We crested the ridge, and the smell hit us first.

  It wasn't the wild, chaotic smoke of the Granary fire. It was the scent of burning fur. Of singed pine. Of a massacre conducted with the efficiency of a factory line.

  Foxglade.

  Fenris let out a sound that tore his throat apart a high, keening whimper that dissolved into a snarl. His mechanical wolf hissed steam, its claws digging into the earth.

  "Hold him," Brandan ordered quietly.

  Gerald and Gutrum grabbed the fox’s shoulders, holding him back. Because if Fenris charged now, he would die.

  Below us, the village wasn't just burning. It was being processed.

  The Ironvine Army was there. Five thousand men in emerald-green plate. They didn't run. They didn't shout. They moved in perfect, terrifying squares, herding the Beastkin villagers into the town square.

  And towering over the houses, smashing roofs with vines as thick as tree trunks, was the pet.

  It was a monstrosity of animated wood and razor-wire vines. It held a cage in its massive, wooden hand. A cage filled with screaming fox-children.

  "Liora..." Fenris choked out. "Ember..."

  But it wasn't the monster that froze my blood. It was the command tent set up on the hill overlooking the slaughter.

  Lydia Ironvine stood there, watching the fires with a glass of wine in her hand, a cruel, satisfied smile on her lips. She looked like a queen watching a play she had written.

  Ser Damian Ironvine stood beside her, his helmet off, his face a mask of torture. He looked at the burning homes, then at his sword, looking like he wanted to fall on it.

  But they were just the children.

  Sitting at a heavy oak desk literally a desk brought out to the battlefield was a man.

  Duke Dankmar Ironvine.

  He didn't look like a warrior. He was older, balding, with mutton-chop whiskers that were grey as iron. He wore no armor. Just a black tunic with the Gold Chalice embroidered on the chest.

  He wasn't watching the battle. He was reading a scroll.

  A soldier ran up to him. An officer. Panting, covered in soot.

  "My Lord!" the officer gasped, saluting. "The eastern perimeter is secured. The Beastkin are resisting. They... they are fighting back with farming tools."

  Dankmar didn't look up. He dipped a quill into an inkwell.

  "Resisting?" Dankmar said. His voice wasn't loud. It was a dry, baritone rumble that carried effortlessly over the screams of the dying. "Inefficient."

  He signed the scroll.

  "Do not engage them in melee, Captain. It wastes stamina. Burn the grain silos."

  The Captain blinked. "My Lord? The grain? But... that is loot."

  Dankmar finally looked up.

  His eyes were the color of stagnant water. Green. Cold. Dead.

  "Beastkin do not surrender when they are fighting for their lives," Dankmar stated calmly. "They surrender when they are fighting for their children’s dinner. Burn the food. They will drop their weapons to save it. Then... you execute them."

  He went back to writing.

  "Go. And Captain? Tuck in your shirt. You look like a barbarian."

  The Captain paled, tucked his shirt in, and ran.

  I stared at him through my Monocle.

  "That," I whispered, my mouth dry, "is Duke Dankmar Ironvine."

  "He's killing them," Fenris sobbed, thrashing against Gutrum’s grip. "He's calculating the cost of genocide like he's buying turnips!"

  Dankmar finished his letter. He sanded the ink. He rolled the scroll.

  He looked at Lydia.

  "Daughter," Dankmar said.

  Lydia flinched. She turned, her smile vanishing instantly. She looked like a scolded child. "Yes, Father?"

  "You are smiling," Dankmar noted. "Stop it."

  "I... we are winning," Lydia stammered. "The village is ours."

  "We are exterminating vermin," Dankmar said, wiping his quill with a cloth. "Do you smile when you sweep the floor? Do you smile when you take out the trash? It is a chore, Lydia. Smiling suggests you derive pleasure from duty. It makes you look weak."

  Lydia’s face went blank. "Yes, Father."

  "And Damian," Dankmar didn't turn his head.

  Damian straightened up, his armor clanking. "Father."

  "You are weeping," Dankmar observed. "Stop it."

  "They are farmers," Damian whispered, tears streaming down his face. "They are unarmed."

  "They are a Quest Objective," Dankmar said. He stood up. He wasn't tall, but he seemed to block out the moon. "The Gods demand a purge. We provide it. Your tears rust your armor, boy. And iron does not rust in this house."

  He walked to the edge of the hill. He looked down at the Thorn-Hulk.

  "Squeeze," Dankmar commanded.

  The monster tightened its grip on the cage of children. The wood groaned. The children screamed.

  "Make them watch," Dankmar said to his troops. "Bring the elders forward. Let them see the price of redundancy."

  "NO!"

  The scream didn't come from the village. It came from us.

  Fenris broke free. He launched his mechanical wolf down the ridge.

  "DANKMAR!"

  We had no choice.

  "Charge!" Brandan roared, kicking his horse.

  We thundered down the hill. A chaotic, desperate wedge of heroes crashing the villain's perfectly organized party.

  Dankmar watched us come. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't call for guards.

  He just clasped his hands behind his back and watched us like we were a column of numbers that didn't add up.

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  "Ah," Dankmar said, his voice cutting through the thunder of hooves. "The King. And the Circus."

  He looked at me. He looked right at me.

