The Gem-Croc lay slumped across the battlefield, a mountain of resting muscle and scale. Its gangrenous tail was nearly healed; even the scarred ruin of its face had begun to mend.

  Trenn’s boots found clumsy purchase on the torn-up earth as he scrambled toward the distant carnage—toward the ruin of a Beaver Kin skeleton embedded in the corpse of a giant beetle.

  His sonar swept the field, a chaotic map of desperation. It locked onto Zeen.

  The two-and-a-half-foot gnome stood over the last pocket of resistance, his soul-bound musket already shouldered as its clockwork mechanism seated a new payload with a final, sharp CLICK, and BOOM.

  A sheet of incandescent embers erupted from the barrel, washing over the writhing pile of larvae spilling from the dead, tangled Husks. A collective hiss rose, followed by the stench of burnt chitin as the last of the squirming things curled into blackened, smoking crisps.

  Trenn didn't break stride. He had a promise to keep and a body to desecrate.

  He found the least steep decline and stumbled down the cliffside, his boots dislodging streams of loose earth. He snagged his wounded hand on a jutting, thorny root and flinched, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth.

  The strip of cloth he had wrapped around his hand was a sodden, heavy weight. Fresh blood wicked past the makeshift bandage, a warm wetness that soaked his sleeve.

  Nearby, Zeen knelt beside Mara's still form. He had her alchemy satchel open, his fingers uncorking a thin glass vial. He gently lifted her head and trickled the potion's contents between her pale lips.

  The potion worked instantly. The bleeding stopped, and the gash sealed, leaving a raw, pink line against her white fur. Her eyes fluttered open, their amber gaze unfocused.

  Her eyes fluttered, then opened slowly, their amber gaze lazy and unfocused. A moment later, she straightened with a jerking motion, a warrior's reflex that sent a fresh spasm of agony through her gut. She winced, a low growl of pain rumbling in her chest as she clutched her belly.

  "Zeen!" Trenn’s voice cut through the quiet. "Ezy needs a potion! Mara, can you cut that tree? Free the dog!"

  Mara hesitantly pushed herself onto one knee, then unsteadily to her feet. She took a hesitant step, her entire body favoring her uninjured side. The walk was a slow, agonizing shuffle toward the massive, splintered tree embedded in the giant animal.

  Zeen's gaze dropped to the broken glass on the ground beside Mara. "We're out of potions!" he shouted, his voice grim. His head then snapped up toward the clifftop. "I'll go see if I can help her!"

  Trenn didn’t answer. Almitad’s voice resonated in his mind as he reached the Husk with the partially exploded head. Its ruined carapace was embedded with the shrapnel of Ezy’s machine.

  Trenn reached the grotesque fusion of insect and machine. The stench of insect blood made his stomach heave. He swallowed, gripped a jagged piece of metal, and tore it free from the carapace. It came away slick with ooze. He gasped, the fresh agony from his ruined hand a sharp counterpoint to the gagging stench as he covered his nose.

  He plunged his good hand into the hole. The sensation was a violation—a warm, viscous paste of greenish haemolymph and pulped tissue that squelched between his fingers as he pushed deeper.

  The corpse was a dead zone to his sonar, a pocket of silent, non-vibrating matter his perception could not penetrate. His search was a blind, sickening fumbling for bone.

  His fingers closed around something solid—a piece of femur—but it was anchored by a web of tough, rubbery cartilage that refused to budge. He fought the bile that rose in his throat. He hacked at it with the jagged metal scrap, its serrated edge a crude but effective blade. Each sawing motion was a negotiation with his own revulsion.

  With a final, wet tear, a piece of the bone came free.

  He ripped his hand from the corpse's interior and threw the shard into the grass. It was barely the length of a finger. He stared at the pathetic fragment, then at the immense, chitinous mountain of the Husk. One piece. It was not enough.

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  The stench of ammonia and decay, trapped within the corpse's cavity, was a physical presence that made his eyes water. He forced his arm back into the grotesque cavity, the sensation of re-entering the warm gore making his stomach clench.

  His fingers met a tough, leathery membrane—an organ sac of some kind. It resisted his probing, its surface slick and yielding. He clenched his jaw, turned the jagged metal shard sideways, and punctured the membrane with a brutal sawing motion.

  A new, fouler stench, one of fermented decay, billowed from the tear. He pushed his fingers through the new opening, past pulped tissue, until they brushed against the curved, solid line of a rib. He hooked his fingers around it and pulled, but it was anchored by a thick sheet of cartilage.

