Androkles released his killing intent, and Wolfscar shot down and stopped inches from his face. The fairy’s eyes were wide with terror, his whole body timid and tremoring. He grabbed a lock of Androkles’ hair in both hands and urgently yelled, “Papa, there are a lot, a lot! Too many!”

“Too many what?”

“Too many Allobrogians. And some ogres came, but Flower sang a song about being scared and they ran away! And so did I, because I heard it!”

“You don’t have earplugs, do you?”

“No! I put my fingers in but it didn’t work.” Wolfscar paused, blinked twice, and said, “Oh. I think I feel better now.” He released Androkles’ hair and drifted back a few more inches.

“You were supposed to be watching the soldiers and telling Natuak’s people where attacks are coming from. Go back to doing that, away from Flower’s singing.”

“Well, I did that, but I was telling everybody else, too. The soldiers got to the men but not to the women yet. There were just some ogres, and some other things. A lot of them. And they were coming to get the women and go where Garbi was, so Flower sang and it scared them. I heard it.”

“Yes, I know you heard it. You told me. Are all the soldiers up the pass yet?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know about every single one, but I think so. I think they are. Or mostly. And they are still in the forest over that way,” said Wolfscar, pointing behind the King, “and just some more that way, over by the Night People men where they’re fighting. But they’re not fighting really hard, just sort of.”

Androkles frowned. “Tell Natuak to have the men start backing up, toward the women, like we talked about before. They should start moving now.”

“Okay. I’m not scared anymore, Papa. It was just from Flower. There wasn’t an owl.” Wolfscar nodded gravely, then shot back up into the sky.

Wolfscar might not be worried anymore, but Androkles was. He wished he could get Wolfscar to tell him how spread out the King’s forces were, but the fairy had no concept of distance. Not at all. That might be useful. At least he knew his family was still fine, which was something.

It occurred to him that with the limited sight range in this forest, how were all the Allobrogians supposed to learn their King was dead? What was Androkles going to do, exactly? Ride around waving the man’s head? No, it’d have to be his whole body, skewered on a spear and carried like a banner.

And now that he thought about it, if both groups of Night People were already under attack, that meant the King likely knew where they were. He’d send more forces. Only so many men could be fielded against Androkles at once, after all. May as well put the others to some use.

He should not have waited or slowed down, he realized. He needed to keep the King fully occupied until one of them died.

Androkles started walking forward, killing intent still blazing hotly around him. His anger dried up all the spilled blood in puffs of fragrant smoke. Dry pine needles on the underside of trees flared brightly as he walked past.

The King gave a nod and raised his sword again. He shouted and his berserkers broke their line to surge forward like so many angry black scorpions, all claw and horn.

Androkles withdrew his killing intent slightly to let them get a little closer. He braced and gripped his spear for a thrust.

The lead berserker, well-muscled and nude as a bull, charged on all fours with his horns forward. The claws of his fingers and toes flung the dirt behind him in clumps.

Androkles tightened his grip on the spear for a stab, eying the ones following up behind to try and plan his strikes.

The lead demon suddenly toppled into the dirt so hard that his horns dug in. Momentum carried his thickly-muscled body end-over-end and snapped his neck. He didn’t even have time to twitch before he was dead.

Arrows. Five or six of them masterfully aimed and piercing the demon’s arms and wrists.

Four more berserkers fell, and another three stumbled. Androkles reached back with the fingers of his mind and sensed the archers standing just out of worst of his killing intent. Their arms stirred his senses as they drew and fired a second volley.

This time not a single arrow found its target. The berserkers swatted them out of the air with hands or tails moving too fast for Androkles to track. Three of the ones who’d been hit rolled back to their feet and yanked the arrows out, eyes wild and insane.

Androkles let his killing intent surge back out, rising to its strength again to stop their charge and give him a moment to kill a few before they retreated. However, the sickness of their souls pressed back hard and turned away the worst of Androkles’ fury. He felt it like two walls of water pressing together, rising high into the air and deep into the earth, trying to overwhelm the other.

He realized it would not work with them all together, and for the first time today, Androkles felt genuine fear worming up his spine.

A skinny, scarred berserker with a dirty woolen loincloth was the first to come into range. Androkles snapped his killing intent on and off, hoping to disorient him. A moment’s hesitation, and Androkles stabbed for his heart.

The demon raised a hand to catch the point with his flesh, snarling his hatred.

