Chapter 71

  The army marched across the frozen wasteland in silence.

  Francis walked at the front with Glitvall, their boots crunching through the snow in a steady rhythm. Behind them, close to a thousand barbarian warriors followed in disciplined columns, their axes and swords glinting in the pale morning light. The shamans moved near the center of the formation, their painted faces serene despite the tension that hung over everything like a storm about to break.

  The ice walls rose in the distance, marking the entrance to the corridors that led to the structure. Francis had fought through those corridors dozens of times, died in them more often than he could count. But he'd always been alone. Today was different.

  Today, he had an army at his back.

  "How much farther to the corridors?" Ylva asked, her voice low.

  "Another mile, maybe less," Francis replied. "That's where the Reavers patrol. They hunt in groups of three, using voice mimicry to—"

  He stopped. Something was wrong.

  The horizon ahead wasn't empty anymore.

  A dark line had appeared across the frozen plains, stretching from one edge of the visible world to the other. As Francis watched, the line grew thicker, resolved into shapes, into figures, into an army.

  "Gods preserve us," Glitvall breathed.

  The beastkin had come to meet them.

  They filled the frozen waste like a tide of fur, steel and hatred.

  Francis saw Goatkin in the front ranks, their curved horns gleaming, their hooves pawing at the ice as they waited to charge. Behind them stood massive Walruskin, their tusked faces expressionless, wielding clubs and hammers that could crush a man's skull with a single blow. Serpentkin slithered between the larger creatures, their four arms clutching daggers and short swords, frost magic already gathering around their fingers.

  And there were more. So many more. Boarkin with their bristled hides and savage tusks. Hyenakin, whose cackling laughter echoed across the frozen ground. Creatures Francis had never seen before, twisted amalgamations of beast and humanoid that defied easy categorization.

  A thousand of them, at least. Maybe more.

  "They knew we were coming," Ylva said, her voice tight. "They were waiting for us."

  Francis nodded slowly, his mind racing. In all his loops, in all his deaths, the beastkin had never massed like this. They'd relied on the corridors, on ambush tactics, on picking off attackers one by one. This was something new. Something different.

  The robed figure. It's been watching me die, learning my patterns. And now it's adapted.

  "This changes nothing," Francis said, ensuring his voice carried confidence. "We knew we'd have to fight through them. We just do it here instead of in the corridors."

  "Easy for you to say," Ylva snapped. "You come back when you die. My warriors don't."

  "Ylva." Glitvall's voice was a warning rumble. He stepped forward, his massive frame silhouetted against the grey sky, and turned to address the army. "Warriors of the north! Before you stands the enemy that has plagued our lands, killed our people, driven us from our homes!"

  His voice carried across the frozen ground, reaching every ear, stirring something primal in every heart.

  "They think their numbers will break us! They think we will flee at the sight of their horde!" Glitvall raised his axe, the blade catching what little light pierced the clouds. "They are WRONG! We are the warriors of the north! We do not flee! We do not surrender! Today, we show these creatures what happens when they threaten our lands!"

  A roar went up from the barbarian ranks, a thousand voices crying out in defiance. Axes rose. Swords gleamed. The shamans began their chants, golden light building around their hands.

  Across the frozen waste, the beastkin army surged forward.

  "CHARGE!" Glitvall bellowed, and the barbarians answered.

  The two armies met in a thunderclap of steel and fury.

  Hundreds of yards of frozen ground disappeared in heartbeats as both forces charged. Francis could feel the ice shaking beneath his boots, could hear the roar of two thousand voices raised in battle cries, could see the wall of enemies rushing to meet them.

  Then the lines collided, and the world dissolved into chaos.

  Francis hit the enemy line at a sprint, his sword already moving. A Goatkin lunged at him with a spear, and he knocked the weapon aside and opened its throat in a single motion. Another took its place, then another, and suddenly he was surrounded by a sea of horns and hooves and bleating war cries.

  [ Blade Tempest ]

  Six strikes slashed out, each one finding flesh. Bodies fell around him, and Francis pushed forward through the gap he'd created. Behind him, barbarian warriors poured into the breach, their axes rising and falling in brutal rhythm.

  The chaos was absolute. There was no formation anymore, no tactics, just a churning mass of bodies and weapons and blood. Barbarians fought back-to-back against swarms of Goatkin. Walruskin waded through the melee, their massive clubs crushing anyone who came within reach. The Serpentkin hung back, hurling frost magic that froze warriors where they stood.

