An icy chill shot through his veins as Bronwyn felt his stomach drop. The statue. The totem — It was alive, a thinking creature. And it was controlling the beasts.

  He might have lacked an identification skill, but he knew it was strong. Too strong for them. He could see it in the way it moved, in the sheer weight of that strange energy that rolled off it. And, more than anything else, the sheer volume of beasts that had fallen under its command.

  They had to leave. Now.

  Gods’ scorn. He should have listened to Yanera and Julis.

  “Flee,” he hissed, slamming his feet into the ground as he brought his shield up to cover their retreat.

  His friends moved flawlessly.

  Julis drew on his mana.

  Dros drew his crossbow and racked a bolt in a single fluid motion.

  Yanera slipped to the front, standing a half-step in front of him with her giant greatshield, bolstered like a moving wall.

  All but running back, Bronwyn kept his eyes locked on the strange creature. Gods, he wished he knew what it was. It couldn’t be a greater beast, the being was of no race he’d ever heard of. Monstrous and unique. An unknown.

  The creature’s eyes drilled into him, and one of its hands snapped through the air.

  With that movement, the cowed beasts that surrounded it came alive. Howls filled the air, not just from below them, but above too.

  Snapping up, Bronwyn stifled a curse as he saw a wave of living creatures pour out of alcoves and ledges higher up the mountain spire. Three-quarters he had no name for, every colour of fur and type of scale visible as a wave of living flesh clambered down towards them.

  “Fuck. Defensive circle. We’re not getting out that way.”

  Readying his shield, Bronwyn reached for his skills before he turned his attention back to the figure, still in the centre of the clearing.

  It watched him with the same placid disinterest.

  The creature could talk. That meant it could be reasoned with. Perhaps it was a matter of territory. An unintentional challenge towards supremacy. If they could bargain their way out…

  A dismal weight settled in his stomach. He didn’t rate their chances, but by the gods, they had to try.

  The creature spoke first.

  “The moment has been struck, and your die has been cast. My sacred duty. The cleansing fire of challenge. Must come.”

  Every word that burst out of the creature’s mouth was garbled, chewed through its separated jaw and ripping hiss. It was inhuman to an utter degree. Not even the garbled half-language of the lower races was so displeasing to his ear.

  Bronwyn caught sight of Yanera constantly shifting, adjusting her shield as she tracked dozens of beasts that slowly padded down to cut off their easy retreat.

  “I don’t like this, Bronn. I don’t like this one bit. Feels like it’s going to be another one of those bad days.”

  Bronwyn grit his teeth. Oh, how he wished he could brush off and laugh at his friend’s anxiety. But he couldn’t. Not when they were surrounded in the middle of an army, a thousand hungry eyes staring at them.

  Yet seven of them gripped him most of all. Burning red.

  He had to speak. That was his duty.

  His tongue was drier than sand, and his lips clung together like lovers facing execution, but Bronwyn forced himself to open his mouth all the same.

  “Hail!” he yelled, standing tall with forced confidence as he projected his voice to the creature below. “We are silver adventurers from a local city, come to investigate recent unusual behaviour and migration of beasts, and to investigate the disappearances of villages nearby the Spine. I would entreat peace and speak under a flag of neutrality, if you will have me.”

  Gods, he hoped it would work.

  The creature was so hard to read. Was its manic twitching insanity? Humour? Rage? He didn’t know. He only clenched his sword, ready to draw, but kept it sheathed all the same.

  The thing’s segmented, scaled jaw jittered, opening wide. Each side waggled, and the sound of rolling gravel and a deep hiss left its naked throat.

  “You speak of peace. Peace is found in the quiet of death. Before then, there is only struggle, as the great System has decreed. Within it, purpose may be found — as mine has. Talk has no part in it — but we may talk all the same, if it pleases you.”

  Bronwyn breathed heavily. It was so tense it felt like he would snap his own spine.

  What in all the hells did that mean?

  He looked to his side, finding his friends’ eyes. They looked back at him, wild. By now, Julis had a spell at the ready, but he hadn’t cast.

  Yet the creature had said it would talk. So he would talk.

  “It is clear you have control over the beasts of this region. If the surrounding villages have encroached on your territory, merely let us know, and we can organise for them to recede. We have no direct quarrel with you. We only came to ensure that the local beasts weren’t being ensorcelled by some sort of mage.”

