Several days of travel pass...

The Ironblood were drawn up in lines along the entry line into The Camp as the two hellhounds trotted in, their heads held high. The Ironblood saluted the two hellhounds sharply as they came in, spear butts pounding the ground and cheers breaking out for the return of their Fire and Ice.

I shooed off the last of the people I’d Marked for now, waiting as those big figures rounded the corner and paced towards me.

They pounced on me without hesitation.

I tossed them in the air, spun them around, wrestled them down, and endured great slobbering molten kisses and freezing frigid tongues to the face.

Yeah, they smelled like brimstone. I’d dealt with it in Nightmare, I could deal with it here.

The slobbering and recognition that I hadn’t gotten any softer outside of Nightmare over, I scratched their iron-hard fur with hands like razors, drawing little contented whimpers from them. Then I hugged necks thicker than my shoulders and let them rub their rasping fur against me, taking it without a problem.

“Yeah, I missed you, too. C’mon, let’s get you dressed up.”

Both of them bounced back to their feet expectantly. They’d already seen the Armor waiting for them at the back of the smithing area.

I whistled, and the grinning smiths trotted up with all the parts. They all greeted the hellhounds like old friends, and received very serious sniffs in return to fix them into olfactory memory.

The white Armor went on Fido, the black Armor went on Shirley. It was mithral alloy, the kind of stuff only a king would dare put on his warhorse, and I really didn’t care. The Saddles were made from minotaur hide, always one of my favorites to work with, and just as magical as the Armor.

I Opened their chakras, and the Armor blazed to life on each of them, humming with burning blue energy.

“Let’s take a ride.”

-Okay!- they /replied enthusiastically, and off we went for a tour of the area.

Of course, they were incarnations of fire and frost that would mangle any green environment without mercy, but this place was sparse on the green, so I brought them up to the top of a neighboring hill-wave and sat down between them at the crest, looking out over the forbidding image of the Badlands, towards Yle Tyorm.

“I can’t have you fighting here with me now,” I told them calmly, interrupting scratching their ragged ears with a point at the horizon. Something had mangled the ears of my hellpuppies? How dare they... “See that purple shit? Pure planar chaos. This whole area is lousy with it. We’ve got an approach corridor, but take a whiff of that.”

Their heads rose up, and they inhaled together, then growled like car engines. Really high horsepower car engines.

“Precisely. That shit touches you, well, you’re extraplanars. You can be sent back to Hell at any moment by anyone using a Banishment or Abjure or other effects on you. I know you want to chew on some Warped, but if some demons pop up, their planar instability might get multiplied by your proximity, and send you all back to where you came from.

“You spent a lot of time and effort to get here. I’m not going to have you waste it by getting into a fight.”

They both growled, and /asked me what they were supposed to do. I certainly couldn’t expect them to sit on the sidelines while I fought. They were Warhounds, after all; the Fire and Ice of the Ironblood!

“Oh, Heavens, no. It’s your time.” I clutched them to me, scratched harder. One was boiling, one was freezing, I didn’t care. My Diamond Vajra was basically up to the ‘Temperature differentials? Mwahahahaha!’ stage. “You got out of Hell, it’s time to stay out of there forever. You up for that?”

Both huffed agreement. They were my Warhounds, my Hellpoodles; their place was with me now. It was just how it was.

“You need to move beyond hellfire and hellrime. You need to be of real frost and fire, all kinds, not just Hell. By taking in other kinds of fire and flame, you can transcend the grip of Hell and become creatures of true fire and frost, and wherever flame and frost is will be your home... but mostly the mortal world.” I bent forward to look into their burning and freezing eyes. “You up for that?”

There was a hesitant whoof. “No, you won’t be any weaker. You’ll actually be much stronger, because you won’t be dependent on hellfire anymore.”

Tremble flicked to my hand, sang a few familiar notes, and tails part spiked whips and part hairy flails pounded the protesting stone in greeting. I popped them both on the nose, and then Tremble began to burn.

They watched as she moved from Soulfire to Banefire, Arcane fire to Elemental fire, vivic fire to necroic fire, Holy fire, Chaosflame, and Dictumfire.