  A Boarkin crashed into Francis from the side, its tusks gouging into his armor. He twisted away from the worst of the impact and drove his sword into the creature's eye socket. It squealed and thrashed, nearly ripping the blade from Francis’s grip, and he had to plant a boot on its skull to wrench the weapon free.

  Blood sprayed across his face, hot and copper-tasting. Francis spat and kept fighting.

  A Hyenakin pack descended on a group of barbarians nearby, their cackling laughter cutting through the din of battle. Francis saw one warrior go down with his throat torn out, saw another lose an arm to snapping jaws, saw a third buried beneath a pile of spotted fur and gnashing teeth.

  He couldn't help them. There were too many enemies between him and the dying warriors, too many threats demanding his immediate attention. All he could do was kill the Goatkin in front of him and hope someone else reached them in time.

  No one did.

  Francis saw a Walruskin bring its club down on a barbarian woman, the impact so powerful it drove her body into the frozen ground. He changed direction, charging toward the creature with his sword raised.

  [ Quick Attack ]

  His blade found the gap between the Walruskin's arm and torso, cutting deep. The creature bellowed, a sound like a foghorn mixed with a scream, and swung its club in a devastating arc. Francis was already moving, ducking under the blow and striking again.

  [ Flurry ]

  Five rapid strikes, each one finding the same weak point. The Walruskin staggered, blood pouring from wounds across its side, and Francis finished it with a Power Strike through the throat. The creature toppled like a felled tree, crushing a Goatkin beneath its massive body as it fell.

  [ Quick Attack Increased - 65 ]

  The notification flashed across his vision, and Francis felt the familiar surge of power. He didn't pause to acknowledge it, just kept moving, kept fighting, and kept killing.

  A Serpentkin slithered toward him through the press of bodies, its four arms weaving frost magic. Ice crystals formed in the air around it, the temperature dropping with every gesture. Francis felt his Magic Resistance push back against the cold, but the creature was strong. Stronger than most.

  It hurled a spear of ice at his chest, and Francis deflected it with his shield, shattering it into a thousand glittering fragments. Another spear followed, then another, the Serpentkin pressing its advantage with relentless magical assault.

  Francis closed the distance between them, each step a battle against the freezing cold that tried to slow his movements. The Serpentkin's eyes widened as it realized he wasn't stopping, and it abandoned its magic in favor of the daggers clutched in its lower hands.

  You’re too slow.

  Francis's sword pierced through its chest before it could strike, and the creature collapsed with a hissing cry that faded to silence.

  Glitvall fought nearby, the Warchief a whirlwind of destruction. His axe carved through everything in its path, Goatkin and Boarkin alike falling before his fury. A Walruskin twice his size swung a hammer at his head, and Glitvall caught the blow on his axe haft, muscles straining, then twisted the weapon aside and buried his blade in the creature's skull.

  "TO ME!" he roared, his voice somehow carrying over the din of battle. "TO ME, WARRIORS OF THE NORTH!"

  Ylva answered his call, her sword flashing as she cut a path toward the Warchief. She moved like a predator, each strike precise and deadly, each step calculated. A Hyenakin tried to flank her, its cackling laughter cut short as her blade opened its belly. A Serpentkin raised its hands to cast, and Ylva's thrown dagger took it in the eye before the spell could form.

  Warriors rallied around them, forming a wedge that drove deep into the enemy formation. They fought as a unit, shields overlapping, weapons rising and falling in coordinated rhythm. When a Walruskin broke through the line, three warriors hit it simultaneously, their axes finding the gaps Francis had taught them to target.

  And Kerhi...

  Francis caught glimpses of her through the press of bodies. She fought like something out of legend, her axes spinning in patterns that left death in their wake. The battle fury was on her now, the hunger that scared even her own people, but she channeled it into something terrifying and beautiful.

  Three Goatkin attacked her at once, and she killed them all in the space of a heartbeat. A Boarkin charged her with its tusks lowered, and she sidestepped at the last moment, her axes carving twin lines across its flanks as it passed. The creature stumbled, blood pouring from its wounds, and Kerhi finished it with a spinning strike that took its head from its shoulders.

