Author: E. William Brown
Date: 2015-04-29T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Romance; Adult
Description: Surviving Ragnarok is challenge no matter what powers you have, and new problems keep cropping up. Demanding witches, genocidal monsters, divine feuds and local politics will all keep Daniel on his toes. But his enemies have made one crucial mistake. They've given an engineer who understands the nature of magic time to build things... Warning: This novel contains graphic violence, inventive sex, unconventional opinions and a protagonist who has no interest in being normal. Read at your own risk. **

Black Coven

A Daniel Black Novel

By E. William Brown

Copyright 2015 E. William Brown

Amazon Kindle Edition

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 1

A thin veil of falling snow muffled the sounds of my men settling into cover behind me, while Captain Rain and I crept to the edge of the little patch of woods for a look at the open field beyond. But the racket that had drawn us here was too loud to hide. Men shouting. Women and children screaming. The roar of angry trolls, and the crackle of flames.

Sounds I’d become all too familiar with in the last three weeks. Another settlement was falling.

I peered between a pair of snow-covered bushes at the scene. It was a country inn, of a sort that was pretty common in Varmland. An L-shaped building of stone two stories high, with a barn-like stable behind it and a stone wall enclosing the courtyard between the two buildings. With a stout wooden door and no outward-facing windows on the first floor the place was easily proof against wolves or bandit gangs, and had room to shelter several dozen people. Evidently a group of soldiers had decided to hole up there, and managed to hold out until now.

But there were five trolls attacking the place. Not the smaller forest trolls that worked with goblins, either. These were mountain trolls, twelve-foot monsters with grey hide that was almost as hard as the stone it resembled. They were armed with a motley assortment of tree trunks and boulders, but as strong as they were they wouldn’t even need weapons to tear a place like this apart.

Indeed, they’d managed to rip open a good-sized stretch of the building around where the front door had been. A group of armored men inside were trying to fend them off with spears, while crossbowmen loosed flaming bolts at them from the upper windows. Neither group was doing much damage, but a couple of the trolls were more singed than I would have expected.

As I watched, a bolt of fire erupted from inside the building to splash against a troll’s leg. The great beast staggered back, howling and beating frantically at the flames. The other trolls roared, and one of them heaved a boulder that probably weighed more than I did into the mass of defenders.

“They’ve got a wizard,” Marcus observed unnecessarily. “What do you think, sir? Do we try to rescue him?”

I considered the scene for a moment. Mountain trolls were tough as hell, but unlike their smaller cousins they usually weren’t accompanied by other monsters. I didn’t see any goblins around, and considering how dumb trolls are the odds of a trick were low. Five of them was more than I could safely fight alone, of course. But I’d done quite a bit of enchanting in the weeks since my little band had fled Lanrest.

I nodded. “Yeah, we can do it. Cerise?”

The dark-haired witch seemed to coalesce out of the shadows under the snow-laden trees, her slender form completely hidden by the cloak she wore against the cold. It also served to hide the tail she’d acquired back in Lanrest. Absorbing the power of her foes was such a central aspect of her magic she had trouble avoiding it, but the side effects were starting to add up.

“I’m here, Daniel. What are we doing?”

“Killing some trolls,” I told her. “You’re in charge of guarding the caravan until the fight is over.”

Her human appearance was a thin disguise these days, and she tended to lose her grip on it in moments of passion. Our own people were getting used to it, but the last thing we needed was for her to sprout obvious claws and horns in the middle of the fight and panic the inn’s defenders.

She pouted, but didn’t argue. “I guess someone needs to do that. Alright, but stay safe.”

“I’ll try. Marcus, have Gronir sneak his group around to the left and put a volley of arrows into them. As soon as they’re distracted I’ll drop into the middle of the big group, and then your boys can move in without having to worry too much about them throwing boulders at you. Spears and ranged weapons only, and don’t box them in completely.”

“Yes, sir,” he nodded, and moved back to give orders.

I eyeballed the distance as the men crept through the woods behind me, and began preparing my opening move. There was seldom time for fancy magical tricks in the middle of a battle, but the minutes before an ambush were another story. I’d been practicing with more elaborate constructs recently, looking for ways to make that first blow count as much as possible.

The situation deteriorated steadily in the few minutes it took to get ready. One of the trolls ripped the shutters off a second-floor window and began fishing around blindly inside, while a second one smashed down the gate and wandered into the inn’s courtyard looking for another way into the building. The remaining three were still occupied with the hole in the wall, but the bolts of fire that kept them at bay were coming weaker and further apart. The biggest troll managed to snatch up one of the men defending the breach, and bit his head off with a loud crunch. The other two lobbed a few more boulders in, and I noticed there weren’t as many spear points in the opening as there had been before.

Then a volley of arrows arched across the snow-covered field to rain down on the trolls. Unlike the crossbowmen defending the inn my men’s weapons were enhanced with force magic, and most of the arrows sank deep into their targets. The trolls roared in pain, no doubt exacerbated by the fire magic that would now be heating the arrowheads red hot.

I unleashed the burst of force magic I’d gathered, and flung myself into the air.

I still couldn’t manage controlled flight, but painful experience had taught me how to make long leaps safely. I checked my trajectory in midair, noted I was going to fall short a bit, and gave myself a little extra push to ensure I’d come down in the middle of the trolls. Then I turned my attention back to the spell I’d been building, trusting my force field’s soft-landing effect to arrest my fall safely.

Dozens of baseball-sized rocks materialized in the air and began to whirl around me at high speeds, while heating up rapidly. By the time I landed they were mostly molten, becoming lumps of lava that slammed into the main group of trolls as I touched down among them. Even their supernaturally tough flesh couldn’t withstand that level of heat, and the projectiles gouged out deep wounds before their kinetic energy was exhausted. I wasn’t sure if the resulting pockets of molten stone would be enough to kill the monsters, but they’d certainly do a lot of damage.

One of the trolls flailed at me with the tree trunk it was using as a club, sending me sprawling despite the force shield that protected me from the blow. But it didn’t actually hurt, and my shield was only weakened momentarily. I pulled the barrier in close to my body so it wouldn’t get in the way, and drew Grinder.

My personal weapon was a brutal little device I’d build for killing inhumanly tough monsters up close and personal. Just a stone hilt when deactivated, but when I turned it on a three-foot bar of superheated plasma extended to form a blade. That would have been dangerous enough, but what really made it effective were the dozens of counter-rotating saw blades made of force that extended along the length of the weapon. A high-pitched shriek of tortured air arose as the blades came up to speed, and I hacked at the nearest troll’s leg.

It was so distracted by the pockets of lava melting chunks out of its body that it didn’t even notice me until Grinder bit into its shin, chewing through flesh and bone alike and spraying burning fragments everywhere. The troll staggered, and jerked away before I could cut all the way through. Then a heavy impact drove me to my knees, as the troll who’d been fishing in the windows decided to smash this new nuisance instead. My shield’s power reserve dropped again, but there was enough left to tank a few more hits.

Flames washed over everything, the trolls and me as well, and I knew I’d held their attention long enough. It flowed harmlessly over my shield, melting the snow beneath my feet and filling the air with steam. But when it enveloped the trolls they panicked.

The squad Captain Rain led was equipped with most of the magical weapons I’d managed to create in the course of our trip. Six of the men held shields and boar spears I’d enhanced with force magic, to ensure they’d deflect heavy blows and penetrate armored monster hides. But the four flamers produced most of the group’s damage output. These weapons were basically a long rod of stone with a pistol grip at the back and another one halfway down its length, a design I’d copied from WWII-era flamethrowers. The tip of the rod projected a continuous stream of flame when the trigger was pulled, along with a strong force push that elongated the blast into a fifteen-foot cone.

They didn’t kill very quickly, but we’d yet to encounter anything that could shrug off that much fire. Indeed, the troll behind me almost immediately decided that this was too much to take and turned to run. I took its leg off at the knee, and it toppled face-first into the snow just beyond the edge of the flames. One of the men immediately turned his flamer on it, and held it as the beast tried to crawl away.

One of the more injured trolls behind me collapsed, and another was trying to stagger away from me. But the biggest one roared and charged through the flames, its now-burning tree trunk held high over its head. It bulled through the fire, only to immediately be impaled on three long spears that easily pierced its armored hide.

But trolls are unbelievably tough, and they take a long time to die. It brought the club down, sending two men flying and forcing the rest to scramble out of the way.

I leaped at its unguarded back, another burst of force magic carrying me far higher than I could normally jump, and slammed Grinder down on its head. My weapon’s shriek turned to an angry growl, and it spewed a spray of mangled bone fragments in all directions.

Any normal creature would have died instantly, but not a troll. Before my weapon could chew far enough into its skull to find its tiny brain the monster reached back and grabbed me. Its giant fingers wrapped around my chest, and it whipped me around to slam into the ground.

Thankfully the deep snow and my force shield both cushioned the blow, so instead of being stunned I just pointed the end of my weapon at its face and triggered a plasma blast.

I’d sunk a lot more effort into making Grinder than I had the flamers for my men, and the jet it produced wasn’t normal flame. The violet beam was denser than air and hotter than the surface of the sun, delivering enough energy to melt stone surfaces in seconds. It burned the troll’s face away in an instant, blinding it and sending it reeling back.

A spearman stepped up and stabbed the thing through the heart with his weapon. I turned off the plasma beam, and another man drove his spear through one of the monster’s ruined eye sockets into its brain.

The thing finally realized it was dead, and collapsed.

I made a note to burn the body soon to make sure it didn’t get back up, and turned my attention to the rest of the battle. Two trolls were on the ground, struggling feebly as the flamers kept them bathed in fire. Roars and crashes from the woods on our left flank told me Gronir’s crew was having fun with the other troll I’d caught in my initial attack, while the last monster had just emerged from the inn’s courtyard. It stood there staring at us for a moment, clutching a boulder the size of a basketball in one hand.

I took a step towards it, raising Grinder in one hand and conjuring a ball of flame in the other.

It threw the boulder at me, and ran.

A projectile like that would squash any of my men, so I stood still and let it hit me instead of dodging. It smashed into my shield with a dull boom, and sent me flying back to bounce across the snow. But it was just a few bruises, and I had my healing amulet on.

I picked myself back up, and the men cheered. I smiled grimly. “That’s one troll band that won’t be eating any more people. Casualties?”

“Nothing serious, milord,” Sergeant Thomas reported. “The shields stopped most of that one blow the big troll got in. These new ones work a lot better than the first set.”

Yeah, those had been a disaster. Turns out making the face of a shield violently repel anything that tries to touch it isn’t such a great idea, especially since Newton’s Third Law applies to magic too.  We’d had a whole string of accidents involving shields knocking things over, smashing their users in the face and generally playing havoc with their surroundings. The damned things were almost as dangerous to their users as the enemy, so I’d been forced to spend several precious days of enchantment time working out a better design and making new ones.

At least I’d known better than to try giving anyone else a personal force field amulet like the one I wore. With my force sorcery it was second nature to constantly adjust my defenses based on the needs of the moment, but for anyone without that advantage it would be like being trapped in a transparent prison. I was getting better at designing enchantments other people could control, but I had a long way to go before something that complex would be feasible.

“Glad to hear it, Sergeant. It sounds like Gronir’s people have run off their troll, so we should be clear for now. Captain, signal the convoy to approach and maintain a watch in case the surviving trolls come back. I’m going to see who we’ve rescued here.”

Marcus nodded. “Yes, sir. Sergeant, detail two men to accompany the wizard.”

A few men were carefully peering out the hole in the side of the inn when I approached. They were a lot better geared than most of the men-at-arms I’d seen in this land, wearing full chainmail hauberks and fairly elaborate helmets instead of the simple chain shirts and pot helms that seemed to be the norm. They also had proper boots, and each man had a sword at his side in addition to the assortment of spears, axes and crossbows they carried. I’d found the latter weapons were generally more useful for monster hunting, since a sword blow that would kill a man only annoys the larger beasts.

In the middle of the group was a tall man in full plate armor, with the helm off to reveal a craggy face with a full beard of red hair. He strode boldly towards me.

“Well met, stranger!” He boomed. “Carl Stenberg, Adept of the Red Conclave. That was some impressive battle magic there.”

“Those things take a lot of killing,” I replied. “Daniel Black, wandering adept.”

His eyes lit up in recognition. “Ah, the mysterious man with limitless earth magic? We had word of you back in Kozalin, but then the priests stopped getting reports from that town you were in. Lanrest, I think it was. I don’t suppose you know what happened to the place?”

“A dragon and an army of frost giants. I got a few people out, but not many. Baron Stein and Holger Drakebane both went down fighting.”

Fighting me, actually. When they thought I’d been killed in a goblin raid the Baron of Lanrest had immediately kidnapped Avilla with the intention of forcing her into his service, while the High Priest had dragged Cerise off to his temple for a binding ritual. Killing them both seemed like a reasonable response to me, but according to Cerise the other nobles of the kingdom probably wouldn’t see it that way.

The girls were both witches, worshippers of ancient Greek goddesses instead of the younger Norse pantheon that seemed to dominate this alternate version of Europe. That made them free game for anyone who wanted to kill or enslave them, and indeed the church of Odin had a long history of binding witches into magical slavery. Given that their powers were far too useful to keep hidden during the current crisis, the only way to keep them safe was to make it look like they were already taken. Which, of course, didn’t work if people thought I was dead.

Obviously I wasn’t going to tell Carl any of that, but we’d invested a bit of effort in putting together a story to use when we reached Kozalin. Assuming no one in our little band of survivors talked, but my worries on that score diminished with every crisis we weathered together.

Carl frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure you did all you could, but we can’t save everyone. I take it you’re headed to Kozalin, then? Coming to answer the Conclave’s call?”

“More or less. I won’t be much help with that weather magic I heard you’re working on, but concentrating as much firepower as possible in one settlement seems like a good survival strategy. Are you headed there as well?”

“‘Firepower,’ eh?” He chuckled. “I like that one. Yes, I think it’s about time to pull out of here. I’ve been using the inn as a base to recover supplies and survivors from the surrounding villages, but it’s been four days since we found anyone alive and the monsters are getting worse.” He paused, and shook his head. “I’ve never seen trolls in such numbers. How bad was your trip?”

“Bad. The whole countryside is overrun with goblin raiding parties, most of them with trolls and shamans in tow. We haven’t seen frost giants since leaving Lanrest, but there was an ice worm in the Sava River and we’ve hit roaming packs of felwolves everywhere. The only good news is the weather’s gotten so cold even the goblins don’t come out at night anymore.”

He shook his head. “If that’s the case I’m surprised you got anyone out at all.”

There was an exclamation of surprise from behind me, and I grinned. “Oh, I applied a bit of magic to the problem.”

Walking through deep snow obviously wasn’t practical for a large band of refugees, but the hover-barge we’d used to escape Lanrest was too wide and clumsy for overland travel. So early in our trip I’d replaced it with a half-dozen smaller vehicles. Each one was essentially a stone box on skis, with a little driver’s cab in front and a larger cabin area behind it. The driver’s cabs had glass windshields, and the main cab generally had two or three small windows and doors at both ends.

The interiors were pretty cramped for the number of people we had to house, but they provided good protection from both the weather and the occasional monster ambush. Of equal importance was the fact that I’d been able to teach some of the refugees how to operate the simple steering wheel and lever that controlled their movement enchantments, so I could spend my days working on more gear instead of driving the group around.

They weren’t especially fast, since I didn’t want my inexperienced drivers to plow one into an obstacle and kill themselves. But the broad skis gave them a surprisingly low ground pressure, and they could negotiate the relatively flat terrain of southwestern Varmland at a steady jogging pace indefinitely. With two feet or more of snow on the ground no one was going to be matching that on foot, or even mounted.

But the boxy masses of grey stone were an intimidating sight to those who weren’t familiar with them. It took a few minutes to reassure Carl’s men that they weren’t a threat, although I noticed that the wizard himself wasn’t especially concerned.

“Moving shelters? Impressive,” he admitted.

“It got us this far. So, is there room in the courtyard to park them? I’m assuming you’ll want to leave in the morning?”

It was late afternoon, so that seemed like a safe bet.

He studied the vehicles a moment longer, and nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that sounds like the best plan. I think we can fit three or four of those things in the courtyard, and block off the hole in the wall here with another one. You’re welcome to whatever you can salvage from the inn, as well. The owner died a week ago, and we’ve gathered a lot more materials that my men can move. There was supposed to be a detachment of royal troops arriving with more sleds two days ago, but I’m guessing they ran into the trolls.”

“Could be,” I replied. “Does your team have a healer? If not, maybe I should take a look at your wounded.”

Of the sixteen men left in his band Carl had seven seriously injured, and it seemed like half of the thirty or so peasants who’d taken refuge in the inn needed attention as well. I had to limit myself to stabilizing the wounded and giving a quick boost to the sick, and it was still nearly dark by the time I was finished. Fortunately Captain Rain was perfectly capable of getting our people settled in without my supervision, although of course there wasn’t room for more than a few at a time to come indoors.

That wasn’t a problem we normally had, but we could cope. We blocked off the ruined gateway into the courtyard with one of the vehicles, just to make sure nothing nasty snuck in during the night. Then we hung canvas roofs between the ones in the courtyard to help trap heat, and set up a couple of big space heaters I’d made the week before in the mostly-empty barn.

Each heater was just an x-shaped base supporting a tall pole of stone, with three broad iron fins jutting out near the top. They were enchanted to heat themselves red-hot when a small lever on the pole was flipped up, and cool back off when it was down. They put out as much heat as a small bonfire with no need to gather firewood, which made one more thing we didn’t need to stop to forage for. They also warmed the interior of the drafty stable to a tolerable level, and while I wouldn’t want to sleep on smelly straw I’d learned that peasants weren’t especially picky about such things.

It also made a decent spot for an impromptu planning meeting.

Gronir arrived first, since he and his little group of half-feral hunters were already in the barn. They were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after their fight with the troll, exchanging congratulations and re-enacting snippets of what had apparently been a pretty intense battle. I’d seen them bring down plenty of smaller threats with the wolf pack tactics they’d been developing, but a mountain troll was by far the toughest thing they’d ever tried it on. Even injured those things could easily outrun a man, and any hit it managed to land would likely be fatal.

But Gronir’s pack weren’t exactly human anymore.

The first time we’d killed a felwolf Avilla had cut its heart out and made steaks of it, using a ritual designed to endow anyone who joined the feast with a small fraction of the monster’s powers. Most people just got a little shot of endurance and cold resistance for a few days until it wore off, but a few of the refugee band I’d been leading had embraced the change eagerly enough that it became permanent. Gronir had somehow figured out what she’d done, too, and since Lanrest he’d persuaded her to do it again whenever the opportunity arose.

One felwolf heart split among nearly a hundred refugees had barely been a noticeable effect. Five more split among seven men and three women had them well on the way to transforming into some kind of human-wolf hybrid. They were stronger and a lot tougher than normal people now, with sharper senses and an odd ability to run quickly over the top of the snow instead of sinking into it like the rest of us. I suppose that last bit had something to do with the magic that let a wolf the size of an elephant avoid the obvious square-cube law problems.

It was a little unsettling, but I wasn’t going to begrudge anyone an edge that might help them survive in the middle of an apocalypse.

Gronir had grown a couple of inches since I’d met him, but he was still a bit short of my own six feet. With a wiry build, narrow face and eyes that never stopped moving he was the sort you’d expect to see cast as a snitch in some gangster movie. He wore the grey shirt, trousers and cloak Avilla had managed to assemble for all the members of our little quasi-werewolf pack, with the black lightning bolt I’d adopted as my livery embroidered on the shirt.

Daria came with him. The little thief who’d helped us in Lanrest had immediately fallen in with Gronir’s group, and there wasn’t much doubt the two were a couple now. She nodded politely to me, and set herself to combing Gronir’s hair while we waited for the others.

She’d also gained a couple of inches since Lanrest, all of it in her legs. Her chestnut hair hung loose around her shoulders instead of being braided like most of the townswomen, and her manner was a lot less timid than when we’d first met. Becoming a wolf-girl seemed to agree with her.

Marcus and Oskar arrived together, deep in a discussion about how best to arm the rest of their men when I had time to make another batch of magical weapons. The two were quite a contrast.

Captain Rain was a minor noble from one of the kingdom’s richer cities, and the leader of the last few survivors of the 5th Margold infantry company. He stood just shy of six feet tall, with aristocratic features and an athletic build. He wore most of a suit of plate armor, absent the helm and a couple of other bits that hadn’t survived our trip, along with a thick cloak and a heavily-mended surcoat. The broadsword at his hip was his only weapon, although it was rather more effective since I’d put a force edge enchantment on it.

In contrast, Oskar was a blacksmith who’d ended up leading an impromptu citizen militia back in Lanrest. He was a huge bear of a man, probably six foot eight, with massive muscles and a wild mop of red hair. His full beard was getting long enough that his wife had started braiding it for him, and the axe he carried looked like it had been sized for a troll. He didn’t bother much with armor, just a leather jerkin heavy enough to stop goblin arrows. For most of our journey he’d been in command of the militia force that formed the last line of defense for our caravan’s women and children, while Captain Rain led the smaller group of professional soldiers who did most of the fighting when we had a choice about it.

Avilla and Cerise were the last to arrive, and I noticed that the blonde hearth witch was leaning on her lover for support now. I was really getting worried about her.

Cerise was thriving in this environment, but since she worshipped the goddess of black magic and murder that was hardly surprising. The dark-haired witch threw her cloak back the moment she entered the barn, uncovering a scandalously short dress that barely concealed anything of her lithe beauty. It especially failed to hide the tail peeking out from beneath her skirt, or the inhumanly perfect smoothness of her pale skin. She swept the room with a predatory gaze, heedless of the lingering chill, and smiled warmly at me.

Usually Avilla would have managed to outshine her anyway, despite her more restrained demeanor. But the buxom hearth witch wasn’t human, and unlike us she couldn’t survive on a diet of scavenged grain and wolf steak forever. Her magically animated body had a long list of special needs, and while we could supply some of them we hadn’t had much luck scavenging sugar, honey or cinnamon from the ruined farming villages we’d passed.

She’d held up well enough for most of the trip, but she was losing weight and her ever-present smile had grown strained. None of us knew how long she could go without, but I was starting to worry that she was near her limit. Fortunately we were almost to Kozalin, and I was sure a city that size would still have supplies of luxury goods. At least for now.

“Marcus, Gronir, that was good work with the trolls,” I began. “A few more refinements, and I think you’ll be able to handle that sort of thing without me.”

“You plan on going somewhere, boss?” Gronir said with a toothy grin.

“No, but the more firepower we have the better I’ll feel about our chances,” I answered. “We’re almost to Kozalin, and a lot of things are going to change when we get there.”

Avilla frowned. “You don’t think it will be safe?”

I shook my head. “Safer from monster attacks, but we’ll have politics to worry about instead. I’m not going to get caught off guard again. Marcus, are you going to stick with us?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t see we have much chance of getting home, if it’s even still there. We’re with you for the duration, although we do need to work out a contract.”

“That’s fair,” I agreed. “We’ll talk details when we get there. It looks like I can get an introduction to the Conclave from Adept Stenberg, and from there I’m sure I can get in touch with whoever is in charge of the city. Avilla, unless things look a lot worse than expected I’m planning to build us a permanent home within a few days”

She smiled wearily. “Thank you, Daniel. Having my own hearth again will help a lot.”

“Good. I expect we’ll be able to find what you need in the city, but get your girls to check over the inn’s supplies anyway. There’s more here than the Adept’s men can transport, and they’re fine with us taking whatever we need. Oskar, I’d like some of your men detailed to help with that. Our own supplies are a little low, so let’s restock while we can.”

“Yessir,” Oskar agreed. “If they have rope, we’ve got plenty of room on top the wagons for more boxes and barrels. Is this new place going to be a tower, like in Lanrest?”

“More like a castle. I’m hoping the city will hold, but I want a position we can defend even if it doesn’t. You can assure your men that we’ll have a place for everyone who’s still here, and I hope to make things a lot more comfortable as well. Unless there’s someone you want to get rid of?”

Everyone shook their heads at that. We’d started out with a number of troublemakers among the group, but by this point they’d all either shaped up or been left behind at one of the surviving towns we’d passed.

Or died. I still felt a surge of guilt every time that happened. But I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and even if I could I was a long way from being invincible.

“I think we’re good,” Oskar said.

“Yeah, we finally ran out of dumbasses,” Cerise agreed. “I guess I get to start calling you ‘Master’, Mr. Dark Wizard sir?”

“When it will support the story,” I chuckled.

“Um, is there any chance of getting fresh clothes here?” Avilla asked. “Or even just cloth and thread? A lot of our people still don’t have much.”

“If it’s here and the Adept’s people haven’t already claimed it you can take it,” I told her. “First priority is food, but clothing, weapons and armor are right after that. We’re on our last day of travel here, so I guess we can crowd up the transports a little more if there’s a lot of good stuff to take.”

Marcus frowned. “Sir? If we’re planning to travel with the people here, how will they keep up? I can’t see them making more than three or four miles a day on foot, and we’ve still got fifteen miles or so to go.”

“Yeah, I’d thought of that. I’m going to pull an all-nighter and make some cargo sleds we can tow. It’ll slow us down a little, but not like keeping pace with people on foot. Just get a look at what’s available here before I’m done with the first one. If there’s anything good I want to claim it before Stenberg realizes he’s not going to be limited to what his men can carry on their backs.”

There were chuckles at that, but Avilla and Oskar exchanged concerned glances.

“Again, sir?” Oskar said uncertainly. “You sure you’re not pushing that a little too hard?”

I sighed. “It needs to be done, Oskar. I can catch a nap in the morning while we travel, so I’m not completely out of it when we get there. Hopefully things will slow down once I’ve got a stronghold built, and I can sleep for a couple of weeks.”

It was a nice thought, but somehow I doubted things would work out that way.

Chapter 2

Kozalin was a lot more impressive than I’d expected.

Back on my own Earth, low-tech cities were invariably tiny and overcrowded compared to modern megalopolises. It takes enormous amounts of labor to build anything with muscle power and hand tools, especially if you’re working in stone. So aside from a few monuments built at staggering expense by emperors or pharaohs, ancient structures tend to be surprisingly small and cramped.

But in this world they had magic.

I’d gathered that Varmland was a pretty big kingdom, encompassing what in my world would have been the Danish peninsula, southern Scandinavia and a good chunk of the Baltic Coast. The geography didn’t quite match up - the Baltic Sea seemed to be a lot smaller in this world, and there was a stretch of flat farmland and a couple of rivers where the Kattegat should have been. All told the Kingdom was about the size of modern France, and had probably had over a million inhabitants before Fimbulwinter began.

Kozalin was the major center of magical learning in the Kingdom, and it showed. The city was built on the north bank of a major river I was pretty sure was the Elb, a few miles inland of where it emptied into the North Sea. The landward side was defended by a wall that had to be forty feet tall, a fact that was all the more impressive because the city was several miles across. A moat wide enough to look like a small lake stretched out from the base of the wall, crossed at three points by stone bridges that would have formed nasty choke points in warmer weather.

Round towers rose well above the level of the wall, their flat tops supporting a variety of both mundane and magical siege engines. At the eastern end of the city a cluster of even taller towers advertised the location of Brokefang Castle, an ancient fortress that was widely considered impregnable after withstanding an attack by dragons several centuries ago. At the western end of the city a gleaming metal spire hundreds of feet tall marked the home of the Red Conclave, the most powerful organization of mages in Northern Europe. The sky overhead was patrolled by a flight of knights mounted on griffons, and I could see the immaterial glow of a vast network of magical protections enclosing the entire settlement.

Unfortunately, any hope of safety we might have entertained was dashed by the breach in the wall.

The frozen moat was littered with the bodies of giants, a mute testament to the price they’d paid for that hole in the city’s defenses. Hundreds of laborers were already at work turning the mound of rubble in the gap into a proper barricade, guarded by several companies of soldiers. But if a band of giants could accomplish that much, what kind of damage would a dragon do? Or a pack of ungols?

A city this size wouldn’t fall easily, but protecting it would demand a steady price in blood from the men who held the walls. If this went on long enough, eventually there wouldn’t be enough of them left to man the defenses.

Judging from his expression, Carl was having similar thoughts.

“There must have been at least a hundred of them,” he observed. “With an enchanted battering ram, I suppose. Damn, but Loki’s allies are getting bold.”

I nodded. “They haven’t been finding much that can stop them. Although I’m surprised they’re already attacking a place like Kozalin. You’d think they’d work their way through the smaller towns first, and then take the time to concentrate their forces.”

Carl shook his head. “Probably just testing our defenses. They’ll strike where we’re weak, and leave the stronger positions for later. So we’d better make Kozalin as strong as we can, eh? I bet you can repair that breach before the next attack.”

“Yeah, I can fix that in an afternoon.”

“See? Come on, let’s get our people settled so I can introduce you around. The High Adepts will be happy to have you.”

The first part of that turned out to be easier said than done, at least for me. The gate guards recognized Carl’s group and let us in readily enough, but once inside we found that the city was packed with refugees. The main streets were mostly clear, but every alley and plaza was clogged with carts, livestock and huddled masses of desperate people. The inns were full to overflowing with nobles and wealthy merchants, and soldiers spilled out of the towers and barracks spaces to cover drill fields and practice yards with closely-spaced tents. By the time we were halfway to the Conclave’s tower Carl was shaking his head apologetically.

“I should have realized the city would be like this,” he admitted. “I’ve probably sent a thousand people here myself, and there were a lot of us working rescue early on. Maybe the Conclave will have room?”

“We’re headed that direction anyway,” I agreed. “Might as well see what they say.”

The city’s main roads were surprisingly wide and straight, hinting at some past effort at urban planning. We’d entered into what was apparently a trade district, where shops and inns lined the streets. Most were three-story buildings, and the traditional layout seemed to be a business on the ground floor and living quarters above it. Brick and wood were the main construction materials, but there was a fair amount of stonework as well

I was a bit surprised to note storm drains along the side of the road, and a distinct absence of sewage in the streets. Unlike Lanrest, apparently Kozalin had a sewer system.

We passed through another gate into what Carl referred to as the Wizard’s Quarter, and I noted approvingly that the walls separating the different districts of the city were as stout and well-manned as the outer wall. At least the extra manpower was being put to use.

“How many districts does Kozalin have?” I asked my guide.

“Five,” Carl answered. “The Trade Quarter we just passed through, and ahead is the Wizard’s Quarter. There’s also the Military District back east around Brokefang Castle, the Docks along the river, and the Temple Quarter in the middle of town. The defenses are all designed so we can hold out even if one district falls, and there are a lot of strong points and secret sally ports to make an attacker’s life difficult. Most of the defenses were built against the Saxons, or these days the Franks. But unless the dark gods send all their hordes at us I don’t think there’s any danger the city will fall to outside attack.”

I nodded. “It looks like a good position, at least for us. I wouldn’t want to be one of these refugees.”

Carl shrugged. “Nothing to be done about that. Better an alley in the Trade Quarter than a felwolf’s belly.”

I couldn’t argue with that, although I suspected there would be trouble if something wasn’t done about them soon. No matter how oppressed the peasants were here, I doubted they’d just meekly sit in the snow until they froze to death.

The Wizard’s Quarter was noticeably more prosperous than the Trade Quarter, with larger buildings that often had stone walls or even glass windows. Spacious villas were mixed in among the bookstores and merchants specializing in exotic materials, and there weren’t nearly as many refugees. Then we came to a broad plaza paved in marble, before a massive structure of dark metal.

“The Iron Citadel,” Carl explained proudly. “Home of the Red Conclave for three hundred years now. Only mages and their personal retainers are allowed inside, but your people can wait in the plaza here. I’ll let the guards know to leave them alone.”

I eyed the fortress thoughtfully, impressed despite myself. The walls were half again the height of the ones around the city, and the gates that stood open before us were made of metal a good four inches thick. Obviously the whole place had been built with magic somehow, although how anyone had conjured that much iron was beyond me. Getting pure metals took so much power even I had trouble with it, despite my cheat.

Although, come to think of it, the fortress wasn’t rusted and it wasn’t the distinctive black color of wrought iron. It was more of a brownish gray, with a textured surface that showed a lot of subtle color variations. Interesting. I’d have to think about that.

A squad of men in full plate armor directed traffic before the gates, but behind them I could see rows of large articulated iron statues along the walls of the entranceway that had to be golems. A tough place to break into, and come to think of it getting out might not be easy either. Better be on my best behavior.

Fortunately I’d taken the time to question Cerise and Captain Rain about such topics as court etiquette and the customs of the Conclave. Making the right kind of impression here would be important.

“Gronir, Daria, you’re on bodyguard detail. Cerise, you’re with me. Captain Rain, keep an eye on things until I get back.”

Carl raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re taking a woman as one of your guards?”

“It’s mostly a ceremonial position,” I pointed out. “Unless you think the High Adepts will take it as an insult somehow?”

“No, it’s just odd. But so is everything else about you, so I suppose it fits.”

Visiting mages were only allowed two guards inside the walls of the citadel, and I suppose Carl had expected me to take Oskar and Captain Rain. But the half-wolf couple would be a lot more likely to escape if something went wrong, and their keen senses might pick up interesting information.

Cerise, of course, was accompanying me as my apprentice. If the Conclave accepted me as an ally that would give her access to the citadel as well, and provide a ready explanation for her own magic. Anyone perceptive enough to see exactly what kind of magic she wielded would probably see her binding as well, and conclude she was an enslaved witch that I was trying to hide. Either way would work for most purposes.

The citadel’s entryway fed into a huge hall, big enough to use as a ballroom or to muster a battalion of troops. Wide stairways covered in decorative ironwork swept up to balconies on the second and third floors, and servants dressed in the distinctive red and black livery of the Conclave bustled about everywhere.

Carl led us up a stairway to the second floor, and through another iron gate into what I guessed must be the interior of the main tower. From there we circled an ornate audience chamber that didn’t seem to be in use, and made our way up another flight of stairs to a meeting area that was laid out along more practical lines.

The sounds of an argument were audible all the way down the hall.

“...I’m telling you, we don’t have the manpower! This weather working has tied up half our membership, and we’ve lost four Adepts to those rescue operations you insisted on. We barely have the resources to maintain our existing commitments, let alone tackle another major project.”

“Then drop the damned weather spell! It isn’t going to work anyway, Lukas. The gods aren’t going to let you reverse Fimbulwinter, and keeping trade going-”

“Trade with who? There’s snow falling in Sicily, Caspar! No one is in any better state than we are.”

“Yes, and we’ve got thousands of craftsmen ready to keep plying their trades if they can just get raw materials. Damn it all, man, the ocean isn’t going to freeze! We just need to keep the ice out of the harbor.”

The speaker was a muscular young man dressed in a suit of armor that must have cost a fortune, considering the amount of gold inlay it featured. The gold circlet he wore identified him as royalty, so that was easily explained. The man arguing with him was much older, with thinning hair and a long grey beard, but he held an iron staff set with a fortune in jewels and his crimson robes looked fancy enough for a king’s court. A small crowd of assorted servants, retainers and onlookers stood about the room, all of them looking like they were trying to spontaneously develop the power of invisibility.

“You want us to work fire magic on water? Hah! You have no idea what an undertaking that would be,” the old man protested. “We’ve no time for such absurdities.”

The prince looked about ready to explode at this, so I stepped forward. “This sounds like something I could help with.”

The both started at the interruption, and turned to glare at me.

“Who are you supposed to be?” The old man spat.

“Daniel Black, wandering adept,” I replied smoothly. “I just got into town, and I was coming to pay my respects. I don’t mean to slight the ability of your people, Your Wisdom, but if the prince wants the port kept free of ice that sounds like something I could handle for you.”

“How?” The prince asked suspiciously. “I thought that sort of thing was beyond what a single wizard can do?”

“Ordinarily it would be, Your Highness. But I’ve made a bit of a breakthrough with large-scale earth magic. I can enchant boulders with volcanic heat, strongly enough to last for several decades, and drop them in the river to keep the water warm. It will take a lot of them to cover an area that size, but I should be able to do it in a few days. Maybe a few more to clear a channel to the sea, depending on how wide that needs to be. Of course, once the river freezes completely we’ll get salt water filtering upstream to fill the channel, but I think we’ve got more urgent things to worry about than that. Unless there’s something living in the river that’s likely to cause a problem?”

The old man gave me a measuring look. “No, the Elb was cleared of monsters ages ago. You’re that fellow from Lanrest, aren’t you?”

“Guilty as charged, Your Wisdom.” That being proper address for a High Adept, which he pretty much had to be if he was shouting at a prince.

“Mmm. I’ll want to talk to you about that, but not now. I’m sure you acknowledge the Conclave’s primacy in Kozalin’s magical affairs?”

I nodded carefully. “Of course, Your Wisdom. I was actually coming here to offer my services to the Conclave. In circumstances this dire wise men must stand together, or else we’ll all be eaten separately.”

That got a snort.

“If only everyone saw things that way,” he said ruefully. “Very well, young man. You may ply your trade here as an ally of the Conclave for now, but plan to attend the council meeting this Frey’s Day.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, Your Wisdom.”

“Good,” the prince put in. “We can always use another wizard. What do you want for this work? I’ll warn you, the treasury is under quite a strain at the moment.”

“Right now there are more urgent things than gold on my mind, Your Highness. The last place I tried to settle down in fell to an army of giants not four days after I arrived, and I have quite a few survivors with me. So, perhaps a place where I can build a home, and permission to fortify it to the extent that I can?”

He frowned. “There aren’t any unoccupied estates within the walls.”

“Oh, I can do my own construction. Stonework and healing are my main talents, and I can throw up a decent fortification in a few days. I just need a spot to build on that isn’t going to end up cut off and surrounded by monsters.”

A crafty look stole over his face. “Ah, I see. In that case, I’ve got just the thing. More space than you could possibly need, as long as you build out instead of in. I’ll have a man show you there. Agreed?”

So, he was planning to have me build in the breach? That seemed like a sensible plan, killing two birds with one stone. I was planning some serious fortifications anyway, so I could make it work. I nodded.

“Agreed, Your Highness. I’ll get started on the harbor as soon as I get my people under shelter.”

He nodded. “Good, I’m glad that’s settled. Aron, what’s next on the schedule?”

One of the servants in royal livery stepped forward. “Ah, the meeting with the military supplier guilds, Your Highness. We’re actually going to be a bit late for that.”

“Then we’d best get moving.”

He nodded to the old wizard and strode away, surrounded by a gaggle of guards and servants. A moment after the party cleared the room one of the servants came scurrying back to me.

“Adept Black? I’ll show you the way when you’re ready.”

I shook my head. “So that was Prince Caspar?”

Not being an idiot I’d long since quizzed Captain Rain about the royal family of Varmland, since there’d been a decent chance one of them would be holed up in Kozalin. Prince Caspar was the king’s oldest son, although he had a sister and two younger brothers somewhere.

Carl chuckled. “That was a crazy way to introduce yourself, Daniel. Boss, don’t let the ‘I’m just a crafter mage’ facade fool you. This guy’s a hell of a war wizard. Saved my ass from, what was it, eight mountain trolls?”

“Only five,” I corrected.

“Only, he says! I don’t know if I’d have made it back if he hadn’t shown up when he did. Oh, Daniel, if it wasn’t already obvious this is my boss. High Adept Lukas Steelbinder, the guy who runs the Conclave’s military forces.”

“I also oversee cooperation with the Crown and local military forces,” Lukas put in. “All of which demands far too much of my time these days. Carl, we’ve called off the rescue effort. Is your team ready for another mission?”

Carl’s face turned serious. “I’m afraid not, sir. We lost four men, two of them to that last troll attack, and half the rest are casualties. Daniel patched them up enough to make it back alive, but we’re going to be keeping Elin busy for a few days.”

Lukas frowned. “Elin is no longer available for healing. I’m sure your sister will tell you the tale. Well, in that case I’m assigning you to the Citadel Guard until further notice. Daniel, what about you? I notice you aren’t traveling alone?”

“No, I have decent little fighting band. A dozen professional soldiers with magic weapons, a pack of heavily wolf-aspected hunters, and magical transport that can cross snow at a good speed. Oh, and I have two apprentices. Cerise here is excellent at killing things, up to and including demons. Avilla is more of a support type, so you probably won’t see much of her.”

He gave Cerise a sharp look. “Demons? Hmm. Yes, I see. Well, keep in mind that a wizard is responsible for the conduct of his apprentices.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “I don’t expect any problems at this point, but I keep a close eye on them both.”

“Good. Well, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I believe I have a long list of appointments that the prince interrupted.”

Once we were out of the room Carl shook his head. “If something’s happened to Elin that’s bad news. She’s an ugly little mutt, but she was the best healer in the city. Her mother was an undine of some power, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her.”

“Human father?” I asked

“Half human, half grendelkin. It kidnapped her mother and raped her, kept her with child for a few years before the faerie lords caught up with it. They don’t like to kill children, but of course the mother didn’t want anything to do with the little monsters. The Conclave agreed to take in Elin as long as she manages not to eat anyone, and then she turned out to take after her mother in magic. Anyway, I’d better find my sister-”

“Carl!”

A gorgeous redhead stepped out of a side passage, and enveloped Carl in a hug before I’d had a chance to properly register her presence.

“Oof! Watch the ribs, Mara.”

“Aww, can’t I be happy to see my big brother?” She pouted. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Yes, well, my relief party went missing and then I got into a bit of a fix with some rock trolls. You can thank Daniel here for getting me out of that in one piece. I’d probably still be out there dodging monsters without his timely intervention.”

“Really?” She released him, and turned to me with a speculative look. “Thanks for that, then. Carl’s a bit of a goof, but I can’t exactly get a replacement for him. I’m Mara.”

She shook my hand, something that normally only men did in Varmland, and I couldn’t help checking her out. She was tall, only a couple of inches shy of my own six feet, with long legs and an athletic build. A narrow face, with a pointed chin and a cute little upturned nose, and green eyes that sparkled with inquisitive intelligence. Her skin was several shades darker than I was used to seeing here, maybe halfway between the usual Scandinavian pallor and a more Mediterranean olive. Her hair was her most eye-catching feature, a lush mass of flame-red curls far too vibrant to be natural. Her dress was a little shorter and a lot tighter than was considered proper in this country, although back home it wouldn’t have attracted any comment.

Her aura, however, was stunning. A tightly leashed shroud of fire magic cloaking a deeper well of brilliant gold, far stronger than anything I’d seen before. Certainly more powerful than her brother, although I was less sure how she’d stack up against the High Adept. Steelbinder’s magic had been mostly artificial, a carefully-woven maze of layered enchantments whose full potential was difficult to evaluate. Mara’s was all innate, a passionate blaze of wonder with only a few superficial hints of the more deliberate complexities I was coming to associate with wizards.

Interesting.

“You’re quite welcome, Mara,” I answered her. “Too bad you weren’t there, or you’d have toasted the trolls before I showed up.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” she huffed. “Only no one will listen to me.”

Carl sighed. “Yes, well, Mara’s power is good but she’s still working on the academic side of things. She hasn’t actually made adept yet, so the Conclave doesn’t want to send her into battle unless the situation is desperate.”

She rolled her eyes the way only a teenage girl can. “Yeah, yeah, the old men don’t think I’m ready for real magic. You’re pretty perceptive, though. I’ve been learning to cloak myself as a control exercise, and most people don’t see through that.”

“I can see magic a lot more clearly than most wizards,” I told her.

“Hey, if you’re not an adept yet does that mean I can actually say hi without a lot of bowing and scraping?” Cerise put in.

“Of course you can,” Mara replied. “I hate that shit anyway. Oh, you’ve got some interesting magic going on. I like the tail.”

Cerise grinned. “Yeah, it comes in handy. I’m Cerise, this big lug’s apprentice. You should come out and visit sometime, after he builds us a place to stay. Knowing him he’ll end up working himself to death trying to save all the refugees personally, but Avilla and I will need someone to show us around.”

“I could do that,” she agreed. “Assuming things don’t get too crazy.”

“That reminds me,” Carl interrupted. “What happened to Elin? I gather she’s alive, but Steelbinder said she wasn’t available for healing?”

Mara’s gaze fell, and her hands clenched into fists for a moment. “Yeah, it’s pretty ugly. They sent a team to Tartarus to find out how bad things were, and something really nasty followed them home. There was a big fight in the Chamber of the Door, and Elin got caught in the crossfire. She’s fucked up really bad. Her magic is barely enough to keep her alive, so the Conclave is going to have to do without their miracle healer.”

Carl frowned. “I see. No luck with healing elixirs?”

“Are you kidding? No one is going to ‘waste’ an irreplaceable resource like that on the mutt. They tried some of that medicinal shit the junior alchemists make, but when it didn’t do anything they just threw up their hands and decided she’s a lost cause. They’re basically just waiting for her to die now.”

He gave her a considering look. “I see. I take it you’ve been keeping her company?”

Mara shrugged. “Trying to. She’s a prickly bitch, but it’s not like I can complain about that.”

Prince Caspar’s servant discreetly cleared his throat.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, guys, but I need to go see this plot of land the prince is giving me and get some kind of shelter up before it gets dark.”

We said our goodbyes, and Carl went off to talk more with his sister while I led my party towards the door. When they were safely out of earshot Cerise leaned into me with a sigh.

“Ooh, yeah. Did you see the ass on that girl? I’ve got to get me some of that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Poor Avilla, abandoned already. What will she do when she finds you’ve thrown her over for another girl?”

Cerise snickered. “Are you kidding me? The second she gets a whiff of that girl’s power Avilla’s going to need fresh panties. Besides, we’ve always wanted to seduce hot sorceress bitches together. It’ll be a bonding experience.”

I chuckled. “You do realize she’s probably straight?”

“As much fire magic as she has? There’s no way she’s going to care about shit like that once she gets going. I’ll have her eating out of my hand in no time.”

“If you say so, Cerise. So, on a more serious subject, do you know anything about grendelkin?”

“Not much. They’re a rare breed, and the descriptions in stories all contradict each other. Big, misshapen, lots of teeth, live in swamps and eat people. I think they might be shape shifters, actually.”

Oh. Grendelkin, as in Grendel, the monster from Beowulf.

“Lovely. Now I’m not sure whether to feel sorry for the poor girl, or wonder why the Conclave is keeping a cannibalistic monster in the middle of a city.”

“Can we go with both? Why do you care, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Partly I’m just a sucker for girls who need rescuing, and it sounds like she’s got a pretty shitty situation. But powerful healers are a rare resource, and I don’t want to end up being the only one in the city. We’ll be better off if there’s a well-known local healer that people will go to before bothering me, so I can spend my time making weapons and fortifications.”

“Oh. In that case, should we try to recruit her? It sounds like they treat her like shit here, so it might not even be hard.”

I shook my head. “It’s tempting, but I don’t want to piss off the Conclave by poaching their people. I’ll need to get a better feel for the situation before I can decide anything about that.”

The prince’s servant directed us back into a less wealthy part of town, where we took a turn towards the river. The harbor district was a little run down, but it bustled with activity despite the cold. There were dozens of inns and taverns packed with customers, hundreds of shops and businesses selling everything from sailcloth to compasses, a shipyard, and some surprisingly large warehouses just inside the city wall.

Like Lanrest, the docks themselves were outside the wall. But Kozalin’s harbor wasn’t undefended. There was a high embankment faced with stone along the waterfront, pierced by ramps that descended to the level of the piers. A battlement along the top of the embankment made it fairly defensible, protecting a strip of buildings a block or two wide that filled the space between the shore and the stretch of city wall facing the river. Several companies of troops manned the battlements and aggressively patrolled the streets, keeping a watch for goblin raids or more exotic forms of trouble.

The harbor itself was filled with ships of every description, from large three-masted cargo vessels to little river boats with a single collapsible mast. But it was also frozen over. Most of the smaller boats had been pulled out of the water, and here and there I saw work parties shoveling snow off the decks of the larger ships or hauling loads of firewood about.

I surveyed the scene for a few minutes, considering how to tackle the problem. Most of the piers were stone, which conveniently meant I wouldn’t have to worry much about damaging one with a badly placed heating stone. But it was a big harbor, and the river at this point was easily a couple of miles wide. I wasn’t going to thaw the whole thing with any reasonable amount of effort.

Maybe free up two or three of the larger docks first, and clear a channel to the sea? That would give the prince most of what he was looking for. Then just clear the water around the docks themselves, and maybe a patch of river big enough to serve as a turning basin? I wasn’t sure how much room sailing ships would need to maneuver in and out of the docks, but there was bound to be someone I could ask. A harbormaster, or something like that.

“I can see why High Adept Steelbinder didn’t want to take on this job,” I told the prince’s servant. “This is going to take some doing. Well, we’re getting short on daylight so I’d better see where I’m going to put my people.”

The man bowed slightly. “Of course, Adept Black. If you’ll turn left and head off towards the east end of the harbor, I’ll show you your land.”

I hid my surprise. Not the breach after all, then? Well, I suppose if there was an empty spot on the river bank that would work almost as well. More work to expand, but I could manage.

We came to the last ramp down, flanked on one side by a large inn and on the other by a space filled with upside-down boats that a crowd of refugees were using as improvised shelters. Beyond that an extension of the city wall ran down to the waterline, with a spur of wall projecting a bit into the river to ensure potential attackers couldn’t just circle around it to get into the city. Not that it did much good with the whole river frozen over, but if I melted the ice around it that would go a long way towards preventing goblin raids.

We went down the ramp, and ended up on a wide stone pier next to a wooden structure that projected out over the water a good ways.

“This used to belong to the Royal Navy,” the prince’s man explained. “It doesn’t see much use since the new piers down on the seaward side of the harbor were finished, but we may need the dry dock if you can clear the harbor. If you’ll head down the pier a bit?”

Now mystified, I drove the transport out onto the pier. The column of wagons followed along behind me, and I spared a moment of thought for how we were going to get them back. The pier was easily wide enough for two wagons to pass side-by-side, but there was about a four-foot drop to the frozen river on each side. I wasn’t quite sure I trusted any of the drivers to manage a three-point turn under those conditions.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked. I was starting to get that sinking feeling.

“Ah, we’re here,” the man said. “A courier should arrive with the deed in an hour or so, but the bounds are easily described. From the end of the pier, a square plot of ten acres extending out into the river. For access the prince generously grants you the pier itself as well, with the proviso that the dry dock must be left intact and access to it must not be blocked.”

I stopped the transport, and stared at him. “The river bed?”

“Indeed. The prince is confident that creating an artificial island will be no great challenge for a man of your abilities, and once the river is thawed it will be quite a defensible position.”

I blinked, and looked again. The pier extended maybe a hundred feet past the end of the covered dry dock, putting the end barely within bowshot of the city wall. Beyond that was nothing but the flat expanse of frozen river, thick ice covered in two or three feet of snow.

Was there movement on the far shore? The trees there cast long shadows in the late afternoon sunlight, making it hard to be sure.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my other duties now. I’m sure the prince will send someone to check on your progress tomorrow.”

With that the man disembarked from the transport, and hurried off down the pier towards town. Cerise and Avilla immediately emerged from the back to peer over my shoulder.

“Well, this sucks,” Cerise commented.

“Oh dear,” Avilla fretted. “Now what are we going to do?”

Chapter 3

“You know, I’m not sure whether to take this as an insult or a compliment.”

Cerise frowned. “What do you mean? He’s trying to screw us, right?”

“Well, if I were lying about my earth magic this would be a serious problem,” I agreed. “But then I’d be trying to swindle the prince, so paying me with a worthless patch of water in the middle of the river would be a reasonable response. On the other hand, if I’m really some kind of super earth wizard then raising an island should be no problem for me, and thawing the harbor will turn this into a nice defensive position. Not to mention it means that if I build some kind of giant castle it’ll strengthen a weak spot in Kozalin’s defenses while still being conveniently outside of the city.”

“You really think he came up with all that on the spur of the moment?” She asked skeptically. “I bet he’s just a giant dick.”

I chuckled. “Important people usually are. But he struck me as the devious type. Not the kind of man who goes around randomly screwing with people for no particular reason.”

“Can you do it, Daniel?” Avilla asked worriedly. “I thought you had to touch the earth to work magic on it, or at least be close to it.”

“Yeah, this is going to take some doing. Cerise, I want you to organize a shopping expedition while I’m working. Take at least four guards with you, but see if you can find a shop that sells any of the things Avilla needs.”

“I should do that,” Avilla protested.

“No way,” Cerise replied. “You need to rest, sweetie. You’re not up to walking all over the city.”

The pretty blonde sighed. “I suppose. I hate being so weak.”

Cerise hugged her. “Hey, it won’t be for much longer. You just need to get some sugar and a little honey in you, and you’ll be back to normal. Right?”

“Right.” Avilla smiled weakly.

Technically they could have used one of the transports, but I didn’t mention the idea. I wanted Avilla where I could keep an eye on her until she recovered, and if there was trouble Cerise was safer without a noncombatant to worry about. Not to mention that she wasn’t exactly a cautious driver, and sending her out to wander the city in a transport was just asking for someone to get run over. So instead I saw her off with an escort of liveried men at arms and a couple of the peasant women who knew their way around a kitchen, and turned my attention back to the problem at hand.

I had maybe an hour and a half until sunset, and once the light faded anything might decide to sneak across the frozen river and take a shot at us. It was pretty windy out here too, and the temperature would drop fast at night. Not to mention that the overcast sky could deliver another snowstorm at any moment. So, what could I do quickly?

I had Captain Rain set up sentries, and retrieved a tool I’d been working on to make setting up a new home faster. A rod of polished granite six feet long, enchanted with a structural reinforcement spell I’d worked out when I was trying to make the transports lighter without sacrificing protection. It also had the warmth effect I’d been putting on the transports, and a neat spell I’d found in one of my stolen tomes that made it conduct my magic. That last was intended to be cast on a staff, so you could use spells that normally require a touch on things you don’t want to get that close to.

The tricky part, though, was the meta-magical effect that would cause the enchantments to automatically expand if I used earth magic to make the rod bigger. I’d originally been thinking I could just plant the thing in the ground and make it grow into a building, with the reinforcement spell covering for any gaps in my limited knowledge of civil engineering. But trying to put a heavy stone building on top of an ice sheet was just asking for a disaster.

Instead, I held the rod out over the end of the pier and made it grow until one end touched the ice. Then I heated the bottom with fire magic.

The rod slowly sank into the ice, melting a hole towards the bottom of the river. I made it longer as it sank, and added a few more feet of length above my head to increase the weight. How thick was this ice, anyway? A foot. Two feet. Three.

Finally the end of the rod broke through, and sank rapidly towards the river bottom. Not being an idiot I’d been waiting for that to happen, and caught it with force magic before it fell more than a couple of feet. Then it was just a matter of extending the pole until it rested on the bottom of the river.

Hmm. The bottom was probably mud. Not a good foundation material, but not hard to get out of the way. I made the pole expand until it was a good six inches thick, and lengthened it until the top was well above my head again. That made it several times heavier than I was, so I had to use force magic to keep it pointed straight up. But sure enough, over the course of the next few minutes it sank several feet.

Alright, now for the hard part.

I expanded the side of the rod that faced me first, turning the curved surface into a pointed one and then elongating it until it touched the end of the pier. The trickle of power I’d been drawing from my amulet swelled rapidly, and the crack of shattering ice filled the air. Pushing the mud of the river bottom out of the way took a lot of power as well, but expanding the enchantments on the stone was by far the hardest part of this exercise.

Fortunately I wasn’t going to run out of magic. Not with the enchantment on my amulet turning its mass into energy, constantly recharging my own relatively modest reserves of magical power. Three more pushes, and I had a cross-shaped mass of stone that was wide enough to be relatively stable. Then I threw the whole energy output of my amulet into making it grow.

It was a much slower process than just summoning ordinary stone, but it worked. By the time the sun touched the horizon I had a solid block of enchanted granite that was big enough to support a house, and extended all the way from the stone beneath the river bed to a point about eight feet above the top of the pier. That would be high enough to give goblins and trolls problems getting at us, if not giants.

I threw down a ramp of ordinary stone leading up to the top, with low walls along the sides to act as guard rails. Then I walked up and made a slow circuit of the top, using Grinder’s plasma jet to melt the ice in a wide stretch around the stone. It would re-freeze, of course, but I doubted it would be thick enough to support anything heavy before morning.

“Alright, Oskar,” I called down. “Send the transports up here one at a time. I think we’ve got just enough room to park them in a circle, after we unhook the cargo sleds.”

“Will do, milord,” he called back.

It took a considerable amount of careful maneuvering to accomplish that, and a couple of times I had to use force magic to push one of the bulky transports sideways to get it into the right spot. But by the time it was fully dark we had our vehicles parked, with canvas strung over most of the space between them and the heaters set up to warm the encampment. It was pretty crowded, with a hundred-odd people all wanting to disembark from the transports and stretch their legs at the same time. But it kept most of the wind off, and it was a lot safer than camping on the plains outside the city.

Cerise returned triumphantly from her shopping trip about then.

“Mission accomplished!” She crowed. “We got, like, twenty pounds of sugar, and three big jars of honey. I found a spice merchant who had cinnamon, and even a couple of bottles of faerie wine.”

Avilla clapped excitedly, and swept her into hug her. “Really? That’s wonderful! That will last me for months, if I’m careful. I hope it wasn’t too expensive?”

“Three crowns and change,” Cerise admitted. “But hey, nothing’s too good for my girl.”

“That’s right,” I agreed. “We can get more money. There’s only one of you.”

She blushed prettily. “Well, thank you. I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

“You’re never a bother to me, honeydew,” Cerise purred. “Come on, let’s go inside and get you fixed up. I’ll even open the wine for you.”

“Um… you know how I get after a few sips, kitten,” Avilla said uncertainly.

“Exactly. I think we can kick the maids out, and have the transport to ourselves for one night. You getting in on this, Daniel?”

“Ouch. That’s tempting,” I admitted. “But no. I’ve still got a lot of work to do, and you lovebirds haven’t had any time alone since we left Lanrest. You go have fun, and I’ll see if I can’t have a few surprises ready before morning.”

“I like this plan,” Cerise agreed with a grin. “Alright, see you guys in the morning.”

She swept Avilla up into her arms, and carried her into the transport.

“Eek! Um, but, what about dinner? And there’s the washing and mending still to do, and…”

The door shut behind them. I chuckled.

A moment later it opened again. Beri and Tina, the two peasant girls we’d hired on as maids a few weeks ago, emerged with blankets in hand. Beri looked rather disgruntled, but Tina just smiled cheerfully.

That was typical. Beri was a slender brunette, rather cute and surprisingly clever for an illiterate medieval peasant, but she had a tendency to see the worst in any situation. Tina was a spectacularly endowed redhead who came off as a bit simpleminded most of the time, but she had a remarkable talent for making the best of her circumstances.

“I think it’s sweet,” Tina was saying. “They always look so happy together.”

“It’s unnatural,” Beri grumbled. “Not to mention rude. They could at least have let us eat first.”

“One night without won’t kill us,” Tina protested.

“I suppose,” Beri conceded. “But it’s going to be a cold night out here, even with the heaters.”

“That’s why I’m still out here working, and not in there fooling around,” I told them. “I’m hoping to have a roof over our heads in a few hours. Tell you what, why don’t you girls get with Elder Hrodir, and see if you can get everyone a hot meal from that inn over there. I’ll pay, and I’m sure they won’t turn away the extra business.”

“Oh! Um, yes milord. That’s very kind of you,” she said uncertainly.

“Thank you, milord!” Tina said sweetly. “Hey, I wonder what kind of food they have at a big city inn? I bet the stew even has meat in it!”

I laughed. “It’s probably not anything fancy, Tina. They’re in the docks, so their main customers are going to be sailors. Make sure whoever goes up there has three or four armed men with them, so there isn’t any trouble.”

I left Beri to organize that, and went back to work.

Throwing up walls was easy, but putting a roof over the encampment took some thought. Stone has massive compressive strength, but it doesn’t have the tensile strength to hold up its own weight if you just throw up a big flat surface with no support in the middle. That’s why putting rebar in concrete was such a big innovation. Unfortunately I didn’t have any reference works I could check to find out what the limits actually were, and I certainly didn’t want to rely on my structural reinforcement spell any more than I had to.

So that meant turning the space into a series of rectangular chambers with vaulted ceilings, a process that took quite a while and forced me to move parts of the encampment periodically to make room for new walls. I put up a big arch at the top of the ramp while I was at it, intending to come back and install a gate there when I had a chance.

Dinner arrived when I was about half done with that, and I took a break to eat with Marcus and Oskar. The food turned out to be a sort of chicken soup thing, which wasn’t bad. Not as good as Avilla’s cooking, but that was hardly a fair comparison considering how much magic the hearth witch tended to use in the kitchen.

“This is an odd looking building you’re putting up, milord,” Oskar commented as we ate. “What have you got in mind, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Oh, this isn’t where we’re going to be living,” I replied. “This middle room is an entrance hall and mustering area, and the side halls are for parking vehicles. I’m going to put in stairs over there, and everything else will be above us. Like a keep, only bigger.”

He looked up, and scratched his chin. “Going to get a bit dark in here without any windows, isn’t it?”

“I can make magic lights,” I told him. That was one of the most common applications of magic, and the books I’d stolen from Odin’s temple back in Lanrest had contained several different spells for the purpose. “The lower floors will be a little closed in, since I want a massive wall between us and anything that might be looking to eat us. But the upper floors can have lots of windows, and I’m going to put a big open space in the middle with a skylight in the roof.”

I was actually planning something like a small office building. An atrium in the middle with living spaces around it, maybe six floors high. That should be well within the strength limits of stone construction. I’d have to use conjured ironwork to support the roof of the atrium, but heavy iron beams with slabs of quartz between them should keep out flying monsters while letting in sunlight.

Markus eyed the dimensions of the vehicle park consideringly. “That’s going to be a lot of space. Do you plan to do more recruiting, then?”

I nodded. “Yes, I want to have at least a company of troops to defend this place. Ideally we should also have a company-sized mobile force, and enough craftsmen to be mostly independent of the town. But that might be overambitious.”

“Most likely,” he agreed. “Experienced soldiers are going to be in high demand right now, so I expect we’ll have trouble finding more than a few of them to hire.”

“Do they need to be soldiers?” Oskar asked. “Anyone can learn to drive a transport, or point a flamer.”

Markus shook his head. “That might work for defending the keep, especially if the men have family here. But for a force that can march out into the field, and assault an enemy position? No offense to your militia, Oskar, but I don’t see that happening.”

“Learning to fight well with a sword or bow takes years, but the weapons I’m planning to make aren’t like that,” I pointed out. “My people have a lot of experience with raising armies of commoners equipped with simple weapons, and it can work surprisingly well. The trick is you have to start out with men who are motivated to fight, and put them through intensive training to instill discipline and teach them basic military skills. Ideally you’d still want a long training program, but in emergencies I’ve heard of armies turning out passable infantry in as little as six weeks.”

Markus frowned. “I see your point about the weapons, but that still sounds risky. Training can’t cover everything.”

“That’s why you don’t form a whole unit out of new recruits,” I pointed out. “Ideally you send a few new men at a time to join a veteran unit, so they have someone with experience keeping an eye on them. We won’t have that luxury, unfortunately.”

“Do you have something in particular in mind, milord?” Oskar asked.

“Just a lot of possibilities, Oskar. Things are going to keep getting worse for as long as this winter lasts, and I’m not willing to bet our lives that the powers that be will make smart decisions. I want to be able to hold out even if the rest of Kozalin falls, and I want us to have the manpower to take action if a situation comes up where we need to. That’s why I’m going to want you to focus on recruitment and training, Marcus.”

“Me?” He said, surprised.

“Yes, you. I’m not a military officer, and neither is anyone else in our group. I may have some suggestions, since I plan to try and copy some exotic weapons I’ve seen used before. But the training program is going to have to be your deal. Unless you don’t think you can do it?”

“No, it isn’t that. I’m just surprised you want me for the job, after what happened to my last command.”

“The 5th Margold was in an impossible situation,” I told him. “You held them together longer than most men could have, and I can’t image how you could have carried out your orders any better. If I ever give you a mission that insane I expect you to tell me I’ve gone mad.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” he replied. “Well, I’ll need to find three or four experienced sergeants if we’re going to train up new soldiers. That’s going to take some persuasion.”

“A chance to kill monsters with magic weapons should be appealing,” I pointed out. “If that’s not enough we can also offer a home in a magic fortress for their families.”

“I can work with that,” he agreed. “Maybe let their families stay on if they’re killed in action, as a sort of pension? But training up a whole company is going to take time.”

“I’ll try not to call on them until you say they’re ready,” I promised. “But the gods aren’t going to arrange their plans for our convenience, so we’ll have to cope as best we can.”

The both nodded seriously at that.

“You’ve done right by us so far, milord,” Oskar commented. “We’ve got faith in you.”

“Then I’d better not let you down.”

With that I handed off my empty bowl to Tina, and went back to work. The camp settled down quickly once dinner was over, but I managed to get in a couple more wall sections before everyone but the sentries fell asleep.

It still felt a little odd to me how abrupt that always was. But artificial light sources were expensive in this world, so practically everyone was used to rising with the sun and going to bed promptly at sunset. At least the guards were reasonably alert, although the night blindness caused by a lifetime of poor nutrition meant most of them weren’t going to spot anything smaller than a giant unless it wandered into the glow of the heaters.

Once I had the roof up I put in another arch opposite the entrance, in case we needed to expand later on. Then, with the encampment protected from wind and surrounded by self-warming stone, I got started on the main part of the construction.

The walls I’d made to support the roof were only a couple of feet thick, which was nowhere near enough to make me feel safe. I wanted more like thirty feet, at least at ground level. Something ludicrously tough by normal standards, so that even magical siege weapons wouldn’t do much to it. But that meant expanding my artificial island substantially, and the amount of stone I’d have to conjure was huge.

Not wanting to spend the rest of the week nursing an overcasting migraine, I worked on it in short bursts. Fifteen or twenty minutes of full-power conjuration, then an equal time on less intensive work. For a project this size I’d spend as much time measuring angles and distances as I did actually working magic, at least for the interior details. It was a good thing my earth sorcery included an innate sense for such things, since I didn’t have a tape measure with me.

I built a fairly grand staircase leading through the roof to what I planned to where I planned to put the atrium, and started working my way up. Load-bearing walls and pillars first, since those had to be carefully laid out to make sure they had sturdy support all the way down to the foundation. I’d put in lighter privacy partitions later, but for now I just subdivided the space around the atrium into eight large sections of empty space.

The temperature gradually fell as I worked, and by the time I had the outer wall up to the level of the atrium I was shivering despite my enchanted cloak and boots. The temperature had to be well below zero, and that was typical for nights these days. Definitely worse than when I’d first been summoned to this world.

How cold was it going to get?

Fimbulwinter had struck towards the end of the fall harvest, so it might just be the natural change of seasons adding to the effect of whatever magic had caused this disaster. But I was glad Kozalin was a coastal city. Another month of this and the inland areas were going to be as cold as winter in Siberia.

I spent a break period weaving a better warmth effect around myself, and kept working.

The next floor up from the atrium level was a good forty feet above the surface of the river, which was higher than any attack was likely to reach. So I put a narrow walkway around the outside at that point, intending to turn it into a projecting battlement when I had time, and made the wall ‘only’ ten feet thick from there on up. That made the upper floors considerably more spacious, while also speeding up my construction quite a bit.

Putting in windows to the outside was still a pain, of course, but I figured it was necessary. The seamless, fused stone I was building with was airtight, and we could end up with a lot of people in a fairly small space. If there weren’t any openings to the outside we’d all suffocate in short order. So I made sure to build windows on the outside walls of every floor, even though this meant sinking an alcove into the wall to make a spot that was thin enough that they wouldn’t end up resembling a mine shaft.

I stacked five more floors on top of my growing keep in the space of a few hours, accessed by a stairway zigzagging up one side of the atrium and a magically powered elevator on the other. In the interests of time I didn’t bother with doors, window panes, shutters or other such fittings. We could get by without that kind of thing for a few days, as long as I covered the essentials first.

Then it was time for the roof. By then my head was starting to pound, and I wasn’t looking forward to conjuring several tons of metal. The less common a mineral is in nature the harder it is to conjure it, and iron that isn’t rusted to the point of uselessness is pretty damned rare. Quartz wasn’t so bad, but all in all the skylight was likely to take as much work as the foundation.

How had the Conclave built that citadel of theirs, anyway? There’s no way a medieval society smelted that much iron conventionally, but if they had the power to conjure it the way I was doing it they wouldn’t be so impressed with my own projects. Did they know some trick that I didn’t?

Well, one would hope so. They did have a whole millennia-old tradition of magic to draw on, after all. But what kind of trick could it be?

The fact that it was some kind of alloy was even stranger. Well, not wanting to build out of pure iron made sense, considering how fast the stuff will rust if you expose it to weather. But conjuring an alloy would have to be even harder than getting a pure element, unless…

I stopped, and suppressed the momentary urge to beat my head against a wall. Yeah, unless it was an alloy that occurs in nature. Like, the one that makes up a third of the planet I’m standing on?

I tried conjuring a lump of nickel-iron, not being too picky about the exact composition, and sure enough it was as easy as stone.

“Well,” I said to myself. “At least that was an easy one. Let’s see now. This stuff is more or less the same thing as meteoric iron, so it should actually be stronger than pure iron. Although this makes me wonder.”

I made a small stone bowl, set it down on the roof, and tried conjuring a little bit of the same material in its natural form. That didn’t quite work, and I groped around for a moment before realizing I needed to drop the filter that was excluding other elements.

Then a little ball of bright orange liquid appeared, and promptly exploded. Droplets of molten nickel-iron splattered against my shield and bounced across the roof, where they sat hissing for a few moments before congealing into solid lumps.

“Now that has some interesting potential.”

But I was here to build a skylight, not invent new weapons. So I filed away the fact that conjuring a tiny chunk of the Earth’s core was apparently quite easy, and went back to solid materials. I’d put in a stone lip a foot tall around the edge of the huge opening where the skylight was supposed to go, and the support beams went over that. I shaped brackets of stone to hold them securely in place, mounted sheets of clear quartz between the support beams, and enchanted the whole thing with a temperature stabilization effect so I wouldn’t have to worry about thermal expansion breaking something while I wasn’t looking. That left a few inches of open space around the edges of the structure, with a stiff breeze blowing out of it.

Well, that actually made sense. The warmth enchantment on the stone meant that the air inside the building was getting warmed to something close to room temperature, so the whole atrium must be acting like a giant chimney. Handy, since I’d been worried about air circulation. With that in mind I left the gap, and just extended the top of the skylight a bit to cover it so we wouldn’t get snow or hail blown into it during a storm.

Then it was time for the reason I’d done all the upper floors at once instead of just going to bed once the encampment was enclosed. I put a large cistern on the roof, and dropped a pipe guarded by a heavy stone grate through the bottom. There was a space next to the elevator that I’d reserved for a plumbing stack, and now I dropped the pipe all the way down to the atrium level.

Each floor got a faucet over a large basin, as a stopgap measure until I could figure out where the kitchens and bathrooms were going to be. But the floor immediately above the atrium got a nice little Japanese-style bathhouse, divided into men’s and women’s sides, with showers and a heated soaking pool big enough for a dozen people.

Filling it took entirely too many trips up and down the stairs, scooping huge masses of snow off the ice that covered the river and levitating them along with force magic until I could drop them into the heated cistern. But I was looking forward to Avilla’s expression when she saw it. We hadn’t had a chance to get properly clean in weeks, and I’d seen how it wore on her. No more of that, now. We might end up being a little crowded still, but at least we’d be comfortable.

I filled the cistern, tested all the outlets, filled the soaking pools, and verified that the enchantments were keeping them at a reasonable temperature. Then I had to refill the cistern again, since setting up the baths had pretty much emptied it. The sun broke over the horizon just as I dumped the last load of ice and snow onto the pile of rapidly-melting slush in the cistern, and I turned to look over my handiwork with a profound sense of satisfaction.

“Next up,” I said to myself. “Flush toilets.”

Chapter 4

The next day was a busy one. Finishing the keep took endless hours of detail work, and there were a million things that needed to be organized. But at the same time thawing the harbor was a huge project, which demanded most of my efforts if I was going to finish it in the time frame I’d quoted.

I ended up delegating more than I liked. I’d already put Marcus in charge of military recruiting, and setting up a household was obviously a job for Avilla. I put Hrodir in charge of organizing living arrangements for the main body of the refugees, since he’d been the headman of one of the rural villages half of them came from, and put Oskar to work deploying the garrison and planning our defenses. I gave them all a quick tour of the place and outlined my preliminary ideas after breakfast, and left with a promise to put up interior walls and fittings in between shifts at the harbor. But none of them had ever done the job I’d assigned them before, and I was half convinced I’d come back to a disaster.

Fortunately Avilla stepped up like a champ. By the time I returned for lunch she’d gotten the men to park the transports in neat rows down in the vehicle park, and had a group of the younger women helping her pace off distances and mark locations for interior walls with lengths of twine. Meanwhile the men who weren’t part of our little military force were busily unpacking our supplies and carrying them up to the atrium, where Cerise waited with a wide grin to operate the elevator.

“This thing is awesome! Everyone else is scared shitless of it, but I think it’s perfect.”

Since it was just a stone platform with a guard rail around the outside I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Cerise was a total an adrenaline junkie.

“Did you come up with it just for me?” She asked slyly.

“I’m afraid it’s just a quick and dirty version of something from back home. We call them elevators. But normally they have glass walls around the outside so you can’t fall off, and doors that close when they’re moving.”

“That’s no fun,” she pouted. “The breeze on my face is the best part. It’s almost like flying.”

“Imagine if it was on the outside of the building, and it went up forty or fifty floors.”

She goggled at me. “Seriously? That sounds amazing. I wish I could see it sometime.”

“Sure, I’ll just call up Hecate and ask if she’s giving tours,” I said dryly.

