Siphoning Fang rested in Isaac’s clammy palm, his index finger snug in its hilt ring, its black and red blade gleaming in the campfire’s light. Edem sat across the pit on a miserable-looking log, more moss and rot than proper wood. He slowly dragged a whetstone across his greatsword, a scrape, scrape, scrape murmuring in the dark forest, sparks leaping with each stroke and flickering off his blue eyes. The Blacksmith smiled down at the weapon as though he was brushing his son’s hair, not sharpening something that could cleave a city in two.

  Edem always said there was a soul in every proper weapon. Having forged hundreds, he’d be the one to know, but Isaac’s skin crawled at the thought of it. Any sane man would feel the same, he reckoned. Siphoning Fang was carved from the chelicerae of a demiGod. Had Edem created a soul from it in his forge, all with the strike of his hammer and a flick of his will? Some would call such blasphemy, a man giving metal life, say that the Goddess would be none too happy about it either.

  Or was there something left of Queen Ya’eesh in his hand? He ran his finger up the curved edge, searching for a fragment of the arachnid that’d killed and feasted on thousands, not always in that order.

  That was far worse.

  “Reckon it ain’t far now,” Edem grunted. The weapon blinked out of existence and the Blacksmith pushed himself up, beating the wet grit and leaves off his slacks with slaps that would’ve sent Isaac reeling.

  Isaac raised an eyebrow at him. “You almost seem eager about it.” Edem wasn’t the type to hide under the table in a bar scrap, but he wasn’t the type to dive in first, either. It’s always a bit unsettling when the calmest man you know starts getting restless.

  “Ain’t eager to stay here, damn sure of that. Way I see it, sooner we finish, sooner I see Dan.” He stared into the flames for a moment, a hint of a smile on his scarred face. “He’ll be six by now, probably taller’n kids twice his age. I’ve already got his birthday gifts picked out.”

  Isaac chuckled. Knowing Edem, it’d probably be a set of plate armor the average Campaigner would kill for. Some fools had tried, come to think of it. Fancied themselves smarter or tougher than they were, thought a seven-and-a-half-foot man with an entire city’s arsenal of Rare and Epic weapons could be intimidated. Isaac never got the logic behind that. Never do something to upset your barber, your wife, and most of all, your blacksmith.

  All right, most of all your wife. Second most your blacksmith.

  “How ‘bout Grant?” A peeled orange appeared in Edem’s hand. He tore off half and popped it in his mouth, then tossed the other half to Isaac, chewing as he spoke. “You know, when all this is over. We owe ‘em a couple by my count.”

  “Books.” A log in the pit collapsed, sending up a shower of sparks. “Plenty of books. Enough to keep him busy until he’s ten or eleven.”

  Edem gave a snort of laughter. “Books? For a six-year-old?” He shook his head, clicking his tongue. “You know there are these things called toys, right? I’ve it on good authority that boys like playing with ‘em.”

  “Oh, toys! What, like a halberd? A child-sized battle axe? Maybe a cocked crossbow with a hair trigger?”

  “No son o’ mine will be using a crossbow!” roared Edem, hacking to the side with his hand. “I’d rather he be a Goddess-damned dress-wearing Mage than that!”

  “Now that’s too far!” spat Isaac, jumping to his feet and pulling back his fist, as though he could even reach the bottom of Edem’s chin. The Blacksmith had grown a full foot since the Campaign began, and Isaac less than an inch, as fair as that was. “Don’t you—”

  He snapped his mouth shut and jerked his head around, gazing off into the forest. The next second, Edem’s armor covered his body and his sword sat in his hands. He kicked dirt over their fire, peering at Isaac through the slit in his visor.

  Hundreds, signed Isaac, expanding his Dimensional Magic. We’re surrounded.

  Edem looked left and right, eyes narrowed at the darkness. Run? The Blacksmith’s chest rose soft and even, but Isaac heard his heart thundering every bit as hard as his own.

  “Fuck,” he mouthed, trying to stay quiet, not sure why. Shouting at the top of his lungs wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, because they knew exactly where he and Edem were now. It was a horrible decision to have to make, running or fighting, most of all because it wasn’t only for his life. His eyes flicked to Edem. From a tactical standpoint, losing a Blacksmith like him in a place like this would be like a cripple losing his good leg.

  On a personal level, he didn’t know how he’d live without his friend.

  More horrors popped into existence, thousands across the empty forest. The Titan was sure about what he was doing, then. It all made even less sense than anything else that’d happened in the Fifth, and most things there made damn near none. His forces were supposed to be occupied, up in the north. Isaac and Edem were so close to his Sanctum, and then out of nowhere, they show up?

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  Someone talked. Probably one of the Genus shits, always willing to take a deal, never willing to pay for it themselves.

  Isaac set his jaw. Fight. I’ll take north, you handle the south.

  Edem nodded, turning and digging his boot into the dirt, raising his weapon high. It glowed orange, then red. Wisps of yellow peeled from its edge as it began to tremble, the air shimmered and twisted. Isaac pulled back Siphoning Fang.

  The forest was silent.

  “Now,” whispered Isaac.

