That… how does knowing that help us?”

“And what about the shadow people?” Lexa asked.

Zullie waved a hand casually as she turned away. “Don’t know. I’m tired and exhausted and I’ve sweat so much today. You guys can figure that out. If you discover that the shadow people are magic, let me know, but I don’t want any part of interacting with some being who can’t be perceived that thinks making shadow people puppets is fun.” She walked off, drawing in a deep breath. Her sudden gag made her stop. “I need a bath,” she grumbled as she stepped out the door.

A silence filled the space Zullie had left behind. Vezta stared off into the distance as if some missing piece in her memories might help out. Lexa just turned her gaze downward, staring at the floor in equally deep thought. Arkk had to wonder if everything hadn’t been one large waste of time. He supposed a desolate wasteland was better for Fortress Al-Mir than a hostile invasion force but…

What really bothered him was the state of the Underworld. If they cracked the dam that was the Calamity and all that magic flooded into the world—his world—would it act like a flooding river? A sweep of magic carrying away trees and lives as surely as any flood. Originally, before the Calamity, it must have flowed in and, somehow, drained out or otherwise wound up consumed. What if they ended up breaking that dam but a stopper on the other end resulted in the world turning just as horrid, stoppered against draining?

Although it seemed they wouldn’t have the promised legions of willing soldiers, they needed to find out more about what happened to the Underworld, what steps the local inhabitants took to try to solve the issue, and what might happen if the Calamity were to end here.

And at the moment, unless they wanted to scour the endless desert, they only had one lead.

With a thought, Savren appeared in their midst. The greasy warlock stumbled slightly. The exact motion someone made when they had been ascending stairs only to suddenly find themselves on flat ground. Aside from an inelegant noise of alarm in the back of his throat, he didn’t react beyond steadying himself. He took one look around the assembled group and wrinkled his nose.

“Necromancy now? Knocking nooks into nether planes not enough for you?”

Arkk shot a scowl at the skeletal horse before teleporting all four of them out into one of the meeting rooms. The sudden breath of fresh air only served to enforce how foul that room had smelled. He quickly set a lesser servant to clean up the flesh shavings as he looked to Savren.

“How adept are you at reading minds?”

“To a master of mind magic such as myself, amassing memories is most manageable.”

“Magnificent. Come along,” Arkk said before teleporting the group once again.

This time, they appeared within the prison chamber. A large room with a deep oubliette. Thick metal bars crisscrossed over the top, preventing even the most adept of climbers from reaching the top. A narrow catwalk allowed guards or, in this case, Arkk and the others to stand over the pit and look down.

The glowstones in the walls grew dimmer and dimmer the deeper the pit went. Ten gems, each spaced apart by about the same length as the average orc was tall, descended downward. The very bottom one barely provided any light at all, casting the prone form of their carapace-covered captive in a fitting shadow with only its edges highlighted in the violet light.

It hadn’t moved since falling at the shadowy village but the prisoner link said it was still alive.

“That thing,” Arkk said, pointing a finger downward. “Can you read its mind?”

Savren stooped over the railing, peering down into the depths with squinted eyes. “Ah, the being brought back from beyond the barrier?” He hummed to himself, not expecting an answer to the rhetorical question. “I shall scribe a circle suited to this species, though it may take a try or two to tune.”

“How long will that take.”

Looking up to the ceiling, Savren nonverbally counted something on his fingertips. Looking back down, he shrugged. “Morning.”

Arkk’s eyebrows popped up his forehead in surprise. He wasn’t quite sure why he was surprised. The few magical rituals that didn’t involve calling down the god of barriers, such as that inferno spell he had used on the slavers and Zullie’s cooling ritual, hardly took any time at all to develop. He supposed he anticipated some long, involved process. “Good,” he said. “I’m counting on you.”

“A moment,” Savren said, holding up his finger. “Meandering through memories without minding the material might get you what you want. Were you to whittle down the whys and wherefores, we’ll sooner wrap up.”

Arkk narrowed his eyes. That one took an extra second or two to parse. Savren, for all that Arkk wasn’t fond of the man, had come through in the research and development department. He had no real reason to try to get rid of the man at the moment. Finding a solution to his curse of alliteration would help not just him but everyone who had to communicate with him.

Of course, the man had been studying his curse and mind magics for the last year or so. Zullie had already said that curses were outside her area of expertise. Arkk wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it and, with the war on, it wasn’t like he could stop by the Cliff Academy seeking help. All capable spellcasters were enrolled in the Duke’s Grand Guard.

He would have to figure it out later. Maybe old magic could help if the creature in the oubliette below could read those old books in the library.

“You think it will go better if I know what I want in advance?”

“Correct.”

Arkk nodded. He was inferring, but memories were vast and widespread. Doubly so if the creature was long-lived. If Savren had to randomly stumble through those memories to find what they wanted, they could be here all week.

“In that case,” Arkk said, “focus on three topics. The history of that other world, what they did to combat the Calamity on their end, and—most importantly—whether or not this creature is an unthinking beast or something that could be reasoned with.” He looked around to Lexa and Vezta. “Anything else?”

“The thing fought with a sword and its limbs,” Lexa said, looking down below. “Might not know anything about magic or the Calamity.”

“If that’s the case, then oh well. Nothing we can do about it. Guess the mind reading will be quick.”

Vezta looked at Savren with most of her eyes. She didn’t often engage directly with the man—except on the occasions where they had to work together for the purposes of the ritual—so seeing her turn to address him directly made Arkk pay attention. “If you could, it would be wise to discover whether this is a solitary creature or if it has a group that will be missing it. Also knowledge of any other inhabited areas it knows of.”

Arkk gave Vezta an affirming smile. That was a good point. Even if it couldn’t be reasoned with, if it knew where others who might be reasoned with lived, that would save them the trouble of searching that entire wasteland.

“One other thing,” Arkk added. “Is the entire other world a wasteland or only the area in the vicinity of the portal? We might have just gotten unlucky.”

“The gateway used to connect to a variety of locations depending on the configuration of sigils around the crystalline structure. I believe I remember a few alternatives.”

Arkk shook his head. “Nope. Don’t touch it. The portal being opened at all is a boon from a god. If we turn it off and find out we can’t turn it back on, we’re stuck. We’re not running that ritual again to get it open.”

“A notable concern. We’ll—”

“Excuse me.” Lexa marched directly between Vezta and Arkk, looking between them. “What was that you just said?”

“Not to turn off the portal?”

“Wrong,” Lexa said, smacking him in the stomach. “The portal is a gift from a god? Like the Light?”

Arkk looked to Savren and then to Vezta before dropping his gaze to the startled gremlin. He cleared his throat. “Yes? Like healing magic is a miracle from the Light. So is this door. Nothing more to it than that.”

“You’re protesting too much.”

A shudder ran through Arkk’s back as memories of that being holding him in the palm of its hand surfaced in his mind. “It’s nothing. Don’t think about it.”

“But—”

Arkk teleported her away, sending her off to her quarters.

“Her suspicions won’t be alleviated like this,” Vezta said.

“Doesn’t matter. She can think whatever she wants to think. I don’t want to discuss… that.”

“Shame I hadn’t seen…” Savren said in a wistful tone.

“Trust me. Not a sight I wish to see again anytime soon. The weight of being there was crushing.” Arkk shook his head. “Just focus on your mind-reading ritual. I…”

Arkk frowned. If they weren’t going to get unlimited reinforcements from the other side of the portal, they were in more dire straits than he had feared.

“I need to figure out what to do about this war.”