  A Walruskin swung its club at her head, and she ducked under the blow, came up inside its guard, and buried both axes in its chest. She ripped them free in a spray of blood and gore, then spun to face the next enemy, her eyes wild but focused, her movements fluid despite the carnage around her.

  She's magnificent, Francis thought, even as he cut down another enemy. And she doesn't even know what we were to each other.

  The battle raged across the frozen waste, two armies tearing each other apart in a frenzy of violence. Bodies piled on the ice, barbarian and beastkin alike, the snow turning red beneath their feet. Warriors screamed and died. Creatures howled and fell. And still the fighting continued, wave after bloody wave, neither side willing to break, neither side willing to yield.

  Francis lost track of how many he killed. A Goatkin here. A Hyenakin there. A Serpentkin that tried to freeze him solid, its magic shattering against his resistance before his sword found its heart. Each death blurred into the next, each kill just another step forward, another yard gained toward the ice walls in the distance.

  Keep moving. Can't stop. Can't mourn. Not yet.

  ***

  The barbarians were winning, but the cost was terrible.

  Francis saw Torvak, the scarred warrior who had sparred with him during training, fighting three Goatkin at once. The barbarian used the techniques Francis had taught him, letting one enemy's charge carry it past before striking, but there were too many. A spear found his side, then another his back. Torvak went down with steel in his belly, and Francis was too far away to save him.

  He saw a shaman fall, her golden light flickering and dying as a Walruskin's club crushed her chest. Saw a young warrior, barely old enough to fight, dragged down by a pack of Hyenakin whose cackling laughter turned to wet gurgles as other barbarians cut them apart. Saw the price of this battle written in blood and broken bodies across the frozen ground.

  But they were pushing forward. Step by bloody step, yard by bloody yard, the barbarian army was driving the beastkin back toward the ice walls.

  "The corridors!" Glitvall shouted, pointing with his blood-drenched axe. "Push for the corridors!"

  The ice walls loomed ahead, the gap between them marking the entrance to the frozen maze that led to the structure. The beastkin were falling back toward it, their retreat becoming a rout as the barbarians pressed their advantage.

  Francis fought his way to the front of the advance, his sword never stopping. A Goatkin tried to block his path and died with its throat opened. A Serpentkin raised its hands to cast, and Francis closed the distance before the spell could form, his blade punching through its chest.

  He reached the entrance to the corridors just as the last of the beastkin fled inside. The ice walls rose on either side, smooth and alien, carved by magic rather than nature. The passage ahead was dark, narrow, and perfect for an ambush.

  "They'll use the terrain against us," Francis said as Glitvall and Ylva joined him. "The corridors are perfect for defense. They'll have archers on the walls, casters in the passages, ambush points at every turn."

  "Then we root them out," Ylva said, her sword dripping with blood. "Room by room. Passage by passage. However long it takes."

  Glitvall looked back at the army, counting the survivors. Too few. Far too few. But his jaw was set, his eyes hard with determination.

  "We didn't come this far to stop now," the Warchief said. "Forward. Into the corridors. And may the gods watch over us all."

  The army advanced into the frozen maze.

  ***

  The corridors were a nightmare.

  Arrows rained from above as Reavers perched on the ice walls, their black feathers blending with the shadows. Warriors fell with shafts in their throats, their chests, their eyes. The barbarians raised shields and pushed forward, but there was no cover in the narrow passages, no way to escape the deadly rain.

  "Archers!" Ylva screamed. "Take them down!"

  Barbarian bowmen returned fire, their arrows seeking the dark shapes on the walls. Reavers tumbled from their perches, shrieking as they fell, but more took their places. The air filled with the whistle of shafts and the screams of the dying.

  Francis pushed forward through the chaos, his Battle Sense screaming warnings as arrows sought his flesh. He dodged one shaft, deflected another with his sword, and felt a third slice across his arm. The wound burned, but his regeneration was already working, knitting the flesh back together even as he fought.

  The passage narrowed ahead, forcing the army to compress into a tighter formation. Perfect for defense. Perfect for slaughter.

  Goatkin waited at the chokepoint, their shields locked together, their spears bristling outward like the quills of some massive porcupine. Behind them, Serpentkin casters prepared their magic, frost gathering around their fingers.

  "Break that line!" Glitvall roared. "Break it, or we die here!"

  Francis reached the shield wall first. A spear thrust toward his face, and he knocked it aside, then drove his sword over the top of the shield and into the Goatkin's skull. The creature fell, creating a gap, and Francis threw himself into it.