The spear sliced right through the bones of the hand like they weren’t even there. It barely slowed as it punched through his chest and out the other side. Never underestimate the spear, fool.

He had to dance back, first two steps, then four, to avoid attacks of claw and tail. As their souls battled back and forth, he could feel their attacks, feel the intent of them coming just in time to get away.

Which was good, because with so many of them so close together, their naked twilight-dark skin melded them all into one squirming, heaving shadow. One mass of twisting flesh and claws and teeth and fiery silver eyes.

They were fast. He had only an instant to deflect or block, to slip away from a grasping hand or lunging horns or teeth. Each time, he only escaped by a hair’s width.

Another arrow came racing in. He felt it split the air behind him and struck with his spear just as the arrow was knocked from the air by its target. The berserker couldn’t react to both in time and Androkles nearly severed his head with a thrust to the neck.

A berserker leaped over the dead body, twisting in the air to slash with his tail. Androkles raised the spear to let the tail slice itself on the spear’s blade. The severed tail tapped Androkles’ back and fell twitching to the ground.

Andokles spun the spear to deflect a kick, then a punch, and another. He stepped back and lunged forward with a long, low attack and caught the ankle of a lanky berserker in ancient, ragged leather pants.

Then three of them attacked at once, working with terrifying, unexpected coordination. Two thrust their claws for his thighs, and another leaped up to rake for his eyes. Their claws got his legs, but he got his arm up just in time to protect his eyes.

The instant Androkles’ arm was up, a sharp fist slammed into his broken ribs, re-breaking them. He felt them crack.

The wave of pain and nausea almost severed Androkles from his killing intent, but he held on by the barest thread. He had neither time to breathe nor think as the attacks began to arrive three or four at a time. They cycled in and out, their twisting bodies sliding against each other as they moved forward and back with unbelievable timing and precision. It did not feel like fighting many men at once; it felt like fighting one very big, wretched beast.

His recovery from the fresh injury took too long, causing him to hesitate slightly. The berserkers sensed the opening and leaped on him, digging their claws in like hooks to try and pull him down.

Androkles screamed in fury and pain and flexed his legs to stay upright. He weighed as much as three or four of them put together, but by the gods they were strong. Their sickness clashed against his rage, which burned hotter and hotter as he fed it his desperation. The fingers of his mind could find no purchase, nothing to grab and burn, nothing to extinguish.

One of them tried to wrest the spear from his grasp, but he kept his fingers around it. The haft refused to slide in his grip, despite its cleanly lacquered surface.

Those with their claws in him surged as one to pull him backward and down, once, twice. He could feel his balance tipping, his feet slipping. So could they. Their sick souls added a note of cheer as they withdrew slightly to surge forward again.

Androkles powered his left arm free, leaving hissing blood trails that turned to smoke in the air. He caught a berserker by the throat and tried to yank him away, but the fiend didn’t budge.

His mind went to the feeling of the berserker’s skin again his palm, the crunchy bits of flesh in his neck. Like when he’d smashed that pebble in his palm only a few days before, his killing intent gathered in the spot his mind focused on. With an exultant surge of hatred, Androkles threw his killing intent into his enemy’s body.

The effect was immediate. The berserker didn’t even shudder before he died, ignited from within by Androkles’ anger. The fire hollowed him out so quickly that his skin burst with a loud bang when the smoke had nowhere to go.

The unified berserkers shook in a wave as they felt it, but they did not relent. No sooner had Androkles tossed away the remaining scraps of skin than another got the claws of both hands into his forearm.

Androkles tried to gather his killing intent using the claws in his flesh as focal points, but there were far too many. The one trying to get his spear away opened his mouth to bite off Androkles’ fingers, but Androkles flexed to give the berserker a few short, hard punches in the teeth.

At least they’d stopped trying to slice and punch and kick, but he was pretty sure that if they got him down, they’d eat him raw.

With a mighty burst of strength in his legs, Androkles pushed up and spun away, getting most of their claws out and opening about thirty puncture wounds.

An instant later they came in again to grab him like before, but he got another half step back and most of them merely tore his flesh with their claws. He grabbed a gleaming black horn and focused his killing intent into it, a little easier now that last time. To his surprise, the black horn glowed red like hot iron and the fiend screamed in helpless agony for the barest moment until black smoke started pouring out his open mouth.

That killing moment was all it took for them to grab him again, digging their fingertips in deeper than before, as if they wanted to pull his flesh away in handfuls.