“These are all fires, and not even most of them.” Tremble sparkled, and fires became mists, and all those energies combined with cold now, too. “Hellfire is the fire of punishment, it’s made to refine the evil out of souls for use by Hell, burning the Damned with the power of both fire and soul.

“What I want you to do is eat each of these fires and frosts, and make them your own. I asked the Void Brothers for two places of extreme fire and frost, and instead they found me one... Something called a Yin-Yang Pool inside a semi-active volcano in the North.”

Their heads came up as they looked at The Map, the path they had to take, and what was within.

“You eat this ice and fire off of Tremble, make it your own, and you go to that pool. You drink in the power of pure fire and ice, and you make hellfire and hellrime just a tiny part of who you are, something you’ve grown beyond.

“When you’re done, you come back to me.” My turn to pull up their heads and give their eyeballs a big wet smooch, steaming and icing respectively. “And then we’ll fight and show them what it means to be Ironblood.”

They whoofed agreement, blowing my hair around, which naturally fell back perfectly into place. “And yes, you get your do’s when you come back. My hellpuppies aren’t going into a fight without looking FINE.”

They slobbered me with burning and freezing tongues again, I laughed, and then Fido took Tremble politely in his teeth, and she began to burn with the first type of flames for him to inhale...

----

We talked for an hour or so, hell hounds have a rather pragmatically ferocious outlook on life that was interesting to interact with in the real world. Pack hierarchy was very big in their world, but the ruthless fight for more of it in Hell was a thing they didn’t have to put up with at all here, which rather delighted them, and was a big reason why they were here.

Of course, if I wasn’t strong enough to kick their asses repeatedly, they wouldn’t have come at all. But when they saw me ripping through Warp demons like chew-toys in Marktell, they knew that Sage Sama was every bit as horribly awesome as she’d been in Nightmare.

After they felt the incredible goodwill from thousands of Marked, who all considered them heroes, unique, special, awesome, and loyal... well...

Their pack of Marked. How could they not come to join them? Theirs, no others!

Oh, there was a lot they could tell me about Hell, and the neighboring planes and worlds; the endless wars over souls, pride, grudges, and if they were bored, that was certainly something I could chat with them about.

If a rather remarkably accurate Map of some of the Lower Planes was placed in a special addendum to The Map, well, that’s just how things worked out, wasn’t it?

Their Armors were very special, but they would have to power them up beyond the basic Soulbound level. The ability to borrow one another’s powers while within thirty feet of one another was strong enough, I thought.

They had a long way to go, but there weren’t many normal monsters who could withstand two Warhounds of their caliber, and they weren’t interested in idle fights. There might be some things guarding the Yin Yang pool, and I felt sorry for whatever wanted to stop them. They were probably going to be really unhappy when the two ripped into them for some additional lightning damage with their new Shock Gauntlet claws...

-----------

“Where’s your silver shadow?” I asked Briggs, making a show of looking behind him. The unobtrusive Prince was nowhere to be found.

“He’s concentrating on that nested doll of his again. Says it’s an aid to developing the Eyes of Heaven. Spends hours at it, if you didn’t know.” Briggs shrugged. “Nessian Warhounds? Seriously?”

Briggs and I could /chat in Markspace, but his warband was in for resupply and a couple days of leisure... mostly meaning frantic Investing, Infusing, converting spoils to mana crystals, and practicing new tricks with the Levels they’d gained. There was always a different feeling when talking in person, instead of the telepathic intimacy of the Marktell.

“Blame the Curse. They got tougher as I did, but I caught up too quickly. Once I could take the flames, they couldn’t last in personal combat.”

“Ah, yeah, the Sage of Swords coming into her own.” He scratched his head slightly, then shrugged. “You notice that you haven’t had to run out that much anymore?”

“Yes. They aren’t Summoning demons ahead of time, and fewer Summoners are coming out. Why do you think that has to do with me?”

“Because you keep taking a pound of flesh out of certain arseholes when they come here?”

“That would be logical. Horrors!” Couldn’t have that for the Warp-butts, could we?

“Well, they are probably saving them for the games to come.” He wrinkled his broad, flat nose, a remarkably cute gesture on his rather brutish face. “You noticed the advance forces had to narrow their sweeps and slow down too, I take it?”