“Hah. I could sacrifice a whole town and not have the cred for that kind of boon,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“A town?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Just an example,” she clarified. “Things are different now, but back when there were still rebel groups worshipping the Olympians some of us did things like that. Old One-Eye’s people didn’t think twice about burning whole villages, and we were pretty nasty about fighting back. After the Aesir sacked Olympus the covens were really hot for revenge.”

I nodded. “I can imagine. I take it the other Olympian gods are all dead?”

“Mostly. Poseidon still rules the deep, but Hel and her brothers deposed Hades back before Loki was imprisoned. Gaea is still around, and considering how many goblins and trolls we’ve killed she must be siding with Loki. Oh, and they say Aphrodite is a thrall in Asgard.”

I sighed. “A thrall. That’s a nice way of saying they’re keeping her as a sex slave, isn’t it?”

Cerise shrugged. “Yeah. They caught a bunch of the hamadryads and demigoddesses too, and passed them out to the younger gods as spoils. Typical thing. Kind of ironic, though, since Aphrodite started the whole feud when she ran off to be with Loki and her husband got pissed about it.”

“I have to say, the more I hear about the Aesir the less impressed I am. I’ll have to get the whole story from you sometime.”

Our conversation was interrupted when we arrived at our destination, and Avilla threw herself into my arms and kissed me.

“Thank you for the bathhouse!” She exclaimed happily. “That was wonderful! It’s so good to be clean again.”

“You’re welcome,” I told her. “You look like you’re feeling better today.”

“Much better, thank you. I’m still a little weak, but I think I’ll be back to normal soon. Come see what we’ve been doing.”

She led me around by the hand, chattering excitedly about her plans while her assistants converged on us and interjected their own comments. All the women seemed pretty worked up about being able to design their own living space, which was nice to see. It made it hard to follow the conversation, but all I really had to do was conjure walls where they’d marked them.

I was making the interior walls pretty thin, since even an inch of stone is more than enough for a privacy barrier. So it hardly took any work at all to put in walls along the lines they’d marked out, although doors would be a lot more trouble when I got around to them. Anything that involved moving parts tended to be problematic, since I had to make all the pieces individually and then try to fit them together. It’s amazing how the tiniest imprecision can make a door hang wrong or a window stick.

When we got to the space Avilla wanted to use as her kitchen I stopped and considered for a moment.

“Is it too big?” She asked nervously.

I laughed. “Avilla, you could take twice this much space and I wouldn’t care. I know how important this is to you. I was just thinking about a feature you might like. Here, let me show you and then you can decide if you want it.”

I put the other walls where she’d indicated, but instead of a wall between the kitchen and what she’d described as a ‘private dining room’ I built a breakfast bar with a nice polished granite countertop.

“The idea is that if you’re hosting an informal meal people can sit out here and chat without being in your way, but you can still be part of the conversation. So you don’t have to choose between letting people into your kitchen, or being off by yourself working while everyone else is socializing.”

She beamed at me. “That’s a wonderful idea, Daniel! You’re always so thoughtful. Hmm, but that means I can’t have cabinets there, so I’d have to rearrange things a bit…”

She trailed off, her eyes darting from one part of the rectangular space to another.

“You might want an island, too. That’s better than just putting a table in the middle of the room.”

“Island?” She asked. “What do you mean?”

“Here, let me show you.” I stepped into the room, and started conjuring stone as I spoke. “This is something the rich people do back home. It gives you a nice big workspace in the middle of the room, just like if you put a table there, but since it’s a permanent fixture I can make it the exact right size and shape for the room. Granite is also a lot tougher and easier to clean than wood. Obviously we end up with a lot of space underneath it, so we can turn that into drawers and cabinets to give you more storage. Kitchens never seem to have enough of that. We can put a pot rack above the island, so you can hang things there and have them in easy reach. Oh, and if you want I can put a sink with running water in the island. That way the sink can be right next to the stove, but they can both have empty counter space next to them.”

She studied the rough mock-up I’d put together with wide eyes.

“Girls?” She said to our audience. “Everyone out. Now.”

Then she pushed me roughly onto the counter, and unbuttoned my pants.

“Avilla? Not that I don’t… oh, fuck! What… ah! What brought this on?”

“Shut up and let me suck your cock, you sexy man. I need to taste you.”

Well, I wasn’t going to argue with that.

When she was done she climbed into my lap and curled up against me.

“Yum,” she purred. “Tasty man stuff. You need to let me do that more often.”

“Do I, now?” I chuckled.

She nodded. “You know how I am about my special diet. You don’t want me to get sick again, do you?”

“No, we certainly don’t want that,” I agreed. “I can see I’m going to have to put in some doors tonight.”

“You certainly should. Every room in my new home is going to need a proper dedication. How does a man know so much about designing kitchens, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m just copying ideas I’ve seen before,” I told her. “My homeland has a lot of people who have enough money for luxuries, and having the best house is a big social competition.”

“It sounds nice. Do I get to have a magic stove?”

“Of course. I’m thinking actual conjured flames instead of heated plates of stone. I’ve seen it done both ways, but everyone says a flame gives you better control of the heat. I’ll make you an oven too, if you want.”

She beamed. “I do. Can we have a private bath, like we had at the tower?”

“I was planning on it.”

My stomach rumbled.

Avilla giggled, and gave me a hug. “Sounds like we’d better get some food in you. Come on, I had the men move up one of the hot plates from the transports.”

I stuck around for an hour or so to put in some more walls, roughing out future living spaces on the middle floors. Then I headed back to the harbor, leaving Avilla deep in discussion with Hrodir and Oskar about where to settle their people and how to arrange various mundane details.

The self-heating stones I’d dropped onto the ice that morning had long since melted through, and there were now circles of open water dotted around my pier and the adjacent boathouse. I’d been experimenting with different variations on the enchantment, since I wasn’t sure what temperature I should set them at or how big to make the rocks. So the regions of melted ice were pretty varied in size, with some of them giving off steam and a couple sporting patches of bubbling water in the middle.

I’d also collected an audience. A few dozen sailors and a small group of armed men were standing around eying the pools and speculating with each other when I walked up, and one guy was cautiously poking at the water with a spear.

“It isn’t monsters,” I told him. “The prince hired me to try and thaw out the harbor, so we can get these ships moving again.”

“Oh, uh, yessir, lord wizard,” the man stammered, backing away hurriedly.

“Then you must be Daniel the Black,” another man said. He stepped forward and offered his hand. “I’m Filip Lund, the harbormaster. I was told to expect you.”

I shook his hand. He was a heavyset man, with a weak grip and no callouses on his hands. No weapon, either, and apparently he was a late sleeper if he’d only just gotten around to meeting me. Not a promising pattern, but sometimes appearances can be deceiving.

“Good afternoon, Filip. Yes, I’m the new wizard in town.”

“Good, good. So, ah, this is safe? I hope?”

“I’m basically just dumping hot rocks in the water to warm it up,” I explained. “There’s not a lot that can go wrong with that. The water here is all deep enough that I don’t have to worry about a ship running into one, right?”

“Well, that depends on how big they are. The docks along this end of the harbor usually have two or three fathoms of clearance, but over by the fishing wharfs we’ve got some shallow stretches. Just how hot are these rocks? Could passing over one damage a ship?”

“That’s what I was testing out over there,” I waved to the patches of bubbling water. “The stones are hotter than a bonfire, so there’s a patch of boiling water right around them. But it cools off pretty fast as it rises, so as long as we’ve got a few feet of water between them and any passing ship it won’t be warm enough to matter.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Well, it sounds like you’ll be fine around all the stone piers, then. But the fishing wharfs are wood, and the water there is barely two fathoms. You might have to do something different there, if you’re going to free up the fishing fleet.”

“I see. Alright, I’ll have to think about that. But I know the prince’s main concern was getting the oceangoing vessels moving again. I’m not going to be able to thaw the whole river, but I think I can clear a channel out to sea.”

He nodded. “We can work with that. I’ll get the harbor pilots to put their heads together and work out the best route. There are some tidal islands and sandbars in the river mouth, you see.”

“That would be a big help, then,” I agreed. “I probably won’t need them for a few days, though. Thawing the harbor is going to take some time.”

“Actually,” he said hesitantly. “Could you do it the other way around? Clear a path to the sea for one or two piers first, and then worry about the rest? That way we can start getting a few vessels in and out as soon as possible.”

I frowned. “That’s going to involve a bit of an expedition to get to the coast. I was hoping to finish getting my people settled into the new keep before making any trips. I don’t even have a proper gate yet.”

Filip eyed the tower I’d built overnight a little nervously.

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t want to press you. But I imagine outfitting a place that size must be quite a task. There are a number of ships in port carrying perishable goods, and if you could speed them on their way… well, I’m sure there would be a certain amount of gratitude involved.”

“Hmm. Ships that might happen to belong to a certain harbormaster, I suppose?”

“Oh, no,” he waved his hands in denial. “Not at all. Trade is such a complex and chancy venture, and the cost involved can be simply staggering. A man of my modest means wouldn’t know where to begin. A harbormaster’s post is more a matter of collecting fees for services rendered, if you take my meaning.”

So the ship captains were offering bribes to be the first out of port? Well, that was quick thinking on their part. Normally I’d be offended by that kind of thing, but I had to remind myself this wasn’t America. In most cultures collecting bribes is just a normal perk of the job for civil servants, and if I tried to complain to his superiors they probably wouldn’t care. Besides which, if I was going to start crusading for social justice here there were about a million more important issues to work on.

“I see. Well, I suppose we could work something out,” I responded. “I don’t suppose this gratitude might include some cloth, or furniture? I’ve got a hundred-odd people to worry about, and there are a lot of things conjured stone doesn’t work for.”

“Possibly,” he mused. “Wool and leather are in short supply now, of course. Everyone wants warmer clothes, and the few merchants who haven’t sold out their stock are hoarding it in secret. But I might know where I can lay my hands on a score of carpenters for a few weeks.”

“That would work. Alright, show me which piers you want done first. I’ll be working close to home today, but if your pilots can get a good route worked out we can plan on leaving for the coast in the morning.”

He nodded. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Will you be needing to arrange for an escort?”

“No, I’ll just take some of my own men. I’ve been outfitting them with magic weapons, so they can handle monsters a lot better than normal troops. How far is it to the coast, anyway?”

“Four miles to the estuary, and another six to open water. The estuary hasn’t frozen yet, so you may not have to worry about that. But the channel will need to wind a bit. I’d guess you’ve got five, maybe five and a half miles of ice ahead of you.”

“Ouch. That’s a bit more than I was expecting.”

He showed me the first couple of piers he wanted cleared, and suggested I look at the fishing wharfs next if I had the time. An hour later I had them well on the way to being de-iced, and was starting to get a decent feel for the process.

But the math was worrying me. Fifteen minutes to enchant an average-size stone, which would thaw an area maybe forty feet across. At that rate it would take me weeks to clear a shipping channel, and I had a long list of other projects I needed to work on. Was there a better way?

Smaller rocks took less energy to enchant, but the process wasn’t much faster. That was a losing proposition, then. Bigger rocks didn’t take much longer, but concentrating too much heat output in one spot was asking for trouble. I wasn’t sure what effect repeatedly passing over patches of boiling water would have on a wooden sailing ship, but it was bound to cause some kind of damage.

A different way to melt the ice, then? But I didn’t have any good ideas. Conjuring open flame underwater was highly inefficient, and doing it above the waterline meant most of the heat would just go up into the air and be wasted. In theory I could enchant an object to project a warmth field around itself, but that was a much more complicated effect that would end up taking even longer to make.

Maybe a growing enchantment? Make a stone rod with the heat enchantment, and just lay it out on the ice and make it grow? But there were a lot of problems to solve with that idea. It was more time efficient than building the same enchantment over and over, but the energy cost would be astronomical. The rod would quickly become far too hot to touch, and working magic from even a short distance made everything much harder. Not to mention the mechanical problems of trying to handle an incredibly heavy, unwieldy object when one end was melting through the ice and the other end was growing rapidly.

No, I needed to either drastically increase the area that I could thaw with one enchantment, or make the process of enchanting a heat stone much faster.

I headed back over to my own pier, and considered that as I dropped a few more stones in the water around it. The actual heat production was about as simple as enchantments get. No control functions or variability, just a simple conjuration effect that would run for as long as it had power. The problem was the matter to energy enchantment that powered the device. That was a complex effect, and even with all the practice I’d been getting I had doubts about my ability to build one any faster.

Not to mention that if I did it wrong it might fail prematurely, or end up leaking a form of energy other than raw magic. If I rushed this it would be all too easy to end up with a bunch of radioactive heating stones at the bottom of the river.

Could I separate the two enchantments? Make a central power source, and transmit the energy to the heating stones somehow? That seemed vaguely possible, but enchanting each heating stone to draw power at a distance probably wasn’t any easier than just making them self-powered. No, what I needed was a way to mass produce the heating stones.

Mass production. Hmm.

Spells can affect other spells. From what I’d seen so far that was an unusual type of magic here, because most wizards couldn’t perceive magic very clearly. It’s hard to make an invisible construct that precisely manipulates other invisible constructs, after all. But my mana sorcery allowed me to actually see magic if I focused on it. Could I make that work?

It would certainly take my full concentration, so the first thing I did was head back inside.

“Welcome back, milord,” one of the guards nodded to me as I entered. “Are we going to be getting gates for the keep today? Jorgen spotted a pack of goblins prowling the far shore of the river earlier.”

“Hopefully,” I told him. “I’m going to be doing some tricky spell work down in one of the empty vehicle bays for the next few hours, so pass the word not to disturb me unless there’s an emergency.”

“I’ll tell the Captain, milord.”

The transports all fit easily into one of the four vehicle bays I’d built, so there was plenty of space. I made my way into the dim recesses of one of the rear bays, conjured a light, and went to work.

This thing was going to need a massive power source, which meant a big chunk of stone with a power tap on it. So I started by making another transport sled, a bit smaller than the ones we’d been using and made of nickel-iron instead of stone. A large block of stone in the back would carry the enchantment. That started out as a power tap, a control mechanism tied to a lever on the side, and a set of earth and force enchantments to conjure a stone disk and push it out the back when the lever was pulled. Relatively easy stuff.

But enchanting the stone? That was tricky. My first attempt unravelled almost instantly, and a second try resulted in stones that were barely warm to the touch.

Well, maybe human limitations weren’t the only reason it took time to enchant an object. I tried slowing the whole process down, to give the magic time to sink into the stone and set properly. That worked out a bit better, but the resulting enchantment was still pretty distorted. Could I fix it?

I spent the rest of the afternoon tinkering with it, churning out badly enchanted heat stones and fixing their flaws one by one. It was a familiar process, actually. Build, test, fix a bug and repeat. I’d spent years doing the same thing coding web apps. Well, web apps didn’t explode or shatter or melt themselves if you made a mistake. But working on stone made it easy to just banish the results of my failed attempts, and keep going.

Finally I paused to stretch, and looked up to find that Cerise was quietly watching me.

“Hey, Cerise. What’s up?”

“Avilla wanted to know if you’re going to join us for dinner,” she told me. There was an odd note to her voice, and she was still staring at my little factory device.

“Something wrong?”

She slowly shook her head. “No. I’ve just never seen anything like that before. Am I getting this right? That thing makes enchanted rocks?”

I grinned. “Pretty neat, huh? There’s some kind of stability problem with the pattern buffer, and the part that sets the enchantment into the stone seems to wear down if I don’t reinforce it every so often. But as long as I’m keeping it tuned up I think I can turn out about one stone per minute all day long.”

“That’s incredible, Daniel,” she replied in amazement. “How does it work?”

“Come have a look. I think I can share my mana sight. Yeah, how’s that?”

She blinked, looked around the room, and then called a wisp of shadows to her hand and studied it.

“Awesome. So this is a real wizard’s magic sense? It’s a lot better than mine.”

“No, this comes from having mana sorcery,” I explained. “Remind me when I’ve got the keep set up, and I’ll see if I can make something that lets you and Avilla do this. Now, take a look at the factory enchantment. This is the power tap that runs it, this is the pattern buffer that holds a copy of the enchantment it’s going to make, and these bits here actually apply the magic…”

Spell crafting was sort of like electrical engineering, something I hadn’t studied since a few electives back in college. Complex, mind-bendingly counterintuitive, and highly mathematical if you wanted to really understand it. I probably would have been lost if not for the free insights and toolset my mana sorcery gave me. But to my surprise Cerise actually seemed to get the gist of my explanation.

“You’ve got a really weird approach to spell work,” she told me. “Some of this stuff is just impossibly complicated for any normal person. I could spend months trying to make something like that pattern buffer, and I’d make a mistake somewhere and screw it up. I guess that’s the benefit of sorcery.”

“Definitely,” I agreed. “The downside is it doesn’t come with a lot of explanations, so sometimes I have to guess at why the things I’m doing work. A lot of my healing is so complicated I might as well be using a magic item for all I understand it. But mana sorcery is kind of self-referential. It does most of the math for me, but it also lets me see what it’s doing if I look.”

“Cheater. I guess I can’t hope to do stuff like this myself, then.”

“I wouldn’t give up too easily,” I told her. “You’re not going to copy my abilities exactly, but you’ve got some impressive talents of your own. I think you can go a long way if you keep working at it.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Daniel. Hearing that from someone like you means a lot to me. Now come on, I’ve been down here long enough they’re probably getting ready to send out a search party.”

The girls seemed happy enough to have me joining them, but they weren’t thrilled to learn that I was leaving on an overnight expedition in the morning.

“But we just got here!” Avilla protested. “You haven’t even finished the tower yet, let alone gotten a decent rest. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this, Daniel.”

“I know, sweetie,” I sighed. “Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to spend the next week catching up on my sleep and strengthening our defenses here. But time waits for no man. We’ll be a lot better off in the long run if I impress the prince and the Conclave now. Not to mention that anything I can do to help the city survive will make things that much easier on us.”

“I suppose,” she pouted. “But you’re going to get a good rest tonight if I have to tie you down to do it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. “I’m just going to finish the gates downstairs, so we don’t have to worry about monsters attacking the guards in the middle of the night. After that I’m going to straight to bed.”

“Good.”

“That reminds me,” Cerise said. “Did the guys have any luck finding a place to buy furniture?”

Avilla shook her head. “Not really. The city is so big, it’s going to take days just to learn our way around.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear I’ve arranged to get us the services of a couple dozen carpenters for the next few weeks,” I told her. “Just a little kickback for letting the harbormaster decide what order the ships get thawed out in. I’m not sure what they’ll have on hand in the way of materials, but if we need to I’m sure the men can take a couple of transports across the river and cut down some of those trees with their force blades.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful news, Daniel. I was afraid we’d have to spend half our money on furniture, or just do without.”

“How long are you going to be gone?” Cerise asked, still sounding a bit concerned.

“Two or three days, I think. Depends on the weather, and how far out the ice turns out to go.”

Avilla frowned. “You aren’t going alone, are you?”

“Not a chance. I’m going to take a detachment with me, either Rain’s men or Gronir’s. We’ll have one of the harbor pilots with us too, to show us the way.”

“Take the wolf pack,” Cerise advised. “They can handle another run in the snow.”

“Good point,” Avilla agreed. “The rest of the men need a few days of rest before they’ll be good for much. The trip was really hard on everyone. You know, I understand your point, but I really wish you could let this wait a little. Don’t forget, you’re supposed to be at that wizards’ meeting in three days.”

“Maybe I should go too,” Cerise suggested. “I could watch your back, just in case.”

I shook my head. “No, one of us needs to stay here and make sure Avilla is safe. The men will do their best, but we both know one ungol would wade through the whole garrison right now. Besides, I know you’re a badass, but you’ve been looking pretty ragged yourself. I’m not losing you to some stupid accident.”

That last bit kind of slipped out on its own, and I winced. I must be more tired than I’d thought. But to my surprise, Cerise didn’t take offense. Instead her eyes went wide, and she blushed slightly.

“You see?” Avilla said happily. “I told you not to worry so much.”

“I guess so. I, um, thanks.”

Cerise kissed me on the cheek, and leaned into my side. I put my arm around her, and she sighed happily.

“What was that about?”

“Silly kitten was afraid she’d become too much of a monster for you to see her as a girl,” Avilla explained.

“Ah. Well, we’ll just have to make sure she understands that isn’t the case. Granted, I think she’s incredibly hot when she goes full demon mode and starts ripping monsters apart.”

“You do?” Cerise said incredulously.

“You bet.”

“But, I’m barely even human anymore. What about the thing with my tail?”

I shrugged. “Avilla seems pretty happy about it.”

The pretty blonde sighed dreamily. “Oh, yes. Sex was good before, but now you can do things to me I never dreamed of. One of these days I’ve got to get both of you to do me at the same time.”

I chuckled. “See? No, you’re not threatening my masculinity or anything. Well, as long as you don’t go trying to use it on me.”

They both giggled at that.

“Are you sure?” Avilla asked. “It feels really good.”

“My ass is exit only,” I insisted, which only set off another round of giggles.

“But seriously, Cerise. I know who you are on the inside, and that’s what counts. We’re not going to suddenly decide you’ve turned into a monster and reject you.”

“I guess,” she admitted.

“Also, even though I love the way you can kick ass, that doesn’t mean you have to be hard as nails all the time. Everyone needs to let their defenses down and just be taken care of sometimes. You can have it both ways.”

She buried her face against my chest, and just stood there in my arms for a long moment. Avilla leaned over to gently stroke her hair. She sighed, and relaxed into my embrace.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“You’re quite welcome, Cerise.”

“Take care of yourself out there, Daniel. I don’t think we’d find another guy like you.”

I smiled. “I will. The same goes for you, you know. You’re pretty damned amazing.”

“Hmm. I think kitten needs some special attention tonight,” Avilla purred. “Can you make some time to help me with that, Daniel?”

“Always.”

Chapter 5

We set out early the next morning, if not quite as early as I would have liked.

The sky was clear as crystal, a welcome change after weeks of clouds and snow. My companions speculated that the Red Conclave’s weather spells were finally having an effect, and the faint traceries of warring magic I could see running across the sky led me to suspect that they were right. I still had my doubts that it would last, but a few days of clear weather would certainly make my job easier.

I went with Cerise’s advice, and took Gronir’s group with me. They weren’t as heavily armed as Rain’s men, but the force blades and piercing arrows I’d made them were effective enough to handle most things we might encounter. They were also a much better scouting force, which was the main thing I wanted them for anyway.

We took one of the transports, as well as the little open-topped sled I’d made to carry the heating stone factory. But the hunters were too restless to just sit inside all day, so they went out in twos and threes to patrol the area as we traveled. Their long, loping stride could cover ground faster than a horse, and they ranged out a couple of miles around the slow-moving vehicles. I’d warned Gronir to be careful of ambushes, but with their keen senses and superior mobility I wasn’t too worried about them.

Laying out the heating stones turned out to be a tedious exercise. It took my factory enchantment a couple of minutes to make a stone, and based on the previous day’s testing I was only placing them about twenty paces apart. That meant my magically-propelled sled had to creep along at a glacial pace, and I frequently found myself having to stop and wait for the next stone to be finished. But I couldn’t just zone out, because I still had to operate the damn thing. Not to mention keep an eye on the factory enchantment, and stop to refresh bits of it every so often. The whole process was still a lot faster than enchanting the stones myself, but it was a complete pain in the ass.

The pilot the harbormaster had sent with us as a guide didn’t help matters. For the first hour he just sat on the bench next to me and brooded, only occasionally rousing himself to adjust our course. As the walls of Kozalin gradually receded he grew increasingly nervous, asking what we’d do if we were attacked. Then he’d started worrying about the weather, the size of our escort and our chances of survival in an increasingly pessimistic tone. When he started going on about how he was doomed to get frostbite from sitting on a chunk of metal in the cold I’d had enough.

“Go ride in the transport, then,” I growled. “It’s warm in there. Just tell the men where to drive it, and I’ll follow along.”

He abandoned me readily enough at the invitation. I snorted, and went back to concentrating on what I was doing. Honestly, did he really not notice that the metal of the sled was under a warmth enchantment?

Some time later Gronir came trotting over, and hopped up next to me.

“Hey, boss. I think I’m going to strangle that guy if he doesn’t shut up about how doomed we are,” he said jokingly.

I chuckled. “Why do you think I sent him over to you? At least you guys get to take turns getting away from him. If he was with me I’d be stuck listening to it for the duration.”

“Hah! Good point. But we’re making him stay in the driver’s cab. The girls have really had the itch today, and we don’t need him cramping our style.”

I’d never pried into the details of personal relationships in their group, but I’d gotten the impression they weren’t exactly monogamous. Daria seemed to be sticking with Gronir, but I kept seeing the other two women with different men. They were a lot less reserved about public displays of affection than was normal in Varmland, too.

“Understandable,” I commented. “I wonder if that’s a side effect? Now that I think about it, most of the felwolves we’ve killed have been male. Hunting instincts might not be the only mental effect they’re picking up from the rituals.”

“Yeah, we all figured that,” Gronir agreed. “Daria says as long as she doesn’t start growing fur in weird places she’s not complaining. But I’m thinking it might be smart for us to stop for a bit. Being stronger is good, but there’s no sense turning ourselves into monsters.”

I frowned. “I agree, but you’ve never worried about that before. Did something happen?”

He stared out over the snow ahead of us, and sighed.

“Yeah. Since the last ritual, some of us have started hearing something. Not with our ears, you understand. Just kind of feeling it. Only there’s no words, so I don’t rightly know how we’re understanding it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What does it say?”

“Run and hunt,” he murmured. “Pounce on our enemies, and scatter their herds. Soon the world will be ours.”

I considered that for a moment.

“D’you think they can control us?” He frowned nervously. “Miss Avilla, she said the felwolves are the children of Fenrir. That’s why they fight for the evil gods. If we take too much, are we gonna end up doing the same thing? I used to think just staying alive was all I had time to worry about, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Good,” I said. “You’re right, there is a danger there. If you just push on without stopping to think you could all turn yourselves into wolf monsters, and then you probably would end up turning on us. But there are ways to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Cerise is the expert on this, so you may want to talk to her about it when we get back. But you’ve basically got two choices. The safe one is you stop now, and be satisfied with what you’ve got. Some of the power you’ve gained will bleed off over the next few weeks, but so will some of the side effects. You might still hear that call. But you’re a man, not a wolf. If it’s just a whisper now and then all you need to fight it off is a little stubbornness.”

“I guess we could do that,” he mused. “But what’s the other choice?”

That led into delicate territory, but at this point I was pretty sure I could trust Gronir with the information.

“I think Avilla has explained how her ritual filters what you get by stealing power from an enemy? So you guys get mostly strength and magic, instead of sprouting fur and literally turning into wolves?”

He nodded.

“Well, obviously the filtering isn’t perfect. Some stuff you aren’t asking for always slips through, like the hunting instincts and this ‘whisper’ thing. There’s nothing Avilla can do about that, but Cerise knows a way to go back and get rid of side effects you don’t like.”

“Really? Why hasn’t she been doing it, then?” He asked curiously. “I mean, I know she likes being scary and all, but I’ve heard her grumbling about how hard it is to hide her horns all the time.”

“She couldn’t do it on the road,” I explained. “She has to set up a chapel, so she can sacrifice the unwanted power to her goddess.”

He looked away nervously. “Oh.”

I thought he might drop it at that, but instead he spent some minutes thinking while I laid out the next few heating stones.

“I guess she worships one of the old gods?”

I nodded. “Hecate.”

More minutes passed.

“I’ll talk to her,” he finally said.

“That’s it?”

He shrugged. “I guess I’m not surprised. She’s a right hellion, but she’s always had our backs. If you and Miss Avilla don’t have a problem with it, I guess I don’t either. Not like there’s going to be a Valhalla for any of us to go to anyway.”

That was an interesting issue, actually. If this world had gods and magic, were there souls and an assortment of afterlife realms too? Was there really a Valhalla full of mighty warriors, and an underworld where everyone else ended up as some kind of shade? I wasn’t necessarily going to buy that just because the people here did, of course. When it comes to religion people will believe all kinds of crazy things on little or no evidence. But I couldn’t just dismiss it, either.

The rest of the day passed by slowly. Kozalin gradually faded into the distance, until only the iron tower of the Conclave’s fortress was still visible. Patches of clouds began to appear in the sky, and now and then a brief flurry of snow would fall.

Late in the afternoon one of the patrols came back with word of a goblin band lurking in the underbrush, but a few arrows had sent them scurrying off. The men got a good laugh out of that, but privately I was a bit concerned. Goblins usually weren’t shy about pressing an attack, especially when they had the advantage in numbers. Was word of my group getting around enough that they’d recognized us? Or were they just a scouting party, hoping to come back with friends and catch us off guard?

We made camp on a patch of higher ground that had been a tiny island before the river froze, and I cautioned Gronir to set a good watch. He nodded.

“Always do, boss. Never know what might try to sneak up on us.”

Well, if there was anyone I could trust to spot a stealthy attack it was his group.

I was tempted to stay up late working on another project. My healing amulet could remove fatigue pretty well, and the list of things I urgently needed to make was endless. But Avilla was right that I couldn’t keep pushing forever. Lack of sleep does weird things to the brain, and there were other subtle effects my amulet couldn’t fix. I’d been feeling pretty fuzzy the last few days, and I had another long day ahead of me tomorrow.

So instead I forced down a quick meal of cold trail rations, gave the factory stone one final check, and bedded down on the sled next to it. A little force dome would keep the wind off me and trap the heat from the vehicle’s warmth enchantment, and I’d long since gotten used to sleeping on a hard surface. I was out the moment my head touched the rolled-up shirt I was using as a pillow.

Hours later, I started awake at an unfamiliar sound.

The moon was down, and the partially overcast sky allowed only the faintest hint of starlight through. I held myself still, eyes and ears straining. Was there something on the sled with me?

Yes. A dark shape bent over the enchantment engine. I could vaguely make out movement, and faint whispers of sound that I couldn’t quite identify. I tensed, and started to ready a spell.

“Very nice, Daniel. You’re only the third man in history to create a device like this, and the first to use it for anything useful. That Greek fellow was only interested in theory, and the one in China never got past turning out party favors for his Emperor. Of course, you’ve got the benefit of cheating.”

I choked. “Hecate?”

“Indeed.”

She turned, and crouched next to me. A faint silvery glow sprung up within the hood of her cloak, just bright enough that I could make out her amused expression.

I hurriedly dispersed the attack spell I’d been building, and sat up. “Um, hello. This is unexpected.”

“Good,” she smiled evilly. “With luck Asgard’s watchdog won’t be looking for me either. It’s annoyingly hard to get anything done with him watching from the sky all the time.”

I frowned. “Watchdog? Do you mean H-?”

She put a hand over my mouth with a hiss. “Don’t! If you say his name he might hear you. You don’t want to be spotted in my presence.”

She must be talking about Heimdall, the god who was supposed to watch the Bifrost Bridge and warn when enemies were approaching Asgard. Keen senses were his main attribute in the mythology I’d read, so there was another point of rough correspondence between my world’s myths and this one’s reality.

Why would Hecate risk being spotted by her enemies to visit me? I had a bad feeling about this. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to cudgel my tired brain back into operation.

“Sorry. I’m still getting up to speed on how things work in this world. Um, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but it occurs to me that I have no idea what the proper way to address a goddess is.”

“I leave grandiose titles to those who are insecure enough to need them, Daniel. Speak plainly, and I won’t take offense. Besides, after your latest success you’d have to work rather hard to upset me.”

I stifled a yawn. “Success? You mean getting Cerise to Kozalin?”

“No, Daniel. I mean that Cerise has just finished consecrating a chapel to me, and she’s currently leading her first acolyte through her dedication ritual. It’s too bad you didn’t take the terms I originally offered you, or you’d be off the hook in another ten minutes.”

“Figures.” I shook my head. “Well, I suppose if I’m bargaining with a goddess I should expect to be outmaneuvered. Who did she talk into converting? One of the refugees? Wait, no. It’s Beri, isn’t it?”

The girl had expressed her admiration for Cerise more than once, and I knew that being essentially helpless wore on her. Even when surrounded by armed men, she was always worried that something would slip past the guards and get her.

“I would never give away the identity of my worshippers,” Hecate replied piously. “Secrecy is part of our sacred bargain. You’ll have to ask them yourself when you return.”

“I suppose I will,” I agreed. “So, what brings you here? I don’t imagine you risked a personal visit just to tell me something I would have found out anyway in a few days.”

The dark-haired goddess turned serious.

“True. We have much to discuss, Daniel.”

She sat down next to me, taking advantage of the cover offered by my little force dome, and I wondered for a moment if she felt the cold. She wore the same leather skirt and tunic as when I’d first seen her, when she appeared in my hospital room to make the bargain that had gotten me here. But the heavy cloak was new, and there were gloves on her hands.

Modern religions talk about gods as virtually omnipotent beings, but in the Greek myths they were often more like humans with super powers. Which one was Hecate?

“This war is going to change everything,” she said contemplatively. “Loki was a threat to Odin’s power before his imprisonment, when he only had his family and a few allies to call on. But now Gaea stands with him as well. Together they’ve somehow broken the seals on Tartarus, and released the horrors Zeus left chained there when he defeated the Titans. Many of them will fight with Gaea, and so will her countless children.”

“But Odin is a ruthless bastard, and he had plenty of time to prepare for this day while Loki was chained in torment. Asgard has bred an army of young gods to use as cannon fodder, and forged an arsenal of god-slaying weapons. They won’t die easily, if at all. Whoever wins this war, there will be very few survivors.”

She paused for a moment, and held out her hand. A snowflake settled onto the dark leather of her glove and sat there, unmelting.

“I don’t think Loki can reverse the Fimbulwinter,” she went on. “The magic he called on could be sealed again if he dies, but that won’t undo the changes that have already been made. The sea and air flow differently now, and they’re settling into a pattern that will be difficult to change before it runs its course.”

She paused at my muttered curse, and raised one elegant eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I know about ice ages. If he managed to start a real one that means we’re looking at a hundred thousand years until the next interglacial, more or less. ”

A faint smile creased her lips.

“I’ve always marveled at the insight of philosophers. You remind me of the time Eratosthenes flummoxed Diana by measuring the distance to the moon with nothing but a few sticks and a sharp mind. How do you know about something that last happened before humans invented writing, Daniel?”

“I can’t take credit for that one,” I admitted. “But there are half a dozen ways to measure how severe winters were in the distant past. Tree rings, ice cores, pollen counts in buried soil samples, that kind of thing. Your translation spell gives you an explanation of ideas like that as soon as I mention them, right?”

“A decent one, yes. Well, you are correct. Europe will be frozen for long ages even after this war is over. The monsters that survive it will finish off the so-called victors, and hunt humanity here to extinction. Then they will grow hungry, and seek prey further afield.”

Her eyes grew haunted.

“I remember the last age of ice, Daniel. I was a young woman when the Winter Court was driven into shadow by the return of summer, and the Titans broke free of their frozen prisons to reclaim Europe. I saw the abominations my father and brothers locked away in Tartarus, and the lesser things they tamed to their service. I stood at Zeus’ side after Cronus fell, and we scoured the land clean of the monsters that remained. The ungols are the least of the things that we sealed in those days.

“But the heroes who accomplished those deeds are gone now. The hecatoncheires will fight and die with Gaea, but what about the others? Will the decrepit gods of Egypt rise up to do battle with the dathnai when they go seeking cities to devour? With the Jade Emperor’s court send out heroes to put down the pestilence dragons? Will young Coyote cross the seas to trick the Court of Nightmares back into their prison of dreams?”

She shook her head.

“No. They will tend to their own affairs, as always, until a threat comes to their own doorstep. Then they’ll find that they aren’t strong enough to fight alone. Egypt will fall, and then all the lands of Persia will follow. The Great Beasts will take the seas and skies for their own again, and the mortal races will be reduced to savagery everywhere except the great kingdoms of the East. Their gods may be strong enough to protect them, but they care nothing for the suffering of foreigners. They will secure their own borders, but nothing more.”

She fell silent then. I contemplated her words, wondering how to respond.

“Should I be making plans to move to China, then?”

“Perhaps,” she said softly. “But I will not abandon the lands of my birth, and there are others who will stand with me. Hestia. Prometheus, if we can free him. The Summer Court of the faerie, and the spirits of land and sea. There are many hidden powers who might be persuaded, once the need to hide from the Aesir has passed. With luck, we might even create an alliance strong enough to seal the doors of Tartarus again and banish the Fimbulwinter.”

“And then there is you. I only caught glimpses of your world, Daniel. But I saw enough to know that if the gates of Tartarus were opened there, your people would destroy even the strongest of the Great Beasts. Millions would die, and the war would shatter your nation. But I would have no doubt about the outcome. Can you recreate that power here?”

“Not alone,” I told her. “It took millions of men working for centuries to build the civilization you saw. I don’t suppose you could send me back for a shopping trip? I’d kill for a copy of ‘The Way Things Work’, let alone a stack of engineering and chemistry references.”

She shook her head. “No. There is a treaty that was negotiated in ancient days, between the Titans and the beings who dwell beyond your world. Sneaking into the neutral zone once was risky enough. If I make a habit of it I will be noticed, and the consequences would be dire.”

I sighed. “Then I’m going to be limited in what I can do. If we had more time I could probably spark an industrial revolution, but it would take a century for that to really go anywhere. I think I can duplicate some key innovations using magic, but the results won’t be the same. In the short term I can build a secure strongpoint, and put together a small force that can cover long distances quickly and bring a lot of firepower to bear. Beyond that, I’m not sure yet.”

“If you can do that much already, I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish once you’ve truly mastered your magic,” she replied. “Will you work with me, Daniel?”

I considered that.

“Hecate, I had a pretty suspicious run of bad luck just before you showed up. Did you have anything to do with that?”

She frowned. “What sort of fool would give you a good reason to look for revenge just before endowing you with the power of a demigod? It was the other way around, Daniel. In a world of teeming billions there’s always someone who has just lost everything. I simply worked a scrying to find me a man with the set of abilities I needed, who was in a situation where he’d be open to a bargain.”

“Oh. Well, that does make a bit more sense. I apologize if that was unduly suspicious of me, but all I know about you is a bunch of distorted mythology.”

“I’m not offended, Daniel. It’s wise to be cautious when dealing with elder powers, and I suppose I qualify from your perspective. You hardly know anything about me, and the things you do know have to look pretty bad. I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the soul sacrifices.

I shrugged. “I figured that would be pushing it. It’s not like you have to justify yourself to some mortal who doesn’t even know anything about this world’s metaphysics. Besides, from what I understand you’ve been fighting a guerrilla against the Aesir for centuries. War is always an ugly business, and insurgencies are the worst kind of war.”

She gave me a considering look.

“Yes. The one good thing about this disaster is that it means the long war is finally coming to an end. But I have no champions left to call on, and I won’t be able to act directly until it’s too late to matter. Will you work with me to save what humans we can?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I’ll happily agree to that much. For that matter, they don’t have to be human. I’ll help any group of survivors that’s willing to work with me, as long as they aren’t crazed human-eating monsters or something.”

“Really? That’s unexpected. You aren’t going to insist on saving your own kind first?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not that… tribal, I guess you could say? My first obligation is to the people who already depend on me, of course. But beyond that I have to prioritize who I save based on what they can contribute to our future survival, and I’m trying to think of the long term here. More craftsmen and soldiers would be good, but I imagine other races have unique abilities they can bring to the table. There are a lot of problems I can’t solve with my own magic.”

“I see. So, if I told you there’s a group of nature spirits near Kozalin who keep petitioning the gods for help?”

“Can they help us grow crops indoors?” I asked. “If the winter isn’t going to end food supplies are going to become a serious problem in a few months. I can make greenhouses, and even supply artificial heat and light. But space is going to be at a serious premium, so anything that lets us grow more food on less land will save lives.”

She nodded. “That’s well within their powers. You’d take them in, as long as they agree to help you and abide by your word?”

“Sure. I only draw the line at beings that are too alien or too ornery to actually cooperate with us. But there are only so many hours in a day, and I suspect there are more groups out there praying for help than I could possibly save.”

“Most of them pray to either Asgard or Loki,” she pointed out. “I’ll happily leave their fate in the hands of their own patrons. But yes, this needs to be managed carefully. There are a lot of lesser powers who still have bands of worshippers scattered around, and every boon I arrange is a chance to forge a new alliance or rekindle an old one. But I won’t risk the rebirth of my own cult by overburdening you.”

“Thank you. Although I have to wonder why having worshippers is so important to you?”

“That isn’t something we normally explain to mortals,” she chided me. “Which ought to be obvious if you think about it for a second. But under the circumstances I think it would actually be a good thing for you to know, as long as you promise not to spread it around. It’s going to come up soon enough.”

I blinked at her in surprise. Hecate was trusting me with secrets? Wow, she really was desperate.

“Alright. I’ll keep it quiet, if you want to tell me.”

She nodded. “It’s an essential aspect of modern divine warfare, Daniel. Extinguishing the essence of an immortal is so difficult we used to think it was impossible. That’s why measures like imprisonment or devouring used to be such common ways of dealing with enemies. If you could detonate a nuclear weapon in Asgard you’d probably discorporate most of the Aesir, but they’d just reform their bodies and come after you for revenge.”

“But we need some kind of anchor to the material world in order to reform a body here, and Odin discovered that it’s possible to sever those anchors. Get enough of them, and your enemy can’t come back.”

“So worshippers are an anchor?” I asked.

She nodded. “Family, worshippers, homeland and implements. Those are the common ones, which everyone uses. Demigods need a lot of strong connections to have even a chance of reviving themselves, but those of us with more strength can make do with less. So when you find yourself fighting the sons and daughters of the gods, destroy everything you can find that could give them a connection.”

“So that’s why Odin didn’t just kill Loki,” I mused. “They’d have had to hunt down his children too, and that would have just started Ragnarok early. But wait, why would demigods be coming after me?”

“Do you think you can keep killing Gaea’s creatures forever without drawing notice? You’re already a nuisance, and if you turn Kozalin into an impregnable citadel you’ll attract even more attention. It’s an important target, and they’re going to have someone significant assigned to capture it. If you wanted to be inconspicuous you shouldn’t have settled so close to a veil anchor.”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You didn’t know? Odin hid the Bifrost behind a veil of magic powered by the faith of his worshippers, and anchored by nine of his greatest temples. If Loki wants to get Gaea’s children and Hel’s legions into Asgard they have to capture enough anchors to break the veil. So at some point they’re going to stage a serious attack on Kozalin.”

I groaned. “Damn it. It would have been nice to know that before we came all the way here.”

She shrugged. “This is Ragnarok, Daniel. Nowhere is safe, and if you want to recruit strong allies Kozalin is the best place you could have reached. Unless you’re going to abandon that gaggle of refugees you’ve been carting around, and flee south with just Cerise and Avilla?”

“No. I promised to protect them, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll just have to work fast, and make sure we’re ready when the attack finally comes.”

Chapter 6

The sky was clear again the next day, to my considerable surprise. I hadn’t seen two consecutive clear days since I was summoned to this world, so I was forced to conclude that the Red Conclave’s weather magic was actually working. Standing atop the transport I found that I could make out bands of dark clouds being held at bay in the distance to the west, but they showed no sign of getting closer.

Well, that would certainly make my work easier.

Gudrin hopped up next to me, clearing the eight foot height of the transport in a single easy bound, and looked around with a grin. Well, she was probably the strongest of the wolf girls, so a feat like that shouldn’t surprise me. She’d shot up a good six inches during the trip to Kozalin, while her malnourished body sprouted curves and her ragged mop of black hair grew out into a wild mane that reached the small of her back.

“Good morning, boss. Is it just me, or is it getting warmer?” She asked.

“I think it is,” I replied. “Looks like the weather wizards are actually getting somewhere.”

“That would be nice.” She took a step closer, and rubbed up against me. “Feel like a quickie before breakfast?”

I chuckled, and gave her a one-armed hug. “Well, that came out of the blue. Just like that?”

“Does it have to be complicated? I’m horny, you’re sexy, and you didn’t bring any of your women with you.”

Her hand touched my chest, and started to trail down towards my belt buckle. I took it in one of mine.

“Would you have thought that way a month ago?”

She looked up at me with a frown. “Why does that matter?”

“I’m just curious what it feels like, going from a normal girl to what you are now. You do know it’s changed how you think about things, right?”

“I’m not stupid, boss. Of course I know. A month ago I would have died of shame if a man who wasn’t my husband saw me naked. Now I’ve had half the men in the pack and a couple of Oskar’s boys, and I’m loving it. I love having the courage to enjoy life, whether it’s fighting or fucking or just running through the woods with the wind in my face. There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”

I shook my head. “No, not as long as you’re happy with it. The rules you grew up with were meant for human farmers, and they don’t work for everyone. Now that you’re, well, not completely human-”

“Wolfen,” she interrupted. “We had a talk about it, last night. That’s what we decided to call ourselves.”

How imaginative. But then again, I should probably cut them some slack. Most of them were illiterate ex-peasants, and I was an information age internet junkie. Obviously our sense of taste was going to be different.

“Alright. Well, wolfen obviously have different instincts than humans, so you’re going to have to make up new rules for yourselves. Traditions that work for you, to replace the ones you’ve left behind. I’m not going to call you a slut for having some fun, but I will warn you that just doing whatever feels good won’t work out well in the long run. You, Embla and Daria should get together soon, and talk about how to handle things like mates and children. Otherwise things are going to blow up horribly when one of you gets pregnant.”

She huffed in frustration. “I guess. This is your way of turning me down, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I don’t usually say no to sexy girls, but I’m not big on doing it with an audience.”

Not to mention that I was pretty sure she’d had sex half a dozen times yesterday, and bathing wasn’t really an option in our encampment. Day-old sloppy seconds? Ugh. No thanks.

“Then you should take your transport next time,” she pointed out. “Honestly, it feels really weird having sex when I know the boss is sleeping alone.”

“That’s for sure,” another voice put in, and I turned to find that Daria had joined us on the roof of the transport.

“It’s a big confused ball of bad stuff. Like we’re not good enough for you, and we’re being total bitches by ignoring you, and we’re being stupid for missing a shot at you, and about a thousand other things all swirling around in a big mess. I think our wolfen instincts really make a big deal out of the fact that you’re the pack leader’s boss. Maybe next time we do something like this you’ll be able to bring Cerise with you?”

“Probably,” I allowed. “Or I can figure something else out. Thanks for pointing out the problem, though. You know, the usual rule of thumb is that a leader should keep his hands off his subordinates’ women.”

She nodded. “I know. Sergeant Thomas mentioned that once, when he was explaining how to work with the soldiers. It’s probably still a good idea, since the pack has so few women. Maybe you could fix that at some point? The men have been really good about sharing so far, but I’m sure it’s going to cause trouble once the novelty of everything starts to wear off.”

“Well, I’m afraid the only kind of animal hybrid I can make is catgirls, and I don’t think that would help.”

“Catgirls?” Gudrin exclaimed incredulously. “Really?”

Daria giggled. “That’s a funny image.”

At the time I’d been hoping to extend my flesh magic into some kind of shapeshifting. But I hadn’t dared spend enough of my limited power-up time on that to be sure, and what I’d actually gotten was just a semi-random handful of transformations I could do to people. Catgirls, anime elves, gender reversals, an assortment of cosmetic changes, and some physical enhancements that might actually be useful if they weren’t so complex it would take days to do one. Like I’d ever be able to spare that much time.

“What can I say? It’s just a weird quirk of my magic. Anyway, I’ll put it on my list of problems to think about. I take it human women aren’t an option for some reason?”

“They can’t keep up with the pack,” Gudrin pointed out.

“They couldn’t really be part of the group,” Daria agreed. “Also, humans are fragile. No one wants to risk that kind of relationship now.”

“Fair enough.”

Breakfast had me missing Avilla’s cooking. But we were most of the way to the coast already, and with the clear weather I had high hopes of finishing the job and being back home by nightfall. The channel left by my heating stones had slowly expanded during the night, and was now easily wide enough for two of the sailing ships I’d seen in the harbor to pass each other. So once we hit the coast we could turn around and travel at full speed instead of creeping along planting more stones.

Starting up the work again was a little tricky, since I didn’t want to risk taking the vehicles anywhere near the channel. There was no way to tell how much the ice had thinned near it, and I didn’t want to risk breaking through. I ended up laying a force field across the ice near the end of the channel to spread my weight while I walked over to drop in the first heating stone, and placed a few more at the same interval I’d been using the day before. That got us far enough out that I was pretty sure the ice would be stable, at which point I went back to just dropping the stones off the back of the enchantment factory’s sled.

The ice hissed and smoked furiously where they landed, but even with a big heat source it takes time to melt large masses of the stuff. A trail of holes grew in our wake, gradually widening as we moved slowly along our way. The whole process was just as tedious as it had been the day before, but hopefully this was a one-time thing.

Could I do something like this for Kozalin? Warm the whole town with open-air heaters of some kind? Moderating the temperature even a little could keep a lot of those refugees alive.

But thinking about it more, I realized that it was a much harder problem. I’d have to cover three or four square miles instead of just a long, narrow path, so it would take a lot more heaters. They were also dangerous to anyone who got too close to one, so I’d have to mount each heating element in some kind of enclosure. That alone would make the project take weeks instead of days. Maybe months, depending on how elaborate the setup ended up needing to be.

Come to think if it, I’d have to use much less powerful heaters. The ones I was dumping in the river put out heat like a blast furnace, and there weren’t many places in the city where that would be safe. They’d create zones of dangerously high temperature, blocking streets and probably setting buildings on fire. I’d have to make thousands of little ones instead, with an output more comparable to a stove or campfire. But if I started dotting the city with permanent heat sources on that scale people would steal them.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. I’d have to come up with a different solution.

It was well past noon when we finally neared the coast. The grey waters of the North Sea stretched away endlessly into the distance, under an angry mass of dark clouds that swirled furiously against that invisible barrier some miles offshore. There was no sign of any shipping, but that was no surprise. Anyone caught at sea when the freeze hit would presumably have either docked at the nearest port or headed south.

I was just a few hundred yards from the edge of the ice when Gudrin and Umar returned from patrol with a report of more goblins lurking in the vicinity.

“There was a lot of them, a couple miles north of us. I saw three trolls, and maybe a hundred wolf riders,” Umar reported.

Gudrin nodded. “Some of the goblins looked funny, too. There was a whole group with white cloaks and fancy armor, riding big white wolves.”

“Did they see you?” Gronir asked.

Umar hung his head. “Yeah, they had a lot of scouts out. I think we gave them the slip, but we killed a couple of wolf riders doing it.”

“Sounds like your pack needs some stealth training, Gronir,” I pointed out. “But that’s for later. If they attack us during the day we’ll cut them to pieces. I go after their leaders while you guys run around the edges skirmishing, and the pilot hides in the transport. Your bows have three or four times the range of theirs, you can outrun their wolves and their arrows can barely hurt you anyway. Once we kill a couple dozen the rest will break and run.”

“But if the ones in white cloaks are the same guys who led the attack on Lanrest they’ll be smarter than that. Probably shadow us hoping to attack after we camp for the night. So let’s see if we can’t finish our business here and be gone by then.”

“You got it, boss,” Gronir agreed. “I’ll organize a sweep to make sure there aren’t any other bands lurking about, and then we’ll pull back to the transport and stand ready just in case.”

“Sounds like a plan. Go ahead and park the transport here. The ice might be too thin to support it over by the edge, so I’m going to place the last few heat stones by hand.”

The wolfen fanned out in pairs to check for other threats, and I mused that we really needed more of them to maintain good scouting. At least twenty, and thirty or so would be a lot better. But where would I find that many volunteers, let alone the felwolf hearts to empower them?

“One problem at a time,” I sighed.

I turned the factory enchantment back on, caught the heat stone it built in a web of force magic, and held it carefully suspended in the air before me while I paced off the distance from the last one I’d placed. Almost done. I dropped it into place, thankful that my shield blocked the cloud of steam it raised when it hit the ice, and went back for another.

I’d just placed the second to last stone when I heard a shout from the direction of the transport, and a shadow fell over me. I dove to the side with a hard push of force magic, thankful that weeks of constant danger had at least sharpened my reflexes. I landed well outside the still-growing shadow, my hand already on Grinder’s hilt.

There was a deep chuckle from behind me. “You’re quick on your feet, little man.”

I turned, and found myself facing something almost as bad as the dragon I’d half expected. A huge head armored in bony plates, with a mouth big enough to swallow me whole, looking down at me from the end of a long serpentine neck that descended into the sea. For a moment I pictured something like a giant plesiosaur, but then I realized that the movement I could make out in the water offshore was more serpentine coils. It was a sea serpent.

A sea serpent that made dinosaurs look puny. And it talked.

“I am Narfing, son of Jarlof, son of Jormungandr. Are you the foreign wizard, Daniel the Black?”

Its voice was a deep rumble so powerful I could feel it in my chest, like a landslide crashing down a mountainside. I took a deep breath and straightened, with my hand still on Grinder. “Yes,” I answered cautiously.

“Good. You took longer than expected to arrive, but we still have a few minutes. I bring you word from the Unraveler, the first and last offer of peace you will hear. She comes now to tear asunder the Bifrost Veil, and you stand in her way. Step aside, and we shall grant you and your servants safe passage out of Europe.”

I frowned. A week ago I probably would have agreed to that. I had no stake in the war between Loki and Asgard, and I wasn’t under any delusions about my ability to stop this genocide single-handedly. But after my conversation with Hecate last night… wait, had she known this was coming? The timing was too neat to be coincidence.

“Who is this ‘Unraveler’?” I asked. “That isn’t a name I recall.”

“Have you not heard?” The great serpent rumbled. “Hel’s sister is yet in her youth, but she was trained well by her brothers in Gaea’s halls. In a scant year she has freed her father and brother, broken the seals of Tartarus and gathered a horde of fell beasts to her banner. Her touch brings freedom to all who suffer in darkness, and no barrier can withstand her will. If you oppose her you will be but another stepping stone on her path to Ascension.”

It took me a moment to puzzle that out. “Loki and Gaea have a daughter? Together? How the hell did they manage that?”

“In the usual way, I imagine,” it said with a grin, displaying a mouth full of teeth the length of my arm. “Sigyn is a devoted wife, and Gaea is one sneaky bitch when she bothers to try.”

Okay, then. If I remembered my Norse mythology right the story was that Odin had bound Loki in chains in a cave somewhere, with a giant serpent on the ceiling dripping venom on him. His wife Sigyn was allowed to attend him and catch the poison in a bowl, although it wasn’t a complete protection because she had to go empty it from time to time. Gaea was an earth goddess, so I suppose it made sense that she’d be able to sneak into an underground location if she wanted to. But… um…

Well, this was the god who fathered half the monsters in Norse mythology, and was supposedly Sleipnir’s mother. I suppose kinky bondage sex with Gaea right in front of his wife was par for the course, and Gaea’s reputation was in line with that. Despite the situation, I had to fight back a chuckle.

“That does sound like Loki.”

“Odin was a fool to leave his most potent limb unbound,” Narfing agreed. “But I must have your answer now.”

That chased away my grin. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “Go back to your tower, provision yourselves and seal your gates. When Kozalin is secure you can take your people and leave.”

Yeah, I’m sure an army of monsters camped on the ruins of the city would have no problem letting us go. Did they think I was a complete idiot?

Why were they making this offer? If the fall of Kozalin was really inevitable I doubt they would have bothered. So, they had some intel about me from previous encounters and they wanted me out of the way.

What could I do against a goddess?

No. In the Greek myths the children of gods were usually born as mortal heroes, and had to win enough divine approval before they were allowed to become gods. That sounded a lot like this ‘path to Ascension’ business. So a demigoddess, and one who was hiding her actual name. Sneaky and powerful, but not necessarily a strong fighter.

“You know, Narfing, I don’t really have a quarrel with Loki’s people,” I said contemplatively. “I sure as hell don’t have any love for the Aesir, and if you just wanted to tear down Asgard and salt the earth I wouldn’t lift a finger to stop you. But when Loki decided to cause the Fimbulwinter, and Gaea sent her children to rampage across the land killing everyone they could find, they declared war on humanity.”

“That was a mistake.”

I drew Grinder, and nudged it to life with a thought. The blade of violet flame coalesced with a shriek like the mutant offspring of a jet engine and a wood chipper. The huge monster flinched away from the noise, and I nodded to myself. I’d figured a giant aquatic monster would have sonar, and sensitive hearing to go with it.

“Kozalin is under my protection,” I shouted over the din. “Find another veil anchor for your schemes. If you attack this one, there won’t be enough left of you to bury.”

“Insolent wizard!” Narfing roared. “You dare to spit on the Unraveler’s kindness? Then I shall kill you myself, and save her the trouble!”

I readied myself, but the expected lunge didn’t come. Instead the great serpent reared up, and dove back into the waters it had emerged from. A long, long length of sinewy body followed the motion. Damn, how big was this thing?

Then a shock ran through the ice, and I realized what he was doing. I spun, and bounded back towards the vehicles.

“Gronir! Scatter! It’s coming back-”

My words were drowned out by the thunderous crash of Narfing’s armored head smashed up through the ice. Huge chunks went flying everywhere, several of them shattering against my shield, and then Grinder’s blade touched the water. The resulting steam explosion blasted me into the air, and I blacked out momentarily.

Fortunately my healing amulet was running. I was still bouncing across the surface of the ice when I snapped back to consciousness. I tumbled to a stop, and scrambled back to my feet.

A hundred yards away the wolfen were circling the hole in the ice, peppering Narfing with arrows that didn’t seem to be doing anything. I saw a couple bounce off the sea serpent’s bony head despite their piercing enchantments, and although the ones that hit his body penetrated they didn’t reach deep enough to hit anything vital. Not that an arrow was likely to do much to a monster this size even if it did prick an organ.

Beyond them, I could just make out motion under the trees along the river bank. The goblins were here.

I pulled myself to my feet, and threw myself back towards the fight. “Gronir! Get your people out of there!”

Narfing reared up for a better look around, and spotted me. “Still alive, little wizard? None of you will survive to see Kozalin again. But I’ll kill you first, if that’s what you want.”

The wolfen backed away nervously. “Goblins on both banks, boss,” Gronir called.

I nodded. “Keep them busy, and stay well back. This is going to get ugly.”

“You have no idea,” Narfing chuckled darkly. Then he struck.

For all his vast bulk he was as fast as a striking snake. His head blurred towards me, and I barely had time to throw myself into the air before it smashed into the ice where I’d been standing. He went right through it despite its thickness, sending boulder-sized fragments flying everywhere.

Alright, I had his attention. Now how was I going to stop him?

I conjured a long lance of force, and tried to angle my fall to land on the monster’s back. But even with the momentum of my fall behind the impact my weapon sank barely a foot into his scaly hide. I had to jump off immediately to avoid getting dragged underwater, and then his head came smashing up through the ice again.

This time I didn’t see him coming in time, and his armored forehead smashed into my shield with the force of a locomotive. The impact sent me flying, momentarily stunned again, and my shield’s energy level sank alarmingly. I couldn’t take many more blows like that.

A tail the size of a longboat rose up through the ice near where I was going to land, and batted me back towards Narfing’s head. Damn it, at this rate I was going to get killed.

I shrouded myself in flames as I flew, hoping that would discourage the sea serpent from his game of ping pong long enough for me to get my bearings. But instead I found myself slamming into a wall of broken ice. Then I was underwater, and my flaming aura was snuffed out. I frantically closed the ventilation holes in my shield before the inside could flood completely, but I still got soaked in freezing water.

In the dim light filtering down through the broken ice I could just make out Narfing’s vast bulk sweeping around for another pass.

My shield enclosed enough air to last me a few minutes, and was buoyant enough that it would bob back to the surface pretty quickly. But that would just leave me a sitting duck again. Instead I gave myself a hard push, sending myself jetting through the water towards the river bottom. Narfing adjusted his aim, obviously having no trouble following my movements.

I conjured an invisible lance of force fifteen feet long, and wove a tether of force magic to anchor it to the riverbed. Let the monster’s own momentum do the work. But Narfing jerked away at the last moment, and swept past well beyond the point of my weapon. Damn it, my force constructs must be visible to his sonar.

The end of his tail smacked into me from above as he finished his pass, smashing me down into the frozen mud below. My shield’s energy was getting dangerously low now, and it wasn’t recharging as quickly as it should have. Holding the shield up against the pressure of the water around me was consuming a good chunk of my amulet’s energy output, and the way I kept getting battered around didn’t help. I needed to strike back somehow, but my usual tactics weren’t working.

Fine. Time for something different. As Narfing swept around to face me again I quickly conjured up a ball of nickel-iron and expanded it, forming a large hollow sphere. Then I banished the material.

The resulting thunderclap of imploding water was loud enough to deafen me. Narfing thrashed in pain, his attack run completely disrupted.

Alright, monster. Let’s see how you like a bigger one.

I started working on another sphere, but this time he realized what I was doing too soon. A sweep of his tail produced a sudden current that swept me away, and I lost my hold on the sphere I’d been making. His head came in again, and I desperately jetted aside in an effort to avoid the blow. But I wasn’t used to maneuvering underwater, and my movements were too slow. I barely got out of the way, and he simply turned and snatched me up in his jaws as he passed.

Crap.

The sea serpent had a double row of huge, serrated teeth that definitely weren’t made of anything as fragile as normal bone. They ground down on my shield, and my energy reserve rapidly fell towards zero under that tremendous pressure. A few more seconds and I’d be ground to paste, but I couldn’t wiggle free.

I reached my left hand in past the teeth, and conjured a mass of molten nickel-iron in his mouth. Hot metal compressed by a pressure equal to the Earth’s core met freezing water at a piddling few dozen atmospheres, and exploded.

When I regained consciousness I found myself bobbing in the middle of an expanse of water littered with chunks of ice. My left arm was gone from the elbow down, and my whole body was a mass of pain that throbbed dully through the partial anesthesia from my amulet. I catalogued the injuries wearily with my body sense. My whole left side was a mass of burns and charred flesh. I had almost two dozen broken bones, including both legs and most of my ribs. My right foot had apparently gotten caught on something, because half of it was missing. The eerie silence told me I was still deaf, and for that matter my vision was a bit blurry too. Oh, of course. I had a concussion to go with everything else.

But I was alive, and as long as nothing interfered with my healing amulet I’d stay that way.

I’d been out long enough for my shield to recharge, so it was probably safe to say I’d gotten Narfing. Were the wolfen still here? Gingerly, I levitated myself out of the water for a look around. A wide field of shattered ice stretched out around me in all directions. But I could make out movement in the distance to the… east? Yeah, that was east. I floated unsteadily in that direction.

The goblins were trying to finish the job. The wolfen had somehow gotten pinned into a bend in the channel, with a large group of goblins and trolls hemming them in while smaller groups peppered them with arrows from the far shore. But the goblins weren’t having an easy time of it. The ground was littered with bodies, goblins and wolves and even a beheaded troll.

Unfortunately the wolfen seemed to be out of arrows, and they must have lost the transport at some point. They crouched behind the meager cover of a few dead enemies, with their spears and swords at the ready.

A goblin arrow bounced off my shield. Heads turned in my direction, and a shrill babble arose from our enemies as they noticed my approach. I could pick out a dozen white-cloaked shamans in the group, and I realized uncomfortably that the ring I’d enchanted to block their curses had been on my left hand. My shield would stop physical attacks, but I’d learned in Lanrest that there were plenty of spells that would go right through it.

But we’d had half a dozen skirmishes with goblins since I’d built myself a defense against such attacks, and they didn’t know it was gone. I extended my right hand, and triggered the enchantment on my other ring. The magic reached out, searching for the complementary pattern on my missing weapon, and pulled.

Grinder‘s hilt flew up from the field of flotsam, and sailed through the air to smack into my hand. I willed it to life, and the blade reformed. It was strange, not being able to hear its howl, and I found myself checking out of the corner of my eye to make sure it had worked.

The goblins ran.

All of them were mounted on wolves, so it was a rapid retreat. The shamans actually laid down a wall of mist to obscure their movements as they went, and the whole operation was a lot more adroit than I was used to seeing from goblins. Even the trolls responded quickly to whatever order had been given, backing up a dozen paces with their eyes on the wolfen before they turned to lumber off into the fog. In less than a minute there wasn’t a goblin in sight.

I floated over to the wolfen, and found that they were cheering. I had to fix one of my ears to hear Gronir’s report, but replacing a burst eardrum only took a few moments.

“I don’t know what you did to the sea serpent, but he sure didn’t like it,” he told me. “The one time he came up it looked like his whole jaw was gone, and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. I figure he slunk off to die.”

“What about you, boss?” Gudrin asked, looking a bit green.

Daria shook her head and laughed. “Our wizard’s immortal, silly. This won’t stop him for long. Right, boss?”

“More or less,” I agreed. “But I won’t be good for much until I can heal myself, and that’s going to take time. What about you?”

“We lost Enok,” Gronir said unhappily. “He got his leg broke fighting the serpent, and then he got mobbed by some goblins.”

“I think my arm’s broke,” Valdrin put in.

“We all got a lot of cuts and pokes from those goblins,” Umar commented. “But that won’t slow us down much. Too bad about the transport, though.”

“Yeah, I take it the vehicles ended up on the bottom of the river?”

They all nodded.

“What about the pilot?” I asked.

“He was hiding in the transport when it went down,” Gronir said. “That was a good while ago.”

Lovely. The doors on that thing weren’t watertight, and unless he landed right next to a heating stone the water was cold enough to be lethal. If he hadn’t turned up by now he was already dead, one way or another.

“No big loss,” Gudrin shrugged. “He was annoying. So now what?”

I sighed. “Do a quick sweep, and see if anyone can spot the pilot or Enok’s body. I’m not leaving anyone behind if there’s a chance they might have survived somehow. Valdrin, let me take a look at your arm while the others are doing that. Then I need to patch myself up a little.”

A distant flash and crack of thunder interrupted me. I looked up to find that the peak of the Iron Citadel’s tallest tower was hidden in a writhing ball of what looked like lightning. It lasted for several long seconds, arcing to the tops of the other towers and crawling across the iron ramparts. When it finally faded the main tower was noticeably warped, and the upper portion was red hot.

“That doesn’t look good,” Daria commented nervously.

A wind blew out towards us from the city, briefly bowing the snow-laden branches of the trees along the shore. Then it reversed direction, and the temperature abruptly began to fall. I turned around slowly, careful not to send myself into a spin, and looked out to sea.

The dark clouds I’d noted earlier were sweeping towards us, carrying a wall of snow with them.

“No,” I agreed. “That’s not good at all.”

Chapter 7

I don’t think I would have made it back if I’d been alone.

It only took me a few minutes to treat the hairline fracture in Valdrin’s arm, at least well enough that he’d be able to travel. But there was no way I was going to be ambulatory anytime soon. I had too many things wrong with me, many of them serious problems that would require major tissue repair. I wasn’t going to be walking again without several hours of dedicated healing, and levitating myself around took too much concentration to keep up for long.

So I was forced to improvise. I conjured up a thin rectangle of stone just big enough to hold me, and slapped a quick and dirty levitation enchantment on it. It would fade in a day or so, but we’d be done with it by then. I added a lip around the edge and long handles on the outside, and gingerly settled myself on top of it.

Broken bones shifted and ground against each other. I was grateful for the pain block, or I’d probably have passed out right there. As it was I managed to get myself into a prone position without puncturing a lung or severing any major arteries, but it was an unsettling reminder of how fragile I was right now.

“Magic stretcher, huh?” Daria looked the odd contraption over, and nodded. “Yeah, we can push this thing and still run pretty well. Can you make it float a few inches higher?”

“Sure.” I strengthened the enchantment, and my viewpoint rose a bit.

“Perfect. Um, you are going to be alright, aren’t you? You’ve never lost a limb before.”

“I was trying not to think about that,” I admitted. My ribs shifted, and I realized talking wasn’t doing them any good. A shiver ran through me, and I fumbled with the tattered remnants of my warmth cloak.

Daria leaned over and carefully arranged what was left of the garment, then pulled a blanket out of her pack and draped it over me as well.

“There. Better?”

I nodded. “Thanks. Need to concentrate on healing now. Tell Gronir to try and get us home.”

Gronir stepped into my field of view. “We’ll do our best, boss. Come on boys, let’s get moving.”

A couple of the men grabbed the handles on the sides of my floating pallet, and pushed. The rest of the pack took off around them, and soon we were racing back toward town at a speed few horses could have matched.

But the oncoming storm was still gaining on us.

I closed my eyes, and focused my attention on my injuries. As usual my amulet was mindlessly trying to heal everything at once, which was tremendously inefficient even if it did serve to keep me conscious. But that was only burning about half the amulet’s energy output, leaving the rest available for my own use.

I started by nudging my broken bones back into place one by one, fusing the ends together so they’d stop shifting around and causing more damage. There were some nasty breaks, and dozens of splintered fragments of bone lodged in the surrounding tissue. Some of them I was able to fit back together, but others I had to just banish. My left knee wasn’t going to be working properly anytime soon, and neither was what was left of my right foot.

By the time I’d finished with that it was snowing heavily, and the wolfen had been forced to slow to a more normal pace. I sat up gingerly, thankful that my force field kept the snow and most of the wind off me.

Daria was walking next to me, and noticed the motion. “You need anything, boss?”

“Water? How are we doing?”

She passed me her water skin, and gestured towards the looming shadow that was barely visible to our left. “We’re following the river bank for now, but it’s getting hard to see. It’s going to be a long trip at this rate.”

“Let me know if you need to stop,” I told her. “No sense in getting lost. I think I can make a shelter if I have to.”

She shook her head. “It’ll take more than a little wind and snow to stop us, boss. You just concentrate on healing. We’ll get you home, and then we can make sure everyone’s safe.”

Yeah, I was worried about that too. If there was an attack on the city coming we needed to get ready. But I had trouble picturing any kind of military force operating in this weather, so we should have some time.

I checked on that concussion next, but my amulet had pretty much taken care of it. Most of my incidental aches and pains were gradually fading as well, but the mass of charred flesh that made up most of my left side was another story. I was probably missing half my skin along with a good chunk of muscle mass, and that could easily kill me if I lost my amulet.

A lot of the ruined flesh was too damaged to heal, and I was forced to carefully banish it one chunk at a time. The light slowly faded as I finished cleaning up my torso, and started to grow new skin over the damaged areas. It was a good thing I’d had a lot of muscle there to start with, but even so there was some damage to my organs as well. Great, one more thing to worry about.

Some time later I finished repairing my kidney, and realized that I was shivering again. My fingers and toes were going numb despite the heat radiating from my cloak, and I was pretty sure there was ice in my hair. I opened my eyes for another look around.

It seemed like the snow had eased up a bit, but the wind was still blowing. The light of one of my magic torches shone from somewhere nearby, illuminating the silhouettes of the wolfen creeping over the snow. But it was a good distance away, and the light that reached me was dim enough that I couldn’t see anything clearly.

“Daria?”

One of the dark shapes moved to my side. “I’m here, boss. What’s up?”

“Are you guys really going to be alright in this?” I asked. “It’s got to be well below zero.”

She cocked her head. “Zero? What’s that?”

“Ah, silly me. A wizard thing, don’t worry about it.”

“If you say so. It’s not fun, but the men can take it. I think us girls are about to drop, though, and you don’t look too good. Will that thing hold another person’s weight?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Can you turn off the invisible wall for a second? I’ve got an idea, but I was waiting for you to wake up to try it.”

I dropped my shield, and she hopped lightly up onto the stretcher to crouch over me. Her warmth cloak settled over us both, and she carefully lowered herself until we were barely touching.

“Better?” She asked. “I don’t want to put any weight on you.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, and sighed in relief.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s a lot better. I’ve actually got my ribs patched back together now. Just don’t touch my left side, and I don’t think you’ll hurt anything.”

She nodded, and carefully settled herself against my right side. There was barely room for us both, but she had no shyness at all about the situation. Her lean body was a warm weight against me.

“Umar, how’s the extra weight? Any problems?”

One of the shadows pushing the makeshift vehicle shook his head. “This thing moves real easy, Daria. We can keep pushing it all night.”

“Thanks, Umar.”

She turned her attention back to me. “I’m thinking me and Embla can take turns like this, taking a break and helping keep you warm. We can’t have our wizard freezing to death on us.”

“Thanks, Daria. Technically I wouldn’t die, but any magic I spend fighting the cold takes away from what I can use to heal myself.”

“So that’s how it works,” she mused.

“What about Gudrin?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s busy showing off how tough she is,” Daria explained. “Probably bite my head off if I said she might need a rest. She’ll either march the whole way on her own feet, or pass out and have to be carried. The rest of us are making bets on whether she can make it.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve known women like that before. I didn’t know you had them here.”

“I suppose there are prideful tomboys everywhere. But don’t let me distract you from your healing.”

I nodded, and went back to work.

A while later I was vaguely aware of Daria getting up, to be replaced by a smaller and considerably curvier form.

“Embla?” I asked.

“That’s me, boss.” She pressed her soft breasts against my side, and laid her head on my shoulder with a sigh.

“I’m so tired,” she murmured. “Is it alright if I take a little nap?”

“Sure. I can’t talk anyway, the healing takes too much concentration.”

“M’kay.” Her eyes closed, and she was out like a light.

Replacing all the soft tissue I’d lost was a pain, and I left the task of restoring the replacement muscle tissue to proper condition for later. Then I had to rebuild my knee. It was a good thing I had a working one to copy there, but even so it gave me some trouble. It seemed that my elemental sorcery was a lot better at dealing with biochemistry than mechanical problems, and I spent quite some time puzzling over the repair before I realized that I hadn’t quite put the bones back together correctly. Fun.

I was working on fixing that mistake when I was distracted by shouting.

It was still dark, but now there were two wolf girls piled in with me. Embla was still curled up against my side, though her eyes were open. Gudrin was draped across our legs, completely dead to the world. But through the blowing snow I could make out the looming shape of my tower overhead.