Androkles tried to leap and twist away again, but they were ready for him and held him down.

Before he had time to think of another plan, the iron pillar of Dyana’s presence came swinging into the field of his anger like a club. Relief flooded him and hope gave him strength.

She delivered a spinning kick into the side of a berserker’s neck, turning bone to sand and killing him instantly.

Another kick and she collapsed the knee of one of the berserkers holding him and Androkles had the use of his spear again. He choked up on it and drove the point at an enemy’s eye, but the demon ducked.

Dyana fought like a bloodied tiger, giving wild, animalistic screams that sounded all the more terrifying because it was a woman’s voice. The sound of it cut him. Androkles felt how surges of her power gathered with each blow she struck, and he realized she was focusing her intent perfectly to turn her little girl fists into lead hammers. So that’s how she did it! That was quite a trick.

He knew he’d have no chance to mimic that here and now, but maybe someday. Gods, what a glory that would be. Stone-crusher!

Just the thought of it made him more aware of his hands, which was silly. But before he could cast the thought away and refocus on not getting his bowels ripped open, he took notice of the spear haft in his hand, the way it gleamed brightly in the growing light of the fires. How it seemed to grab his hand back like a handshake instead of a length of wood.

His killing intent poured into the spear more quickly and easily than he could have imagined possible, like it was part of his body. A third arm. He knew the whole length of it, each twist of filigree, each perfectly-carved letter he couldn’t read. The metal of the wide, flat spear blade heated like his own face warming in sunlight.

His killing intent gathered and gathered, swelling within him to pour into the spear. It crashed up out of the deepest reserves of his spirit. The pale, silvery, impenetrable metal of the spear’s blade glowed red, then yellow, then white hot.

Dyana had now drawn their attention and it took all her skill to defend herself. A berserker swept her legs at the same time another raked her back with its claws. She jumped over the sweep but the claws caught on her spine and disrupted her balance, throwing her downward.

She turned the fall into a roll and blocked an incoming strike, then another, then a third. Her iron skin, impervious to swords, was unable to fully protect her against the demons’ claws, and her attire left plenty of bare skin for them to cut. She was starting to look a bit like him, even if most of her injuries were scrapes or shallow cuts, not gouges.

Androkles swung the white-hot spear blade at the wrists of a berserker with its claws in his stomach, thinking to hold the metal against his flesh until he let go. To his surprise, the blade sliced cleanly through both of the berserker’s arms with a sound almost like a sucked egg, giving almost no resistance.

He roared in triumph and swung the spear through the set of arms holding his right calf, then pierced another through the back of the skull before it could slice Dyana with its tail. The smoke of its scorching brains squealed through the hole.

A volley of arrows came in from behind and three injured berserkers were finished off. They were truly exceptional fighters, these Night People. It was a comfort to have them behind him.

Two demons darted in for Dyana and closed a circle around her. They tried to grab her all at once, but she was much quicker on her feet than he was. She ducked low beneath their grasping hands and twisted away, somehow dislocating an enemy’s shoulder in the process.

Androkles spun the spear, twirling to touch as many with the burning spear tip as possible. This time the berserkers leaped back to avoid him.

He went for a long thrust at a stomach but overextended himself. His whole torso spasmed when the broken ends of his ribs rubbed against each other and his attack fell short. He nearly dropped his spear, but it refused to leave his grip. The pain brought tears to his eyes, potentially blinding him, but sensing everything in the field of his anger was enough to compensate.

The demons hung back, just out of his reach, each time he lunged for one it scrambled away. It felt like his own hand trying to catch a fly and failing, over and over.

Dyana desperately knocked away kicking feet and grasping claws. A swipe came in she didn’t have enough hands to stop and she raised her shoulder to protect her face. The claws raked her skin and left four fresh lines of blood behind.

She glanced at Androkles and their eyes met. He gave a nod at a particular berserker, one between them. They attacked as one, Dyana spinning in with a kick and Androkles thrusting in with the spear. The demon tried to evade both and failed, catching the kick on the hips and the spear in the collarbone. He tumbled to the ground.

Androkles stomped his heel on the berserker’s sternum and held it there, squeezing down. He swiped the spear to ward off two more demons who thought they saw an opening, then pushed the spear into his skull, letting the demon’s horn guide the tip down.

Dyana proved an excellent battlefield strategist, focusing her attacks on whichever one was closest to Androkles. Between them, they caught and killed another, and another.

