We slipped through the night like ghosts. The Fangs and I were sneaking closer and closer to the enemy camp while Mulius moved as quietly as possible a mile to our west. Glimpse could see him; he was hard to miss after all, and was almost in position. I flashed the hold sign to my friends, and we all slid to a stop, barely five hundred metres from the sea of undead that surrounded our real targets.

  We waited silently, hands ready on weapons, as I tracked Mulius moving slowly closer. He could move relatively quietly if he went slowly. Quiet for someone who would have to bend down to check the guttering on a four-storey building at least. When he was in position, I flashed the “ready” hand sign, and the Fangs nodded and grinned.

  I sprinted forward, my friends close behind me, and as soon as I was in range, I cast Burning Skies. Whatever organisational power the necromancers could exert over the swarm of undead, they had very helpfully gathered into a nice, dense target for me.

  Red clouds gathered quickly, and fireballs began to pound the earth. The upgrades to Intensity and Detonation impacted the effectiveness of this spell as well. When the streaks of fire hit the ground, they exploded into eleven-meter-wide balls of sunfire.

  Reanimated Humanos slain x795

  Eleven thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five Souls harvested.

  As we charged into the smoky, lunar landscape created by the barrage, we used fireballs from our rings to wipe out the next wall of walking corpses in our path. We each sent twenty coruscating lines of fire forward that detonated and took out another chunk of the zombies.

  Resurrected Humanos Slain x72

  One thousand and eighty Souls harvested.

  At the very least, this was going to be profitable. The rumble of Mulius breaking into a sprint began to shake the blasted earth as we hefted our weapons and charged in to cut our way to the wizards at the centre of the group. Bolts of ice flew towards me, and I threw up a fire barrier. It stopped the first dozen, but the rest shot through towards us. A pink and purple rip in reality appeared ahead of me, and another one came into being just above it. The ice bolts flew into the first and out of the second, a neat way of returning the attacks to the sender.

  Spheres of ice bloomed, encasing any zombie or human that wasn’t blasted away from the explosions. I leapt up to land on top of one that was now filled with frozen zombies and took a moment to assess the situation.

  The Fangs had spread out to either side and were cutting through the horde towards the humans in charge. Mulius had just arrived on the western flank and was stomping and kicking zombies into clouds of gore. His manic smile didn’t falter as an ice bolt slammed into his hip, and what must have been tons of ice blossomed on his side. He smashed it a few times with a fist, and the ice ball cracked and fell away. More spells flew towards him, but he began snatching up handfuls of undead and hurling them ahead of him to trigger the spells before they reached him.

  Those were two interesting tactics we’d discovered today to counter magic. I added them to the list and resolved to spend a lot of time creating Spatial Tear rings if I ever got a free moment. Leaping down from my perch, I activated Enhancement. I blurred forward, the spell and the adrenaline flooding my system, giving me speed far beyond anything a normal human could follow. The sword flickered left and right as I cut through the undead with ease.

  Resurrected Humanos Slain x24

  Three hundred and sixty Souls harvested.

  Normalis Humano Slain x32

  Three hundred and twenty Souls harvested.

  Soulbound Servant slain x6

  One hundred and twenty Souls harvested.

  Someone, I assumed it was one of my enemies, cast Firewall repeatedly, filling the ground with six-foot walls of orange fire. I moved through them unharmed, I had maxed out fire resistance so the heat was merely uncomfortable, it didn’t do me any damage. The zombie guardians didn’t fare so well. They didn’t flail their arms about or run around screaming like a living person would, but they were quickly crisped, and their extremities began to turn to ash and fall off.

  I broke through the fire, and the sword flashed. These humans were far too slow to deal with me in close quarters, even Huskar was lumbering and relatively weak to me now. Somehow, one of them managed to lunge forward with a black-tipped spear that I was forced to let slip past my guard and glance off my pauldron.

  The Fangs arrived a moment later, slicing through the wizards, throwing spells from rings and trinkets. Within seconds, only one man remained standing. We stood facing each other, rings of fire still burning around us to keep the undead back, and I recognised him.

