“This didn’t used to be here,” Gunn spat chew into the grassy hill they stood on, looking up at the massive stone castle dominating the landscape. In the distance, tiny figures marched back and forth atop the walls, ready to defend the keep at a moment’s notice.

“I feel like this bow was meant for dolls,” Brama said, tugging on the finely braided steel wire and drawing experimentally. “I mean, It’s too small to draw all the way back.

“It’s a proof of concept! A prototype!” Tom didn’t know the Vith word for those concepts so he defaulted to English.

“I don’t know what those words mean, so I’m going to assume you meant to make it this small on purpose.” The Vith warrior continued ribbing Tom.

“Damnit,” Tom muttered. “It’s just to find out if it’ll work or not. it doesn’t have to be the right size.”

“Pfft, lemme see that,” Nema said, grabbing the prototype compound bow and arrow out of Brama’s hands. “It fits me just fine. Which string am I supposed to draw?”

“The closest one,” Tom offered.

Nema let out a high-pitched grunt of effort as she drew the steel arrow back.

That was a half-ton draw, Tom thought, unwilling to be surprised at Vith strength any more.

“Wow, it got easier? I could hold this forever.” Nema said, peering through one eye toward the distant castle.

“Well, congratulations,” Brama said, clapping Tom on the shoulder. “You’ve successfully made a woman’s weapon. Something we didn’t even know we needed.”

“Eep!” Nema squeaked as she accidentally released the arrow.

The steel arrow rocketed out with incredible speed, hissing through the air as it flirted with the sound barrier.

A second later, the arrow burst through the wooden flagpole atop the distant castle.

The massive banner of house Kinzena that topped the castle, slowly toppled sideways, collapsing to the ground as the ant-like humans of the castle began to bustle about in alarm.

How many hundreds of yards was that shot? Tom thought.

“I’ve seen worse ways to start a war,” Gunn said, shrugging.

“WARK,” Suzie croaked.

“I only had one of those arrows,” Tom said, his heart sinking. It had taken days to make one arrow.

“Can…Can you make me one of those bows?” Brama said.

“Sorry, Brama, these bows are for women only,” Nema said, sticking out her tongue.

“Chief, tell the shaman to make adult-sized bows.” Brama said, looking at Gunn.

The leather-faced old man swept his gaze over the scene, pulling some dried mushrooms out of a bone box in his pocket.

“I’m with Nema on this one.” He rumbled.

“Wait, what?” Nema asked, frowning.

“The bows are better off in the hands of women, who can provide support to our warriors from a distance without undue risk to themselves with a simple use of their Well, while our warriors will prove more valuable at the front line, where they can do the most damage.”

“Bleach it, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” Brama muttered.

“No.” Gunn said, scowling at the distant castle. “They’ve made the walls with Vith in mind. They’re far taller than we can jump.”

Which was saying something. The walls looked to be at least fifty feet tall, maybe more, their outer façade polished to a smooth shine, completely free of handholds a determined Vith might use to scale it.

Making things even more complicated was a moat at least thirty feet wide and twenty feet deep running all the way around the castle that dominated the entrance to the Dinamore Stretch.

“Any ideas, boy?” Gunn asked, glancing at Tom.

Ladders? No. siege tower? No. The moat is too wide. Cannon? Not enough steel nor enough gunpowder. No.

Tom’s eyes slid towards Brama as his mind rapidly cycled through possibilities.

“What are you looking at?” Brama asked, frowning.

Paratroopers? That might work. A Vith shaman needed outside-the-box thinking.

***one week later later***

“I-I’m really not comfortable with this,” Brama stammered, his body squashed tight into the ‘saddle’, decorated with bird feathers to help stabilize his flight and reduce spinning.

“I though you said Vith Warriors were, and I quote, ‘stronger than steel and twice as deadly.’” Tom said as he worked the winch of the catapult back.

“But I –“

“Matter of fact, you said to me you were the strongest warrior alive,” Tom continued, unable to suppress a grin as the catapult latched into place.

“Yes, but-“

“So what’s the big deal with being flung hundreds of meters up and over a wall?” Tom asked, savoring the opportunity for a little payback for the ‘Vol Jr. incident’. He pointed to the four other catapults, each bearing three paratroopers. “They seem fine.”

“If humans were meant to fly, the gods would have given us wings!” Brama cried, his eyes wide with terror.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tom said, before raising his voice to address the Vith warriors as a whole. “Now make sure you reinforce your whole body, especially your brain and spine on take-off and landing! Wouldn’t want you to black out from the g-forces or break your neck!”

“We’ve done enough practice runs! Get us in the air, you soft-handed foreigner!” a Vith warrior shouted.

Tom started the countdown.

“Three…Two…”

“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” Brama chanted.

“One,” Tom and four other women proceeded to stomp down on the release latches.

Each and every one of the catapults bucked in place as their load of three Vith warriors was flung in a parabola, disappearing into the starry night.

Save Brama’s screaming. In a way it was comforting to know the warrior was still conscious. If the weakest warrior survived the launch, then the rest should be fine.

“Alright,” Tom said, turning to the assembled warriors as the catapults began ratcheting back into firing position. “Next group.”

The packed themselves tight into the bench seat and braced themselves.

This is gonna be a long night.

