Summers was propped against a wall of what used to be the church, along with Asle and Roan, watching as Asmund took control of the situation. His people had been trying to finish off the crippled monstrosity. They’d even used that same, massive fire to burn the food Mia had tried to feed its starving populace.

That wasn’t to say the crisis was over, but it looked like the city would come out on top. He could still hear distant fighting, as well as gunfire, but nothing like an organized resistance. The dark, twisting tunnels of the city had apparently given the city a fighting chance against modern weapons.

It was dying down now, giving Synel a chance to talk to Asmund. They spoke with one another a bit further away. Summers was letting her handle the diplomacy.

He was more concerned with his, apparently broken, hand. After the adrenaline had worn off, Summers had realized more than a few of his fingers were basically being held together by skin. He’d been spending the last few minutes tenderly setting them back into place and hoping they healed as fast as he normally did. It worried him that he was starting to shrug off injuries like this without realizing it, more so, it didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected.

Sure, he looked like a badass, but it also suggested that the pain numbing nature of the hamr was coming back. If his fight with Mia was any indication, that was probably the case. Meaning his amateur brain surgery had bought him a lot less time than he’d expected.

He looked up as Asmund and Synel broke off their conversation and approached.

“I’m told I have you to thank for our survival.” Asmund said.

“I just helped kill that thing.” Summers answered, getting to his feet.

The entire city had seen him jumping around, doing one thing or another that bordered on insane.

“I’ve also been told you represent a group that can help us.” Asmund added.

He eyed Asle, Summers stepped in front of the girl before Asmund could connect that she was the slave he’d seen.

“And I think you might have the wrong idea. I don’t represent anyone. We aren’t some group like Mia’s.” He clocked the confusion on Asmund’s face. “Look, do you know what the samr are going to do now? Because my guess, they’re going to come back for this city, that seem right?”

“. . .Yes.”

“If you want to fight them, I can give you the tools to do that. If not, I can at least help keep your people from starving to death in the meantime.”

Asmund considered that.

“Thank you, for what you did for my people. But. . .”

Summers tensed, far as he was concerned Mia had just tried to kill the city, the hesitation he was hearing was not a good sign. They needed Asmund if they were going to stand any chance fighting the samr.

“But what?”

“The offer is generous, and your help was welcome, but the coming enemy is not one you can help us with.”

“Whatever Mia told you about the “end” you saw –”

“What I saw couldn’t be fought. Not by us.” He paused. “She offered me a way for my people to live on, to prepare.”

“No, she didn’t. She wanted to save her own people. You were a tool to get there. Whatever deal you worked out with her, she wasn’t going to keep it. This attack proves that. Or you think that she’d kill everyone and bring them back out of the goodness of her heart?”

Asmund looked at Summers, clearly considering something.

His contemplations were interrupted by a scream nearby. Summers got to his feet, seeing a bloody man with twisted, almost melted flesh where his face should be stumbling around the corner.

“What the fuck?”

“Aven!” Asmund yelled, moving to the man Summers was increasingly sure shouldn’t be on his feet.

Something about the half-naked figure put him on edge. And not just because most of his torso looked to be missing.

Beside him, Asle’s eyes snapped open, just as the not quite human figure rushed towards them. Summers moved to intercept it only for Asmund to grab him. “No!”

That was all the hesitation it needed to put a hand on Asle, and suddenly, they were in a sea of black. Summers’ sense of time slowed, his world became a sea of darkness, and all at once he ceased to be himself. Emptiness filled him, only to be replaced just as quickly by an existential terror he had no words for. Summers’ mind began to collapse in on itself.

He wasn’t sure when he moved, but by the time his fist had slammed into the faceless creature’s skull, he was back beside Asle, back in the church.

The group was all standing now, everyone wide eyed. Nearby, he saw one of Asmund’s men vomit, then pass out.

Summers looked down at the now headless corpse at his feet.

“. . .Fuck me.”

They took some time to recover from their. . . Summers was hesitant to call it a vision, for all he knew, with Asle’s powers they could have been transported somewhere for a split second. Whatever it was, they’d all experienced it.

Asle was now fully awake beside him, her mouth opened as if to say something, but all that came out was a small squeak.

Right, existential crises and possible mental breakdowns could wait, he had shit to do.

“Asle,” Summers began,”- are you okay?”

She shook her head, no. Honestly, probably a healthy sign.

“Are you hurt?” Summers tried.

Another shake of the head.

“Asle, I need you to use words.” Summers said.

Asle hesitated before speaking. “. . .I. . . I could feel it crawling inside me. Not like that woman, it was crawling in me.”

“But it’s gone now, right?”

Asle hesitated, then nodded.

“Mia told me her people were killed by a. . . force. I think. . . I think that was it,” Asmund said after some time. “She told me my brother had been touched by it. That thing. . . he wasn’t my brother, was he?”

“I don’t know, but nothing the samr has could fight whatever the fuck we just saw.” Summers responded.

He’d only seen a glimpse of. . . something, but it had overwhelmed him entirely.

He recalled Wendel telling him this thing went after humans, if it had already “touched” someone on this world, that only meant that it was aware of them.