The ones in the periphery began hesitating and Androkles could feel their sickly presence start to give way before his anger.

Nearby, another pine burst into flames from the heat of Androkles’ rage. Glancing around, there was a lot more fire than he realized, with at least a dozen burning trees choking the sky with thick gray smoke.

The demons took notice of the fire as well, their silvery eyes drawn to the burst of yellow flames. In that moment of distraction, another volley of arrows flew. Most of the demons sensed them coming in time to flick them away in motions too quick to see, but two arrows struck true. One demon’s head snapped back from being hit in the eye and he crumpled like an empty sack. The second demon got hit in the thigh and couldn’t get away from Dyana’s surprise heel kick.

They would win this. He and Dyana would kill the last of the demons, easily in view of so many scores of Allobrogians and their King. Would the King retreat then, rather than risk losing even more? Where was he, anyway?

A sudden flash of light and a boom of thunder from behind got Androkles to spin on his heels. A few dozen paces back, the King stood over the smoking ruin of an archer. King Lugubelenus was still in motion, swinging his enormous two-handed sword in a high downward slice at another archer. The poor Night Person rolled backward, avoiding the tip of the King’s blade by inches, but another crack of lightning killed him with a blinding flash and stunning boom.

The remaining handful of archers threw down their weapons and fled for their lives. The King couldn’t keep up while holding his sword, but he nearly got another one; his swing fell a pace short and no lightning came.

The King slowed and stood tall. Turning around, he and Androkles sized each other up for a moment, then began walking to close the distance. It was a good sixty or seventy paces, and as the King came into the field of Androkles’ rage, the man’s presence felt enormous, entirely unlike when they had clashed in the Great Hall.

Then, the King had been improvising, fighting with whatever sorcery he and the Prince could gather on a moment’s notice. Now he came as a sorcerer King, riding in his glory with his armies, a Great King who ruled the many lands he subdued by the sword.

Four severed heads, each decorated with crowns that must have been nailed on, hung from his belt. Androkles had not seen them when the man sat on his horse.

The remaining berserkers withdrew, leaving Dyana panting in relief. She rested with her hands on her knees, face blushing hard from so much acrobatic effort. Androkles motioned for her to stay back, and she nodded.

Androkles’ fury never waned, and another tree burst into flames as he walked a little too close to it. The whole thing went up at once, from root bark to top needles. The area started feeling a little warm, which would make for a comfortable fight. Androkles grinned.

Only a few more paces and they were close enough to speak as men. For a moment, neither of them did. Androkles glared down at him, but the King wore his rulership like a good pair of stilts. It made him seem taller than he was.

The King’s presence within the field of Androkles’ anger was an odd feeling. Their conflicting powers seemed to slip past and through each other, as if they only partially occupied the same space. Androkles could not press against the King directly, nor the King him. Even so, there was something familiar about the King’s presence that Androkles couldn’t quite define. Like a face in the crowd that looked like someone he thought he knew but couldn’t remember.

For his part, Androkles’ killing intent was so powerful by now that he could almost hear the air cracking apart under the strain. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been slowly drawing deeper and deeper throughout the fight with the berserkers. The way it naturally flowed into his spear tip hid the sheer amount, but he was starting to feel a numb tingling in his toes and he wondered if he’d finally found the limit.

King Lugubelenus tightened his grip on his long sword as if considering taking the first swing, but he didn’t. The two of them simply watched each other.

“Smudge.” It sounded less like a greeting, and more like he’d spotted something odd laying on the ground and remarked on it.

“My son killed your son,” replied Androkles calmly with an insult of his own. The spear tip sizzled softly as it burned the humidity out of the air.

The King shot him a look of… It took Androkles a moment to realize, but it wasn’t anger, it was disgust. Disgust, like the face a mother made when her child farted at mealtime. When the King spoke, it was through a sneer. “Someone’s son did. He isn’t yours.”

“Whatever I feel like taking from barbarians and have the strength to hold is mine, Lug,” replied Androkles. “He’s as much mine as I want him to be.”

“I have twenty-two more sons, Smudge, each clever and strong. There is no doubt whose they are or who got them. But what about your little stolen Skythander? Will your people accept him? Will they all pretend he is your seed when it comes time to name your heir?”

“If I name him my heir, then yes, they will, because my people know how to write and follow laws.”