  He hacked at the gristle with the metal shard, the improvised tool a clumsy, inefficient blade. Each sawing motion sent a fresh throb of agony up his arm from his mangled hand. With a final, wet tear, the rib came free. He placed it carefully beside the first piece.

  A spike of urgency lanced through him. Hurry. He abandoned all pretense of care. His arm plunged back into the opening, a reckless, forceful shove. He bypassed the smaller bones, his fingers searching for a larger, more substantial piece.

  They closed around the thick, flat plate of a scapula, but it was wedged tight against the inner wall of the carapace. He grunted, setting his feet and pulling. The bone held fast, anchored by a thick web of desiccated muscle.

  He jammed the metal shard into the seam, hacking blindly, the tool a clumsy, inefficient lever. Agony flared from his ruined hand. With a final, guttural roar of effort, he put his entire body into the pull.

  Tough fibers tore, and the scapula came free with a wet, sucking sound that echoed his own ragged gasp.

  Mara reached the impaled god, who whined and observed her movements.

  Around the chopped tree’s trunk were broken pieces of white, gleaming armor and broken chain links mixed in with the splinters of wood.

  Her hand, still slick with her own blood, rose. A soft SCHLICK echoed in the quiet as her jagged necrotic claws slid from her fingertips. The claws slashed through the wood, but her momentum threw her off balance, and she fell to her knees amongst giant pieces of broken chain-links and bent white plates.

  A strangled gasp echoed across the field. A spike of pure fury shot through her tether. His sonar painted her clumsy, straining movements, a stark contrast to her usual fluid power.

  She stood up, looked at her deep claw marks in the tree, and struck at an angle, removing a deep slice from the tree’s trunk. The impact sent a violent tremor through the stake.

  A low growl rumbled in the Armored Dog’s chest, its massive body tensing. Its head whipped toward her, lips peeling back from its teeth in a primal warning. Through the tether, Trenn felt a surge of agonized panic, the instinct to lash out at the new source of pain.

  The tether connecting him to the giant dog flared with a raw, confused panic. The feeling was primal, a torment born from the sensation of being trapped.

  He pushed back, his own will an opposing current against a river of pure, animal terror. Through the shimmering cord, he projected an image of a calm, still lake, a feeling of safety.

  The god’s psychic shriek of pain and fear met his projection and shattered it, a wall of pure agony that resisted any comfort. The feedback was a jolt of static in Trenn’s own mind, a psychic slap that made his breath hitch.

  He held the projection of tranquility steady and layered a sense of responsibility that mirrored what he had felt coming from the Armored Dog when they first met. Something resonated with the god.

  The panic in its tether subsided. Its frantic energy was replaced by a calculating stillness as it processed the new feelings. The growling in the creature's chest ceased. Its immense brown eyes swiveled back to Mara, and it held its position, bracing for the next blow.

  She set her jaw, a tremor running through her arm, and struck again. This time, the claws bit deeper, ripping a longer, more satisfying gash with a tearing SHRAAANK of rending wood.

  A deafening CRACK-cra-CRACK echoed across the field as the massive trunk splintered and broke. The upper half, free of its base, tore free and crashed to the ground, shaking the turf. The Armored Dog let out a long, shuddering groan, a sound of both pain and profound relief.

  The tired, wounded, weakened god fell to the side. The splintered stake remained embedded deep in the muscle and bone of the dog's shoulder pit. Gushing ichor soaked the wooden spike, the dog’s fur, its white armor, and the ground under them.

  A low groan rumbled in the great beast’s chest. It pushed itself up slightly with its good foreleg, its massive head lifting from the turf. With a strained motion, it began to crane its neck.

  Its colossal jaws gaped open. Its teeth closed around the thick, splintered trunk, digging into its side. The stake groaned under the immense pressure.

  Then, with a single, brutal wrench, the dog ripped the stake free.

  Its cry echoed across the field as wood was torn from muscle. A fresh wave of golden ichor erupted from the now-open wound, a small river that stained the grass. The dog lay down its head, keeping the blood-soaked spike between its teeth.

  A pained but defiant whine escaped its throat. It was free.

  A wave of pure, panicked desperation erupted from Zeen’s tether, a feeling so violent it made Trenn recoil. The psychic shock was immediately followed by a frantic Message spell, Zeen’s voice ragged in his mind:

  “THE SPLITTING AXE! FOR HER FOOT! NOW!”

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