Michael was crouched down as he and Prince Aza peered over a hill at the gathering force of Horned men. There were hundreds of them there with lizardmen support, a few of the massive scorpion-like insect monsters, and more than a dozen of the horned men in chitin armor. The sight of them made Aza’s scales flare.

  “I had not seen those monstrosities before. They use us as fuel for their strength and protection. It is sickening.”

  Michael nodded in agreement as he stared at the two rifts nearby. They were small and flickering, but seemed to be widening every few moments. He’d never been able to really look at the rifts from this side. He’d usually been too busy trying to kill or save something. They were still red and angry, but there were flickers of gold on the sides and some blue mixed in with the red. Even at the distance they were looking, he could almost feel the edges of them. Like he could reach out and close them.

  They’d been watching for some time, and it appeared that only one or two horned men were walking through every hour or so.

  “If the rifts can only let limited amounts of people through at a time, how are we all going to jump through? How will you and your people all manage it?”

  They’d gathered nearly two hundred by now through raids and runaways. A lot of them went to find their hatchmates at nearby castles, towns, and dungeons and convinced them to join the prince. They were all scattered in small pockets of caves and camps that meant that even if one was found the rest would be safe. The Horned men had been relentless in their tracking efforts of him and the Prince. Combing forests, caves, and anywhere else nearby where they could be hiding. They’d been forced to fight almost every day, with Michael frequently holding the line or drawing them away so that any of the refugees with them could escape with the Prince. Almost all of them had the same kinds of injuries. Missing fingers, tongues, or even eyes. The prince had explained it was to prevent them from using magic. Without their ability to speak or gesture it became much harder to focus and cast a spell. Only the truly skilled could cast a spell without being able to use words and gestures as a focus.

  “You are the key to that. You are from that world and it wants you to return to it. When you pass through there will be a brief window in which many can pass through without issue.”

  Michael nodded. That made sense based on the few times he’d jumped through back to the Humelands. He and the survivors had never had any trouble getting back. He remembered the few times that Davi, Marcus, Pyotr, and Ollie had dived in right behind him and had no trouble leaving when they needed to. He wondered what they were doing. Ollie was likely still in Old Hume, blowing things apart with magic and supporting the knights. Hopefully he knew he was still alive. Marcus and Pyotr would still be on the Burndan front, probably twice as strong as they were before with the constant fighting. The rest of Gemini… he hoped they were okay too. Lys was strong, and Trina was getting there too, but that didn’t mean they’d make it. Davi’s death had reminded him of that. He took a moment to pray for them, but he didn’t hear anything from the gods when he did so. Hadn’t heard them since he’d leapt through the portal.

  “We should gather your people and make the jump through now,” he said as he watched more horned men walk through rifts.

  “Patience Michael. The best time will be when their attack begins. We will overwhelm them with spells while they are distracted and then we will make our charge through with you in the lead… It is a shame we do not have any of those strange long mounts for you to use.”

  “Horses?”

  “Yes. Hideously terrifying beasts. I can see why you chose them to strike fear in your enemies.”

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  “Do your people not have mounts of any kind?”

  “In my home we rode upon great centipedes, but when we were conquered it was outlawed. It was seen as disrespectful to our new rulers.”

  Michael nodded, suppressing a shiver at the thought of a giant rideable centipede.

  “We should return to camp. We have been here a long time and they will be anxious for us to return. I do not wish for them to send scouts after us unnecessarily.

  Michael nodded, reluctantly moving away from the rifts as he muffled himself and crouched behind Aza. They walked down the hill and into the forest, moving quickly through the thin red reeds that tumbled down from the trees and the long thick vines spread across the floor like intestines. He was sick of the color red.

  They arrived at the small camp, and as usual it took a moment for Michael’s eyes to pick up where all of the lizardfolk around him were. Their scales and the odd lighting of the world combined with the forest all around them made it very difficult for him to make them out. He felt an impact on his helmet and stumbled a bit as two tiny clawed hands pulled up his visor.

  He laughed. “Kyoo, Hurzit.” he said. He’d managed to pick up a few basic phrases from them, though most were beyond his ability to pronounce. They had similar problems with human language. Only Aza and a few other lizardfolk were able to cast a spell of translation so he was often left without the ability to communicate.

  “Heyo,” said Hurzit, crawling onto his pauldron and leaping off onto the ground. Hurzit was a relatively young hatchling, and still had a strong sense of play. Michael didn’t mind much. He needed to pass the time somehow and he couldn’t always be on raids, or training, or talking to Aza.

  Hurzit bounded up a tree and jumped onto Michael again as he went to remove his armor. He caught him this time and threw him full strength straight up into the air. Hurzit went up past the trees then came tumbling down, landing perfectly fine on the ground next to him. Their young could apparently survive falling at terminal velocity, a fact he’d learned the first time he’d seen Hurzit fall from a tree and leapt to catch him only to hear the odd rapid exhalations of breath from a dozen of the lizardfolk which for them counted as laughter. Hurzit was laughing himself as he climbed up Michael’s arm and back into his hand to be thrown again. Michael smiled and threw him up again, and again, and again, until an older lizard berated the hatchling and bowed to Michael before taking him away. Michael tried to explain that he didn’t mind, but he lacked the vocabulary. Still, Hurzit waved goodbye to him, a trait he’d picked up from Michael as he’d never seen any of the other lizardfolk engage in it.

  With that done he finished stripping off his armor before he was led to several new arrivals. There were about five of them, and he took his time to heal each of them one by one, restoring fingers and tongues, and in one case an entire leg. It was tiring in a way he hadn’t experienced since he’d first started healing people when he’d arrived, but he was growing more accustomed to it. He looked forward to how much he’d be able to help with it once he returned to Hume. He remembered the grateful but sad looks on so many men and women who’d lost limbs in the fighting after he’d healed them and left them with only a stub.

  Once he was done he walked to the center of the narrow clearing they were in and got to training. Moving through his sword, mace, barrier, and newly added barehanded training routines. He was feeling strong. He’d been fighting the horned men near constantly since he’d arrived, as well as a number of hideous carapaced constructs and insects, and he had yet to come up short. At the same time, he felt off, empty. Without the gods, without the people he’d left behind, without anyone to talk to he was beginning to feel like a machine. He would fight for the rest of his life if he was stuck there forever. He’d kill, and do whatever he could to help the Prince and his people, even die if it came to it, but it wasn’t his fight. It wasn’t what he was meant to be doing.

  He was in the middle of practicing his strikes, forming barriers at the edge of his fists to test their durability and his strength, when Aza approached him, casting his translation spell as he did so.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Arzak was a slave in the camp and overheard their plans. They begin their assault on a city within your world. They hope to overwhelm them before they can be crushed between the city itself and the forces massed on the other side of them. If they take it, it would act as a tremendous foothold.”

  “They won’t take it,” said Michael, clenching his fists tightly enough to crack his knuckles. “We’ll get your people over and once I’m sure they’re safe, I’ll make sure my people are.”