  "And the Accountant who thinks he can balance my books."

  He raised a hand.

  "Ironvine," he said softly. "Hold the line. Do not kill the King. But the rest?"

  He looked at Fenris.

  "Skin the fox. I need a new rug."

  The clash was deafening.

  Brandan hit the Ironvine shield wall like a meteorite made of meat and rage. THOOM. Three soldiers flew backward, their formations shattered by the King’s hammer.

  "FOR THE MESS!" Brandan roared, swinging again.

  Beside him, Gutrum Falken fought with the grim efficiency of a butcher, his axe rising and falling in a rhythmic, bloody cadence. Baldur was a machine of sparks and steel, his sword moving in perfect geometric arcs.

  And Duke Dankmar Ironvine?

  He sat at his desk on the hill, fifty yards away. He didn't look up. He turned a page of his ledger. Scritch, scratch. The sound of his quill was somehow louder than the screaming.

  I stood on the flank, my Cinder-Cleaver burning in the night.

  "Right," I muttered, my Monocle buzzing with threat indicators. "I forgot something."

  I checked my internal ledger. A notification from the forest battle was still blinking.

  "Oops," I whispered. "Admin error."

  I dumped the point into [STRENGTH].

  "Much better," I grinned, feeling the muscles in my arms tighten. The heavy Cleaver suddenly felt like a baton.

  Three Ironvine Halberdiers broke off from the main group. They saw the man in the smoky coat and the bone mask. They saw a target.

  "Flank him!" one shouted.

  "Oh, look," I drawled, adjusting my grip. "Volunteers for the audit."

  I raised my wrist.

  "Thwip."

  The white line shot out, latching onto the helmet of the center soldier. I didn't pull him to me. I jumped.

  "Going up!"

  I yanked the web. I launched myself into the air, using his head as a fulcrum. I soared over his shield, flipping in mid-air.

  "Gravity check!"

  I landed behind him.

  I swung. The burning blade cleaved through his backplate like it was cardboard.

  SHINK.

  The other two spun around. "He's fast! The Bastard is fast!"

  "Not fast," I corrected, breathing hard. "Just... vertical."

  I fired a web at the burning roof of a nearby cottage. Thwip.

  I swung. I lifted off the ground just as their halberds stabbed the air where my kidneys used to be. I swung in a wide arc, picking up speed.

  "Malachia!" I shouted. "Batter up!"

  The Pontifex was busy flickering through a soldier's chest, but she heard me. She looked up.

  "Incoming!"

  I released the web at the apex of the swing. I became a projectile.

  I fell toward the second soldier. I didn't slash. I brought the flat of the heavy, burning blade down on his head.

  CLANG.

  He crumpled into the mud, his helmet caved in.

  I landed in a crouch. The impact jarred my bad leg, sending a spike of agony up my spine. Click. Tap. Ouch.

  "Two down," I wheezed.

  The third soldier backed away. He looked terrified. He raised his spear.

  "Stay back! I have... I have a pension!"

  "And I have a deficit," I snarled.

  I pointed my hand.

  "Lightning Bolt!"

  The blue arc snapped from my fingers. It hit the spear tip, traveled down the metal shaft, and fried the soldier in his armor. He danced the jitterbug of death and fell over, smoking.

  A golden light washed over me, scrubbing the mud from my soul.

  I stood there, panting, the golden glow fading.

  "Another point," I gasped. I looked at my ribs. My fragile, bird-like ribs. "I'm tired of breaking."

  I dumped the point into [ENDURANCE].

  My skin felt tougher. My bones felt denser. I wasn't a tank, but I wasn't a twig anymore.

  I looked down at the last soldier I killed. He was an officer. An Elite. And his helmet...

  It was beautiful. Green steel, etched with gold vines, with a visor shaped like a snarling wolf.

  I reached up and pulled off the Hollow-Eye Mask.

  "Goodbye, spooky face," I muttered, shoving the bone mask into my inventory. "Hello, tactical advantage."

  I put on the Ironvine Helm.

  Click-Hiss.

  The visor sealed. The world didn't just get clearer; it got annotated.

  "I can see everything," I whispered. "I can see the fleas on Fenris's wolf."

  The first wave of Ironvine soldiers was broken. They lay in the mud, groaning or dead. Brandan was leaning on his hammer, laughing. Bastian was cleaning blood off his velvet with a handkerchief. Malachia was eating a candy bar she found in a dead man's pocket.

  But the war wasn't over.

  Up on the hill, the scratching stopped.

  Duke Dankmar Ironvine put down his quill.

  He sanded the ink. He rolled the parchment. He placed it neatly in a drawer of his desk.

  Then, he stood up.

  He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't shout.

  He just looked down at us. At the carnage we had wrought on his vanguard.

  He adjusted his cuffs.

  "Inefficient," Dankmar said. His voice carried across the battlefield, dry and terrible.

  He snapped his fingers.

  From the trees behind him, the Second Wave emerged.

  Not soldiers.

  Golems.

  Massive, wood-and-iron constructs. Siege engines with legs. Fifty of them.

  "Round Two," I whispered inside my new helmet, checking my blood (4,144 / 5,000 ml)

  "Brandan," I called out. "I hope you brought a bigger hammer. The Tycoon just opened his wallet."