  “You were at Hellath, in Hakubin’s camp,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

  “And you ran from me!” he sneered. “Let’s see how you handle me now!” A steel blade flashed towards me, and I dodged backwards, letting it sweep past an inch from my nose. My right foot shot forward as I leaned back to catch him in the stomach and launch him backwards.

  “You’re no longer a threat to me. Would one of you guys like to take this one?” I asked the Fangs. There was a brief but heated exchange, which Jandak won while his opponent was regaining his breath. I stepped away, and Jandak moved into the impromptu arena, spear held casually at his side.

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  The man growled and his sword swept up from a low guard to try and bisect Jandak, but he had already shifted sideways and back. The spear stabbed out and scored a line just beneath the man’s right eye.

  “You know you’re naked again? Take this,” said Kos as he offered a red tunic. “Fay said you might need some spares and that I should remind you to shave while we were away.”

  I took the tunic and began unbuckling the chest straps for my pauldron.

  “Five ivory chits says Jandak wins in five more moves,” I offered as the black metal shoulder guard fell at my side with a thud. “And I really need to figure out some kind of asbestos underwear!”

  The enemy rushed forward, half-handing his sword to use it more like a short staff as he batted Jandak’s spear to the side.

  “It’ll be seven. What’s asbestos?” asked Mune, accepting the bet. I shrugged the tunic over my head and began struggling to replace the pauldron.

  Jandak rolled with the momentum of his weapon being pushed aside and ducked low, pivoting so the spear butt tangled the other man’s legs. As he went down, he latched a hand onto the haft of the spear and tugged sharply, both helping himself rise and throwing Jandak off balance.

  “Fireproof stuff from my world,” I replied. My words made Jandak’s opponent flinch, and my friend slipped the leaf-shaped spear blade past his guard to score a shallow stab on the man’s side.

  “Nasty! What’s he up to now? Four more moves? I’ll take that. Bet it’s done in three!” said Mune. I was messing with the buckles across my chest and not paying attention to the fight. Jandak had this in the bag.

  “You think I’m just sport?” snarled Mortimer's soulbound servant. “I’m a god among men!” He slashed to force Jandak backwards, then leapt to barrel into Jandak, losing his sword in the process and pinning the spear between them as they scrabbled at each other on the ground.

  Jandak abandoned his hold on his spear and caught one of the man’s hands, forcing it out to the side. The other he snatched just as it was grasping at his throat, and they were locked in place for a time, neither of them able to do much more than squirm or grunt.

  A being of fire appeared next to them and dove at Jandak, but he twisted and interposed his assailant between them.

  “Oh! Bad form! Jandak hasn’t used any magic yet!” laughed Kos.

  “He started it!” growled Jandak as he rolled to his feet, holding the other man in one hand. I assumed he’d finally decided to use enhancement. The minor wounds on his face began to knit closed as well, and whenever the fire spirit moved, Jandak thrust its master into its path.

  “Don’t kill him! I want to ask him some questions when you’re done!” I snapped, and a blow that would have been lethal was transformed into a head-ringing slap that dazed the soulbound servant.

  Jandak danced backwards, keeping the man held between himself and the fire spirit, which ignored the rest of us until it vanished. The only evidence of its existence was burning footprints left in the grass.

  “Are we counting the wrestling as a move? I think I won if we don’t,” I said as Jandak repeated his blow to the temple, and the man went limp.

  “What an arse. No, it doesn’t count. Kos wins,” muttered Jandak as he threw the body down. “What are we doing with him? Blinding and clipping his fingers like Getha?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Maybe a blind fold will be enough this time,” I offered. Without the cold fury at having murdered probable innocents, I wasn’t sure I could find it in me to torture the man. He was a slave to Mortimer, and while it seemed he’d bought into the lies, I couldn’t punish a man simply because he was arrogant and stupid. Could I? Probably not.

