The muzzles of the Wolf Kin’s flintlocks promised a swift end in the thinning Morning Mists. The leader’s Ratling Repeater was aimed at Trenn’s chest. To his right, the red-furred female’s twin pistols were trained on Almitad, while the shielded flankers pinned Mara and Zeen in a crossfire.

  A fifth figure stepped from the mist—a black-furred woman, shorter than the others, who raised her rifle against Ezy and closed the last escape route.

  The stench of wet fur and gunpowder mingled with the rot of the butchered god. The battlefield was flat, open ground, the dead god on its stomach their only cover. Trenn raised his hands, palms open. “Okay. Don’t shoot. Please.”

  He focused his will, extending the hum of his own soul across the clearing. The nascent tether sought the Wolf Kin leader, a psychic appeal meant to instill a moment’s hesitation, a suggestion to listen before committing to the kill.

  The tether latched, and the Wolf Kin’s emotions ran across the connection. The feedback was a rush of arrogance. Trenn felt the wolf’s profound irritation, the restless energy of a predator forced to waste time on insignificant prey.

  He pulled his focus from the Wolf Kin, the physical world receding into the mental web of his tethers. He located the four vibrant threads of his companions and pushed his message down those conduits: "We can’t let them open the gate."

  He deliberately slumped his shoulders, letting his head dip in a gesture of defeat and forcing a calculated tremor into his voice. “Okay, you win. We’re getting out of your way. Don’t shoot.”

  As he began a slow, deliberate shuffle forward, he pushed the final instruction down their tethers: "Play along. Move slowly. When I give the signal, dive for cover behind the Giant Rabbit."

  The response was an instantaneous surge of feedback through the bonds. He felt Mara’s readiness, a kinetic coil of stored energy. He felt Zeen’s resolve, a sharp, jagged edge of focused hate. From Ezy, he felt a jolt of adrenaline, her mind snapping into tactical focus.

  His mental focus shifted, finding the serene current of Almitad’s tether. He sent the final piece of his plan through the bond, a clear tactical image.

  “Almitad: on my signal, roll the zombie onto its side, turn it into a wall. We need as much cover as possible.”

  He forced a defeated shuffle from his legs, moving away from the arch. Through his Sonar, he saw the others fall into step behind him, their movements a careful mimicry of fear.

  They drifted toward the colossal rabbit, their feigned submission a palpable current flowing through their shared bond.

  He kept his tone carefully measured, a plea wrapped around a core of logic. “You’re here for the god beyond that gate,” he said, letting the fact hang in the air. “Why waste your strength on us? Why bleed before the real battle?”

  A contemptuous chuckle rumbled in Vavnaar’s chest. The muzzle of his repeater dipped a fraction of an inch. Through the tether, a wave of arrogant superiority washed over Trenn as the wolf leader began to speak.

  “Fighting you would—”

  “NOW!”

  Trenn’s signal was still echoing in their minds when Almitad screamed a guttural syllable of necromantic power. The colossal rabbit zombie spasmed, its dead limbs lurching as it rolled onto its side, turning itself into a makeshift barrier.

  Splinters of bone and puffs of fur exploded from the fresh cover as lead slugs punched into its dense mass. The impacts were a series of sodden thuds that vibrated from the ground into Trenn's bones.

  They dove for cover. Almitad, her focus still on the zombie god, let out a choked puff of air. Her incantation died as she crumpled, her hands clamping over her stomach. Her concentration was shattered; the necromantic command holding the rabbit had dissolved. The undead god was just a dead god now, a rotting wall of meat.

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  A wave of raw panic flooded Trenn through her tether, immediately followed by a profound sense of hopelessness. Then, just as quickly, the emotional current shifted, hardening into a grim, unyielding resolve.

  She’s… dying? What is she going to do?

  Janaree’s triumphant howl cut through the gunpowder-laced air. “Got the necro! You’re all dead!”

  A lead slug sparked off the Scrapper’s plating as its skeletal frame ducked with a groan of protesting bone. It reached out and pulled the writhing Beaver Kin into cover.

  Almitad’s face was beaded with sweat. Her hands were pressed uselessly against the bleeding wound in her belly, her fur already dark and matted.

  “Mara!” Ezy screamed. “It’s a gut wound! We need a potion!”