  [ Blade Tempest ]

  Six strikes in every direction, each one finding flesh. Goatkin screamed and fell around him, their formation shattering. Barbarians poured through the breach, axes rising and falling, turning the chokepoint into a slaughterhouse.

  The Serpentkin unleashed their magic. Frost swept through the passage, freezing warriors where they stood. A man beside Francis stopped mid-swing, ice crawling up his body, his face locked in an expression of shock as the cold claimed him. Another warrior shattered when a comrade accidentally struck her frozen form, her body breaking apart like dropped glass.

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  Francis's Magic Resistance pushed back against the frost, keeping him moving when others froze. He charged the Serpentkin casters, his sword carving through their ranks before they could cast again. One fell with its throat opened. Another collapsed with his blade through its chest. A third tried to flee and died with steel in its back.

  A voice echoed from somewhere ahead, human and desperate: "Help! Please, someone help me!"

  Francis ignored it. He knew that voice. Had heard it in a dozen loops, always leading to the same ambush, the same death. The Reavers and their mimicry.

  "Don't listen to it!" he shouted. "It's a trap! They mimic voices to lure you in!"

  But the warning came too late for some. A group of warriors broke formation, charging toward the sound, and the Reavers were waiting. They dropped from the walls in a wave of black feathers and curved daggers, and the screaming started.

  Francis fought his way toward them, his sword carving through any Reaver that got in his way. He reached the ambush site just in time to see the last warrior fall, three Reavers standing over the bodies with blood dripping from their blades.

  [ Blade Tempest ]

  The Reavers died without knowing what hit them, their bodies crumpling to the ice beside the warriors they'd killed.

  Francis looked down at the dead barbarians. Young faces. Brave faces. Faces that would never see home again because they'd tried to help someone who didn't exist.

  Make it count. Make all of their deaths count.

  The army pushed deeper into the corridors, fighting for every step. The passages twisted and turned, branching off in directions that led to dead ends and ambush points. Reavers attacked from above, from the sides, from hidden crevices that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Serpentkin lurked at intersections, their frost magic turning warriors to ice before blades could find them.

  Every corner held death. Every shadow concealed an enemy. The barbarians paid for each yard of progress in blood, their numbers dwindling with every ambush, every trap, every desperate battle in the frozen dark.

  A massive Walruskin blocked one passage, too large to move around, too strong to push through. It killed three warriors before Glitvall reached it, the Warchief's axe finding its knee, then its throat, then its skull. But by the time the creature fell, five more barbarians lay dead around it.

  Glitvall led from the front, his axe never stopping. He took a Reaver's head, then spun to block a Serpentkin's ice spear, then charged forward to crush a Goatkin that had been trying to flank the column. Blood covered his armor, most of it not his own, but Francis could see wounds beneath the gore. Cuts across his arms. A gash on his forehead that sent blood streaming down his face. A deep wound in his side that should have dropped him but somehow didn't.

  "Keep moving!" the Warchief roared. "Don't let them pin us down!"

  Ylva fought beside him, her sword a blur of steel. She killed with the cold efficiency of someone who had sent many to their grave, each strike precise and deadly, wasting no movement. A Reaver dropped from above, and she caught it on her blade without even looking up, letting its own weight drive the steel through its chest. A Serpentkin tried to freeze her, and she pushed through the magic by sheer force of will, her sword taking its head before it could finish the spell.

  The shamans moved through the column, their golden light healing wounds and countering the Serpentkin's frost magic. Greythorn was at their center, her voice raised in a constant chant, her power flowing out to touch every warrior within reach. But even she was flagging, her face drawn with exhaustion, her light dimming with every spell she cast.

  And Kerhi stayed close to Greythorn, her axes carving a protective circle around the High Shaman. Three Reavers tried to reach Greythorn at once, and Kerhi killed them all before they could get within striking distance. A Serpentkin raised its hands to cast at the shamans, and one of Kerhi's axes took it in the throat, thrown with deadly accuracy.

  She caught Francis's eye as she retrieved her weapon, and for a moment, something passed between them. Not recognition, not memory, but something else. Understanding, maybe. Or the bond that forms between warriors who fight and bleed together.

  "Keep up, Southerner," she called out, a fierce grin on her blood-spattered face. "The fighting's not done yet."