  Bronwyn bluffed as hard as he fucking could. It was all horseshit. Convincing nearly a dozen settlements to leave after they’d settled down and bunkered in through everything else was impossible. And as if the Guild would let some unknown monstrosity with control of an entire army go uncontested.

  But he didn’t care about lying. Not one whit, if it got him and his team out alive with information to share.

  Still, the creature seemed alien. Closer to a beast than a man. Different even from the greater lineages like the Meles. You could see it was a wild thing, half mad with devotion to something that he couldn’t quite grasp.

  The creature tilted its head, processing his words as it looked up to the sky.

  “Please tell me one of you has managed to analyse this thing,” Bronwyn hissed to his backline the second he broke eye contact with it.

  “I didn’t want to risk it,” the duelist replied in a scratchy whisper. “Who knows how it would react?”

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  “I did, the second it moved. Got nothing. Its Mask is made of adamant — hit me back something fierce.”

  Bronwyn ground his teeth together. So they were still blind.

  A heartbeat later, the strange monstrosity, encircled by beastly worshippers, looked back to him.

  “The villages encroached on nothing. There is no territory, no supremacy. Only the challenge, and duty.”

  Bronwyn could have torn his hair out. Duty to bloody what?

  Was it acting under orders from something even worse and more terrible?

  His frustration got the better of him, a hard note entering his voice.

  “Then why direct your beasts to slaughter villagers and pick them off like a predator in the night, when they were defenceless compared to an army, weak and helpless compared to you? Women, children, slain to the last. There is no challenge in that. No purpose, like you speak of. They were no threat to you.”

  The monstrosity seemed utterly unperturbed at his anger. Its multifaceted jaw opened wide once again, and Bronwyn realised with a start that the rolling, gravelly hiss was laughter.

  Its eyes burned into his.

  “But I am a threat — a naked fang, bared at the world. Death and the slain draw the strong like flies to vinegar.

  “My purpose must be realised.”

  Palms slick, Bronwyn tightened his grip on his kite shield.

  This was going nowhere.

  If this beast wanted a fight, it would have one. He just needed to make sure it wouldn’t be with him and his team. Not alone, not isolated as they were.

  “If you seek battle and the clash of blades so badly, let us leave. We will bring word of your demands to ones far better suited to challenge you than us.”

  It had to take the bait.

  The creature seemed almost stumped by his response. Seven eyes blinked independently as it looked over its shoulder, seemingly pondering the endless sprawl of beasts behind it.

  There was no way they would all make it. Trying was too risky.

  They had to ensure knowledge of this creature escape. It was a lethal threat. A mad thing like this, if it brought its army against Deadacre, it would be a slaughter.

  No. If it came to a fight, one of them had to escape. With a heart of stone, he knew what had to be done. There was only one of them suited for it.

  Bronwyn ripped the charm from his wrist. The same one Julis had procured for each of them, that would give them an hour of uninterrupted ability to run through the air.

  “Quick,” he hissed under his breath. “Pass off your air step artefacts to Dross. If this goes to shit, one of us needs to make it out.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ranger recoil, staring at him in disbelief as he clutched his crossbow tight to his chest.

  “Bron, what the fuck are you talking about? We need to get out of here. You can’t give me these. It’s our only chance to escape.”

  Bronwyn didn’t have any room left for despair. Oh, he was tense. Even a little scared, but he’d had despondency beaten out of him years ago. He had enough steel in his spine to face the reality of the situation.

  “You’re the fastest of us by far; the most agile, and the best able to hide. This is a fucking army, Dros. If this thing attacks Deadacre when it’s unawares, under the cover of darkness, the city will fall. Tens of thousands will die. We’re either leaving here with its leave, or not at all, so take the fucking artefacts!”

  He threw the bangle at the ranger’s chest with the quickest flick of his wrist he could.

  Slipping his Guild medallion from the pouch at his waist, Bronwyn threw that too.

  The monstrosity was still deep in thought, looking away from him.

  Behind him, Bronwyn heard a resigned sigh from Yanera as she removed her own artefact and passed it to the ranger.

  “I hate to say it, old friend, but dear Bronn is right,” Yanera said. “No chance in hell I would make it out. Too slow and too much meat on my bones.”

