“Next bolt!” Viktor barked.

  “It’s already loaded, Master,” Kazyk’s voice echoed in his ear, a trace of smugness curling at the edges of his tone.

  Viktor opened his eyes. The vision of Brynhildr lurching toward her freshly impaled nephew vanished, giving way to the familiar sight of his trusty ballista. The engine of destruction stood ready, waiting for his command to unleash its fury on his enemies. Just as Kazyk said, the siege weapon’s massive arms had been drawn taut, a new bolt already locked in place.

  “That quick, huh?”

  “Yes, yes,” Kazyk said, turning his wrist to admire the gem-studded gauntlet wrapped around his hand. “The device you gave me is a marvel. The arms reset within seconds.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Now... if only I could rig something to load the bolts quickly and automatically, then we’d be able to rain death non-stop. Ten, no, twenty bolts a minute. That’d obliterate anything.”

  Viktor chuckled. “We don’t need to fire that fast. The bolt still needs time to reach its target, and I need time to guide it. As long as the ballista’s ready for the next shot when I am, that’s enough.”

  “You’re right, Master.”

  “Still, I like that you’re not settling for ‘good enough’ and already thinking of ways to make it even better. A rapid-fire ballista is a fascinating idea. A project for the future that we can entertain once this is over.”

  The gremlin grinned, flashing his crooked teeth. “Thank you, Master. So... how was the shot?”

  “I hit the target, but he’s not dead yet.”

  “Annoying.”

  “Very.”

  The first bolt had struck true, punching clean through the man’s torso like a hot knife through butter. Anyone else would have died then and there, but Dagnar survived the shot. Viktor saw no blood spilled from that body hanging on the shaft; instead, it was Brynhildr who bore the injury. Clearly, the damage had been transferred to the warrior woman thanks to the wish granted by the Golden Apple. Then, her armor, a Reliquary that bestowed extraordinary resistance, kept her alive. Very annoying, indeed. But it was fine. If one bolt couldn’t finish the job, he would simply fire another.

  He yanked the lever, and once again, he reached out with his vision, guiding the bolt through the tunnels to the kingdom of sand on the second floor.

  Dagnar was still there, of course, pinned in the same spot like an insect on display. And he was making noise, a lot of it.

  It was hard to say what it was, exactly. Screaming? Wailing? Sobbing? A complaint about the inconvenience of suddenly having a big hole in his chest? Whatever it was, it was loud. Incredibly loud. Viktor couldn’t tell whether the guy was genuinely terrified, or just throwing a tantrum about being temporarily nailed to the floor.

  Brynhildr, meanwhile, had abandoned her attempts to free him. She had drawn her sword, her back to her nephew, her eyes on something else entirely. Well, yes, Viktor never intended to attack them all by himself with the ballista. The shot he made earlier was merely a signal for his minions to begin their full-scale assault.

  Five stone pillars clawed up from the courtyard like twisted fingers, each one cradling a robed, skeletal figure. The undead mages wasted no time, hurling relentless barrages of jagged rocks at the two targets. And if that wasn’t enough, Khenemhotep himself had emerged, spear shafts forged from hardened sand materializing around him like extensions of his will, ready to launch with deadly precision.

  Viktor then caught sight of a massive slab of stone, slammed shut over the great tomb’s entrance. Even if Ekon’s party came back now, they would still be stuck inside, unable to provide any aid to Dagnar and Brynhildr. The undead priest was very thorough, wasn’t he?

  “Duncan, do something!” Brynhildr shouted, dodging and slashing as rocks rained down like a storm of malice. Despite her efforts, several stones had found their mark. Scratches and bruises marred her face, streaked with blood and grime.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Dagnar howled. “Isn’t fighting your job? Shouldn’t you be protecting me? Why are you so useless?”

  Brynhildr clenched her jaw, her muscles straining as she deflected another furious salvo. “Do something. Anything. Use your power, please. If you don’t, we’re going to die here.”

  “If we die, then it’s your fault. It’s you who dragged me to this cursed town. It’s you who led me into this damned dungeon—”

  The man didn’t get to finish his whine.

  Khenemhotep curled his desiccated fingers, and earthen spears screamed forward in response. These were the same weapons that had reduced the monstrous body of that mutated Lyndorian spy to a mangled heap of flesh, and now they were headed straight for Brynhildr and her whimpering liability of a nephew.

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  But—

  At the very last moment, the ground heaved with sudden force. A thick slab of stone surged upward, slamming into place just as the jagged lances shot toward their mark, creating a barrier between the undead priest and his prey. The projectiles struck it dead-on, hardened sand meeting stone in a thunderous impact. The resulting explosion tore through the air with a deafening roar, sending debris flying in all directions. For a moment, Viktor couldn’t see a thing, as the world had been swallowed by a choking cloud of dust.

  [Did he just copy Khenemhotep’s spell?]

  Viktor had long since stopped being surprised by Celeste speaking unprompted. Of course she was also watching the battle, of course she had seen what happened, and of course, she was going to comment.

  “Technically, it’s not copying,” he said.