“No wonder Mia was impatient.” Summers mumbled. “If this thing knows we’re here, it’s going to be coming.”

Both Asle and Asmund looked at him as if to say: “I told you so.”

The worst part was, they were right. A deep part of Summers’ mind, or maybe not his own, knew that thing was coming. That might have been the part of his brain the hamr had rewritten, or something else entirely, but it was something he knew as a fact.

This was the monster that took out an entire civilization that could screw with dimensions. And if it didn’t know they were here already, they may have just knocked on its door.

Summers rubbed at tired eyes, trying to clear his mind. That was terrifying, but not necessarily something he could solve right now. Hell, it might now be something the samr could solve.

He turned to Asmund.

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck that thing was, or if we can do anything about it. But I do know that you just had someone stab you in the back, and they’ll be coming back. I can help.”

Asmund’s eyes drifted him, apparently coming back to the reality of the situation. Distant screams still punctuated what was obviously an ongoing issue.

“This city’s going to have issues for a while, everything that monster touched is uh. . .” Summers turned to Synel.

“Poison.” Synel supplied the proper word. Though she still looked out of it.

“Right. I can help the people you find get over it faster, far as I can tell it slows the process down. Otherwise, people like Mia can control them.”

“I. . . see.” Asmund answered.

“Mia never shared that with you?”

“I understood they could convert someone with blood, and when I heard she’d offered food in my place. . .”

“It’s more than that, in fact I’d be very careful using water anywhere near where that creature had landed. You should spread the word on that as fast as you can.”

“I’ll ensure it does.”

Synel moved in.

“And you should know that our offer of an alliance extends to you, personally, as well, seer. Including any followers of yours.” Synel added. “I don’t expect the cities’ other factions will be kind to you once things cool.”

Asmund froze, apparently realizing something, then inclined his head, offering no argument.

Summers stared back at Synel, suddenly realizing what she was getting at. Asmund had invited the woman who did all of this into the city. There was no way in hell he was getting out of this unscathed, and as terrible as it might have been, that was a golden opportunity for them. And Synel had taken that angle without hesitation.

She’d warned Asmund about a problem he might not have seen coming in the aftermath of the battle. And gave him an out.

He was again, thankful the woman was on his side.

Summers helped a few of those infected during the fight recover as best he could. Pulling the hamr out of them wasn’t difficult since it hadn’t fully rooted in their brains yet, but all he was doing was slowing down the spread. Like he’d done with Asle or even himself, they’d eventually become drones like the others. But he still had to do it. He was tired, sure, but people’s lives were on the line, sleep could wait.

Asmund had moved off to take control of the city, and possibly sure up what protection for himself he could. Synel had been doing her best to spread rumors of their base among the populace. They might not get an official alliance out of this. But given the amount of destruction the city had seen; they’d surely be getting a few people. Whether they could or would fight would be seen. Then again, these were not people he’d seen willing to sit on the sidelines, you didn’t grow up with monsters in your backyard and assume they’d go away on their own.

Synel returned after some time, looking tired herself. “We should get some rest; I’d suggest we leave as soon as we can.”

“Any particular reason?”

“The city is in a delicate place, politically. They’re looking for someone to blame and we’re outsiders that have upset the balance of power. Either way, they’re just as likely to condemn us or drag us into their own plans as anything and I’m not one to bet on optimism or the generosity of strangers.”

“Do we even have a way out?” Summers asked.

“No, but with everything going on I’m sure we can steal one.”

Roan threw up a hand from a few feet away.

“I’m serious, you’re never allowed to call me a thief again.”

Summers eyed the boy. He was beat up, bruised, and while most of his wounds had been bandaged, he was not in a good place. Summers remembered what he’d seen, how the monster reacted when it touched Roan.

He looked over to a black limb, probably an arm, something that might have been torn off the giant creature before its plunge into the canyon. Asmund’s men were already cleaning those up, but right now Summers could use it.

“Hey Roan,” Summers called over. “You mind if I do a little experiment on you?”

“What’s an experiment?”

“I just need some blood.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Or put me at ease, at all.”

“Yeah, but this is important.”

Roan considered Summers, then offered his already battered arm. Summers took it, trying to be gentle as he changed out one of the bandages.

“See? Easy.” Summers said. The kid eyed him as Summers went over to the tar black limb in the street and squeezed the red bandage over it. A few errant drops of blood leaked over the limb, which then began to convulse. “What the hell?”

He watched as black tendrils began to pull free from bone, only to dissolve into a dark, steaming puddle a moment later. What was left was a mishmash of muscle and exposed tendons.

The group all stared at the limb, before looking back to Roan.

“. . .Is that normal?” Roan asked.

“Not even slightly normal.” Summers looked back at the limb. A few drops of blood had turned the arm into a red, shredded mess. Red, as if the hamr had divorced from the limb entirely. The black substance beside it still writhed in what might have been pain if Summers didn’t know better.

He looked at Roan, the dark red veins that peppered the boy’s skin. Maybe, whatever it was that made the kid a manpak didn’t get along with the hamr. He looked again at the steaming pile of dark liquid.

“Kid, I think you might be our secret weapon.”