“Looks like we made it,” Embla said softly. “I guess I’d better get up before the sentries manage to get the gate open. Cerise might not be happy to see me like this.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed. “Although I think Avilla might be the one to worry about.”

Her eyes widened. “Good point. Cerise will just beat me a little and make me submit if she thinks I’m trespassing. Avilla might turn me into a maid.”

She sat up before I could ask what she’d meant by that, and leaned over to shake Gudrin roughly. The two of them disembarked while I was still struggling to sit up, and then the postern gate was creaking open.

That was an idea I’d copied from Earth’s medieval castles. A small door set into one of the leaves of the main gate, just big enough for men to pass through one at a time. Opening it was a lot less risky than unbarring the main gate, not to mention faster.

I could make out a bit of a commotion inside as Gronir conferred with the sentries on watch, and then the wolfen started to enter one by one. I gingerly eased myself off the pallet, since it was too wide to fit through the door. My left leg supported my weight, although the knee joint was pretty stiff. But there wasn’t enough left of my right foot to walk on. How was I going to do this? Make a crutch, maybe?

Daria stepped up to slip my arm over her shoulders, and helped me up.

“You don’t have to do everything with magic,” she chided gently. “We’re happy to help, Daniel.”

“Thanks, Daria. The door is going to be a little tricky, though.”

“We’ll manage.”

She helped me hobble over to it, and we found Gronir waiting there for us. The two of them got me through the narrow opening, and then Daria resumed her place. I managed a few more steps to get clear of the door, and paused to enjoy a breath of air that wasn’t bitingly cold.

“Daniel!”

A black-haired missile flew across the room towards me, and I braced myself for a painful impact. But Embla stepped in the way with her hands out.

“Wait! Careful, Cerise. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Cerise paused to glare at her, but then her eyes went to my missing arm and she gasped.

“Daniel? Oh crap, you got fucked up bad. What happened?”

“I had a little disagreement with one of Jormungandr’s grandsons,” I told her.

“Damn. Sea serpents are supposed to be really tough.”

“Our wizard sent him packing,” Daria said lightly.

“Of course he did.” Cerise tried to match her nonchalance, but her eyes were troubled. She glanced down at my mangled foot, and back at my missing arm. “Here, let’s get you upstairs.”

She nudged Daria away, and bent to pick me up in her arms. It must have looked kind of silly, since I was a good six inches taller than her. But with the supernatural strength she’d gained in Lanrest my weight was no problem for her.

She carried me up to the atrium, and headed for the elevator while the wolfen all broke off towards the stairs. It occurred to me that I wasn’t even sure where their quarters in the new keep were. Too much happening to keep track of all the details.

Cerise was silent as the elevator carried us up to the landing outside our quarters. The door was open, and Beri was there looking curiously out into the dimly lit atrium. She went a little pale when she saw me.

“Milord?”

“I’ll get better,” I reassured her. I sure was saying that a lot.

Avilla’s reaction wasn’t any better. She came out of the kitchen as we entered, wearing a nightgown and carrying a tray loaded with cups of hot tea and a plate of cookies. She nearly dropped it when she saw me. Then she quickly set it aside, and rushed to examine my injuries while Cerise laid me out on a dining room table that hadn’t been there when I left.

“I’ll be alright, Avilla,” I told her. “Really, I’ve already healed the worst of it. The arm might take some time to replace, but I can do it.”

“It was worse than this?” She asked worriedly. “How bad was it?”

She was already pulling away the ragged remnants of my clothes, and frowned at the pink new skin that covered most of my left side.

“Pretty bad,” I admitted reluctantly. “I got caught in a sea serpent’s mouth, and had to try something new to get out. Conjured a bunch of molten metal in its mouth, and we were underwater at the time. The explosion blew its jaw off, but it was also enough to take my shield down.”

“Why would a conjuration like that make an explosion?” Cerise asked curiously. “It seems like the water would just dampen the flame aspect of the spell.”

Avilla carefully inspected my injuries while I tried to explain the physics of extreme pressures and temperatures to Cerise. At some point Tina showed up to assist her, and the two fussed over me while Beri fetched things for them. They cleaned and dressed my remaining wounds, and carefully bandaged the stump of my arm.

“Sorry, Daniel,” Cerise finally said. “I think this is getting a little too esoteric for me. I sort of get the part about turning water into steam too fast, and how it has to go somewhere. But all this stuff about atoms and the heart of the world and unleashing the weight of continents is just going over my head. I’ve heard of atoms, but I thought that theory was disproved? Anyway, maybe we could try again when you’ve got time for a long conversation, and start at the beginning?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “I’m probably not explaining it well anyway. I’m exhausted, and I’ve got a splitting headache.”

“You’ve been channeling too much magic,” Avilla said with a frown. “Are you healed enough to take off this amulet safely?”

“I think so. Avilla? Why do you look so upset?”

She bit her lip, and lifted the amulet off my neck. Then she turned it to show where the braided copper strands it hung from had been half-melted in the blast. Only a single strand was intact.

“If that had broken…”

She sniffed, and I suddenly realized she was holding back tears.

“Daniel, we almost lost you. You can’t heal yourself if you’re unconscious, and there’s no one else who can… who can… Daniel, you’ve got to stop doing this! Please.”

I pulled her close, and hugged her as best I could with only one arm. She choked, buried her head in my chest, and started to cry.

Cerise took a close look at the amulet, and frowned. “She’s got a point, Daniel. Did you have a backup plan?”

I patted Avilla on the back, and shook my head with a sigh. “No. I wasn’t expecting to run into anything like that. If we’d been on land I probably would have just run, to be honest. But we were stuck in the middle of the river, and it was just too fast. I was thinking I’d keep it busy long enough for Gronir’s crew to disengage, and then pull out myself if I needed to. But it smashed up the ice and trapped me underwater, and my shield wasn’t going to hold up for long against blows from something that big.”

“Milord? Is the tower safe?” Tina asked diffidently.

“Well, stone is at least an order of magnitude harder to break than ice, and even the thinnest parts of the outer wall are ten feet thick. Plus the structural enchantment holding it all together, and that’s got a hell of an energy pool behind it given the size of this place. So breaching the walls would be quite a trick, and all that stone on the lower floors means it’s too stable to topple and too heavy to move.”

She looked at me blankly.

“Yes, Tina, we’re safe. A sea serpent big enough to attack the tower would be so huge it wouldn’t fit in the river.”

She smiled in relief. “Oh, okay. See, Miss Avilla? We’ll be alright.”

“Will we? Daniel, you’ve got to stop being so reckless. Please? I can’t stand seeing you come home so badly hurt all the time. What will we do if… if one day you don’t…”

Cerise nodded gravely. “We’re all counting on you here, Daniel. We won’t last long without you.”

“I know,” I admitted. “You’re right, I need to start being more careful. Especially given this business about the Unraveler coming to town.”

“Who?”

So I explained what the sea serpent had told me. Needless to say, this didn’t reassure anyone.

“Should we be getting ready to move on?” Avilla asked worriedly. “I started working on claiming the kitchen today, but it isn’t too late to back out.”

“That depends. Do any of you know what happened to the Conclave earlier today?”

“Word is the weather working was sabotaged,” Cerise informed me. “The spell went haywire and knocked out most of the circle that was working on it, and then some kind of magical beast got into the ritual chamber and killed a bunch of them. It sounds like they lost five or six wizards, and they’re really pissed about it. I don’t think we’re under suspicion, since you were out of town at the time. But tomorrow’s meeting is supposed to be a council of war now, and they sent a message telling us to make sure and be there.”

“So the Conclave is going to be hunting for enemy agents? That makes sense. Anything else happen while I was gone?”

“Carl and Mara came by to visit,” Avilla said. “Cerise wants to recruit her for the coven.”

“Don’t you? She’s a real hottie,” Cerise responded.

Avilla gave her a weak smile. “Lech. Yes, she could be a good candidate if we’re staying. She’s powerful, and a lot more hot-blooded than she wants to admit. I want to feel her out some more before we tell her anything, and maybe see if we can seduce her. That’s always a good test of open-mindedness.”

Tina blushed, and looked away.

“I got Carl talking about who’s in the Conclave,” Cerise added. “There’s a couple of other options worth looking into when we have the chance.”

“So you two are still set on expanding to five members?” I asked.

Cerise nodded. “Yeah. Three just isn’t enough for the kind of world we’re living in now. We need access to the high rituals, and that means at least four elements and a warder. But thanks to you we don’t need to pad out our numbers with extra people just to be able to raise more power. So we can stick with five, instead of going to seven or thirteen.”

“Well, I’ve got some more news there,” I told her. Then I turned to Tina.

“Tina, I need to talk about secret things now. You can stay if you want, but you can’t tell anyone about what you hear if you do. Alright?”

The shy girl clasped her hands beneath her massive bosom, and turned her wide eyes on me. “You trust me to hear your secrets, milord? But you haven’t even bound me yet.”

I chuckled. “Tina, Cerise made up that story about magic sex bindings to sound scary. It isn’t true.”

“Oh,” she said disappointedly. “Darn. I was looking forward to that.”

Beri chuckled, and hugged her friend. “I’m sure the master can put some kind of sexy dark magic on you if you really want him to, Tina.”

She blushed. “You think so? I don’t want to be any trouble.”

I mussed her hair. “Silly girl. It’s cute the way you start squirming in your seat whenever the subject comes up. Tell you what. Think about what excites you about it, and let me know. Or if that’s too embarrassing, talk to Beri or Cerise about it. I’ve been promising you a special day anyway, so we can make that part of it.”

Her blush turned bright red, and she stared at the floor. “T-thank you, milord.”

“Sure. Now, do you want to stay?”

She nodded firmly. “If it pleases you, milord. I probably won’t understand everything, but… well, everyone I have left is in this room. I don’t want to be left out.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ah, and me, milord?” Beri asked delicately.

“You would be Hecate’s newest acolyte, right?”

Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

Cerise chuckled. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to hide it, Beri. What gave it away, Daniel?”

“Hecate visited me while I was away,” I announced.

That got everyone’s attention in a hurry.

“We had a long conversation,” I went on. “I’ve agreed to work with her, to try to save what we can from Fimbulwinter. She isn’t going to abandon Europe to the monsters, so neither are we.”

“So we’re staying?” Avilla asked.

“Yes. Kozalin is the best place we’re going to find to make a stand. The plan is for me to turn this keep into a fortress nothing short of a god could break into, and then offer refuge to groups that she wants to make deals with. Not just humans, either. Depending on how things go we could get faerie, dwarves, nature spirits, maybe even a minor demigod or two. I told her I’ll take in anyone who’s willing to accept my leadership and cooperate with humans.”

“I wonder what the prince will think of that?” Cerise mused.

“We aren’t necessarily going to tell him,” I pointed out. “The bigger I make this place the harder it’s going to get for outsiders to keep track of what’s going on inside. But I’ve got plans for much better weapons, for our troops and the keep as well as ourselves, so if we do this right it won’t matter. By the time anyone has a chance to find out and get upset about it we’ll be in a position to hold off any attack.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stay home for a while?” Avilla asked hopefully.

“Yes. I hate to admit it, but you’re right. I’ve come close to dying way too many times in the last few weeks, and I need to make sure that stops happening. I can’t spend all my time hiding indoors, but I don’t plan to leave the city again until I’m prepared to fight a dragon if necessary.”

“You can do that?” Beri asked wonderingly.

“Not easily, but I’ve got some ideas. We’ll have to see if they work out.”

Avilla hugged me. “Thank you, Daniel. You have no idea how worried I’ve been.”

To my surprise, Cerise joined the hug. “Yeah, me too. You’ve kind of been growing on me, you know?”

“Thanks, girls. I know what you mean.”

They held the pose for a long moment, and I found myself wondering at how lucky I was. How did I end up with two beautiful, smart, powerful, sensuous young women? Granted, they were in love with each other, not me. But the longer we spent together, the more convinced I was that they weren’t just vamping me to make sure I’d take care of them. There were too many little gestures of real affection for that.

Good thing, too. It was really hard not to fall for a woman like Avilla when she was waking me up with a blowjob before breakfast. Or Cerise, when she was carving a bloody path through a horde of goblins to stand at my side. It was a good thing they were a package deal, because I’d have a hell of a time picking one of them over the other.

“Are there any other shocking revelations?” Avilla asked.

I shook my head.

“Good. It’s time for bed.”

“Yeah,” Cerise agreed. “Hey, Daniel, you’re going to like our new bed. It has plenty of room for everyone. Honeydew even spelled the mattress and pillows to be all soft, like the ones at her granny’s house.”

Avilla smiled gently. “I was getting tired of sleeping on straw. Tina, go ahead and bar the door again, will you? Then you and Beri can turn in for the night. Beri, at first light I want you to warn Oskar and Marcus about the threat to the town. They can take what precautions seem sensible, but the wizard is not to be disturbed until midmorning. He’s overdue for a good rest.”

The two of them helped me off to the master bedroom. There was now a huge four-poster bed there, even bigger than the king-size bed I’d had back home. A wardrobe and nightstand had also appeared from somewhere, although the room was big enough that there was still quite a bit of empty space. Presumably Avilla had plans for that, but I didn’t have the energy to wonder about it. My head barely touched the pillow before I was asleep.

Chapter 8

I was surprised what a relief it was to spend a day taking it easy.

The keep wasn’t exactly quiet, with the distant sound of quite a few carpenters starting up not long after dawn. But the delightful bundle of warm curves in my arms made it all too easy ignore it and go back to sleep.

When I finally decided I couldn’t sleep any longer Tina happily fetched me breakfast, and followed up with an enthusiastic demonstration of her considerable oral skills. Then she cuddled up against me, still naked, to ‘keep me company’ while I worked on my foot.

That was a complicated job, thanks to all the joints I had to replace. It didn’t help that I was barely half done when I was distracted by a sensation of wet heat down below again. I looked down to find Tina kneeling between my legs with my dick in her mouth.

“What do you think you’re doing, missy?” I asked with a smile.

She popped my tool out of her mouth, and tucked it between her breasts.

“Oh, don’t mind me, milord,” she said innocently. “I just noticed he was getting hard again. We can’t have you getting pent up, now can we?”

“No, we wouldn’t want that. But you do realize it isn’t going to stop happening?”

She smiled playfully. “Then it’s a good thing you gave me such nice boobies, milord. If my mouth gets too tired to suck you off you can just give them a good fucking instead.”

“Oh, would you like that?” I shifted a bit, lifting my knees and reaching down to take her breasts in my hands. I had to admit, they were a spectacular pair. She’d been a bit on the busty side when we first met, but once she found out about my flesh magic the little minx had made sure to ask for bigger ones in the middle of giving me a blowjob. Now she had a rack that would make a porn star jealous, especially since the firm orbs were entirely flesh and blood.

I’d managed to make them pretty damn sensitive, too. I’d made her orgasm just from playing with them once, and I had to admit that the prospect of doing it again sounded like just what the doctor ordered. Hmm. Could I make her cleavage even more sensitive? Maybe dial up the intensity of her orgasms a bit?

By the time I was done experimenting with that Tina was a quivering puddle of bliss, and I was feeling almost relaxed enough to go back to sleep. But I did have things to do today. So instead I focused on the healing, and finished putting my foot back together.

I was tempted to do the arm next, but it occurred to me that having a crippling injury to show off at the Conclave’s meeting might be useful. So instead I took advantage of my restored mobility to bathe and get dressed, with Tina’s happy assistance. Then I went looking for my witches.

I found Avilla in the atrium, overseeing things. A team of carpenters was putting together furniture there, while a constant stream of people came and went. Half of them seemed to stop to talk to her on their way, and as I got closer I realized that Daria of all people was acting as her assistant.

“Daniel!”

Avilla’s whole face lit up when she saw me, and she rushed to envelop me in a warm hug. “How are you feeling today? I see your foot is better. Did you enjoy your present?”

“You mean Tina? Yeah, she’s a sweetie. I’m on the mend, but I’m still going to take it easy until the meeting. What about you? Looks like you’re getting better.”

“I’m still not quite at full strength,” she admitted. “But I think I’ll be back to normal in another day or two as long as I take it easy. Oh, but I had no idea how much work it takes to run a castle. I don’t know what I’d do if we didn’t have Daria here. She’s been telling me all about how they did things when she worked for the Baron.”

I nodded. “Sounds useful. Well, as long as you stick to supervising I suppose that counts as rest. Got anything I need to take care of?”

“Marcus wants to meet with you over lunch to talk about military things. He called it a staff meeting? With all the officers, and maybe Cerise?”

“Alright, we can do that.”

“Great, I’ll send word. Oh, are you up to putting in a few more walls? We’ve made a lot of progress on what to do with all this space, if you have time.”

“That’s my plan for today,” I agreed. “I want to get things squared away here before I get pulled into another big project.”

“Wonderful!”

That led to an hour or so of building interior walls and putting in plumbing lines before lunch, but it was more enjoyable than I would have expected. It was easy work compared to the heavy conjuration I’d been doing, and it gave me a chance to find out where everything was and see how people were settling in.

I was forced to conclude once again that Avilla was a miracle worker.

There were lengths of twine laid out all over the keep, showing where walls needed to go. The few bits of furniture the carpenters had already finished were carefully arranged with the future layout in mind, and rarely got in my way as I turned the open expanses of the balcony levels into actual rooms. Barracks for the soldiers, dormitories for the unmarried civilians, tiny private rooms and communal living spaces for the families. Kitchens and dining rooms and bathrooms, and other spaces whose purpose wasn’t immediately obvious to me.

I was relieved to find that my people seemed to be in good spirits, and recovering well from the ordeal of the journey to Kozalin. Most everyone had decent clothes now, and they were all busy.

The division of labor was about what I would have expected. The women washed, cleaned, cooked, organized and took care of the few children who’d survived the trip, while the men did the heavy lifting and pretty much anything that involved leaving the keep. Even indoors they all kept a weapon of some sort at hand, men and women both. But I heard more than one relieved comment about the stoutness of the fortification, and I must have been stopped half a dozen times by grateful civilians wanting to thank me for letting them live here.

I also noticed that my livery was spreading. There was a workroom set up on the second floor where a group of women were diligently sewing new clothes under the supervision of a couple of refugee seamstresses Avilla had managed to recruit. There were half a dozen maids running around trying to keep the public areas of the keep clean, and a group of craftsmen laying out a smithy and forge area down on the vehicle park level. That last project called for some work on my part, since they needed a chimney and a lot more airflow than would normally be possible in such an enclosed location.

“Actually, it would probably make more sense to set this up on the top floor,” I pointed out. “That way I can give you enough open air to have a normal chimney and bellows arrangement instead of trying to invent something we can bury down here without suffocating you.”

The leader of the group, one of Oskar’s sons, scratched his beard thoughtfully.

“I see yer point, milord,” he admitted. “But haulin charcoal and bar stock up all them stairs don’t seem too practical.”

“That’s what the elevator is for,” I pointed out. “It can lift a cartload of goods all at once. I know no one wants to ride on it right now, but I’m planning to put walls around the sides so you don’t have to worry about falling out of it.”

“That’d be a relief, milord,” he agreed. “Well, then we can plan on that. Should I get with Miss Avilla about setting aside the space?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she’s managing that for me.”

I was interrupted once by the Harbormaster, who came by to make inquiries about the results of my expedition. He was surprisingly sanguine about the loss of his pilot, but as I’d noted before life was pretty cheap in Varmland even before Fimbulwinter. The sea serpent concerned him, but after hearing the story his worry cleared.

“Sounds like you sent it packing, milord,” he said. “Even if it lives somehow, it isn’t likely to be lurking about looking for ships to prey on with that sort of injury. But with the goblins about any ships that set sail will need guards, and I pity the fisherman who tries to make that trip.”

“Yeah, that would be a bad idea,” I agreed. “The channel is narrow enough that the goblins can easily cover it with their bows. Maybe the garrison can arrange to patrol it, or put a squad of archers on each merchant ship?”

“I’ll have to consult with the Mayor, and see what we can come up with. I take it the work on the rest of the harbor will be delayed?” He asked, eying my missing arm.

“Not for long,” I assured him. “I’ll be able to start work on it again tomorrow.”

“Ah, well, you should be careful with an injury like that. I’m sure supervising your work crews here in the keep must eat into your time as well. Maybe just do three or four docks a day?”

I chuckled. “The prince will get impatient if I take too long. But I can give you a few days of that, before I finish the job.”

“Fair enough, milord. Good recovery, then. I’ll come around tomorrow to show you around. Say, midmorning?”

We shook on it, and then it was back to plumbing construction until the staff meeting. That ended up happening in my private dining room upstairs, since it was one of the few rooms in the keep that was actually fully furnished. Avilla bustled about in the kitchen next door, preparing sandwiches and soup for lunch, and Cerise conspicuously claimed the seat immediately to my right. Captain Rain, Oskar and Gronir all took seats further down, leaving the one to my left empty.

“I’ve found two experienced sergeants willing to sign on with us, in exchange for quartering their families in the keep,” Captain Rain reported. “They had a few contacts, of course, and I’ve lined up five veteran soldiers as well. Two of them have injuries that will need healing before they’re fit for duty, if you have time for that?”

I nodded. “Sure. Have you made any progress on the training program?”

He grimaced. “Some. Gods know there are plenty of refugees in this city, so we won’t be hurting for prospects. I’m thinking we set up a recruiting station down at the end of the dock, and tell people we’re taking only the best candidates. Big men in good health, with experience in a militia.”

“Hunters, too,” Gronir suggested. “Some woodscraft will be handy if you get sent out on a mission without my pack.”

“I suppose,” Marcus conceded. “But the actual training will be a problem. There isn’t enough space in the keep to do mass drills with more than a couple of squads, and the city is too crowded. We’d have to use the killing ground outside the walls, and then we’d end up losing half the men to monsters and pneumonia. Unless you’re somehow going to make enough warmth cloaks for everyone, sir?”

I shook my head. “Not for a couple of weeks, at least. I need to finish the keep and upgrade our weapons first, and then probably build an expansion.”

Avilla and a couple of the new maids emerged from the kitchen at that point to lay out lunch. I caught her wrist when she started to leave again.

“Have a seat, Avilla. You’re part of the staff here.”

“I am? But I don’t know anything about fighting.”

“An army marches on its stomach, and you’re an expert on those. You’ve been doing an amazing job organizing the keep, so I’m officially appointing you castellan.”

“Castellan?!” She squeaked. “But I’m a woman!”

I shrugged. “I don’t care. Leave the military affairs to the officers, of course. But assigning space, managing provisions and making good use of our civilians is your responsibility. If you find that you really can’t keep up with it all let me know, and I’ll figure something out. But so far I think you’ve been doing an excellent job.”

“Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

“You’re welcome. So, I’m thinking we’re going to have to outfit our new recruits, since refugees mostly won’t have weapons or even decent clothes. Ideally I’d like to provide each man with a uniform suitable for cold weather, good boots, some kind of light armor, and a sword and dagger to supplement the magical weapons I’m going to be making. Comments?”

Marcus shook his head. “It takes months to learn any real swordsmanship, even with intensive training. Short spears would be a better choice, or maybe clubs.”

“What about shorts swords?” Oskar suggested. “One edge, no point, basically just a big meat cleaver. Not so good against a man with a broadsword, but it’ll get the job done against goblins or wolves.”

“Yeah, keep in mind this is just a backup weapon,” I pointed out. “The real killing is all going to be done with magical weapons, like the flamers. I just want the men to have something to fall back on if something gets in close.”

“I suppose that will work, then,” Marcus admitted.

“What about tents?” Gronir asked. “If you want them to be able to march anywhere the cold is going to be as big a threat as the monsters.”

“The vehicles should work for that,” I said. “Each squad is going to have an armored vehicle, like a transport but made of iron, and probably floating like the barge we escaped Lanrest on. Put a heavy flamer on top, mounted so it can swivel in any direction, and big doors in the back so the men can load or unload quickly. So they can travel fast, and always have shelter and a little fort to fall back on if they run into trouble.”

“Sounds like fun,” Cerise commented.

“Effective,” Marcus agreed. “That will let us carry a lot of supplies without loading the men down. Can we afford proper chain mail for armor?”

“We’ll see. Avilla, are there any problems with moving the forge up to the top level of the keep instead of hiding it in the basement?”

She frowned. “There’s room, but the noise will be a problem. I was hoping we could use that area as guest quarters, so we can invite nobles or wizards to visit. We’re hoping to recruit some people like that, right?”

“You’re going to be doing some more construction anyway, right Daniel?” Cerise put in. “Maybe you should go ahead and raise a small island in the river, and put up a building that’s actually designed as a place for craftsmen to work? We’ll want a tannery too at some point, and you sure don’t want that in the keep.”

“We’ll need to buy the armor in town either way,” Oskar pointed out. “We don’t have a real armorer, and even if we did making a hundred suits of mail would take months. I was just thinking a smithy would let us do our own repairs. But, ah, you can conjure up iron now? Real iron?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s real. It’s actually a nickel-iron alloy, basically the same stuff as meteoric iron. But I imagine you could make decent steel out of it.”

“In that case I think I can solve the armor problem. There’s a big arsenal over at the east end of town that equips the royal army, and normally supplies most of the arms merchants in town. They’re not selling anything right now because they’ve just about run out of bar stock, but if we can supply them with a few tons of iron I expect they’ll be fine with turning some of it into arms and armor for us.”

“Excellent. I can turn out a cartload of iron bars in a few minutes. In that case I think your answer is we can go as heavy on the armor as you like, Marcus.”

He smiled. “Good to hear. Let’s go with full helms and chain hauberks, then.”

“I, um, uniforms will take some time,” Avilla offered, a little nervously. “I need to find another four or five good seamstresses first, and we’ve got some urgent needs to take care of for our people. But if you give me, say, another two days to set things up, I think I can provide five or six complete outfits a day. The real problem will be boots. We don’t have any cobblers, and I can’t do them all myself.”

“At that rate it would take a month to outfit the unit,” I pointed out. “Take an extra day to set it up, and hire twice as many people.”

“Alright, Daniel. But I’m a little worried about our provisions. Food prices in Kozalin are already outrageous, and we only have so much coin.”

“That shouldn’t be a big issue,” I told her. “We can make money. For starters, I’m sure we could sell extra iron to the arsenal for cash. Someone would buy the old transports, too, and we won’t need them for much longer. Hmm. Maybe there’s a nervous grain merchant who’d like to live in a climate-controlled fortress?”

“I’ll take that angle,” Cerise offered. “I’m trying to make contacts in town anyway, and I’ve got some ideas on how to lure in rich guys.”

That was a surprise. Cerise has always been pretty outgoing, though, and no one else was likely to have time.

“Go for it,” I agreed. “As for the boots, I’m sure a city this size has a cobbler’s guild. We’ll just have to buy them.”

There were a lot of other issues to discuss, but most of them were easily solved. Oscar wanted the battlements finished, so he could start working out how to drive off an attacking force instead of just closing the gates and waiting for me to fix things. All three officers had long lists of minor equipment and supply issues that needed addressing, and Gronir wanted to start sending out scouting parties to keep an eye on the local monsters.

I pointed out that Kozalin’s defenders were likely already doing that, since they had wizards and a company of griffon riders available. We just needed to get plugged in to whatever system they had for distributing intel, so I put that on my own to-do list.

After the meeting wound down I still had most of the afternoon to kill, since the Red Conclave made a point of starting their meetings at sunset. They were wizards, after all, not mere ordinary folk forced to retire to bed by the fading of the light…

Yeah, I got a laugh out of that the first time I heard it. To think that having artificial lights was a major status symbol.

At any rate, it gave me time to finish up more of the detail work on the keep. I made the battlements a fairly complex design, with a fully enclosed inner walkway and a more exposed outer one that had plenty of arrow slits and murder holes. The roof got a similar enclosed walkway around the edge, with a sloped roof and gutters laid out to ensure most of the snow that landed on it ended up in the cistern. Keeping that filled was a bit of a project, so I also installed a small winch in one corner that the men could use to haul up buckets of ice and snow.

When I went to dress for my trip to the Conclave I was surprised to find Avilla waiting for me, with a new outfit she’d somehow found time to assemble for the occasion. A black shirt and pants of much finer material than I was used to seeing here, embroidered with gold lightning bolts at the cuffs and collar. There was a leather belt with a sheath for Grinder, new boots, and a heavy furred cloak that I was pretty sure had come from one of the felwolves we’d killed on our journey.

She smiled at my expression. “I knew you’d need to look your best for this. We can’t have anyone thinking you’re just a hedge wizard, right?”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Avilla,” I told her. “What about you and Cerise?”

She smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see. Maybe you should make yourself a staff while we dress? I’ve heard these wizard’s meetings are all about who has the most impressive one.”

I chuckled. “Maybe I will. If people think I actually need one, it will give me an advantage when the inevitable assassination attempt happens.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t talk like that.”

I spent a few minutes experimenting with that while the girls dressed, a process that took a while even with Avilla’s household magic to help. I wasn’t much of an artist, and conjuring gems or precious metals wasn’t really feasible. Finally I hit on the idea of fusing different materials together. I conjured up a dark red and black granite, and joined it with transparent crystal in a spiral like a barber pole. Polish the surface, cap it with a big red crystal, and I had something fairly impressive looking. A little gaudy, but from what I’d seen that was in style here. I laid an enchantment over it whose only purpose was to look like something complicated covered by an imperfect concealment spell. Not bad.

“Looking good, Daniel,” Cerise said from behind me. I turned around, and had to control the urge to gape.

Cerise was dressed all in black, but the resemblance to my own outfit ended there. Hers was all leather, and tight enough to make me wonder how she’d gotten into it. A leather miniskirt that barely came down to mid-thigh. A tight leather top that bared her arms and emphasized the curve of her breasts, but failed to reach her skirt by a couple of inches. Black boots with a bit of heel, and leather gloves that left her clawed fingertips bare. Her silver knives were sheathed on a pair of belts at her waist, and a snug black collar bearing my lightning bolt was fitted around her neck. She smiled and did a little spin, revealing that the skirt had a hole in the back for her tail. The long length of whipcord muscle waved about behind her, completely unconcealed.

In contrast, Avilla wore a red dress of what just might be silk. It was long enough to hide her knees, but any pretense of modesty was ruined by the way it molded like a second skin against her generous curves. Low boots and long gloves embroidered with lightning bolts completed the ensemble, and a ruby pendant on a gold chain gleamed at her throat. A voluminous black-furred cloak of felwolf pelt hung from her shoulders, long enough to almost touch the floor.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“You like?” Cerise grinned, and slipped an arm around Avilla’s waist. “Check it out, it’s the sexy sorceress and her badass bitch. I tried to talk her into showing off some cleavage, but my honeydew can be shy.”

Avilla rolled her eyes. “If I wore what you suggested I’d freeze to death before we were halfway there. The rest of us can’t just ignore the cold like you can.”

“Spoilsport. Ready to put on a show, Daniel?”

I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

We took a transport to the Iron Citadel, which gave me a chance to put warmth enchantments on our new cloaks while Gronir drove. He and Daria were acting as my honor guard again tonight, while a couple of his men had come along to watch the transport while we were inside.

The Citadel bustled with activity despite the relatively late hour, and there were a lot more guards in evidence than the last time I’d been here. But we had no trouble getting in, and a servant was already waiting to escort us to our place.

The Conclave’s weekly meetings were held in a large round chamber somewhere in the maze-like lower reaches of the Citadel. The walls and floor were iron, and iron beams rose high overhead to support a domed ceiling set with skylights. A spherical iron cage filled with fire hung from the middle of the ceiling, providing light to the room.

The middle of the floor was filled with a large oval table, with twenty or so seats arranged along its sides. To either side were rows of raised benches, like a miniature amphitheater. A small throne on a dais sat at the far end of the room, overlooking the head of the oval table.

Our guide sent Gronir and Daria to stand with the other guards around the perimeter of the chamber, and then led us to a row of benches where a number of people were already gathered. I spotted Carl on the other side of the room, with Mara sitting next to him. He nodded to me, and leaned over to say something to his companion.

“Ooh, nice,” Cerise commented. “She’s looking extra sexy tonight. Tasty.”

Mara was wearing makeup, and her hair shone with a fiery glow that had to be some kind of cosmetic magic. But that was apparently normal here.

Most of the throng that filled the room were men, wearing fine robes and carrying ornate staves that each tried fiercely to outdo the others. The scattering of women wore a bewildering variety of revealing dresses, and adorned themselves with the most eye-catching magic they could manage. Half the accessories in the room glowed, or flamed, or otherwise announced their magical nature.

“You could say that about most of the room,” I pointed out. “Is there some secret rule that all women who have magic have to be good looking?”

Avilla giggled. “Trust me, master. If you were a woman with magical talents, that’s one of the first things you’d research. Anything that improves your health will make a noticeable difference. Then there’s glamour, cosmetic spells, alchemical dyes and about a million other tricks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Should I be wondering how you know so much about this?”

Cerise leaned into my other side. “She’s naturally perfect, master. But I had to work for it.”

“I see. Well, I like your work.”

The seats at the central table were filling up by then, so I guessed there probably wasn’t time to chat with Carl before the meeting started. But as the crowd of lesser personages hurried to their seats my eyes fell on one figure who didn’t seem to fit. A tall, gangly girl with limp brown hair and a painfully homely face, wearing a simple linen dress that seemed cut to hide as much of her appearance as possible. The parts of her I could see were mostly covered with bandages, and the few patches of bare skin were marred by ugly silver-grey blotches.

“Any idea who that is?” I asked.

Avilla shrugged. Cerise frowned at her for a moment, and then glanced back at Carl.

“I think that’s the healer girl,” she answered. “What was her name? Elin?”

“Oh! That’s right,” Avilla agreed. “Carl mentioned that. Apparently the monster that almost got her was some kind of exotic golem made of liquid metal, and the stuff infected her when it was broken. That must be what those spots are.”

“That’s also why no one wants to sit next to her,” Cerise added. “Mara says she can barely keep herself alive with her healing magic, and some of the wizards are afraid the curse might be contagious.”

“Ouch. Sounds like I should take a look at her at some point.”

“Or you could stay away from her, and not get yourself cursed on top of everything else,” Avilla suggested.

The meeting started then, so I didn’t get a chance to reply.

Interestingly enough, no one sat in the throne. The seating arrangements were clearly based on rank, with High Adept Steelbinder and a couple of other guys in especially fancy robes at one end of the table and the rest filled with lesser personages. The benches seemed to be for junior mages, high-ranking retainers and visitors, which told me something about Carl and Mara’s standings around here. But there were an ominous number of empty seats around the table.

I’d half-expected a gathering of wizards to be some dazzling affair full of magic and mystery, and the spectral figure that materialized at the foot of the throne and called the meeting to order certainly supported that idea. But as it began methodically calling on members to stand and deliver various updates I realized the truth. People are people, whether they have magic or not, and this was basically a status meeting.

Apparently there was a fixed order of business at these meetings, and the weekly reports of the Conclave’s department heads were the first order of business. So I got to sit and listen to various adepts drone on about supplies of magical materials (decent) and provisions (enough for a 3-year siege), the readiness of the Red Guard (poor but improving), golem maintenance and half a dozen other less interesting topics for the better part of an hour.

I tried to stay awake, and learn what I could. The names of the department heads could be important, and their reports offered some insight into how the Conclave was organized. Apparently running a department was considered a mid-level job, since the heads were all men in their thirties or forties but none of them were High Adepts. I gathered that there was some kind of executive council for the big shots, but major decisions often required a vote of the full assembly to ratify. There were a couple of those during the status reports, over various minor-seeming policy adjustments. But I got the impression those were a formality, since there was no debate and the votes were generally unanimous.

Then the reports were finished, and the floor was opened to new business. The High Adepts exchanged looks, and then the oldest man at the table slowly stood.

“The chair recognizes High Adept Elias Ward,” the shadowy form at the foot of the empty throne intoned.

His robes were as fine as any in the room, and his staff was an intricate construction of metal and crystal bearing a dizzying array of enchantments. But only a few thin wisps of hair were left on his head, and his features were shriveled with age. He leaned heavily on his staff as he stood, and took a moment to gather himself before speaking.

“I have completed my investigation of the attack on the weather-working,” he announced. A stir went through the chamber, momentarily drowning out his thin, reedy voice. He waited for it to subside before continuing.

“As we all know, the guardian golems of the upper spire failed to activate when the circle was attacked. Initially we thought they had been sabotaged somehow, or that the attack was simply hidden from them by illusion. But my assistants and I have exhaustively analyzed the enchantments on the guardians, and in each case they were deactivated with the proper words of command less than an hour before the attack. There can be only one conclusion.”

“Gentlemen, there is a traitor among us.”

Chapter 9

Ward’s announcement caused a considerable stir, but again the room quieted quickly. He nodded gravely, and went on.

“The doors to the upper spire were unlocked by someone who had access to the proper key, and the guardians were commanded into inaction. The human guards outside the door to the ritual chamber raised no alarm before they were attacked, and the sergeant of the watch had opened his log book in preparation for recording a visit. Clearly they recognized whoever approached their position, and expected no trouble.”

“They were then killed before they could realize the golems were inactive, and call for help. The actual attack was carried out by a large magical beast of considerable power, but the details of the damage do not fit any creature on record. It had the strength to rend chain mail like cloth, fiery breath hot enough to melt iron, and some means of defense against enchanted swords. Our colleagues in the bestiary have determined that it was a quadruped with red fur, likely twice the weight of a heavy warhorse, with a narrow mouth and the teeth of a carnivore. Based on the magical residues it seems likely the creature had been transformed into a more innocent shape and was released to attack the guards.”

“More puzzling, however, is the condition of the chamber door. High Adept Thunderbolt was leading the weather circle in a difficult performance that day, and had ordered the chamber doors locked and sealed until they were finished. When the ritual was interrupted the resulting backlash did considerable damage to the room, and at first we thought the doors had simply been smashed open. But on closer examination I find that the locking enchantments are simply shattered, in a fashion I have never seen before. The iron bolts that should have held the doors shut were found in the open position, but all the other protective enchantments were intact. I have no good explanation for how the doors were opened.”

There was another commotion. I took advantage of the interruption to stand.

“I believe I can shed some light on that,” I announced over the din.

The old man turned to study me for a moment, and nodded once.

“The chair recognizes Wandering Adept Daniel Black,” the shadow announced.

I took a deep breath, and tried to pretend I was back in debate club as dozens of faces turned towards me. No pressure.

“As some of you have probably heard, I encountered one of Jormungandr’s grandsons on my recent expedition to clear a path to the sea for our shipping. He knew my name and expected to find me there, which is more evidence that our enemies have an agent in Kozalin. But he also claimed that Loki and Gaea have a daughter. A demigoddess they call the Unraveler, for her power to open locks and shatter bindings. Raised in secret until she was old enough to free her father, and venture into Tartarus to release the monsters imprisoned there. Now she’s in Kozalin with a band of monsters at her back, on a mission to sunder the Bifrost Veil and open the way to Asgard.”

“Obviously I can’t confirm any of this, but if it’s true it would explain what happened to those wards.”

“Are we supposed to believe some monster?” One of the adepts near the foot of the table scoffed.

“What were you doing talking to it?” Another one shouted. “Are you in league with them?”

I raised the stump of my missing arm. “Our conversation didn’t stay polite for long. He was trying to convince me to leave Kozalin instead of aiding in its defense, and when I refused he tried to kill me.”

As I’d hoped, my injury served to derail any suggestions that I might be working with Loki’s forces. Although I found it interesting that no one seemed to seriously doubt my claim to have fought a sea serpent and survived. Either I had more of a reputation than I’d thought, or their battle mages got a lot more powerful than Carl.

There was a long debate in the wake of Ward’s revelation, although as a non-member I didn’t take much part in it. The general consensus seemed to be that the ‘Unraveler’ business was probably true, since the gods wouldn’t let someone get away with lying about being their child. But she was unlikely to be working alone.

“A spark of divine power would quickly be revealed by our wards,” Steelbinder pointed out. “So she isn’t likely to risk exposing herself more than necessary. But we all know how Loki collects hidden cults of human supporters. No doubt she has an agent here who helped her infiltrate the Citadel, and there may be more in the city. We certainly haven’t had time to screen the refugees.”

After some discussion a proposal was raised to have Ward continue his investigation, in hopes of identifying the spy. It passed almost unanimously, but he cautioned against expecting instant results.

“Any agent canny enough to arrange the attack on the weather circle is not going to give himself away with foolish mistakes. I can clear some of our members of suspicion quickly, but working through the rest will be a slow process. In the meantime, I suggest that we take more active measures to reduce the chance of another attack.”

Steelbinder nodded. “Yes. We can start by re-keying the golems, and keep the new control words a more guarded secret.”

“What about the obvious suspects?” Someone suggested.

“Yes, we can’t have anyone questionable wandering about in sensitive areas at a time like this,” another agreed. “We should lock down the inner citadel.”

“Why stop there? Send those Russian mercenaries back where they came from!”

“The faeries too!”

That opened the floodgates, and for the next half hour I was treated to a rather disgusting spectacle of mindless intolerance. The Conclave had all sorts of allies and associates across Europe, many of whom had taken refuge here when Fimbulwinter began. But humans are naturally xenophobic, and with no clear culprit to punish for the attack the Conclave’s rank and file wanted a scapegoat to lash out at.

The High Adepts seemed to have a more nuanced view of the situation, and managed to stop things from turning into a complete witch hunt. But they had to give the crowd something. The final vote was to tighten security around sensitive parts of the Citadel, restrict the entry of the Conclave’s human allies, and banish all nonhumans from the Citadel for the duration of the emergency.

“What about Elin?” One of the department heads asked. “Don’t we still have that agreement with the Summer Court?”

The girl flinched, and shrank into her seat.

“Yes,” Steelbinder answered. “We’re obligated to care for her until she turns thirty, barring a few narrow escape clauses that seem unlikely to arise. She’s made it this long without eating anyone, so she’s hardly likely to start now. But the agreement doesn’t say we have to quarter her in the Citadel. I know the inns are all full, but I’m sure we can find someplace to put her. Grendelkin are sturdy creatures, so I suspect even a stable would do. Isn’t that right, Elin?”

She hung her head. “Yes, sir. But I’ll die if I can’t focus my magic on fighting this curse.”

Her voice was meek enough, but I could see her knuckles were white where they gripped the iron bench. I frowned. It really wasn’t my problem. I had enough things to worry about.

“Small loss,” someone grumbled behind me. “Not like she can heal anymore.”

I stood. “I can take her in.”

Steelbinder turned an astonished look my way. “Why would you wish to do that? You do know what she is, Adept Black?”

“She’s a healer,” I replied. “In my land that would be reason enough.”

He frowned. “I see. Even if she can no longer heal?”

I shrugged. “Maybe we can find a cure for that, if we work together. But even if we can’t, I’ve got plenty of room.”

“Very well. All in favor of passing stewardship of Elin to Adept Black for the duration of the emergency?”

The vote passed easily.

“What are you doing?” Avilla hissed in my ear when I sat down. “What if it’s catching?”

“Then I’ll put her in quarantine,” I whispered back. “Get a grip, Avilla. I can see the magic on her, remember?”

She flushed. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I just want us to finally be safe.”

I patted her hand and turned to Cerise, who seemed a bit concerned for Avilla but otherwise unperturbed. “Go help the poor girl get her things before the meeting ends, will you? I bet she won’t be able to get to her room once that vote is announced, and these people are perfectly capable of tossing her out with nothing but the clothes on her back.”

She flashed me an amused smile. “So we’re collecting stray kittens now? Sure boss, I’ll get her squared away.”

She slipped down to whisper in Elin’s ear as the discussion turned to what to tell the prince about the situation. Elin eyed me warily, but something Cerise said got her attention. She gave the dark-haired witch an incredulous look, and touched her tail. Cerise grinned, and whispered something else. Finally Elin nodded, and the pair quietly made their way out of the chamber.

The meeting dragged on interminably. But at least now the wizards were discussing relevant issues instead of paper-pushing, and I learned a good bit about their plans. Everyone was expecting a more determined assault to appear at some point, and making preparations accordingly. The war-wizards were setting up some sort of secret dragon slaying spell, and charging up heavy fire support spells to deal with giants and goblin hordes. A team of artificers were enchanting a squadron of heavy golems with some sort of fast movement spell so they could be used as a reaction force the next time the city wall was breached, and another group was reinforcing the city’s defensive enchantments.

Interestingly, they voted to assign command of that mobile golem squadron to Carl. Apparently it was a step up for him, because he grinned excitedly and his sister clapped him on the back. But then the subject turned to me.

There was a quick vote to confirm my status as an “Associate” of the Conclave, which I’d expected. Then Steelbinder brought up the fact that the speed of their enchantment work was primarily limited by the ability of their artisans to raise enough mana, and asked if I could help with that.

“Not yet,” I said reluctantly. “My mana tap technique is still experimental, and it relies on some very exotic magic. It would probably take months to teach someone else how to do it, and it’s the kind of thing where even a small mistake tends to be lethal. I’m working on turning it into an enchantment, so I can make items that act as a mana source. But I have a lot of work to do to reach that point, and a lot of other demands on my time.”

“How does it work?” A svelte brunette near the foot of the table asked.

“Don’t be rude, Tova,” the man next to her scoffed. “No one would be witless enough to just blurt out a secret like that.”

“Indeed,” Ward said dryly. “Unlimited mana could be the founding mystery of a mighty clan. But you intend to share the fruits of your research?”

I nodded. “Yes. To be honest, in different circumstances I’d be tempted to keep it a secret and go take over a kingdom or something. But with Ragnarok in progress we need to pull together if we’re going to have any chance of surviving. Obviously I’m going to set up my own people first, but I figure anything I can do to strengthen Kozalin’s defenses is to my benefit.”

“Mind you, it isn’t actually unlimited power. I’ve found that there’s still a limit to how long I can channel the power before the strain becomes too much, and even the best healing can only delay that point for so long. It’s very useful for powering large-scale magic, but you have to be careful not to overdo it.”

Normally I’d have been reluctant to share even that much information with a group as untrustworthy as the Conclave, but in this case I figured it would be wise to make sure my image didn’t get too overblown. If they decided I was too dangerous a competitor they’d take steps to deal with me, and I had no idea what sneaky assassination methods a group of wizards might have developed over the centuries. Better to maintain good relations for as long as possible, even if it did grate sometimes.

“What kind of price are you going to demand?” Steelbinder asked. “If you can perfect the process I expect we’ll want several ritual chambers enchanted, and I’m sure many of our members would be interested in a personal implement if the price isn’t too dear.”

“Hell, I’d trade my granddaughter for tool like that,” one of the older wizards commented.

“I’d trade both my daughters,” Tova agreed fervently. “A stable power supply would be a godsend for my work.”

I shook my head. “Intriguing as that sounds, my needs lie more in the areas of money and supplies. But I’ll have to finish my research before I can set a firm price. I don’t want to negotiate on the assumption that it will be a quick enchantment and then discover I’ll need weeks to make each implement. All I can say at this point is that while I do intend to profit from my discovery I don’t plan to make my prices too exorbitant.”

“I see. Well, I suppose we’ll have to table the issue until then,” Steelbinder said. “I trust you’ll limit access to the Conclave and your own people?”

“Of course,” I agreed. I wasn’t about to let something that dangerous get out into general circulation. I was nervous enough about letting the Conclave’s upper ranks have it, considering that they might decide to use it against me someday.

The discussion turned to other things after that. Some of the wizards wanted to enlist the Griffon Knights in a scheme to rescue various relatives and associates who were currently stranded in other towns. Another group wanted to start sending summoned demons and elementals to attack monster bands that were spotted in the vicinity. One wizard floated the idea of starting an operation to collect refugees for use as sacrifices in various empowerment and demon binding rituals. I was a bit relieved that no one else seemed to think that was a good idea, although I noticed that most of the objections were on practical grounds rather than moral ones.

Finally the endless meeting dragged to a close. There was another little bit of ceremony where the shadow adjourned the meeting and everyone stood while the High Adepts left the chamber. About half the wizards filed out after them, while the rest stood around chatting with each other. I looked around for Cerise, wondering why she wasn’t back yet, and Gronir and Daria came over to rejoin us.

Carl buttonholed me just as I spotted her slipping back into the room.

“Daniel! Good to see you again. Congratulations on surviving your adventure.”

“You didn’t actually say what happened to the sea serpent,” Mara added with a frown. “Did you kill him?”

“I’m not sure. It was one of those fights where everything goes to hell right from the start. I ended up trapped in his mouth at the bottom of the river, with him grinding my wards down. So I set off the most powerful explosive effect I could muster inside his mouth.”

She winced. “Is that what happened to your arm?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it blew my wards down and damn near killed me. I woke up floating on the surface a few minutes later, and my men tell me they saw him swimming off badly hurt. I suppose it will come down to how well sea serpents regenerate, but considering how tough he was I’m not making any assumptions. I’m planning to come up with a good weapon for killing giant monsters before he comes back for another try.”

She shook her head. “You’ve beaten him once, and everyone knows wizards learn from their fights. He won’t be back for another ass kicking. I’m impressed, though. I didn’t realize you were that powerful.”

“Our master is quite a wizard,” Avilla commented proudly. “Now that he’s back you should come visit us again.”

Mara turned to her, and her eyes immediately dropped to Avilla’s rather amazing bust line before struggling their way back up to her face. Avilla noticed, and developed a smug little smile.

“Avilla? Uh, yeah. Well, if Elin’s going to be staying with you I’ll definitely be around. What do you really want with her, anyway?” She asked me suspiciously.

“I’d like to know that as well,” A soft voice said from behind me.

I turned to find that Cerise and Elin had made their way over. Elin had a threadbare blanket under one arm, but otherwise neither of them was carrying anything.

“We already stashed her things in the transport,” Cerise said in answer to my frown. “The guards wouldn’t let us back in the chamber until the meeting was over, so I figured we should go ahead and take care of that. Can you believe I actually had to pay some clerk to give us a trunk to pack her stuff?”

“Yes, and I thank you for that,” Elin said. “But I don’t want any misunderstandings, sir. I’m not going to be able to heal your arm.”

“What, this thing? Don’t worry about it. I’ll have it fixed up in a few days, I just need to find enough time to work on it.”

“You’re a healer?” She asked sharply.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m actually hoping that if we put our heads together we can find a way to fix this problem of yours, and then I won’t get stuck being the only effective healer in the city. I have too many other jobs to be able to take on that one too.”

She looked down. “I thank you for your kindness, sir. I’m ashamed to admit that the nature of this curse eludes my understanding. But what if I can’t be cured?”

“Then at least you’ll have a warm room and good food, in a safe place where no one is going to give you a hard time just because you aren’t human,” I said gently.

“Well, aren’t you a smooth talker,” Mara commented. “You’d better take good care of her, then. She’s my friend, and I’m not someone you want to piss off.”

“Duly noted. Well, congratulations on your new appointment, Carl.”

“Oh, you heard that? Quite a step up for me,” he said proudly.

“If you weren’t such a wimp you wouldn’t need golems,” Mara scoffed.

“Hey now, not all of us can conjure living flame, sis,” Carl protested. “You got the good part of the family magic. I’ve got to make the best I can of what I’ve got.”

“Yeah, like I’m so lucky,” Mara said, suddenly bitter, and punched him in the shoulder. “Whatever. Take care of yourself, Elin. Let me know if I need to come over and kick someone’s ass for you.”

She stalked off, and the rest of us exchanged awkward looks.

“Sorry about that,” Carl said awkwardly. “It’s the fire nature. When she’s happy she’s a joy to be around, but when something strikes her wrong, well…”

“She’s a total bitch?” Cerise finished.

“Sometimes,” Carl admitted.

“That’s alright,” Avilla said. “Everyone has it rough right now, so we won’t hold it too much against her.”

“Thank you,” Carl replied. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, we should get going,” I agreed.

As soon as he was out of earshot Avilla slipped her arm around Cerise’s waist with a smile. “Did you notice the gaze trap worked? You’re right, kitten. She’s interested, she’s just in denial.”

“Mmm,” Cerise purred. “Want to arrange some special therapy for that anger problem of hers? I bet we could get her in a better mood.”

“Do I want to know what you two are talking about?” I asked.

“Just testing the waters,” Avilla explained. “I have some techniques that only work if you’re basically willing. Like this.”

She smiled at me, and good god her breasts were amazing. I stood there staring at them for a moment, stunned. Then I shook myself, and found that I could meet her eyes again.

She giggled. “See? It’s harmless. If I were going to use real seduction magic I wouldn’t have brought it up in front of her friend.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” Elin commented. “Mara and I aren’t really that close. I’ve only known her for a couple of weeks, and it’s actually a bit tiresome the way she’s tried to appoint herself my defender. It’s not as if she can solve any of my problems, so what’s the point?”

“Ah, so you don’t care if we try to seduce her?” Cerise asked.

Her gaze fell to the floor. “It’s not my place to comment on such things.”

“Just don’t get carried away, Cerise,” I told her. “If you need magic to convince her you’ve probably gone too far.”

The conversation died as we made our way towards the gates, and the temperature dropped sharply. The meeting room had been heated, but apparently the hallways weren’t. Elin draped her blanket over herself as we approached the entrance hall, apparently intending to use it as a coat.

I frowned. “Cerise, is the transport still parked over on the other side of the plaza?”

“That’s as close as the guards will let us take it,” she replied.

“Figures. Hold up a sec, Elin. Let me put a warmth spell around you.”

She stopped, and studied the floor. “I’ll be alright, sir.”

I shook my head. “You’re already pushing yourself trying to fight off this curse. The last thing you need is to get sick on top of that. Unless you’ve got some other kind of weather protection you were going to use?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I just… I’m not used to… thank you, sir.”

I frowned. Why was she suddenly so flustered? She’d been collected enough a minute ago. Well, I’d figure that out later. The longer we stayed here, the colder it was going to get outside.

It only took a moment to set up a warmth aura, since the spell only needed to last a few minutes. Then we made our way out the Citadel’s postern gate and into the plaza. A light snow was falling, and the wind was like ice on my exposed face. Avilla pulled her voluminous cloak about herself, her face almost invisible deep under the hood. Even Cerise shivered, and rubbed her arms.

“Okay, maybe I’ll wear a cloak or something next time. This is a little much even for me,” she admitted.

“Aww, is my kitten cold? Come in here, love,” Avilla told her.

I chuckled. “That’s why your cloak is so big, isn’t it? You wanted to have room for two.”

“Pure coincidence,” she said innocently. “Oh, cold! Freya’s tits, Cerise, you’re like ice! Snuggle up and let’s get you warm.”

The two girls trooped merrily off across the snow together. I smiled, and started after them with Elin. The wolfen brought up the rear, peering into the gloom around us as if we might actually encounter trouble here in the middle of the city. Well, it was probably just as well that they were taking guard duty seriously.

The former healer’s movements were slow and uncertain, as if she was having trouble controlling her limbs. But I didn’t want to embarrass her any more than I already had, so I let her hobble across the plaza at her own pace. When we came to the transport I opened the door for her, and motioned her inside. Then I activated the little light spell I’d put on the front of the vehicle for this trip, casting a dim yellow glow across the snow.

“Take it slow and careful,” I advised the driver. “We’re not in a rush, and I don’t want us running over a refugee or accidentally going off the side of the pier in the dark. If it turns out that isn’t enough light to find our way let me know, and I’ll make it brighter.”

“No problem, milord,” he replied. “I think this will do fine.”

The main compartment of the transport was lit only by a couple of candles, but it was warm and cozy compared to the arctic conditions outside. Cerise and Avilla bundled themselves up in a corner, and Daria happily took a seat in Gronir’s lap. Elin looked around uncertainly, and settled herself in the middle of the floor.

I sat down next to her, and studied the magic around her for a few minutes. As I’d thought, those silvery marks on her skin were intensely magical. But I didn’t see anything that looked like a contagious curse. More like the residue on a dead demon, really. Lots of raw energy, but most of it was tied into a thoroughly broken spell network. What remained was a handful of protective enchantments, and some kind of complicated touch-based destructive effect. Or maybe digestive, that part wasn’t entirely clear.

“What exactly happened to you?” I asked.

She plucked nervously at a stray thread in her glove.

“I was healing the survivors of a party that was sent through the Dark Portal to scout out what’s happening in Tartarus. But the portal got activated again somehow while I was working, and this… thing… came through. It was just a big mass of silvery liquid, but it moved like a living thing. It fought by forming pseudopods, pointed ones to stab with and sharp ones that could cut flesh. It killed three of the guards, and my water couldn’t hurt it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You tried to fight something like that?”

She ducked her head. “I… it was going for my patients, sir. I thought I could at least block it long enough for the war wizards to do something. But it was so dense, my water wall might as well have been air. Then Adept Tasgall blew it up.”

She shuddered, and shrank in on herself. “That turned out to be… not the best plan. Sir. The liquid went everywhere, with enough force to tear through flesh. We’ve since learned that it’s a terrible poison, as well. I think… everyone else says this is absurd, but I think it might have been a golem, made of enchanted mercury. Everyone else who was in that room died in a matter of hours, and I’ve only held on this long by focusing all of my healing on myself. But the wounds keep eating into me, and… and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to push it back.”

“Sounds nasty,” I said. “Let me have a look.”

I held out my hand, but she flinched away.

“Not my hands, sir. They’re infected, and… it spreads, sir, if you touch it. One of the doctors tried to treat me, and he died of it. I don’t dare let anyone else touch my clothes, let alone my skin.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Avilla said worriedly. “Be careful, Daniel.”

“I plan to,” I assured her. “If I have to I can cut my fingers off and grow them back. But I think I can see what’s happening, I just need to confirm it. Elin, I’m just going to touch one finger to your forehead, alright? That’s well away from any of the marks.”

“I… yes, sir. I think that’s safe,” she agreed cautiously.

I touched her, and reached out with my magical senses. I could feel the tainted flesh beneath those marks on her skin, slowly eating into her body. Yeah, she had enough mercury in her system to kill a herd of elephants. Even more was still bound up in hundreds of little blobs and tendrils that retained what I was now sure was a golem animation enchantment, and were trying to slowly dig through her flesh to reunite with each other. Her flesh was supernaturally tough, holding all but the largest blobs trapped in place, but that had to be agonizingly painful. How did she stand it?

Of course. She was holding a pain block on herself. I could feel her magic bolstering her body’s health, forcing it to go on living when it should have been long dead. She had a lot more raw power than I’d expected, almost enough to be a match for Avilla. But it was only delaying the inevitable.

“It looks to me like you’re right about what that monster was,” I told her. “Hmm. Your healing mostly works by bolstering the body’s natural abilities, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. There are a few things I’ve learned that go beyond that, but the pain block is the only one that applies to this situation.”

I studied the magic. “How do you keep it up when you sleep?”

“I can’t.”

Oh. Damn.

“Well, I think I see why you can’t heal this. You were right about this thing being made of mercury, and the body doesn’t have any way to purge that. Once it gets into your system it stays there for as long as you live. Fortunately my healing uses a different approach, so I can pull it out.”

Her breath caught. “You can?”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s going to be tricky, though. You’ve got fragments of the golem embedded in you everywhere, and they’re still partially animated. If you were human they’d have burrowed right through your flesh to reunite with each other, and you’d have died in a matter of hours. They’re enchanted to resist all the obvious ways of affecting them with magic, so I can’t just banish them either. I’ll try to come up with a better option, but I may end up having to cut them out and then heal the wounds.”

Everyone else blanched at that. Daria looked like she was going to be sick, and Avilla suddenly seemed much more sympathetic to the girl’s plight. But to my complete shock, Elin didn’t flinch at all.

“You’d… invest so much work, so much time in me?” She asked. “Even though I might not even live until you finish?”

“Yes, Elin. I will.”

She looked up at me, and now there were tears in her eyes. “Thank you, sir. I thought I was going to die, when they voted... but if you want me… if you can save me… I promise, I will do everything in my power to be useful to you.”

There was a flash of magic when she said that, and Cerise whistled.

“A faerie, making an open-ended promise voluntarily? Damn, boss, you sure can pick them. Welcome to the group, Elin.”

“Apparently,” I said uncomfortably. “But don’t you have some kind of obligation to the Conclave, Elin?”

“Sir, I gave them fourteen years of loyal service, and they cast me out the moment I was no longer useful. If they want me to heal for them again they can come beg you for the use of me.”

Chapter 10

I didn’t expect an invitation to Nat Lagep’s funeral. I’d barely known the harbor pilot, and I was a bit ashamed to realize I hadn’t even remembered his name until a dock worker showed up on my doorstep to leave word about the event. We’d had our own little ceremony for Enok, the wolfen who’d died on the expedition to the coast, and I’d moved on.

But the man had died under my command, and for once I could take the time to pay my respects. No one else was going to die if I took an hour or two to attend a funeral.

The ceremony was held just after dawn, on a rocky promontory overlooking the harbor. A few dozen men with weathered faces and shabby clothes braved the cold to stand huddled among the mausoleums, listening to a tired old priest commend his soul to the gods. Harbormaster Lundt had actually dragged himself out of bed, to my surprise, and he stepped forward to address the crowd when the priest was done.

“Nat was a good man,” he said solemnly. “A hard worker, and a shrewd pilot. He’ll be sorely missed. But Kozalini are a tough lot, and I know we’ll pull together to do what we can for those he left behind.”

There were nods all around, and a couple of men patted a smaller figure at the front of the crowd on the shoulder.

A woman. With three little kids gathered around her, the oldest maybe ten. Damn. I hadn’t even known Nat was married, although I should have guessed. Men with steady jobs don’t usually go single in a medieval society.

The Harbormaster went on. “You all know the Pilot’s Fund is going dry, what with the deaths and the lack of shipping, but there’s still a bit left. Aina, if you’ll stop by my office this afternoon I have ten silver set aside for you and your family.”

Ten silver, for a man’s life? That might actually be generous for this land, but it wouldn’t last long in a city under siege.

“I’ll match that,” I announced. “It’s the least I can do, under the circumstances.”

“Thank you, lord wizard,” Aina said with a bow. She turned to look up at me, and I saw that her face was tracked with tears.

“Milord? Can you tell me how my husband died?”

I nodded, and took a moment to gather my thoughts as I moved up to stand beside the Harbormaster. What was I going to say? He hid in the transport, and drowned when it went in the river? In the Norse religion that was a coward’s death, which would doom him to become a shade in Hel’s realm. She didn’t need to hear that.

“He died in battle,” I announced.

A surprised murmur went through the little crowd.

“We were prepared for any of the monsters my men had fought on the way to Kozalin,” I went on. “Bands of goblins, trolls, felwolf packs, even giants as long as they weren’t too numerous. But when we reached the coast a sea serpent rose from the ocean and attacked us, while a small army of goblins and trolls fell on us from behind.”

“It was the sea serpent that struck Nat down. Narfing, son of Jarlof, son of Jormungandr the World Serpent. I don’t know if the valkyries were watching that day, but if they were we gave them a hell of a spectacle. We left the field littered with dead goblins and trolls. I nearly died myself, but in the end we sent the sea serpent limping off with his whole jaw missing and the sea turning red with his blood.”

A flash of color caught my eye, and I spotted Mara standing beside one of the mausoleums frowning at me. But then her gaze went to the grieving widow, and her face softened.

Aina wiped away her tears. “Thank you, milord. I suppose Valhalla might not stand for much longer, but… thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Aina.”

A few minutes after that the group broke up. I looked around, and made my way over to where Mara was inspecting one of the little stone monuments that dotted the graveyard. She noticed my approach, and smiled at me.

“Making things sound good for the widow? That was nice of you,” she commented.

I shrugged. “I feel kind of guilty about the poor guy. I’d hoped I was finally done burying the noncombatants.”

Her dress wasn’t nearly warm enough for the weather, but she was radiating so much fire magic it made the whole area around her feel like spring. It was an impressive display, especially if she planned to keep it up for any length of time.

“Yeah, that part sucks,” she agreed. “I love fighting, but sometimes I wish we could limit battles to just the people who want to be there. Things would be better that way.”

“Too bad the enemy never seems to cooperate with that. What brings you all the way out here, anyway?”

She grimaced, and gestured with the scroll she was holding. “Errands. People around here used to bury warriors with their gear. I’ve got a whole list of heroes who had magic swords and shit, but finding their tombs is a pain in the ass.”

“The Conclave is robbing graves already?” I asked.

“Nah, the old men aren’t quite ready for that. But I can sense magic through a few feet of dirt, so I’m supposed to be checking what’s there just in case. It wouldn’t be so bad, except the city records mostly got burned in a big fire about a hundred years ago. I’m going to be stuck wandering around graveyards for days, and don’t get me started on the catacombs. Ugh, that place is a maze.”

“That does sound pretty aggravating,” I said sympathetically.

There wasn’t enough space inside Kozalin’s walls for what I’d consider a normal graveyard, so the locals seemed to prefer mausoleums instead. Judging from the number of names inscribed on the walls most people didn’t get individual crypts either. More likely the poor people got mass graves of some kind, and only the wealthier citizens got their own niche.

Assuming there was a body to bury at all. There was a whole cluster of monuments along the shore, inscribed with the names of men who’d been lost at sea.

But Kozalin was centuries old, and the mausoleums were packed together into a haphazard maze that was a nightmare to navigate. I could only imagine how bad the catacombs must be, and of course this wasn’t the only graveyard. I didn’t envy Mara her task.

“What about you?” She asked. “You about ready to wow the old men with your amazing magical revolution?”

I shook my head. “Believe it or not, giving the guys who run the Conclave even more power to play with isn’t exactly my top priority. I’ve mostly been working on better weapons for my men, and trying to figure out how to heal Elin. Speaking of which, she’s doing a lot better these days. I think I’ve figured out how to get those fragments of the mercury golem out of her, so we can eventually get her back to normal.”

Mara looked away, and kicked at a loose stone in the walkway. “Good. I was afraid she was going to die on me, and that would really suck. I should be able to come by and see her tomorrow.”

“Good. She could use some support from her friends.”

She winced. “I’m not really much of a friend. I want to be, but it isn’t easy. Elin can be prickly, and I’m kind of a moody bitch.”

“Oh, you’re not that bad,” I said. “These are hard times for everyone, so it’s understandable if you get grouchy now and then. Anyone worth knowing will cut you some slack, as long as you do the same. I know Cerise is looking forward to seeing you again.”

Mara frowned, and hugged herself. “She’s an odd one. Kind of cool, but… she really doesn’t mind having a tail?”

I shrugged. “I think she actually likes being different. Plus, it’s prehensile, so it comes in handy.”

She hesitated.

“You don’t mind her having a tail?”

“I kind of like it, actually,” I admitted.

“Do you, now?” Mara teased, suddenly all smiles. “Well, aren’t you a kinky guy? I’d better be on my guard tomorrow.”

“Are you telling me you’re hiding a tail under that dress?” I craned my neck to look behind her. Nope, no way she was hiding anything under that dress. Damn, what an ass.

She swatted my arm. “Stop that, you perv.”

I stepped back. “Well?”

“You never know what a girl might be hiding, Daniel,” she said mysteriously. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find out someday.”

Well, that was intriguing.

I stopped by the Harbormaster’s office to drop off the silver I’d promised, and made my way back to the tower with a million thoughts on my mind. Things to build, spells to research, plans to make. But the first thing was to take care of this arm.

I figured that growing my arm back would only take a few hours of uninterrupted work, now that I was otherwise healthy. Somewhat to my amusement, when I went to lie down and work on the project Tina followed me to the bedroom. She unbuttoned her cute little maid uniform, letting the fabric whisper down her impressive curves to pool at her feet, and smiled brightly.

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s this about?”

“I’m just here to help, milord,” she said cheerfully, and hopped into bed.

“Ah, Tina, I need to concentrate on healing myself.”

“Yes, and it works much better when there’s a pretty girl holding you,” she said earnestly.

“What? Where did you get that idea?”

“Lanrest,” she said softly, her eyes downcast. “When we dug you out from under that troll’s bones. You didn’t start healing until I touched you.”

Then she threw off the moment of seriousness, and smiled brilliantly. “But don’t worry, milord. Your secret is safe with me! Now come rest your head on these pillows while you magic your poor arm back.”

She cupped her breasts, and bounced the hefty mounds.

I laughed, and shook my head. What the hell. Letting silly rumors like that spread was probably a good thing, if it kept people from figuring out my real limitations. Besides, I was coming to really like the cheerful girl. She might not understand a lot of what was happening around her, but she was always pleasant company. So let her stay with me for the rest of the morning while I fixed my arm, with occasional interruptions to fool around.

Elin’s treatment was a lot less pleasant.

I gave her a quick pass that first evening before bed, removing what I could of the mercury contamination in her organs. That was a temporary measure, since the hundreds of blobs of enchanted mercury embedded in her tissues would just poison her again in a few days. But it eased the strain enough that she was no longer in danger of immediately dying at the slightest interruption in her own healing magic. With that reprieve we were able to combine our efforts to weave a healing trance spell combined with a pain block, so the poor girl could get a decent rest for the first time since her injury.

After that it was slow going. I’d hoped to find a loophole in the protective enchantments on those fragments of the mercury golem, but on further examination they were even more complete than I’d thought. They couldn’t be banished by earth magic, and the enchantments themselves were heavily resistant to anything I might have done to break them with metamagic. Elin’s techniques for cleaning wounds and extracting foreign objects just slid off them ineffectually, and my force magic worked only slightly better.

Finally Elin threw up her hands, and declared the effort a waste of time.

“I appreciate your efforts to spare me from further mutilation, sir. But really, I know what I look like. A few more scars won’t make it that much worse, as long as I keep myself covered up. I suppose the nerve damage will cripple me, but that’s better than being dead. I’m skilled enough to animate my own limbs a bit with magic, if it comes to that.”

“Damn. You’ve got a lot of guts, you know that?”

She blushed faintly, and her gaze fell to the floor. “I’m just being practical, sir. You can’t spend weeks researching some exotic treatment for the likes of me, when your people are depending on you. This is already going to take days, but at least then I’ll be able to start earning my keep.”

I shook my head. “I suppose you have a point. But Elin, I can heal severed tendons and nerve damage. I’m not going to leave you crippled just to save a little time.”

“You can? But how? There’s no pattern for such things for the spell to follow.”

“Flesh sorcery,” I told her. “My magic knows how to do all sorts of interesting things.”

She stared at me a moment, astonished. “Sorcery over flesh? What sort of creature… I’m sorry, sir. It’s not my place to pry. I… may I watch? If I could learn even a little from your magic…”

I smiled. “Of course you can. You can ask questions, too. I may not answer them, but I’ll never be offended by honest curiosity. Now, shall we see how this works?”

We started with an ugly silver scar on her left arm, where the damage from any unexpected side effects would be minimized. I cut it out with one careful sweep of a force blade I’d made just the right size and shape for the job, letting the severed flesh fall into a stone bowl I’d conjured up for that purpose. Then I healed the wound, while Elin watched what I was doing with her own magic. Her power flowed through mine like warm water through a steel mesh, an oddly intimate sensation.

When we were done I checked the bowl, and found that the drop of mercury I’d removed had torn its way free of the lump of dead muscle and was now trying to crawl out of the bowl.

Figuring out a way to dispose of the golem fragments proved a bit tricky, since my force constructs couldn’t hurt them and using fire magic on enchanted mercury sounded like a spectacularly bad idea. I was pretty sure superheated mercury vapor would be fantastically toxic, and I didn’t have any particularly good way to decontaminate a room. I ended up just trapping it in a hollow ball of iron for now.

Elin looked a little pale when I returned my attention to her.

“I have those… things… inside me, sir? How am I even alive?”

“That was my first thought, too,” I told her. “But your body is actually too tough for little bits like that to damage, at least not quickly. I guess that’s a grendelkin attribute?”

She nodded slowly. “I think so. Mercury isn’t cold iron, so I suppose mother’s nature may also be giving me some protection. Undines can live in the depths of the sea, so they’re surprisingly durable.”

We did a few more extractions that first day to confirm that there weren’t going to be any other complications, then stopped until we could figure out how to dispose of the fragments. Elin asked permission to consult with an alchemist in town for that, and I introduced her to Oskar and told him to give her a transport and a detachment of guards whenever she needed to go out. It didn’t escape my notice that the mishap where she was injured might well have been an assassination attempt, and if that was the case there was no sense making it easy to try again.

Then it was on to the next project.

Avilla had been cooking with campfires and magic hot plates for as long as I’d known her, and it was about time she had a real kitchen. I spent several hours that day finishing out the work I’d done before, giving her granite counters and a split island shaped to her exact specifications in a room that had expanded considerably from the original version. I also built her a magic stove, with controls modeled after the dials you’d see on a modern appliance.

That kind of thing was surprisingly tricky, but I was finally getting the hang of it. I followed up with a double oven, with some consultation from Avilla on how big the flames needed to be to reach the temperatures she’d need. She was so happy about that I decided to go the extra mile, and put in a refrigerator. Removing heat from an enclosed space was right at the edge of what my limited mastery of fire magic could handle, but it was worth the effort to see the look on her face when I showed it to her.

She insisted on “thanking” me right there on the kitchen island. Then she got a naughty smile, and asked if I could help her dedicate the room that evening.

“I thought that was some kind of secret hearth witch ritual?” I asked.

“It’s not secret from you, silly. Normally it would take weeks to get it done, but with your power we don’t need to wait. I just need you to keep me full of magic, and give me a little help with the ritual elements. Sex can be a very powerful claiming ritual, you know.”

“Is it, now?”

She nodded seriously. “Oh, yes. I think five or six times in one night will get the job done, at least for the kitchen. The other rooms will have to come later.”

I grinned, and palmed her lush breast. She purred, leaning into the contact.

“I think you just want to get me all to yourself for a night,” I teased.

