The heat from the dying embers washed over Trenn, a weak protection against the fever that pulsed deep in his blood.

  His gaze fell to the square of rough cloth at his knees. On it lay Mara’s first haul of the morning: a few Crimson Bell fruits, a gnarled root, a handful of herbs. Barely enough for the potion Ezy needed to fight her own fever, let alone the infection that was ruining his hand.

  Mara was already out searching for the rest.

  A hundred yards away, the Gem-Croc lay basking, its golden, jeweled hide gleaming in the pale sun. Its breathing was a force felt rather than heard, a slow, deep rhythm that sent a subsonic tremor through the soles of Trenn’s boots.

  Nearby, the spoils of their last fight lay in a heap. A stack of black Husk chitin gave off a faint, oily scent; Zeen had promised to carve it into plates for Mara's new armor. Beside it lay the White Metal fragments. Zeen had claimed that the rounded piece would make a great shield, while the heavy, broken chain link would become the reinforcing rings and a new counterweight pommel for Trenn's club.

  From his right came the low, rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape of Zeen’s file against the god-bone club. The gnome was sitting cross-legged, focused as he shaped the head of the weapon.

  Across the embers, Almitad was sitting at an odd angle on the ground. The left side of her thoracic cage was a patchwork of ill-fitting white bones tied together by black threads. The bloom inside was still withered and slooped.

  Two intricate sigils lay etched in the dirt before her, pulsing with a faint, internal light. Her skeletal finger was tracing the final, painstaking line of the second runeword.

  “A dam,” she said, her booming voice manifesting next to Trenn’s ear. “Made of four runes: Contain, and Mana. Channel, and Mana.”

  Her hand moved to the first sigil. “And its vehicle: Absorb Rune. Release Caster.”

  Trenn stared, a look of stupefied comprehension on his face. "It's code. Actions, targets... set in the right sequence?"

  Almitad’s skull gave a single, slow nod.

  Her finger then traced a tight, clockwise swirl upon the first runeword. Its lines blurred, transforming the sigil into a swirling vortex of light. In response, the second runeword—the dam—dissolved into a fine dust of pure mana.

  The vortex pulled the dust inward, consuming it completely before the swirling ceased. She then traced the same swirl upon the now-loaded runeword, but counter-clockwise this time.

  The captured motes of light erupted from the sigil. They streaked across the space between them and scribed themselves onto the patchwork covering the hole in her thoracic cage. New, glowing runes seared themselves onto the scavenged bones, and the discordant hum leaking from the breaks in her ribcage ceased.

  Trenn turned his attention back to Alchemy. He knelt by the cloth of reagents.

  His task was to shave a paper-thin peel from a gnarled root, a crucial component for the potion Mara needed to brew for Ezy. He picked up the bone knife with his good hand, its grip steady.

  He steadied the root with his ruined hand, the swollen, clumsy fingers barely able to apply pressure. He brought the blade of the bone knife to the peel, his breath held in a cloud of vapor.

  A sheen of sweat beaded on his brow. The fever was no longer a distant pulse but a deep, sickening heat radiating up his arm from the infection.

  A faint, sickly smell rose from the crude wrapping, which was stiff with a crust of yellowish-green pus. The flesh beyond it was glossy and swollen, stretched taut and an unhealthy, darkened red.

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  He began the delicate cut, but a tremor, born in that swollen flesh, surged up his arm. His stiff fingers lost their purchase on the bone handle. The knife slipped, gouging deep and splitting the reagent's core.

  His hand froze, his gaze fixed on the damage. The pristine white flesh of the root gaped open around the buried blade.

  A spike of agitated frustration washed over him. A raw, animalistic undercurrent sharpened its edge—a feeling that came from the Armored Dog's tether, mixing with his own.

  The feeling was followed instantly by a loud, grating tear of thick fabric. Trenn’s head lifted.

  Across the embers, the Armored Dog was curled in on itself, a tight knot of white fur and muscle trying to reach the nagging itch in its own shoulder pit. A long, rasping tongue worked alongside its front teeth, worrying and tearing at the ichor-soaked fabric of the bandage.

  The thick plate of white armor protecting its underside pressed hard against its lower jaw, preventing it from getting a clean bite.

  He set the bone knife down. Another problem. He pushed himself wearily to his feet and approached the agitated god.

  “NO!” His voice was a sharp, authoritative crack in the quiet. “Leave it!”

  Simultaneously, he focused on their tether and sent a sharp, stinging pulse of pure disapproval down its length—the empathic equivalent of a smack on the snout.

  The gnawing ceased instantly. The dog’s massive head lifted, its jaw dripping with a mixture of saliva and golden ichor. It looked at him, its great brown eyes filled with a pained, animal confusion

  Trenn closed the remaining distance and reached up with his good hand, scratching the coarse white fur behind its ear. “Good boy,” he murmured, following the words with a warm, psychic wave of approval.

  The soothing feeling was a momentary distraction against the powerful, primal instinct. The dog’s body tensed as it ignored him and lunged back at the bandage.

  A growl vibrated in Trenn’s chest. He focused on the heavy, cold feeling of profound disappointment.

  He pushed that feeling, raw and undiluted, down the empathic tether.

  The dog flinched as if struck. Its massive frame went rigid, and a low, pathetic whine escaped its throat.

  Slowly, the tension bled from its frame.

  The great head, which had been aimed at its own shoulder, lowered until its chin rested on the ground. It averted its gaze, subdued and chastised. Defeated, the dog let out a long, frustrated whine.

  It was a deeply pathetic sound, the high-pitched, mournful cry of a wounded animal that cut through the camp's quiet and echoed across the grassland.

  A hundred yards away, the silent, living mountain of scale stirred. The Gem-Croc’s one good eye, which had been half-closed in a state of dormant basking, snapped fully open. Its massive head lifted, its entire attention locking onto the source of the wounded sound.

  A violent surge of raw, predatory aggression flooded the Gem-Croc's tether. A simple, brutal impulse to crush a weaker, wounded rival.

  The Gem-Croc pushed itself up with a grinding groan of shifting scales that sounded like a rockslide. It took a single, heavy step toward the camp, its gaze fixed on the Armored Dog.

  Trenn moved without thinking, planting himself directly in its path. He raised his hands, palm out. A small, defiant shape before a mountain of muscle and scale.

  The bond between them was a solid thing now. Their shared voyage through the Gnome Pathways had forged it. Their mutual hatred of the One-Eye had tempered it. Now, their strange relationship was taking shape.

  He focused his will, gathering the frayed edges of his own feverish frustration and the dog’s subdued protectiveness. He forged them into a single, overwhelming feeling: a possessive, absolute declaration of ownership over this small patch of turf. Over the land, over the fire, over the wounded dog.

  He shoved the raw emotion down the Gem-Croc's tether.

  The crocodile god stopped. Its massive frame shuddered, a tremor that ran from its snout to its tail. A great, hissing sigh billowed dust and embers from the ground. It lowered its immense head and settled back onto the turf, returning to a state of dormant, watchful stillness.

  The psychic leashes fell slack. The exertion left him trembling, his breath tearing in ragged pants. The fever, held at bay by the crisis, rushed back in a wave of heat that slicked his skin. His focus collapsed from the minds of two gods to the simple, pounding agony in his own left hand.

  His gaze fixed on the swollen flesh straining against the soiled bandage. It felt damp against his skin, and the sickly-sweet stench of the infection rose from the wrapping, coating the inside of his throat. He looked away, his attention falling to the ruined root, split open on the cloth. Mara had spent all morning gathering it, and he had butchered it like a brute.

  He could already feel the heavy, quiet weight of her disappointment.

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