  Mara slid to Almitad’s side. She shook her head, her voice a low, desperate hiss.

  “A potion will just seal the lead inside her!” Almitad groaned, her eyes unfocused.

  Almitad’s hands, slick with her own blood, trembled as they fumbled with the buttons of her robe. “G… go… lea… leave… me,” Almitad said, choking on her own blood.

  Ezy’s voice was a ragged shriek as another volley of lead sparked off the bone and wood of their cover. “She’s going to die!”

  Trenn’s sonar sense painted the battlefield in vibrating waves. Far out, the black-furred woman circled, seeking a new firing angle. His perception then locked onto the closer threats. From the left, the scrape of a shield and the crunch of boots marked the grey-fur’s advance; he’d recovered his spear and holstered his pistol. From the right, the brown-fur mirrored the movement, pistol and shield ready.

  “We’re being flanked!” he roared.

  Vavnaar’s rifle lay discarded in the ash. His oversized long sword hummed in his grip as he closed the distance in three powerful strides.

  He pierced the dead god’s chest, the enchanted blade cutting easily past its bones. He then ripped the blade upward in a brutal arc. Trenn’s sonar mapped the cleaving metal as it tore a deep gash through the rabbit’s torso and severed its paw with a resounding TCHAK.

  Janaree’s covering fire was relentless. Trenn’s sonar deciphered the unique, three-part signature of each shot from her dual pistols: a percussive CRACK as a slug fired, followed by the mechanical clack-clack of the weapon’s secondary hammer readying itself automatically, immediately followed by another CRACK, clack-clack.

  The overlapping shots of both pistols stitched the ground on both sides of the rabbit’s corpse, gouging the earth and kicking up dirt just inches from their cover.

  Semi-automatic pistols? Trenn thought, baffled by the Ratling technology. She should run out of ammo soon.

  He dropped Skate to the ground with a soft thud and gripped the worn handle of his enchanted club. He planted his feet, angling his body to assault the brown-fur's flank of the pincer.

  He pushed a tactical warning through Zeen’s tether.

  “Shielded spearman, your flank.”

  At the edge of their cover, Zeen pressed the soul-bound musket to his shoulder. His finger rested on the trigger as he waited for a target to appear.

  Mara’s hands hovered uselessly over Almitad's gut wound, her alchemical knowledge a world away from the immediate, brutal need for a surgeon. A weak but insistent grip seized her wrist, forcing her to look down. Almitad’s eyes, clouded with a universe of pain, fixed on hers.

  “The… Bloom…” Almitad gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth as another volley of lead hammered their cover. “Put it… in… me.”

  Mara’s mind reeled, unable to process the logic, but the sheer, unyielding will in the dying exorcist’s eyes was absolute. Mara’s head whipped toward Trenn, her own desperation a raw, frantic pulse through their tether.

  “Get Bomber to bring back the Bloom!” she screamed, her voice cracking.

  Trenn’s attention snapped from the advancing flankers back to Almitad, the tactical map in his mind shattering. He sent an urgent, wordless command through his tether, a pure impulse of need.

  “Bomber! Bring it back! Now!”

  Almitad’s trembling hands were fumbling with the buttons of her robe, her fingers slick with her own blood, managing only to part the heavy fabric. Mara, understanding dawning, manifested a single jagged claw and sliced the robe’s buttons in a fluid swipe, and helped her pull the fabric open like a cloak.

  The interior lining did not just glow with mana; it blazed. The air in their small pocket of cover superheated, the sudden pressure making Trenn’s ears pop. He reeled from the sheer, overwhelming wave of Mana Radiation that erupted from the opened robe.

  The song of Vavnaar’s enchanted sword was a whisper by comparison. The malevolent vibration of the One-Eye was a distant echo. This was a raw, primordial power, an ancient and complex architecture of Rune Arcana.

  “Runewords,” Mara’s voice was a ragged gasp of recognition, her face illuminated by the impossible light. “The entire robe… It’s three of the most complicated runewords I’ve ever seen.”

  Almitad dragged her blood-slicked finger across the first runeword. She stained its glowing symbol with a tight spiral of blood.

  As she did, the two shielded Wolf Kin rounded each side of the giant rabbit’s corpse, their weapons ready for the kill.

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