  “Can I eat that one?” boomed Mulius as he kicked the remaining zombies back into true death nearby.

  “No, you bloody can’t!” I barked. “Blindfold him and bind his arms and legs with wire. If he’s difficult, we’ll give him to the women after we get as much as we can out of him. If he’s helpful, he goes to the moons quickly.”

  What was left of the horde was disintegrating as the power of the necromancers faded. Mulius dealt with most of them in his now preferred fashion, leaving gory footprints in his wake. The Fangs spread out and cleaned up the ones the titan missed while I carried our prisoner outside the devastation of the battle.

  I got a fire going and began boiling some water for ched as Jandak came and crouched next to me.

  “Good fight, bloke,” I complimented and got a savage grin in response.

  “He was boosting throughout. The fire spirit was a desperate gambit,” he replied as I poured out a cup of ched and passed it over.

  “You were playing with him?” I took a sip of my own as the other Fangs approached the fire.

  “No, he was a tough son of an aurox. Well trained, he knew how to use his strength.”

  “We should get some of that artifact gear from the Huskars for you guys,” I grumbled. Aside from being my friends, these three represented a massive investment of Souls. I ought to give them the best chance of survival I could.

  “Kril won’t be happy about that,” said Mune. “Cheers,” he added as I passed him a cup.

  “Kril isn’t in charge,” I muttered.

  “Can I get some of the Legion's gear as well?” blared Mulius from above us, having managed to sneak up behind me.

  “It won’t fit you, bloke. You’ll be fighting with fist and foot for the foreseeable,” I answered,

  “You know you’ve got two dots now?” asked Kos, nodding to my left arm. I held it out so I could see, and sure enough, above the tip of the spear, I now had two golden dots.

  “The Smith duel is over, then. I wonder who won?” I stretched out in my mind, searching through the hundreds of bonds, but being so far away made it hard to differentiate. “Once we gather the army at Hellath, I’ll run north and see who got the curse. We might be able to help him.” I wasn’t optimistic. A curse from a god was probably beyond our abilities to handle with magic or herbalism.

  “Sulk will have lost,” said Mune. “He was halfway gone already. He’ll have thrown the match to let Klip lead a normal life a bit longer.” Jandak shook his head.

  “Not a chance. Sulk is terrified of the Fumes, and he’s got Kayla. Klip is a bachelor.”

  “No, Jandak, Sulk isn’t so far gone as that. You can tell when he’s not at the forge. He fears it, knows it’s coming for him, so he watches himself and keeps tight control. He won’t succumb, and he and Klip hated each other; no way would he lose his mind for the sake of a rival,” said Kos.

  “We can’t know for sure until I head north again. With a bit of luck, the Source will be worth losing one of them.” My voice was bitter at the cost the gods demanded.

  “What use can it be anyway? It’s too tiny for a real smith to use. The Huskar can’t get to it!” said Mulius, rocking back and forth on his heels.

  “It’s a forge made by the god of smiths. I don’t know what use it will be, but I would be shocked if it wasn’t powerful,” said Jandak in a reasonable voice as he glanced up at my armoured titan. “You look like shit. What’s your health down to?” he asked.

  “Just under three thousand,” Mulius shrugged.

  “That’s going to take weeks to recover! Use all your mana to heal yourself. That recovers at ten times the speed.” I ordered Mulius. "We need more of the regeneration items..."

  “Back up to three thousand four hundred or so,” grunted Mulius. “Maybe it is useful if I dump all my mana into it?”

  “Of course it bloody is!” I snapped. “After a fight, use your mana to heal. That will be back in a couple of days, and you hardly need it to stomp zombies!” I flicked the bond to reinforce the order. Mulius twitched but nodded to me.

  “I am Julpast Sal Nardeel. My family will pay a handsome ransom for my release,” our prisoner interrupted.

  “Oh, we won’t be sending you back to your king, Mr. Nardeel. Your future has been narrowed down to two possibilities, and neither of them is pleasant,” I growled as I rose to my feet and moved over to the bound and blindfolded man.

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