“Yes, of course. That civilized and learned Laophilean way. You and your people disgust me. Your honor. Your pride. Your marble temples and bronze-covered ships, your hordes of sun-scalded men in silly robes they have to hold shut with one hand talking about their wisdom. When I take my armies and annihilate your people, it will be so I never have to hear another tiresome discussion of your laws.”

Androkles regarded him coolly. Why were they even talking? “We have laws, and you have severed heads. I don’t want to hear about disgust from a man who defiles corpses.”

King Lugubelenus snorted. “You have so many laws that a man can do whatever he wants, as long as he knows the right law. Take his neighbor’s cattle, his neighbor’s wife. Throw a noble off his land and take that. Borrow some money, send the lender to stand before a jury and never pay it back. The only virtue you have is cunning. Your people’s honor is deader than the kings on my belt. My proof is how your own father was treated. Imagine, brought to ruin by neighbors and friends. How crass. How weak. I cannot fathom why you are so eager to get back.”

The King stood tall and proud, speaking as a man who expected to be listened to. Androkles felt his ire rising, and he said, “I’d rather be there than here. You are welcome to keep your starving kingdom of frozen mud and enjoy all your drafty wooden buildings with no floors. I’m eager to set my foot on carved stone and tile again.”

“I have no doubt you miss your fancy buildings. You Laophileans pride yourselves on your marble halls and temples, but the Rivermen have grander and older than yours. You boast of your mighty armies, but mine is larger, and the Sarpaens’ is larger still. What do your people have in greater degree than any other tribe of men? The ability to stab a brother in the back? The ability to argue your way into whatever evil thought strikes you that morning?”

The King didn’t gesture with his hand or sword, or let his voice rise and fall in the way of an orator. He kept himself steady and even, collected and disciplined, uninterested in impressing anyone. He spoke as if he didn’t care if anyone heard or believed him because he was speaking undeniable, eternal truth. It reminded Androkles of Arthfael, or rather, it revealed what Arthfael was aspiring to and failed to reach. Androkles found it increasingly insufferable.

Androkles said, “You say the Rivermen are older and greater than the Glories, and it’s true. I’ve been there and seen it. I’ve pissed in their river after crushing one of their armies. Every nation worthy of note built with stone. Even the demons did, in ages past. I’ve seen those ruins too. So where are yours?”

“Your stone buildings are a mark of shame. You think your piety is not real if you have no marble temple for everyone to see. No King without a palace, no customs without laws carved in stone. No family without a collection of old rocks to live under. The Glories, indeed. Would you call yourselves the Glories if you truly believe you were? If you truly believed your Cities were the glory of the earth, would you feel any need to let everyone know? Of course not. You do not believe in your own value because deep inside, you know you have none.”

“Curious words for a man wearing so much gold.”

“I wear this gold so all can see I do not fear losing it. I am no more King with it than without it, and your opinion does not matter, nor does any other man’s. I know what I am. I command life and death. I am heard and loved by the greatest of gods. I am a King and I do not need you to kneel or praise me for that to be true. You, on the other hand, what are you? Do you know, Smudge? Are you a soldier, having no army? Are you a noble, having no property? Are you a father, having no natural children? Are you even a Dikaian, if your City ruined your father and abandoned you? You are nothing.”

Androkles scowled. This man was, in all admitted honesty, truly great. A conqueror of nations, a Great King. He had everything—glory, wives, children, a crown, an army, good food and wine, loyal men and admirers. He was fearsome with that sword, skilled enough to be remembered. But his strength extended into a silver tongue, and iron spine, and the ways of sorcery. In short, he was the sort of man Androkles aspired to have as a peer, or at least to be respected by. But the King had put Androkles below himself, and instead of respect, showed only disdain. That, and not any particular thing the man said, stung.

Only now did the King smile. Whether he’d guessed what Androkles was thinking, only the gods knew; but the King’s smile was slow and easy, not too friendly or too large. A smile for and to himself. His own pleasure at his success.

“There it is. I see it on that scarred mess you call a face. You may have wondered why I chose to speak to you, and now you know. I wanted you to understand before you died that you are beneath me in every way. You are not my equal and never could have been. It was just and right for me to make you my slave.”

For a moment, they simply regarded each other, listening to the crackling of the handful of nearby burning trees. Androkles grew more and more unsettled as doubt spread subtly within him, quietly, gently, too hard to completely reject.

“Tell me, Lug, have you ever seen a god? In person, right in front of you?” Androkles finally said. “Because I have. I’ve seen two. One of them I killed and the other one called me with affection I still don’t understand. You may have a great army, Lug; wives and children, wealth and prestige and everything else, but you’ve never done what I have. I will be a man of glory in the end.”