  Francis smiled despite everything, despite the death and the blood and the endless fighting. "Wouldn't dream of falling behind."

  They fought through the corridors for what felt like hours.

  The beastkin threw everything they had at the barbarian advance. Wave after wave of Reavers. Serpentkin casters whose frost magic turned the air itself to ice. Goatkin shock troops that charged in disciplined formations, their horns lowered, their hooves thundering on the frozen ground. Walruskin that blocked entire passages with their massive bodies, requiring a dozen warriors to bring them down.

  The barbarians met them all and broke them all, leaving bodies in their wake, but each victory cost them. Warriors fell. Shamans exhausted their power and collapsed. The column grew shorter with every clash, the survivors bloodied and battered but still pressing forward.

  Francis lost count of how many he'd killed. His arms burned with exhaustion, his sword felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, but he couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. Every dead beastkin was another step toward the structure, toward the creature on the throne, toward the end of this nightmare.

  A Reaver dropped from above, its daggers seeking his throat. Francis caught it on his sword and threw it aside, then drove his blade through its chest before it could rise. Another came at him from the left, and he killed it without looking, his Battle Sense guiding his blade to the right spot.

  His body moved on instinct now, honed by hundreds of deaths in these very corridors. He knew where the ambushes would come from, knew how the enemies would attack, knew the exact moment to dodge and the exact angle to strike. All those loops, all those failures, all that pain and death had led to this.

  [ Power Strike Increased - 73 ]

  The notification flashed across his vision as he cut down another Serpentkin, and Francis felt the surge of power flow through him. Stronger. Faster. Deadlier. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

  Not when warriors kept dying around him. Not when he could hear their screams echoing off the ice walls. Not when he could see their bodies littering the frozen ground behind them.

  Then, finally, the corridors opened up.

  They emerged onto the killing field, two hundred yards of open ground stretching before them. And at the far end, rising from the frozen earth like a monument to something ancient and terrible, stood the structure.

  Dark stone walls climbed toward a grey sky, covered in symbols that pulsed with cold light. Guard posts flanked a massive gate, and figures moved on the ramparts. The whole thing radiated wrongness, a sense of power that made Francis's skin crawl even from this distance.

  But it wasn't the structure that made his blood run cold.

  It was what stood before it.

  The remaining beastkin had formed a defensive line across the killing field. Gate guards, dozens of them, their pale grey fur bristling, their massive weapons ready. Serpentkin casters wove frost magic between them. And floating above them all, robes billowing in a wind that touched nothing else, was the creature Francis had been dreading.

  The robed figure.

  Pale blue skin. Eyes that glowed with cold white light. Magic already gathering around its fingers in visible spirals of frost. It looked down at the battered remnants of the barbarian army with something that might have been contempt or satisfaction.

  It's been waiting for us. This whole time, it's been herding us here, bleeding us in the corridors, weakening us for this final stand.

  Francis looked back at his own forces. Maybe four hundred warriors still standing, less than half of what they'd started with. The shamans were exhausted, Greythorn barely upright. Glitvall was wounded in a dozen places, his armor more red than its original color. Ylva's sword arm was bleeding freely from a wound she hadn't had time to heal. Kerhi had frost burns across her face and arms from close encounters with Serpentkin magic.

  They were battered. Broken. Barely holding together.

  And they still had to cross two hundred yards of open ground, break through that defensive line, and reach the gate.

  "One more push," Francis said, his voice hoarse from shouting orders and breathing frozen air. "One more fight. That's all that stands between us and the end of this."

  "Look at us," Ylva said quietly. "Look at what's left. You're asking us to charge into that?"

  "I'm asking you to finish what we started." Francis met her eyes. "Every warrior who died getting us this far did it so we could reach that structure. So we could kill what's inside. If we turn back now, they died for nothing."

  Glitvall nodded slowly, blood dripping from the gash on his forehead. "He's right. We've come too far to stop now." He raised his voice, letting it carry to every warrior who could still stand. "One more charge! One more fight! For everyone we've lost! For everyone who's counting on us! FOR THE NORTH!"

  "FOR THE NORTH!" the survivors roared back, their voices raw but defiant.

  And they charged.

  The robed figure struck first.

  Cold erupted across the killing field, a wave of magical frost that swept toward the charging barbarians like a living thing. The air itself seemed to freeze, ice crystals forming out of nothing, the temperature plummeting so fast that Francis could feel his breath solidifying in his lungs.