“Of course. It’s taking more vivus to stabilize each additional foot we advance. We could narrow the corridor down even more, but that would be a bad idea. It’s already attracting the unstable planar shit as the only stable space in this place. Getting all the crap concentrated in an even narrower area is just asking for trouble.”

Briggs had to agree. They’d encountered at least thirty different other-planar creatures so far, none of them duplicates, just dragged here willy-nilly from across Creation and plopped in. Injured, off-balance, and in an alien environment, naturally hilarity ensued. Combat was basically a given... except for the half-dozen devas brought in from some disastrous fight against Aberrants in a place very different from this one, who decided to pitch in when they realized the scale of the Incursion. With their open-ended telepathy, they made excellent relays and commanders, their Auras and support powers propelling them right into command positions.

Of course, they were in disguise. Their purpose here was to empower mortals, not show the glitter of Heaven and make targets of themselves.

“It’s basically going to take a Warped for every foot we advance,” I calculated, and he gave out a low hoot, since he couldn’t whistle.

“Wow. That is... a lot of Warped.” One of the larger warbands would basically be only a mile. “How far do we have to go? A hundred miles?”

“And hostile extraplanars. Momma Nature isn’t exactly discriminatory when it comes to eating Soulborn, you know.”

“And the Warped is just going to feed us half a million of its servants.” He sounded amused.

“Yeah, we’ll help ’em round down the decimals on one of their minor armies, or something.” Briggs looked at me, I looked back at him, and he grinned and sighed at the same time.

“Yeah, okay. Divine powers with a pet universe. They probably weren’t expecting to have to do so, of course...” He gave me another side-eye. “You keep a pretty good tab on Levels and stuff, right?”

I snapped to attention and saluted him. “Supply Sergeant Sage Sama reporting, sir!” I said crisply, and he snorted.

“So? Good news?”

“The Karmic harvests are non-stop. The gold doesn’t keep pace, unfortunately, so the Gear isn’t keeping pace with the Levels, but that’s what the Soulshaper Levels are for, filling in for lack of materials.”

He grunted as he thought of advance schema, both Powered and Primos. Soulforms and Soul Feats could plug a lot of holes, be it Saves, getting hit, hitting others, or making men tougher to kill, something they always appreciated. Just being able to Heal themselves away from the brink of death was a godsend to so many soldiers.

He and I could only make so much Artifice a day, after all, and we were more about broad low power for soldiers than tossing it on a few elites. The elites could make their own stuff, after all.

“Satisfied with the Warlording?” I asked him calmly.

“Honestly? No,” Briggs grunted, spinning Endure in his outsized hands. “Rather be in there crunching Warped and sparing my lads. At least I started sitting on a Disk and sniping with Reach, or I’d go crazy not being down there in the fight. The boys appreciate the sentiment, but don’t want me taking their Karma. They’re getting addicted to improvements.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I laughed quietly. Three Scout Levels, +2 Cunning meant +2d6 when flanking in a fight with others. Add in Versatile Flanker, and that meant the spearman standing next to you. Three Soulshaper levels, six Soul Feats for Forsaken, easy +12 to both Soak and Health, massive increase in staying power and ability to avoid one-shot kills.

Just one level of Runesmith, help out with smithing, make custom doo-dads, +1 TH/Dmg with your Attuned Named Weapon, the possibility of getting your own intelligent Weapon. Everybody wanted a Tremble of their own.

Three levels of Alchemist, near immunity to critical hits, +2d6 Sneak Attack damage, poison resistance, help make Potions and everyone’s favorite alchemist fire/frost/lightning/acid, if the comps were there.

They all read the potential; they were all getting bigger, badder, better. The Warp was making them stronger, and all they wanted to do was feed more of the bastards to the Land.

“So... do you know what you are going to do with them once this fight is over?” Because they were going to be the most terrifying army this world had ever known.

“Unfortunately, yes.” He looked at me inquiringly. “Can’t tell ya. But they’ll need it all with what’s coming.”

He just grunted. His focus was on the Warp, so he really didn’t care. It would just be another reason to Make Fate and tie the fuckers up in the Doom coming off him...