“Do I need an excuse?” She smiled up at me. “But no, I’m serious about this. Cerise and I have already shared magic so deeply we don’t have to worry about disturbing each other’s sanctums. But you’re a powerhouse, and we’re not at that level yet. Doing it this way will mingle your magic with mine in the ritual, and that way you won’t have to worry about accidentally disrupting my spells if you come in here while I’m working.”

She leaned into me, and started kissing my throat. “Or if you cum in me while I’m working.”

Needless to say, I agreed.

I’d resisted the girls’ idea of forming a coven when they’d first suggested it, but I was slowly coming around. A coven bond allowed a group of practitioners to combine their abilities using ritual magic, in a way that otherwise took years of practice and a massive investment in magical implements and facilities. My witches had a wealth of magic handed down from their teachers that required a coven to use, and some of it sounded quite valuable. Avilla knew rituals to raise wards and lay blessings on guardians, to prevent sickness and reduce discord and bolster morale. Cerise’s grimoire had darker rituals for protecting secrets, binding servants, detecting enemies and cursing them from a distance. It was a more strategic sort of magic than the individual spellcasting I’d seen them do, and vastly more powerful.

A coven bond was also a powerful protection against practically any sort of enchantment or binding. The ritual to create a coven required such an intimate blending of magic that the participants were magically one person for a few minutes, which would break any binding that wasn’t shared by all of them. After that establishing a new binding would require the consent of the whole group instead of just one person, and most mind-affecting magic would similarly tend to fail unless it actually caught all the coven members at once.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, both benefits would be invaluable. But there was a more personal side to the equation, which had set my alarm bells ringing at first. Blending magic generates a very visceral sort of feedback, as I’d already noted on a number of occasions, and the rituals of a close-knit coven were almost as intimate as sex. Trust and emotional closeness made the process vastly easier, and the resulting magic quite a bit more powerful.

So in effect, a good coven was only a few steps short of a group marriage. Coven members don’t have to be lovers, but the level of emotional intimacy involved was almost on that level.

After my wife’s betrayal I wasn’t exactly eager to leap into another long-term relationship, especially something that unconventional. Yes, Avilla and Cerise were both sexy as hell, but that only increased my hesitation. I’d dated enough to know that beautiful girlfriends make for short relationships. Young, hot and a little crazy was just asking for trouble, especially with the culture gap.

Learning more about the traditional methods witches used to make covens work hadn’t done much to set my mind at ease. Back home it would be just about impossible to find five people who could maintain that kind of relationship for long. Inevitably attention wouldn’t be shared equally, someone would get their feelings hurt, and things would go rapidly downhill from there. Especially considering how poisonous modern relationship advice is. Teaching men to subserviently kowtow to a woman’s every whim, while the women are taught to harshly scrutinize their partners for any possible fault, is not a recipe for happy relationships.

Here in Vinland human nature was the same, at least as far as I could tell. But the people thought nothing of measures that would have been condemned as horrific evils back home. I’d known that was true of their society in general, but I hadn’t realized how it applied to covens until Cerise had pulled out her little black grimoire one evening and started going through her ideas about the perfect coven bond with me.

Practically every coven bond involved effects that were arguably mind control.

Sexual compatibility was considered highly desirable in a coven, because sexual attraction and emotional intimacy are so closely related in the human psyche. So mixed-gender covens generally used magic to ensure their members were all bisexual. All-female covens similarly inducted any formerly heterosexual members into lesbianism, and neither of my witches thought there was anything odd about this. Even Beri just shrugged and said it sounded like a small price to pay for the security of belonging to a strong group.

The way she blushed at the question made me wonder a bit what her initiation into Hecate’s cult had involved. But it was a mystery cult, so she wasn’t likely to tell me about it.

When I asked Avilla how reliable that kind of magic was, and what would happen if it wore off, she had a giggling fit.

“Alterations only wear off if the subject opposes them, Daniel,” she explained when she recovered. “Think about what a coven is supposed to be like. If you’re having an amazing sex life with people you love, why would you want to suddenly stop enjoying it?”

I had to admit she had a point, but it still made me uncomfortable.

Covens weren’t necessarily one big romantic relationship, of course. Especially the larger ones, with seven or nine or even thirteen members. Some mix of permanent couples and trios was the norm, but given the emotional fallout of working group magic regularly it was impossible to expect strict fidelity. Within a coven trysts, flings and mate swapping were considered entirely normal, and the occasional orgy wasn’t unheard of. Perhaps in reaction to this a coven bond normally placed limitations on sex outside the coven, but there was usually an escape clause. Cerise’s version had all members swearing off outside men, but left them free to fool around with other women.

“Sounds a little unbalanced,” I pointed out. “You don’t care if I go around seducing half the women in town?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I told you I sacrificed my jealousy,” she replied with a grin. “Besides, Avilla and I are both libertines. Why shouldn’t you be able to get in on the fun? The fidelity thing is just to make sure there aren’t any hard feelings about taking care of our children.”

I blinked, and surreptitiously scanned her. No, she wasn’t pregnant. Yet. Note to self, medieval girls don’t expect to put off having babies until they’re thirty. But that wasn’t the only issue here.

“You do realize that if I got some strange woman pregnant I’d want to take care of the kid?” I pointed out reasonably.

“You would? Huh. Yeah, I guess you would, wouldn’t you? Alright, what if we say affairs are limited to servants and vassals of the coven unless we all vote to give ourselves a free pass for a day? That’s got the right symmetry to be stable, and it won’t get in the way of you and me working our way through those sexy wolf girls while Avilla is busy getting her little maids ‘properly trained’. But that way if you do knock one of them up someday she’ll already be one of our people, and we can just put her on special harem duty or something.”

Yeah, Cerise was getting pretty upfront about her intention to become a serious skirt-chaser now that she was in an environment where it was possible. Her interest in men was a lot more limited, although she teased me now and then about maybe giving one of the younger wizards a try if I took too long about making things official.

But that just led back to the other issue that gave me pause.

Most modern fiction has a convention that ‘true love’ is some kind of ineffable mystery that can’t be faked with magic or technology or whatever other powers a setting might have. But anyone who actually thinks about the issue for more than five minutes knows that’s clueless drivel. Romantic love is a complicated blend of several distinct emotions, but that’s the only thing that makes it different from anger or fear or simple lust. Binding yourself to feel specific emotions takes a bit of power, but it’s perfectly doable.

Thankfully coven bonds usually shied away from the direct approach there, but only because it was a case where a little finesse was more effective. The wording Cerise had worked out in her years of study and preparation was:

“I open my heart to my coven-mates, unreservedly and forever. I trust my coven-mates, and I know that they trust me. I cherish their strengths, and forgive them their faults, and will strive always to make our bond a thing of joy to us all. I savor the bonds of attraction between us, taking comfort in the certain knowledge that my coven-mates find me desirable, and revel in all the myriad permutations of our sexplay. I shall indulge the desires of my coven-mates, and they shall indulge mine, seeking love and happiness together forever.”

I had to think long and hard to untangle what effects that would have as a magical binding, and I still wasn’t sure I saw the whole picture. It was a far cry from love potions and obedience charms, but at the same time it would be damned hard not to fall in love with a woman you’d taken that vow with.

A lot of people back home would still consider it mind rape. For that matter, a lot of women would consider the implications of “revel in all the myriad permutations of our sexplay” to amount to rape. Anything that makes it so you never really want to say no automatically qualifies, to some people.

When I mentioned that to Cerise, she looked at me like I’d suggested fire was wet and by the way maybe joining the Aesir wouldn’t be so bad.

“You have to go into this voluntarily,” she pointed out. “For that matter, our last two members are going to have to earn their spots. Covens are rare, and this is going to be the most kickass coven in centuries. Avilla and I have been working on this since I was fourteen, so we obviously know what we’re getting into. If some other woman fights her way in, earns our approval, reads the vows and agrees with them and then helps cast the binding - well, how the fuck can you argue that she didn’t consent to everything that comes afterwards?”

“The fact that you can’t change your mind later feels a little iffy,” I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I think you’re just worried that you won’t be able to keep up with us. Or maybe you don’t want to have fun playing power games with me? That part would apply to you too, you know.”

I shook my head. “Try to remember that I haven’t spent the last five years thinking through all the implications of this thing. I just want to make sure we don’t screw up something important and then get stuck not being able to fix it.”

It was terribly tempting, to just accept her reasoning and go with it. Cerise and Avilla weren’t exactly normal, but they’d grown on me. The thought of having both of them in a normal relationship was intoxicating, let alone this talk of mystic love bonds and two more witches and whatever inventive flavors of debauchery Cerise came up with.

But would it be real?

For that matter, were they really telling the truth? Maybe it was irrational, but it still bothered me that they both knew far more about this sort of thing than I did. For all I knew they’d prepared some tricky way to slip themselves free of the bond, and turn it into a subtle form of enslavement. Or they might have some other ulterior motive, something I didn’t know enough to guess.

Could I really trust them? I’d thought I could trust Amanda, until the day I caught her cheating on me. She’d managed to destroy my life with nothing but a willingness to lie loudly and often. I could barely imagine what Cerise could do to me, if she were so motivated. Let alone Avilla. If I pissed her off I’d probably wake up after my next meal to find myself transformed into a goat or something.

I thought, and I mused, and I brooded. Then I went back to work.

Chapter 11

The next few days passed in a blur of activity.

Mara actually did come to visit, which Elin seemed to appreciate. She ended up staying for most of the morning, although I had to excuse myself to get some work done after the first hour or so. She seemed to be getting pretty friendly with Cerise by then, so I figured I’d give the little imp a chance to see if she was really as smooth as she thought she was. I was half expecting her to either get slapped or somehow seduce Mara, but instead I found her oddly pensive over lunch.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Cerise said slowly, still staring at her plate. “I think I’m going to have to move slowly on this.”

“Really? I thought you were going to sweep her off her feet?”

Avilla sat down next to her, and took her hand. “What was it that upset you, kitten? It looked like things were going well when I brought the cookies and tea.”

“You wouldn’t notice it unless you spent some real time trying to work your way closer to her,” Cerise answered. “She’s trying to get past it, I think. But she’s afraid of being touched. Even if it’s gentle, she has to fight not to flinch.”

Avilla frowned in confusion. Me, I just went cold. I’ve heard that kind of thing too many times before.

“You think she’s been raped?” I asked.

She shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t see how. She has so much fire magic, it’s hard to imagine anyone surviving the attempt. Besides, it’s not just men. I backed off a little once I realized, and she got a lot more relaxed when I stopped getting close to her.”

I frowned. “How early would someone like her start manifesting her magic?”

“The stronger you are, the earlier it happens,” Avilla said. “With her it probably started when she was an infant. But it would have started off weak, and she probably didn’t reach her full strength until the last year or two.”

“So it was her family,” Cerise said unhappily. “When she was too young to fight back. Fire sorcery is hereditary, so they probably had some resistance too.”

“Do people actually do that?” Avilla asked.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I replied. “Well, whatever the story is she’s obviously gotten free of them somehow.”

Cerise nodded. “Have you noticed how she doesn’t really look that much like Carl? She mentioned they were raised apart, too. I bet there’s a story there. Like, maybe they’re really half-siblings, and her dad was some abusive asshole from down south that ended up killing their mom before Carl was old enough to rescue them.”

“Could be something like that,” I allowed. “But let’s not go making assumptions. I do think you’re right about going slow, though. If she has that kind of past, you don’t want to make her think you’re trying to take advantage of her.”

“Fuck, no,” Cerise protested. “I want to help her.”

“Me too, but that can be hard to do.” I frowned. “Although she seems awfully outgoing if you’re right. She was actually flirting with me the other day, and she’s the one who started it.”

Cerise smiled. “That’s good. So she wants to get past it, and we just need to let her know that we’re the ones who can help her with that.”

Avilla rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed, kitten.”

“Hey, I saw her checking you out again this morning. We just need to arrange things so she walks in on you and Daniel making out or something.”

“Or we can just be her friend, and see what develops,” I said firmly.

“Okaaay,” Cerise sighed theatrically.

I chuckled, and went back to eating. I had a lot of work to do.

The weapons my men were carrying now were all rush jobs, thrown together in spare moments during our long flight from battle to battle in the ruins of civilization. Now I had a chance to learn from the experience, and do better.

Using force magic to enhance normal melee weapons had been a reasonably effective approach. Most monsters would close with you if they could, and the ability of force weapons to cut through light armor and sever limbs made a big difference. But letting monsters get in close means they have a chance to inflict casualties, and while I could heal most injuries every now and then someone would die before I could get to them.

I had grown very tired to seeing my men die. I wasn’t going to lose any more of them if I could help it.

Unfortunately, armor was a lot harder to make. Oh, I could create sheets of nickel-iron in any shape I wanted easily enough. But a suit of plate armor contains dozens of individual pieces of metal, all of which need to be precisely shaped and fitted to avoid limiting the wearer’s range of motion, and there were all kinds of non-metal parts as well. Straps and padding and oddly-shaped bits of leather, some attached to the armor and some not. I could probably come up with a workable design, but trying to outfit all my men would be a full-time job.

No, a better answer was to kill the monsters before they could get close. The flamers had been a decent stopgap measure where that was concerned, since not many creatures would voluntarily run into a wall of fire. But they were a short-ranged weapon, and the flames didn’t kill a target instantly. Against goblins and forest trolls they’d worked well, but if we were going to fight bigger monsters we’d need something with more stopping power.

For that, it was time to take a page from all those classic science fiction stories I’d read where some plucky hero gets trapped in the distant past and immediately introduces guns. Actual firearms probably weren’t feasible here given the primitive state of local metallurgy, not to mention that gathering enough saltpeter to make large amounts of gunpowder would be pretty tough if we couldn’t send men outside the walls. There were bound to be dung heaps in the city, but not that many of them.

But I had magic. A little earth magic to conjure up a nickel-iron handle and barrel, shaped to fit comfortable in my hand. A good bit more to conjure up a lead ball, and then a burst of force magic to propel it.

My first attempt just bounced off the wall of the little empty room I’d claimed as a workshop, and rattled to the floor. That got me thinking about ricochets, so I covered the walls in a thick layer of clay before I tried again. I was confident that my personal force field would stop a bullet, but if it went out the window or through the door it might hit someone else.

A couple more tries, and I had a feel for how much force magic it took to get a decent velocity out of the ball. It was actually a little tricky to apply that much magic in the brief time before the ball left the gun’s barrel, though. I’d noted before that spells generally take an appreciable amount of time to work, and the split-second duration of a force burst spell was actually rather slow compared to the motion of a bullet.

Of course, there was no reason I had to exactly copy the way firearms work. I switched to a more bullet-shaped projectile instead of a ball, and reworked the force spell to put a spin on it first and then push it down the barrel. It took a few tries to get that right, and a few more to make the whole process fast enough that the bullet would break the sound barrier while it was still in the gun’s barrel. I actually had to switch to something more the size of a rifle for that, with the extra barrel length giving the magic a few extra milliseconds to work.

But that gave me a weapon capable of blowing impressive holes in a man-sized clay target dummy, and in theory it ought to have decent accuracy. Nothing like modern forearms, probably, but it ought to be a lot more effective than a bow.

Come to think of it, was there a good reason to use lead bullets? There was no rifling in my weapon, so they didn’t need to be soft for that reason. Lead would tend to deform on impact and make a bigger wound than harder metals, but armor penetration might also be a problem. I still remembered how tough the flesh of those rock trolls had been. So, a compromise?

Conjuring matter in complex shapes was harder than simple ones, but a dual-purpose round wasn’t that difficult. I settled on a pretty big round, probably about a .50 caliber, with an outer shell of lead wrapped around a nickel-iron core. The recoil on it was pretty heavy, but not as bad as you’d expect from a round that size. Probably the lack of an explosion when the round was fired helped a lot with that, as did the more gradual acceleration and lower muzzle velocity.

I spent a few hours tinkering around with other small but important issues. Adding a safety to reduce the risk of accidental discharge, and basic iron sights to improve accuracy. Shaping the stock to fit comfortably against the shoulder, and adjusting the thickness of all the various parts of the weapon to make it strong but not unnecessarily heavy. I had just enough experience with firearms back on Earth to know that small details can make a big difference in the field.

Then I had to tackle the hard part. Equipping my men with guns wouldn’t make much sense if I had to personally make all the ammo one round at a time, so the next afternoon I sat down to build a factory enchantment. After my experiment with the heating stones I was expecting that to be a tough project. But it turned out that most of the problem there had been the massive energy output of the items I’d been trying to mass produce. Enchanting a gun to conjure a bullet whenever the trigger was pulled was almost trivial in comparison. Unlike my first factory enchantment this one seemed to be rock-solid, turning out dozens of rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger without any sign of wear and tear.

Encouraged, I decided to try something more ambitious. Why not an enchantment that builds magic guns? If I could mass produce complete weapons I could give them to everyone, and breathe a lot easier.

Sadly, that brought me right back into problem territory again. After struggling with it for a few hours I finally realized that it was the power enchantment on the guns that was the problem. That matter to energy conversion was an intricate piece of spellwork that channeled huge amounts of magic to do its work, and shaping such a high-performance spell rapidly created some serious wear and tear on the factory enchantment. I tried reinforcing it to compensate, but I couldn’t quite get the intensity high enough. The most concentrated enchantment I could make was still too soft, metaphorically speaking.

Well, fine. It was still stable enough to run off small batches, as long as I monitored it carefully and stopped to repair the damage periodically. Building five or six guns an hour wasn’t true mass production, but it was enough for my group’s needs.

So three days after the Conclave meeting I set up a firing range in one of the empty vehicle bays, and gathered the men for a demonstration. Cerise tagged along out of curiosity, wanting to see what I’d been up to.

I showed them the guns I’d brought down, explained the basic concept behind their operation, and then pointed one downrange and fired several shots at the clay dummies I’d set up there. I hadn’t been much of a marksman back home, but my force sorcery had given me an instinctive grasp of motion that made it easy to play sniper. Every shot I fired struck exactly where I wanted it to, punching big holes in the target’s chests one after another.

Gronir grinned. “That’ll slow down a troll, I wager. Kinda loud, but never running out of ammunition would be nice. How heavy is it?”

It was actually a lot quieter than a firearm. The bullets made a sharp, whip-like crack when they broke the sound barrier, but there was no bang of an explosive charge going off on top of that. So not  a stealth weapon, but at least it wasn’t as likely to damage your hearing if you used one a lot.

“About six pounds,” I answered. “I could have made it lighter, but I want them rugged enough to survive rough handling.”

“It seems effective enough at close quarters,” Captain Rain observed. “But what kind of range can we expect?”

“The bullets will probably travel a thousand yards or more,” I told him. “But no one could hit anything at that range. The bullet is smaller than a crossbow bolt, and moves a lot faster, so I expect it won’t be affected by wind or rain nearly as much. The speed should make them good at punching through armor, too. I’m guessing they’ll be reasonably effective out to a hundred yards or so, but we’ll have to verify that. Maybe get someone who’s handy with a crossbow to put in a few days getting a feel for it.”

He nodded. “That’s an impressive weapon, sir. We can make good use of them.”

“Will you have some for the militia, too?” Oskar asked. “That seems like just the thing for defending our walls.”

“Gentlemen, you can have as many guns as you want,” I told them. “I’ve built some special tools that will let me make them with no more effort than a warmth cloak. I have six more already made, and I can turn out another thirty or so in an afternoon.”

I think that impressed them more than the guns themselves.

They all took turns trying out the new weapons, while I explained about recoil and ricochets and other basic shooting lore. Gronir seemed to think the safety was a silly idea, but it earned a thoughtful look and nod of approval from Captain Rain.

As expected, Gronir was a decent shot even with minimal practice. Oskar was terrible, while Captain Rain and Sergeant Thomas were somewhere in between. Then Cerise stepped up and casually blew the heads off of all four dummies in as many shots, firing as fast as the weapon could operate.

“Awesome,” she pronounced. “I want one. It’s a little bulky to carry around all the time, but it’s worth it.”

“How did you do that?” Gronir demanded.

“Magic,” she grinned.

“Figures,” he grumbled. “Cheater.”

“Hey, I can’t help it if I’m awesome. I’ll be happy to conjure up a Son of Muspel for you if you want to try to steal his weapon sense.”

“No demon summoning in the house, young lady,” I said with mock sternness. “Take it outside.”

“Aww. You’re no fun, Daniel.”

“I’ll just pass on that bit of suicide,” Gronir interjected. “I‘m just glad you’re on our side, Cerise.”

That was a good start, but better weapons for our troops wouldn’t be worth much if we didn’t have room to train them. Marcus had already come up with fifty new recruits, but using the vehicle bays as a drill field was awkward at best. The rest of the keep was filling up quickly as well, so the next problem I needed to solve was space.

We really needed something a lot bigger than the keep if I was going to provide the kind of sanctuary I’d promised Hecate. But as usual I was pressed for time, and building the kind of place I really needed with the techniques I’d been using so far could take a couple of weeks. Fortunately I had some ideas on getting around those limitations.

The enchantment on the staff that I’d used as the seed of my keep had expanded to cover all the stone I grew from it, just like I’d wanted. Subsequent experiments showed that I could do the same thing with the actual stone conjuration, making an item that would grow into any shape I desired as long as I supplied it with power. In theory I could add a self-powering enchantment and make a rock that would grow into a fortress under its own power. But that would be dangerous, because damaging an enchanted object tends to degrade any enchantments attached to it. Sooner or later someone was going to attack my stronghold, and I didn’t want to be in the same county as a damaged matter-to-mana converter.

When a device that plays with nuclear forces malfunctions, the results tend to be spectacularly bad.

So instead I spent some time following up on an idea I’d had before, of making a central power source that could supply magic to other objects. As I’d expected, that was actually harder than just making each of the linked items self-powered. But it allowed me to keep the power source in a protected location, and incidentally guard it from casual observation.

Yes, I’d come to the conclusion that I was being a little too free with my secrets. Getting a close look at those rocks in the harbor would be pretty tricky, but if I kept putting that enchantment on every serious magic item I made it wouldn’t be long before some wizard got ahold of one and started experimenting. One way or another, that would end badly.

I also discovered that while mana transmission links were complex, they didn’t require the massive internal power levels of a matter conversion spell. I was fairly optimistic about my chances of building an enchantment factory that could reproduce the effect without damaging itself, which might open the door to true mass production. But working out all the details on that would take time, so I put it on the list for later and went back to my construction problem.

I hid my new power source in a small chamber at the back of one of the empty vehicle bays. Visually it was just a big block of solid nickel-iron, probably five or six tons of it, which turned out to be near the upper limit of how big a matter conversion enchantment I could make. There were six glyphs on the front face of the device, marking the links that I could connect to the devices it would power. The first of these was just a stone sphere, with the same protective enchantments as the keep plus a set of conjuration spells for earth, nickel-iron and several varieties of stone.

I walled off the power source once I’d connected my new castle seed, and opened the gates that looked out over the river. I needed to touch the castle seed to control it, but that wasn’t a big problem. I held it out over the open water, and told it to grow a thin shaft of nickel-iron reaching down to the river bottom.

It was a completely different sensation than conjuring the material myself. Like driving a bulldozer, instead of moving dirt with a shovel. It took a little concentration, but practically no effort at all.

Like the first time I’d done this, I had to use force magic to hold the growing mass in place until it was big enough to be stable. But it went much faster than when I’d built the keep. In a matter of minutes I had a stone platform twenty feet across, pushing aside the mud of the river bottom and the heating stones around the keep as it grew.

I wrapped it around half of the keep, and then made it grow a wedge-shaped extension into the ice that covered the river beyond the influence of my heating stone. The slow-moving battering ram forced its way through the ice with a series of loud crashes and grinding sounds, sucking down a fantastic amount of power in the process. But there was still no strain at all on me, and not much of one on my new power source. It was thousands of times more massive than anything I’d used before, and the amount of energy it could produce at full power was insane.

Over the course of a long morning I expanded the extension into an oval island covering a bit under the ten acres of river that Prince Caspar had deeded to me. Most of it was solid stone, with the shores rising vertically to the same level as the entrance hall of the keep. But there was also a large square patch of dirt in the center, and several large depressions that might be filled with soil or ponds depending on how things developed.

But exploring the possibilities of indoor agriculture would have to wait. For now, I just needed a defensible area we could expand our facilities into. So I raised a wall around the edge of the island next, putting the parapet at the same level as the enclosed walkway around the keep.

In keeping with my trend towards over-engineering I made the island’s wall thirty feet thick, enough that we could easily set up cannons or siege engines on top. I ran a wide enclosed walkway along the inner side of the wall, so troops could move around the perimeter of the island under cover, with doorways leading out onto the wall every hundred feet or so. I didn’t get too fancy with the battlements, but I did put in a series of enclosed sentry posts with quartz windows so we could keep men on watch even in the worst weather.

Given all that I didn’t see much need for towers, but I threw up the shell of another keep on the far side of the island. At some point I might want to build a bridge from there to the far shore of the river, and it would make a decent gatehouse.

I also put in a river gate facing the harbor, opening onto a little enclosed anchorage with a wide ramp leading up to the surface of the island. It wasn’t big enough for real ships, but it might be convenient to be able to send out boats or hover-vehicles of some sort. Mindful of the fact that this was a potential hole in our defenses I followed up by building a wall around the anchorage, with a drawbridge at the top of that ramp and a substantial gatehouse guarding the path onto the island proper.

As I’d hoped, dropping such a huge mass of self-heating stone into the river created a noticeable heat island effect. It was still a long way from being warm, but between that and the wall acting as a windbreak it gave us an area where the new troops could train outdoors without half of them dying of exposure.

I took the whole staff on a tour when I was done, and they immediately started suggesting more construction.

“We should block out a military district,” Marcus suggested. “Maybe that space between the keep and the anchorage? Put in some proper barracks buildings, a smithy and armory complex, maybe some warehouse space and a place to park those new vehicles you were talking about. An archery range would be good too, for practicing with the guns.”

Oskar nodded in agreement. “Put the smithy next to the gate to the anchorage, in case we start shipping goods somewhere. Maybe a warehouse, too. Are you thinking of building a town on the island, milord?”

“Yes, but not a normal one. It isn’t that big, and it’s not healthy for people to go outside too much in this kind of cold. I’m thinking lots of big stone buildings with thick walls, and covered streets between them. I’ve also got some ideas for trying to grow crops using magic, but the facilities for that will end up taking up a lot of ground in the middle of the island.”

“I’m starting to wonder if I was too quick to set up my kitchen,” Avilla commented. “You could build a palace out here if you wanted to.”

“Not really my style,” I replied. “I don’t need that much space, and when it comes to impressing visitors I think a giant fortress is more the kind of message I want to send. Besides, if I’m living in the keep it will be hard for outsiders to come up with excuses for why they’d need to visit the island. I figure people will tend to avoid the long walk across that pier into Kozalin if they can, so we should be able to keep the details of what we’re doing here from spreading too fast.”

“If you say so, Daniel. Well, we’ll certainly have room for as many refugees as you want to take in.”

“Maybe you could charge them rent?” Oskar joked.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” I mused. “Recruit craftsmen with useful skills, get them set up with workshops, and let them pay their rent with labor until they can get their businesses established and start making money. It certainly beats having Avilla try to juggle every detail of what needs doing. But for right now I’m just going to set up the military complex, and maybe an extra building for overflow in case the keep starts getting crowded.”

“So what are we going to be doing here that you don’t want people in town to know about?” Cerise asked.

I grinned. “Let’s just say that guns are only the beginning.”

Chapter 12

As a programmer I’d developed a habit of going head-down when I was working on a big project, shutting out everything else in favor of my work. It’s amazing how long you can function on fast food, lots of caffeine and five or six hours a night of sleep.

Amanda had always promised to be supportive when I had a crunch time coming up, but that never lasted more than a few days. Then she rapidly devolved into bitching and passive-aggressive digs at me, when she wasn’t taking advantage of my distraction to spend all our money on retail therapy. I can’t count the number of times I stumbled out of bed in the middle of an 80-hour work week to find that Amanda hadn’t bothered to do laundry or buy groceries - just because she didn’t work didn’t mean she was going to accept responsibility for anything else.

Yeah, in retrospect there were a lot of warning signs that our relationship hadn’t been going well.

Avilla’s response to my workaholic tendencies involved a lot more carrot than stick. In the mornings Tina or Cerise always woke me in time for breakfast, often with a bit of hanky-panky thrown in to start the day off right. If I was in danger of missing a meal she’d send one of her cute little maids to remind me, and it was a rare day that I’d miss out on her cooking on purpose. So there were almost always three meals a day worth of conversation to keep me connected to what was going on around me.

As for the late nights? Well, some nights Cerise and Avilla would show up at my workshop together wearing next to nothing, and drag me off to bed. When they were in the mood to be with each other they’d send Tina instead, and the busty redhead would quietly sit and watch me with eyes full of wonder as she waited for me to finish whatever I was doing. Either way, it would take a genuine emergency to make me reject that kind of invitation.

But at the same time, I somehow had far fewer interruptions than I would have expected. Avilla had taken over managing my appointment schedule so smoothly that I didn’t even notice until she’d been doing it for days, and she was good at it. I had meetings now and then, with Oskar or Marcus or various groups of refugees, but most of the minor crisis and organizational hand-holding got taken care of before it reached me.

She blushed prettily when I finally caught on, and thanked her.

“It’s nothing, Daniel,” she protested. “Just a little household magic, scaled up for the whole keep.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” I told her. “I was afraid I’d end up having to spend half my time just keeping things organized, but you’re doing an amazing job of that. I don’t know how you find the time to do all that and still cook.”

“Honeydew works hard,” Cerise put in, hugging her. “We should do something nice for her to thank her.”

“Have you seen my kitchen?” Avilla replied. “I think Daniel’s covered on thanks for the next twenty years. You, on the other hand…”

Not that Cerise was lazing around either. The dark witch was putting Beri through what sounded like a pretty brutal crash course in witchcraft, in addition to her own struggle to master the demonic power that had come so close to overwhelming her in Lanrest. She was often up late into the night working ritual magic in her little chapel, either alone or with Beri assisting. Then she’d rise early the next morning, throw on a long skirt to hide her tail, and head into town to spend half the day wheeling and dealing. She was the one who arranged most of our purchases, and without her charm and willingness to wheedle deals out of the local merchants I suspected we’d have a lot more trouble getting our people clothed and fed.

They were both working miracles, but there were still too many problems and not enough of us to go around. Oskar and Captain Rain were stepping up to handle our military affairs well enough, and old Hrodir was helping Oskar’s sons get some craftsmen set up on the island. But there were so many things that weren’t getting done, because no one had time to worry about them.

On the good side, I had hopes that Elin would be able to start making a contribution soon.

Her search for an alchemical solution to the disposal problem had been a bust, which didn’t really surprise me in retrospect. Mercury is pretty resistant to most chemical reactions, and the remaining enchantments would protect the fragments from whatever magical effects the local alchemists could create. I vaguely remembered something about mercury reacting with gold from my long-ago high school chemistry classes, but given the modest state of my treasury that didn’t sound like an especially promising avenue to explore.

But it was the magic that was the problem, and my meta-magic sorcery had eventually provided a solution to that. Elin was intrigued when I extracted a fresh sample from one of her hands, and carefully dropped it into an enchanted stone canister the size of a coffee urn.

“That’s a very odd-looking enchantment, sir. May I ask what its doing?”

One of these days I was going to convince her that she didn’t have to call me ‘sir’ all the time, but for now I was happy enough that she could bring herself to talk to me at all without cringing and stammering.

“What it’s supposed to do is gradually break down the enchantment on the mercury. It tries to drain all the magic out of anything that’s put inside, and there are wards on the stone to cut off access to any external source of power.”

She peered at the container in fascination. “Oh, how interesting. I see. An intact golem would probably just go into hibernation, but these fragments are so damaged it should be possible to draw out the magic through the breaks in the enchantment. You are a most formidable spellcrafter, sir.”

I chuckled. “Actually, I’m mostly cheating. I have mana sorcery.”

She turned to stare at me. “Sorcery… over the stuff of magic itself? Oh my, that’s… but then… oh. Oh!”

She flushed a little, and bit her lip. “That’s extraordinary, sir. No wonder your spells are so unconventional. I wish I could ask… but no, obviously that’s a secret.”

She might look like some kind of mutant hillbilly, but I was coming to realize there was an impressive mind hiding behind those deferential manners of hers.

“Yes, for now it needs to stay a secret,” I confirmed.

“Of course, sir. I do hope I get to hear the story someday, though. It must be amazing. I assume your, ah, ‘apprentices’ are part of it?”

“You don’t miss much, do you Elin?”

She ducked her head, hiding her face behind a curtain of limp hair. “Sorry, sir.”

“It’s fine, Elin. I actually like the fact that you’re so perceptive. Just don’t go around repeating the things you’ve noticed, alright? I don’t need that kind of trouble right now.”

“Of course, sir. My fate is in your hands now. I’d be a fool to do anything that might cause you trouble. Only… you are here to help the city, right? Not to destroy it?”

I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m not here to destroy the city, Elin. I do have a patron, but it isn’t anyone in Loki’s faction. My main goal has to be protecting my own people, but I’ll do what I can for Kozalin.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank you, sir. I thought so, but I had to be sure. I… um… I’m sorry for doubting you.”

She shrunk in on herself a little at that. I frowned. The signs were getting hard to ignore.

“Elin, did they beat you?”

She flinched.

“A master is responsible for the discipline of his apprentices,” she said tonelessly.

Damn.

“So I’ve been told. Who exactly was your master?”

Her gaze fell to the floor. “The Conclave as a whole, sir. I… I’m not complaining, sir. They were kind to take me in, before it was even known if I could control myself. I might have transformed and started eating the servants at any moment, for all they knew.”

“I see. Elin, how old are you?” Her appearance was strange enough that it was actually hard to tell.

“Twenty, probably. Father… didn’t keep track.”

So she’d been six when the faerie handed her over to the Conclave? Then she probably had memories of living with her rapist cannibal father before her mother was rescued, and I could barely imagine what that must have been like.

“Well, you’ve probably noticed that I’m not from around here, and in my own keep I mostly hold to my own customs instead of imitating the Varmlanders. So you may be interested to know that among my people being capricious about matters of discipline is considered evil.”

She folded her hands in her lap, and licked her lips nervously. “Sir? I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.”

I sighed, and suppressed the urge to give the girl a hug. At this point she’d probably take that as a prelude to rape, and the last thing I wanted to do was give her more things to worry about.

“Elin, you’re a grown woman. You’ve promised to be helpful, and even if you hadn’t you’re old enough to understand that we all need to work together to survive right now. So if I want you to do something I’ll tell you. If I don’t want you to do something I’ll tell you that. If you screw up I’ll explain what you did wrong, and tell you not to do it again. If you make too many mistakes I’ll warn you that you’re trying my patience, and make sure you understand what’s expected of you and what will happen if you don’t do it.”

“What I won’t do, ever, is punish you out of the blue with no warning. In particular, I’m not going to strike you for saying something I don’t like. In my land men who behave like that are considered pathetic weaklings, and we do nasty things to them when they’re caught.”

She cautiously peered up at me through the curtain of hair that hid her face. “Really?”

“Really. You can relax, Elin. I’m not going to hurt you, and I won’t let anyone else do it either. If you ever have trouble with one of the men come tell me, and I’ll deal with it.”

“Even though I’m a monster?” She asked plaintively.

“I don’t care who or what your parents were, Elin. Your own actions are the only thing that matters to me.”

“I...” She paused, and wiped her eyes. “T-thank you, sir. I… I can hardly make myself believe it, but… you won’t regret this. You’ll see. I’ll do everything right, just like I’m supposed to, and you’ll never need to… to… discipline me.”

The last part came out in a whisper. I suppressed a sudden urge to go back to the lab and invent some way to reduce the Iron Citadel to a smoking hole in the ground.

“I’m sure you will, Elin,” I said gently.

She sniffed. “Sir? I… I’m starting to get a little magic back. Is there… what should I be doing? To earn my keep?”

“You’re still an invalid, Elin. Mostly I just want you to keep resting until we finish getting you healed. But it’s going to take a few hours to find out if my idea here is going to work. If you’re feeling up to it, maybe you can help me figure out a way to make that cistern on the roof fill itself?”

She smiled shyly. “I can do that.”

She did, too. She could conjure water as easily as I did earth, although her mana reserves were more limited. Filling the cistern with crystal-clear water only took her a minute, which was a hell of an improvement on my own approach of hauling up chunks of ice from the river. Probably a lot cleaner, too.

Elin smiled at the full cistern, and offered to make that a daily chore. But I had other ideas. She was trained in the basics of wizardry, and while she didn’t have any great skill at enchantment her ability to sense magic seemed unusually precise. With her input it wasn’t hard to rough out a design for an enchantment that would trigger when the water level inside the cistern dropped, and conjure more.

But actually casting it would be tricky. I didn’t have water sorcery, and learning to do the conjuration without that crutch would take more time than I could spare. Elin could create the conjuration enchantment, but she didn’t have the skill to build conditional triggers. Not to mention that it would need a power source, and I wasn’t about to tell her anything about how my matter to mana enchantment worked.

I was trying to figure out a way to enchant the different functions separately and then link them together when Elin diffidently suggested a more direct solution.

“Just lead me through it, sir,” she offered. “I’ve assisted with rituals a few times, and my part in this is simple. I know we don’t have a proper ritual chamber, but our magic is compatible enough. Your power is like steel, and I can easily flow around it and follow along without being hurt.”

“Hmm. Sounds worth a try.”

My only experience with group magic to date had been helping Avilla claim her kitchen as a sanctum, which was an entirely different sort of thing. But it was something I’d just as soon get some practice with anyway. So I had Elin wait while I built the self-powering part of the enchantment, and then invited her in for the rest.

Her magic was a warm presence that flowed through the rigid precision of my enchantment, seeking the proper place to do its work. I assembled the water level sensor and it swirled curiously through my awareness, before delicately applying a tiny thread of power to assist me.

It was almost like dancing. She followed my lead, weaving a trace of herself into my enchantment, following along with me as I worked. I’d expected joint casting to be a tricky bit of coordination, but she was remarkably good at compensating for my relative clumsiness.

Then we came to the actual conjuration, and I stumbled as I reached the edge of my sorcery. Our powers mingled, and for a moment I was intensely aware of the soft femininity of her magic.

Wow. Was that what coven rituals felt like?

I pulled away, and tried to signal Elin to take the lead. Her magic sort of fluttered uncertainly for a moment, before she delicately wove a bridge from the trigger point of the sensor spell. I lent a fraction of power to her efforts, helping to bind it to the structure we’d built together. Then she was off, racing through an elegant little vortex of magic while I did my best to keep up.

She finished quickly, and I opened my eyes to find her looking up at me with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. Well, apparently she wasn’t mad at me for the magical equivalent of accidentally copping a feel.

“I think it worked,” she said excitedly. She gestured, and a stream of water rose from the cistern to form a large blob floating in the air. Sure enough, the cistern immediately began to refill.

“Good job. Now I just need to put a lid on this thing to keep debris out and we’ll be all set.”

It was just in time, too. The population of my stronghold was rising quickly with all the recruiting we were doing, and with most of the harbor waters melted it was getting harder for the men to collect ice and snow. I wasn’t about to let anyone drink water from a medieval harbor - god only knows what all was draining into it from the city.

My work was also attracting attention, as Mara noted on her next visit.

“I swear, Adept Tova is going to sneak into your bed any day now and try to seduce your secrets out of you,” she told me.

I laughed. “She’s not bad, but Cerise has her beat.”

“Yeah, well, Cerise isn’t an enchantress with forty years of experience and twin daughters that are half succubus. Seriously, Daniel, that woman would be a High Adept if her magic could handle golems or crowds. Watch out for her.”

“I bet I’ve got more succubus in me than her girls do,” Cerise purred. I looked up to find her posing in the doorway of the little sitting room, with a bit of her aura leaking out.

Mara licked her lips. “Seriously?”

“Mmm hmmm. If she tries it I’ll tame these little girls of hers, and Daniel will make her beg for mercy. You wouldn’t believe the things he can do to a woman.”

“Yes, well, I also try not to be overconfident,” I interrupted. “Thanks for the warning, Mara. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Cerise, how about dialing it back a bit?”

“Okaaay,” Cerise said theatrically. “Sorry, Mara. My aura can get away from me when I get worked up. But you’re not going to freak out on me if I relax my disguise a little, are you?”

“Hardly. So that isn’t really what you look like?”

Cerise let her disguise spell unravel, and strutted across the room to drape herself across my lap. I wasn’t quite sure why she was putting on the show, but after a moment of hesitation I decided to roll with it. She was actually a pretty good judge of people, so she was bound to have a reason.

Mara studied her horns with surprised interest. “You didn’t get those by playing with some little succubus, Cerise. What are you?”

She grinned. “Promise not to tell? I’m a death witch.”

Mara’s eyebrows shot up. “I see. I guess Daniel bound you, then?”

“Not exactly,” I temporized.

“I got into a tight spot where I had to absorb way more demonic power than I could handle,” Cerise admitted. “Damned priests wanted to use me as a giant-killing weapon. Daniel here figured out how to bind me to be myself. That’s how I know I can trust him, no matter what. I was so far gone he could have done anything to me, but he didn’t.”

Mara frowned in confusion. “Why? That seems like a hell of a risk to take, Daniel. The Church would come down on you hard if they knew.”

I shrugged. “The church can blow me. Cerise and I have been through a lot together, and I’m not going to screw her over. Besides, real loyalty is stronger than any magic.”

“True,” she agreed. “Bindings can be broken. I’m not sure why you’re trusting me with this, though. I mean, I’m not going to turn you in, but how could you know that?”

Cerise shrugged. “I don’t like hiding what I am from my friends. Besides, I can tell you’re not exactly normal either. I don’t expect you to tell me your secrets, but I want you to know you don’t have to worry that we’ll go running to the Church if you let something slip.”

“Not normal?” Mara said carefully.

“You didn’t get that giant well of magic from a human parent,” Cerise pointed out. “I’m betting there’s an efreet or dragon or something pretty close to you in the family tree.”

Mara hesitated.

“Something like that,” she finally admitted. “I guess you figured Carl and I aren’t full siblings? Mom was the one who raised me, and she’s… well, I didn’t exactly have a normal human childhood. But I really don’t want to talk about that. I’m trying to put it behind me.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So what do you want to talk about?”

“You. No one has ever heard of you before, and they’re going crazy trying to figure out why. A wizard as strong as you should have been famous.”

“I’m not actually from Europe,” I told her.

“You don’t look like someone from the East, either,” she said skeptically.

Cerise stretched out across my lap, and chuckled. “He can look like whatever he wants to look like.”

“Pretty much,” I agreed.

“Ah, you’re a shapeshifter,” Mara mused. “That would explain it. I guess you’re using some foreign style of magic, too. So that’s why everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure you out.”

Not really, but it was as close to the truth as I was going to get at this point.

We chatted for a bit longer, about the state of the city and the Conclave’s plans. Mara seemed pretty knowledgeable about what was happening in Kozalin, even though I gathered that she’d only been living here for a few weeks. She was also dying of curiosity about how I’d managed some of my recent feats, but she was polite enough not to badger me about it.

Then Cerise took her down to the firing range to show off her gun, and I went back to work. I had a meeting with Oskar about some improvements to the battlements that he wanted, and another weapon project to start on, and a million other things to do. Mara joined us for lunch, and I was vaguely aware that she’d hung around afterward. But I was busy, so I didn’t realize where that had led until I came back for dinner.

I found Avilla peeking into the sitting room with a huge smile on her face. She glanced up as I passed by, put a finger to her lips and then beckoned me over.

Mystified, I crept quietly up behind her and looked through the crack.

To my shock, Mara and Cerise were entwined on the couch. Cerise was bare from the waist up, and Mara had her trapped against the back of the couch with her arms pinned above her head. But my demon girl was hardly objecting. Mara was kissing her fiercely, while Cerise squirmed in her embrace and whimpered. As I watched Mara came up for air, panting.

“How do you feel so good?” She demanded.

“Succubus aura,” Cerise gasped. “Told you… you’d enjoy being on top.”

Golden sparks gathered in Mara’s free hand, and she ran it lightly up Cerise’s side. The demon girl gasped, and jerked like she’d been electrocuted. But there was nothing but heat in her eyes.

“Ooh fuck. Mara! What are you d-doing?”

Mara grinned triumphantly. “Passion flame.”

Cerise moaned loudly, completely overcome by sensation. Her tail curled around Mara’s thigh, and crept up under her dress. Knowing the effect that appendage had on Avilla, I expected Mara to moan and collapse any second. But instead she gasped, and jerked away.

“No!”

She released Cerise so she could cover herself, and smacked the tail away.

“Ow!” Cerise complained. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Mara. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I… no… I’m not mad,” Mara said uncertainly. “I just… I don’t know. This was a bad idea.”

“I’m sorry, Mara. I just wanted you to feel good too,” Cerise said contritely. Then she looked over Mara’s shoulder at us, and blinked twice.

Avilla looked up at me, and made a shooing motion.

I carefully took a step back, and then tiptoed away. Just as well. I wasn’t comfortable spying on something like that, especially when getting caught could have all sorts of nasty fallout.

When we were back in the kitchen Avilla sighed. “That’s too bad. I was hoping Mara would go for it.”

“What happened to taking it slow?” I asked.

Avilla smiled ruefully. “Cerise isn’t good at restraint.”

Cerise admitted as much after Mara left, which didn’t take long.

“Hey, she was asking curious questions about what I do with Avilla!” She protested. “I could tell she was interested, so I offered to show her a few things. It totally could have worked. I just wasn’t expecting that passion flame thing. You know my tail gets grabby when I’m really worked up.”

“I know, kitten,” Avilla said indulgently. “I just hope you haven’t scared her off.”

Cerise shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think she just broke out of the moment, and got really confused about why she was getting so worked up over a girl. Give her a few days to get used to the idea, and she’ll come back to give me another shot. I’m just going to have to be careful to be a total sub for her at first, until she feels like she can trust me. But that’s alright, it can be fun to play that way sometimes.”

I sighed. “What if she doesn’t? You told her some dangerous secrets today.”

“She’s not human, Daniel. I can smell it, and you can bet the Conclave doesn’t know or they’d be treating her like they did Elin. Trust me, she’s not going to turn down the chance to have a place where she can be accepted.”

“Mara doesn’t want a safe refuge, Miss Cerise,” Elin said from the doorway.

“What? What do you mean?” Cerise asked.

“You want a place where you can be accepted for what you are,” Elin explained. “But not everyone is the same. Mara is busy looking for revenge.”

“Against who?” I asked.

“I don’t know, sir. I’m not sure she knows. But whoever it is, they’re going to burn. The rage in her heart terrifies me, and I’m a monster.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Aren’t you a water faerie?” Cerise asked. “Are you sure it’s not just the opposing elements thing talking?”

Elin hung her head. “Maybe. I hope so.”

Chapter 13

My plans to spend the next day working up something that could serve as artillery were interrupted by an early visit from Prince Caspar.

Fortunately I was getting used to waking up not long after sunrise, and for once none of the girls had decided to ambush me in bed that morning. So I was actually having breakfast with Avilla and Cerise when Gudrin dashed into the room.

“Boss! The prince is on his way here!”

“What?” Cerise grumbled, only half awake.

“I was up on the roof, and I saw his party starting down the dock. They’ll be here in a few minutes!”

“Oh dear,” Avilla fretted. “I’m not ready to have royal visitors. The receiving room doesn’t even have furniture yet, let alone proper decorations. He’ll think we’re a bunch of backwoods barbarians.”

I shook my head. “No, the Conclave wasn’t doing any fancy ceremonies for him. We’ll follow their lead. Gudrin, run downstairs and tell the gate guards to be a little ceremonial about things. Ask who goes there, then open the main gates for the prince and welcome him to the keep. Try to get Captain Rain down there in time to greet them, he’ll know how to handle that kind of thing. Hurry.”

“Got it,” she chirped, and sprinted away.

“Cerise, I need you to play elevator operator. Offer to give the prince a lift up to the ‘wizard’s sanctum’, and bring him here.”

“Here?!” Avilla squeaked.

I nodded. “If I meet him in the atrium it makes it look like I’m either an overeager brown-noser, or I’ve got something to hide. At the Conclave he just walked into the meeting room where High Adept Steelbinder was working and started talking to him, so that’s what we’ll do here. This isn’t a high society event, so just be polite and let me handle him.”

“Alright, Daniel. But I have to have something ready to offer him.”

She scurried off to the kitchen, and Cerise gulped down the last of her porridge and rushed to the elevator. By the time she was out the door a gaggle of maids had descended on the room to tidy up.

Gronir and Daria showed up moments later, wondering what was up. By the time I’d brought them up to speed Oskar wandered in, and I had to tell the story again. Avilla was just bringing out a fresh round of fruit, flatbread and morning wine when the prince arrived.

I’d wondered if the elevator ride would shake him up, but he seemed undisturbed as he strode boldly through the door behind Cerise. Captain Rain had followed him up, as had several of his retainers.

“Good morning, Adept Black!” He boomed. “This is a hell of a keep you’ve thrown up here. Magical heating, and succubus attendants?”

Cerise laughed, and I noticed that her horns were wavering in and out of visibility. The prince was wearing a whole assortment of enchanted objects, and one of them was apparently designed to reveal illusions.

“I told him I’m you’re apprentice, Master Black, but I don’t think he believed me,” she explained.

“Yes, well, the only thing you’re missing is the wings,” I pointed out. “Good morning, Your Highness. I wasn’t expecting to see you all the way out here.”

“Can I get you anything, Your Highness?” Avilla asked breathlessly.

Prince Caspar glanced at her, did a double take, and then devoted his full attention to a leisurely inspection of her figure. Avilla’s cheeks pinked, and she looked rather pleased at the attention.

“Ahem. This is my other apprentice, Avilla.”

She curtsied prettily, incidentally giving the prince a good look down her cleavage. Wait, had she unbuttoned a couple of buttons? Yeah, she had.

After a moment he managed to tear his gaze away. “A succubus and a nymph? You keep dangerous company, Adept Black. This reminds me of those stories where travelers who partake of the faerie’s feast are trapped in their realm forever. Is it safe for a mortal man to partake of your bounty, fair lady?”

She bit her lip the way she always did when she was thinking of something naughty, and gave him a sultry look. “Should a woman’s bounty be safe, Your Highness?”

He laughed. “I’ve dined already, lady nymph, though a cup of wine wouldn’t be amiss.”              He turned back to me, and went on. “You must have your hands full with these two.”

“Indeed I do,” I agreed.

Behind his back Cerise frowned balefully at Avilla, and dragged her off into the kitchen. Good. It would cause all kinds of trouble if I threw this smooth-talking bastard off my tower. What the hell was she playing at, anyway?

Well, one thing at a time. “So what brings you to my not-so-humble abode?”

“Straight to business, then? Fair enough. I need to know what you can do about housing these refugees. My men have done all they can to pack them into houses and keep fires burning, but we’re running low on fuel and every night we have more deaths from exposure. I didn’t lose good men rescuing all these people from the monsters just so they could freeze to death a week later. Do all your buildings heat themselves like this one?”

“They can,” I answered. “It doesn’t happen automatically, but it’s a relatively simple enchantment to add to a building. You’re thinking of shelters?”

“Exactly. Can you do it?”

“One building, yes. Enough for thousands of refugees? Maybe. Is there any open land inside the walls for me to build on?”

He nodded. “Yes, but it’s going to take a lot of shuffling people around. We’ve cleared a plaza where you can put the first building. Once that’s up we’ll move the refugees that are camped in the eastern drill field, and you can build on that. Fill it with barracks and we can move the troops that are quartered in another assembly area, and so on. We may have to resort to knocking down buildings before we’re done, but if you build tall I think it will work.”

“Sounds like it’s going to be a pain in the ass,” I commented. “But I can do it. Probably a couple of hours for each building, assuming I just make a bunch of big empty rooms with warmth enchantments. Once we’ve got everyone out of the weather there will be time to worry about other details. Although I should probably connect them to the city sewer system if that’s feasible, just to keep our risk of disease under control.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good man. I thought you’d see the importance of it. What do you want for the work? I hear you’re already supplying the city with iron, so I expect you’ve little need of gold.”

“It never hurts,” I pointed out. “But you’re right, the important things often can’t be bought. I notice the Griffon Knights are out scouting a lot, and I’m sure the Conclave does regular divinations. Is there someone in charge of collecting all their reports and keeping up with what’s going on outside the walls?”

“Yes, there’s a map in the war room that my staff keeps up to date. You want updates?”

“Yes,” I said. “If I know what threats are approaching I’ll be able to prepare for them better. There’s no sense in spending my time making something to kill giants if it’s dragons we have to worry about.”

“I think the Conclave has the dragon angle covered. That’s fine, though. I’ll arrange to have one of your people cleared to visit the war room and take notes. Mind you pick a fighting man for that duty, and not one of your uncanny wenches. There’s always some tension between the Conclave and the nobility, and to most men a wizard is a wizard. What else?”

“My next problem is going to be food,” I mused.

“You and everyone else. But since you’ve been so accommodating, I can set you up with a military buyer’s medallion. That will let you buy from the grain factors at the military rate, which is only about double the normal prices right now. I expect that will hold up for four months or so, until things get really desperate.”

“By then it may be a moot point,” I commented. I decided not to mention my own plans for growing food. There was no way I’d be able to supply the whole city, so it would be best to keep it quiet for now. “Alright, then. I can start this morning, if your men have that plaza ready?”

They did, so half an hour later I found myself down in the Trade Quarter preparing for another construction project. There was a platoon or so of town guards diverting traffic around the plaza, and a nervous delegation from the city council on hand to supervise the project.

“Try not to block traffic too badly,” one of them instructed. “Or the well, that’s the main water supply for a two-block radius.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied mildly. “Are there any sewer lines running under this place? The refugees are going to need a place to dump waste, and if the pipes are shallow I also need to be careful not to put too much weight on them.”

Fortunately someone had been smart enough to call in one of the city engineers, and we were able to put our heads together and work out the details. It helped that I could use earth magic to locate underground voids, once I had a general idea of where to look.

This was a bit different from the fortifications I’d been building. The sides of the plaza were lined with businesses, the owners of which were obviously worried that they were about to get blocked off. Between that, the well and five different streets there was surprisingly little space to work with. I was tempted to just blow off the concerns of the locals, and fill the square with a big box of stone. I was pretty sure that’s what the prince expected, and it would certainly get the job done.

But I could do better than that.

I started by digging up the cobblestones covering the square and replacing them with a single mass of solid rock four feet thick, to serve as a foundation for the shelter.  Given the need to maximize available space I used a metal skeleton for this building. A simple square framework of heavy nickel-iron pillars, and horizontal I-beams connecting them. Knowing I didn’t have a reliable way to calculate their strength I compensated by making them several times bigger than was probably needed, on top of the structural reinforcement enchantment. Floors were formed by laying a sheet of nickel-iron on top of the beams, although I stuck with stone for the exterior wall.

I figured the warmth spell would keep thermal expansion from being a problem, since it regulated the temperature of the building to remain stable within a few degrees. But I did add a rustproofing effect provided by my earth sorcery, since otherwise I wasn’t sure how fast corrosion would become a problem.

I left a decent-size street around the edge of the plaza, giving access to the shops and allowing travel between the various streets that opened onto it. The shelter occupied the rest of the space, although I ran a wide covered walkway all the way through it to give access to the well. Sanitary facilities, entrance halls with two pairs of doors each, kitchen space and wide stairways going up took up a good bit of the ground floor.

But I built six more stories above that, each of them just a big empty space with windows around the outside. Mindful of ventilation problems I mounted sliding panes of thick quartz in the windows, and didn’t bother trying to make them especially weatherproof. I also built two stairways leading from the ground floor all the way up to the roof, where I set up a cistern system to collect melted snow as a secondary water supply.

Finally, I gave the place a minimal degree of defensibility by putting heavy iron doors on the entrances and at the top of each stairway. If enemies got into the city at some point the inhabitants could just bar the doors and wait for the fighting to be over.

By the time I was done with all that more troops had shown up with a huddled mass of shivering refugees in tow, and the moment I gave the all clear they started herding them into the building. I was just getting directions to the next site when I spotted a column of smoke rising from the east end of town.

I stopped, and looked at it for a moment. Some of the soldiers followed my gaze, and a sergeant cursed.

“That’s coming from the Military District,” he growled.

I frowned. “I’m going to go take a look.”

I bounced up three stories on a burst of force magic, touched down momentarily on a roof and pushed up again. As I sailed high into the air I caught sight of the source of the fire. A complex of large, barn-like buildings were on fire. But there were men in armor running around, and… were those griffons on the ground?

I still hadn’t figured out stable flight, but I was getting decent at pushing myself around with force magic. I threw myself across the sky, lurching and bouncing as I went and counting on my healing amulet to keep me from getting nauseous. I could easily travel as fast as a car this way, and the city wasn’t that big.

As I approached it became apparent that this was indeed the griffon stable, and something was seriously wrong. One stable was an inferno, ablaze from floor to rafters, and a whole row of buildings next to it had all caught fire. The high-pitched shrieks of panicked griffons filled the air as their handlers fought to get them to safety. A group of knights and men-at-arms were forming a bucket brigade, but it obviously wasn’t going to be enough.

I dropped out of the sky next to a guy in fancy armor who seemed to be giving orders.

“Is there anyone alive in there?” I asked, pointing at the blazing building.

He looked at me like I was nuts. “No!”

I nodded. “I’ll put it out, so it doesn’t spread.”

I jumped again, getting above the crowd so I could get a good view, and threw an airtight dome of force over the stable. The flames burned on for a few moments, and then guttered out. But the wood was still hot enough that it would just re-ignite if I exposed it to oxygen. I needed to keep it out, and I couldn’t conjure water… sand!

I landed on top of the force dome, and started conjuring sand inside the barrier. Loose material was even easier than stone, and the remains of the building quickly collapsed as tons of the stuff rained down on it. But I spent another minute making sure it was thoroughly buried before I let the dome drop, and bounced back towards the bucket brigade.

By then I wasn’t the only effective firefighter. There was a guy with an enchanted jug that sprayed water like a fire hose, and a knight with a sword that could quench small flames with a gesture. But half the complex was still on fire, and they were struggling to keep the flames from spreading.

“Can you make more of those things?” Fancy armor guy shouted.

“Yes. But anything inside one of these domes will suffocate,” I warned.

He shook his head, and pointed. “Can you put a wall up over there, to keep it from spreading?”

Using force walls to contain the blaze helped. Using domes and conjured sand to put out burning buildings helped more, freeing up others to work on saving the stables that weren’t too far gone. But most of the buildings were only partly on fire, and still had live griffins inside. There was nothing to do for those but douse the flames one patch at a time, struggling to beat the fire back faster than it could spread. As we worked a steady stream of soldiers and laborers poured in to help fight the blaze, and at some point a couple of younger wizards with water magic added their efforts to mine. But even so it was more than an hour before the fires were out.

By then Prince Caspar had arrived, and was stalking through the ruins fuming with fancy armor guy at his heels. He spotted me, and frowned.

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw the smoke,” I said reasonably.

“I’m glad you did,” fancy armor guy said. “We’d have lost half the griffons without your help.”

“Instead we lost a quarter, and how many more will die of exposure?” Prince Caspar grumbled. “These buildings are supposed to be warded against fire, Sir Jon. How could this happen?”

“It was an attack, Your Highness,” a liveried servant I guessed was some kind of high-class stable hand diffidently put in. “A fire-breathing monster, like a giant fox with two heads. The first anyone saw of it the beast was running along the row breathing fire on the buildings. It killed half a dozen men along the way, either burned them or just trampled and bit them, then turned around when it hit the end of the row and went into the royal stable.”

“Where did it come from?” The prince asked. “Or failing that, where did it go?”

The man shrugged helplessly. The prince turned red, and I wondered if he was about to order the man killed.

“It sounds like the same beast that attacked the Conclave,” I suggested.

He turned on me. “What? What beast? Why haven’t I heard anything about this?”

Oops. Oh well, too late now.

So I told him about the Unraveler, and the fact that apparently some wizard the Conclave had trusted was walking around town with a high-level monster that was disguised as something innocuous. The tale didn’t do much for his temper, but at least it meant that his ire wasn’t directed at me.

“Oden-damned wizards and their secrets,” he fumed. “If they’d informed me we could have taken steps to protect ourselves. Damn it all. Look, can you whip up something to keep the griffons we managed to save from freezing when that storm hits?”

I looked up, and realized that sure enough there was another blizzard on the way. We had maybe an hour or two before it hit, but that ought to be enough.

“Sure. What about healing?”

He shook his head wearily. “It’s dangerous enough for their handlers to be near an injured griffon, let alone anyone else. We’ll dump healing draughts in the water troughs, and they’ll be fine in a few hours. But that doesn’t work against the cold.”

“Right. I’ve never built a griffon stable before, so I’ll need one of the men to show me what they need.”

Sure enough, it was a quick job. A big box of self-warming iron where each stable had been, with dividers inside to form crude stalls. The men carted in fresh hay to serve as bedding for their charges, who watched the proceedings with an interest that was a bit eerie coming from animals. When the first building was ready the handlers just opened the doors and made a few clucking sounds, and most of the less injured griffons got up and made their own way indoors.

One of the grooms noticed my gaze, and chuckled. “Uncanny, ain’t it milord? But it ain’t like we could keep them if they didn’t want to stay. They’re smart, and they don’t much like the cold.”

Snow started to fall a few minutes before I was finished, and the wind was picking up, so I decided I’d have to call it a day as far as outdoor projects were concerned. Although it occurred to me that the timing there was a little convenient. A storm arrives just a couple of hours after the griffon stables burn down? Just in time to finish off any injured animals that got out of the buildings?

But no, this was obviously a well-planned attack. No one even got a good look at the wizard responsible, and it happened at a time when there was no one present who was capable of stopping it. Coordinating that with something as random as weather was impossible.

Unless they were controlling the weather, too.

I made my way home with that disquieting thought on my mind. The attack on the weather circle, the sea serpent, and now this. It was all part of a coordinated campaign to prepare the way for whatever was coming. Some attack that the enemy thought could actually take this city, if they could open a few key chinks in the defenses.

There weren’t enough clues to say what their plan was yet, but my gut said we didn’t have much longer. A week, maybe two. Time for a few more bits of sabotage before the final blow. I’d enjoyed spending a few days making some magic luxuries for myself and my people, but I couldn’t afford to keep spending time on that. Not until this threat was dealt with.

“One more night,” I told myself. “Tomorrow it’s back to military research. But I still have a few promises to keep.”

Cerise met me at the gate, her face tight and her manner more subdued than usual. She nodded to me, and followed me silently to the elevator.

“Are you still pissed?” She asked quietly when it started moving.

“A bit,” I admitted. “I wasn’t expecting Avilla of all people to play games like that. Not to mention that the prince is the worst possible person for her to be causing complications with, politically speaking.”

“It’s not like that,” she protested. “Seriously. I talked to her about it, and she didn’t even realize what she was doing until after it was all over. I think he had a charisma talisman.”

I frowned. “A what?”

“A lot of rich guys use them. There’s more than one kind, but all of them basically just make you seem more charming and impressive than normal. The thing is, Avilla was so sheltered growing up you were practically the first man she even talked to. I think she just doesn’t have any resistance to that kind of thing, because she’s never had the chance to build up any immunity.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” I conceded, although privately I noted that it was also a suspiciously convenient excuse. “For that matter, her granny might have made her that way on purpose. She certainly doesn’t seem to be able to say no to you.”

“Or you,” Cerise pointed out. “You know how she is. Just walk up and kiss her, and she’ll do anything you want. Look, it wasn’t intentional. She’s really embarrassed about making a scene, and we’re working on a new ward to protect her from that kind of thing. Just give us a chance to make this right, okay?”

I sighed. “It’s not like I’m going to kick her out or something. Look, you said yourself that she’s inexperienced. If she decides she wants to keep her options open and sow some wild oats instead of committing to this coven bond you’ve been pushing that’s her prerogative. But if she’s having second thoughts I expect her to say so. I don’t like surprises in my relationships, and I really can’t stand dishonesty.”

She frowned, studying me carefully. “You don’t care if she’s a slut?”

“Of course I care. I just think people have a right to make their own mistakes.”

She nodded slowly. “I get it. Are you going to talk to her?”

“Tomorrow,” I decided. “There was another attack today, on the griffon stables this time. I think things are going to get bad again soon, and I’ve got some promises to keep before that happens. You and Avilla have your rooms set up now, right?”

The way Avilla had laid out our personal quarters was as unconventional as everything else about this relationship. There was a whole area that could only be accessed by going past her kitchen and the private dining room. It held a private living room, a bathing area I’d built for us to have to ourselves, a couple of other rooms that currently had no use, and a hallway connecting five bedrooms. A spacious master bedroom at the end, and a pair of slightly smaller bedrooms on each side of the hall.

The three of us had been sharing the master bedroom, but I knew Avilla and Cerise had claimed the two rooms closest to it for their personal use. I’d seen furniture being moved in over the last couple of days, and I could see the sense in the arrangement now. Although I wasn’t entirely sure why they had two rooms instead of sharing one.

Cerise didn’t especially happy about my question, but she nodded. “Yes. Promises, huh? I guess this is Tina’s lucky night? ”

“She’s waited long enough.”

I sighed, and uncertainly moved to hug Cerise. She let me, to my considerably relief. After a moment of stiffness she relaxed, and hugged me back.

“Thanks for playing peacemaker, Cerise. Whatever else may or may not happen, you’re a good friend. Avilla is lucky to have you.”

“Same goes for you, big guy. Thanks for being patient. We’ll work this thing out, you’ll see.”

Then she grinned impishly. “Now don’t forget, Tina’s totally juicing over the idea of being turned into your personal sex toy with all kinds of dark magic bindings and shit. So put on a good show, and make her pass out at least once. Have you figured out a way to mark her like she wants? If not, I found this ritual that turns her shadow into a set of chains that’ll fondle her all the time to keep her hot, and tie her up whenever you want some action.”

I chuckled. “Never change, Cerise. But no, that sounds more like something you’d get off on. I think I’ve come up with something that suits her, and actually has useful fringe benefits too.”

“You’re just too much of a softie to actually do something like that,” she said. “That’s fine, I know how much you like Tina. I do too, really. Once you admit she’s not just a maid and make her your personal harem girl I’m totally going to seduce her.”

“I suspect she’s curious enough to let you. But that’s for later. Right now I need to see if I can make some real progress with Elin.”

The experiment with the disenchantment vessel had succeeded, eventually leaving me with a sample of ordinary non-magical mercury. The device took several hours to work, and I expected that the more material was loaded into it the longer it would take. But I was confident that I could keep the golem fragments contained long enough for the vessel to render them harmless, and it was only early afternoon. So I stopped by Elin’s room, one of the unfinished chambers on the floor below mine, and let her know I was ready to try for some real progress.

To her credit, Elin was considerably less perturbed by having to sit and watch me carve golem fragments out of her scarred body than I was by doing the cutting. She just put up a pain block and watched, fascinated, as I carefully made one incision after another.

“This is actually quite an ingenious technique, sir,” she told me. “Healers are usually so focused on not doing harm that it would never occur to us to simply cut out a problem area and replace it. I can see numerous other applications. Removing cursed wounds, for example, or extracting buried bone fragments.”

“Well, I can’t really claim credit for thinking of the idea,” I told her. “Back home this is fairly common. We don’t have much in the way of direct magical healing, but there are a lot of problems that the body can handle with a little bit of mechanical help. Skin can be sewn back together like torn cloth, and I know there are techniques for doing the same thing with a lot of other tissues. Blood vessels, tendons and even bones.”

Elin looked intrigued. “That’s fascinating, sir. I wonder if I could do the same? It’s so easy to exhaust my power when I have a lot of patients to heal. But the sight of dire wounds has never disturbed me the way it does people. If I could learn to do some of the mending with physical tools it might help me stretch out my magic. Although I suppose taking a knife to my patients wouldn’t do my reputations any good.”

I shrugged. “Saving the patient is the important thing. But you don’t consider yourself a person?”

To my surprise her chin came up, and the look she gave me was almost defiant.

“No, sir. I’m a monster to the core, and there’s no sense denying it. Blood and gore don’t disturb me because they’re really quite appetizing, and I’ve never lost the craving for human flesh. I feel the call of the sea as well, but I don’t dare transform. If I leave this shape for more than a minute or two I start to lose my senses, and revert to something more bestial.”

“But I can try to be a monster who does good, sir, instead of evil. I can heal people with my mother’s magic. I can command water when that’s needed. Once I’m healed I can shift loads that would otherwise take a crane to move. I just can’t let myself forget that in doing so I’m denying my own nature. I’ll always have to be on guard, so I don’t slip up and do something terrible.”

“Sounds like you and Cerise have a lot in common,” I commented. “She started out human, but when she kills a monster she absorbs part of its nature along with its power. It’s a constant struggle for control. We actually had to put a binding on her once, when she had to kill too many demons at once and lost control.”

“A binding, sir?”

“To be herself,” I explained. “Not a perfect solution, but it worked in the short term. She’s been using some secret techniques to gradually rid herself of the most problematic influences, and we have hopes that we’ll be able to remove it in a few weeks.”

I finished with Elin’s arms, and hesitated. “This seems to be working like I expected, and there’s room for more mercury in the vessel. What do you want to concentrate on next?”

Now she stared at the floor. “I’m concerned about the inclusions nearest my organs, sir. Some of them are large enough that they’ve been slowly doing damage, and that could go very badly if one reaches my liver or kidneys. But, um… it’s not a pretty sight.”

“I’ll survive, Elin. Let’s make sure you do, too.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll just…”

She unbuttoned her simple linen dress, and let it fall to the floor. That still left her pretty well covered up, between her underclothes and the bandages covering her many injuries. But I had to privately admit that it really was disturbing. Her whole body was badly misshapen, bent and twisted with no regard for symmetry or even functionality. She could very easily have featured in a horror movie, playing the part of an inbred hillbilly cannibal maybe. Or a mutant Neanderthal, considering her heavy bone structure and irregular patches of thick body hair.

But I’d seen that kind of thing in movies often enough to be a bit desensitized to it. I reminded myself that this brave, intelligent, remarkably selfless young woman sure as hell hadn’t asked for the body she was born with, and focused on the task at hand.

It was odd, though. With all of my previous patients I’d had a sense that their body was built to a logical plan, all the parts fitting together just so to create a functioning whole. With Elin it was like several different plans had been randomly jumbled together, forming a lurching ramshackle travesty of biology that barely even worked. A considerable amount of magic was tied up in papering over all the disjointed connections between conflicting plans, making body parts function in spite of a bewildering variety of mismatches.

It was too complex a mess to decipher all at once, but it made me wonder if it could perhaps be fixed. I experimented a little with that as I carefully cut writhing blobs of mercury out of her mottled belly. I needed to heal the injuries I was inflicting anyway, so why not fix them right?

I smoothed out the structure of mismatched muscles, lining them up evenly. The blood vessels that served them should be laid out in smooth curves, with no sudden corners or abrupt changes in diameter. Even out the skin tone too, and get rid of that random patch of fur.

Little bursts of magic leached out of her tissue as I worked, suddenly freed from tasks that had likely occupied them her whole life. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“That’s a lot more than just healing the cuts, sir,” she observed.

“How does it feel?”

“Like something that’s been broken since I was a child is finally being set right. But it gives me an odd itch in my shifting sense, sir. Sort of like the time the faeries turned me into a mouse, only not as intense.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why did they turn you into a mouse?”

She flushed. “To see if I could turn myself back, sir. Maybe they wanted to turn me human, and pass me off as an orphan? Only I found my way back from it, so they had to give me to someone who would take me in as myself.”

“Hmm. In that case this is probably enough of an experiment for now. But see if you can’t convince your shapeshifting that the change is what you’re supposed to look like now, will you? You’ve probably got half your magic tied up in knots like the one I was just working on, so if we can figure out how to untangle them you’ll end up with quite a bit more of it to work with.”

“I’m not sure it’s wise for me to have too much power, sir. But I’ll do my best.”

Chapter 14

Tina presented a considerably more appealing problem.

To be honest I thought she was perfectly delightful just the way she was, and if I hadn’t already been involved with Avilla and Cerise I probably would have talked to her about a more serious relationship by now. Instead I’d been avoiding that because it would have felt too much like cheating on my witches, despite their comments to the contrary.

But I was starting to get a handle on my strange situation, at least enough to see that passively clinging to familiar habits was a terrible idea. I half suspected Avilla was intentionally trying to provoke me into some display of possessiveness, and I knew Cerise wanted to play kinky dominance games with me. Neither of them had any interest in being with some boring wishy-washy guy who didn’t have the backbone to pursue his own desires. Not to mention that they both wanted to surround themselves with pretty girls that they could seduce for their own entertainment, and they thought sharing the bounty with their guy was only polite.

Yeah, my witches were complicated. They’d keep me on my toes, and however rewarding this crazy relationship might be it was never going to be simple. If I ever got complacent they’d walk all over me, and then they’d get bored and start wanting to move on.

In contrast, with Tina everything was easy.

She’d been raised to believe that the best way for a woman to get by in the world was to marry a good man and keep him happy so he’d want to take care of her. She was perfectly happy with this, contrary to what a modern feminist would expect, and her innocent eagerness to please was terribly attractive. Granted, she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but so what? She was still better company than ninety percent of the people I’d ever met.

She also seemed to be developing quite a fetish for body modifications. Possibly because it was a demonstration of my power, and she desperately wanted a strong protector right now. Or maybe because she knew she wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Cerise or Avilla, and hoped that if I made her look exactly like I wanted it would give me a reason to keep her. Whatever the reason, she’d confided to Cerise that she desperately wanted to be permanently marked by her ‘dark wizard’, in some way that would immediately tell everyone who saw her who she belonged to.