  His Magic Resistance flared, pushing back against the killing cold, but around him warriors stumbled and fell as the magic sapped their strength. A man beside him collapsed mid-stride, his legs frozen beneath him. A woman screamed as ice climbed up her arms, her axe falling from fingers that could no longer grip.

  "Shamans!" Francis screamed. "Counter it!"

  Greythorn's voice rose in a chant, the other shamans joining her despite their exhaustion. Golden light spread through the barbarian ranks, fighting against the frost, keeping warriors on their feet. But the robed figure was stronger than anything they'd faced, and the shamans were already drained from hours of fighting in the corridors.

  For a moment, the two magics warred across the battlefield, frost and life, cold and warmth, death and survival. The air crackled with power, and Francis could feel the pressure building around him like a storm about to break.

  Then the robed figure raised both hands, and the shamans' resistance shattered.

  Ice exploded from the ground in massive spikes, impaling warriors who couldn't dodge in time. A man running beside Francis was skewered through the chest, his scream cut short as the cold froze his lungs. Two more died ahead of him, their bodies lifted off the ground by pillars of ice that erupted beneath their feet. A fourth was impaled through the back, the spike emerging from his chest in a spray of frozen blood.

  "KEEP MOVING!" Francis roared. "DON'T STOP!"

  The barbarians hit the defensive line like a breaking wave. Gate guards met them with hammers and axes, the impact of the collision sending bodies flying. The melee became a slaughter, warriors and beastkin dying by the dozens as the two forces tore into each other.

  A gate guard swung its hammer at Francis's head, and he ducked under the blow, drove his blade through its knee, then finished it with a strike to the throat as it fell. Another took its place immediately, and he killed that one too, barely pausing between strikes. A third came at him from the side, and his Battle Sense screamed warning just in time for him to twist away from a blow that would have crushed his skull.

  The Serpentkin casters behind the gate guards unleashed their magic, frost sweeping through the barbarian ranks. Warriors froze mid-swing. Axes fell from nerveless fingers. The cold claimed lives by the dozen, turning the charge into a desperate struggle for survival.

  Francis fought through the chaos, his sword carving a path toward the robed figure. That was the key. Kill the commander, break their magic, end this nightmare. Everything else was secondary.

  The robed figure saw him coming.

  Its glowing eyes fixed on Francis, and something shifted in its expression. Recognition. Almost as if it knew him.

  The observer… it told it about me.

  A beam of white light lanced down toward him, the same killing magic that had slaughtered so many warriors. Francis dove sideways, felt the cold of the beam pass inches from his face, and came up running.

  The creature fired again. And again. Each beam came closer, each one forcing Francis to dodge at the last possible moment. It was learning, adapting, anticipating his movements with frightening speed.

  A beam caught him across the shoulder, and Francis felt the cold bite deep. His left arm went numb, ice forming across his armor, his flesh, creeping toward his heart. He gritted his teeth and kept moving, using his right hand to cut down a gate guard that got in his way.

  Almost there. Just a little farther.

  The robed figure raised both hands, power gathering for a spell that would end him. Francis could see the magic building, could feel the deadly cold that was about to be unleashed, could sense that this was it, this was the killing blow that would freeze him solid and leave his army leaderless on this frozen field.

  He wasn't going to make it.

  Then Kerhi's axes buried themselves in the creature's back.

  She had come up from below, climbing the frozen bodies of the dead to reach the floating creature. Her axes buried themselves in the robed figure's back with a sound like cracking ice, and the spell building in its hands shattered into fragments of cold light.

  The creature screamed, a sound like a glacier cracking, and spun to face her. Frost magic erupted from its hands, catching Kerhi full in the chest. Francis saw ice forming across her armor, her skin, her face, saw her axes slip from fingers that were freezing solid.

  But she didn't fall.

  Golden light blazed around her as her own power surged, life force magic fighting against the killing cold. The battle fury that had driven her through hours of combat now fueled her resistance, her will to survive burning hot enough to push back against the frost.

  She took a step forward. Then another. Ice cracking and reforming on her body with every movement, steam rising from her skin where the two magics warred, she advanced on the robed figure with nothing but her fists and her fury.

  The creature's eyes widened with something that might have been fear. It poured more power into its attack, the beam of white light intensifying until Francis could barely look at it. But Kerhi kept coming. Step by agonizing step, she pushed through the magic that should have killed her.