  Thaumaturgy was not magic, or at least, not the type of magic practiced by the mages. No, it was a power that allowed the wielder to observe, analyze, and deconstruct magic spells into components, then use those components to craft Thauma. Well, yes, one could just make a Thauma that replicates an existing spell, which made it look like a copy. But Thaumaturgy went far beyond simple mimicry. It could create anything. The potential was endless.

  “But for the sake of simplicity,” Viktor continued, “let’s call it that. So yes, he’s copied the spell Khenemhotep used to conjure a stone wall. If he’d spent some time experimenting with his power, then with a bit of quick thinking, it’s not a surprise he could pull out this trick on the spot.”

  He was speaking with Celeste, but his eyes remained fixed on the battlefield, waiting for the dust to settle. And the moment Dagnar’s skewered silhouette became barely visible, the bolt immediately came down without any delay.

  “Behind you!” came Brynhildr’s shout, somewhere in the thick cloud.

  Another slab of stone erupted from the ground, rising to intercept the incoming bolt. The projectile slammed right into it, but there was no explosion this time. After all, the bolt was far less durable than Khenemhotep’s spikes, so it just shattered against that shield of stone.

  If it had only happened once, Viktor might have called it a fluke. Even idiots got lucky sometimes. But twice? In quick succession?

  No, there was no room for doubt anymore. Dagnar’s reflexes were absurdly good. Was it natural talent, or had he crafted a Thauma specifically to enhance his reaction speed? It didn’t really matter, as the result was the same: the man had just defended himself from two lethal attacks in a row, while pinned to the ground, and clearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Which meant this sickly-looking, whining excuse for a man-child was far less helpless than his appearance suggested.

  It was a pity, really.

  The man had potential. If he could somehow get rid of his bad traits—his cowardice, his laziness, his ingratitude, his entitlement, his whining, his constant deflection of blame, well, his entire personality basically—then he might grow into someone formidable. But then again, a more powerful Dagnar would be a harder-to-kill Dagnar. So Viktor was perfectly content with the pathetic version he had.

  One’s loss is another’s gain, I guess.

  Viktor opened his eyes, his mind snapping back to the fourth floor. The ballista stood before him, already reloaded.

  Kazyk hadn’t noticed his master’s return yet, too busy admiring his new gauntlet as if it were some priceless treasure. Well, it did fit that spindly hand perfectly. Alycia had made the thing for a thirteen-year-old, after all. It came with the rotator, acting as its controller. All the powerstones she had left had been packed into the device to drive its rotation, while the remaining triggerstones had been embedded into that gauntlet, allowing the wearer to control the speed.

  There was no need to call the gremlin, so Viktor just reached for the lever and pulled it before sending his mind forward again.

  When he came back to the mortuary complex, he found the place in utter chaos. Projectiles screamed through the air from every direction, while makeshift walls had sprung up across the courtyard. It was hard to tell who had raised what anymore; the landscape had transformed into an unrecognizable mess of wreckage and improvised fortifications. Lahmia had loosed her phoenix of sand, its colossal wings spreading wide as it circled overhead like a vulture, waiting for blood. The tomb guards had joined the fray, too, emerging from the mock temples to charge at Brynhildr in a tide of bone, earth, and steel.

  With too many things moving, and too many things blocking, there was no longer any clear line of sight. So Viktor let the bolt glide in the air, tracing lazy loops high above.

  “I can’t fight this many!” Brynhildr yelled, her blade shuddering as she batted aside a tomb guard’s heavy axe. “Do something!”

  “Haven’t I done enough?” shrieked the man lying on the stone. “What more do you want from me?”

  Only now did Viktor realize Dagnar was no longer pinned to the ground. Instead, he was sprawled across an elevated platform, like a sacrifice laid out upon an altar. Khenemhotep had probably tried to sink him with a quicksand spell, and Dagnar countered by raising a wall exactly at his location to push himself up. It lifted the bolt as it rose, pulling it free of the earth. Still, Viktor doubted the man was going anywhere soon, not with a shaft the size of a tree trunk driven through his body.

  “Don’t you have any offensive spells?” Brynhildr screamed, parrying another blow with a grimace of pain.

  “I don’t.”

  Does he truly have nothing left? Viktor wondered. What happened to that secret ability, the one he had used to annihilate the Lyndorian assassins? Was he holding that trump card back, saving it for the last possible moment, even if it meant letting his protector bleed to death right before him? Or maybe he had drained himself completely after raising all those random walls all over the place. Thaumaturgy was powerful, but it was not without limitations. And since the man only had a fraction of Viktor’s power, his limit should be much lower. How much lower it was, though, Viktor had no idea.

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter. He would just let his minions press on with their attack. Sooner or later, Dagnar would either be forced to show his hand, or be crushed under the tide of the dead.

  [Master.]

  “What?”

  [Ekon’s party has come back to the entrance.]

  Already? He had expected the spider-women and troglodytes to hold them a bit longer. Well, there was still that block of stone. Surely it would hold—

  The world trembled.

  A shockwave rippled outward as an explosion split the air. The slab cracked, splintered, and shattered into a shower of rubble. A moment later, from the cloud of dust, emerged four figures.

  Reinforcements have arrived, huh? Fine. He had reserves.