I wasn’t about to start playing magical bondage games with an innocent like Tina. I have some idea how powerful that kind of play can be, and how terribly easy it would be to take it too far. Besides, Tina was already the most submissive woman I’d ever met. If anything, I’d rather encourage her to be more assertive.

Fortunately my flesh sorcery offered a lot of strange and interesting options that didn’t have the B&D overtones of Cerise’s ideas, and weren’t likely to be useful for any other purpose. So coming up with something unique and fun for her hadn’t been hard.

When Tina brought dinner for two to my workshop I knew Cerise had been talking. Mind you, I still looked it over for magic before accepting the tray. I didn’t think Avilla was actually mad about this, but considering her abilities it would be stupid to take chances.

Nope, just some kind of good health and virility blessing.

I smiled at Tina, and set the tray down on my work table. “Thank you, Tina. Pull up a seat, will you? Half of this is for you.”

She gave me an astonished look. “Me? But I’m just a maid, milord. It wouldn’t be proper for me to eat with you.”

“That’s actually what I want to talk to you about,” I told her. “Relax. This is going to be a happy conversation.”

“Oh! Um, yes milord.” She smiled shyly, and fetched a chair. Convincing her that it was okay to actually eat took a little more work, but I was stubborn.

She groaned happily at her first bite.

“I don’t know how Miss Avilla does it. I thought I was a decent cook, but everything she makes is so good!”

“That’s her magic,” I pointed out. “Although I think a lot of hard work goes into it too.”

Tina nodded. “Yes, milord. I never knew magic was so much work before. Miss Cerise is always practicing, and I’ve never heard of someone working all through the night like you do. Beri says she’s never studied so hard in her life. I guess that’s why I can’t do it.”

“There’s more than one way to get magic, Tina. The wolfen didn’t have to study for their powers, although they do have to learn how to use them. I’ve got something like that in mind for you, too.”

“Me?” She squeaked.

“Yes, you. I’ve been very pleased with you so far, Tina. How have you been getting along with the girls?”

“Well enough, milord. Miss Avilla is very strict, but it’s only because she wants everything done right. I’ve learned a lot from her. But I’m a little worried that she isn’t happy with me. I try to do as I’m told, I really do. But she’s taken me off kitchen duty, and lately she doesn’t give me as much work to do.”

“I really like Miss Cerise. She can be kind of scary, but she makes me feel safe. Only, I think she wants to do naughty things to me.”

“How do you feel about that?” I asked.

Her cheeks turned a bit rosy, but she didn’t look away. “Curious, milord. I can’t imagine how it would work, but Miss Avilla always looks so happy. It makes me all fluttery inside when she teases me.”

God, she was adorable.

“That’s good to hear. You’ll probably end up finding out what it’s like, if you’re going to be my mistress.”

She dropped her fork. “M-mistress? Me?!”

“Yes, you. Didn’t I just say that?” I teased.

“But what about Miss Avilla, and Miss Cerise? I can’t compete with them, milord.”

“I’m probably going to end up marrying them both,” I told her. “So yes, it’s important that you can all get along. But Tina? Avilla is a natural beauty, and Cerise made herself look like she does. Your beauty is going to be a work of art I create for myself.”

She gasped, and I swear she nearly had an orgasm right there in the chair. “You’re going to change my looks, milord?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll make me whatever you want?”

“Yes.”

“Will you… bind me?” She half-whispered, half-moaned.

I moved around the table to put my hands on her shoulders. “With the darkest of magic. I’ll bind your heart to belong to me, utterly and forever. I’ll make you over into a creature of magic, crafted for my pleasure. I’ll fill you up with dark desires, unbearable needs for the most depraved of pleasures. Then, when you can stand no more, I will take you and make you mine forever.”

Her wide eyes glittered with desire, and the panting of her breath set her mountainous breasts heaving. “Yes! Thank you, milord. Please, make me your woman.”

I kissed her. She threw her arms around me and moaned into my mouth. But I wasn’t going to rush this. I pulled away, and led her across the room to stand in a circle I’d already prepared.

“Stand here,” I said sternly. “Don’t leave the circle, or bad things will happen. In fact, I’d better make sure of that.”

I spun an intricate little paralysis spell over her, that cut off all conscious control of her body. The spell would keep her standing in place, but she’d be unable to move or speak. I felt her arousal spike again as the spell settled over her, and she realized what I’d done.

That was a good start. But I’d exaggerated my intentions more than a little, counting on her own imagination to fill in the gaps. Maybe a little something more to keep her in the right frame of mind?

I added an arousal spell, a bit of flesh magic set up to amplify any natural surge of desire she might feel. Then I undressed her. Slowly, taking my time to appreciate the lush curves that were revealed as her dress and underthings came away. I stopped at one point to cup her magnificent breasts, and give them a thorough grope. In our last play session I’d tuned them to be so sensitive she could easily reach a climax from that, and in her current state I could feel her quickly rising to her peak.

I wove another spell to block that, allowing her to come right to the edge of orgasm but making it impossible to actually reach her finish. There. I played with her breasts a little more to check my work, but it held firm. Perfect.

Tina was already a cute little thing, although the massive breasts that she’d begged me to give her were a little overdone for her small frame. She was still a bit skinny from her time as a peasant, with several old scars and teeth that were rather crooked. Not major problems, but things I could easily fix with flesh sorcery. I went over her body with a fine-tooth comb, healing blemishes and imperfections while I put some meat on her bones. Smooth, strong muscle, but not so much that it would actually show aside from her legs.

I made her a little taller in the process, bringing her up to around 5’4”. Long, healthy hair in a vibrant red a few shades brighter than her previous color. A little extra width to her hips, to help balance out those breasts. Then I ran my hand down her firm belly, and made her hymen disappear. A little tune up down below ensured that she wouldn’t get sore like a normal virgin either, and her equipment would be considerably more sensitive than normal.

Tina twitched and whimpered as I worked, involuntary reactions to the odd sensations induced by my magic and her own heated response to what was happening. By that point she was so wet she’d probably leave a damp spot if she sat down, and that orgasm denial spell was getting a workout. Some twisted impulse led me to increase her natural lubrication, and in a matter of minutes tiny beads of fluid started to trickle down her thighs.

Then it was time for the serious work.

I couldn’t give Tina the kind of magical power Cerise had. But I wanted to do what I could to help her survive if things ever went to hell again, and there was one transformation my flesh magic could provide that would actually make a difference there. That would mark her unmistakably as one of my group, and give her new abilities that would keep her alive through situations that would be certain death as she was now.

The fact that I think catgirls are kind of hot was just a bonus.

The catgirl transformation required stupidly huge amounts of mana, probably because it was doing a lot more than just cosmetic changes. She’d end up with the same kind of strength and general toughness as the wolfen, and a change that deep took a lot of magic. But I’d put together a single-use enchantment earlier with a connection to the power stone, so that wasn’t a problem.

Since it was being done by an item I didn’t even have to concentrate on the transformation. That left me free to run my hands over her as the change took hold, teasing her into a frenzy of need while I observed the effects.

I’d chosen to minimize the cosmetic aspect of the change, because I didn’t actually trust my magic to make an obvious cat/human hybrid look attractive rather than deformed. But Tina quickly grew a furry tail, and her eyes turned gold as her pupils changed shape. Her nails shifted, turning into claws, and her internal organs moved and subtly reshaped themselves.

“There’s a pretty kitty,” I murmured, running my hand down her tail. Her eyes bulged wildly, and her arousal spiked hard.

“Oh, you like that?” I cupped her breast in one hand, and scratched the spot just above her tail with the other. Yep, that was an erogenous zone now. I made it more sensitive, and tried again.

A strangled yowl rose from her throat. Her tail lashed, and a fresh flood of musky fluids drizzled down her thighs. Nice. I flipped the internal switch that made her go into heat, and the flood redoubled.

Then I blindfolded her, and levitated her off to my bedroom.

By the time I laid her gently across the bed she was delirious with arousal, and the slightest touch was enough to test my orgasm denial spell. I disrobed and joined her, kissing my way slowly down her throat and across her chest to her breasts. I took my time with them, kissing and sucking her long, thick nipples.

I reached down to rub her clit. Her whole body went taut as she strained against the barrier that prevented her from reaching satisfaction. I eased off for a moment, and coaxed it to greater prominence with a gentle tendril of flesh magic. It swelled to the size of a pea, emerging from its hood to strain upward, begging for attention. I delicately circled one fingertip over it, making sure it wasn’t too sensitive for direct stimulation.

Every touch sent her slamming against the orgasm denial spell. Fuck, that was hot.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I knelt between her splayed thighs, positioned myself, and took her face in my hands. Her eyes were huge, gazing up at me in pleading desperation.

“Are you ready?”

I cancelled the paralysis spell.

“Please please please fuck me please Daniel please do it now!”

I released the orgasm denial spell as I entered her, and she exploded.

It was a good thing my amulet could keep me going, because it was a long time before Tina was ready to stop. She shrieked and yowled and clawed at my back, climaxing more times than I could count before I finally gave her my load. But when I collapsed next to her on the bed she crawled down to suck me back to readiness, and then impaled herself on me and went for a ride. Her elated expression and the mammoth breasts bouncing in my face combined to rob me of all control, and I went off again before long.

She collapsed onto my chest, panting, and kissed me frantically.

“I love you, Daniel!” She exclaimed. “Thank you! This is wonderful. Please, I want to do everything with you. Oh, I know!”

She bounced off the bed, casually picked up the nightstand to reposition it, and bent over it with her tail waving and her firm ass high in the air. She looked over her shoulder at me. “Does this give you any ideas, Daniel?”

It must have been an hour or more before she was finally satisfied. Then she curled up against my side, purring happily.

“I can purr!” She giggled.

“I like it,” I told her. I put my arm around her, and pulled her close.

The purr intensified. After a minute she giggled again.

“I can’t stop purring,” she said sleepily.

“You can purr all night, Tina,” I assured her.

She drifted off to sleep, and I followed soon after.

I had strange dreams. Tina and Cerise playing on the kitchen floor like kittens, both of them naked. Avilla standing at the stove, looking on tolerantly as their play fighting turned into a sixty-nine. I slipped my arms around her waist and tried to kiss her, but she bopped me on the nose with a wooden spoon.

I started, and woke to find something pricking my nose. Luminous feline eyes looked down on me from inches away.

“Tina?”

“Not presently,” Tina’s voice said, in a tone that was far removed from her usual good cheer. “Is this meant as some sort of mockery, wizard?”

My brain engaged, and I scowled.

“Tina had better be okay, or I’m going to bind you and help Cerise sacrifice your ass to Hecate. Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing possessing Tina’s body?”

“So you do have real affection for the girl,” she mused, her hard look softening. “Not a shred of fear for the tiger at your throat, either. I suppose you’re a true magus, then, and my cult is simply lost to the mists of time. So you thought this a pleasing form for your concubine?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But you haven’t answered my question. Is Tina still in there?”

“Yes, yes, the little kitten is fine. I rarely harm women, and never an innocent. I was a protector to the end, you know. But I’m afraid my name will mean nothing to you. Tina has barely heard of Egypt, let alone its gods.”

Oh, crap. Now the dots were starting to connect. “Bast?”

She gave me a shocked look.

“You know me? In my original aspect, before Ra diminished me and made me become merely Bastet?”

“I know the distorted stories that became mythology on another world,” I answered. “It isn’t terribly reliable. If I remember right Bastet was depicted as a domestic cat, and worshipped as a protector with some sort of fertility or femininity aspect. But Bast was an ancient war goddess who was depicted as a lion, and the archaeologists think they were actually the same goddess.”

“Indeed.” She gave up looming over me, and relaxed to sprawl across my chest with a pleased smile. The fact that she was doing so with Tina’s body was more than a little distracting, but I tried to stay focused.

“But what’s an Egyptian goddess doing possessing girls in Varmland?”

“Say rather, why does the spirit of a long-dead goddess cling to the only trace in the world of her most precious anchor? But then the question answers itself, if one is wise in the ways of the gods.”

“Someone tried to kill you?” I asked.

“Ra,” she answered. “That greedy tyrant. Always grasping for more power. Grinding us down step by step, century after dreary century. Finally he began to extinguish our cults one by one, and I was never popular with his kin. They made me a goddess of pets and concubines at the end, but even that wasn’t enough for them. Ra killed me, and there was no beacon my soul could follow to return to this world.”

“Catgirls are one of your anchors?”

She smiled. “The fusion of woman and cat. I often granted feline features to my priestesses, and to my most favored I gave the power to become cats. But I always worked with whole body parts, usually the head or a tail. This subtle blend of woman and cat you’ve created is quite intriguing. On reflection, I think I approve.”

“Not that it means much, in my current state. My grasp on the world is so weak I doubt I could even best your girl in a battle of will if she were awake.”

Well, that was somewhat reassuring. But I was sensing an opportunity here.

“What would it take to make it so you can come back?”

“Hmm.” She rubbed Tina’s chest against me, and her eyes slitted. “Very nice. It’s been so long since I could feel such things, and this body is wonderfully sensitive. I used to bestow blessings like that, as well. But why would you help me come back, Daniel? Surely your own gods would disapprove?”

Focus, Daniel. Focus.

“I don’t worship anyone, Bast. There aren’t any gods in my world, and most of the ones here seem to be busy destroying each other. Things are looking pretty bad right now. The Aesir sacked Olympus several centuries ago, and now they’re fighting a war among themselves that’s depopulating Europe. They’ve already opened the gates of Tartarus and started a new ice age, and the war is just beginning. Hecate is trying to make alliances and save people, and I imagine she’d welcome help from a goddess who isn’t part of the current order.”

She cocked her head. “Hecate? The Titaness who threw in with Zeus? Yes, she was always a dangerous opponent. Strong in magic, clever and ruthless. I can work with her, especially if matters are as dire as you say.”

“Yes, there is a way you can help me return to life. It may seem strange to you, and in truth it will give you more influence over me than I am comfortable with. But I think I have your measure now. Will you help me honestly, with no hidden schemes to lay chains upon me in my time of vulnerability? I have nothing to offer in return but the gratitude and friendship of a goddess, but those are not gifts to be scorned.”

“Very true,” I agreed. “I’d be honored to be your friend, Bast. I’m not the kind of guy who’d sneak around trying subtle mind control ploys even if I thought they’d work, and to be honest trying something like that on a goddess sounds like a profoundly stupid idea anyway. How do we do this?”

She shifted her hips, captured me inside her, and slid down my length in one smooth motion. Her eyes rolled back, and she gave a ragged moan.

“Fucking hell, Daniel,” she gasped. “Tina is one lucky bitch.”

“I like to think so. But I’m not sure I want you doing that with her body while she’s asleep.”

“That definitely woke her up,” Bast assured me. “I’m explaining things to her now. Oh, I see why you like her! She’s such a sweetheart. She’s embarrassed, but she professes willingness so long as you approve of the plan.”

She rolled her hips, and I couldn’t help but gasp. “You still haven’t said what the plan is,” I managed to say.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

She leaned down until her eyes were inches from mine. “I am but a spirit, Daniel. To truly enter the world of the living again I need to be reborn. Get your woman with child, and that child will be me. I won’t know myself at first, but I shall grow to adulthood in but a year and a day. Raise me. Teach me. Help me to break the strictures that the Sun Tyrant laid on me, and rediscover my true self. Protect me from those who would take advantage of my weakness, and when I am myself again my gratitude will know no bounds.”

“That is profoundly fucked up,” I observed.

She sat up, and favored me with a crooked grin. “The affairs of the gods often are. Are we agreed?”

“I want to actually talk to Tina before I get her pregnant,” I told her. “I guess this will sound strange to you, but in my land we’ve been able to control conception long enough that it’s considered normal for a woman to be able to choose when and whether to have children. But if she’s game, then yes. It’s weird, but it’s for a good cause.”

She pouted. “I’d hoped to know the pleasures of a man again before giving up awareness, but I don’t think I have the strength to take back this body once I give it up. Oh, well. I’ve waited a thousand years, at least. I suppose I can survive one more.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” I assured her. I pulled her down against my chest, and rolled us both over.

“I can perform as often as I want, so you just relax and enjoy yourself. Once you’ve had your fun you can switch with Tina, and then we’ll get this done.”

If Tina had been enthusiastic, Bast damned near killed me. She had the same hair trigger, since she was inhabiting Tina’s body, and maybe she was a little out of practice from being dead for who knows how long, but if so that’s the only thing that saved me.

I was used to being in control with women since I’d become a sorcerer, but Bast turned the tables on me whenever she wanted to. She could do things with Tina’s lush body that I hadn’t thought were possible, and once she realized I really could keep going indefinitely she was like a kid with a new toy. She could make me go off whenever she wanted to, and she wanted a lot.

Finally I resorted to using flesh magic to ramp one of her frequent orgasms up to absolute screaming, gut-wrenching, mind-wrecking intensity, and held it at full power for ten minutes. She probably would have had a stroke or something if she’d been a normal person, but Tina’s physical enhancements were enough to protect her from harm. When it finally ended she collapsed, panting and trembling helplessly.

I laid down on top of her, still inside her, and she purred.

“Now that… is more…. like it,” she gasped out between breaths.

“Enough to tide you over?” I asked.

She hugged me. “Enough to sate even me, for now. But I fear Tina caught the edges of that, and she’s becoming a bit frantic. I leave you to her tender mercies for now, Daniel. I’ll see you in two months.”

“Two?”

She smiled. “Sixty-six days. As is proper, for a cat.”

Then her expression changed, vast experience fading into relative innocence, and it was Tina looking up at me again.

“Daniel? I get to be a mother already?”

“To the spirit of an ancient goddess,” I confirmed. “If that isn’t too strange for you.”

She twined her arms around my neck. “It’s an honor, Daniel. Besides, I’m so horny I could scream right now. But I’m a little sore after all that. Be gentle? Please?”

I was.

As we lay together afterwards I could see the magic gathering in her womb. Something vast and ancient was growing there already, wreathed in primal magic beyond my understanding. It was only then that I realized I only had the spirit’s word about who she was, and what her intentions might be. For all I knew we might have just been played by some exotic escapee from Tartarus, or something stranger that I didn’t even know enough to suspect.

Well, crap. It was always something, wasn’t it?

But it was too late now for second thoughts. All I could was follow through on the bargain I’d made, and hope for the best.

Chapter 15

I woke the next morning to the crackle of distant gunfire.

Tina stirred next to me, and raised her head sleepily. “Hwa?”

Another ragged volley went off, and I realized that’s exactly what it was. Marcus and I had discussed the importance of volley fire at the last staff meeting, and he’d mentioned wanting to drill the troops. I sighed in relief.

“It’s alright, Tina. It’s just the troops practicing with their new weapons.”

“Oh. Okay.” She laid her head on my chest, and relaxed.

Then she suddenly shot upright. “Oh, no! I overslept! Miss Avilla will be so cross with… with…”

She looked down at me, and I could practically see her remembering everything that had happened last night. I sat up, and hugged her.

“Good morning, Tina.”

“I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“Nope. Come on, let’s get cleaned up before breakfast.”

Her smile was so bright I swear it lit up the room. “Yes, sir! Can I scrub your back?”

I chuckled, and palmed her breasts. “Sure, but I get to clean these beauties in return.”

The bathhouse downstairs was still the talk of the tower, but the private one I’d built near my bedroom was even better as far as my girls were concerned. The whole room was done in marble, shaped to resemble tiles even though it was actually one big seamless mass of stone. Magical lighting and large mirrors on the walls gave an impression of openness despite the fact that it was actually an interior room. The entrance was through a changing area with a vanity, shelves and a linen closet, which was separated from the bathing area by a sliding door of translucent rose quartz.

The bathing area proper had two roomy shower stalls and a heated bath the size of a hot tub, as well as a couple of benches near the tub for lounging around. The girls had been positively gleeful about the idea of running water with an adjustable temperature, and that was before I showed them how to turn on the water jets in the tub. They’d been spending a lot of time there since I finished it, and sure enough the air was already thick with steam when we entered.

Cerise was lounging in the tub with the jets on, her head lolling on the rim and her eyes half closed. I waved Tina towards the showers, and walked over to surprise her with a kiss.

“Mmmm. Hey, stud,” she purred. “You have a good night? You’re looking kinda worn out there.””

“So are you, Cerise.”

“Yeah, my girl was a little needy last night,” she agreed. “But I took care of her. Oh, shit! Tina, is that you?”

“That’s right, Cerise. Daniel marked me good, didn’t he?” She pranced over to the tub, and twirled to show off her new additions.

“Guess you got promoted too, if you’re in here and using first names. So are you the big lug’s mistress now, or did he get kinky and go for harem girl?”

“Mistress!” She beamed. “It’s like a dream come true, Cerise. I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to have a great wizard’s babies.”

“Babies? You lucky girl! Hey Daniel, what do I have to do to get you to knock me up too?”

“Ahem. I, uh, didn’t realize that was something you wanted, Cerise.”

Tina giggled. “Silly man. What woman doesn’t want babies?”

“Pretty much,” Cerise agreed. “I thought I was going to have to wait until after the war, though. Are you really pregnant already?”

“Yes!” Tina squeaked.

“Yeah, but it was a special circumstance.”

I explained the night’s unexpected encounter while Tina and I showered together, and then slipped into the tub. Cerise was alternately incredulous and fascinated.

“I can’t believe you just lucked into a chance like that,” she exclaimed.

“It may not have been luck,” I pointed out. “Hecate was with me when I gained my sorceries, and she may well have influenced what I got. I wouldn’t put it past her to nudge a few things in hopes that something like this might happen.”

“That does sound like her style,” Cerise agreed. Then she sidled up to Tina. “So, how was your first time? Pretty amazing, huh?”

Tina smiled dreamily. “Oh, yes. Just thinking about it makes me all gooey inside. But I’m pretty sore this morning, so please give me a chance to recover before you work your wicked magic on me.”

“Aww, you’re too easy.” Cerise kissed her on the cheek. “Not going to protest about how unnatural I am?”

“I’m an unnatural creature too, now. I may as well try out all the sins, and see which ones I enjoy.”

There was a knock at the door. “Breakfast time,” one of the new maids called.

“Time to face the day, I guess,” Cerise said. “Someone help me up? I was in here so long I think my bones all melted.”

Avilla wasn’t quite as unfazed as Cerise. But then again, she hadn’t sacrificed her ability to feel jealousy in some dark ritual either. She was directing a couple of maids to set the table when the three of us arrived arm in arm, and her smile seemed a little forced.

“I was right,” Cerise announced obliviously. “Check out mistress number one. Isn’t the cat thing just adorable?”

“Congratulations, Tina,” Avilla said stiffly.

I wracked my brain for something to say, but Tina beat me to it. She stepped forward and curtsied deeply, as if Avilla were a noble lady.

“Thank you, Miss Avilla. I’ll try hard to be a good addition to the family. But I’m not sure how this is all supposed to work, so please correct me if I get something wrong.”

“Correct you?” Avilla stammered in astonishment.

Tina nodded. “I don’t know much, but even I can see who the head wife is here. I promise, I’ll be a good girl. I just want everyone to be happy.”

Avilla’s expression softened. She looked up at me uncertainly.

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“Well, duh,” Cerise agreed.

“Oh, come here you!” Avilla smiled, and pulled Tina into a hug. “It’s alright, sweetie. This is what I wanted. It just took me a little by surprise, that’s all.”

After that breakfast was a lot more congenial than expected. I was pretty sure Avilla had been aiming for this outcome ever since she’d talked me into hiring Tina and Beri back before Lanrest. I could even see the logic in it. As much as she might enjoy our time together it was Cerise that she was in love with, and she’d naturally want to have her lover to herself some nights. But if they started leaving me to sleep alone on a regular basis half the unattached women in the keep would try to seduce their way into my bed, and that was asking for trouble. So it made sense to set me up with someone who wasn’t a threat to her position.

Of course, with most people that kind of resolution would fall apart in a firestorm of anger and jealousy the moment they were faced with the reality of the situation. But Avilla had seemed perfectly happy with sending Tina to warm my bed whenever it was convenient for her, so I’d hoped this wouldn’t be too much.

When I saw that she’d already set a place at the table for Tina I knew that I’d been right. In a few minutes the three young women were smiling and chatting merrily, like that moment of tension had never happened. Maybe this would actually work out.

After breakfast I went down to the training grounds to see how Captain Rain’s improvised boot camp was going. There were thirty or so new recruits running laps around the island under the watchful gaze of the sergeants we’d hired, and another dozen on the firing range learning to use their new weapons.

The guns I was making were technically single-shot weapons, but they had a massively higher rate of fire than crossbows or early firearms. There was still a considerable advantage to volley fire, of course, but the lack of a reloading procedure meant we’d been able to adopt an amazingly simple drill.

“Ready… fire!” Called the instructor, and eleven guns fired as one. Recoil knocked the barrels up, but the men brought them back down again and aimed as the next “ready…” was called.

“Fire!” Another volley. Still slightly ragged, but the instructors were working to iron that out. About one volley every three seconds, and that would improve with practice. The guns could theoretically fire a little faster than once per second, and of course they could keep that up indefinitely. A devastating level of firepower for a medieval battlefield, especially considering the stopping power of the weapons.

I noted a few of the 5th Margold veterans over on the hundred yard range, and Sergeant Thomas caught my eye. I ambled over to see what he was up to.

“Morning, milord,” he greeted me. “Any advice for us on long-range shooting?”

The three men with him were all trying different positions. One was standing sideways to the targets, like an archer would. Another was crouching behind a tower shield he’d braced his gun on, and the third was in an awkward-looking kneeling position. They all looked up with relief at the sergeant’s words.

“I’m not really a marksman myself,” I told him. “But I can offer a few tips. We use weapons like this instead of bows back home, and I’ve watched some good shooting competitions. Here, let me borrow that.”

He handed me his gun, and I turned towards the targets.

“For easy targets you can just do it like the recruits are drilling. Stand square facing the target, and snug the butt of the gun into your shoulder like this. That gives you good control of the recoil, so you don’t have to waste much time getting your weapon back under control after every shot. Use the sights to line up your shot, and squeeze the trigger nice and easy. If you jerk it too hard you can throw off your aim.”

“Having something to brace your weapon against helps a lot at longer ranges, but you really want it to be something solid like a parapet. I’ve actually seen a lot of troops carry shovels in the field, so if they’re going to defend a position they can dig a shallow ditch to crouch in and pile the dirt in front of them to brace their weapons. In this weather the ground is probably too hard for that, but snow will work if you pack it down. If you do it right the enemy doesn’t have anything to aim at but your helmet, and they’ll shed a lot of blood trying to get close enough to do any damage.”

“At any rate, for harder targets the experts normally fire from a prone position. Like this.” I got down on the ground and demonstrated. “It might look a little dumb, but it really works. If you’re standing up you’re constantly swaying back and forth from the wind and your breathing and a thousand other little things like that. On the ground you’re stable, so there’s not as much to throw off your aim. I’ve seen experienced marksmen hit a target at six hundred yards like this, although they usually use specially made guns that are more accurate than mine.”

“Beyond that, keep in mind that the bullet drops a little as it flies. Like a crossbow bolt, only not as much. Wind can affect it some too, but again not as much as with a crossbow.”

“Any questions?”

One of the men scratched his chin. “Will these things really kill a man at that kinda distance, milord? An arrow’d just be a little love tap that far away.”

“Depends on how good his armor is. At close range these bullets will punch through even heavy plate like nothing. If your target is a couple hundred yards away a good suit of armor might stop them, but if you hit flesh you’ll still make a big hole.”

“Any way to get plunging fire, milord?” Asked another. “Or is this like crossbows?”

“Like crossbows, pretty much. It’s possible, but it isn’t really worth bothering. The bullets move so fast that if you fire them up at an angle from here, they’d end up coming down somewhere in the woods on the other side of the river. Even with massed fire you’re not going to hit anything that way.”

There were grudging nods all around at that.

I spent another half hour circulating around the training area, taking in all the activity. Oskar’s sons had the smithy in operation already, and were turning out a batch of nails for the carpenters. Avilla had moved the carpentry work out to one of the new buildings, and laborers carried new pieces of furniture out of the busy workshop at regular intervals. A work party was making forays into town with one of the transports, hauling in loads of raw materials and food.

My little settlement was starting to take on a life of its own. Thanks to the inevitable forces of bureaucracy I now had a staff meeting to run every other day, but at least I could count on my people to keep our various projects moving without my personal supervision.

Which was a good thing, because that was when the prince’s messenger found me.

After that putting up refugee shelters consumed most of my day. I wasn’t sure if that would actually save more lives than building better weapons to defend the city with, but I also wasn’t sure it wouldn’t. I wasn’t the only wizard in the city, but I was apparently the only one who was going to solve this particular problem.

Things were more organized this time, which I supposed was the benefit of the extra day of warning. I was escorted first to a recently-cleared mustering yard next to the city wall, where the city’s chief engineer was ready to advise me about any infrastructure details I might need. There was also an older man in especially fine plate armor coordinating things.

“Good morning, Adept Black. I’m Sir Hansen, with Prince Caspar’s personal retinue. I understand you’re going to perform a miracle of earth magic for us today?”

I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Sir Hansen. Yeah, I hear I’ve got my work cut out for me. What are we starting with?”

“A barracks, if you please. Can you fill the space here, and build it to the height of the towers? An exit onto the wall would be good, but don’t worry about elaborate defenses. Stout doors will do well enough for now.”

“I can do that. But I thought we were going to address the refugees first?”

He sighed. “This is the best I can do on that front. Once this is up we can move the companies of infantry that are camped in Baker’s Square at the moment, and then you can put a shelter there. After that we should start getting ahead of things, but I fear we’ll need to resettle at least one more military encampment after this.”

“I see. How many refugees are in the city right now, anyway?”

“Our best guess is a bit under forty thousand, Adept Black. Add twenty thousand fighting men on top of that, and you see the scope of the problem.”

“Damn. That’s worse than I thought. Well, let’s get started then.”

Even with my powers, I wasn’t going to be building decent living space for sixty thousand people. But a lot of that number already had shelter, in inns or barns or the city’s barracks, and the remaining soldiers at least had tents. Not to mention that this first effort didn’t need to provide more than a space to huddle together out of the cold. Anything beyond that could wait until they weren’t going to freeze to death in some dark alley.

So I built a six-story iron barracks building on the mustering yard, and then a pair of smaller shelters over plazas in the Trade Quarter. Then it was over to the Docks, where there was an empty warehouse I could tear down and replace. Sir Hansen’s troops did a good job of keeping people moving, and I didn’t have to waste any time waiting for them to clear out the plots I was building on. Every time I finished a building there was a long line of people queued up in the street, waiting for the chance to move in.

A little before noon Cerise caught up with me to deliver one of Avilla’s ingeniously packed hot lunches. I thanked her, and let her know I wasn’t going to be home until after dark.

“Avilla’s going to lecture you if you start overdoing it again,” she told me.

“I know, I know. I’ll have to stop around sunset anyway, so tell her I’ll be home a little after dark.”

By late afternoon we were reduced to building on an archery range, and I could tell Sir Hansen was running out of ideas. Not that there weren’t still open spaces within the walls, of course. But no one was going to suggest using that giant open plaza in front of the Iron Citadel to house refugees, or the similar spaces around the temples or the royal palace. Even the square in front of the city council building was exempt, although it had actually been considered.

It didn’t surprise me that the dignity of high-status factions was considered more important than a few thousand lives. Besides, I couldn’t really object. I wasn’t going to volunteer space on my island either. The two hundred or so people I had living in my complex now were a drop in the bucket compared to the teeming masses in the city, but I wasn’t going to get them killed in another vain attempt to save everyone.

As the sun set a stream of people trooped into the last shelter, and I paused by the entrance to confer with Sir Hansen.

“I think that’s about the best we can do for now,” he told me. “That’s the main groups accounted for, at least. But it will take a few days to check the back alleys for stragglers, and find something else we can knock down to make room. Can I count on you for another shelter or two then, if we need them?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just give me some notice if it comes up. I’m going to be doing some big projects of my own, and I can’t always stop in the middle of one.”

“Of course. Well, here’s the license the prince promised you. Do you know who you’re going to be sending to the war room?”

“Captain Rain, formerly of the 5th Margold. He’s the best military man I’ve got.”

“I’ll leave word with the staff to look for him. A word of advice, though. The war room is always manned, but the prince is usually there first thing in the morning. He doesn’t like interruptions, so it’s best to put off other business until he leaves for the day.”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have staff meetings during the day, or in the evening after all the reports are in?”

“I’m not going to tell his highness how to run things,” the elderly knight pointed out. “It’s not a course I’d suggest to anyone else, either.”

“Good point.”

He took his leave, but I stayed for a few minutes to watch the refugees filing in. Most of them looked a lot like the ones I’d seen in Lanrest. Peasants dressed in rags, clutching their few remaining possessions and shuffling forward in a daze. Substantially more women than men, but hardly any children between the ages of two and eight or so. Those proportions were a tale of sacrifice and desperation to anyone who noticed.

But here and there were some that were different.  A group of townspeople in proper winter clothes, the men forming a perimeter while pairs of women and older boys carried heavy-looking bags hung from poles. A pack of young men carrying spears and bows, with cloaks of uncured wolf hide flung over their clothes. A grizzled old man in leather armor, with a pair of long knives on his belt and three huge dogs following along at his heels. A figure with a faint spark of magic who passed through the crowd like a ghost, completely concealed by a long cloak and scarf, with a purposeful gait and eyes that never stopped moving.

Survivors. People who’d planned, organized, fought back and come through their ordeal unbroken. Not as many of them as I’d like, but I was relieved to see that they existed. We were going to need them.

The streets rapidly emptied as I made my way home. Slivers of firelight shone through windows here and there, outlining the wooden shutters that people here used instead of glass windows. But Kozalin had no streetlights, and few people ventured outdoors after the sun went down. A few groups of workmen hurrying home after a long day, and the occasional messenger or city watchman. Even those stragglers thinned out rapidly as the last hint of light faded from the western sky.

By I reached the gate to the Docks district it was already closed, with only the postern gate still open. The guards passed me through respectfully enough, but I heard the rattle of the bolt as they closed it behind me.

Then I was alone on the dark streets of the city. It was a clear night for once, with a million stars shining down like diamonds. I jumped to a rooftop, and stood there for a few minutes looking up at the familiar constellations.

The bitter cold of an arctic night settled around me, and I wondered again how bad this was going to get. Ice ages come on quickly, and that was without magical encouragement. How many years would it take for glaciers to form? If the Gulf Stream had been diverted, did that mean the North Sea could freeze? Was there any place we might be able to import crops from next year?

How long would it be before this war between the gods began in earnest? If they had the power to cloak an entire continent in an unnatural winter, what else could they do? Perhaps I should be digging bomb shelters instead of throwing up towers.

“One thing at a time,” I reminded myself. “Next year’s problems won’t matter if I die tomorrow.

I jumped down, and trudged on through the gathering gloom. Maybe I should start carrying a staff after all? It would be nice to have something to hang useful little enchantments on, if nothing else. But for now I’d make do with a light spell.

The long walk down the pier to my tower left me feeling uncomfortably exposed. But the postern gate was open, and the sentries on duty greeted me happily. Probably because they could shut the door once I was inside, but it was still good to be home. I took the elevator up, and opened the door to the master suit.

The little entrance room just off the atrium had a rug and a couple of chairs now. One of them was occupied by Elin, who held a ball of deep blue light in one hand so she could read from the tome that filled her lap. She looked up as I entered, and smiled at me.

“Welcome home, sir. Avilla asked me to wait up for you. She, ah, said it would be alright if I borrowed a book?”

She held up the volume in question, and I saw it was one of the ones I’d looted from the temple in Lanrest. A volume on weather magic that I kept meaning to read, if I could ever find the time.

“That’s fine, Elin. Feel free to look at the other ones, too. Is everyone in bed already?”

She nodded. “The maids have all bedded down for the night, and I think Cerise is up to some mischief with Tina. Avilla mentioned that she’d have dinner waiting for you in your room.”

“That woman spoils me. How are you doing? I think I can fit you in for another healing session after the staff meeting tomorrow.”

“Thank you, sir. In most respects I’m much better, but adjusting to those changes you made is giving me fits. I keep having this urge to shift now, like an itch I can’t scratch. I’m actually wondering if…” She trailed off, hesitating. “But no, that would be silly.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Wondering if the shape you’re in now is actually a natural one? I’d be surprised if it was, Elin. It feels to me like you’ve got at least three or four different things mixed together. Like you were shifting forms and got stuck partway through.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Truly, sir? I’ve had that feeling, sometimes. But I can’t imagine what other shape I might have, besides the beast.”

“Something from your mother, maybe? I’ve read of undines taking the shape of sea creatures before, and some of what I saw reminded me of a seal or dolphin. But I expect we’ll have to finish getting the mercury out of you before we can look into that. Tomorrow?”

“Yes. Thank you, sir. You’ve given me much to think on, there.”

Stone walls and heavy wooden doors muffled the soft feminine sounds coming from under Cerise’s door, but it was obvious someone was having a good time in there. Well, good for them. I opened my own door, and found the room lit by candlelight.

The master bedroom was pretty roomy, with space for a little sitting area in addition to the large bed and wardrobe. It had been empty this morning, but now there was a little table there surrounded by three chairs. Avilla sat at one of them, dressed in a house robe and making notes in a ledger. The rest of the table was occupied by two covered dishes, a bottle of wine and empty glasses.

Avilla looked up, and smiled shyly. “Hello, Daniel. I’m glad you made it home at a decent hour. Or at least, not too indecent. I was afraid you’d get caught up in something, and be out half the night.”

I shook my head. “We ran out of empty lots to build on. Besides, I said I’d be back about now. I’m trying to get better about telling people what I’m doing, so you don’t have to worry needlessly.”

“Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that.”

I went to hang up my cloak, and then sat on the bed to get my boots off. Avilla put her ledger away and knelt at my feet.

“Let me do that,” she said as she started on the laces.

I let her, leaning back to enjoy the view instead. Her robe was modestly cut, giving only hints at the figure beneath, and she’d made no particular effort to pretty herself up with makeup or a fancy hairdo. But she didn’t need to. She radiated a healthy, honest beauty that was all the more striking for the lack of artifice. Her flawless skin and golden-blonde hair made her look like an angel pretending to be human, and a man could drown in depths of her deep blue eyes.

Did she even realize how beautiful she was? She rarely seemed aware of it, and it struck me suddenly that she might not. She’d never had boys following her around asking for dates, or a coterie of girlfriends to compete with, or any of the other normal experiences of childhood. I wasn’t sure she’d even grown up, as opposed to just being created in her current form.

“I want to apologize,” she said as she pulled off my boot. “I feel terribly embarrassed. I hope Cerise is right about what happened, because I honestly don’t know what came over me.”

“That does concern me. She said you didn’t even know you were doing it at the time?”

She shook her head, and went for the other boot.

“No. It’s a bit frightening, Daniel. I should be skilled enough to tell if I’m being enchanted, at least after the fact. But I had no idea why everyone was looking at me so strangely until Cerise started interrogating me.”

“Cerise thinks I’m just naive and vulnerable, and I suppose she may be right. I’ve certainly had a lot of new experiences since we left granny’s home. There have been times when I’ve had… urges, around some of the men. But I’ve never had trouble controlling myself before.”

I stood, and gave her a hand up. “So you’re not having second thoughts?”

“No!” She said vehemently. “Daniel, you have to believe me. I love what we have together, and I’m committed to making this work.”

“Not interested in sampling the competition first?” I pressed.

“Granny always said your first man is the easiest one to fall in love with,” she replied. “I’d hate to spoil things just when it seems to be working.”

I stopped. “Love?”

“Wouldn’t it be grand? You and me and Cerise, together? It makes me breathless to think about it. I’ve loved her for years, but I’ve always known I’d want a man in my life. When we first met, and you saved me from the troll, I wanted it to be you. When Cerise and I seduced you, and you were so good to us both, I knew it would be. You’re so fierce in our defense, and you build such wonders for us. It makes me burn for you, Daniel.”

“But what about you?” She asked, and looked away nervously. “I don’t know much about men. My book says it’s easy to win a man’s heart, if you’re cute. Just be pleasant company, a good housekeeper and eager in bed, and as long as you’re sincere about it any man will fall for you. But I don’t know if it’s really that simple, and Cerise is no help. She just laughs and tells me I’m being silly. What do you think, Daniel? Is it working?”

I put my arms around her, and pulled her close. “Yeah. It’s working. It’s hard not to love you, Avilla.”

She smiled up at me, and twined her arms around my neck. “I’m glad. I know you don’t trust easily, Daniel. But please believe me when I say that I’ve made my decision. This is what I want. We’re going to make this work, no matter what.”

I kissed her.

She melted against me, and I felt the hard peaks of her breasts through two layers of clothing. But after a moment she pulled away.

“If you keep that up I’ll lose hold of the preservation spell, and dinner will go cold,” she chided.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” I conceded. “It would be a crime to spoil your cooking. But afterwards…”

I grabbed a handful of her hair, and pulled her in for another rough kiss. She moaned into my mouth, and when I finally let her go her eyes were bright with excitement.

“...I’m going to take you to bed, and remind you who you belong to,” I growled.

Her breath caught. “Yes! I’m yours, Daniel. Don’t ever let me forget it.”

Chapter 16

The next day I went back to weapons development, intending to spend whatever time was left before the Unraveler’s attack coming up with nasty surprises to spring on her. I’d had to put in a test range on the island for some of my more explosive projects, but most of the work was safe enough to do in the roomy workshop Avilla had set up for me in the tower.

To my surprise, the girls were actually good about leaving me alone to work. I suppose they had plenty of their own work to do during the days, so maybe I should have expected that. But they made up for it when I left the lab.

Lunch tended to be a working meal in the keep, with most of my staff dropping by to ‘discuss a few things’ and incidentally cadge a meal off Avilla. Elin was always there as well, and I gathered that once Avilla had gotten over her fear of the girl’s ‘curse’ she’d immediately gone into mothering mode instead. Other people were gradually working up excuses to attend as well, and I could see that sometime soon I was going to have to move the affair to the formal dining room. But Avilla was obviously loving the opportunity to show off her skills, so I decided to give her the chance to manage that herself before stepping in.

Breakfast and dinner, however, were family time. Beri was usually at breakfast, having been promoted to Cerise’s apprentice, and of course there were always a few servants around. But the maids Avilla had picked out as our personal household staff were universally cute, eager to please and relatively unfazed by any improper antics the girls might get up to.

Which meant that Cerise and Avilla were free to be adorably lovey-dovey with each other, and all three of my girls tended to flirt shamelessly with me. Or sometimes more than flirt. Any residual concerns I might have had over propriety at mealtimes was dispelled the morning I came in to the private dining room to find Tina bonelessly sprawled across the table while Cerise held her down and energetically fingered her.

“Someone’s energetic this morning,” I commented dryly.

“I love those cute little noises she makes!” Cerise exclaimed. “Who’s a good kitty?”

Tina purred. “M-me?”

One of the maids scurried in to deposit a plate loaded with bacon and hash browns at the head of the table, and paused to scratch Tina behind the ears. The buxom catgirl’s purr turned growly, and she squirmed in Cerise’s grip.

“Looks like milord gets a show this morning,” the maid said impishly. “Would you like tea, or something stronger?”

“Much as these two are trying to drive me to drink, I’ll stick with the tea for now.”

Yeah, living with three horny girls could pose some unique challenges. Fortunately my witches were as likely to pounce on each other as me, and while Tina was still mostly interested in men Cerise had managed to convince her that girls could be fun to play with too. Or maybe it was just that I’d wired Tina up to the point where a stiff breeze could get her too horny to care who was doing her. One night I actually stopped to ask her if she’d like me to turn things down a bit as we were undressing for bed.

She shook her head. “No way! I love feeling so sexy all the time, Daniel. I never dreamed I could be so happy. Why would you want to take that away?”

“I don’t, sweetie,” I assured her. “I just want to make sure it’s not so overwhelming that it keeps you from being able to do things besides sex. Enjoying yourself is good, but there are other things in life. That, and I don’t want anyone outside the family taking advantage of you.”

She smiled, a big toothy grin that was more feral than I’d thought she was capable of. “I’m not a tame pet, Daniel. If I need to snap out of it I can always do this.”

Suddenly she sprouted fur. Just a thin sprinkling of down at first, but it quickly grew into a luxurious tiger-striped coat that covered everything but her face and breasts. Cat ears poked out through her hair, and her face became noticeably catlike while her claws grew considerably.

My jaw dropped. “What the fuck? I didn’t give you that.”

She giggled. “Bast did it. She said she wasn’t going to have a helpless mortal for a mother. The blessing is supposed to grow along with her, until she’s reborn.”

“I see. Well, she does good work. You make a very fetching anthropomorphic cat. Can you do a partial change?”

She frowned in concentration. After a moment the fur receded, becoming a layer of soft down and then thinning until I could see bare skin on her belly and thighs. But the cat ears remained, and her claws were still real weapons instead of decorations.

“Yes!” She announced triumphantly.

I laughed at her enthusiasm. “Very nice. But you know I’m going to have to investigate this new power of yours. Yes, I think a very thorough examination is in order.”

I ran my hand down her back, feeling the firm muscle beneath skin and fur, and scratched at the base of her tail. Her breath caught, and her eyes slitted.

“Oh! Daniel, that… that feels… unh! I need you, Daniel!”

She leaned over the bed and arched her back, presenting herself for mounting like a cat in heat.

That was a good night.

But I had serious work to do if I wanted to maintain this decadent lifestyle. So I restrained the urge to spend my days exploring all the kinky things that could be done with three very sexy girls and unlimited amounts of magic. Maybe we could all spend a few weeks inventing new perversions once we were safe, but for now I needed to concentrate on weapons.

When I started I had hopes of repeating my success with the guns, and turning out some magical artillery pieces to further increase our firepower. But that proved a bit more difficult than I had hoped. Oh, scaling up my existing design to a small cannon wasn’t too hard, and I even built an enchantment factory for a weapon in about a 25mm caliber. That seemed like a reasonable size to put on armored vehicles, and I expected it would make short work of most giant monsters.

But for real artillery you want explosive shells, and that turned out to be a hard problem. There were probably dozens of ways my magic could produce explosions, and I worked out several spells that gave decent results in the course of a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I then hit a bit of a wall.

Enchanting a cannon shell to explode was a pretty serious piece of magic, and would take me half an hour to do myself if I wanted the result to be stable enough to store safely. Enchanting a cannon to create magical exploding shells was a challenging project that likely would have taken me a couple of days. Making an enchantment factory for magical cannons that could create their own shells…

That wasn’t going to happen. Not with the kind of effort I could hope to devote to it in the next few weeks, anyway. It was just too many levels of indirection, with big high-energy spells that were all too likely to blow up if anything went wrong. I could make an ammo factory, maybe, but even then I’d have trouble making enough shells to matter. An artillery battery needs thousands of shells, not dozens.

So I tabled that, and turned my attention to things I knew I could do quickly.

My test rig for the new vehicle enchantments was basically a flying motorcycle, held a few feet off the ground by a levitation enchantment a lot like the one I’d used on my original hover barge. But it also had a propulsion enchantment, basically just a force push spell, and both that and the levitation height could be adjusted.

That combination created something that performed a lot like an actual hovercraft from back home, which was hellishly tricky to control. I could sort of manage it as long as I was careful and didn’t go too fast, but my men had never heard of Newton’s laws. If I gave them something like this they’d plow it into a tree at a hundred miles an hour before the day was out, so a more forgiving control system was definitely needed.

I accomplished that by adding a third enchantment that created drag against the ground, resisting sideways movement and gradually slowing the vehicle to a stop if the thrust was turned off. That made it behave more like a ground vehicle, and once I added a brake pedal hooked up to the drag field the thing suddenly handled a lot more like an actual motorcycle. Add a speed governor to keep the thing down to thirty or so and I could probably count on my men not killing themselves with it.

Of course, by the time I had that worked out Cerise had turned up to watch me drive the test vehicle around the island. She was practically vibrating with excitement, and considering how she’d reacted to the original hover barge I could only imagine what her inner speed demon would think of this.

Well, what the hell. I turned off the speed governor, and pulled up next to her. It only took a moment to extend the seat to make room for a passenger.

“Hop on,” I said.

I didn’t have to tell her twice. She bounced up behind me, and pressed her firm breasts into my back. “How fast does this thing go?” She said breathlessly.

“Faster than a diving gryphon,” I told her. “Hang on!”

The little speedometer I’d rigged up wasn’t all that accurate, since I hadn’t had a watch or a ruler with me when I was brought to this world. But I easily got it up to eighty running laps around the island, so the fact that it was probably off by five or ten percent wasn’t terribly important. Then I took us down the boat ramp and out onto the river, where I could really open her up. The speedometer pegged at one forty halfway across the river, and that was still only about three-fourths thrust.

Cerise was whooping and laughing the whole time, of course. After a few minutes I slowed down to explain the controls to her, and she leaned over my shoulder and nodded along intently. Then I set the governor to fifty, and cruised back up the boat ramp. At the top I climbed off, and she groaned with disappointment.

“Aw, come on Daniel. Just a few more minutes?”

“Nah, I’ve got work to do. But you have fun with the skimmer bike. It’s all yours now.”

Her eyes went huge. “For me? Really?”

“Really. I’m been meaning to make you something cool, and this will be useful too. Just start out slow, and take the time to get used to how it handles before you start trying to race the wind. If you lose control and hit someone you’ll probably kill them, and at top speed even you might not survive hitting something solid. I’ve set it not to go much faster than a galloping horse for now, but once you’ve mastered that I can take off the limiter for you.”

She stood there gaping at me for a moment. Then she threw herself into my arms, wrapped her legs around my waist and kissed me until I was ready to do her right there next to the drill field.

“You are so getting lucky tonight,” she growled in my ear. “Thank you, Daniel! You’re awesome, you know that?”

“So are you, Cerise. Enjoy.”

I hung around for a few minutes to make sure she had the basics down, but true to form she picked it up with preternatural speed. Soon she was back out on the river, practicing her cornering and bouncing over chunks of floating ice like she’d been riding that thing for years. I smiled, and headed back indoors to the vehicle park.

Obviously I wasn’t going to be making skimmer bikes for anyone who didn’t have superhuman reflexes. But with the basic control functions worked out I was ready to tackle those armored vehicles I’d promised Captain Rain. So, what did they need to look like?

I ended up with a design that was basically a big armored box, with an inch-thick hull of nickel-iron. The quartz windows around the driver’s position were even thicker, and backed by a grid of iron bars. A large compartment in back had room for eight men and their gear, with a ramp in the back to let them get in and out quickly. I mounted my prototype 25mm cannon in a small turret on top, with lighter armor and a force enchantment to make it rotate quickly.

Making it self-powered didn’t sound like a bright idea, since military hardware inevitably gets damaged in use. So instead I made a portable power core, just a 100-pound slug of nickel-iron enchanted with my matter to mana and power transfer spells. One of those could run a few dozen heavy vehicles and assorted other gear easily, and while it didn’t have an unlimited range I estimated the power transfer links were good for at least thirty miles. That was plenty to support operations around the city, and if we needed to send an expedition further afield we could always load the power core into one of the vehicles.

Add the same scheme of motive enchantments as the skimmer bike, put a pair of enchanted headlamps on the front, and I was done. The whole thing ended up a bit smaller than the APCs I was familiar with, thanks to the fact that I didn’t have to cram in an engine and fuel tanks and assorted other mechanical components. It was also whisper-quiet, which was going to take some getting used to.

The men were pretty impressed when I drove it out to the training area to show off. Marcus had a hundred or so recruits in training now, and they all ground to a halt to stare at the iron behemoth as it crossed the field. I think half of them needed fresh pants after we test-fired the cannon.

I was pretty sure I had a workable design, and the quick field trial I ran turned up only a few minor issues. A glitch with the power flow regulator, some minor ergonomic issues with the internal layout, and a few mechanical problems with things like door latches and the turret traverse. Nothing that took more than a few minutes to fix, thanks to the convenience of magical manufacturing.

After that it handled well enough. I took Oskar, Marcus and a couple of the sergeants out on a test run. Around the island, down the boat ramp and across the river, where we stopped to try out the cannon a bit. It was louder than the guns, but the earsplitting crack of the shells breaking the sound barrier still wasn’t nearly as bad as the thunder of a gunpowder-based weapon. I’d also rigged it to fire continuously while the trigger was held down, and the cycle time on the enchantment was about half a second.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack.

Oskar took his finger off the trigger, and eyed the shattered remnants of the boulder he’d been aiming at. “Well, sir, I reckon that will put paid to any dragons we run into.”

“It could tear down a wall in short order,” Marcus pointed out. “You’re going to make more of these siege engines?”

I nodded. “Two more armored skimmers with cannons, for now. That’s enough to give us a decent reaction force, to deal with anything that comes up out of sight of our own walls. I’ve got another weapon in mind that’s more suited to dealing with masses of troops, assuming I can get it working.”

“These are fearsome weapons, sir,” Marcus replied uncertainly. “Are you sure it’s wise to put such powers in the hands of ordinary men?”

“This is Ragnarok, Marcus. My men are going to have as much firepower as I can give them.”

Which was true, but it reminded me that I’d been neglecting another important area. While I certainly wanted my men as well equipped as I could manage, I also needed to come up with a major upgrade to my own gear. I’d come up badly short against Narfing, and I couldn’t afford to let that happen again. For that matter, I really ought to come up with some force multipliers for the girls too. Cerise was certain to end up in the thick of the action, and I’d feel a lot better about taking the field with her if Avilla and even Tina had better ways to defend themselves.

So while the men were trying out their new equipment, I went back to the lab to take a swing at a more subtle problem. The last time I’d contemplated giving someone else a magic power source I’d been frustrated by the problem of regulating the energy flow, since a user who didn’t have metamagical sorcery wouldn’t be able to just reach into the enchantment and adjust its behavior like I did. But since then I’d done quite a bit of work on making enchantments that did things automatically, or in response to the movement of mechanical controls.

Cerise was bouncing with excitement when I called her in to my lab the next morning.

“Hey boss, what’s up? Got another sweet present for me already?”

“Actually, yes,” I told her. “I’ve been working on how to make a power source amulet that someone else can use safely, and I think I’ve got a working model here. You and Avilla have been getting a lot of practice with your techniques for sharing magic, right?”

She nodded. “That’s right. I recharge off Avilla all the time, now that you’ve gotten in the habit of filling her up every few days. Are you saying this thing works the same way?”

“Exactly. If you pull on it you should get a modest trickle of power, but otherwise it doesn’t do anything. I can make a stronger one, but I want you to try out the prototype for a few days and make sure there aren’t any problems first.”

She accepted the amulet almost reverently, despite the fact that it was just a plain disk of nickel-iron. “This is like yours? It will never run out?”

“Not for hundreds of years,” I agreed.

She donned the amulet, and closed her eyes in concentration.

“It works,” she breathed. “Fuck, that’s what you call a modest trickle? I could run all my best battle magic off that. I could call down concealment and loose my shadow at the same time, and still have plenty of power to fling curses and shed fear without even touching my own reserves. Daniel, this is huge!”

“That’s the idea, Cerise. If I’m going to be fighting a demigoddess and her crew of legendary monsters I want you powered up enough to watch my back.”

“You spoil me, Daniel,” she said with a huge grin. “Is Avilla getting one of these too?”

“Of course. Once you’re done testing it I’ll make high-powered versions for both of you, and probably a weaker one for Elin. She seems pretty reliable, and healing that doesn’t run out would be a good resource to have.”

“I guess so. You really like Elin, huh?” She seemed a little bemused at that.

“I do. She’s a lot more intellectual than you’d expect from her ancestry. Smart as hell, and I think she spent half her time holed up in the Conclave library reading. It makes her interesting to talk to.”

“Huh. She’s got a good reason to be loyal, too,” Cerise mused. “Too bad she’s butt-ugly.”

“Still scouting for a fifth coven member?” I asked.

“Of course. Mara’s playing hard to get, but she was all happy to see me when I ran into her in town yesterday. We’ll tempt her into it, but that still leaves us one short.”

I sighed. “You know, I’ll grant you that Mara’s smoking hot. But she’s also pretty high strung, and she can be a complete bitch sometimes. She’s going to be a lot of hassle to deal with, and I’m really not sure it would be worth it.”

“Hence the need for a well-designed coven bond,” Cerise grinned. “Honestly, Daniel, witches have been doing this for centuries. We’ve figured out how to get it right. Besides, I’m a complete psycho bitch and look how easy you handle me. Just fuck her blind a couple of times a week, and that fire nature of hers will have her going all doe-eyed for you even if she won’t admit to it. Can you imagine how hot that would be?”

Mara, acting like a tsundere anime character? Yeah, no thanks. She’d incinerate half the staff the first time she threw a temper tantrum. Besides, I still wasn’t buying this whole ‘fire mages are repressed nymphos’ thing. It sounded too much like wishful thinking.

“Anyway, we’re going to have to meet some more of the Conclave women to pick out another prospect. I got an invite from Mara to a get-together for apprentices tomorrow night, so I’ll let you know what I find. Tova’s girls are supposed to be there, and I hear they’re not the only hot young babes in the Citadel.”

“You have a seriously one-track mind, Cerise. Well, have fun. But I’m probably going to be too busy to give much attention to this girl hunt of yours for a few days. We’ve got a possible army on the way, remember?”

Yes, getting access to the royal war room had paid off. The Gryphon Knights were making good use of their flight time to maintain a watch on the area, and track the movements of any group of monsters big enough to be visible from the air. Their coverage was a bit spotty after the attack on the stables, but they could hardly miss an army of goblins assembling barely three days’ march from Kozalin.

So far there were a couple thousand goblins and a few dozen trolls in the encampment, which wasn’t nearly enough to threaten the city. But the force was growing quickly as raiding bands streamed in from all over the area, and there were reports of other creatures joining them in the last few days. Hairy things a little bigger than men, who wore strange red armor and carried huge axes.

Prince Caspar’s advisors had tentatively identified them as the semi-mythical andregi, a race of savage ape-men descended from Gaea herself who supposedly lived in some remote underground realm plotting the destruction of human civilization. No one seemed to know much about them, aside from the fact that they were bigger than humans and tended to have supernatural powers. Joy.

But if they were still gathering their forces I had some time to work.

My own equipment was next in line for an upgrade. I definitely wanted something to keep my own amulet from getting knocked off me if I got caught in another big explosion, but I wasn’t happy with the obvious solution of just wearing a steel breastplate. The weight and restriction of my movement were both annoying, and I’d run into all too many monsters who could shred steel. With my luck the first time I went out in armor something would put a big dent in it, and then the deformed metal would prevent me from healing the wound.

My second thought was to simply enchant my clothes with a spell to dissipate the kinetic energy of anything that struck them. But that was essentially what my force field did, and I’d already seen that one of the standard ways to penetrate warding spells in this world was to enchant your weapon to resist magic. A sword like the one Baron Stein had used was pretty much immune to magic, so my kinetic redirection effects wouldn’t be able to touch it.

So what if the magic was affecting my armor instead of the projectile?

A little experimentation showed that I could easily put a spell on a piece of cloth that pushed back with equal force against any impact. That readily prevented anything from penetrating it, and rendered explosions and blunt weapons completely ineffective. Edged weapons still did damage to the cloth itself, as it was sandwiched between the conflicting forces. But a good defense should have multiple layers anyway, so I decided that would make a good incremental improvement.

I had Avilla procure a long coat made of leather, and enchanted it with the kinetic resistance effect along with fire resistance and a nice big energy reserve. Under that I’d wear a breastplate with a decent structural reinforcement enchantment like the one I’d put on my fortifications, although its small size meant the enchantment’s power would be a lot easier to deplete. Still, the combination would easily protect me from attacks that would have knocked me out of the fight before.

For a bit of improved battlefield control, I enchanted another chunk of nickel-iron with the earth-conjuring spells I’d used to raise my fortifications. But this time I also added spells for banishing earth and stone, plus the levitation and force push effects I’d used on the skimmers. I set up a control link between that and a ring, and suddenly I had a tool that could fly around a battlefield at high speeds throwing up barriers wherever I wanted them. It took a few seconds to make anything especially durable, but I could work with that.

What about offense? Being hard to kill is nice, but a key part of any defense is killing your attacker before he has time to puzzle out how to hurt you. Grinder was a good close-in weapon and an awesome intimidation tool, but I desperately needed a decent way to kill things at a distance.

That was deceptively hard to do with my sorcery, since working magic became exponentially harder at any distance. I pretty much had to create an offensive effect and then throw it at my target, and so far my attempts to duplicate the sort of attack spells you see in computer games hadn’t worked out very well.

But it occurred to me that a gun is a highly effective means of delivering a package to a distant target. Maybe I’d been letting the fact that I was using magic influence my thinking a bit too much?

Thus was born my second personal weapon.

I’d been having some success with simplifying complex enchantments by building them in pieces, so this weapon was assembled out of distinct components. A power source enchantment on a slug of nickel-iron that fit into the hilt. A frame the general size and shape of a sawed-off shotgun, with a tricky bit of force magic to help stabilize its aim on whatever target I designated. A six-chambered cylinder like the one from a revolver only shorter, intended to hold thick metal disks instead of bullets. A prototype disk with a basic bullet-conjuration enchantment, and the standard bullet-launching enchantment on the weapon. Making it so I could have a different bullet-conjuring slug in each chamber and only the one that was currently lined up would activate when I pulled the trigger was a little tricky, but worth it.

The prototype disk just gave me a gun that fired 0.50 rounds, in a form factor that was a bit handier than what I was giving my men. But making the ammunition factory removable meant I could experiment with different ammunition types, and I had lots of ideas.

My second ammo type was based on that bouncing force grenade I’d improvised back in the temple at Lanrest. The bullet was enchanted with a little force spike on the front and a strong repulsive effect along the sides, and would sprout a set of foot-long force blades while in flight. These were very thin, almost one-dimensional, to minimize the air resistance they created. But between the spin of the bullet and the tendency to bounce around after hitting a target the net result was an unpredictable whirlwind of destruction that would run for several seconds before its power ran out.

That should do gruesome things to goblins, or massed troops. But I knew from experience that the force blades wouldn’t work well against really tough monsters. So for more armored targets I added a third ammo type, which would conjure several pounds of pressurized liquid nickel-iron when it struck a target. That produced an impressive explosion and a high-velocity spray of molten metal that left deep gouges in stone, so I expected it would get the job done against anything short of Narfing.

Then I had to stop and curse myself. Why had I spent all that time dicking around with explosive flame and force spells, when I could conjure up a dandy explosive material almost trivially using earth magic?

At that realization I broke off the work on personal weapons to take another shot at artillery. Well, no, artillery was overkill. It didn’t matter how big the projectile was, and since we didn’t have radios or forward observers there was no point in making a high-velocity weapon that could lob shells over the horizon. A couple of miles would be more than enough range to give anyone attacking my island a really bad day.

Mortars, then. A relatively light one, maybe two hundred pounds of tube and base plate, launching a two-pound shell at less than half the velocity our rifles produced. A little experimenting confirmed that it would lob a shell far enough for my needs. No need to make it conjure the shells, either. Make an enchantment factory that would create mortar rounds with the magma-conjuring spell on them, and we could just let it run and store them.

I played around with the conjuration effect a bit, and settled on a design that conjured five times as much molten nickel-iron as the bullets from my gun. In my testing that produced a nice, big blast suitable for tearing holes in an approaching army, while still being small enough that we could direct fire near the base of the city wall without killing friendly troops. Assuming I could make the mortar accurate enough to reliably hit a reasonable-size target zone.

I’ve never fired a mortar myself, but I’ve read enough military fiction to know how that’s supposed to work. Just build a couple of screws into the mortar that you can use to make small adjustments to the angle of the tube, and then you can walk your fire over the enemy until you get it where you want it. Easy, right?

Three hours later I was seriously wondering how the fuck Renaissance-era clock makers made stuff like that by hand. Conjuring a screw with earth magic was tricky. Making a screw where the threads were a consistent size, to within a fraction of a millimeter, was damned near impossible. Making that, and then perfectly matching the threads on the hole it was supposed to go into… ugh! I was about ready to tear my hair out.

That was when I was interrupted by a messenger. One of Oskar’s men, and panting like he’d just had a good run.

“Milord! Visitors at the water gate!”

“What? The water gate?” I said in surprise.

He nodded. “Yes, milord. A boat from the other side of the river, with a man and three women aboard. The sergeant of the watch wants to know if we should let them in?”

Chapter 17

The water gate was a massive portcullis of nickel-iron that could be laboriously raised using a winch in the gatehouse above it. When I’d thrown it together I’d noted that I really ought to come back and put some kind of motive enchantment on it eventually, or maybe redesign it entirely. I wasn’t sure how long the metal gate would survive being half-immersed in water before it rusted through, after all.

But the gaps in the bars allowed me to get a good look at our visitors, especially after I threw a force wall over the surface of the water and walked out to them. A man and three women in a little wooden boat, just like the messenger had said. But the description didn’t capture the sheer strangeness of their appearance.

The man was a little taller than average for this world, maybe five foot eight, and tremendously hairy. He wore a cloak that appeared to be woven from leaves stitched together with small vines, although that the fact that it was all green made me suspect it was actually alive. Beneath that he wore a breastplate of smooth, dark wood, along with leather greaves and a sort of skirt made of thick leather strips. The outfit reminded me of the armor ancient Greek warriors wore, aside from the complete lack of metal.

The three women were similarly equipped, although the generous proportions of their breastplates left absolutely no doubt as to their gender. All three were gorgeous, a wild beauty unmarred by any hint of artifice, and for a moment I wondered if this guy was a traveling wizard. All three of the women carried short spears and seemed to know how to use them, but the man was unarmed.

When I arrived they were having a rather heated discussion among themselves, which seemed to involve a lot of arm waving and finger pointing. But they composed themselves as they noted my approach.

“Hello, travelers,” I said as I got within easy talking distance. “I’m Daniel Black. Who are you, and what brings you to my stronghold?”

“See, Corinna, I told you we were in the right place. I’m Demetrios, of the line of Pan. This is my head girl Zoe, and our temporary allies Pelagia and Corinna. Obviously they’re all elder nymphs with their own circles and retinues, but if you’re willing to extend guest rights we’ll all vow to cause you no trouble in return. I was told to mention Dark Hecate’s name?”

Zoe had long, curly hair in a chestnut brown, while Pelagia’s was lighter brown and Corinna’s was midnight black. Aside from that they were similar enough to be cousins, if not sisters.

“Ah. That explains a few things. Come on it, then.”

There was nothing holding the portcullis down except gravity, and this seemed like a good time to show off a little. So I pulled deep on the power of my amulet, and levitated the whole thing with a gesture. It rose eight feet with a rattle of chains and a rumble of metal against stone, and hung there dripping with river water.

Zoe and Demetrios were only surprised for a moment. Then Demetrios grinned and said something to Zoe in another language. She punched his shoulder and smiled, and they chatted for a moment while Zoe fetched an oar from somewhere and started paddling the boat through. But Pelagia and Corinna both stared in astonishment for long moments, before Zoe nudged them into action. Then Corinna shook herself, muttered something about wizards and their tricks, and glared sullenly at me as she reluctantly took up an oar.

Pelagia kept glancing up anxiously at the portcullis as they passed under it, and then back at me with an increasingly awed expression. Ah, someone was calculating how much magic I was burning to hold up that multi-ton weight.

I lowered it gently back into place once they were through, and jumped across the little inlet to the dock. Cerise had shown up while I was out on the water, and was leaning against the wall waiting for me.

“This looks like an interesting crew,” she commented. “Nymphs, dryads and a satyr who knows how to change his shape? Should I tell Avilla we’ve got company for dinner?”

I checked the sky, and realized it was about that time. “Could you? Give her a little warning, before we spring unexpected guests on her?”

“Sure. Just don’t let the hot nymph babes seduce you while that guy’s around, or you might get a little more action than you were counting on. You know what they say about Greeks, right?”

I laughed, and gave her a swat on the butt to get her going. She took off with a giggle, and was on her bike and flying back to the keep before our guests reached the dock.

It was pretty obvious Demetrios was the only one in the group who had any experience with boats. The other three were clumsy with their oars, and Corinna tried to stand up as they came alongside the dock and nearly capsized the boat. They didn’t seem to have a rope to tie up with, either. With some coaching from Demetrios the three nymphs managed to scramble up onto the dock, although at one point I had to grab Pelagia’s arm to keep her from falling in.

She flushed in embarrassment. “Thank you, Daniel. Will you keep hold of me for a moment, in case I need saving again? This is going to be tricky, and I can’t trust Demetrios to keep his hands from roaming.”

“It’s your fault for having such a spectacular ass,” Demetrios teased. “My hand just moved on its own.”

She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t your own grove enough for you, lech?”

“Enough? There’s no such thing, milady!”

“What are you doing?” I asked, interrupting their banter. Pelagia was kneeling on the dock, and reaching down for the boat. Which, I noted, was just as odd as the rest of their equipment. The whole thing seemed to be a single piece of wood, with no seams or nails anywhere.

The reason for this became apparent when a brown-skinned arm reached out of the wood to take Pelagia’s hand. She pulled, and a naked girl emerged from the boat to tumble onto the dock with her. The boat itself seemed to shrink as the girl emerged, the last of it vanishing into her feet a moment before they would have lost contact.

The girl clung to Pelagia, shivering violently in the cold. “M-mistress? T-that was s-s-scary!”

Brown skin, green hair, and came out of a piece of wood? Probably a dryad, then, although her powers didn’t quite seem to match the legends I was familiar with. She looked more like a teenage athlete than the giggling sex objects dryads are usually depicted as, although I suppose she’d be cute enough if she wasn’t turning blue.

“Is she going to be alright?” I asked.

Pelagia nodded. “Yes. We’re on land now, and my little shield is a strong one. Aren’t you, pet? Come, your sister is inviting you into her heart. Rest, and recover your strength.

The dryad nodded, and hugged Pelagia. Then she sank into the nymph’s wooden breastplate, and vanished.

Pelagia stood, and shook her head. “Thank you for your concern, Daniel. The winter has been hard on my girls, and I fear holding such an unfamiliar shape over water took a harsh toll on her. She’ll recover, but we’ll need to find another way to make the return trip.”

A gust of wind blew over the island, and she hugged herself against the cold. Right, just because I was protected didn’t mean they were.

“Well, for now let’s get you all out of the cold. You can guest with me tonight, and we’ll discuss things.”

“Thank you, Adept Black,” Demetrios said smoothly. “We accept your hospitality. Don’t we, girls?”

There was a chorus of agreement from all three, although I noticed that Zoe still spoke in that language she and Demetrios had used before. Was that Greek? Italian? That might be a problem, although she seemed to be content to let Demetrios speak for her.

I led them up the ramp and across the island towards the keep, chatting about little things. They seemed impressed by the fortifications, especially when I told them this was only the beginning. Demetrios asked a few questions about the defenses, and I pointed out an armored skimmer and a platoon of recruits drilling with their guns.

As we walked, a marked transformation came over Pelagia. Her magic spread out into the ground, reestablishing some sort of metaphysical connection, and grew much stronger over the course of a few minutes. Her body underwent a similar transformation, her already generous curves becoming so impossibly lush that no one could have mistaken her for a human. Her long brown hair practically glowed with vitality, and her movements took on a preternatural grace that reminded me of Cerise when she went full demon. An aura of supernatural allure rose up around her, and then was quickly leashed and drawn in before it could cause more than a momentary flash of desire.

Even so, it took an effort of will not to throw her over my shoulder and carry her off somewhere private. It didn’t help that some niggling instinct in the back of my mind was telling me that she’d be overjoyed if I did just that.

Then Zoe underwent a similar transformation. She was older than Pelagia, and her magic much stronger, although physically she wasn’t quite as stunning. I realized then that this was their natural form. They were spirits of the earth, and what I’d seen on the boat was only a washed-out shadow of their true selves. But then, why hadn’t Corinna changed?

I got my answer a minute later, as we approached the keep and she stopped to growl in frustration.

“The whole island? Really? What arrogance led you to claim an entire island to yourself? Is this some kind of male ego thing?”

Huh. It had been long enough since I’d heard that kind of crap that I’d started to forget how annoying it was. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about, but given their connection to the earth I could make an educated guess.

“The island is mine because I made it, Corinna. If you have a problem with that you can always leave.”

“You? Alone? That’s absurd,” she huffed. “This is some wizardly plot to drive a chink in my defenses, isn’t it?”

“Grow up, Cor,” Pelagia chided. “Not everything is about you. Now do you really want to meet the priestess looking like that?”

“Ugh. Fine, Pel, I’ll do it. But I’m blaming you if we all end up getting raped.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m safe on that count,” Demetrios put in dryly. “Now stop being a bitch before the nice wizard decides to take offense.”

Her transformation was similar to the other two, although her aura was a bit weaker. I could vaguely feel their connections to my land, and through it indirectly to me. Interesting. I’d have to look into that when I had the time. If I were actually some evil bastard who wanted to enslave them the link could probably be used to bypass their magical defenses, at least to some extent. But there were probably other, more useful things that could be done with it. Maybe I could feed them power without an amulet, or something.

There was definitely some kind of empathic aspect to it, though. Flickering, uncertain, just little flashes of emotional impressions that came a little into focus if I concentrated and faded from awareness the rest of the time. Was that impression I’d gotten from Pelagia real, then? Maybe. Zoe felt… taken. Polite, but not interested and hoping I’d respect that. Fair enough.

From the way she acted I expected Corinna to reek of disgust and hatred, but what I got instead was a tangled ball of confused emotion that I couldn’t begin to sort out.

Oh, great. One of those types. Well, whatever.

I gave her a minute to finish recovering herself, and then turned and led them into the keep. They stared in amazement at the architecture, my people stopped to stare in amazement at the nymphs, and I ushered them into the elevator quickly before one of the men worked up the courage to approach them and make a scene.

Demetrios looked a little green on the way up, and Zoe clung to him nervously. But Pelagia pressed her face against the glass I’d recently added, and looked down excitedly as the elevator rose.