“Three, Two, One,”

***Kale Varner, Sentry***

Two hours to sunup and all’s well, Kale thought, swinging the beam of light back and forth across the field outside the castle. It was a special kind of lantern they’d recently invented that focused the light of the flame in a tight beam. Kale didn’t know the specifics, but he did know that it made his job a lot easier.

Although more boring.

Kale stifled a yawn and pinched himself.

Just a few more days of this and I’m off the night shift. Some other bastard can take the punishment position. Remind me never to mouth off to a superior officer again.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’m probably gonna do it again.

They were on high alert ever since ‘the incident’ where an unidentified object had shattered the flagpole above the commander’s office.

Scouts confirmed a huge Vith presence in the savage lands north of the castle. The commander had gone pale as a sheet and put everyone on high alert on the spot, tripling the people manning the tower, calling all of the Alia off of leave and barracking them in the center of the castle for ‘immediate response’.

Thank the gods, I’m not one of them. They’re practically prisoners. Prisoners we have to wait on hand and foot.

There was always a catch.

Probably not even that big a deal. The commander is just a coward assigned to this post because he’s someone’s nephew. I mean, I was too young to be around for the first war, but how hard could it have been to fend off men with sticks and bones for weapons?

“Did you hear that?” Kale’s partner asked. The kid was even younger than him, and still spooked at every little thing.

“Hear what, you being a pussy?” Kale asked, idly drawing the beam of light across the ground outside the walls. Still nothing.

“No, it sounded like –“

BOOM!

The wall shuddered under their feet as something impacted the wall beside him. Hair standing on end, Kale swung the lantern on it’s pivot to aim at the wall itself.

Just twenty feet away from their post, a dark skinned Vith decorated in the feathers of some great bird, unfolded from a crouch, his legs partially embedded in the stone surface of the floor just inside the parapet. A glint of light reflected off the solid steel pole the Vith used to lever himself to his feet. The heavy lump of metal was topped with a razor sharp leaf-shaped blade.

Their eyes met.

Kale opened his mouth to scream, but the inhuman creature charged them with a speed that set Kale’s nerves on fire, folding Kale’s partner in half in a single trike, the heavy steel bursting through the boy’s side.

Then he came for Kale.

***Tom Graves***

Tom stood there with a scowl, looking down at his gauge, which was pressed against the new Soul Engine.

Suzie had snuck up to the side of the wall, allowing her to snag souls from the majority of the castle, where most of the fighting would go down. Her tether was connected to his newest piece.

Whether it was a piece of hot garbage or an improvement waited to be seen.

In the background, the paratrooper technicians continued to launch their warriors directly into the castle in groups of fifteen, in a form of ye olde blitzkrieg only possible because Vith warriors could survive terminal velocity.

Tom would know it had succeeded when people started dying.

Or maybe your people are dying because they saw this coming a mile a way and set a trap. Or maybe they’re just not as tough as they thought, even though you tested it.

Tom felt the popping, tingling sensation of soul pulses, and the dial ticked up, from zero to ten.

Tom withheld celebration until he was certain that the soul engine only ticked up in units of ten.

10, 20, 31, 41, 51, 62,

Roughly ten and one third soul pulses per dead person, improving on a Crypt by about twenty nine percent.

Fantastic.

That reduced the number of people he had to kill to repay his debt from two hundred and fifty to….

2000 divided by 10.33

One hundred and ninety three and change.

Fantastic.

In the distance, an orange burst of flame rose above the castle as the enemy Alia joined the fight.

Tom’s heart clenched in his chest as he sat and waited, completely incapable of assisting the fight in any meaningful way. This was a big gamble, and if it didn’t pay off, the Vith offensive was going to be crippled with the loss of some of their best warriors.

And some of their not-so-best, Tom admitted. Despite Brama ribbing him mercilessly, that at least implied some level of belonging, rather than the cold indifference of an outsider.

Tom honestly hoped the annoying Vith warrior didn’t come to any harm, despite being a pain in the ass.

And yet, I’m sentencing all these others to death simply for being on the wrong side of the battle, Tom thought, watching the numbers tick up on his new soul engine.

There was no right answer, so Tom focused on the math.

Thirty-five soul pulses to hire a cheap spirit to animate a corpse, just over three people per unit. A soul engine with an efficiency higher than thirty-five could in theory create a plague of undead, where death fuels its own metamorphosis.

Tom had no idea how he could get more efficient without upsizing his build drastically.

Still, twenty-nine percent increase is nothing to scoff at. A large portion of my debt will be repaid by capturing this castle.

Tom wasn’t wrong. Over the course of the night, the ticking of his new soul engine followed a bell curve as the fighting reached its most intense moment, followed by a gradual downswing as the enemy broke, surrendered, ran or simply weren’t alive to be killed anymore.

When his new soul engine hit seven hundred soul pulses, Tom emptied it into his Debt Repayment crypt, then watched as it rapidly began refilling.

When the flow of souls finally slowed down to nearly nothing, the total number of dead was one hundred and sixteen, or twelve hundred soul pulses, give or take a few fractions.

Just like that, the debt’s almost half paid for, Tom thought dumping the soul pulses into the black hole crypt again. It was so ridiculously easy to profit from war, it made Tom a little paranoid.

Shortly after the engine stopped chewing on souls – signaling the end of the battle – the front gate of the castle creaked open, revealing nearly all of the Vith warriors grinning like maniacs and covered in gore.

Tom actually found himself somewhat relieved that Brama wasn’t dead.

That would be letting him off too easy.