  Francis reached them.

  [ Quick Attack ]

  His sword found the robed figure's side, cutting through fabric and flesh. The creature's concentration shattered, and its beam flickered and died. It turned toward Francis, one hand raised to cast, but he was already striking again.

  [ Flurry ]

  Five rapid strikes, each one finding flesh. Pale blue blood sprayed across the ice as the robed figure staggered backward, its magic failing, its power bleeding away with every wound.

  [ Power Strike ]

  Francis drove his sword through the creature's chest. The blade punched through robes and ribs and whatever passed for a heart in this thing. The robed figure's eyes went wide, then dark. Its body went limp, the glow fading from its flesh.

  Francis pulled his sword free and let the creature fall.

  The killing cold that had been pressing against the army disappeared. The shamans' golden light blazed brighter, no longer fighting against the robed figure's magic. Warriors who had been struggling against the freeze surged forward with renewed strength.

  Kerhi collapsed to her knees, steam rising from her body as the ice melted. Francis caught her before she could fall further, lowering her gently to the ground.

  "Kerhi. Kerhi, stay with me."

  Her eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain but still fierce. "Did we... did we get it?"

  "We got it," Francis said. "It's dead. You killed it."

  "Good." She managed a weak smile. "Then we're not... not done yet. Keep going. I'll... I'll catch up."

  Greythorn appeared beside them, her hands glowing with what little healing magic she had left. "I have her. Go. Finish this."

  Francis hesitated, looking down at Kerhi's frost-burned face. Then he nodded, rose to his feet, and turned back to the battle.

  Without the robed figure's magic, the remaining gate guards didn't last long.

  The barbarians fell on them with the fury of warriors who had lost brothers and sisters, friends and lovers, to reach this moment. Glitvall killed three of them himself, his axe rising and falling over and over, drawing blood each time. Ylva and her warriors cut down four more, their coordinated attacks exploiting every weakness.

  In minutes, the defenders were dead. The gate stood open, its massive doors swinging in a wind that no longer carried any magical chill.

  Francis stood at the threshold, looking into the darkness beyond. The structure's interior stretched before him, corridors leading deeper into whatever secrets this place held. Somewhere in there, behind chains and locks, the creature on the throne was waiting.

  He turned to survey the killing field. Bodies lay everywhere, the snow stained red as far as he could see. Beastkin and barbarian alike, twisted together in death, the price of victory written in blood and grief.

  Glitvall approached, his armor more red than its original color. The Warchief moved like a man carrying a weight almost too heavy to bear.

  "How many?" Francis asked.

  "Over half," Glitvall said quietly. "Maybe more. We started with close to a thousand. We have maybe three hundred still able to fight." He paused, his dark eyes meeting Francis's. "But we made it. We're at the gate."

  Over half. Over five hundred warriors who had trusted Francis, followed him into this frozen hell, died because of a plan he'd made. Over five hundred families who would never see their loved ones again.

  Make it count. Make all of their deaths count.

  "Kerhi?" Francis asked.

  "Alive. Greythorn is with her." Glitvall's expression softened slightly. "That was the bravest thing I've ever seen. Walking through that beam. She should be dead."

  "She's too stubborn to die," Francis said softly. "That's what she told me once. In another loop."

  He turned back to the open gate, to the darkness that waited beyond. The outer defenses were broken. The robed figure was dead. The beastkin army was destroyed. But the real fight was still ahead.

  Somewhere in there, ancient and decaying, the creature on the throne was waiting.

  Waiting to be absorbed.

  "The creature we came to kill is in there," Francis said. "Behind a door sealed with chains and magical locks. That's our target. That's what ends this war."

  "Then we go," Glitvall said. "Before whatever's inside realizes its army has been destroyed."

  Francis reached into his armor and pulled out the vial Greythorn had given him. The dark liquid inside seemed to pulse with its own inner light.

  Drink this before you face the creature. It will strengthen your mental defenses.

  Not yet. He would need it at full strength when he faced the looper and killed it, when he absorbed it.

  He tucked the vial back into his armor and drew his sword.

  "Let's finish this," he said.

  Francis took a breath, steadied himself, and stepped through the gate. The darkness of the structure swallowed him whole, and behind him, the surviving barbarians followed.

  Almost there. Just a little farther. Then this ends.