  “I’d get overrun in seconds,” Julis added with grim finality.

  “No, No! Not the medallions,” Dros whispered, grief in his voice. “No. I can’t.”

  “You can!” Bronwyn insisted. “You have to.”

  He felt for his friend. He really did. Of all of them, he’d lost the most teammates in his rise. Those losses weighed heavily on Dros. But Deadacre needed to know.

  And if things turned sour, with the level of strength he could tell the creature had, and the literal army that surrounded them, there was no point in them all dying.

  “Fine,” Dros snarled — his voice cracking as he snapped the artefacts over his wrists. “Fine, you utter bastards. If I don’t make it, I'm going to find you in the heavens and beat you all within an inch of your lives.”

  Bronwyn cracked a smile. “You can try, you wily bastard. Now be ready, though there’s still hope we might talk our way out of here.”

  The monstrosity looked back at him with a slow blink. A plan, a ploy, set slowly behind those seven eyes.

  Gods’ Scorn, it had seen them. Bronwyn tensed.

  “Such is your right,” the creature continued. “Your offer is tempting, I must admit — but how can I be sure that it reaches the right ears?”

  Bronwyn ground his teeth. Talking to this thing was maddening. What did it mean, the right ears? Why couldn’t it just say what it bloody wanted?

  Maybe if they could pry it out of them, give it some false assurance, it might let them leave.

  He opened his mouth.

  The wind changed.

  Suddenly it blew from their backs, rushing down the damp green sides of the spire they stood on, over prostrating beasts towards the six-armed abomination in the centre of the rocky pit.

  Simple red ignited, shining like hot coals. All seven eyes widened as their slit nostrils flared.

  Each and every beast, from those above and behind them to the prostrating horde beneath them, suddenly went wild. Racking shudders rolled over their bodies as they foamed at the mouth and howled.

  Pressure crushed Bronwyn like an anvil as that strange energy he had felt emanating from the thing grew to a fever pitch. It battered him harder than a war hammer, shaking his footing as he stumbled and strained against the physical weight pressing down on him.

  “That scent of delicious fire! Where?!” the creature demanded.

  Bronwyn strained. “Where?! Where what? I don’t understand! What do you want?”

  The thing drew a deep breath yet again.

  “Essence,” it hissed.

  Bronwyn froze.

  Essence.

  Fuck. Kaius and his team.

  But how? They’d barely interacted with them. It couldn’t be a physical scent.

  The pressure around him rose to a fever pitch. The creature had noticed their reaction. Gods’ rotten scorn.

  The sound of a choking snake filled the air as the thing cackled.

  “You know. Then your death will draw them.”

  Bronwyn snapped back to his team.

  “Dros, now! Now!”

  The ranger was as pale as death, his jaw quivering.

  “But…”

  “Fucking now, you fool!” Yanera screamed.

  She lunged towards the ranger, grabbing him by his leather armour. Hurled him into the air, Dross flew dozens of strides back the way they had come, over the heads of the beasts that had blocked their path.

  He spun his arms for a moment, shocked at the sudden movement, before instinct kicked in and he activated his artefact, finding steady footing in mid-air.

  Bronwyn swallowed hard as he saw the devastated sheen in one of his best friend’s eyes.

  Gods-damned bastard. Making him feel bad for his heroic sacrifice.

  A moment later, Dros was gone, dissipating like smoke in the wind as his form blurred away.

  “An elegant solution,” the reptilian-insect thing said, drawing his attention back to its twisted visage. “A message sent and a trap baited in one. You are good at this.”

  Its arms spread wide, and the beasts clustered around it parted, leaving a circle of empty space nearly a hundred long strides wide.

  “Meet me at the field of challenge. You’ll be cut down like the prey you are.”

  All doubt and fear left him.

  So they fought a monster, not an army.

  It was strong, you could tell. But they still had a chance. A slim one, down a man. A fight there would be, indeed.

  “Let’s go.” Bronwyn said, stepping forward to climb down from their ledge.

  “At least the Spine’s beautiful. Better than dying in a gutter,” Julis muttered from behind him.

  As they stepped forward through the clear path the beasts had created for them, a System notification chimed in Bronwyn’s mind, spilling out across his vision.

  **Ding! You have challenged a Tyrant: Purpose in Duty!**

  **Ding! Good luck.**

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