  Edem slammed his weapon into the ground, shaking the earth and sending dozens of fissures across the forest floor. They cracked and turned, crossed and weaved, then erupted in spews of white-hot magma. In seconds the southern half of the forest was a hellish wasteland, the shrieks and wails of the Titan’s forces the cries of the damned.

  Isaac swiped Siphoning Fang. Hundreds of portals cracked open and widened, ethereal slashes and thrusts bursting from each, cutting off excited squeals with gags and gurgles. The creatures spilled to the floor, collapsing and twitching in their own gore, screaming as their brethren trampled their fallen corpses.

  The first wave arrived.

  A tunneler burst from the ground under Isaac’s left foot. Edem parried a blow from another at his front and stomped down and back, crushing it under his sabaton. The beast gave a pitiful whine as it choked its last breath. A chitterer found an opening on Edem’s flank, diving forward with its mouth wide, slashing wildly with its talons. Isaac opened a portal in its path, and it gave a confused whimper as it flew in, then crashed through the exit thirty feet away, tumbling straight into another of its kind. In the midst of their bloodlust, the two creatures turned on each other, stabbing and clawing and biting in a tangled heap.

  Edem and Isaac shared a chuckle at the sight.

  They cut through hundreds of monstrosities, but two took the place of every one that fell. With rising horror, Isaac realized the Titan had pulled his armies away from the northern offensive, abandoning his territories for two men.

  Isaac’s hands ached, his shoulders were on fire, sweat kept dripping into his eyes. He struggled for a moment to try and find something that didn’t hurt, then pushed the thought out and sliced a squirmer in two. Seemed hardly a thing worth getting distracted over. He let the feeling fill him, let it push back the exhaustion, not as though it changed anything. He was almost out of Mana, Edem’s weapons either nearly or completely out of Charges for his Skills. Now they panted for breath and hacked at the monsters who still swarmed forward, killing them with little more than sheer willpower.

  There was a roar so loud Isaac could feel it in his teeth. It howled, ripping through the air, toppling trees in the distance. Edem looked to Isaac, and Isaac peered through the forest. A colossal shadow loomed in the distance, lumbering forward, covering a field’s length with each step. The Titan’s forces had dwindled from a roaring current to a trickle, and he was coming to deal with them himself.

  It was time to go.

  “Hold them off for 20 seconds!” Isaac shouted, Dismissing Siphoning Fang.

  Edem grunted and Resummoned another weapon. With the last of his Mana, Isaac began channeling. It was a Spell of his own design, the product of years of endless trial and catastrophic error, delving deeper into the well of Dimensional Magic than he should have. Portal Spells from the Store were stable. But their greatest limitation was they could not be cast with enemies nearby. His workaround was a makeshift hybrid Spell that would take them back to the city in a blink, even surrounded by the Titan’s forces.

  Should, at least.

  The only problem was the Spell was a bitter, fickle, strenuous fucking thing, and it being his own creation meant he couldn’t skip the hard part like everything from the Store. It was a risk, but fighting the Titan with just the two of them was as good as throwing their weapons down and crushing themselves under his foot.

  Piece by piece, the Spell snapped together. Isaac had never cast it in combat before, but Edem guarded him with everything he had, grunting and cursing and hacking at everything with more than two legs. Isaac clenched his eyes shut. Blood thundered in his ears as he reached the halfway point, dripped from his nose and then gushed, releasing pressure like a broken dam. With a final roar, Edem jammed his weapon into the ground and expended one final Charge, raising six stone pillars, blocking off the next wave of enemies.

  Almost!

  Isaac only needed seconds more. The Titan’s forces clawed at the giant earthen walls as Edem fell to a knee, pushed beyond exhaustion. The Titan himself arrived, raising a foot the size of a barn over their heads.

  It crashed down.

  The Spell completed, and they were pulled into Isaac’s portal. He felt the Dimensional Magic warp, then twist as something brushed against his Will, no harder than the first drop of rain before a storm. For any Store Spell, it would not have changed a thing, but for a crafted Spell, even a whisper was like a stampede.

  The portal sent them through the void and into the city hundreds of miles away. At the sight of familiar streets, Isaac laughed, giddy with relief. It couldn’t have been the Titan who’d try to sabotage his Spell. Intervention of that kind was of the Celestial variety.

  They soared down, directly to Isaac’s anchor point, where Edem was spit out first in an unceremonious heap. He crashed into the pavement and Dismissed his armor. Isaac bulged from the exit and tried to push through, but something pulled him back, like a child grabbed by the back collar of his shirt.

  “Pull me out!” he shouted.

  Edem leaped up and grabbed his wrist, tugging back with his hundreds of points of Strength, but he may as well have been trying to fight the tide.

  The Spell began tearing apart. Siphoning Fang fell from the portal first, then his rings and necklace. Bound Items had a funny way of tampering with Dimensional Magic. Edem screamed with each Item that clattered to the stone street, pulling harder and changing nothing. Isaac’s arm was a ribbon of agony, his throat raw, his head throbbing with effort.

  Edem’s grip slipped and Isaac lurched into the void, watching his best friend collapse and beat the ground in rage and frustration.

  “Fucking Gods,” spat Isaac. Not the most noble last words, but some of the most honest.