“We’re so high!” She exclaimed. “But still connected to the earth. This is marvelous, Daniel. I mean, Adept Black. Sorry, I don’t see humans very often and I have to keep reminding myself of the customs. I mean no offense.”

“It’s fine, Pelagia. I only insist on the title in formal situations. Feel free to call me Daniel unless there’s a big crowd of humans close enough to overhear us.”

Corinna scoffed. “If we’re being formal she would be High Mistress Pelagia of the Grove of Red Thorns, and I’m the Black Fang of Vengeance.”

Demetrios sighed. “Sorry, Daniel. We passed through her grove on the way here, and I didn’t have the heart to leave her followers to wither and die in eternal winter.”

“I understand, Demetrios. Although technically it won’t actually be an eternal winter. Europe with thaw again in a hundred thousand years, give or take a few millennia.”

Pelagia and Corinna both shivered at that.

Then we arrived at my door, where a group of maids were waiting to greet us. They escorted our visitors off to a guest suite to freshen up before dinner, and I made my way back to the private dining room to see my girls.

Avilla greeted me with a hug, and a slightly worried smile.

“Three nymphs and a satyr, Daniel? I asked for volunteers in case they don’t behave themselves until dinner, but we can’t possibly expect them to keep to themselves overnight. They’ll seduce half the staff before dawn, and no one will have the energy to get their work done.”

“Don’t forget the dryads,” Cerise observed. “Armor, weapon and shield makes three for each of them, and I think the satyr has one too. Sounds like a hell of a party.”

I frowned. “I was assuming they’d be able to show a little restraint.”

“In close quarters with a bunch of humans they haven’t sampled? That’s like asking us to please stop breathing for a while. Maybe they’ll hold off until after dinner, but overnight would take a miracle. Even if they decide to have themselves a little private orgy instead, the noise and magic will draw in everyone around them.”

Avilla nodded in agreement. “Not many men could refuse a nymph, and dryads are almost as bad. Satyrs don’t have the allure, but they’ll chase anything in a skirt and the ones they catch never mind afterwards. If you want them to stay here you’ll have to put them in a place of their own, and make rules about who can visit them.”

I was a little skeptical about that at first, knowing the crazy stories that bigoted people back on my own world like to spread about foreigners. But dinner forced me to reconsider.

The meal was held in my private dining room, where the girls didn’t bother trying to hide their various oddities. Cerise showed up in full demon-girl mode, with her horns out and her nails sharpened into claws. Tina was in hybrid form, with quite a bit of fur showing, and I invited Elin to join us as well.

“In public we try not to attract too much attention from the temple,” I told our guests when they arrived. “But here in private we’re free to relax and be ourselves.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Demetrios responded. “Keeping my horns in for hours at a time gets uncomfortable.”

His form blurred for a moment, and developed goat legs and horns that were superficially what I’d expected. But modern fiction tends to portray satyrs as harmless, almost comical creatures, and there was nothing harmless about Demetrios. When his wooden armor shrank into an amulet it revealed tanned skin stretched taut over hard muscle, crisscrossed by the faint trace of old scars.

That would have been fine, except that the nymphs followed suit. When their armor shrank away it left Zoe and Pelagia clad in filmy, translucent toga-like garments more like lingerie than real clothes. Corinna ended up in a fur halter top and loincloth, and she actually let her allure aura unfurl for a moment before Zoe slapped the back of her head and said something disdainful to her.

Needless to say, I ended up spending half the meal thinking about sex.

At least I tried to stay focused, and their small talk about life among the dryad groves was actually pretty interesting. But Cerise flirted shamelessly with Corinna and Pelagia all through the meal, and the maids Avilla had assigned to do the serving seemed fascinated with Demetrios. I’m not sure if that was magic, or just the fact that he was no longer wearing pants. Thank god the table was in the way, because I did not need to see that.

I was actually a little worried for Avilla in that situation, but she handled it with surprising aplomb. Her eyes may have been drawn to the buffet of semi-exposed nymph flesh a little more than was strictly polite, but she barely flirted with them and showed no interest at all in Demetrios.

Tina was adorably excited to be included in a gathering like this, and alternated between listening raptly to the conversation and breaking in with breathless questions about inconsequential details. The nymphs were quite taken with her in return, and Corinna in particular was fascinated to meet a ‘were-cat’.

Elin seemed completely unaffected by our guests at first, and her polished manners and scholarly intellect were of considerably help in keeping the conversation going. But her manner grew a bit strained as time went on, and it belated occurred to me that putting the homely girl in a room with three nymphs in addition to my own companions was a bit unkind. She was bound to draw unflattering comparisons, especially with all the flirting that didn’t include her.

I made an effort to keep her involved in the conversation after that, despite Pelagia’s subtle efforts to capture my attention and Corinna’s far less sophisticated outbursts.

Finally we reached the end of the meal, and politeness allowed me to broach the important topic of conversation.

“So, I’m sure you didn’t brave the dangers of Fimbulwinter just to sample my sterling dinner conversation. What can I do for you?”

The nymphs all looked to Demetrios at that.

“Ahem. Yes, that. I’m sure you know things have been increasingly bad since the snows started, and especially since word started getting around that it wasn’t going to stop. The groves can survive a harsh winter well enough, but this kind of weather is another story. Especially with bands of monsters roaming the countryside, and dark elf slavers taking advantage of the chaos.”

“Everyone with a connection to call on has been praying for help, or at least advice. My Zoe here has some skill at witchcraft, and about a week ago Hecate-”

Zoe punched his shoulder.

He sighed. “Right. Dark Hecate, the Dread Mistress of the Night, deigned to answer her. She said you might be willing to give us shelter if we meet certain conditions, although I’m not sure how that would work. Nymphs can live like humans if they really have to, but dryads can’t survive without their trees.”

“I have a plan for that,” I assured him. “You’ve seen the scale of my earth magic, and with Elin’s help water isn’t a problem either. So we can build you a shelter big enough to protect a whole grove of trees from the weather, and enchant it to provide sunlight and water so that plants can grow inside. Would that work?”

“That’s an impressive feat of magic, Daniel. Yes, if you can do that I think it would work. But how could we repay you? All I‘ve got to offer is dryads and nymphs, and let’s face it, even willing nymph concubines aren’t worth enough to buy that kind of magic. I’ll do a lot to save my girls, but only if it’s actually going to save them.”

I put my arms around Cerise and Avilla. “I’m not exactly lacking in companionship, Demetrios. No, I’ve got a different kind of price in mind, and it doesn’t involve blood sacrifices or anything crazy like that. What kind of influence do dryads actually have over growing things? If I build a suitable place for it, could they help my people grow ten acres worth of crops on an acre of land?”

Zoe nodded, and said something to Demetrios.

“Yes,” he translated. “More than that, if the soil is good. You’ll need humans to do the sowing and reaping, though. Dryads are no good at that kind of thing.”

“Hmm. If Zoe can understand me why isn’t she talking?”

Demetrios grimaced. “Caught that, did you? Sorry, she just doesn’t speak Danish very well. We have a link that lets her sort of share my understanding, but she’s embarrassed to talk.”

“Am sounding like stupid,” Zoe agreed. “Lingue cambiano così in fretta, non riesco mai a tenere il passo con loro.”

“She said re-learning languages every couple of centuries is a hassle.” He pulled her into a hug, and reached under her toga to grope her affectionately. “Yeah, my girl’s an intellectual and proud of it.”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t quite fight down a smile. He squeezed harder, and she nestled up against him with a happy sigh.

“Anyway, we could agree to something like that,” Demetrios went on. “It would be a drain on their magic, but as long as you’re not doing anything else to burden the land their trees are planted on they can manage it. I’m not sure how many people we could feed, but I think it would be a lot more than I’ve seen here.”

“We can figure out the details as we go, as long as they’re willing to work for a living. My goal here is to create the most secure refuge I can, and we’re going to need our own food supply in the long run. That’s actually going to be one of our most important resources, so if we come to an agreement your grove will be in the middle of the island where it’s as hard as possible for an enemy to attack.”

“The other big thing they’ll need to agree to is the issue of leadership. I know there’s a tradition in Europe of the different races living off in their own settlements away from each other, and each governing their own affairs. But we’re going to have to work together a lot more closely than that to survive, so we aren’t going to be able to do things that way here. This is my stronghold, and I’m in charge. I’ll listen to your advice, and I intend to mostly leave you alone to manage your own affairs, and you’ll always be free to leave. But as long as you’re under my roof you abide by my rules.”

“That’s fair,” Demetrios conceded. “But my girls are mine, and the same goes for my sons and their families. If you’re in the grove one day and want to fool around with the dryads that’s one thing, but no taking them away as familiars or pets or anything. It may seem strange but, well, they’re my girls. I love them.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that, actually. I’m not the sort who’d do that to women against their will anyway, but it gives me confidence that you’ll understand what I mean when I say the same applies in reverse. If your girls want to fool around with some passing soldier that’s one thing, but if people start disappearing into the grove permanently I’m not going to be happy. The same goes for getting the serving girls pregnant, or stirring up trouble by seducing married men’s wives.”

“What if they stay willingly?” Pelagia asked, concerned.

“If they’re charmed by your beauty and womanly wiles that’s fair game,” I told her. “If you use magic to befuddle their wits to the point where they don’t remember their own names, that isn’t. If you’re going to play games that blur the lines, make sure it’s clear that they consented to it before you get to that point. I don’t care what you do for fun, just don’t let it cause trouble.”

“Oh, and obviously I expect everyone who can fight to be prepared to help defend this place,” I pointed out. “I’m training more human troops and arming them with magic, and I expect they’ll be the ones doing most of the fighting. I have to admit, they’re more replaceable than your people. But you’ll need to take part in the defense planning, and if a mission comes up where you’re needed don’t be surprised if I call you up.”

“I can agree to all of this,” Demetrios said, sounding relieved. “We will submit to your rule and lend our magic to your cause, to grow food or whatever else may be required, and fight for you so long as you do not spend our lives recklessly. In return you will provide for us a refuge of eternal summer where we can replant our grove, guard us with your walls and men and magic, and afford us citizenship in your realm. Is that the whole of it?”

“Sounds right,” I agreed. “How many people do you have, anyway?”

“I cannot speak for my esteemed companions,” he replied. “But my own band includes Zoe and her three sisters, my two sons and their wives, two dozen dryads and a hamadryad. So thirty-four of us in all. Show us our place of refuge, my lord, and we shall swear our allegiance.”

“Agreed. I take it your people are waiting across the river? Then I’ll have Captain Rain take the skimmers across to fetch them tonight while I build your refuge. There are a lot of monsters lurking around the city, and there’s no need for them to rough it another night.”

“I… thank you, Daniel. I had assumed such a major working would take days of preparation.”

“Nope. Although I’ll need one of you to stay here and help me make sure this place is big enough for your whole group. So, Pelagia, Corinna, what about your groves?”

Pelagia started to answer, but Corinna leaped to her feet

“Hah! That old goat may not have a spine, but the Fangs are different. I have fourteen seasoned warrior dryads under my banner, and we will never submit to a man!” She declared.

Why was she feeling a rush of anticipation? I had a sinking feeling I knew where this was going.

“I see. Then you’ll be on your way come morning?”

“W-what?” Her shock quickly turned to indignation. She planted her hands on her hips and thrust her chest out, as if those mountains needed any emphasis. “Just like that? I had heard that Daniel the Black was a fearsome war wizard, not a craven weakling who would give up at the first hint of a challenge.”

I fought the urge to facepalm. Why are the hot ones always crazy? Well, fuck it. I didn’t have time to play games with her, but I had other options.

“A wizard doesn’t dance to the tune of every pretty face to wander by,” I said. “Cerise, our guest is too busy indulging her kinky fantasies to be serious right now. Take care of that for me, will you?”

Cerise sat up eagerly. “For real? You’re spoiling me, Daniel. First the skimmer bike, and now a pet nymph? This is going to be so much fun.”

Corinna made a show of looking pissed, but I could feel her surge of excitement as she looked Cerise up and down. “You think this little girl can master the Black Fang? Hah! I’ll make you kneel and beg to lick my feet, wench!”

Corinna unleashed her allure, and I had to grip the arms of my chair to keep myself from throwing her over the table and fucking her senseless on the spot. The one maid who was still in the room collapsed to her knees with a whimper, and Avilla didn’t fare much better.

Cerise growled an incantation, and the room grew dim as an unnatural darkness gathered around her. Corinna’s own shadow rose from the floor and coiled about her limbs, binding her in place long enough for Cerise to reach her and push her back against the wall. She took a handful of the nymph’s hair and pulled her head back roughly. Her fangs grazed Corinna’s throat.

The captive nymph struggled wildly, but it did her no good. More shadows rose from the floor, caressing her flanks and belly and heaving breasts. Cerise’s tail traced a line up her inner thigh, and I could smell their excitement from across the room.

“Come into my lair, tasty morsel,” Cerise growled softly. “And we will see who masters who.”

Then the shadows enveloped them both completely, and dissipated to reveal that they were gone. The room was silent for a long moment.

“I think I need fresh panties,” Tina said breathlessly.

All the remaining women in the room burst out in giggles.

“Me, too,” said Avilla.

“Ah, Corinna,” Pelagia said. “She’s a charming girl, but about as subtle as an avalanche. When she was young she spent some years with my grove, and I’m afraid we made a bit too much of an impression on her. Now she’s become quite brash about challenging anyone she thinks might be able to evoke those same feelings in her again.”

“I hope this isn’t an indelicate question, but am I correct in guessing that Cerise stands rather high in Dark Hecate’s favor?”

“High enough that her goddess bargained with Daniel here for her protection,” Avilla replied.

Pelagia looked impressed. “I see. And you are a hearth witch of remarkable strength, while Tina’s divine favor is unmistakable and Elin is a faerie lady in disguise. A most remarkable group. But no coven?”

“Not yet,” Avilla admitted, with a crafty little smile. “Soon.”

“Well, then. Daniel? As High Mistress of the Grove of Red Thorns I agree to your bargain, and submit myself to your will,” she purred suggestively. “My grove numbers four nymphs, three naiads, two hamadryads, a naga and eighteen dryads, all beloved sisters of refined appetites and exceptional beauty. Our lives are in your hands now, but I feel certain you will care for us well.”

Avilla smiled. “Now that’s how you do it.”

“Is it? It didn’t sound very subtle to me,” Elin commented.

“Sometimes one must forsake subtle games,” Pelagia said smoothly. “But there is a wide gulf between a pleasant invitation, and a petulant demand. Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”

Yeah, having this sensual creature call me ‘my lord’ was doing all kinds of things to my libido. But a supernaturally beautiful manipulator with god knows how many centuries of experience was not someone to take lightly. I had a feeling that everything she did was precisely calculated, and it was pretty obvious what her aim was.

“I’d say you have a good grasp on the art of getting men to give you whatever you want,” I agreed. “Just remember what I said about not causing trouble.”

She nodded seriously. “I promise you, Daniel, you will not regret taking in me and mine.”

“Good. Then I think we’re done here.”

Tina squirmed in her seat. “Finally! Does that mean we can get to the sex now?”

“I’m afraid not, sweet kitten,” Pelagia answered. “For our lord is a kind and generous man, who won’t leave our people to freeze in the dark for another night. But I’ll be happy to give you relief while he arranges things.”

“Ah, yeah. Sorry, Tina, but she’s right. You girls can do what you want, but I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me tonight. If the other nymphs are anything like you three nothing else is going to get done on this island until you’ve got a place of your own with doors that lock. Elin, how are you feeling? Are you up to helping me with some water summoning enchantments?”

“M-me? Oh, I suppose it would be. Um, yes sir, I can do that.”

“Great. Let me have a word with Captain Rain, and then we can plan this out.”

Chapter 18

In many ways the dryad habitat was my most ambitious project to date. The island was more massive, of course, but creating a good growing environment for a grove of trees involved far more complexity. Since dryads tend to live in especially large trees I was also going to need a huge enclosed space compared to anything I’d attempted before, and of course it needed to allow for the addition of large agricultural spaces while still being defensible.

At least I didn’t have to worry about moving the trees. That was a problem my immigrants had already solved, although I gathered it hadn’t been easy.

“A powerful dryad can take her tree into her humanoid form for a short time,” Demetrios explained when I asked. “Sort of the reverse of what they normally do when they hide in their trees. Nymphs have long known how to bond with a dryad and blend their magic as well, and they have a lot more power than you might think. When you see the older ones with weapons and armor of wood, those are actually the bodies of their dryad familiars. Of course, most nymphs can only support one or two uprooted dryads at a time.”

“When I realized we were going to have to move the grove Zoe and I went to Pelagia, and together we worked out a ritual to uproot all of our dryads at once. We barely managed to pull that off even with all the ancients in her grove, and we’ve been struggling to keep it up. I’m glad we got here when we did, because a few more days of travel would have broken the spell and we’d never manage it again. In these conditions the dryads can’t rest in their trees without going into hibernation.”

“One more reason not to put this off, then,” I mused. “So, how much space is your grove going to need?”

It took twenty minutes of pacing off distances and planting markers to work that out, under the glare of a half-dozen lights I’d put up on poles. Demetrios wanted each of the three groups of dryads planted as a separate grove, arguing that there would be all sorts of problems if we intermingled them. But that only added to the complexity, especially since Pelagia’s group needed a decent-size pool for their naiads as well.

It was actually Elin who suggested the final layout. A large rectangular structure, with internal walls dividing it into five sections of unequal sizes. The two larger groves would get the big rooms at the ends, Corinna’s group could have a smaller room in the middle, and the two connecting areas could house our first agricultural plots. It was a much simpler design than the towers and domes I’d been thinking of, if not as pretty.

Unfortunately the plot of bare earth I’d left in the middle of my island turned out to be too small, so I had to start by removing thousands of cubic feet of stone so that all the trees could have deep earth for their roots. I congratulated myself on having the foresight to include banishment effects in the island seed’s enchantment as well as the summoning, or that would have been just about impossible. The island’s defensive enchantments were designed to resist any earth magic but its own, and given the size of the thing the amount of energy in its structural reinforcement enchantment was insane.

After the remodeling I filled in the space with dirt, and started on the new structure. A lattice of massive nickel-iron I-beams first, to frame the open spaces and provide support for everything else. Then a sloped roof of iron sheathed in slate over the whole thing, with a flat nickel-iron surface below that to serve as the ceiling for the habitat. There was a large attic space between the two, but since the ceiling was a good two hundred feet up I figured I’d have to put in an elevator to provide access to it.

The outer wall was a lot easier, although I continued my trend of overbuilding by making it twenty feet thick. With the embedded metal skeleton it was the strongest thing I’d made so far, although I did leave thinner sections along the sides where I thought I might expand the agricultural areas in the future. The inner walls were much thinner, only ten feet of stone. The main dryad habitats were just one big open room all the way to the ceiling, but given the amount of vertical space I decided it would be wasteful to do that with the agricultural areas. So instead those got a twenty-foot ceiling at ground level and twelve smaller floors above that were we could grow grain and vegetables.

All of that I could have done alone, but a cavernous dark space would have been useless. For making the habitat capable of supporting life Elin’s help proved even more invaluable than I’d expected. She knew a much better light spell than the one I’d intended to use, that produced actual sunlight instead of an orange fire-like glow. She also had her water magic, of course, and she grasped the concept of a sprinkler system instantly.

We wove the first light enchantment together around midnight, before I put up the outer walls. Her magic flowed more freely with the last of the mercury droplets finally extracted, daintily meshing with my own power in a practiced effort to lay down the needed enchantments without going too deep. I was a lot clumsier at first, and there were more of those odd moments of intimate feedback.

“Sorry,” I apologized as we moved to the second light. “I’m not used to working together with someone like this.”

She was blushing faintly, but trying to keep her composure. “I understand, sir. Please, you needn’t worry for my sake. Our resonance is hardly unpleasant.”

Indeed, if felt rather nice. Sort of like having one of those all-night conversations with an old friend on a topic you’re both passionately interested in, while having a few glasses of wine and cuddling with an affectionate pet. With most people I would have been worried and defensive about the bits of personal information that leaked across as our minds touched through our magic. But it was a mutual thing, and the bits of insight I gained into Elin’s mind set my worries at ease.

She was comfortable. Loyal. Safe, but never boring. Her mind was a well-oiled machine, a joy to watch in operation. Granted, there was a howling beast chained in the basement, but her self-control was amazing.

We spun enchantments together for most of the night. Lights, to make the habitat as bright as day. Self-filling water tanks feeding a maze of pipes and sprinkler heads. A temperature control system. Even a simple illusion over the roof of each habitat, to make it look like sky.

Elin’s magic was actually a little stronger than mine now, and she held up her end of the enchantment work long after I would have passed out without my artificial enhancement. She took breaks now and then while I worked on the earth magic and structural enchantments, but even so her endurance began to run out before we were finished. I stopped her when she nearly fumbled one of the water enchantments, and had to gather her flagging strength to finish it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I don’t think I can go on.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” I reassured her. “I’m amazed you were able to do this much. I’ve got the pattern for the light spells down now, and we can do without the rest of the plumbing and the other illusion for a day or two.”

She sighed. “I know. I just… I was so flattered to be part of your great working. I wanted to finish it properly.”

I took off my amulet, and handed it to her.

“Here. Just remember to take it off if it starts feeding you too much. It isn’t smart enough to adjust itself.”

She donned the amulet with an uncertain frown, and then gasped.

“Daniel!”

I smiled. “Yes, Elin?”

“This is… it’s giving me so much… this is your secret power source! Why would you trust me with this?”

“Because I know I can. Besides, as long as we’re close together I can still pull from it even if you’re wearing it.”

She shyly took my hand. “Then I’ll have to stay close, won’t I?”

The transports returned just after dawn. They were packed to the gills with dryads, nymphs and stranger creatures, most of whom looked half-starved and three-quarters frozen. Several of the dryads had to be helped into the warmth of the shelter, and the men carried in the naiads on stretchers.

“It’s warm,” one of the dryads said, spreading her arms to the bright sunlight streaming down from the lights on the ceiling.

“The soil is so deep!” Another exclaimed.

Pelagia helped the naga slither past. The snake woman seemed groggy from the trip, and barely able to move herself.

“Here, let me show you where to go,” I told Pelagia. “It’s going to be a little cozy, but there should be room for all of your dryads to plant their trees without anyone being in the shade.”

She nodded in thanks, and followed me through the empty halls with the rest of her band following along behind. The agricultural areas were a vast dim twilight space, lit only by the distant glow spilling in from the dryad habitats. We’d concentrated on finishing those first, for obvious reasons, and the weary travelers looked around with interest as we came out into the light again.

The group had some interesting contrasts. The dryads came in a wide variety of browns and greys, like the bark of their trees, although hair in some shade of green was universal. Most of them looked like teenage athletes, with cute young faces and lithe curves packed with strong muscle. A few looked older, maybe early twenties, with somewhat more rounded figures. All of them were armed, with a varied assortment of spears and bows, and the way they carried themselves reminded me more of a pack of wolves than a bunch of innocent sex spirits.

The nymphs were all a few inches taller, averaging maybe five foot six compared to the five two of the dryads, which made them as tall as the average man in Varmland. They all had the same incredibly lush figures as the three I’d already met, with tanned skin and long hair in various shades of brown and black. The dryads all deferred to them so automatically it seemed instinctive, but they had a softer air about them than the fierce little tree spirits. They also banished their clothes as soon as they’d warmed up, and congregated around me with flirtatious gestures and longing looks as we walked.

The naiads were less human-looking, with tiny ears and long webbed fingers and toes. Their skin was pale white, their hair dark blue, and their mouths were full of sharp triangular teeth that reminded me unpleasantly of sharks. Aside from those oddities they had the same sort of athletic attractiveness as the dryads, although they seemed a little awkward walking about on land.

“This is much less pleasant than the place Zoe’s grove is getting,” one of the older-looking dryads remarked as we reached the end of the building, and it became apparent that only half the lights were working in this habitat. “Did we somehow offend you, lord wizard?”

“No, not at all. We’re just not finished with the enchantments yet. Which reminds me, Pelagia, where do you want the naiad pool? I wasn’t sure if it should be in the middle, or off to one side.”

Pelagia gently handed off the naga to a cluster of concerned dryads, and surveyed the room with a frown. “One of the corners, I think. Their pool was always the most secluded part of the grove, although I suppose real privacy will be impossible here.”

“We’re grateful to be alive at all, Mistress,” one of the naiads said. “Is it possible to have moving water, though? A stagnant pool will be choked with algae before long, and that would be hard to live in.”

I nodded, and called for Elin. She trotted over with a weary smile. “Yes? Ready to finish the job?”

The naiads did a double take, gasped, and hurriedly dropped to their knees.

“Milady!” One of them gasped. The other two stammered something in a liquid, musical tongue I hadn’t heard before.

Elin stared at them, nonplussed. “I’m no high lady of the faery, girls. The Summer Court has no place for a creature like me. Please, get up.”

They exchanged confused glances. “Yes, milady.”

She sighed. “My name is Elin. Please, just call me that.”

“As you say, Lady Elin,” they chorused.

“Ah, I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it,” Pelagia put in with an amused smile. “A founding tenet of our sisterhood is to judge others by their nature rather than by the laws and decrees of other realms. By blood and power you are clearly a Lady of Faerie, and my girls will pay you proper respect whether the Courts accept you or not.”

I put an arm around her shoulders. “See, Elin? I’m not the only one who thinks you’re pretty amazing.”

“I… but… what… I’m not…”

“There’s no need to make a fuss, Lady Elin,” one of the naiads assured her.

“Yes,” said another. “We’re simply recognizing what is.”

“If you’ve been exiled from the Courts we’ll respect you all the more just to spite them,” the third put in. “We’re… what was that word, Mistress? Exy-pat-something or other?”

“Expatriate, dear.”

“That was it. We’re expatriates, Lady Elin. We were exiled ourselves, hundreds of years ago. So we won’t hesitate to associate with another exile.”

“Especially if you’re helping to make our new home,” the first one added. “If there’s ever any service we can do you, milady, we’ll be happy to help.”

Elin seemed to be struck speechless by this.

“I suspect there’s a lot you could help her with,” I told them. “Elin was raised by humans, and she hasn’t had an easy time of things. But we were talking about your pool. Elin, you can banish water as well as summon it, right? I was thinking of giving the nice naiads a little waterfall, and maybe a stream running down to the other end of the floor.”

“A waterfall? That would be wonderful, lord wizard!”

Elin smiled shyly. “I like this idea.”

So that’s what we did. I built a natural-looking rocky shelf against the wall of the vast room, and we put in a water conjuration enchantment at the top to feed a nice little waterfall that fell twenty feet into a rocky basin. Mindful of the classics I put in a cozy little cave behind the waterfall, just big enough for three or four people to fit into if they were friendly. The basin emptied into a little brook that fed a deep pool. At Elin’s suggestion we also built a cave at the bottom of the pool, with an entrance that curved up into a chamber where air would be trapped when the pool filled.

I wouldn’t have expected water magic to include the ability to maintain air pockets like that, but apparently water spirits liked to do that kind of thing when the terrain allowed it. Elin’s enchantment would keep the air in the chamber fresh, and the naiads could easily get guests in and out if they wanted to. So it gave them a final, secret refuge against enemies and a private abode where they could keep things that wouldn’t survive long-term immersion in water.

Once that was arranged I cut a deep, meandering channel across the floor of the habitat all the way to the other end of the building, where it ended in a deep but fairly small pool with a tall, narrow drain near the top on one side. We enchanted that to banish water that entered it, which should serve to regulate the water level and keep it from overflowing. Then we added another drain at the bottom and a matching conjuration enchantment in the naiad pool, to increase circulation and keep the stream flowing.

Of course, with the channel for the stream being eight feet deep I also had to put up some little footbridges crossing it at various points, but those were small enough that the effort was pretty trivial. I spent a few minutes giving them decorative railings and posts at each end, enchanted to glow dimly at night. Then we took the elevator back to the attic level to enchant the rest of the floodlights.

By the time we finished the lights and sprinklers Elin and I were both stumbling with exhaustion, despite trading my amulet back and forth periodically. It was good at fixing physical problems, but mental fatigue and the strain of channeling heavy mana flows for hours were another story. Still, we managed to keep it together long enough to demonstrate the controls that would turn the lights and sprinklers on and off.

Demetrios was impressed, but Zoe and Pelagia were awestruck.

“We can command the day to come and go however we wish?” Pelagia verified. “There are no rules or sacrifices, no price to be paid? And the rain as well? We can simply call it down whenever our dryads feel thirst?”

“Yeah, it’s really that easy. We’ve set up each grove with its own separate enchantments, so you won’t affect each other either. Well, aside from the light that shines through the connecting halls, obviously. We’re going to come back and set up the same enchantments on the agricultural areas later, and put in quarters for however many farmers you end up needing to help with the work.”

That was as far as I got in my explanation before we were both mobbed by tearful nature spirits. Even Zoe’s eyes were a bit damp, and Pelagia was actually crying.

“Thank you thank you thank you! Oh, Daniel, Elin, I never imagined a wonder such as this!”

Demetrios smirked. “Hey, ease up there, girls. I don’t think either of them have the energy left to survive being thanked by all of you at once.”

“Lech. Not everyone is as obsessed as you.” Pelagia rolled her eyes, but she also stopped pressing her breasts against my chest.

Zoe said something in what I’d gathered was Italian, and Pelagia nodded. “Yes. Come, both of you, sit and rest while we settle our dryads. You can brave the journey back to your beds once you’ve recovered a bit.

That sounded like a reasonable idea, and besides I was too tired to argue. A few minutes later I found myself lounging in the shade of an enormous oak tree, my head pillowed against a nymph’s breasts while a hamadryad and one of the naiads cuddled against my sides feeding me little bits of fresh fruit from a bowl one of the dryads had brought. I wondered where that had come from until I noticed that one of the dryads was apparently an apple tree. Oh, and that one had pears. Huh. For some reason it had never occurred to me that there might be dryads of fruit trees, but they seemed to have quite a variety.

I was half expecting them to make a move on me, even though Elin was lying next to me with her own little cluster of attendants. But instead I drifted off to sleep watching the dryads of the Red Thorn grove carefully picking out their spots, and sprouting into trees one by one.

Some time later I woke to find that Cerise was kissing me.

“You are the most awesome guy ever, you know that?” She purred.

I smiled, and let my hand drift down to her firm backside. “You sound happy. I take it things went well with Corinna?”

“Ooh, yeah. She’s got a nasty bitch act, but once you break through her defenses she’s just a needy little slut.”

“She’s taller than you,” I pointed out.

“Really? Hard to tell when she’s on her knees,” Cerise shot back. “So, I get to keep her, right? I mean, she completely wore me out, but it was so worth it.”

“I don’t know. If I say yes, are you ever going to make it out of bed again?”

I teased her a little more, but she was convinced that Corinna wouldn’t cause any trouble as long as we handled her right.

“She’s kind of a crazy bitch, but we’ve got a lot in common,” Cerise said. “I can handle her. Good call on not doing her yourself, by the way. If you had she’d spend all her time trying to get the upper hand with you, and you don’t have time for that shit. This way she’s got her sights set on me instead, and we can have fun proving who’s boss without distracting you.”

“I don’t know, that image is pretty damn distracting,” I admitted. “But seriously, I’m glad to hear it. I really didn’t want to have to kick her out, but we can’t afford to have any troublemakers around here. Speaking of which, I guess I need to get back to work. That army could be here in three or four days, and we need to be ready. Do you know if we’ve gotten an intel update today?”

She nodded, and helped me sit up. “No scouting today. It’s snowing outside, not a real storm but enough to ground the griffons. Oh, I guess I should mention the prince might still be here.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Might?”

She shrugged. “He did one of his surprise visits to talk to you at lunchtime, but when he heard you were passed out in here he decided he could make do with just talking to your ‘advisors’. He’s been trying to work out a way to harass the monster army with raids or something, and he wanted to know what kind of transport we’ve got. We all know you’ve been trying to build up your position with him, so Captain Rain showed him the transports and explained what kind of force we could send out.”

“He was getting ready to leave when Elin stumbled in, and we weren’t sure if you’d want to talk to him yourself or not. So Avilla invited him upstairs for tea and cake while I came out to see if you were awake. We didn’t tell him that, so if you don’t want to see him just hang around out here a little longer.”

“Well, that’s something I hadn’t thought of. Maybe I should build a secret tunnel or something, so I can come and go without anyone knowing?”

“What, so you can come visit your adoring dryad harem whenever you want? I guess we’re not enough for you now,” she teased.

“Please. If I get any more women chasing me I’m going to die of exhaustion. Or more likely we’ll all get eaten by monsters because I was too busy to upgrade our defenses. Speaking of which, how’s your mana amulet working out?”

“Awesome. I think I’m officially the most badass witch in Europe with this thing, but if you’ve got any other presents I won’t turn them down.”

“Actually I do have another idea. I’ve got a pretty neat armor effect working on my new coat, and I was thinking about ways to give you the same protection. The way you fight you can’t afford to have anything bulky interfering with your movements, but I was thinking maybe you and Avilla could figure out a way to make you a leather catsuit for me to enchant.”

“Catsuit? That’s an interesting word. Tell me more.”

The gates to the dryad habitat turned out to be guarded by a nymph and a pair of dryads, who banished their armor when they saw me coming so they could give me an enthusiastic naked three-way hug amid profuse thanks for their new home. Cerise smirked, but I wasn’t complaining. Hell, what kind of moron would be put out over a bunch of pretty girls being affectionate?

Then we were outside, where as promised a light snow was falling. But Cerise had taken her bike out, turning the long walk back to the tower into a short ride. As we took the elevator up I made a mental note to put in some covered walkways when I had the chance, but most of my attention was on our conversation. Cerise actually had some interesting ideas for building useful items out of cheap little enchantments, like boots with various movement enhancements or a weapon that would stick itself to the end of her tail.

There were six men from Prince Caspar’s personal guard standing around my front room smirking at each other. The grins vanished when I stepped through the door, and a couple of them glanced at each other nervously.

“Don’t mind us, milord,” one of them said. “We’re just waiting on his highness to be ready to go. Ah, how’s the weather out?”

I frowned. “Still coming down, but not too bad. Did he want to see me?”

They all shook their heads, some of them a little hurriedly.

“No, milord, his highness had a long talk with your captain and pretty much got all his questions answered. I’m sure your man can fill you in, but there’s nothing to it for now. Might be a planning meeting in a day or two, once the weather clears and the Griffon Knights can start scouting again.”

Cerise sniffed the air, and frowned in confusion. She took a hesitant step towards the door to the sitting room, which was closed for some reason, and one of the knights unobtrusively stepped into her path.

She stopped, her frown deepening, and tried to walk around him. Two more men moved to stand next to the first, blocking the door.

“You don’t want to go doing that, miss,” one of them said reluctantly. “Just, ah, give it a few, eh?”

Now I was frowning. “Gentlemen, what exactly are you trying to hide?”

They just stood there uncomfortably, watching us both but unwilling to meet my eyes. Then a sound broke the silence. A cry that was all too familiar.

“Avilla!” Cerise and I both shouted.

She shoved the men out of her way with a burst of superhuman strength, sending them flying back to bounce off the walls. I threw up a wall of force to keep them at bay, and strode to the door.

I threw it open, and froze.

The prince was sprawled in one of the fancy new chairs, with a glassy look to his eyes and a spilled teacup on the floor beside the chair. Avilla was straddling his lap, naked from the waist up and bouncing in a way that made it all too clear what was going on under her skirt. His hands were on her hips, guiding her motion, and her lips were stretched in a triumphant smile. From the sounds she was making she was moments away from an epic climax.

“Avilla? What the fuck?” Cerise gasped.

“What the hell is going on here?” I shouted as I stomped into the room.

Prince Caspar started, as if waking from a deep sleep.

“Sorcery!” He shouted. He pushed Avilla away roughly and stumbled out of the chair, one hand fumbling at his codpiece while the other went for an ornate amulet at his neck. An intense flash of complex magic erupted from it, and blew away every active magical effect in the area.

His bodyguards rushed in behind me, drawing their swords. I dodged out of their path, my hand going to Grinder, and found Cerise at my side with her daggers already out.

“Treacherous dog!” The prince roared. “Sending your pet slut to enchant me? I thought better of you.”

“Enchant you? Avilla, what the fuck did you do?”

“It was just a little encouragement,” she said, sounding dazed. “I know you want me, my love. I just had to help you see it.”

I felt my jaw drop. I couldn’t believe it.

Prince Caspar wasn’t much happier. “So I’m to believe the wench is mad? A likely story.”

I was vaguely aware of shouts and the rattle of steel in the distance, but most of me was still frozen in shock. Not again. Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d build, all crashing down again. Because I’d trusted the wrong woman, again.

The shock turned to anger.

“Cerise,” I hissed. “Get this stupid bitch out of my sight.”

She went pale, and shadows crawled across her skin. But she didn’t argue. She nodded, once, and stepped towards Avilla.

“Like hell,” Prince Caspar argued. “Enchanting royalty is an assault on the Crown. Take her-”

I thumbed Grinder to life. The tortured shriek cut of his words, and everyone took a step back in consternation.

“Get the fuck off my island, Prince Caspar,” I shouted over the din.

He slapped his amulet again, but I’d already seen how it worked. My curse barrier protected me from the dispel effect, and Grinder’s blade of howling plasma didn’t even flicker. Then there was a pounding of boots on stone, and the wolfen pack poured into my entryway with force blades and flamers in their hands.

Apparently the prince didn’t like those odds. He nodded once, and turned to the door. His men formed up in a protective circle around him.

Gronir threw an uncertain glance my way. I turned off Grinder. “Step aside, men.”

They did, and the prince made his exit. Grinder’s scream had put the whole keep on alert, and every man in the building was on the balconies or drawn up in the atrium to watch them go. They took the stairs, and by the time they reached the ground floor Marcus and Oskar had made their way to my side.

“Close the gates behind them,” I ordered. “Call back anyone who’s in town, and once they’re here no one goes in or out until I say otherwise. In particular, no one who serves the prince gets inside.”

“What happened?” He asked worriedly.

“Avilla is under house arrest until we figure out what the hell is going on. She doesn’t leave the tower, and she sure as fuck doesn’t get access to her kitchen. I want at least four men enforcing that at all times. If Cerise objects tell her to come talk to me. I’ll be in my workshop.”

I ignored the rest of their questions. I stalked down the hall to my workshop, slammed the door, and stood there quivering with repressed rage for a long moment.

I punched the door.

It hurt. Good.

I punched it again. Again and again, until my hands bled. I threw the table worktable over, and stomped on the bent pieces of those damned mortar screws. My first gun was still leaning against the wall, and it made a dandy club. I screamed, and roared, and hit things again and again.

When my rage was spent I fell to my knees, and sobbed.

“Why?”

I loved her. I would have moved the world for her. Why would she do this to me?

She was the one who’d pushed Tina at me. I would have been more than satisfied with her and Cerise. I didn’t even care that Cerise was the one she was in love with, and not me. I loved Cerise too, and I knew the kinky witch had come to return the feeling in her own strange way. Why would she ruin everything?

Was she jealous over Tina? Or whatever she thought I might have done with the nymphs? But why the prince? That wasn’t just a minor indiscretion. She had to know she’d get caught, and how could that possibly end in anything but bloodshed?

I couldn’t hand her over to the prince. Cerise wouldn’t let that happen, and I had to protect her. If I didn’t, I had no doubt I’d have an angry goddess to deal with.

I couldn’t fight all of Kozalin. The monsters were bad enough, but Prince Caspar would have the Conclave and the city priests behind him. At best we’d be besieged until they starved, but I doubted we’d be that lucky. I had no doubt that they could breach my walls somehow if they wanted to badly enough.

I couldn’t just take Cerise and leave. She wouldn’t leave Avilla, and I had almost three hundred people depending on me here. Moving my human followers would be difficult enough, but the dryads? Even if it was possible, how could I take away their new home not an hour after presenting it to them?

I couldn’t let her stay. Not if I couldn’t trust her. Her magic was too subtle, too insidious. No one who’d eaten or drunk anything she’d made since setting up her kitchen could be trusted now, and that included me. I’d had a bit of a temper before coming to this world, but I’d never felt anything like the rage I’d just experienced. What other subtle forms of influence had she been working?

What was I going to do?

As the afternoon sun faded towards darkness, I found that I had no answers.

Chapter 19

I spent a good part of the night strengthening the defenses of my stronghold. Enchanting a remotely-controlled minefield into the stone dock that had become my causeway to the city. Dropping heat stones onto the ice around the island, to melt it into a moat. Building an enchantment factory to make grenades, and setting it running. Wrapping the main gates in a spell ward, to foil some of the tricks a wizard could use to get them open without having to blow them down.

The damn screw problem turned out to be easy once I gave up on making them with a spell, and just came at it as a mechanical problem. Make a nickel iron sleeve with one turn of grooves on the inside, and screw it down the length of a wax cylinder to make a pattern. Conjure a block of solid stone around that, and I had a mold I could pour liquid metal into to make the screws. There were a few complications beyond that, but they weren’t hard to fix.

Sometime well after midnight I stumbled into bed for a few miserable hours of tossing and turning. Twice I woke from nightmares of betrayal and destruction, half convinced that royal troops were already staging an assault. When the first hint of the approaching day’s light filtered in through the window I gave up on sleep entirely, and rose again.

In the dining room I found Cerise slumped over the table, looking like she hadn’t slept at all. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes were red from crying. Tina was there as well, looking tired and oddly stern, and Elin was sitting at the foot of the table reading Avilla’s grimoire.

They all looked up at my appearance. Cerise flinched, and hung her head. Tina stood and came around the table towards me, but it was Elin who spoke first.

“I’m relieved to report that so far the recipes she might have used are all geared towards very generalized effects. Strengthening or suppressing basic emotions, encouraging the natural development of loyalty and affection, that sort of thing. Potentially troublesome, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to apply specific orders or complex contingencies. Any significant effect also requires regular reinforcement to reach full strength, and the decay curve is rather steep. Since she only had her kitchen properly sanctified for a few days anything she might have done will fade in the same interval.”

I stopped, and considered that for a moment. “So we just have to be careful not to trust our feelings too much for the next few days, and then we can sort things out? That’s not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. How did you get that book?”

She shrugged. “Her sanctum isn’t that well defended yet, sir. I was strong enough to force her wards, and the book itself was only guarded by a few gingerbread men. I had to break the chain it was secured with, and I’m sure she’ll have a bit of a headache from the backlash. But I thought you’d want an outside opinion as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Elin. You did the right thing.”

“She’s very brave,” Tina said. “Avilla’s magic is so angry, I wouldn’t have dared to go in there right now. Um, I was going to bring up something from the mess hall downstairs for you, if that’s alright? They’ll have breakfast ready for the officers any time now.”

“That’s fine, Tina. You know, you could get the maids to do that.”

“I want to keep an eye on everything, just in case. At least until Elin says it’s safe.” She turned to go, then paused and turned back. “Daniel? When you have time, will you bind me for real? If someone as smart as Avilla can do something this stupid, I hate to think what mistakes a dummy like me might make. I don’t ever want anything like this to happen again.”

“Oh, Tina.” I hugged her gently.

Was that even possible? Everything I’d read about bindings was geared towards witches, and a week ago Tina had been a normal girl. But the blessing Bast had given her encompassed more than just shapeshifting. I looked close with my magic sight, and confirmed the suspicion I’d had. There was power blossoming there. Not just in her womb, where a goddess was rapidly growing, but in her heart as well. It was raw. Untrained. Delicate and weak, compared to Elin or the witches. But it was growing quickly, and already there was more than enough for that.

Did I want to? Fuck, yes. A lifetime of indoctrination said I was a horrible person for even thinking it, but right now I didn’t care. If she wanted to offer me a binding promise, I’d be happy to accept.

“Alright, Tina. You’ve got enough magic to make that work. But first we have to figure out what to do about everything else.”

She kissed my cheek. “I love you, Daniel. You’ll keep us safe. You always do.”

She started to pull away. I drew her back in, kissed her lips and held her tight for a long moment.

“I love you too, Tina. Take care of yourself.”

She scurried off with a smile on her face, and I settled myself at the table. Cerise stared down at her hands, her face half obscured by her hair.

“Cerise? Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said hollowly. She paused to rub at her eyes, and I realized she was struggling not to cry.

“This is so fucked up. I don’t understand what’s happened, Daniel. We’ve been planning our life together since we were kids, and we’ve always talked things out with each other before we made a big move. She was so excited when we met you, and we’ve both worked so hard to make things come together here. We were right on the verge of getting you to agree to the coven ritual, and you’ve already made us stronger than most witches twice our age. Why would she throw it all away for a man she barely knows?”

“What did she say?” I asked.

Cerise buried her face in her hands, and sighed.

“The prince this, and the prince that, and isn’t he so manly? She sounds like a teenager with a crush. I thought she was enspelled at first, but when I called her on it she honored our vows and helped me check her over. There’s no magic on or in her that isn’t hers.”

Elin frowned. “How can you be so sure of your results? There are a thousand ways to hide an ensorcellment.”

“Our teachers wanted us to be coven sisters, Elin. We’ve been blending our magic ever since I was strong enough to do it without getting lost in her, and when I was fourteen we started doing a full unveiling and soul meld every few months. I know her magic as well as my own. Better, really. Mine changes whenever I kill something, but hers has been as constant as the hills ever since she was made.”

“Oh.” Elin sounded a bit awed at that. “You must really love each other. No wonder you look so lost.”

Cerise nodded miserably. “I hate this. She’s throwing away everything for a crazy impulse, but… Daniel, I’m sorry, but I can’t abandon her. I love you, but Avilla is my soul. If she leaves, I have to go with her.”

“Yeah, and I have to protect you,” I reminded her. “So I can’t just let you disappear on me. Damn it! Why couldn’t she just say she’d changed her mind? I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but at least we wouldn’t have ended up with a potential war on our hands. What does she think she’s going to do if he decides she enchanted him?”

“Fuck if I know,” Cerise grumbled. “She thinks he’ll just put her over his knee or something, and she can be all sweet and repentant and he’ll be banging her again before nightfall.”

“Can we back up a step?” Elin interjected. “What was that you said about Avilla being made? What is she?”

Cerise hesitated.

I sighed. “Go ahead, Cerise. We can trust her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“We’ve done a lot of enchantment work together, and we don’t have any fancy ritual chambers to buffer the connection. We saw a lot of each other, especially when we were building the dryad habitat. She isn’t going to betray us.”

“I’m not going to betray you, Daniel,” Elin corrected. “You’re the one who saved me. Although I do have fond feelings for Cerise.”

“But you remember that Avilla didn’t want anything to do with you?” Cerise said glumly. “Huh. You two must be really compatible, to blend your magic so easily. Well, alright, but will you promise not to tell the prince or the Conclave this story? I don’t know what would happen if it got around.”

“I promise to hold any secrets told to me here in the strictest of confidence, revealing them only if Daniel so desires or if all those they pertain to have died,” she replied. “That should be sufficient, if you trust him.”

Cerise nodded jerkily. “I do. Alright, here it is. Avilla is the last great creation of Lysandra of Arta, one of the most powerful hearth witches who ever lived.”

I frowned. “Didn’t you call her Granny Havsen before?”

She shrugged. “That’s the name she went by for the last few decades. But after she died I went through all her letters and journals, and found the truth. Since Elin’s such a bookworm, I figured she might know the name.”

“I do,” Elin commented. “She studied under Circe’s heir, Tullia, didn’t she?”

“That sounds right. Anyway, Lysandra survived for hundreds of years by stealing a younger woman’s body whenever she started getting old. But having to kidnap some girl and work a dangerous spell every twenty or thirty years was too risky for her taste, especially when the Aesir started hunting witches after the fall of Olympus. So she started looking for a better kind of immortality.”

“At first she just tried to make her bodies last longer, and she got pretty good at that from what I can tell. But eventually she decided that turning a mortal body into an immortal one was doing things the hard way, and started experimenting with making bodies from scratch. She started out with confection golems, but her dream was to make a body that would look human and be naturally immortal.”

“I take it Avilla is the product of her research?” Elin asked.

“Yeah. I don’t understand the whole process, but she somehow figured out how to combine divine essence with her confection arts to make living creatures. She spent at least a century experimenting with that before she got it right, though. She made a lot of golems that came out twisted, or died young, or couldn’t contain a soul. Once she fixed that last problem they started coming out with souls of their own, but she was the kind of witch who didn’t care how many of her own kids she killed.”

Elin frowned. “How did she obtain enough divine essence for so many experiments?”

“Oh, she didn’t. You know how indestructible that stuff is, right? When she was done with an experiment she’d lock it in her oven and render it down to recover the essence that went into it.”

“What a lovely woman,” I commented.

“She isn’t going to come looking for us, is she?” Elin said nervously.

Cerise shook her head. “Not likely. My teacher told me what was going on before she died, and I was living with them when Lysandra decided Avilla was her success. She had this whole big scheme she was starting to put together to get Avilla set up for a life of luxury, but I knew it was all going to end with a body switch and a murder. So one day I caught her by surprise, and shoved her in her own oven.”

A nasty smile settled on Cerise’s face. “She’d enchanted that thing to be impossible to escape. I guess she thought it would never be a problem for her, since the locking spell on the door was something she could just cancel at will. But she’d let her body get all old and scrawny, and I was fresh from stealing most of a bear’s strength. I just held the door shut until the screaming was done. Then we scattered her ashes and buried the bones at a crossroads, and I banished her soul to Hades. She’s not coming back.”

“Well, that was ruthless of you,” Elin said, obviously a little unsettled by the tale.

Cerise shrugged. “I’m a death witch. There’s nothing I won’t do to protect someone I love.”

Which was another source of worry. Her goals weren’t especially evil, but I’d already known Cerise could be inhumanly ruthless and disturbingly bloodthirsty. Since we met she’d always been willing to follow my leadership, which had done a lot to keep her darker impulses in check. But if that changed, things were going to get bloody. Especially if she thought Avilla was in danger.

Another thought occurred to me, and I frowned. “Cerise, what exactly was that plan Lysandra was setting Avilla up for?”

“Some complicated political thing. She didn’t tell us much about it. Just that Avilla was going to somehow end up being a queen once the bodies stopped falling, and her king would be some hot guy who was completely enthralled with her. Then we could set up a coven more or less openly, and since Avilla doesn’t age she’d get to be a witch queen for as long as the kingdom survives. Of course, it would actually be Lysandra in Avilla’s body at that point. But I never told her I knew about that, and even if I had she probably thought I’d go along with it for the chance to be part of her coven. She never got that I was actually in love with Avilla, not just fooling around with her because she’s hot.”

My eyes met Elin’s across the table, and I could see that she’d had the same thought as me. It was awfully convenient, and I wasn’t sure I believed it. I wasn’t sure I could believe it.

“A plot to put a woman on a throne?” Elin said slowly. “Wouldn’t the logical first step in such a plan be-”

A panting messenger flew into the room, interrupting her. “Milord! You’re needed... the gate, milord!”

Damn it, were we under attack already? But there was no alarm being raised.

I rushed to the balcony overlooking the atrium, and found Cerise at my heels.

“You with me?”

“Yes, Daniel. I’ll help if I can.”

“Then hold on.”

I picked her up, and jumped off the balcony.

The fall was just long enough for her initial shock to fade into excitement. Then the soft landing enchantment on my amulet caught us, and deposited us gently on the floor of the atrium. From there it only took seconds to reach the front gate.

The postern gate was open, allowing a cold breeze laden with snow to enter. A squad of soldiers armed with guns and force blades were gathered around it, and Gronir was just arriving with half the wolfen in tow. But the figure in the doorway wasn’t exactly hostile.

“Daniel!” Carl Stenberg boomed. “You look like hell, man. What happened?”

“Hello, Carl. Come on in. What have you heard?”

The troops backed away, and he stepped in out of the cold. “Heard? Nothing, actually. I just noticed how jumpy your men are this morning. Was there another attack? Is everyone alright?”

“No, we’re fine. Just a little disagreement with the prince.”

“Ah. Well, if you’re having political troubles you might want to talk to Steelbinder about joining the Conclave. Protecting mages from the nobility is half the reason the order exists, and I’m sure he’d love to have a man of your caliber on board.”

“I’m considering it,” I admitted. “But what brings you out here so early in this weather?”

A look out the door confirmed that there was still a light snow falling, and heavy winds blowing the powder around. Not the sort of weather anyone would travel in if they had a choice.

I also spotted the looming bulk of a pair of golems standing on the causeway. The things were ten feet tall, robot-like machines assembled from huge blocks of nickel-iron. They had long legs, squat bodies and a hunchbacked posture that gave them a menacing appearance, which was only amplified by the long blades mounted on the ends of their arms instead of hands. There also seemed to be a seat on top of each of the magical machines.

Well, that would certainly explain the messenger’s concern. They wouldn’t be nearly strong enough to knock my gates down, but he probably didn’t know that.

“There’s a council of war this morning. Sounds like the big shots think there’s an attack coming, and they want to figure out what to do about it right away. Every military force in the city is going to have someone there, and the High Adept wants a chance to coordinate with you before people start asking us to solve all their problems with magic.”

Oh. Damn it, that wasn’t something I could afford to blow off.

“Well, I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who can see the writing on the wall,” I said. “Alright, just give me a chance to get ready. How long do we have?”

“Better hurry,” he replied. “The meeting starts in an hour, and we need to go to the Iron Citadel first so we can all head for the war room together. You can bring bodyguards if you want, but the war room gets crowded so you can only bring two attendants in with you.”

Well, that was going to take some doing. No time for breakfast, but an affair like this would probably have refreshments or something. Who to bring? Normally I’d want Cerise at my back, but all things considered…

No. I wasn’t going to blame her for this mess. But she might not want to go.

I invited Carl in, of course, although there wasn’t much hospitality to offer at the moment. Then I drew Cerise off by the elevator.

“You’re the one I most want at my back,” I told her. “But I’ll understand if you need to stay here.”

She choked. “Me? Even after…?”

“It isn’t your fault, Cerise. I love you, damn it. I’m not giving up on you so easily.”

She smiled weakly. “I love you too, Daniel. Come back in one piece, alright?”

Well, it was probably best to have her stay and ride herd on her crazy girlfriend. Damn it, Avilla was supposed to be the sane one. Why?

I fought back the storm of emotion that threatened to erupt again. I didn’t have the luxury of throwing another fit right now.

Well, I’d probably make a better impression in the war room if my companions fit in, anyway. So I sent word for Gronir and Marcus to get ready to come with me. If we took one of the new armored skimmers we could keep up with Carl’s golems easily, and avoid the worst of the weather as well.

What to wear? This sounded like a working meeting, so I went with my new coat and armor instead of the fancy suit I’d worn to the Conclave meeting. I grabbed the ornamental staff I’d made just so I’d look like a wizard, but I also took Grinder and the new gun I’d made myself. Just in case.

Marcus wasn’t thrilled with the idea of taking my best military leaders into the city right now, but he agreed with my reasoning. The prince probably wasn’t going to start a fight in the middle of the war council, especially with the Conclave wizards present. But the more we contributed to the defense of the city, the more likely he was to decide he needed to let the incident with Avilla go. That meant we needed our best minds at this meeting, looking for ways to make ourselves look as impressive as possible.

Unfortunately it also left me with only Oskar to leave in charge of my stronghold, which made me a little nervous. But who else did I have, without my witches? Elin was smart, but she was no leader. Our new arrivals seemed capable, but they were still settling in. Not to mention I wasn’t sure if it was wise to have too much contact between them and the troops.

As if summoned by the thought, Pelagia intercepted me on my way back to the atrium. She was wearing her dryad armor again, but she’d also picked up a warmth cloak from somewhere.

“How can I help?” She asked.

I stopped, and regarded her for a moment. “You can start by telling me how you knew to be here.”

She smiled faintly. “My morning divinations told me I should come to the keep. I get the feeling something happened last night, but I shouldn’t pry?”

“You’re good,” I conceded. “Oh, what the hell. I’m short-handed enough, I guess I’ll just have to try trusting you. The girls are indisposed, and I have to go out. I’m leaving Oskar here in charge, but he’s no expert on magic or monsters. I need someone who is to be ready to give advice if something goes wrong.”

“I can easily do that,” she replied confidently. “If you need an honor guard, I know Corinna would be happy to serve.”

“No. She’d draw entirely too much attention in a room full of nobles and priests. I have to go now, but we’ll need to talk more when I get back. Elin can fill you in on anything you might need to know. I’m not sure what other kinds of magic you’re skilled at, but please give her a hand if you can.”

Then we were off, rushing across the city in a slowly worsening snowstorm. The alleys and side streets were choked with snow by now, only the main avenues having been shoveled clear in the last few hours. Not that snow would have been an obstacle to my skimmer anyway, or to Carl’s golems either for that matter.

To my private amusement Carl opted to ride in the skimmer with me, and order his golems to follow it. We chatted a bit during the trip, and I reflected that it was nice to have a fellow wizard I could talk to about magic. He was suitably impressed by my work on the transport, especially when I told him I had two more of them back on the island. In turn he told me a bit about the golem force he’d been given command of, and the progress of the spy hunt.

“There haven’t been any announcements,” he told me. “But everyone thinks the High Adepts are hot on the trail, and it’s only a matter of time. Ward might not look like much, but that man is a master of divination.”

We pulled up in front of the Iron Citadel just in time to meet a party of men and golems gathered in the entry hall, with High Adept Steelbinder obviously in charge. He took in our arrival with a nod.

“Adept Black, glad you could make it. We’re running late, but I see you’ve brought your armored carriage. I suggest we have this conversation there, so our party can get moving.”

“Of course,” I agreed. Captain Rain had only brought a three-man crew for the vehicle, so there was plenty of room in the back. Especially since Steelbinder sent Carl back to his golems like the rest of our escort. That left just High Adepts Steelbinder and Ward riding with me, along with a pair of assistants they introduced as Adepts Leo and Elof.

I was interested to see that all of them were protected from the weather, but each in his own fashion. Leo was wearing a suit of heavily enchanted plate armor that included temperature regulation among its many features. Elof wore much lighter armor, but his body was enchanted with some kind of instant healing ability that kept him from even feeling the cold. Ward was surrounded by a bubble of warm air that the snow never entered, a sophisticated application of blended air and fire magic that I suspected involved bound elementals. Steelbinder’s personal wards were such a complex mass of layered enchantments that I couldn’t begin to sort out what they were doing, but he certainly didn’t seem to notice the temperature.

It was a good reminder that I wasn’t the only powerful wizard in the world, and the Conclave was far from incompetent. Of course, these were also the guys who were going to kick Elin out to die in a barn somewhere, so they didn’t score very high on my personal trustworthiness index.

“So, what’s the situation?” I asked once we were underway.

Steelbinder frowned slightly, and I realized that he’d probably expected a little more deference than that. Oops.

“We have reason to think that the enemy is planning an attack on the city,” he announced.

“The storm is being aimed at Kozalin,” Ward put in. “They probably didn’t think we’d notice, with the weather circle all dead or in the infirmary. But we have resources that aren’t common knowledge.”

Steelbinder nodded. “Indeed. The last scouting report had over a thousand ape men with that army we’ve seen assembling, and our own divinations indicate that there is a portal to Gaea’s hidden world somewhere in the vicinity of the encampment. This storm is obviously meant to prevent the Griffon Knights from spotting them as they bring a larger force over and march on Kozalin. They’ve already had a day to bring reinforcements through the portal, so we can expect them to arrive in three or four days.”

“Wonderful. I don’t suppose we know anything about how many of them there might be, or what magic they have?”

“Nothing that tells us anything,” Steelbinder grumbled.

Ward grinned. “What do you expect, Lukas? Gaea took them into exile three thousand years ago, and what man would survive venturing into their realm? All we have to go on is legends, and what little second-hand information the dwarves and the dark elves have been willing to part with.”

“What we do know is that Gaea made them to exterminate men, in the days after Prometheus gave us fire,” he went on. “They’re stronger than men, smarter than goblins, and steeped in the bloodiest sort of nature magic. Commanding and binding beasts, blood sacrifices, that sort of thing. Personally I’m expecting cavalry mounted on giant bears, some giant beasts covered in enhancement enchantments, and lots of berserkers. Oh, and some of the texts refer to their prowess at scaling cliffs, so they may be able to climb the wall.”

Steelbinder shook his head. “We don’t even know what creatures live in the world Gaea gave them. It’s described as a subterranean realm full of lush jungles, which makes no sense at all. In any event, we need to make preparations quickly. Have you made any progress on your work with power sources, Adept Black?”

Well, time to make a call. I’d been intending to put them off as long as possible, to give me a chance to build up my own position before I had to worry about an experienced wizard potentially using my own innovations against me. But I suddenly found myself with a pressing need for a political alliance with at least one of the city’s major factions.

“Yes, Your Wisdom,” I answered. “I’ve had Cerise testing a prototype for a few days now, and it seems to be working reliably. If we’re about to be attacked then every hour is precious, but I could make time to enchant an amulet or two for the Conclave.”

“Heh. Told you the kid would come around,” Ward said.

“In this case I’m glad you were right,” Steelbinder replied. “These devices will provide enough power for heavy enchantment work, or decent battle magic?”

I nodded. “Yes, easily. I can also limit the amount of power any particular device will deliver, in case you want someone who isn’t experienced enough to handle heavy energy flows safely to have one. Unfortunately making them weaker doesn’t actually simplify the enchantment, so it won’t make them cheaper.”

“That’s a good start,” Steelbinder said. “We can negotiate prices after the meeting.”

“Don’t be surprised if some of the junior adepts offer their souls,” Ward joked.

Steelbinder smiled thinly. “Indeed. Adept Stenberg indicated that you’re open to the idea of joining the Conclave?”

“In principle,” I said slowly. “I’d need to take a look at your bylaws, make sure there isn’t anything that conflicts with any oaths I’ve taken, that kind of thing.”

Ward laughed. “Son, at the rate you’re going you’ll make High Adept in a couple of months. We don’t play by the rules, we make them.”

“It’s a valid point,” Steelbinder objected. “It takes time to line up the proper endorsements and ensure there are no objectors, and none of us will have much time for playing politics. But adding another famous war wizard to our ranks would go a long way towards shoring up the Conclave’s credibility, not to mention filling the hole left by Thunderbolt’s death.”

“But we’re short on time, so the details of that will also have to wait. I understand you’ve been building some impressive defensive works on your island. Will your defenses hold if the invaders target you?”

I considered that for a moment. “I’d been hoping for another week before the first serious attack, so I’ll have to push to finish some preparations. But yes, they should hold off even a serious assault. I’ve melted enough of the river to serve as a moat, and I’ve got nearly two hundred men with magical weapons. Basically lots of devices for throwing chunks of iron at very high speeds. We can easily shoot holes in any boats that try to approach, and I’ve got a few heavier weapons that have the range to fire on any enemy attacking the river side of the city.”

“That will shore up the harbor defenses nicely,” Steelbinder commented. “What about personal combat? We’re expecting this goddess to show herself at some point, and there’s no telling what sort of fell beasts she’ll have with her. There aren’t any epic heroes in Kozalin and the priests will be guarding their temple, so stopping her is going to fall to us wizards. Can I count on you to help put her in the ground?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I had the same thought, so I’ve been preparing for that.”

I would have said more, but I was interrupted by a shout from the skimmer’s driver. The ponderous vehicle lurched to a stop, and something bounced off the side with a clang of metal on metal.

I leaned over to look out the skimmer’s armored windshield, and found the street ahead of us in utter chaos. Screaming people running haphazardly through the snow, pursued by dark shapes like something out of a horror movie.

The smaller ones were the size of a large dog. Quadrupeds, with long legs and huge mouths, their heads and bodies covered in plates of dark armor. Their long, sinewy tails were tipped with round knobs that they used like maces against the armored soldiers in the crowd, while their claws and teeth made short work of any civilian they could catch.

I spotted at least a dozen of those in moments, along with a few larger specimens and one giant the size of a horse. Some of the soldiers were trying to fight them, but swords and spears just glanced off the armored hides of the beasts. Then the big one turned towards the skimmer with a roar, its huge mouth gaping open.

The skimmer’s cannon fired with an ear-splitting crack, and the beast’s head blew apart in a fountain of black ichor.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

“The war room is in the middle of that,” Steelbinder said. “But what are those things? They don’t look like any breed of demon I’ve seen.”

“A devourer,” Ward breathed. “Gods preserve us, they’ve loosed a devourer on the city.”

Chapter 20

“It looks like a whole pack of them,” I pointed out.

“They’re all connected,” Ward explained urgently. “Somewhere there’s a heart that births these roaming mouths. Everything they eat goes back to the heart, and gives it more substance to make monsters with. We have to kill it before it eats too many people, or it will birth an unstoppable army.”

A couple of the smaller ones were eying the skimmer now. The Conclave’s golems formed up around us, and bolts of lightning flashed out from their riders to strike the nearest monsters. They fell back in the face of this new threat, and the street in front of us quickly cleared.

“These creatures are too agile for golems to face,” Steelbinder decided. “They’ll quickly realize they can climb them to get at their riders, and most of our men won’t fare well in melee with demonic beasts. We’ll have to fight our way to the heart on foot. Boris, the devourers were bound in Tartarus, weren’t they? There should be more than enough etheric residue to betray the heart’s location.”

“Yes, yes, that should work,” the elderly High Adept agreed. “But I’m too old to go traipsing across a battlefield on foot. I’ll stay here, and help our escorts block the road.”

“The skimmer should make a decently secure command post for you,” I said. “Captain Rain, stay here and provide fire support with the cannon. If you get overrun you can seal the hatches and fall back to the island or the Iron Citadel. Gronir, you’re with me.”

Gronir hefted his flamer with a predatory grin. “Ready, milord.”

I noticed that he’d tied the hilt of a force blade to the end of the barrel, and had to grin back. It was one of the newer type that didn’t have a physical blade, just a hilt with a switch that turned the force blade on and off. So effectively he’d added a magical bayonet to the flamethrower. I’d have to remember to add that feature to the next batch I made.

Steelbinder hesitated for a moment, but nodded. “Very well. I’ll take point, you and Leo can guard our flanks while your man brings up the rear. Elof, you stay on bodyguard detail. Don’t take any chances here, the Conclave can’t afford more losses. Let’s go.”

It felt a little odd, not being in charge of the situation for once. But Steelbinder seemed to know what he was doing, so I wasn’t going to argue with him. We disembarked into the blowing snow, and fell into a rough diamond formation as we started down the street.

It was an eerie scene. Mangled bodies littered the street, their blood still steaming in the snow. Some were partially eaten, missing limbs or faces, their bodies ripped open to expose organs and viscera. There was a weak moan from somewhere nearby, and I realized that some of the victims weren’t dead yet.

I was debating whether there was time to stop and save them when a fresh pack of monsters came around a corner ahead of us and charged. At the same time more of them descended from the rooftops on our flanks, howling for our blood.

I threw a flurry of force blades at the monsters descending on my flank, and drew Grinder. The first few monsters fell onto the blades and were cut to pieces, coming apart in a shower of gore and severed body parts that bounced off my shield. The others landed around us as Grinder’s shriek filled the air, and I swept a jet of violet flame across them.

I couldn’t hit all the monsters at once, but those that evaded Grinder’s plasma jet just clawed uselessly at my shield. I carved through them with wide sweeps of Grinder’s blade, interspersed with jets of plasma at the ones that were smart enough to dodge instead of trying to parry. Well now, these guys weren’t so tough.

Gronir’s flamer roared. I glanced back to see that Leo was cutting his opponents apart with a sword covered in dull purple runes, that seemed to disintegrate anything it touched. A few of the monsters had apparently decided Gronir was an easier target, but he’d lit them up with the flamer and was gleefully carving up the ones that weren’t dead from the flames yet.

I glanced back towards our front, but High Adept Steelbinder had things well in hand there. Gleaming steel shapes danced through the ranks of the onrushing horde, moving so fast I could barely tell what they were. They constantly changed their shape, sprouting blades and barbed spikes and vicious-looking hooks, buzzing through the mob to strike again and again. They didn’t penetrate the armored hides of the monsters as easily as my own force blades, but they got the job done well enough.

When they ran out of monsters to dice the objects reformed into spheres the size of baseballs, and flew back to orbit over Steelbinder’s head. The wizard fished a small object out of a pouch, and consulted it briefly.

“That way,” he pointed, and set out again.

A moment later we turned the corner, and came out into the plaza in front of Kozalin’s city hall. It was a rather grand building, with marble steps out front leading up to an ornate entryway decorated with statues of heroes. The windows overlooking the plaza had actually been glass instead of just wooden shutters, and a tower with a massive clock face near the top rose from one corner of the building. But it had seen better days.

Pools of half-frozen blood stained the thin layer of snow on the plaza, along with piles of rags and the occasional bit of metal gear. But there were no bodies. Several of the building’s windows were broken, and the ornately carved doors of the grand entryway had been ripped off their hinges and thrown down across the steps. The corner opposite the clock tower seemed to be on fire, and there were faint roars and screams rising from somewhere deep inside.

“These things work fast,” I noted.

Steelbinder checked his device again. “Indeed. It seems the beast is in one of the basements. Can you give us a direct route?”

“Not a problem.”

He pointed, and I ripped through the cobblestone of the plaza to open a sloping tunnel in that direction. I took the lead as we went in, trying to look ahead with my earth sense to make sure I didn’t tunnel into a sewer line. Sure enough there were several buried pipes in our path, but I was able to go under them easily enough. Once we got a few feet down there didn’t seem to be any more of them, and I got us across the plaza almost as quickly as we could have walked on the surface.

Then I broke out into a hollow space, and something with far too many teeth lunged for my face. My shield failed in a shower of blue sparks, torn apart by some kind of spell-destruction effect the thing radiated, and I barely got an arm up in time to intercept its mouth.

Teeth the size of daggers closed on my arm, but failed to penetrate the sleeve of my enchanted coat. Gronir’s flamer stabbed over my shoulder, but his improvised force bayonet made only a shallow gash before the blade unravelled. I fumbled under my coat, my hands closing on the hilt of my gun.

“Step back, man,” Leo shouted. “Let me get my sword into it!”

The monster growled and clawed at my chest, its jaws worrying at my arm. But it still couldn’t get through, and it was impossible to miss at this range. I held down the trigger, and walked a line of bullets up its belly. The big 0.50 slugs tore huge holes in the beast’s hide, spraying the room behind it with black ichor and fragments of broken bones.

It released my arm, falling back on its hind legs, and I put three more rounds into its head just to be sure.

“What the hell?” Gronir said.

“It’s making new minions designed to kill us,” Steelbinder said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That one was breaking active spell effects, but not enchantments. Let’s not give it a chance to find an attack that works on us.”

My shield reformed, and I pulled it in so it would be inside the curse barrier one of my rings projected. Hopefully that would block the spell-breaking effect, or at least slow it down for a few seconds.

“Indeed. Leo, take point. It can’t be more than a few rooms away.”

“Yes, sir!” The armored wizard pulled a small object out of a pouch, and strode across the hall we’d tunneled into to slap it against the far wall. Cracks immediately began to spread from the impact point, spreading and growing exponentially, and in seconds the stone crumbled away to reveal a dimly-lit cellar on the far side.

A sea of monsters filled the room from wall to wall.

I could hear sounds of battle from somewhere nearby. Shouts, the clang of steel, the screams of injured men. But there was no time to make sense of that. A walking mouth the size of a bear was waiting for Leo, and immediately lunged through the opening to attack him. A swarm of dog-sized monsters flooded out around it, and dozens of little flying things came swooping in from above.

Gronir roasted quite a few of the flyers with his flamer, but Leo went down with the big thing on top of him. Half of Steelbinder’s flying blades went to work on the smaller monsters, while the rest turned into floating steel disks that moved to block anything from getting too close to him.

Well, I’d have to assume Leo could handle himself. I spun the cylinder on my gun, and started firing bouncer rounds over the melee into the crowded room.

They worked beautifully. The first one punched through a dog-monster’s hindquarters and went tumbling across the room, its spinning blades leaving a trail of gore and severed body parts behind. The second one encountered another beast with a spell-breaking aura halfway across the room, but the impact of the bullet still killed the thing. There didn’t seem to be very many of those, and my next few shots carved more bloody swathes through the horde.

An endless stream of reinforcements poured in through a doorway on the far side of the room, but the monsters were dying faster than they could be replaced. Steelbinder gathered a ball of lightning in his hand and threw it into the room, where it unleashed a flurry of miniature lightning bolts that threw the horde into confusion. The giant beast fell aside with a thump, and Leo started to crawl out from under it. We were winning.

Then I felt a sharp pain in my foot. I jerked back, and looked down to find that a tentacle with a mouth on the end had emerged from the floor to latch onto my foot. Another one curled around my ankle before I could pull free, and more were emerging from a widening hole in the floor.

“Burrowers!” I shouted, and sliced through the tentacles with a force blade. I took to the air on a levitation field like the one I’d developed for my skimmers, but the pain in my foot was still getting worse.

The tentacles wrapped around my leg were still alive, growing mouths that tore apart my boot and burrowed into my flesh. My body sense informed me that dozens of tendrils were digging into me like roots, eating and growing as they spread.

Yeah, fuck that. I called up my flesh sorcery, reached into the alien biology of those burrowing invaders, and killed them. The magic that animated them fought me, resisting my magic and trying to force dead cells back to life. But I was stronger than it was, and that wasn’t my only sorcery. I fought back against its magic too, dispelling the protections it raised and disrupting its regeneration power. For a few seconds I focused the whole power output of my amulet on the task.

Finally, it died.

I spent a few more seconds making sure it hadn’t left some further trick ready to hit me when I was distracted, and then turned my attention back to my surroundings.

Steelbinder was standing on a floating disk of steel now, surrounded by a crackling web of lighting that incinerated anything that got close to him. Leo had been forced away from the opening, and was hacking away furiously at the monsters that were still trying to get at him while a mass of severed tentacles wrapped around his legs seeking a way through his armor. Gronir had backed well up, and was hosing down the opening with his flamer. But that wouldn’t discourage them for long.

“Gronir, pull back!”

I laid down a thick sheet of nickel-iron to cover the floor, leaving holes where Gronir and Leo were standing. Leo jumped onto the iron almost as soon as it formed, and a wave of crawling black lights danced across his armor turning the vine monsters to dust. I closed the hole where he’d been standing, and drew Grinder again.

“Maximum destruction, everyone,” Steelbinder called. “Daniel, take point and cut a path through these things.”

I nodded. “You got it. Gronir, stay out here.”

A fresh wave of monsters lunged towards us, smaller ones with grey-white hides that ignored the wash of fire from Gronir’s flamer. But that was just normal flame. I lit Grinder, and directed a jet of plasma into the middle of the swarm.

They died with high-pitched chittering shrieks, their bodies flashing to vapor in the face of a fire hotter than the sun. Grinder’s violet flame had to be somewhere well north of ten thousand degrees, and thermal energy transfer is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature difference. I left the beam on, and floated forward with a savage grin.

The heat was like walking into a blast furnace. In a few seconds the air was too hot to breathe, and the stone floor of the larger chamber began to glow red as it melted. Even with the fire protection I’d enchanted onto my coat I could feel the radiant heat trying to burn my skin, only for the healing of my amulet to repair the damage as fast as it happened. I floated quickly across the room, flash-frying everything in my path.

A thought struck me, and I glanced up. The roof was vaulted stone. Good thing, because wooden beams wouldn’t have survived this.

Then I was across the room, forcing my way through the opening the monsters had been pouring out of. It abruptly closed, an armored bulk I couldn’t see clearly through Grinder’s flame moving to seal it off. For a moment a ball of violet plasma formed in the air in front of me, trapped between the barrier and my own force field. It was blindingly bright, roiling violently as Grinder’s plasma beam fed more and more energy into it.

I stabbed out with an improvised counterspell, and broke the barrier’s fire resistance aura.

There was a deep bellow of agony, and the creature evaporated. The trapped plasma exploded out into the room behind it, burning away paper and furniture and the flesh of the gathered monsters, and filling the air with superheated vapors. I caught a glimpse of a huge, heaving mass of flesh filling the middle of the room, and turned off the plasma beam.

Most of the room’s occupants were already dead, and the few that remained didn’t last long. A dark shadow flashed across the room and became Leo, already bisecting an ungainly-looking bipedal thing with his glowing sword. Then lightning filled the room for a moment, bending around us to strike all of our enemies at once, and the other survivors dropped.

Lukas Steelbinder strode into the room, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that the floor behind us had melted into lava a couple of inches deep. He observed the mass of charred flesh in the middle of the room, and nodded sharply.

“That’s it.”

Grinder, Leo’s sword and Steelbinder’s lightning made short work of the thing.

When I was sure it was dead I shut down Grinder, and blessed silence fell. Steelbinder drew a handful of something that looked like little steel snowflakes from a pouch, and sent them floating around the room. The temperature quickly began to fall.

“Well, that was a brisk little affair,” Steelbinder commented. “That flash step is a new achievement for you, isn’t it Leo?”

“Yes, sir. Just got it working a few weeks ago, sir.”

“Congratulations, that’s a big step. I see your reputation for brutal overkill is well deserved, Daniel. I haven’t seen flame of that intensity in years.”

“Yeah, I really should get around to making better dial-a-yield attacks someday. But with Ragnarok approaching I’ve been spending all my time on more power instead, so I didn’t have anything else that would get the job done without bringing down the whole building.”

“Yes, well, I was counting on something like that in any event. They would have adapted to a more measured attack, and bogged us down again.”

“Lukas!” The voice of Prince Caspar roared from behind us. “What in the Nine Worlds are you wizards playing at?”

I turned, to find the prince and a ragged-looking band of knights gingerly standing on the half-molten stone of the tunnel I’d blasted through a few minutes ago. Well, now, that was unexpected. I’d been impressed enough that the other wizards had been able to follow me. If the royal bodyguards had magic items that could cope with walking on lava I needed to upgrade my evaluation of their threat level.

“Someone summoned a devourer here,” Steelbinder said mildly. “We just finished killing it.”

“Someone?” The prince snarled. “Those damned beasts killed the whole temple delegation, and most of the city government as well. Someone wants this city in chaos, and that someone is a wizard. This is treason, Lukas.”

“This is Loki’s daughter, Caspar,” Steelbinder replied evenly. “None of my people have the power to summon a greater demon from the Stygian Abyss, let alone command it. She obviously hopes to set us at each other’s throats.”

“This was your ritual chamber, Lukas! It was you who persuaded me to allow your wizards to work right next to the war room, and look what has come of it! Find this bitch, and kill her, or I’m holding you responsible. And what is he doing here?” He jabbed an armored finger at me.

“Adept Black was with my delegation,” Steelbinder said, sounding a bit exasperated now. “Surely you’re not going to blame him for this? He helped us kill the beast, and besides he had no opportunity to cast such a spell.”

“I wouldn’t have a clue how to summon a demon anyway,” I put in. “You’ve seen my magic, Your Highness. If I was trying to sabotage the city I’d be using earth spells and explosions.”

He glared at me. “So you say. Get out. The meeting is cancelled. I’ll make my own plans to deal with this army, without any more interference from wizards. Lukas, the Conclave’s only task for now is to find me this demigoddess. I want her head on a platter before the enemy reaches our gates.”

The implied ‘or else’ hung in the air.

Steelbinder nodded stiffly. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

We returned to the street where we’d left our escort in silence. They were still there, thankfully, although they looked like they’d seen a bit of action after we left. I spent a few minutes patching up the injured there, while Steelbinder conferred with Ward.

“It’s probably best if you lie low for now,” Steelbinder told me.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be in my tower if you need me. He isn’t handling the pressure very well, is he?”

Steelbinder shook his head. “He’s steady enough in a normal fight, but I fear the end of the world is a bit much for him. Still, he’s the only man the nobles will follow. We can’t hold the city without their manpower, so we’d best do what we can to placate him. Can you ready a power talisman for the Conclave?”

“I’ll have it ready to pick up tomorrow morning. I understand the Conclave has quite a library for its membership? How does access for me and my apprentices sound, as payment for the first one?”

“Agreed.”

The Conclave wizards rode off on their golems, and Gronir and I boarded the transport. It was a relief to get out of the cold.

“Looks like there wasn’t any trouble you couldn’t handle, Marcus?”

“Not this time, sir. But I don’t like the looks of things. Those demons killed hundreds of people in a matter of minutes, and that was just a quick bit of sabotage. What’s going to happen when there’s an army besieging the city? If another menace like this appears while they’re storming the walls the garrison will never hold.”

“I know. But I don’t have any way to find the Unraveler, and we have our own problems to deal with. We’ll just have to trust the Conclave to handle her.”

The rest of the trip home was filled with discussion of our own defensive situation. We had enough food on hand to last for a few weeks now, and the new smithy was up and running. But our men would be stretched thin trying to defend the whole island if there was a serious attack, and most of them were recruits with only a few days of training.

I wasn’t too worried about that, though. Trying to cross the icy river and a moat of melt water to storm my walls would be a nightmare for any attacker, especially since my walls were too tall for scaling ladders and far too strong to breach with siege engines. Unless their magic was a lot stronger than I expected it would take a giant engineering project to build some means of getting over the wall, and I could improve our defenses to counter anything they tried.

Kozalin, however, was a lot more vulnerable. With the moat frozen its walls were open to assault, and in most places they were less than ten feet thick. Not to mention they were built from blocks of stone, instead of being one seamless mass like my own construction. With the right magic it wouldn’t be too hard to breach them, and I didn’t want to think about how many lives it would take to throw back an army of monsters if they got inside the walls.

But there was nothing I could do about that now. Hopefully the prince would come to his senses and let me help once the Unraveler was dealt with, but for now I had my own problems to deal with.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned home, intending to put in a few hours in my workshop. I found the outer rooms empty, with even the maids missing. But there was a subtle tang of magic in the air as I passed into the private area.

I followed it to the room Avilla had designated as our future ritual chamber, and frowned. The magic I was feeling wasn’t just the witches. There was Elin’s warm, deep river of power mixed in with their spice and shadow, and something else as well. Elemental passion wrapped in leather and cold steel, entwined with roots sunk deep in the earth. Pelagia? What the hell?

The magic was fading quickly, so whatever they were doing they’d finished it a few minutes ago. I eased the door open, and found myself looking at a completely unexpected scene.

An intricate design of chalk and candles stretched across most of the floor, with three points radiating out from it. Avilla knelt on the stone floor in the middle of the symbol, crying her eyes out in Cerise’s arms. Elin and Pelagia still stood at two of the points, looking on sympathetically, while Tina stood to one side wringing her hands.

“What did I miss?” I asked.

Avilla looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Daniel? I… I… I’m s-sorry!” She wailed, and buried her face in Cerise’s chest again.

“I thought you’d want us to continue the investigation, sir,” Elin told me. “Avilla conceded that our suspicion might well be correct, as her newfound passion for the prince is oddly irresistible in its intensity. None of our arts were suited to investigating such things, so at first we were stumped. But Pelagia is intimately familiar with magics of the heart, and she was kind enough to help us construct a ritual to lay bare the nature and origin of the subject’s desires.”

“I see. What did you find?” I asked carefully.

Avilla choked off a sob. “I was never anything but a pawn in granny’s plans. A walking honey trap. The love spell was baked into me when I was made, just waiting to trigger when I met him. I’m so sorry, Daniel. I wanted to be yours, but I’m a treacherous bitch in the end. I can’t fight a spell that’s part of me.”

For a moment I wanted to learn the secrets of necromancy, so I could drag Lysandra’s spirit back from Hades and make her suffer for what she’d done.

I knelt beside Cerise, and put a hand on Avilla’s shoulder. “It sounds like you’re fighting it now.”

“With Cerise’s strength, and Elin’s will,” she countered morosely. “It can’t last for long. I hate being nothing but a puppet for that woman’s schemes, but her spell has eaten my heart. There’s hardly anything left in me to even try to fight it. You should just kill me now, before I turn on you again.”

“No!”

My arms were around her, hugging her and Cerise both against my chest. “God, no. I could never kill you, Avilla. No matter how mad or hurt I might be, and it wasn’t even you.”

“But it is me,” she protested. “I’m a poison apple, Daniel. I don’t want to be, but I can’t help myself.”

“We’ll find a way, honeydew,” Cerise insisted. “Magic fucked this up, and magic can unfuck it. There’s got to be a way to fix this, somehow.”

I couldn’t think. God, Avilla was under a compulsion? And I’d just stormed off and left her to deal with it alone? How could I have been so blind?

“I don’t have a good solution to offer,” Pelagia said gently. “I could show Daniel how to enchant you with a love spell of his own, and drown Lysandra’s work under superior power. But you’d always be one dispel away from reverting, and the conflict would haunt your dreams and slowly drive you mad.”

I squeezed my witches tighter. “I can’t do that to her.”

“Then I shall take my leave, so you may consider what to do without an outsider’s presence. But I stand ready to help, if there is anything I can do for you.”

Pelagia left, and quietly closed the door behind her.

“I don’t understand,” Tina said plaintively.

“Avilla is under a love spell,” Elin told her. “It was woven into her when she was made, so we can’t just break it without killing her.”

“What? But that’s terrible! Isn’t there something we can do?”

“I don’t know, Tina,” I admitted. “This isn’t the kind of magic I’m good at. Maybe I could unravel it somehow, one piece at a time? If you want me to, Avilla?”

“Yes! Oh Daniel, I’d like nothing better. We were going to be so happy together. But it won’t work. The spell is corrupting my own magic. If you start picking it apart it will drain me to rebuild itself. If you refill me you’ll just be feeding it, and if you don’t it will kill me.”

Damn it, she was right. I wasn’t sure I could do anything about it, anyway. I still couldn’t even see what part of her magic was the enchantment, and what was her magical metabolism. It could easily take me weeks to map out what needed to be done, and we didn’t have that kind of time. If we were going to fix this we had to do it quickly.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Elin said. “Lysandra was going to steal your body, but surely she didn’t mean to subject herself to an unbreakable love spell? How did she plan to keep it from affecting her?”

Avilla wiped her eyes, and looked up at the homely girl. “I don’t know? You’re right, though. If she stole my body she’d be bound by the love spell, and she’d never want that. She must have left herself some kind of loophole.”

Oh. Of course.

“She was going to found a coven,” I pointed out.

Avilla and Elin looked at me blankly, but Cerise’s eyes lit up. “You’re right! Avilla, this is technically a binding, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, I think so.”

“A coven bond supersedes all other bindings,” Cerise pointed out eagerly.

“True, but a love spell always include a compulsion of acceptance to prevent… that… oh my. Cerise, you’re right! There’s no acceptance compulsion. Now that I know this is a binding I can resent it, and want to be free of it. It won’t prevent me from joining in a coven!”

Cerise hugged her excitedly, and then kissed me. “Dancing shadows, I love a smart man. You’re right. She was going to let herself be enspelled long enough to convince everyone she was really in love, and then free herself of the binding by forming a coven.”

“Thanks, but thank Elin. She gave me the idea.”

“You’re right.” Cerise bounced to her feet, pulled Elin into a hug and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Elin. You’re a lifesaver. Now we just need to form our coven.”

“Y-you’re welcome,” Elin stammered, embarrassed.

“But I can’t ask Daniel to do that,” Avilla said uncertainly. “You know he was having misgivings, love.”

“Misgivings that I was working through,” I told her. “If you need this, I’ll do it. But we need two more members. No offense, but we need enough stable people to balance out the amount of crazy you two are going to bring to this thing.”

“Hey, I’ve been working really hard to get my demon side under control,” Cerise protested. “I bet we won’t even have to re-bind me.”

“The fact that this is even an issue would send most sane mages screaming into the night,” Elin pointed out. “You’ll need someone sensible who has at least as much strength as you do, to help you weather that storm until the coven bond is firmly established and you can determine whether you have your demonic power under control.”

“Mara?” Avilla suggested.

“Obviously,” Cerise agreed. “We can talk her into it. But who’s our fifth? Corinna?”

“Too wild,” Avilla demurred. “Besides, you said she’s inexperienced with magic. Pelagia?”

“A dominatrix nymph with a thousand years of experience?” Cerise scoffed. “We’d all be calling her ‘Mistress’ in a week.”

“Dominatrix?” Elin squeaked.

“I was sort of getting that vibe,” I agreed. “But I’m not too sure about Mara. She’s strong, and being beautiful doesn’t hurt, but I’m still not sure how much we can trust her.”

“So we invite her over to talk about it,” Cerise said firmly. “You can have a heart-to-heart while we figure out our other options. But if you veto her you’ve got to suggest someone else.”

“Fair enough.”

Chapter 21

I sent the wolfen to carry a message to the Iron Citadel, asking Mara to come visit us immediately if at all possible. But there was no telling how long it would take to get a response, so I sat down with Cerise to go over the ritual while we waited. In absolute terms the enchantment that would create our coven bond was less complex than that factory enchantment I’d invented to make heating stones, but this time my sorcery wasn’t going to do all the hard parts for me. My meta-magic sorcery allowed me to learn complex spells in an amazingly short time, but there was still a lot of ground to cover if we were going to get this done quickly.

Ideally we should have spent at least a day preparing. The invading army wouldn’t get here for at least a few days, and even if Mara was receptive to our offer she’d want some time to study the binding she was going to commit herself to. But Avilla’s temporary sanity wasn’t going to last more than a few hours, and she’d tearfully warned us not to give her time to stew under the influence of the love spell.

“I was almost ready to escape,” she confessed. “Granny’s spell was slowly driving me mad. Making me so obsessed I didn’t care what I had to do to go to him. It was only my love for Cerise that let me refrain from doing anything stupid for so long, because I wanted to make sure you’d still protect her. If I have to wait much longer I’m afraid I’ll lose control, and do something terrible to the guards so I can escape.”

So we were in a bit of a rush. I was pretty sure I could imprison Avilla for a few days even if she went completely insane, but that wasn’t an experience I wanted to inflict on her. Not after what she’d already been through.

Cerise and I had never had occasion to work magic together before, so we did a few trial castings while we waited. Little bits of the ritual we were planning, that didn’t do anything by themselves. Her power was a wild maelstrom of dark magic, a barely-caged beast longing to break free and paint the walls red with blood. But when we blended our magic that dark power wrapped itself around me like a woman in the throes of passion, her bloodlust eagerly melting into more carnal desires.

I came up for air, and found that we were kissing heatedly.

“The problem here is going to be finishing the ritual without jumping each other,” I panted.

“Make me behave, Daniel,” she crooned, her eyes glittering with raw lust.

I groped for my flesh magic, using it to artificially suppress my own desires, and swatted her firm behind.

“Down, girl,” I said firmly.

Tina giggled. “You two are so hot together. Your magic is really pretty, too.”

Oh, right. I’d forgotten she was still here. There was nothing Tina could do about our magical problems, but the sweet girl was determined to lend what emotional support she could.

Wait a minute. “Pretty?”

“Oh! Um, I mean strong. Yes, very firm and manly.”

I chuckled. “I’m not insecure about what my magic looks like, Tina. I was just surprised you can see it.”

“That just started this morning. I woke up and I could see the magic in everything, plain as day. I never realized working spells was so much like dancing.”

She did a few steps of some folk dance I didn’t recognize, her feet flashing lightly across the stone as she skipped and twirled. To my surprise, magic rose around her as she moved. Her power felt like a basket of kittens napping in a sunbeam, but the pattern it formed was a perfect match for the exercise Cerise and I had just been doing.

Cerise’s sudden intake of breath told me she’d seen it too.

“You’re really good at that, Tina,” she said.

Tina smiled. “Thank you. Ma always said I had talent.”

“Can you do the magic part without actually moving?” I asked her.

“Maybe?” Her face scrunched up in concentration. After a moment magic blossomed again around her. Shaky at first, but in a few seconds she got the hang of it and repeated the exercise again. Perfectly.

“How’s that?” She asked innocently.

“Really good,” Cerise said speculatively. “That’s impressive, Tina. I had to practice for years to be able to do that.”

“Oh, it’s not really me, silly,” Tina protested. “It’s Bast. I can feel her blessing working when I reach for the magic. What does that spell do, anyway?”

“It keeps out spirits,” Cerise said. “It’s one of the protections we need to set up for the coven bonding, to make sure nothing that isn’t supposed to can sneak in.”

“I get it. Well, it feels nice. Kind of warm and tingly.”

I caught Cerise’s eye, and raised an eyebrow.

She blinked in surprise, and gave Tina another look. The busty catgirl was dancing again, long legs flashing as her short skirt billowed up with her movement.

The dark-haired witch smiled indulgently. “Backup plan?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Not ideal, but it looks like it might actually be possible. We could do a lot worse.”

It was early afternoon by the time Gronir returned, but he brought Mara with him. I emerged from the ritual chamber when a maid told me she’d arrived, and found her hugging Elin.

“I can’t believe how much better you look,” she was saying. “When the wolf guy said they needed me in a hurry I thought for sure something had happened to you. But you look almost back to normal. I guess Daniel really knows his healing, huh?”

“His powers are quite extraordinary,” Elin agreed. “I expect to make a full recovery, which is more than I’d dared hope for until a few days ago. I think I may even have a chance of sorting out my shapeshifting problems, although I don’t dare pursue that agenda on my own.”

“Well, I might be able to help you out with that,” Mara said slyly. “Just be careful not to let anything happen to you, when this big attack everyone is expecting hits. So, if you’re fine then what’s the big deal?”

“We’ve had some unexpected magical problems,” I told her. “The solution is going to require moving up some of our plans, and Cerise and Avilla want to invite you to be part of things. But I don’t actually know you that well, so I wanted to talk to you a little first.”

“Part of things?” She said quizzically.

Cerise had followed me into the room, and now she spoke. “It’s complicated. Um, when we were hanging out at the apprentice gathering the other day you hinted that you’d noticed a few things about us?”

“You mean besides what you’ve already told me? Yes, my nose is pretty sensitive. I still can’t believe Avilla is a gingerbread girl, though. How did someone give one of those a soul?”

Cerise flinched. “Oh, gee, just spill all our secrets, why don’t you?”

Mara shrugged. “Hey, this is your place of power, isn’t it? Are you hiding this stuff from your own minions?”

“No,” I put in. “But the girls have been in hiding long enough that it’s a hard habit to break. I take it you’re not exactly a big fan of the Church?”

She snorted. “You mean the Aesir fan club? Fuck, no. After what they did to my father I’d just as soon see them all dead. I guess you don’t follow them either, though I can’t quite figure out who your patron is. You’ve been touched by more than one god, and there’s so much of your own magic around you that it muddles everything else.”

“What happened to your father?” I asked.

“It’s a long story. Not something I really want to go into. But I’m pretty sure you aren’t building up to telling me you’re secretly agents of Loki, so what does any of this matter?”

“Apparently you made quite an impression on Cerise and Avilla,” I told her. “Cerise?”

The dark witch fidgeted, studying the floor intently. “Yeah. Um. Hey, I should really go check on Avilla. You’re better at this diplomacy stuff than me anyway, right Daniel?”

She disappeared so fast you’d think there was a band of paladins coming in the front door. I stared after her, and sighed.

Elin giggled. “So much for the fearless dark witch. Maybe I should leave you two alone?”

“Silly girl. Yeah, let’s use one of the sitting rooms, Mara. I’ll explain things, but this is sensitive enough that I don’t want anyone to overhear.”

She followed me to the little side room with a completely bemused expression. I claimed one of the wooden chairs, and watched as she hesitantly perched herself on another.

“She really wants me, doesn’t she?” Mara asked hesitantly. “It’s kind of flattering, but I don’t think I’m actually like that.”

“Cerise? Yeah, she’s had the hots for you since she first laid eyes on you. I guess that’s why she had an attack of nerves. But that’s not really what this is about.”

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to explain everything. Part of me wanted to try to hide some of the more dangerous bits of information, but that really wouldn’t be fair. A coven is a lifetime commitment, and I couldn’t ask her to go into this blind.

“You already knew that Cerise worships Hecate, and it probably isn’t hard to guess that Avilla follows Hestia. I’ve made a couple of bargains with Hecate, myself. One to protect Cerise, and another to help her try to rescue some groups that otherwise wouldn’t survive Ragnarok. I don’t know if the Conclave has figured this out yet, but the Fimbulwinter isn’t going to go away after the gods are done killing each other. Unless one side or the other pulls off some kind of amazingly lopsided victory, the survivors won’t have the power to change things back to the way they were.”

“Crap,” she muttered. “Yeah, that explains a few things. But then why are you helping the Aesir?”

I shook my head. “I don’t give a damn what happens to Asgard. But I have my own people to protect, and I’m not going to stand by and watch while Gaea’s children wipe out humanity. I can’t change the world, but if someone starts killing innocents right in front of me I’m going to stop them.”

She frowned. “I guess that makes sense. So, what, do you need help with protecting your girls from the Church?”

“No, by the time that comes up I expect it will be a moot point. Right now we’re getting ready to form a coven, and when we started debating who to invite your name was the first one the girls suggested.”

“What?” She sprung to her feet, staring at me with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious!”

“Yeah, I am,” I said calmly.

“But, but, you barely know me,” she protested. She shoved the chair out of the way, and began to pace back and forth in agitation. “You don’t know where I’m from, or what I stand for, or… why me? Why would you want me?”

That sounded more like something I would have expected Elin to say, than this fiery beauty. What had she been through, to leave her so insecure?

“That’s why we’re talking,” I told her. “The girls like you, and that’s good enough for them. I’m more cautious, so I wanted to talk things out a little. But we’re in a situation where we can’t afford to spend a long time looking, and so far I like what I’ve seen of you.”

She slumped against the wall. “You’re serious. You’re not just putting me on? If I say yes, I could have…”

She trailed off, and took an unsteady breath. “Sorry. I really wasn’t expecting something like this. Fuck, I thought this shit only happened in fairy tales.”

“Apparently not. So, questions?”

She took a deep breath, and visibly pulled herself together. “Yeah. Okay, you’re right, that’s the way to do it. Take turns asking and answering? Then that means I go first. Um, what’s the rush?”

I sighed. “We just figured out that the witch who made Avilla wove a love spell into her body, set to trigger the first time she met the prince. Forming our coven now is the only way we have to free her of it. We could delay for a day or two if we absolutely have to, but it’s going to be hell on her if we do. So, the sooner it’s done the better.”

I considered what to ask her for a moment. The fact that she was so careful about an exchange of information told me she had secrets to hide, but honestly I didn’t give a damn about most of the things that would be a big deal in this world. What did I actually need to know, to decide whether I was willing to have her in my coven?

“What do you want out of life?”

“Fuck, you go right for the jugular, don’t you?” She responded. “What do I want out of life? I can’t remember the last time anyone gave a damn what I wanted. But I guess it’s a fair question.”

She bowed her head for a moment, thinking.

“There are a lot of answers I could give. Goals, plans, dreams. But when you cut away all the complications, I guess it’s pretty simple. I… I want my dad to love me, because mom sure as fuck never will. I want to be accepted, by someone strong who can have my back, so I won’t have to spend my whole life alone. I want to claim my birthright, and protect my sister. And I want justice. The world is full of assholes who dish out the worst shit they can come up with on anyone too weak to fight back, just because they can. I know I’ll never be able to get revenge on them all. But when they come for me and mine, I want to be able to kick their teeth in and grind their faces in the dust. Make them be the ones who suffer some special torture for as long as we feel like hurting them.”

“Can you give me that, Daniel? Since you came to Kozalin you’ve done things that shouldn’t be possible, and I’m not buying this excuse you’ve given the Conclave. There’s more to it that that. Sometimes it seems like you’re just making it all up as you go, but then you pull out a secret that should take lifetimes to perfect. You look perfectly human, but you can’t be. So tell me, is it all a big trick? Is someone pulling your strings? Or are you really a god or a Great Beast or something else I haven’t thought of, and it’s all real?”

I studied her carefully, while I considered how to answer that.

“I am not of this world,” I told her. “That is why I don’t seem to fit into any of the categories you know. I’m human, and the reason I sometimes seem weak and unprepared is because I’ve been scrambling to adapt to this world’s magic since I arrived a few weeks ago. But I have a tremendous amount of lore to draw on that’s mostly unknown here, and an ability that lets me build practical applications in hours instead of months.”

“I probably can’t kill a god, at least not permanently. But my forces are going to grow stronger very quickly, and the fortifications I’ve built here are barely the beginning. Every member of my coven is going to have raw power on the scale that I’ve been throwing around recently, and weapons better than the ones I’m carrying now. With the backing of three goddesses already, and Hecate working to build alliances with other neutral parties, I think that by the time Ragnarok is over we’ll be in a position to defend ourselves against just about anyone.”

I paused, and selected my next question. I was tempted to just ask what she was hiding, but there was no need to be that callous. She might well have as much trauma in her past as we’d suspected, but the details weren’t critical to this decision. Whatever issues she might have, they obviously weren’t crippling.

“What birthright were you referring to?” I asked. “If you come with an automatic declaration of war on someone I think I need to know who.”

“Not that kind of birthright,” she replied with a tired smile. “It’s magical, not political. I guess you probably already figured out that I’m not exactly human? Mom… doesn’t think much of me. Says I’m too human to really be part of her family, and her sons… yeah. It’s pretty bad. She stole a piece of my soul when I was a kid, and she always says she’ll give it back to me if I do everything she says. I think she wants me to fail, but she can’t be too blatant about stacking the deck against me. She has to make it all look fair, so the rest of the family won’t intervene.”

“So I’m not going to be overthrowing a king, but I might need help killing a dragon or something.”

“I can do that,” I said quietly.

She gave me a sharp look. “You can?”

“I’ve built three dragon slaying weapons in the last week, and that’s only the beginning,” I assured her. “My kind of magic is very good at killing big, tough opponents. So, want some help with that?”

“Yeah.”

She looked away. Her fists clenched, so hard the knuckles turned white.

I stood up, and walked over to put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah. I just… I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about this stuff. Daniel, I think I like you. Cerise is a little much sometimes, but I can see she’s a good person to have at your back in a fight, and coming home to a hearth witch… well, I’m tempted. Really tempted.”

“But… well… do we have to fight to save the city?” She asked. “Couldn’t we just retreat to the island, take in however many people you think we can take care of, and hold that?”

“A few hundred people can’t survive in a frozen wasteland forever,” I pointed out. “On purely practical grounds we have to hold at least part of the city, and that’s ignoring the moral issue. Besides, if Kozalin falls the army that captures it will just turn on us.”

“It doesn’t have to,” she insisted, putting an urgent hand on my chest. “Look, the Unraveler is just after the veil anchor, right? That’s in the temple. So hold the Military District and the Trade Quarter, let her forces deal with those murdering bastards in the temple, and let them leave. You said yourself that your forces get stronger every day. If they don’t pull back once they have what they’re after we’ll just build up for a few days and route them ourselves.”

“How many thousands of innocents would die in the fighting?” I argued. “No, Mara. Whatever Odin’s priests have done to you, you can’t let it blind you to everything else. If you want revenge we can find another way.”

“Please, Daniel!” She insisted. “Give me this one thing, and I’ll say yes. I’ll join your coven, and we’ll share our secrets, and I bet we’ll both be amazed at how badass we can be. I’ll even work with you on saving the rest of the city. Just let the temple fall.”

I frowned. “Why is this so important to you, Mara?”

The fire went out of her. Her shoulders slumped, and her head fell to rest against my shoulder.

“Damn it,” she whispered. “Why does it have to be this way? Everything is so fucked up.”

Oh. It was my turn to ask a question, wasn’t it? “Mara?”

She stepped back, and there was a sharp sting of pain at my neck.

“Because I’m the Unraveler,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I guess I have to kill you now.”

I caught a momentary glimpse of my amulet in her hand, the one that had been resting on my chest. Then golden flames wreathed her form, and in the blink of an eye the red-haired girl I’d been talking to transformed into a giant two-headed fox.

“Oh, fuck!”

I barely threw up a force wall between us before her left head exhaled a mass of fire that engulfed the entire room, instantly turning it into a crackling inferno. The fire resistance enchantment on my new coat protected me for the moment, but it wouldn’t help when the oxygen ran out. I fumbled at my belt for Grinder.

The giant fox swatted at me with one huge paw, and my improvised shield collapsed instantly under a blow that could shatter stone. My coat’s enchantments negated most of the impact, but it send Grinder tumbling out of my grip.

I formed a force blade, and tried to ram it into her chest. But she was too fast for that. She slipped aside with that same inhuman quickness I’d seen the ungols use back in Lanrest, and the blade left only a shallow cut.

The door flew open, and a cloud of mist rushed in to quench the flames. “Daniel?” Elin’s voice called. “Mara? What happened?”

The golden flames flared up around Mara again, and she lunged at me with her teeth bared. I managed to dodge one bite, but my force blade fell apart when it touched her aura and then the jaws of her other head closed around me.

The initial impact didn’t penetrate my coat, and it resisted her effort to shake me like a dog with a rabbit. But the enchantment wasn’t designed to resist continuous pressure. Her jaws slowly began to close, and wherever my coat didn’t cover me the golden fire ate into my skin like acid. I think I screamed.

“Daniel! No!”

Elin’s cry was distorted, her voice changing to a deeper, louder tone. Then something huge and hairy fell on Mara with an enraged howl. I fell to the floor, and lay there dazed for a moment while two giant beasts struggled above me. Then there was a tremendous crash, and they were both gone.

After a moment I recovered enough wits to apply a pain block to myself, and called Grinder back to my hand. I found the door and part of the wall around it missing, and more sounds of struggle from beyond. I thumbed my weapon to life, and limped into the next room.

The giant fox was fighting something that looked like a deformed mutant sasquatch. Golden flame and rushing water clashed around them, filling the room with steam. The fox was clearly the faster of the two, and probably stronger as well. But the sasquatch fought with a furious berserker rage, heedless of its own safety.

Was that Elin’s grendelkin form? Yeah, the aura of magic I was seeing was definitely her.

Mara abruptly shrank to the size of a dog, and leaped between Elin’s legs. By the time she’d turned around her opponent was out the open door, diving off the balcony into the vast open space of the atrium. But she charged after the fox with an enraged snarl, heedless of the long fall.

I started after them, but Cerise caught up with me before I reached the balcony.

“What’s going on?”

“The Unraveler!” I shouted over Grinder’s din. “Come with me.”

Jumping off the balcony was more dangerous without the soft-landing spell built into my amulet, but I’d done this enough times to handle that manually. I slowed our fall with a sharp push of force magic, grimacing at the noticeable drain on my reserves. Damn it, I wasn’t used to having to worry about that.

By the time we got there it was all over. The postern gate had been open, as usual during the day, and Mara had shrunk herself again and darted out through the narrow opening to make her escape. Elin had knocked the guards out of her way, unbarred the gates and thrown them open all on her own, but by the time she reached the causeway Mara was long gone.

Which left us with a berserk grendelkin standing in the middle of the causeway, roaring and beating its fists against the stone.

I put a hand up to stop Cerise when she started forward, and deactivated Grinder.

“That’s Elin,” I told her.

“It is? Shit. What do we do?”

“Let me talk to her.”

I eased a bit closer to the raging beast. “Elin? Elin, it’s Daniel. I’m alright.”

She whirled to face me, her misshapen mouth gaping wide to reveal dozens of mismatched teeth. But instead of pouncing on me she stopped, and cocked her head.

“Can you understand me, Elin?”

She growled, and clutched at her head.

“‘Dan.. yel?” She rumbled.

“Yeah, it’s me. Can you change back, Elin?”

She frowned, and suddenly clutched her head. “Rrrgh! ‘ard.”

Great. I’d been a little skeptical when she described her control problems, but apparently this form really did affect her intellect. I was pretty sure the shape she normally wore was a mismatched amalgam of her three natural forms, so it might actually be pretty hard to recreate. But what else could we do?

She looked past me at Cerise, and smacked her lips. “‘ungry.”

Then she froze, and slapped herself hard enough to draw blood.

“No! No eat. Help.”

“Of course, Elin. Why don’t you go in the water?” I pointed. “You have a shape for water, right? Go in the water, and change to your water form. Can you do that?”

She looked down at the water, and back up at me. Nodded uncertainly.

“Water,” she said, and jumped awkwardly off the causeway.

There was a tremendous splash, of course. I waited a moment for the thrashing to subside, and then cautiously limped over to the edge and looked down.

There was something big moving in the water down there, and it wasn’t furry. A sleek, dark shape with patches of lighter color, even bigger than the grendelkin. Cerise stepped up beside me with a frown.

“What in Hades did she turn into?” She asked.

The shape surfaced, looking up at us with beady eyes set above a mouth full of dagger-like teeth. But this was a sight far more familiar than her previous shape.

“An orca,” I said. “She turned into an orca. Elin, that’s amazing. Can you talk in that shape?”

Her mouth opened, but produced only a series of high-pitched squeals. She stopped, and shook from side to side.

“Guess not. Well, did it at least help with the rage?”

Up and down.

“Good, glad to hear it. That’s two different forms, does it still feel like you have a third? If you can, why don’t you give it a try?”

Up and down. Then the orca swam off, slipping under the water briefly as it circled around before charging back towards the dock at high speed. At the last moment it leaped out of the water, and abruptly shrank into a much smaller and considerably more bipedal shape.

She landed badly, and tumbled onto the unyielding stone.

“Ouch,” Elin panted. “Oh, my head. Perhaps… that wasn’t… t-the best… id-d-dea.”

Her new shape didn’t have much resemblance to the one she’d originally worn. Her skin was a light blue, her hair a dark green, and her features were decidedly nonhuman. Her eyes were a little too big, her mouth a touch too wide, her ears long and ribbed like fins. Her fingers and toes were webbed, and there was no hair on her anywhere below her eyebrows. That last bit was quite apparent, because she’d lost her clothes at some point in this adventure. Slender as she was, her teeth were already chattering from the cold.

I limped over to her, and enveloped her in my coat. She sighed in relief, and sat up to lean against me.

“Thank you, sir.”

A moment of dizziness interrupted my reply. Cerise crouched beside me with a frown, her hand on my shoulder. “Daniel? Shouldn’t you be healing by now?”

“I’m going to have to do that the hard way, Cerise. Mara has my healing amulet.”

“What? How did that happen?”

“I should have been wearing my new breastplate. I let my guard down a bit while we were talking, and she took advantage. Apparently she’s the Unraveler.”

Cerise hung her head in dismay. “Crap. And I really liked her.”

“So that’s why she kept trying to get close to me,” Elin hissed. “She was trying to recruit me.”

“I’m not sure it’s that simple,” I said. “I saw part of your fight, and it looked to me like she was trying not to hurt you. But we can figure that out later. Right now you’ve got a massive headache and some kind of systemic shock I need to heal.”

“Yes, and you have a concussion and some terrible burns,” she replied. “Also, I fear I may have injured some of the guards.”

Fortunately none of the gate guards had anything worse than a broken arm, so we healed each other and then combined our efforts to patch them up. By then the whole keep was in an uproar, of course, and it took some time to get everyone calmed down and make sure the fortress was secure again. Then I had to bring the girls up to speed, and send a message to the Conclave warning them about Mara.

What a disaster. I needed to replace that amulet urgently, or I was going to be a far softer target than I’d like the next time I got into a fight. But at least I wasn’t caught completely without a portable power source. I resolved to start carrying my new gun around whether I was expecting a fight or not, and spent a few minutes modifying the enchantment on its power source so I could draw energy from it without having to take it out of the gun and hold it in my hand.

I returned from that emergency project to find Cerise, Avilla, Tina and Elin all sitting around the breakfast room table looking glum.

“Now what are we going to do?” Avilla said disconsolately. “I’m already starting to lose my grip again, and who else do we know that we can even ask?”

“I know one Conclave member who might suit you,” Elin offered. “But she isn’t going to jump into this without spending a few days considering the issue.”

“I guess we have to talk to the nymphs,” Cerise said. “But I really don’t know if we can make that work. Maybe if there’s a really young one?”

“They don’t start studying magic until they’re several centuries old,” Avilla pointed out. “Any nymph with the ability to join us will be too old for us, and unbalance everything.”

“Let’s not give up hope just yet,” I said. “I have a few ideas of my own. Elin, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Elin frowned, but rose from the table. “Of course, Daniel. Did I miss an injury?”

“No, nothing like that.” I took her back to my workroom, and closed the door. This was going to be awkward, especially considering her ideas about our respective stations. But I’d kick myself forever if I didn’t ask.

“Elin, what do you think of my ladies?”

She frowned at the unexpected question. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, sir. I rather like Cerise, although she can be unsettling at times. Avilla is a bit overbearing, and we have little in common, but she has treated me quite well. Tina is a very sweet girl, and I think it’s a good thing you decided to make her your mistress.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Cerise and Avilla may care for you, but they’re in love with each other. You need someone whose first priority will always be you.”

“Hmm. If it weren’t for the time factor, do you think we’d have any trouble finding the coven members we need?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “An especially independent wizardess might reject the idea, but any sensible woman would jump at the chance. The few wizards who might offer such a thing would always demand bindings of subservience, but I know Cerise designed this as a circle of equals. It’s all very romantic, actually.”

I smiled. “I see. Then I have to ask, would you be interested in joining?”

She froze, looking up at me in bafflement. “Me? I… but… please don’t be cruel, sir. That’s obviously impossible.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Why is that?”

“Sir, I do know what I look like,” she said firmly. “You deserve better than a… a misshapen abomination. Really, sir, I shudder to think what the coven bond might do to your senses if it included a binding of attraction to such a repulsive visage.

I sighed. “You haven’t had a good look at yourself since you got back inside, have you?”

I pulled out one of the little experiments I’d done in spare minutes stolen from other things. A tall mirror, clear glass backed by actual silver, which gave a better reflection than the metal sheets that were the norm in this world. I set it against the wall in a hastily conjured frame, and stepped back.

Sure enough, Elin was already staring at her reflection. Slowly, her hand rose to one of those long ears. Her new shape was alien looking, a bit close to the Uncanny Valley in some respects, but not especially repulsive. I thought she looked kind of cute, actually.

“Sure, you don’t look human,” I said. “But so what? You don’t need to. Beyond that, well, point out something you don’t like.”

“I have little fins on my elbows,” she complained immediately. “That’s absurd.”

I ran my fingers down her bare arms, and smoothed the offending features away. “Next?”

She frowned. “That doesn’t feel like it did before. I… I think perhaps I could change it back, if I so desired, but it doesn’t itch at me.”

“I thought that might happen,” I told her. “You’ve spent most of your life stuck in an unstable hybrid form, Elin. It was taking half your magic just to keep you alive, and anything I did threatened to unbalance that. But this is a real shape. Probably the closest thing you have to a natural form. So it isn’t so unstable. Now, what else?”

“Um. My hair is all scraggly. The color is actually nice, but the texture is awful.”

I combed my hands through her hair, transforming the coarse locks into a cascade of silken strands. Then I moved on to her scalp, and changed her hair follicles so it would grow that way from now on. “Next?”

She stared into the mirror with wide eyes.

“My nose is too big.”

“Next.”

“My mouth is too wide, and all my teeth are pointed.”

“Next.”

“My thighs are chunky.”

“Next.”

She licked her lips. “I… don’t have breasts, to speak of.”

I smiled over her shoulder. “I think you know perfectly well what I can do about that. Want to give Tina some competition?”

“No!” She blushed furiously. “Just, um, something reasonable? Like Cerise, or perhaps a little less?”

When I was done with that, she leaned back against my chest and gazed in amazement at her reflection.

“You can make me look like anything I want,” she said in wonder.

I let my arms slip around her waist, and hugged her gently. “Yes.”

“I might lose your work if I switch forms,” she warned. “I can feel the changes you’ve made to this shape, as deviations from the one my magic naturally wants to assume. I might be able to accept them and make them mine, if I work at it. But I can’t promise that.”

“Then I’ll change you back again, as often as you like,” I told her. “Hey, you can make an opportunity out of that. Experiment with different looks, and see which one suits you the best.”

She looked stunned. “Why… why aren’t you simply shaping me to your own taste, Daniel? If you can make me… attractive… why, you have to know I’d pay any price for that.”

“Because I want to see you comfortable in your own skin, Elin,” I told her. “It’s obvious you’ve always hated your body, although you’ve a lot less reason to now that you aren’t mixing your undine shape with grendelkin features in an effort to look human. I want to see what you settle on, if you have the chance to pick any form you want.”

“Besides, we both know you’ll end up wanting to be beautiful. What woman doesn’t? So why would I want to dictate the exact kind of beauty you settle on?”

She bit her lip, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “You really want me, don’t you? But why?”

“Because you’re brave, and tough, and absolutely brilliant, and those are all qualities I appreciate,” I told her. “You’re practical, and well educated, and somehow against all the odds you have a good heart. But do you want me?’

The tears broke free to trail down her cheeks. But her face was full of wonder.

“Yes! Oh, Daniel! I thought I’d live out the rest of my life as a hideous beast, and never even kiss a man. I’ve wanted you since our first healing session. When we started doing enchantments together it was all I could do to hide my desire.”

“It was actually pretty apparent,” I told her. “Your magic is very sexy.”

She turned in my arms, and kissed me.

She was warm and soft in my arms, but even now she held on to her self-control. Her lips brushed mine delicately, hesitant and curiously experimental. An intellectual savoring her first encounter with sensual pleasure, determined to wring every drop of novelty out of the encounter.

I pulled her in close, and kissed her back until she broke off, gasping for breath.

“You realize the coven binding will invalidate my promise to you,” she warned me.

“I never asked you to make yourself my servant,” I told her. “I’ll be happy to have you as an equal member of the coven.”

Tears still ran down her cheeks, but she was smiling when she kissed me again. “Thank you, Daniel. Yes, please, if the others will have me I will happily join you. But who will be our fifth?”

“Tina,” I told her. “She may not be a witch or a wizardess, but Bast seems to be quite grateful to the mother of her rebirth. I think she can do her part of the ritual, even if she has no idea what she’s doing.”

Elin smiled. “Good for her. It may not be a conventional choice, but I think it’s the right one.”

Chapter 22

Tina couldn’t read.

This was a bit of a snag, since the vows Cerise had prepared were entirely too long to memorize easily. She’d painstakingly written out five copies of the whole thing, on the assumption that she and Avilla would eventually convince me to go through with it. But the written word was a complete mystery to Tina, to an extent I’d never encountered. In America we call someone ‘illiterate’ if the best they can do is slowly sound out words one letter at a time. Tina didn’t even know what a letter was. She actually seemed to think reading was some kind of mystical art that involved communing with paper spirits.

But my witches had been unexpectedly enthusiastic about my suggestion of including her. They both found her adorable, and there was certainly no question about whether they could get along with her. So we weren’t going to give up that easily.

“It’s only three pages,” Elin observed. “Couldn’t she just memorize it? I know I’ll have it down in another few minutes.”

“Memorize it? A whole big speech? I’m sorry, Elin, but I don’t think I can do that,” Tina said.

“That’s alright, cutie,” Cerise reassured her. “I couldn’t do it either, not without a few days to study it. Miss big brain here is just forgetting that the rest of us aren’t as smart as her. Hey, what if we pause after each line so Tina can repeat it? You can manage one sentence at a time, right?”

“What’s a sentence?” Tina asked innocently.

“Let’s just give it a try,” Avilla suggested, picking up her copy of the ritual. “Pretend we’re starting, and repeat what I say. We gather this night to pledge ourselves…”

“We gather this night to pledge ourselves…”

They worked through the first page like that. Tina’s clear, high voice echoed every word Avilla said flawlessly, even down to the inflections.

Cerise grinned. “Sounds like that will work. Having someone out of sync will blow up the energy cost of the ritual some, but if we both use our power sources I think we can compensate.”

“Oh, is power going to be an issue with this?”

Elin scoffed. “Really, Daniel. I know you have limitless magic to draw on, but for the rest of us this is a very ambitious ritual. Not only are we redefining ourselves on the most primal level, but Cerise has worked a whole series of wards and alarms into the bindings to strengthen our protection against outside influence. Which, by the way, is a masterful bit of spellwork, Cerise. I’m quite impressed. But the fact remains that even under ideal conditions only the strongest of circles could complete this ritual. I’m going to be exhausted by the time this is done, and I’m afraid Tina might not be able to finish.”

“I’m sorry I’m so much trouble,” Tina said. “Maybe you should ask one of the nymphs instead? They’re really pretty, and I’m sure they’re better at magic than I am.”

Avilla hugged her. “No, Tina. We want you.”

“They couldn’t do it, anyway,” Elin said. “I inherited the Spark of Prometheus with my human blood, so I can master a complex ritual in a matter of hours. But nymphs are divine immortals of Olympian descent, which means their nature is changeless. I’d be astonished if any of them could master a novel ritual on this level in less than a month.”

Tina’s brow crinkled. “Huh?”

“It takes nymphs a long time to learn anything new,” Avilla explained gently. “Pelagia would have to study for weeks to cast this spell. But you can do it today.”

“Is it really that hard? It seems so simple to me,” Tina said.

“Bast’s blessing makes it easy for you,” Avilla assured her. “For anyone else, it would be like a deaf person learning to play music.”

“Oh. So, Elin is so smart she could learn to play the pipes even if she was deaf?”

Elin opened her mouth, but I put my hand over it. “Yes. She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?”

“No wonder I can’t understand anything she says,” Tina enthused.

“Yep. So, anyway, about that power problem. I’m thinking maybe we should do this down in the basement, so we can all tap into my main power stone. That way no one will run short of magic, and we can invest as much power as we want in each step of the casting.”

“That’s a great idea,” Cerise agreed. “Just put some guards on the door, and make sure we can seal it from the inside. We have to strip off all our wards and open ourselves up completely to do this, and we really don’t want to be interrupted in the middle of the vows.”

Well, that wasn’t a problem. I called a brief staff meeting to pass the word, with the leaders of the dryad groves in attendance as well as my officers.

“I’m going to seal the door, so that it can’t be opened until we’re finished,” I told them. “But there’s a chance that our enemies will try something while we can’t respond, and the Unraveler is very good at getting into places she shouldn’t. So I need a strong guard force on the door, just in case. I also want all our forces on high alert. We can’t interrupt this ritual once we start, so if there’s a monster attack you’ll have to deal with it on your own.”

“I congratulate you on your impending nuptials,” Pelagia said with a smile.

“How long will this take?” Marcus asked.

“A couple of hours, for the ritual itself. But I suspect we’ll be too exhausted to be good for much afterwards.”

“I will stand guard, with my two strongest sisters,” Corinna announced. “We can deal with any attempt at enchantment or illusion.”

Gronir nodded. “I’ll join them, with Gudrin. That will give us some good firepower, and the rest of the pack can patrol the walls to keep an eye out for trouble.”

“A squad of veteran infantry will round out the guard force well enough,” Marcus added. “Force blades, shields and flamers will handle most anything, but I’ll add a couple of marksmen as well. Although if that fox comes back I want to see how it handles a cannon.”

I winced. “You don’t want to fire one of those indoors if you can help it. The blast will deafen everyone in the room, and as strong as the walls are the slug would probably bounce around the room killing people at random.”

Oskar cringed. “Let’s not do that, then. I’ve got a couple of men who’ve been practicing with those new ‘grenade’ things, and we’ve got a big stack of them piled up already. I’ll put them on the guard team.”

It was close to sundown by the time we had everything arranged. I’d rather have waited until morning, but since Cerise had designed her ritual to be cast at night that wasn’t really an option. Besides, the girls had already been forced to enlist Pelagia’s help in re-casting that ritual that allowed Avilla to resist the love spell. If we waited it would wear off sometime during the night, and Avilla was terrified of what she might do if she woke up back in the grip of that obsession.

So we trooped down to the basement after a light meal, and the girls began to prepare the room while I gave the guard team a last once-over and barred the door. I was tempted to fuse the stone together just to make sure there was no way in, but if something happened to me that would leave the girls trapped in a room they probably couldn’t break out of on their own. So I made do with weaving a curse barrier around the room, hoping that would interfere with magical attempts to open the door.

Elin saw what I was doing, and reinforced my efforts with two spells of her own. One to freeze the door in place, and another to keep out a type of spell I wasn’t familiar with. A barrier against scrying, maybe?

Avilla laid out a complex diagram on the floor in chalk, her hands moving with the confidence of long practice. Her magic bled into the chalk as she worked, priming it to carry our blended power. The smooth, sweeping lines were intended to help channel and contain the magic we were going to unleash here, ensuring that any backlash we might generate with a false move would be safely grounded out instead of detonating in a storm of wild magic.

While she did that Cerise made a circuit of the room, chanting under her breath in Greek. Her efforts raised yet another barrier around the room, this one a protection against intrusion by spirits.

By the time they were done I’d finished spinning a temporary extension of the power stone’s enchantment, creating five connections designed to feed a healthy but not overwhelming stream of power to a group of mages. My own connection had a master control for all the links, to adjust how much power they gave. So I connected that one first, then Elin, and then turned to Tina where she was standing in the corner with her hands behind her back.

“I’m going to put a spell on you that will give you all the magic you want,” I told her. “It may feel strange, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

“Okay.”

I attached the connection, doing most of the work for her since she didn’t really know how to draw on an external power source. She smiled.

“It’s warm,” she said. “Is this what you feel all the time? No wonder you’re so strong. It feels like you just took a big weight off my back.”

“Really?” Elin said. “Daniel, can you give her a larger flow? I think the baby may have been putting more of a strain on her than we realized.”

Well, now that she pointed it out it did make sense that reviving a long-dead goddess might take a lot of magic. I gradually expanded Tina’s power tap, and watched carefully as the magic filled her. Sure enough, half of it was going straight to her womb. But most of what remained was immediately snatched up by something that had been woven into her aura so seamlessly I hadn’t even noticed it before.

Tina gasped, and arched her back. “Oh! That feels really good. What’s happening to me, Daniel?”

“I think Bast’s blessing is using the magic to get stronger,” I told her.

Elin nodded. “Yes, I recognize some of these patterns. You’re going to be very, um, healthy.”

“She means fertile,” I corrected, amused. What was Bastet supposed to be the goddess of, again? Women, fertility, cats and sensual pleasure, or something like that? It seemed to be covering that ground pretty well.

“Does that mean I’ll have lots of babies? Good! I always wanted a big family.”

I mussed her hair. “Sounds like a plan, sweetie. But first we need to get this done, and you’re not actually getting much power there.”

She cocked her head, as if she were listening to an invisible voice. “Maybe that’s because I’m not using any right now? It doesn’t want to hurt me, or get in my way. I bet if I cast a spell the blessing will let me have the rest of that magic.”

Cerise came over and leaned against me. “Makes sense, kitten. Why don’t you try that little bit of dance magic you did earlier, and see how it feels? Just be careful not to step on the chalk.”

“Okay.”

We all stepped back, and she tried a few moves. Sure enough, the drain on her magic backed off as soon as she started using it. So the blessing was consuming as much power as it could take without hurting her? Interesting.

“How did Tina come to have such a powerful divine blessing?” Elin asked quietly. “I’ve never seen anyone with that level of favor.”

“You remember an ancient Egyptian goddess named Bastet, who used to be a war goddess called Bast? She was dead for a long time, but she’s about to be reborn. Tina is going to be her mother.”

Cerise laughed at Elin’s thunderstruck expression. “That’s the kind of thing that happens when you get involved with gods. Looks like it’s going to work, though.”

“I’m done,” Avilla announced. “Check my work, love?”

Cerise inspected the diagram with a faint smirk. “Perfect as always, honeydew. Alright, we’re ready to start. Daniel, do you mind if I lead?”

“Go right ahead,” I told her. “Oh, here, let me get you and Avilla hooked up.”

I established the last two power feeds, and the witches took a minute to replenish their reserves as we all settled into our places. Avilla had us standing in a circle, close enough to hold hands. Cerise was to my right, then Avilla, Tina, and finally Elin at my left.

The ritual began with a blending of all our magics, to erect a complex warding spell around us all. It was a heady experience, feeling my power flex and slide against the auras of three powerful and attractive wielders of magic. Our powers blended together around the edges, leaking flickers of emotion from soul to soul. Affection and confidence. Shame and hope. Curiosity and desire. I wondered for a moment what they were getting from me.

When Tina joined us her presence was altogether different. There was no hesitance to her at all. No wall around her heart, keeping others at bay. The wild magic that blossomed from her welcomed us all, singing a joyful song of love and acceptance and faith in a bright future that we would all share together. It made me smile, and I wasn’t the only one. The rough edges of our hesitant joining were smoothed away under the influence of her boundless optimism, and we spun the next step together with far less hesitation.

After that was supposed to be an invocation of divine favor, but Cerise paused before she began the words that would guide it. She bowed her head, and released her human disguise. Great horns sprouted from her forehead, curling around her temples before rising into tall points. Her eyes turned black, and long claws grew from her hands and feet. Her black dress dissolved into shadows that flowed across her pale skin, clinging to her sleek curves like a lover.

“The men of iron and fire call us witches,” she said. “They came from the North to murder our gods and carry our goddesses away in chains, but we are branded as thieves and murderers. They cast down fair Olympus and plowed her fields with the salt of a million tears, but we are named the destroyers. They steep their works in the blood of their own people, and count it a blessing to be twisted into mindless beasts by their own gods, but they condemn our sacred rites as dangerous abominations. They, who have no use for magics of the heart, condemn us as heartless.”

“So be it.”

“We are the children of blood and shadow, the keepers of the old ways handed down from before Prometheus gave man the gift of fire. For eight hundred years we have embraced the most terrible of our secrets, and taught the men of iron and fire to fear the darkness where we dwell. But now the Twilight of the Gods comes to Asgard, and our enemies will reap what they have sown. Soon it will be their sacred realm that is cast down amid the screams of the dying, and their blood that flows in rivers through the streets. The long war is coming to an end.”

“Now is the time for new beginnings.”

“We are gathered here tonight to establish our coven. A black coven, for our enemies yet live and we must forge our love into a weapon of war if we hope to outlast them. But if we can stand through the end of Ragnarok, it is my hope that this will be the last of the black covens. That our children and our children’s children may finally know peace, and devote their magic to works of joy instead of destruction.”

“In token of this resolution, I break now the ban on sharing our ancient wisdom. I am Cerise, the last mortal priestess of Dark Hecate’s ancient cult, and I invite three outsiders to partake in our sacred mysteries. Tina, favored of Bast. Elin, daughter of faerie. Daniel, wizard of a distant world. Will you share in our union, that we may forge a new future together?”

“Yes.”              Elin was the first to respond, but Tina and I spoke practically in unison a moment later.

Cerise smiled. “Then I commend our intentions to all of our patrons, and ask their blessing on our union. Spirits and powers of the immortal realm, are there any who would counsel us this night?”

There was silence for just a moment. Then a shadow rose up from the space in the middle of the circle, and formed the outline of a woman. She drew back her hood, and I was looking at a translucent image of Hecate’s face.

She smiled warmly, an expression that seemed out of place on her severe features.

“This is the best of the outcomes I hoped for when I answered your call, Cerise. I give you my blessing, for what little it is worth in these dark days. No shade or spirit nor even death shall rend asunder the bonds you form tonight. But I will offer you one word of advice, my beloved daughter. Leave your final seal unspoken. Someday you might find a wounded soul who would be at home among your coven, and it would be wise not to foreclose that option.”

Cerise bowed. “I accept your wisdom with thanks, Dark Hecate.”

“Then you have passed your final test, Cerise. I name you my High Priestess, with power over all the spirits and shades who still do me honor.”

Cerise and Avilla both gasped in surprise, but Hecate turned her gaze to me.

“Daniel, this goes far beyond the requirements of our bargain. Will you accept the title of Champion from me?”

Holy crap. That was… well, okay, the fact that she had all of two living worshippers made the title mostly symbolic. But still, it wasn’t something I would have expected.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Then I name you my Champion, Daniel Black,” she said seriously. “None other may claim your soul, and when you call upon me I shall lend you what aid I may. Now make my High Priestess happy.”

She faded from view, and I heard a small sigh of relief from Elin. But that was premature. The shadows swirled, melting into a shower of sand that rose up again to form a miniature whirlwind. The whirlwind dissolved to reveal a dusky-skinned beauty with cat ears and a furry tail, who hadn’t bothered with clothes.

She pouted at me. “Aw, no fair. I wanted you to be my Champion. But that’s okay. I can still call you father, right Daniel?”

“Bast? Um, yeah.” I glanced at Tina. “I thought…”

She giggled. “I can’t give away all my secrets, can I? Now, about this coven. Is this what you want, father?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, it is.”

“Then I give you my blessings. Seriously, all of my blessings, since you’ve got mother on an infinite mana feed. You’ve got to show me how that works someday, once I’m grown up enough to understand it again.”

She did a slow spin, her smile taking in the rest of the room. “Until then, you girls aren’t going to know what hit you. Blessing of health, blessing of love, blessings of fat babies and lots of fun making them, all the blessings. Just give it some time for the magic to grow. Mother?”

“Y-yes?” Tina said uncertainly.

“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You gave me my last chance to be reborn, and you didn’t hesitate for an instant. I promise you, I will make sure you never regret that. Well, I’ll probably be a little hellion until I remember who I am, but kids are always like that, right? I’ll make it up to you later.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful child,” Tina told her. “Please, don’t worry about it. Although I think I’m going to insist that you wear clothes.”

“Good luck with that.” She turned to me again. “You’ve got some cool patrons, father. I’m glad. I was afraid I’d have to find new alliances all on my own, but you’re really making it easy for me. Will you help me get my revenge when this Ragnarok thing is over?”

“The best revenge is living well,” I told her. “Would you rather spend your time plotting to kill Ra, and maybe die again, or spend it building a new life for yourself someplace beyond his reach?”

She blinked slowly. “Is that the kind of thing you’re going to be teaching little me? That’s not exactly what I expected from Hecate’s Champion. Well, I’ll think about it. But if I grow up and remember myself and still want revenge?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “If we can do it without getting ourselves killed, or wiping out a lot of innocent people.”

“Good enough. Thank you, father, for taking the risk of rescuing me. For you I have the blessings of my ancient aspect. Blessings of battle-luck and might, confounded enemies and inevitable victory.”

That sounded familiar.

“To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women,” I quoted. She seemed like a Conan the Barbarian kind of girl.

She smiled. “Exactly”

“Hey, um, not that I have anything against fertility and healthy babies, but is there any chance I could get in on the ass kicking blessings instead?” Cerise asked. “Because having Daniel’s back is pretty much my job here.”

Bast turned, seeming to really see Cerise for the first time, and slowly looked her up and down.

“Well, well. Don’t you have a sexy battle succubus thing going on? Normally I’d get all snippy and make you go on a big quest or something to apologize for questioning me, but I can see father loves you. So sure. Actually, let’s go all out. You all get both sets of blessings. Just don’t forget to make me some little brothers and sisters to spoil. ”

She faded away with another giggle.

Then a fountain of golden sparks erupted from the floor, and formed into… two women? One was short and a little plump, with long brown hair and a Mediterranean complexion, wearing an elaborate toga that covered her from head to toe. The other was a buxom blonde in a knee-length dress, with practical boots on her feet and a hoe in her hand.

The first woman spoke. “Avilla? You should call me more often, dear. We haven’t spoken in years, now.”

Avilla gasped. “L-lady Hestia? Oh my. I, um, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a bother, and, well, I was afraid you might be displeased about granny.”

Hestia frowned. “Lysandra meant to corrupt the bonds of marriage into a magical enslavement. Surely you don’t think I would approve of that? What is my rule about controlling husbands?”

“Make your man happy and he’ll do anything for you,” Avilla recited meekly. “A good wife needs no other measures. But she was the last of the great witches, and with her gone there’s no one who can take her place.”

“Then I expect you to rectify that,” Hestia said sharply. “She gave you the potential to surpass her in every way, Avilla. Stop hiding in shame, and step up. If you’re going to be coven-mate to Hecate’s High Priestess and her Champion you need to be a worthy companion. Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Then you have my approval, and I hope you can make this work. Daniel, I understand you’ve gifted Avilla with secrets of kitchen building unknown to our world?”

I would have laughed if she hadn’t looked so serious. “Yes, that’s correct.”

She nodded. “Don’t be surprised when more of my people show up on your doorstep looking for instruction. We’ve always been better at hiding than Hecate’s bunch, and the Fimbulwinter has driven everyone who’s still alive out of seclusion.”

“Now, I came to offer my blessings, but also to aid a friend. This is Idun, the Keeper of the Apples. Now’s your chance, dearie.”

Idun? Wait, I knew that name. But she was supposed to be an Aesir.

“Doom comes to Asgard,” the blonde said, in a soft voice full of gentle sorrow. “My garden sits among the World Tree’s branches, and I hear the winds of fate blow. The gates of Tartarus stand open, and there is no stopping the destruction that is coming. But we must not allow hope to fade entirely. My trees are the last of their kind in all the Nine Worlds, and if they are destroyed there will be no new gods to drive the Great Beasts back into the depths. No god of the Aesir will listen to my pleas, so now I turn to the heroes of the mortal world.”

“I offer a gift of golden apples to any man who can aid me. One for each of my trees you can save, and safely transplant to a place where they can flourish. Three for my life, if you can spirit me out of Asgard with seeds in my pouch. Nine for the life of Melasia, eldest of dryads and the greatest tree of my grove. My guards are the sons of war and thunder, strong of arm but slow of wit. May I hope for your aid, wizard from another world?”

Well, that had some interesting implications.

“I’m not sure if it’s possible for us to help you,” I told her honestly. “But I understand your message. We will think on it carefully, and try to find a way.”

She nodded. “Then I will hope, but I will also continue to seek others. Do not try to contact me, for the Allfather’s agents are watching.”

She vanished. Hestia looked at the spot where she had stood, and shook her head. “Cheerful girl, isn’t she? It would be nice if you could help her, but don’t get yourself killed over it. There are other ways, and we’re going to need this refuge. Good luck to you all, children.”

Then she was gone.

“Well, that was considerably more attention than I expected,” Elin said after a moment, when it became clear there wasn’t going to be yet another response.

Cerise grinned manically. “That’s us, chronic overachievers. Ready, everyone?”

After all that, the actual ritual was almost anticlimactic.

We built the link first, a permanent connection between our magic that made combining our efforts considerably easier. But to do that each of us had to pry loose that stubborn natural barrier that isolated our souls from the rest of the world, and push it out until it met and merged with the others. All of us except Tina, whose barrier had dissolved at the first touch of the ritual and reappeared perfectly integrated with the rest as the bond began to stabilize. Little cheater.

Then came the wards Cerise had designed, to prevent anyone from penetrating that barrier or fooling our magic into letting them past it. Another layer between us, to filter out hostile mind magic and prevent it from spreading across the bond. More enchantments to allow the whole structure we’d built to gracefully transform back into a more normal set of personal barriers when we were apart, and reassemble into a shared barrier whenever two or more of us were close together. Yeah, this was much tougher than I’d thought it would be at first glance.

Cerise led the whole effort with her usual flair, and I could see that she had a knack for this kind of magic. Elin matched her efforts with the ease of long practice, diligently smoothing out rough edges and tightening up minute details that Cerise had passed over in her focus on the big picture. Avilla contented herself with supporting Cerise, their magic so perfectly synchronized it was almost like they’d become a single person. My own efforts felt clumsy in comparison, although the fact that I could see exactly what everyone was accomplishing helped me find a few flaws here and there.

As for Tina, the way her magic behaved reminded me of a computer. She copied everything Cerise did perfectly, even the occasional mistakes. It was obvious enough that she had no idea what most of this magic was for, and I wondered how much of it she was even aware of. But right now that was all we needed, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.

Then my binding on Cerise came unstuck, and for a moment I wondered if she was going to turn on us. She stopped casting as a tremendous surge of demonic power welled up inside her, filling the link and spilling over to form a visible aura of darkness around her. Avilla sagged, almost falling, but she didn’t have to carry the whole burden. Tina embraced that beast of bloodlust and darkness with innocent curiosity, while Elin stabilized the link and I sent both of my witches all the love I could muster.

Cerise fought herself back under control, and picked up where she’d left off.

Avilla’s problem struck some minutes later, after we’d begun the actual binding. That began with promises of loyalty and cooperation, and went on into casting aside old loyalties and a deep merging of all our magic. There were a few moments there when we were so close we could actually hear one another’s thoughts, and then our streams of consciousness merged for a timeless moment.

We drew back again, just enough to be five instead of one, and Avilla’s compulsion was simply gone. Dissolved in a moment when she wasn’t herself, and the magic couldn’t distinguish the person it bound from four others it had no power over.

Elin gasped, and we could all see that she had also been freed from something. But she waved us on…

...later not urgent they lied to me glamoured and bound forced mother to leave me no deal with it later we need to finish…

We spared our coven-sister a moment of comfort, and then pressed on. The enchantments to permanently align our auras, and make shared casting as easy as breathing. The banishing of malice and jealousy. The vow of fidelity. The sexual compatibility enchantment, which I still half expected Elin to balk at. But she didn’t bat an eye.

“I open my heart to my coven-mates, unreservedly and forever.”

Whoa. That was a rush.

“I trust my coven-mates, and I know that they trust me.”

We really were in this together. Completely on the same side, forever. No stupid mind games or relationship power struggles.

“I cherish their strengths, and forgive them their faults, and will strive always to make our bond a thing of joy to us all.”

My girls. Each so beautiful and strong, in her own unique way. So many varied talents, and so few faults. Was there anything we couldn’t do together? Had we even needed magic to reach this point?

“I savor the bonds of attraction between us, taking comfort in the certain knowledge that my coven-mates find me desirable, and revel in all the myriad permutations of our sexplay.”

Avilla and Cerise were so in love with each other it was breathtaking. Tina had always thought they were beautiful, and cared for them more than I’d suspected. Elin had never felt sexual attraction for a woman before, but now she found the beauty of all three of her coven-sisters captivating.

And all of them cared for me. I could feel it. More than I’d ever realized, our shared trials had bound us together. Even Elin, who had only recently joined us, had fallen head over heels. I couldn’t quite say I returned the intensity of her affections yet, but I could tell that it wouldn’t take long. How could I not love her?

“I shall indulge the desires of my coven-mates, and they shall indulge mine, seeking love and happiness together forever.”

Oh hell yes. Cerise needed to play rough, and I’d be happy to oblige her. Avilla had a hidden well of kinky inventiveness so deep we might never find the bottom. Tina had a wild ferocity growing inside her, a need to cast all thought aside and give herself over to primal instincts. Elin was so hurt and fragile now that she’d need all the gentleness we could give her. But deep in her heart lurked the desires of a faerie, and they were neither tame nor simple. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. We could spend a lifetime exploring each other and never grow bored.

We finished the binding with voices that trembled as much with desire as fatigue. As Hecate had suggested we left open the option to invite a new member to join our bond in the future, though this could theoretically leave us vulnerable to some especially sophisticated sorts of magical hacking. I could feel that Cerise was still a little worried about that, but she wasn’t going to second-guess her goddess.

Then we brought the ritual to a conclusion, and collapsed together in a pile over the middle of the chalk lines Avilla had drawn.

“We did it,” Cerise said triumphantly.

“We did,” Avilla agreed with quiet satisfaction. “Thank you, all of you, for saving me.”

“I’m not quite certain whether to propose an experiment with group sex, or pass out,” Elin complained.

“I’m going to pass out,” Tina answered.

I chuckled wearily. “Yeah, me too. But not here. If everyone can manage to sit up, I’ll unhook you from the power stone and we can all go up to bed.”

There was a lot of groaning and mock complaints, but no one really wanted to sleep on a stone floor. I disconnected three of the power taps, but Tina stopped me when it was her turn.

“Can you leave mine like it is? I think it’s helping Bast.”

I shrugged. “Sure, sweetie. It looks like you’re pretty safe, but if you start feeling like something isn’t right you can cut it off like this.

I showed her how to safely cut the connection, which of course she immediately did when she copied me. But I had enough wits left to hook her back up. Hey, was her fur even softer than before?

Cerise leaned heavily against my back. “I guess I have to put my clothes back on, and hide what I really look like. Can we figure out a way to explain to everyone that I’m not going to eat them? Like, soon?”

“Sure. Remind me in the morning, and we’ll figure out a plan.”

Avilla helped her dress, and by the time she’d finished she didn’t look nearly as scary. Too bad, she made a damned sexy demon girl. But that was a thought for later. I fumbled for the bar, and opened the door.

I knew right away something was wrong. Marcus’ face would have been enough of a clue, especially since Oskar was with him. But they had a hundred men mustered in the vehicle bay, with all three armored transports lined up in front of the gates. Oh, and there were bells ringing in the distance.

“Good to see you, sir,” Marcus said with obvious relief. “We have a situation.”

I frowned. “Is the island under attack?”

“No, sir, they haven’t tried the causeway yet. But there’s a lot of trouble in town. The bells started ringing half an hour ago, and they haven’t stopped since. Gronir took a scouting party out to investigate, and ran into a battle on the docks. He says to tell you that the dead are rising from their tombs.”

Chapter 23

“Really?” Cerise said. “I thought Hel’s legions were supposed to reach Midgard on ships?”

Captain Rain shrugged. “I don’t know about the magic, Cerise. But Gronir reported that the band he fought was definitely dead men. Their arms and armor were of an ancient style, and they didn’t bleed or feel pain. Fire kills them well enough, but it takes half a dozen bullets to put one down.

Yeah, that sounded about right. Urban fantasy likes to pretend that undead are immune to bullets, but those big rounds my guns fired would punch fist-size holes all the way through a zombie. Shattered bones will cause all sorts of mechanical problems, and if you keep shooting the thing will rapidly fall apart. Since my weapons didn’t run out of ammo we were also spared one of the classic problems of zombie movies.

But this wasn’t a movie. Hel was the goddess of underworld, and in Norse mythology she was supposed to lead an army of the dead to assault Asgard during Ragnarok. Every man who didn’t die on the battlefield was under her sway, which meant they’d outnumber the heroes of Valhalla a hundred to one. But Cerise was right. The legends talked about them sailing there in a ship made from dead men’s nails.

Was that wrong? Had Hel discovered some kind of necromancy that would let her just animate every corpse in Europe? That was a terrifying thought, especially since they probably weren’t the mindless automatons of horror movies. But surely I would have noticed a spell of that magnitude being cast? If nothing else, the wards we’d raised to keep out foreign magic during our ritual should have felt the pressure of her spell’s passing.

Wait. No.

“Mara,” I groaned. “I saw her in the graveyard on the river bank, the day I went to the funeral. She must have been preparing this.”

“Mara is quite powerful, but I doubt even she could call thousands of dead souls back from the underworld at once,” Elin said doubtfully.

“She doesn’t have to,” Cerise pointed out. “Hel is her half-sister. All she has to do is break the consecrations on the graveyards, and open the way for Hel’s influence. A drop of her blood on each skull would do it, or a little desecration ritual on each mausoleum.”

“Elin, does anyone check the graveyards for that kind of thing?” I asked. “Could she have gotten away with doing it in advance?”

“Easily,” Elin said faintly. “The priests only check the mausoleums that are open, and being used for new burials. If she’s been infiltrating older areas of the graveyards, and hiding her tracks… Daniel, the catacombs are filled with bones.”

I closed my eyes. “Tens of thousands? Hundreds?”

“Kozalin has been a major city for six hundred years, Daniel. There are probably millions. I think the only limit would be how many she had time to prepare.”

“Fuck.”

Captain Rain looked about as happy about that as I was. “What do we do, sir?”

Elin put her hand on my back, and reached out to me with her healing magic. The fatigue that fogged my brain began to clear.

“We need to find out how bad this is,” I decided. “Marcus, I want you to take the skimmers and a strong force of infantry down to the end of the causeway and secure it. Oskar, station a group of militia here to defend the gates. I expect we’ll be sending refugees back, but I want you to check them carefully to make sure they’re actually alive before you let them in. There’s no way the enemy can assault our walls without siege engines, but they might get clever and try to infiltrate us. What will that leave us to man the walls?”

“A hundred or so trainees,” Marcus said. “They’re too shaky to take into battle, but they can keep watch and raise an alarm if there’s trouble. Their marksmanship is terrible, but as fast as our guns fire I expect they’d still be enough to discourage a probing attack.”

“I could keep a team of militia out on the island, ready to respond to trouble,” Oskar added. “But we’ll be stretched for manpower. Any chance the nymphs can pitch in?”

I turned to Corinna.

She nodded. “My girls are ready, and I’m sure the others are too.”

“Better keep them together, and away from the men,” Demetrios said, entering the hall with Zoe and a pair of dryads. They were all armed and armored like ancient Greek warriors, although with wood instead of bronze.

“They’re able enough, but most of the girls haven’t lain with a man in years,” he went on. “They’ll get distracted easily if they mingle, especially if they have a few hours of nothing happening.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. Then you and Pelagia will help keep the island secure. Work with Oskar here to figure out the best way to deploy your people. Corinna, go get your troops together and meet me at the end of the causeway. Time to show me how badass you are.”

She smiled fiercely. “We won’t fail you, lord of my mistress.”

“I’m sure I’ll be impressed.”

I turned to my girls. Cerise had perked up considerably, and seemed almost eager for a fight. But Elin was pushing herself, and Tina and Avilla were asleep on their feet.

“Thanks for the boost, Elin. It looks like this is going to be a long night.”

I walked back into the power room, and linked myself to it again. Doing it with a spell like that instead of an enchantment wasn’t as stable as I’d like, but it should hold up as long as I stayed within a mile or two of the power source. Then I used my flesh magic to banish each girl’s fatigue, one by one. Not as good as an actual night’s rest, but it would have to do.

“Cerise, you up for some fighting?”

“You know it,” she grinned. “Things have been getting kind of boring around here. It’s about time I had a chance to feed my blades.”

I chuckled. “Nut. Alright, you’re with me. Elin, are you up to some healing?”

She nodded. “Yes, I can set up a healing station here. May I renew my link to the power stone, and borrow a few of Avilla’s maids?”

“Of course,” Avilla said.

“Any time,” I agreed. “Just be careful about how much you use it, alright? The amount of power that thing can give you is immense, and so far I’ve only been using it to run my own enchantments. There are probably all kinds of ways to accidentally hurt yourself with it if you make a mistake.”

“I shall be most careful, and I implore you to do the same. I know you have your sorcery, but I expect your use of the link shall be far more demanding than my own.”

“I’m not planning to single-handedly fight an army,” I told her.

“Good,” Avilla said. “I’ll be in my kitchen. I need to repair the damage Elin did when she forced my ward.”

Elin flushed, and hung her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright, dear. I forgive you. Anyway, that won’t take long, and then I can prepare something to help keep us all going in case this is a long battle.”

“Sounds good, sweetie,” I told her. “Tina, you stay with Avilla, alright? Help her out if you can, and keep each other safe.”

Tina nodded. “I can do that.”

Cerise and I went back upstairs to change and retrieve various bits of gear before setting out. I donned the breastplate I should have been wearing when I’d talked to Mara, and grabbed the talisman I’d enchanted to work earth magic at a distance. I didn’t have the protections I was used to relying on in a fight, so I’d have to play this carefully. Fortunately I didn’t have to do it alone.

Cerise met me in the breakfast room, wearing something I hadn’t seen before. A catsuit of black leather that covered her from the neck down, but was so tightly fitted that it left very little to the imagination. Boots, fingerless gloves and a billowing black cloak completed the ensemble.

“Already? When did Avilla find time to make that?” I asked. “We were just talking about it the other day.”

“My girl is the best,” Cerise replied, and hugged her. “Stay safe, honeydew.”

I hugged Tina. “Yeah. You two get some rest if you can.”

I moved to hug Avilla. She hesitated momentarily, and then threw herself into my arms.

“Thank you, Daniel,” she choked. “For everything. Come back safe.”

The gates were already open when Cerise and I made it back downstairs, and the three skimmers were slowly working their way down the causeway with a couple of squads of men on foot following along behind. Cerise grabbed her bike from where it was stashed between a couple of the older transports, and flew it over to me.

“Hop on,” she said.

I climbed up behind her, and wrapped my arms around her waist. Cerise drove like a maniac, but I’d come to trust her superhuman reflexes. As we flew out into the cold night air I closed my eyes, and concentrated on building myself a temporary shield. It wouldn’t be nearly as tough as the one my stolen amulet created, but every little bit helps.

We caught up with the skimmers as the first one floated onto the street that ran along the shore. It turned left, cannon moving to cover the road ahead, and the next one turned right to cover the opposite approach. Marcus shouted an order, and both of the massive machines grounded themselves. Their rear doors flew open, and the troops they carried began to debark.

Cerise pulled up next to the captain.

“Better have someone keep an eye on the rear,” I advised. “The dead don’t need to breath, and they might get the idea to circle around underwater to get behind you.”

He frowned. “Wizard wars are enough to drive a calm man paranoid,” he grumbled. “Will do, sir. Looks like Gronir left us a guide.

Sure enough, Embla had hopped off the roof of a nearby warehouse and was trotting over to us.

“Good hunting tonight, milord!” She enthused. “Gronir took the pack west to do a quick sweep of the harbor, and see how bad things are. Hel’s warriors have captured the gate to the Military District, but we’re not sure what else they’re up to.”

I frowned. “That’s bad enough. So they aren’t just attacking people at random?”

She shook her head. “No, milord. They’re acting like soldiers with a plan.”

That was when the fun started. There was a shout from one of the soldiers, and I looked up to see the rest of the wolfen pack charging down the street towards us. Pursuing them was a horde of animated skeletons, waving rusty swords and an assortment of improvised weapons. The wolfen were faster, but their pursuers were pretty spry for piles of bones.

“Damn it, we can’t open fire with Gronir’s men in the way,” Marcus cursed under his breath.

“I’ll slow them down,” I told him. “Get ready to deal with them once the wolfen are clear.”

I tossed my earth talisman into the air, and sent the enchanted ball of iron zipping down the street towards the wolfen. Halfway there I stopped it, and made it grow into a horizontal bar stretching the width of the street at chest height.

The wolfen barely broke stride, some jumping over the obstacle while others nimbly tumbled under it. I had it grow support posts, and then another bar at waist height once they were past. Another set of posts sprouted diagonally, planting themselves against the cobblestones to brace the fence.

The mob of skeletons smashed into the improvised barrier and ground to a halt.

Here and there a corpse that still had some flesh on its bones howled, in rage or pain. A few tried to vault over the obstacle, but once the first rank was pinned against it by the weight of those behind there wasn’t room for such maneuvers. Only one made it over, and it took only a few steps before it realized it was alone and stumbled to a halt.

Meanwhile Marcus had assembled twenty men in a double line in front of the parked skimmer, the front row kneeling and the back row standing. They’d left a couple of breaks in their line, which the wolfen bounded through.

“Ready!” Sergeant Thomas called.

I banished the fence. The undead who’d been pinned against it stumbled forward and fell. The ones behind them mostly tripped and fell atop them, leaving the whole mob floundering. I sent my talisman shooting straight up, out of the line of fire.

“Fire!”

Twenty guns spoke as one. The heavy bullets tore through the thrashing mass of undead, smashing bones and shattering decrepit armor. I saw half a rusty sword blade fly into the air, the broken end gleaming in the moonlight.

“Ready! Fire!”

“Ready! Fire!”

“Ready! Fire!”

The undead weren’t as clumsy as I might have hoped. They quickly started to untangle themselves, but they were taking heavy casualties from that withering fire. A skeleton is a harder target than a man, but the way they were packed together a lot of those rounds were hitting.

Then the cannon thundered, and the middle of the mob exploded. I realized the gunner had fired down into the road beneath them, and the heavy cannon shell skipped through the surface of the street for several yards sending fragments of cobblestone flying. Dozens of skeletons fell, although a lot of them got back up.

A handful of the enemy managed to get clear of the tangle, and charged our position. The massed gunfire picked off some of them, but it looked like a few might actually reach our lines.

I jumped to the top of the skimmer, and fired a bouncer round down the street. The invisible blades cut two of the enemy in half, and then it bounced into the main body and sent almost as many body parts flying as the cannon had. Cerise jumped up next to me, and aimed the gun I’d made her.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Four shots, as fast as the weapon could fire, and the skulls of the four closest skeletons exploded. Only a couple of stragglers were left, and they abruptly decided that running away from us was a smarter idea than charging. Neither made it more than a few steps.

The cannon went to rapid fire, and I added a flurry of bouncer rounds to the barrage. Most of the skeletons in the tangle were reduced to broken bones, and the ones in the rear ranks were fleeing now.

“Good shooting,” I told Cerise.

“I love this thing!” She exclaimed, and kissed me.

Wow. What was I doing, again? Oh yeah, undead horde.

We climbed back down from the skimmer, to find that Corinna had just arrived with a group of dryads. Only ten of them in all, but they looked to be almost as fast as the wolfen.

“If that’s what we’re up against I think we can hold this position,” Marcus said. “I’ll put sharpshooters on top the skimmers to pick off the ones that get close, and a few men with force blades in the front rank.”

“Wish I’d thought to put force bayonets on the guns,” I observed. “I’ll have to fix that later. Gronir, what have you found?”

“They’ve taken all three gates leading out of the docks,” he answered. “That must have been their first target. There’s at least a couple of companies of them at each gate, and they’ve already got archers up in the gatehouses. There’s another big group at the graveyard on the coast, at least a thousand of them. They’ve taken a couple of docks and set a few buildings on fire, but I’m not sure what they’re after. From the sound of things there’s a lot of fighting going on in the rest of the city, too.”

I frowned. “That sounds like they think they can actually take the city.”

“It does, sir,” Marcus agreed. “But so far we haven’t seen nearly enough troops for that. They must be expecting reinforcements.”

“There aren’t that many ways out of the catacombs,” Cerise said. “Maybe she’s down there raising more troops?”

I felt a chill at that thought. With my amulet healing her Mara could spill an ocean of blood without doing herself any real harm. If Elin was right about how many bones were down there…

“Lord wizard!” An unfamiliar voice called. I looked up to see that the door of the inn next to my causeway was open, and a nervous-looking townsman had emerged with a couple of burly sailors at his back. They hurried up to the line of soldiers blocking the road.

“Lord wizard, will you give us refuge? The brewery on Cod Street is burning, and the fire brigade can’t muster with the dead walking the streets! Please, milord, we’ll die if we flee or be burned out if we stay.”

“Today is just one thing after another,” I muttered. “Yes! Grab what supplies you can carry, and you can take shelter in my tower.”

“Thank you, lord wizard! May the gods bless you. Cone on, Rolph, we need to hurry before they come back.” They scurried back to the inn.

“A place like that probably has a lot of provisions on hand,” Marcus pointed out.

“Yeah, but we don’t have time to worry about that right now. Corinna, are your people better for close quarters combat, or open terrain?”

“Our magic is of the earth, lord of my mistress. If you’re going into the catacombs, you’ll want us at your back.”

I took her at her word. “Alright. Gronir, go get Elin and see if you can get her close enough to those fires to put them out. Take a skimmer and your pack, but be careful not to get in over your heads. If you get surrounded don’t forget you can just close the doors and run them down.”

“Marcus, hold this position and be prepared to throw back more assaults. If more civilians show up looking for shelter use your judgment. Small groups are fine, but we don’t want a huge mob covering the island.”

“Corinna, you’re with me. Cerise, you know where the closest entrance to the catacombs is? Let’s go check it out.”

Those dryads could run like the wind, but the bike was much faster. Cerise had to hold it down to thirty or so, but that was still a pretty amazing rate of speed for this world. We sped halfway across the docks in a matter of minutes, before Cerise pulled up in front of an ancient mausoleum crammed in between two warehouses.

“In there,” she pointed.

I dismounted as Corinna’s warriors came pelting up after us, their breath steaming in the cold. It had been quite a run, but they didn’t seem even slightly tired.

“Hey, Cerise? How did you know about this place, anyway?”

She grinned. “I figured we might want to use the tunnels for smuggling or something, so I introduced myself to the local ghouls while you were out of town. I know enough of the layout to get us from here to any of Kozalin’s other districts.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You just walked up to a pack of ghouls and said hi?”

She dropped her illusion, and resumed her full demonic appearance. “It’s not that hard. You just have to look like you’re a more dangerous creature of darkness than they are. Come on, the way in is back here.”

The mausoleum appeared to be sealed at first glance, but around the back there was a snow-covered bush that camouflaged a hole in the wall. Cerise crouched to crawl through it, but I put my hand on her shoulder and shook my head.

There had once been protective spells on the stone, but the passage of centuries had worn them down to almost nothing. I brushed them aside, and reshaped the stone of the wall to form a proper doorway. Sure enough, there were half a dozen skeletal warriors waiting to ambush anyone who came through what had previously been a narrow opening.

“Oops,” Cerise said.

I threw our enemies back with a burst of force magic, but that was all I had time to do. Corinna charged past me with a wooden blade in her hand, and Cerise leaped to follow her before the rest of the dryads piled in behind. In the blink of an eye the interior of the mausoleum was a confused, densely-packed melee that I didn’t dare cast a spell into.

Fortunately, our enemies were badly outmatched. I caught a glimpse of Corinna smashing a skeleton’s head from its shoulders, and her dryads simply tackled their opponents in the crowded confines and tore them limb from limb. In a few seconds the fight was over.

“No blood,” one of the dryads pouted.

“No marrow,” another added.

“Unnatural things,” a third hissed. “Can we kill them all, Corinna?”

Yeah. Anyone who thinks dryads are sweet, innocent nature spirits hasn’t thought much about what nature is actually like. This bunch was reminding me more and more of a pride of lions.

“We shall destroy all the unliving that we find,” Cerise announced, letting a hint of her allure slip out. The dryads all turned to her with shining eyes.

“Yes!”

“Thank you!”

“We hunt for the lady of shadows and lust tonight!”

Corinna crossed her hands beneath her mountainous breasts. “Control yourselves, sisters. We kill until all our lady’s foes lie dead, and only then do we celebrate. Lead us to victory, Mistress.”

“Girls, I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship,” Cerise purred. Then she turned to me, and made a show of bowing her head. “This way, Master.”

“Imp. Stay serious, Cerise,” I chided. “The city may be at stake.”

“I am serious, Daniel. They need to understand who submits to who here, or they won’t listen to orders in the heat of the moment. But I think that was enough to get the message across. How do we do this?”

I conjured three short lengths of stone, and started sticking light spells on the end of each one. Red light, and relatively dim, so it wouldn’t spoil our night vision too badly.

“You go first. You’ve got a better idea of where to look than I do, and you’ve got the fastest reflexes. Then Corinna, then me, then the dryads. If we find a large group of enemies I want you to hold position and let them come to us. There are a million things I can do to even the odds, especially underground. Don’t worry about dropping the torches if there’s a fight, they won’t go out unless someone dispels them.”

A narrow stairway in the back of the mausoleum led down to a small chamber, with alcoves full of bones in the walls. Not complete skeletons, just piles of ancient bones stacked up to fill the space. There must have been forty or fifty skulls in that one room.

Two narrow passages wound off in opposite directions. Cerise turned right and led the way past more niches filled with bones, seemingly confident of her path. That led to a chamber with three exits, and another short flight of stairs going down.

I tried to keep track of where we were, but it wasn’t long at all before I found myself wondering if I could find my way back. The tunnels wandered, branched and intersected seemingly at random. Most of the tunnels were lined with bone-filled niches, with barely enough room for our group to pass in single file. Sometimes there were side chambers, or pits piled high with ancient skeletons.

There were enchantments on the tunnels, too. Remnants of consecrations performed centuries ago, and wards against intrusion that had long since been broken. Another network of spells was still active, working to keep the tunnels from collapsing or being flooded with seepage. But the air was thick and heavy, and I realized there was no magic to keep it breathable. With this many people in one party that could become a problem.

“Is everyone breathing alright back there?” I asked quietly.

Most of the dryads looked confused at that. But one of them smiled, and slipped past her companions to approach me.

“Foul air is no hazard to us, lord wizard. But if you like, we can come closer and breathe sweet air for you.”

She leaned against me, and laid her cheek against mine. How odd. The air was actually fresher when she exhaled.

Were they plants instead of animals? Breathing in carbon dioxide, and exhaling oxygen? I wasn’t sure how that would work, since there obviously wasn’t any photosynthesis going on down here. But it seemed to be the case.

“No, I’m fine,” I told her. “I just wasn’t thinking about the fact that you’re dryads. You breathe like trees instead of like animals, don’t you?”

She smiled as she pulled away. “We do, lord wizard. I see you know the hidden lore of the woods that the gods taught to no man.”

“Some of it,” I admitted. “But this isn’t the place to talk.”

She nodded, and dropped back to take her place amid the pack of dryads again. We traveled in silence for some minutes after that, until Cerise suddenly stopped in an intersection.

“Come out, corpse eater,” she called. “I know you’re there.”

“Murder witch,” a voice hissed from the shadows up ahead. “You bring a crowd this time. What do you want?”

“We’re looking for the necromancer,” she answered. “Her creations are attacking the city. Do you know where she is?”

“What do we care about fighting among the sunwalkers?” It replied. “What will you pay us for answers? One of the pretty trees? The meat?”

Cerise’s aura swirled around her, repelling the dim light of our torches. “Don’t be stupid, Urkl. The pretties are my pets, and the man is a wizard strong enough to bind me to his service. I’m not asking for anything that demands an extravagant price. Tell me what you know, and I’ll bring you a fresh goat tomorrow.”

“War on the surface means feasting below,” the voice objected. “Tomorrow, maybe Cerise be dead. Tomorrow, maybe Cerise forget. Tomorrow, Urkl have full belly anyway. Pay Urkl now. A life, or Urkl won’t talk.”

“You are a fool, Urkl.”

The lights flickered for a moment, and Cerise was gone. There was a panicked shriek from somewhere out in the darkness. A smack of flesh against flesh. Then Cerise stalked back into the range of our lights, with a misshapen creature in her grip.

I almost thought it was a zombie at first. Its leprous flesh stank of decay, and gaping yellow sores dotted its gaunt limbs. It was curled up in a fetal ball, choking and flailing as Cerise dragged it by the throat. She threw it down in front of me, and planted her boot on its chest.

“I only pay you because touching you disgusts me, Urkl. I’ll offer you a life for answers all right. Your life. Start talking, or I’ll start cutting off body parts.”

It tried to struggle for a moment, until I made the floor grow into cuffs around its wrists and ankles.

“Unraveler pay three goats, to not talk,” it complained.

“Is your miserable life worth more to you than three goats?” Cerise countered.

It sagged in defeat. “Yessss. Unraveler not here.”

“What do you know about what she’s been up to? Did she pay you to do anything else?”

It nodded. “Unraveler come, weeks ago. Go to lowest crypts, take treasures. Raise bones to guard crypt, say tell no one. Come again, days ago. Paint bones, make magic. Now many bones come out.”

Cerise frowned. “Where?”

“Crypt of scales! Left, right, down, left, left, right, down, right, left, there.”

“Fine. Get out of here.”

She let the creature up, and it fled into the darkness.

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said. “Did anyone get those directions?”

“Left, right, down, left, left, right, down, right, left, there,” Corinna repeated confidently. “I assume those are turns in these sunless tunnels.”

Cerise nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t get how Mara is doing this. A crypt that undead keep coming out of sounds like a portal to Hades, but there aren’t any of those near here. Unless maybe she found one that was blocked, and opened it?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said. “Let’s see where those directions lead.”

If I’d thought the upper catacombs were macabre, the lower levels were ten times worse. There the air was so thick it was hard to breath, and the bones were piled in careless heaps and drifts. Water trickled down the walls to form dark pools across the floor, some of which hid treacherous bone pits. Anyone but Cerise would have fallen into at least one of them.

Sound echoed and distorted strangely in the twisting passages. Sometimes we heard what might have been other parties marching through the depths, or it might have just been our own footsteps echoing back to us. We turned, and turned again, carefully checking and double checking to make sure we didn’t get lost.

Then we saw light up ahead, and stopped.

Cerise crept back from where she’d been leading the way, ten paces or so ahead of the rest of the group. “It’s coming from around that corner, to the left. That should be it.”

Corinna put her head next to Cerise, and the dryads all gathered around us. The air freshened, and the warm weight of two lean huntresses against my back somehow made the darkness seem less oppressive.

“We should rush them,” Corinna whispered. “Hit them hard, before they can respond to our presence.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “But stay together, and if we find an army of undead don’t rush into the middle of them. I have a lot of magic that can kill a whole mob of enemies all at once, but none of it can tell friend from foe.”

“If Mara is there, let me be the one to fight her,” Cerise advised. “Corinna, she’s a demigoddess with powerful fire magic, and she turns into a giant two-headed fox. She’ll burn your girls to ash if she gets the chance.”

The dryads all shuddered at that.

“We understand,” Corinna said seriously. “Don’t worry about us. Most of us fought against the Aesir when they marched on Olympus. We understand how to stay out from underfoot when titans clash.”

“If she tries to use my amulet I can turn it off,” I told them. “Otherwise I’ll keep her minions busy, make sure she can’t escape, and shoot at her if she gets out of melee.”

“You should be in the back, then,” Cerise suggested.

“That works,” I agreed. “Alright girls, let’s do this.”

We took our positions, and Cerise counted down from three. Then we rushed around the corner. We couldn’t actually run full tilt in those close quarters, but we could move pretty fast.

There were sentries in the corridor, but by the time I came around the corner they were already being mobbed by dryads. Cerise swept past them and through the doorway the undead had been guarding, with Corinna hot on her heels.

I rushed after her, cursing under my breath about the fact that my companions could all outrun me so easily. Apparently I needed some kind of mobility spell. Force magic on my boots, maybe? A thought for later.

The dryads abandoned the broken bones of the sentries they’d dismembered, and rushed through the doorway. I followed them in, and came to an abrupt stop.

There was a surprisingly large room, with a high vaulted ceiling of stone. The remains of another half-dozen skeletal warriors littered the floor around Cerise and Corinna, who had obviously just finished dispatching them. But there was no sign of Mara, or a portal, or anything else along those lines.

Instead, the middle of the room was occupied by the biggest skeleton I’d ever seen. Keeping in mind that I’ve been to museums that had dinosaur skeletons on display, that’s saying something. This thing’s skull was substantially bigger than a Tyrannosaurus, with two long horns behind the eye sockets and a shorter one rising from its snout. The ribs could have come from a whale, and the tail bones were laid out in an arc that must have been thirty feet long. But it was the wings that made it obvious what I was looking at.

“A dragon,” I said flatly.

Cerise nodded, looking around nervously. “There was a pulse of magic when I entered the room.”

A cold blue glow sprang up inside that vast skull, and spilled out to flow down the spine and into the cavernous rib cage.

“Ah, Mistress?” Corinna said hesitantly. “That doesn’t look good.”

“A dragon,” I repeated.

Bright blue pinpoints of light sprang up in the empty eye sockets. The skeleton stirred, and the head rose.

“That bitch animated a fucking dragon,” I groaned.

“I have returned,” the dragon said, in a voice that drove all warmth from the room. “After centuries of haunting the caves of Hades as a powerless wraith, my strength is returned to me. I am Varfin the Hungry, worms, and you shall be the first meal of my new life.”

Chapter 24

The great skeleton stirred, and rose to its feet.

Intellectually I knew that it was much smaller than Narfing. But the dragon had a sheer presence that dwarfed anything I’d ever encountered. The dryads quailed, falling back before it, and even Corinna seemed paralyzed with fear. Its malevolent aura pressed hard against the protection of my newly-wrought coven bond, bleeding cold terror into my subconscious. For a moment all my magic was forgotten in the face of a foe I couldn’t possibly fight.

Cerise was completely unaffected.

She sauntered towards the dragon as the blue ghostlight poured over its bones, coalescing into tendons and gaunt, dead flesh. Her slender hips swayed with every step, and her long tail waved in the air behind her. Shadows crawled across her form like living things, and her demonic aura hung heavy in the air around her.

“Greetings, Varfin,” she purred. “I am Cerise Black, High Priestess of Hecate. You should have refused Mara’s call, and stayed hidden in Hades. But you didn’t, and now I’m going to feast on your soul.”

“No witch can kill a dragon,” Varfin scoffed. “Your stolen power has gone to your head, demonling. But I’ll happily kill you first.”

It lunged with blinding speed, its bony snout coming down to smash her into the floor. But Cerise was even faster. She seemed to dissolve into the darkness for an instant, and reformed on top the dragon’s head.

A silver dagger plunged into one of those gaping eye sockets. The dragon roared and shook its head, throwing her off. A trail of cold blue magic followed the dagger as Cerise tumbled across the room to land feet-first against a wall, but I couldn’t tell if it had done any real damage.

Her gun spoke, but the bullet just bounced off the dragon’s skull. The dragon whirled towards her, and I shook myself. She couldn’t kill this thing alone.

“Corinna!” I said urgently. “Pull back. You don’t want your girls in the room if it starts breathing fire.”

She shuddered. “Mistress. W-we have to help her.”

“Leave that to me.”

I pulled my gun and spun the cylinder. Cerise was sparring with the thing now, darting in to land blows when she could, but she didn’t seem to be doing much damage. A sweep of the dragon’s tail grazed her, and sent her flying again.

I fired an explosive round into the monster’s body.

A ball of white-hot nickel-iron appeared for the briefest of instants where the bullet struck, before it exploded. The superheated metal blew a huge hole in the desiccated flesh that had begun to cover the dragon’s ribs, and I could see glowing blobs sinking into its bones. In the enclosed space the explosion was deafening, and dust rained down from the ceiling.

The dragon whipped its head around, and vomited up a deluge of oily black flames.

I pulled on my power tap, and threw up a wall of stone between us before the attack could reach me. The flames ate into the stone like acid, hissing and smoking, but it got the job done.

I threw myself into the air, knowing that staying in one place for long would be deadly against a foe like this. Cerise had taken advantage of my distraction to attack again, and I saw tendrils of darkness twining around one of the dragon’s hind legs. It was turning to deal with her, so I stuck myself against the ceiling and fired twice more.

The dragon roared in pain, though I could barely hear it over the ringing in my ears. For a moment I thought we had it. But then the dryads spilled back into the room’s entrance, locked in battle with a mob of skeletons. Damn it, this whole situation was a trap, wasn’t it? What else was going to go wrong?

I didn’t have time to think about it, because the dragon broke free of Cerise’s spell and leaped at me. Unlike her my reflexes were merely human, and its bony snout slammed into me before I could react.

“Daniel!”

The distraction cost Cerise, as the dragon’s tail blurred around to smash into her. She sailed across the room, and slammed into the wall so hard that the stones cracked around her. Then the dragon was falling away from me, its jaws opening again as black flame filled it maw.

My shield was down, but my coat had blocked even the multi-ton impact of the charging dragon. I frantically threw my earth talisman between us, and conjured a wall of stone in midair. Damn it, I needed to do better than this.

Black flames licked around the edges of the barrier, but the enchantments on the stone kept it from being destroyed. I sent it flying at the dragon, and spared a moment to concentrate on myself. I needed to be faster, react quicker. Could my flesh magic do that?

Yes. The energy cost was huge, and I’d have to heal myself constantly to repair the damage the technique did. But right now I had more power than I knew what to do with. I dropped off the ceiling and wove the spell as I fell. Magic filled my limbs, and the world slowed down.

Cerise was still fighting. She wove across the floor flinging curses at the dragon, darts of shadowy energy that left black marks on ts pale hide. Her tail hung limp, and she left a trail of blood behind her, but she was alive. Thank god. I hadn’t been sure if even she was tough enough to survive that impact.

I threw myself across the room before I even touched the floor. The stone beneath the dragon’s feet turned to mud, and then back to stone a moment later. Varfin thrashed wildly, and the stone instantly cracked and began to give way.

But it gave me time to reach Cerise, and hand her Grinder.

“Now we’re talking,” she grinned. The howling blade came to life, and she rushed back into melee with the giant beast.

This time she had me supporting her, fouling the dragon’s movements with earth magic while she darted around it. I threw up walls and turned the footing to mud, made the floor sprout spikes and grew my earth talisman into a flying boulder to batter it.

But Varfin’s injuries healed almost as fast as we dealt them, and the undead monster was tireless. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Corinna and her dryads still locked in desperate battle against an endless horde of skeletons, where the dragon could cover them in black flames whenever it felt like it. The room itself was rapidly becoming unstable, chunks of earth and stone falling from the ceiling.

I needed a more effective weapon. But what? I didn’t dare set off bigger explosions than the ones my gun produced. I’d just bring the roof down on us, and I had no illusion that being buried would kill this thing. Any fire I could directly conjure would be too weak to be effective, and we were already running out of oxygen down here. The dragon’s bones were steeped in ancient magic, far too strong to easily destroy with force spells.

Magic. That was it.

I abandoned my latest attempt to pin the dragon’s tail under a mass of stone, and hammered a dispelling into its back. Normally that would have been a useless gesture, like trying to dissolve Hoover Dam with a beaker full of acid. But with my energy tap I could throw far more power into the spell than any normal mage.

The ghostly blue glow that stretched across the dragon’s wing bones flickered, and the beast staggered. Cerise took advantage of its distraction to rip a huge gash in its side with Grinder, and plunge one of her athames into the wound.

Alright, so its magic was armored against dispelling. That made sense, most enchantments were pretty tough in that respect. I shaped a different spell, slammed a spike of concentrated magic into its protections and began to pry them loose with sheer overwhelming brute force. Blue sparks crackled across the dragon’s hide, and it whipped around to breathe a gout of black fire at me.

Hah. I belted out another overpowered dispelling, and blew the magic of its breath weapon apart. The unnatural flame dissolved into broken bits of magic, intangible and too disordered to be any great threat.

“Mortal fool. You think you can overpower a dragon?”

Varfin reared up on his hind legs, with his wings spread wide. Ignoring Cerise’s attacks, he spread his jaws and unleashed a torrent of liquid black fire at me.

I countered the same way I had before, with a dispelling that tore apart the magic of his attack before it could reach me. But this time it didn’t end after a second. Instead it grew, more and more of the unholy flame rushing towards me. I planted my feet and drew deep on my power tap, pouring more energy into my dispelling.

My power stone was a machine that would never tire. I would, eventually, but I’d shaped spells at nearly this intensity for twenty minutes at a time when I built my stronghold. I doubted Varfin could keep up his attack for that long. So I gritted my teeth, and maintained the spell for the longest minute of my life.

Then Varfin’s attack collapsed, and he began thrashing wildly. My dispel washed over him, making his wings flicker again, and this time they kept flickering instead of recovering. A jet of violet plasma burned its way out of the dragon’s rib cage, and I realized Cerise had taken advantage of its distraction to actually cut her way inside its body. I could see the sharp outline of her aura deep inside the magic that animated the dragon’s bones, tearing it apart from the inside.

“Get… out of me… you parasite!”

Varfin thrashed wildly. His tail swept through the melee at the entrance to the chamber, sending dryads and skeletons alike tumbling across the floor. His magic seemed to convulse, streamers of blue energy erupting in all directions to orbit furiously around him.

Well, that was too good a distraction to waste. I retrieved my earth talisman, and formed it into a multi-ton mass of iron with a blade along the bottom. A little blunt, since the talisman’s shaping magic wasn’t precise enough to make a real razor edge, but I slapped a force blade over it to fix that. Then I flew it over the thrashing dragon, and waited for him to move to where I wanted him.

The giant guillotine fell, biting through the dragon’s long neck to bury itself in the floor.

Varfin went still for a split second. Then the blue glow exploded out of him with a violence that shook the room. More chunks of stone fell, and I glanced up to see the whole dome collapsing.

I rushed to the dragon’s body, where Cerise was just starting to cut her way free, and threw a banishment upwards.

“To me!” I shouted. “The room is collapsing. Everyone to me!”

The stones falling on my head dissolved into nothingness as my magic touched them. The nearest dryads reached me, but now the whole ceiling was coming down like a tsunami of hard stone. Corinna dove under a mass of loose earth, towing a wounded dryad behind her, and fell at my feet. Cerise looked around wildly, dissolved into shadows and reappeared next to me with a dryad in each arm.

The last dryad, the one I’d spoken with earlier, only made it halfway under my protection before the roof came down.

Again I held hard to a spell that pushed the limits of my ability to channel power. All around us the room was buried in solid earth and stone. More earth fell above us, trying to fill in the hole that protected us, but I banished it as fast as it could fall.

Finally the rumbling stopped. We were at the bottom of a steep funnel-shaped hole, with faint lights visible far above us.

“Alanna?” Corinna said worriedly, kneeling next to the half-buried dryad. From the way the stones lay on top of her it was obvious that she’d been crushed flat from the waist down.

“Back to my tree… for me,” the dryad said weakly.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and flooded her with healing energy. She gasped.

“Dying can’t be much fun, even if you do come back from it,” I said.

“It sucks,” she agreed. “Sorry, Corinna. I was too slow, and I’m all flat now. Can you… take me home?”

“Of course I will, Alanna. Do you have the strength to return to wood?”

She nodded. “Our lord is giving me lots of strength. Thank you, kind master.”

Her form wavered, and shrank into a green mist that curled up Corinna’s arm and coalesced into a wooden bracer.

“Well, that was something,” Cerise said weakly, leaning into my side. But somehow she didn’t feel as cuddly as usual. I looked down to find that she had scales now, of white and pale blue, and a stubby pair of leathery wings grew from her back.

“Looks like you sucked down a little too much dragon, there,” I told her.

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll have to pass most of this off to Hecate in my next sacrifice. The power is nice, but I’m not keen on the scales. Corinna, what about the rest of your girls?”

I looked around, and realized that only six of the dryads were still with us. Damn.

“They’ll recover,” Corinna assured us. “Their spirits will return to their trees. But as weak as they were, it will be a week or more before they can manifest again. Unless our lord can heal them?”

“I’ll give it a try next time we have a free minute,” I told her. “But for now we’d better make sure the town is still going to be here come morning.”

There were sounds drifting down from above, and as I listened I realized it was a battle.

Cerise groaned. “I’m too full. I can’t eat another bite.”

I mussed her hair. “Nut. Keep Grinder, then, and you can just kill things without eating them.”

I took a minute to give everyone in our party a quick burst of healing, enough to stop bleeding and wash away fatigue. Then I started forming a steep stairway up the side of the hole, and we crept towards the surface in single file. It was easy work, compacting loose dirt and pebbles into something like sandstone, and in a few minutes we reached the top. I peered carefully over the edge, and frowned.

We were in the middle of the plaza in front of the High Temple of the Aesir, just a few blocks over from city hall. The plaza was littered with bodies. Hundreds of them, some fresh and others years or decades old. Here and there was the smoking wreck of one of the Conclave’s war golems, its iron limbs pitted and deformed like it had walked through a blast furnace.

But the battle wasn’t over.

On the steps in front of the temple’s main doors a few surviving heroes fought to hold the line. Priests waving spears that crackled with lighting. Knights armed with flaming swords. A single wizard, conjuring shimmering spells like giant soap bubbles that dissolved enemies and healed allies at the same time.

Attacking them were several hundred heavily armed and armored corpses, bolstered by a half-dozen remaining golems. But what caught my attention was the giant two-headed fox leading the assault.

Cerise popped up beside me, and cursed under her breath. “Looks like we found our missing girl.”

She was unstoppable. In the moment I’d been watching she pounced on the wizard, shaking him in her jaws while her fiery aura immolated the defenders around her. One knight tried to run her through with a blade of ice, but the shallow gash it left on her flank healed in the blink of an eye. She batted him away with her tail, sending him tumbling into the back of one of the priests. A golem stepped on them both.

“You sound like you still like her,” I noted.

“Of course I do,” Cerise replied. “Just look at her go. She’s awesome.”

“She tried to kill me,” I pointed out.

“Not very hard. I know, I know. I just wish things could have been different,” she said wistfully.

A bolt of lightning descended from the cloudy sky to strike the giant fox. But she just shook it off, her luxurious pelt smoking, and turned to rush the temple doors.

“Me too,” I admitted. “But we can’t let her destroy the whole city. Come on.”

I led my little force left, trying to flank the enemy so I could fire into them without hitting the temple defenders. But we were out of time.

I’d expected the doors to slow Mara down until we could get into the fight. But instead she grew to the size of an elephant, and slapped her paw against them.

“Open!” She commanded, her clear voice carrying about the sounds of battle.

The temple’s wards, fortified by centuries of prayer and sacrifice, shattered like glass. The doors flew open, the enchantments meant to hold them closed unravelling in an instant. Mara stalked into the temple like an angry goddess, and a chorus of screams rose up inside. The remaining defenders were pushed back from the entrance, and their resistance was clearly about to fall apart.

I raised my gun, and started firing bouncer rounds into the rear of the enemy.

Once again, the whirling force blades were frightfully effective against the packed mass of enemies. Each round tumbled through their ranks in a spray of severed body parts and mangled equipment, tearing long furrows in their formation.

“Follow me!” I ordered, and boosted my speed again.

My limbs burned with magic, but I bounded across the plaza at a speed I could never have managed normally. I switched to explosive rounds as we got closer, and blew one of the surviving golems over. Then we smashed into the remnants of the enemy formation.

I carved a path through the undead with a long blade of force, cutting through swords and armor with equal ease. Beside me Cerise fought with Grinder in one hand and a whip of shadow in the other, mowing down her opponents like they were standing still. Corinna and her dryads fought with inhuman ferocity, their wooden swords hewing through chain mail and beheading moldering corpses with an ease that testified to the strength of their magic.

Then we were through, standing on the steps of the temple.

Cerise’s whip of shadow snaked out to pluck a figure from the back of one of the remaining golems, and lay him out on the ground at our feet. I looked down, and saw that it was Carl Stenberg.

“Ah, I surrender?” He called over Grinder’s scream.

I threw up a low wall blocking us off from the remaining undead, and Cerise deactivated Grinder.

“I’m guessing Mara isn’t your sister, and you’re actually a spy,” I said mildly.

“Lokin resistance cell,” he replied. “Like your girl there, only we follow Loki instead of Hecate.”

Corinna put her spear point in his face. “Shall we kill him, lord?”

I shook my head. “The Conclave would get pissed if I just kill one of their members without convincing them he’s a traitor first. We’ll turn him over to them, if we can.”

I made the flagstones beneath our feet grow into heavy cuffs around his wrists and ankles. Then I remembered that Loki was big on shapechanging magic, and added bands around his neck and waist.

“Perfectly reasonable,” he agreed. “Ah, no hard feelings?”

“We’ll see. Corinna, hold this position. Cerise, with me.” I turned and rushed into the temple, with Cerise at my heels.

There were dead priests on the floor, and a door in the far wall was smashed open. We were barely halfway across the room when there was a thunderclap from somewhere ahead of us, and the whole temple shook.

We burst through into the sanctuary to find Mara standing over a smoking hole in the floor, with a large stone covered in runes in one of her mouths. She was smaller than she’d been a few moments ago, but still the size of a very big horse.

I hesitated, unsure of the best way to attack her. Unsure of whether I wanted to, for that matter. She was tough as hell, and if that was the veil anchor in her mouth I probably couldn’t get it away from her before she destroyed it. But I’d be perfectly happy to see Loki’s forces invading Asgard, if it meant they left Kozalin alone.

“Too late,” Mara crowed triumphantly. “I already have the veil anchor. I have to give you credit, though. I thought the trap in the catacombs would keep you busy for hours.”

“Daniel is better than that,” Cerise said, completely ignoring the sheer luck that had led us to the surface right next to the temple. Although it might not have been luck. The temple could have been built next to the dragon’s tomb on purpose, and Mara could easily have missed that detail when planning her trap. For that matter, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suspect divine meddling given the situation.

“The dragon was pretty badass,” Cerise admitted. “But he won’t be coming back again. Thanks for the wings, by the way.”

Mara chuckled. “You’re welcome, Cerise. I hope you learn how to fly someday. It’s every bit as good as it looks.”

“You know, guys, it’s not too late to join us,” she went on. “This is the second of my trials, and father made mom promise to give me my immortality if I can finish all three. With your help whatever she gives me for the third trial will be easy.”

“I thought we were going to be trying to kill each other, after the way you turned down Daniel,” Cerise said.

Mara lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry about that. I have to succeed here, no matter what. But I didn’t really want to hurt any of you. No one has ever made me an offer like that before.”

“As beautiful as you are? You’ve got to be joking,” I said skeptically.

“I was raised in my mother’s realm,” she said softly. “It’s… not a good place. But things are going to be different soon! Hel and Jormungandr have both been really nice to me, and father actually thanked me for freeing him. I’ll be rewarded when Asgard falls, and so will anyone who helps us. So what do you say?”

“What happens to Kozalin?” I asked.

Her ears drooped.

“That’s what this was all about, right? Destroying the veil anchor? Once it’s gone, will the attack on the city stop?”

She pawed uncomfortably at the ground.

“I wasn’t expecting to steal a mystic artifact of invincibility, and be able to do this all with just my own minions. I had a whole invasion plan set up with big sis, and it’s too late to call it off now. Even if I could, it wouldn’t do you any good. Mom’s been planning the destruction of humanity for thousands of years, and she already has an army coming to Kozalin. I can’t stop them, and they won’t leave anyone alive.”

“But they’ll leave you alone if you join me. Your island is off away from the city anyway, but I can stay for a little bit and make sure of that. Or you could leave. Father has a place where his faithful are gathering, and I’m sure you’d be welcome there. You could even bring your people.”

“But everyone in Kozalin will die,” I said. “If your mother has her way that will only be the beginning, and all humans everywhere will die.”

“Well, so what?” She exclaimed. “What did the humans do for father, when he was tied to a rock with his own son’s guts and tortured for six hundred years? They praised the Aesir and gave them sacrifices, that’s what!”

“Some of us have spent our lives fighting the Aesir,” Cerise pointed out coldly.

“Most humans don’t worship the Aesir,” I said. “Their followers only rule Europe, and even here there are a lot of people who see them as foreign invaders. Honestly, I don’t see why Loki’s forces are so intent on attacking humanity. You’d think they’d save their energy for the enemy.”

“They are,” Mara said. “Humans are the foot soldiers of the gods, and Hel’s forces have to pass through Midgard to reach the Golden Fields. Besides, the Aesir can’t truly die while they still have human worshippers. The final battle won’t happen until both sides have lost so many worshippers that being killed isn’t just a temporary inconvenience anymore.”

Well, that was a chilling thought.

I sighed. “Mara, I understand where you’re coming from. I’d want to tear down Asgard too, if I were in your position. But I’m not going to be a party to genocide.”

“You’ll die when Gaea’s army gets here,” she pleaded.

“No,” I said firmly. “They will die. As long as I’m in Kozalin any army that attacks the city is going to be destroyed. So if you care about them you’ll warn them to go elsewhere.”

“I’d just as soon they all died,” she admitted. “The ape men are disgusting creatures, and their leader… well, let’s just say that I’m not fond of mom’s sons. If you really can kill him, I hope you do.”

“Fine. I can’t stop you right now, and a fight between us isn’t going to accomplish anything. So how about this? You do what you came here to do, and then give me back my amulet and get out of here. Maybe we can talk again once you have your immortality, and your mother doesn’t have anything to hold over you.”

“Can’t you just make another one?” Mara protested. “Really, Daniel, this thing is amazing. As long as I have it they’ll never… well, it would be really useful.”

The other fox head, the one that had patiently held the stone while we talked, nudged the head that had been doing the talking. She gave herself a startled look.

“What? But this is different.”

I had a moment of confusion, before I realized what I’d just seen. I felt the shock on my face before I realized it might have been smarter to hide it. Mara saw, and gasped.

“No! Fuck, after all this time! Don’t you dare say a word about it, Daniel Black. Not to anyone, not ever! In fact, I should just take you out now so you can’t talk.”

“You can’t,” I said evenly. I reached out to the amulet she had hidden somewhere on her person, and hit the kill switch I’d built into its enchantments when I made it. “You can’t use my own tools against me, Mara, and you know how strong we are. But I’ll keep your secret for you, in the name of friendship.”

She recoiled in shock, staring down at herself as the force shield and healing aura died. Then she processed the rest of what I’d said.

“Friendship?”

Cerise gave me a confused look. “Secret? What secret? Did I miss something?”

“Friendship,” Mara repeated. “Huh. You really are a strange man, Daniel. But I‘ve never had a friend before, and it sounds kind of nice. Alright, it’s a deal. Secrecy for friendship. But you tell no one! Not even Cerise.”

“Agreed,” I said reluctantly.

Two heads. Two minds. I wasn’t sure why Mara was so intent on hiding the fact that she had a sister sharing her body, or why the one that didn’t talk had given herself away like that. But to be honest, most of the theories I could think of only made me more sympathetic to their situation.

Mara huffed. “Alright, then. I’m getting out of here before anything else goes wrong. I still think you’re crazy, to think you can take on mother’s armies. But if you survive somehow, we’ll talk.”

Her teeth ground down on the runestone, and her power flared again. The stone cracked, crumbling into fragments. I felt a flash of magic, a change in something vast and insubstantial that lurked just on the edge of my mystic senses.

Then her aura flared, rising up into a column of golden fire that blew the roof off the room. When it faded she was gone, but the amulet she had taken was lying on the floor.

Cerise shook her head.

“Why didn’t we fight, Daniel? We could have beaten her.”

I picked the amulet up, checking it for damage and reactivating it. It was a huge relief to put it back on, and feel its force field form while all the minor injuries I’d picked up in the night’s fighting began to fade.

“Maybe,” I replied. “Maybe not. She’s stronger than that dragon she raised, Cerise, and we barely beat it. But win or lose it would have been a bad idea. She’d have broken the veil anchor either way, and then we’d have to try to deal with this invasion after getting beaten half to death fighting a demigoddess.”

“I guess that makes sense,” she conceded, and turned to go. I followed her out of the sanctuary, and across the main temple chamber.

“But I’m betting part of it is you just didn’t want to hurt such an epic babe,” she continued.

“That might have something to do with it,” I admitted.

If there were any survivors of the temple garrison they’d been driven off, so once we’d dealt with the handful of enemies still beating on my stone wall there was no one to turn Carl over to. I shook my head at that.

“Well, I guess this is a test of your planning abilities,” I told him, as I wrote a sign on the pavement next to him explaining why he was there. “With the city in chaos I’ve got no way to get a message to anyone, so I’m leaving you here. If the Conclave finds you first, great. If you’ve got a backup plan for getting rescued, I guess you’ll be sneaking off to wherever Loki’s spies go after an extended deep cover mission.”

“That’s fair, Daniel,” he said. “No hard feelings, right? I was just here to infiltrate the Conclave, so I could report on their doings and provide a cover story for other agents. I have to say, I never expected someone like Mara to take advantage of the ‘foreign sister’ cover story.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Just tell me this. Was our first meeting a setup?”

“Not as far as I know. But with the gods involved, who can say?”

We left him there, and hurried back to the docks. There was a pitched battle taking place at the gate between the two districts, with several hundred men from the garrison trying to retake the structure from the undead warriors who had captured it.

There seemed to be a steady stream of undead reinforcing the position, and I didn’t want us to get bogged down in another long fight. So we detoured a couple of blocks to the east, and I turned my earth talisman into a ladder so Corinna and her dryads could climb the wall while I jumped to the top for a look around.

The west end of the harbor was in flames, casting a lurid glow on three strange ships that were docked near the graveyard. They had the lean lines and single mast of a Viking longship, but were easily the size of a Spanish galleon. Their hulls gleamed oddly in the firelight, looking more like dark plastic than wood, and a dense shell of wards protected each vessel from virtually any kind of magic.

But the alarming thing was the endless stream of troops debarking from them. There were far more men than could possibly have fit in those ships, even if they were stacked like cordwood. They weren’t disorganized mobs like the undead we’d fought earlier, either. I saw disciplined companies of swordsmen, troops of cavalry, and even what I could swear was a column of Roman legionaries.

There were already enough of them headed for the battle at the gate to overwhelm the garrison troops there. More were methodically knocking down doors to murder the civilians huddled in their homes, or moving towards the gates to the military district. Several hundred infantry were assaulting my forces at the head of the causeway, and getting a lot closer to our lines than I would have liked.

“Fuck me,” Cerise breathed from beside me. “Hel’s black ships. They must have sailed here all the way from the Underworld.”

“How did they fit so many troops in them?” I asked.

“There’s a doorway in the hold of each ship that opens onto the dock it sailed from,” Cerise answered. “Once they make landfall Hel’s whole army can march through any one of them. Are you sure rejecting Mara’s offer was a good idea?”

Chapter 25

The situation was bad, but a closer look showed that it was far from hopeless. The fires at the western end of the docks prevented Conclave forces from taking the direct route here, but also kept the invaders from pushing deeper into the city in that direction. To the east, it looked like the garrison had retaken the gate to the Military District and was mustering a substantial body of troops. The spearhead of the undead assault was oriented towards the temple in the middle of Kozalin, an objective that had already been destroyed.

What I wouldn’t give for a radio right now. But at least our enemies didn’t have instant communication either.

“We can still salvage this,” I said. “We just need to destroy those ships before they unload enough troops to take the city.”

“How are we going to do that?” Cerise asked. “They’re going to be warded, and that army isn’t just normal men. Look.”

She pointed, and I saw a massive construct of gleaming bone emerge from one of the ships. It was easily twice as tall as a man, with a bulky armored torso and four arms. The lower two ended in long scythe-like blades, while the upper ones had giant hammers instead of hands.

“Bone golems. They’ll have a lot of other magic, too. Not many wizards die in battle, and Hel has her own priests. Probably witches, too. The Aesir destroyed Hecate’s last refuge two hundred years ago, and since then Hel has managed to claim most of our souls.”

“Why would they fight for Hel?” I asked.

“Some of them would fight for the chance to destroy Asgard, or for the semblance of life she can give them here. The rest are probably bound. Hel has dominion over souls in the Underworld, so I doubt even the strongest witches could defy her there.”

Corinna and her dryads had joined us atop the wall, and were watching the battle now. There were a few soldiers on this stretch of wall as well, and one of them gathered his courage and approached us as I pulled up the magic ladder.

“Who goes there?” He called, gripping his spear nervously.

“Daniel the Black,” I called back. “Do you have enough men to hold the wall here?”

“Ah, for now, lord wizard. We have word that reinforcements are on the way. Are those your men down by the shore? They’ve been giving those zombies a real bloody nose.”

A thunder of rapid cannon fire interrupted us. I looked down to see a bone golem being shredded by fire from two skimmers.

“Yes, those are my men,” I replied. “But we’re going to have to kick it up a notch to win this one. Good luck.”

I turned my earth talisman into a bridge, with one end anchored at the top of the wall and support columns dropping to ground level periodically as it grew towards the position my men were defending. I took the lead, and opened fire with bouncer rounds as we walked into range of the undead attackers. That drew a bit of arrow fire in return, but the distance and our height made it largely ineffective.

As we drew closer Cerise spread her arms and chanted something long and involved in Greek. Shadows pooled around her, forming a swirling mass that grew for several long moments before she reached the end of her chant. Then they arched out across a hundred yards of intervening space to descend on the nearer of the undead columns. A chorus of shouts and screams erupted as the formation was hidden from view by the onrushing tide of darkness.

“Since when could you do that?” I asked, impressed.

“Since you made me the strongest witch in Europe,” she replied, panting slightly. “Between the demons and the dragon and this amulet, I can cast anything. Even spells that are supposed to take thirteen witches and an hour-long ritual.”

The attack was falling apart now, the remaining undead retreating under a withering barrage from Marcus’ men. I pulled Cerise into a one-armed hug, and surreptitiously checked her health. She was straining to control the draconic power she’d stolen, and casting big spells like that could easily damage her magic. But the demonic vitality she’d assimilated made that risk almost meaningless. She was already regenerating the minor injury she’d done herself.

“Don’t fuss,” she huffed, reminding me that she could feel my magic. “I’m fine, Daniel.”

“Sorry, I just worry about you. Let’s get down from here before someone comes up with a spell that can reach us.”

I grew the bridge the rest of the way out to where my men were set up, and dropped a stairway down behind friendly lines. Marcus clapped me on the back as I stepped off onto the street, and then Elin was rushing up to hug me.

“Daniel! Thank goodness you’re safe. Oh, Cerise! What happened to you?”

“I kinda ate a dragon,” Cerise replied with a grin.

“A dragon! How could you possibly absorb so much power? Are you alright? You’re not going to, um, explode, or start eating people?”

“Well, you do look pretty tasty,” Cerise teased.

I turned to Marcus as Elin fussed over Cerise. “Things don’t look good from the wall. What’s your situation?”

“We’ve thrown back four assaults, each one bigger than the last. Elin here managed to keep the fires from spreading for a bit, but there are too many of the enemy now to send her out again. We’ve taken in about a thousand civilians during the breaks in the fighting, and our casualties have been light so far. But unless you’re planning to join us here I think we’re going to have to withdraw soon. If one of these assault forces gets in among us they’ll cut us to pieces, and there seems to be no end of them.”

“They’re coming from those ships in the harbor,” I said.

“The black ships that sailed in half an hour ago? Yes, I suspect they have portals in them,” Elin put in.

“Looks like it,” I agreed. “We saw several thousand men mustering over by the Military District, and I think they’re getting ready to make a push. That will take the pressure off you here, but I don’t think they’ll make it all the way down to those ships. The docks are too big, and there are already too many undead here. By the time they could fight their way half the distance the enemy will have offloaded enough troops to outnumber us again, and they aren’t going to stop coming.”

Marcus frowned, looking off across the harbor. “We don’t have a line of sight on the ships from here. But what if we backed the skimmers up onto the causeway to get a clear line of fire? I think the cannons could range on them from there, and a ship is a big enough target we might be able to hit them even at that distance.”

I shook my head. “You’d be making holes well above the waterline. You could shoot the superstructure to pieces, but that won’t actually sink them unless you get lucky. Sinking ships quickly takes plunging fire.”

I trailed off with a frown, considering another option. It wasn’t really ready for deployment yet. But if I could make it work, it would be the perfect solution.

“I can bestow water breathing,” Elin offered. “I think I could do four or five people at once, if you want to try a surprise attack from the water. But they’ve seen me putting out fires, so they may be anticipating something like that.”

“I think we’ve had enough crazy stunts for one night,” I said slowly. “For all we know Narfing might be lurking out there somewhere, just waiting for another shot at me. No, I think I’ve got this. I was working on something that should get the job done, I just need enough time to get it deployed.”

A shout from one of the soldiers drew my attention back to the street, where a thick mist had started to form. At the same time a large, flaming ball arced high over the surrounding buildings to land on a nearby roof.

“Time is the one thing we don’t have, sir,” Marcus said. “It looks like they’re finally getting smart.”

I nodded. “So I see. Alright, we’re pulling out. Fall back to the tower and seal the gates. Elin, head back now and let them know we’re coming. Cerise and I will be with the rearguard, just in case.”

“Yes, sir,” Marcus replied.

“Alright. Be safe,” Elin added.

She turned to go, while Marcus walked towards the defensive line shouting orders at the sergeants.

I turned to Cerise. “Got a counter for that mist, or shall I just blow up the whole street on the assumption there must be something in it?”

“You can never have too many explosions.”

I chuckled, and started looking for a good firing position. Then I heard Elin scream.

A pair of hulking shapes rose from the water to either side of the causeway, and began crawling onto land. Bone golems, of a different design than the others. Smaller shapes scrambled up their backs, undead soldiers using them as ladders.

Elin was caught right between them.

“Damn it, no!”

I slammed a force push into one of the golems that sent it flying backward, skipping twice on the surface of the harbor before sinking forty feet offshore. But the other one was swinging one of those long, bony blade limbs at Elin, and she seemed to be paralyzed with fear.

Then Cerise appeared next to her, and tackled her. The giant weapon passed harmlessly over their heads, and I breathed a sigh of relief. If there was anyone I could trust to get my little scholar to safety, it was Cerise.

I cut down a couple of the undead marines with a force blade, delaying them long enough for a handful of soldiers with force blades and flamers to assemble to repel the attack. One of the skimmers opened fire on the remaining golem while I was engaged, blowing gaping holes through the lumbering construct. But another pair of golems were already starting to emerge from the water.

A rain of arrows began to fall around me. The archers must be firing over the surrounding buildings from several blocks away, and the unaimed projectiles mostly landed in the street or bounced off the armored tops of the skimmers. Even those that hit didn’t have the force to penetrate my men’s hauberks after their long flight, but here and there one found exposed flesh to sink into.

I heard Grinder’s howl, and the golem on the causeway collapsed. A wall of water appeared from nowhere to sweep a clump of undead back into the harbor, and then our line of retreat was clear again.

I joined the girls with a single force-enhanced leap, and hugged them both. “Everyone alright?”

“Not a scratch!” Cerise replied.

“Yes. Sorry for panicking like that. I’m not used to battles,” Elin admitted sheepishly.

“It’s alright, Elin. You’re a healer, not a warrior.”

I took a moment to look around. Marcus had his men in motion now, moving back towards the causeway. Two skimmers and half the infantry were beating back the undead marines, while the rest poured fire into the mist that was now creeping down both streets towards their position. But retreating under fire is always a risky evolution, and this unit had far too many recent recruits. Maybe they could pull it off on their own, as long as there were no more surprises. But I wasn’t going to bet on it.

“Change of plans. Elin, stick with Cerise and back her up. Cerise, I need you to take Corinna’s squad and clear a path back to the keep. Then hold the gate until everyone is inside. I’ll be with the rearguard.”

“You got it, boss.”

The dryads caught up with me then, which was good timing. There was already motion in the water again, as the undead marines readied for another assault. We needed some serious firepower at the gates quick, or they could end up breaking into the keep.

I made my way back through our lines, passing a skimmer to rejoin Marcus.

“The girls are clearing the causeway,” I told him.

“Good. Can you clear out that fog, sir? It’s getting uncomfortably close now, and we’ve no idea what it might be hiding.”

“No problem.”

I bounded atop the last skimmer, which was grounded in front of the causeway. I didn’t have any great insight into air or water magic, but I could easily break the spell that was creating the fog. That didn’t immediately disperse it, but it did make it stop creeping towards us.

A few seconds later a row of tall shapes emerged from the fog. At first glance it looked like a moving wall of bone creeping slowly down the street towards us, but with a closer look I saw that it was actually three separate sections mounted on wheels. They all looked a bit chewed up from the gunfire that was still pouring into them, but the barriers were thick enough to protect the mass of armored troops behind them.

I opened up with my revolver, firing explosive rounds into the mobile walls. The first few shots blew them to pieces, and tore a big hole in the front of the enemy formation. Then I switched aim to the other street, giving the same treatment to the other enemy force.

Unfortunately the losses failed to discourage them. Instead a horn sounded, and both groups leveled their spears and charged our position with a bloodthirsty roar.

They were barely thirty yards away, and there were only a dozen men still on the firing line. Arrows were still falling all around us, and now more accurate shots began to rain down from the windows of nearby buildings. The skimmer’s cannon opened up, but even that wasn’t going to be enough. There were too many of them.

I ran forward and jumped off the skimmer, landing next to Sergeant Thomas where he was calling out volleys.

“Fall back to the causeway!” I shouted. “I’ll hold them off.”

I sent my earth talisman off to the right, where it quickly grew into a stone wall that blocked the street on the right. At the same time I switched to bouncer rounds, and started firing down the street to the left again. One round per second was a lower rate of fire than I would have liked for these circumstances, but from my new position each of the magical grenades cut a swath deep into the packed ranks of enemy troops.

There were too many to kill, but it was enough to stall their advance. The soldiers retreated with alacrity, piling into the skimmer and slamming the doors. The cannon fell silent, and then the heavy vehicle lifted and began to inch back onto the causeway.

I held down the trigger, and poured fire into the enemy. Their archers began to target me, but the heavy arrows just bounced off my shield. A few of them exploded into balls of flame or bursts of acid, but even that barely registered. My earth talisman was taking more of a beating, but its magical reinforcement was enough to protect it from anything a mass of spearmen could do.

A bolt of green energy speared down from a rooftop, passing through my shield to splash off my curse barrier. I switched to explosive rounds and returned fire, blowing the top of the building apart and setting it on fire with half a dozen shots. But by then the troops I’d been shooting up were getting uncomfortably close, and the other army had started to scale my wall. It was time to go.

I retreated onto the causeway, calling back my earth talisman and shrinking it into a ball. Just in time, too, as a fresh group of golems heaved themselves out of the water next to me.

I kept shooting, cursing under my breath and wishing I hadn’t left Grinder with Cerise. I jumped over one golem, knocked another back into the water with a force push, landed among a group of marines and spent a few precious seconds cutting them apart before bolting again. There were bullets whizzing through the air around me now, and a cannon fired somewhere nearby.

I broke free of the enemy ambush attempt and bounded down the causeway, catching up with the last skimmer in a few long jumps. Some idiot shot me, but the bullet bounced off my shield as easily as the enemy arrows had. I ignored it, jumping onto the skimmer next to the gunner’s position.

“Concentrate on the golems,” I told him, and opened fire again. Back to bouncer rounds, thinning out the ranks of the enemy and covering the stones of the causeway with their mangled remains.

They kept coming, their numbers seemingly endless. Halfway down the causeway I glanced back to find that the first skimmer was just passing through the gate, with a group of infantry anxiously waiting behind it. We slowed, and I realized that getting inside and closing the gates before the enemy mobbed us wasn’t going to happen. I’d made the gates thick to ensure nothing could break them, but that also made them too heavy to move quickly.

Well, maybe some good would come of that night I’d spent being paranoid. I kept firing down the causeway, but my concentration went to the control ring I wore. In addition to my earth talisman, it was linked to all the other contingencies I’d set up.

As the skimmer I was riding approached the gates I set of the mine at the far end of the causeway. It was just a rock with an enchantment on it, but now that enchantment conjured five hundred pounds of molten nickel-iron at the pressure of the Earth’s core.

The explosion was so loud I was momentarily deafened even at this distance. A fountain of flame and debris rose high into the night, and the shock wave knocked the whole army off their feet. The skimmer lurched, and slammed into the side of the open gateway.

I waited until the driver recovered and maneuvered it inside, and then jumped to the ground and set off the second mine. This one was forty feet closer, and the blast was half as big. Then the smaller mines along the rest of the causeway, at a mere forty pounds each. They looked tiny in comparison, but they were more than enough to reduce the rest of the enemy army to a mass of broken bodies.

We pushed the gates closed, and I set the heavy bars into place with my force magic.

All around me the men slumped in relief, but it wasn’t over yet. Give the enemy twenty minutes of peace and they’d offload another army as big as the one we’d just destroyed. And another after that, and then another, until Kozalin was buried in undead. I wasn’t sure how many troops Hecate had available for this attack, but if the mythology was accurate every warrior who didn’t die in battle was hers.

Most soldiers die of disease and exposure, or survive their campaigns and die a peaceful death years later. For that matter, wouldn’t the civilians all be hers to claim as well? Practically the entire population of Europe, then. For hundreds of years, possibly thousands in the North.

Yeah, she wasn’t going to run out of soldiers.

I found Marcus at Elin’s impromptu medical station, where she was busily fixing the hearing of everyone else who’d been too close to the gates when I set off those big explosions. She frowned at me, but didn’t complain.

“What now, sir?” Marcus asked.

“Get your men positioned to help defend the island,” I told him. “We need enough firepower on the walls to stop any attempt to get the gates open, and a reaction team here with the skimmers that we can send to take care of anything unexpected that happens. I’m going to deal with those ships.”

“How are we going to do that?” Cerise asked eagerly.

“Come give me a hand, and I’ll show you.”

I led her through the keep and out onto the island, where crowds of refugees were tending livestock and shifting loads of boxes and barrels into the extra living quarters I’d constructed a few days ago. Apparently some of my neighbors had found time to strip their cupboards of supplies before fleeing from the fighting. Well, that would certainly make the next week or two easier on them.

Beyond that was the military barracks, a firing range, and the little building where I’d done some of my more hazardous enchantment work. An enchantment factory to make explosives definitely qualified as that, so I’d left it out here instead of storing it in the tower.

“Lord wizard!” A nymph called, rushing over from the nearest entrance to the dryad habitat. She was armored in wood like Corinna, but carried a staff instead of a spear or bow.

“Yes?”

“Demetrios wanted me to warn you, milord. There’s something huge lurking in the river. It’s invisible from above water, but we’ve been spreading a divination ward into the water and the creature has brushed up against it a few times. It’s far bigger than a ship, milord. Probably a kraken, or a sea serpent.”

“Narfing, probably,” I mused. Could he reach the top of my walls, forty feet above the river? Maybe. But there would be plenty of time to see him coming, and I didn’t think he’d enjoy getting shot up with my new gun. That was a manageable problem, as long as we didn’t go out on the river.

“Thanks for the warning. Pass the word to everyone on the walls to keep an eye open. It might be able to reach them if they’re careless, but the towers and sentry posts should all be too sturdy to smash open. If it attacks have everyone retreat indoors and wait for me to deal with it.”

“Yes, milord.” She turned and sprinted back towards the habitat.

I shook my head. “We definitely need radios. One more thing to worry about later, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’ll ask what you’re talking about after the fight is over,” Cerise agreed. “So what do we need from here?”

I opened a doorway into the blank stone wall of the building, and walked inside. The enchantment factory was a two hundred pound block of stone, so I used force magic to lift it instead of my hands. That left the tube and base plate, which I pointed out to Cerise.

“Can you carry that to the wall for me? It weighs more than you do, but you’ve got that super strength thing going for you.”

She lifted the tube easily, and set it on her shoulder. The base plate she picked up one-handed, and held like a schoolgirl with an armload of books. Damn, she was even stronger now.

“I’m getting a little tired, but this is no problem. What is it? It looks kind of like a gun, only the barrel is way too big. If it’s like the cannons it would kick hard enough to kill anyone behind it when it fires.”

I set out jogging towards the wall. “You’ve got that right. I actually started out working on a weapon called a howitzer, which is basically a big cannon that fires shells in a high arc instead of a flat trajectory. They can have incredible range, but I realized pretty quickly that it would take too much work to solve all the problems. Managing the recoil would be complicated, and we’d need forward observers and long-distance communication magic and a bunch of other stuff I don’t have time to figure out. Not to mention that it would be overkill.”

“Forward observers?” She said curiously. “Wait, is that like a strategic curse projection? You assemble a curse at your base, and then make it manifest at a targeting beacon miles away?”

Note to self: the wizards in this world really know their stuff. Stop underestimating them.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Different mechanism, but the same basic concept.”

She grinned, and trotted up the stairs in front of me. “That would be awesome. But you’re right, that wouldn’t help us here. The ships are too heavily warded, and besides they’re close enough to see. If the cannons on the skimmers fired exploding shells like your gun they’d probably be enough for this.”

“Assuming Narfing didn’t pop up and smash them into the river the moment they opened fire,” I agreed. “I’ll have to take care of that problem before we do anything else.”

We reached the top of the wall, and I paused for a moment to pick a good spot to set up. Since it was a good thirty feet thick we didn’t have to be right at the edge, just close enough that we still had a view of the far side of the harbor.

I set down the enchantment factory, and started it up.

“Can you handle these for me?” I asked as the first shell materialized. “Just stack them on their sides, like this. But be careful not to drop one. I wasn’t finished working out all the safety features on these things, and we really don’t want to set one off by accident.”

“Big boom?” Cerise asked.

“Big enough that we might not survive it,” I said seriously.

She licked her lips. “I can’t wait to see this thing in action.”

I conjured up a force wall to protect our position, and some long force spikes projecting up and out where they’d give the sea serpent a really bad day if he tried to attack us. Then I set up the mortar, and angled the tube almost all the way up. I’d never fired one of these things myself, and my back of the envelope calculations about how it should perform barely qualified as a wild-ass guess. Better to drop my ranging shots on the harbor than the Iron Citadel.

The situation out on the docks was already deteriorating again. Two forces of golems were fighting each other among the burning buildings at the far end of the district, with flashes of magic occasionally erupting from the melee. Another force was engaged with an army of regular troops near my own citadel, with archers and several catapults lending support. Hel’s forces had apparently won the fight for the gate into the Temple District already, and troops were marching through it in a steady stream.

That wasn’t counting the three or four thousand undead infantry who had begun to methodically smash open the district’s buildings and slaughter their inhabitants. In the distance I could make out a large group besieging one of the refugee shelters I’d built, battering futilely at its iron doors with a ram made of bone. But most of the buildings weren’t so sturdy, and I could barely guess how many civilians would be dead before dawn at this rate.

More people I couldn’t save. How many senseless deaths would I have to witness before this war was over? I shook my head, and turned back to the mortar. This had better work, or we were all going to end up regretting my decision to refuse Mara’s offer.

I grabbed a shell off the neat stack Cerise was accumulating, and dropped it down the tube. Mortar rounds are subsonic, so there was no crack as the weapon fired. Just a soft whoosh of displaced air.

“That didn’t look like much,” Cerise observed.

“Wait for it,” I told her.

A geyser of water erupted from the river, maybe a third of the way to the enemy ships and well off to the left. I lowered the elevation a bit, and dropped in another round. This one landed halfway there.

“Are they out of range?” Cerise asked.

“Hardly. I’m just taking my time, and trying not to overshoot and blow up part of the city.”

Another adjustment, and the next round was only a couple hundred yards short. It was still landing a good way off to the left as well, but that’s what the other aiming screw was for. I made another adjustment, still wishing I had some actual experience with this.

A huge shape rose from the river not far from where the last shell had landed, barely visible in the light of the burning buildings. It sank beneath the surface again almost immediately, and I fired the next round.

This one was a little over. But there was more activity around the ships, now. An eerie green glow from beneath the water hinted at activity there, and invisible flashes of magic surged out over the harbor.

“Hey, look!” Cerise said. “They haven’t figured it out. They think we’re down there somewhere. We don’t have to come out and fight, dumbasses. We’re going to blow you up from all the way over here!”

She paused. “We are going to blow them up, right?”

I made one final adjustment, and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Time to fire for effect.”

The enchantment factory made about four shells a minute, and Cerise had piled up a dozen or so of them while I made my preparations. I fired off half of them as fast as I could, and waited.

Fire blossomed around the enemy ships. The mortar wasn’t especially accurate, but those shells were enchanted to conjure fifty pounds of pressurized lava when they hit. The ordered ranks of troops around the ships dissolved into screaming confusion, and every flammable object in the area caught fire. That apparently didn’t include the ships themselves, but one of the docks they’d been using was wood.

Cerise whooped. “Oh, yeah! Burn, little bitches! Burn!”

It looked impressive, but it wasn’t getting the job done. If I’d had more ammunition maybe I could just bombard them until I got enough lucky hits to sink the ships. But I didn’t, and what if the portals survived? Undead soldiers could march underwater if they had to. Besides, if I took too long one of the enemy mages was bound to figure out what I was doing and come up with a counter.

I took the next shell off the pile, and reached into the warhead enchantment. Carefully, I poured more power into the summoning spell. A hundred pounds. Two hundred. Five hundred. There, let’s see what that does.

I dropped it into the mortar tube, and waited. A few seconds later a much larger geyser of water erupted from the river next to one of the ships. The whole vessel was slammed sideways into a stone pier, its hull smashed like kindling.

“Yes! Awesome!” Cerise leaped up, pumping her fist.

I did it again. And again. And again.

Smoke and fire wreathed the target zone, and the wooden pier was quickly reduced to flaming debris. A lucky round detonated nearly on top of a second ship, and blew it apart. Fragments of bone and metal rained down all over the district. The enemy advance began to falter, and a ragged cheer rose from my own battlements.

The last ship cast off and frantically tried to get underway, her black sails billowing in a wind that sprung up at her crew’s bidding. But they were too slow. A near miss sent the ship careening sideways to ram into a docked merchant vessel, and more shells fell around them as they struggled to untangle themselves. Four more rounds blasted the surrounding area, and then I landed one just astern of my target. The blast shattered the whole aft end of the ship, and reduced the prow and the ship it had rammed to tangled wreckage.

Narfing’s head rose from the river to regard the blasted ruins that my bombardment had made of the enemy’s beachhead. Then he turned west, and began swimming out to sea.

I turned off the enchantment factory, and fired off the last few mortar bombs. Then I turned my gaze back to the fighting on shore, and nodded in satisfaction. The bombardment had devastated the neat formations of enemy troops that had been mustering around their ships. With their flow of reinforcements cut off the enemy position was already worsening. At the west end of the harbor the Conclave forces were advancing behind a hail of magic, and their golems now outnumbered those of their opponents. To the east three or four thousand Royal troops were locked in battle with maybe half that many undead, and slowly winning.

The undead that had marched on the temple were wasting their time on a target that was already destroyed, and there couldn’t be more than two or three thousand of them. There were ten times that many troops in Kozalin at the moment, and they’d have plenty of time to contain that thrust. The outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt.

Cerise stepped up beside me, and leaned against my side. “We did it, didn’t we? We saved the city.”

“We did,” I agreed.

We stood and watched the fighting on the shore.

I knew it wasn’t over yet. In a few minutes I’d have to organize the men for another foray into the city, to help thin out the ranks of the undead. As long as we were careful not to get mobbed they were no threat to me, and every bouncer round I fired into the ranks of the enemy was a couple more soldiers who wouldn’t have to die killing them the hard way. With the enemy backed into a corner with no way to retreat they’d fight to the last man, and we’d probably be up the rest of the night finishing them off.

But tonight, Kozalin would stand.