“We shall see. It is time, is it not? Call on your gods, Androkles son of Paramonos, and I will call on mine. We will see who will be answered and whose people will be saved.”

Before Androkles could give a reply to this, the King raised his sword straight and high above his head. He called out, “God of Thunder, God of War, you brothers, bless my blade.”

Androkles felt a connection open between something far above him and the King’s sword. It punched through his killing intent like a spear, leaving a hole in Androkles’ awareness like a burn mark.

“God of Allobrogians, Goddess of Fate, God of Courage, you leaders and guides, bless my skin and person with your protection.”

Divine will and power rushed in from every direction in the smoke-filled woods, absorbed into the King’s own presence.

“God of Rebirth, guard the souls of men and return them to the wombs of women.”

Androkles tightened his grip on his spear, debating attacking now before the man was done, but he hesitated.

The King lowered his eyes from the sky and looked at Androkles. He smiled and said, “It would be a shame for our fight to have no witnesses. I think I will call on one more god. Then we will both have seen one.”

He raised his voice again and called out, “God of the Great Below, you who consumes all things in the end, you eater of mountains and men, support my feet. Provider of crops, drink this blood and return it in corn. We make war in your name, so come, Hewer, come now and behold this battle!”

“No!” shouted Androkles, filling with wild panic. “Not him! Do not call him!”

The King laughed and held his arms out. Greater wills than the King’s protected him now. Androkles could feel it in the King’s presence as it battled against his killing intent, driving it back.

Androkles leaped forward, spear raised for a killing strike. The King made no attempt to block or move, trusting in his sorcery. The glowing-hot spear tip met the King’s fine gold-embroidered chain shirt--

The world vanished in a flash of white as a skull-shattering thunderclap nearly knocked Androkles unconscious. He stumbled backward, sore and wounded in a way he couldn’t explain. He gasped and blinked over and over, trying to regain his vision. It did not return quickly, leaving him blinded.

His killing intent had not failed him. In its field, the King stumbled backward as well. The King’s confusion colored his presence so sharply that Androkles was nearly caught up in it. But there was something else, something wider and larger from all around them—pain. Not the King’s, and not his.

“What--!” yelled King Lugubelenus.

Androkles could feel where the King stood, sense the position of his arms. Sense the will of gods surrounding him. He moved forward with his spear.

The spear tip sizzled in the air. The powers surrounding the King trembled at its presence. The King felt it and threw his sword up to deflect the blow.

“How?!” shouted the King. He countered with a high, downward arc that Androkles easily avoided.

“The gods know better than to get involved, Lug,” said Androkles back.

They exchanged attacks cleanly and without hesitation for the space of ten more breaths before Androkles’ vision began to return.

The first thing Androkles saw was that the spear tip had lost its light—only the strange symbols glowed now, the ones he thought might be letters in another tongue. The rest of the smooth metal had dimmed, looking almost black in contrast, but the golden filigree up and down the haft shone brilliantly in the smoke-darkened orange light of the sun.

Lightning buzzed inside the eyes of the King. The man raised his sword high overhead and a faint blue glow gathered at the tip.

Androkles felt power gathering beneath his own feet and leaped backward just in time. A bolt of lightning fell from a clear blue sky onto the spot where he’d been standing. He felt more than heard the thunder it made.

The King circled his sword overhead and Androkles thrust forward with his spear before another lightning bolt could fall. The spear tip pushed through the invisible resistance of the air, slowed too much to penetrate the King’s chain shirt. But where the metals met, sparks flew.

Something in the spear fought the gods’ blessings. Androkles stepped forward, pushing. Lugubelenus didn’t budge, rooted to the ground as firmly as a tree. His sword came slicing in for Androkles’ ribs, and Androkles had to pull the spear away to block.

Androkles turned the spear in his hands and struck forward with another thrust, but the King dodged it with grace. Androkles’ anger swirled and clashed with the King’s, splitting pebbles on the ground and cracking the air. Nearby, another tree ignited instantaneously with a loud boom, shooting flames a hundred feet into the sky. The fires all around him were beginning to spread to other pines. It was getting warm. The smoke in the air was starting to scratch his lungs.

Far, far beneath him, deep in the ground, the barest edges of his perception felt movement. A small tremble. Something approached. The Hewer. He knew it.

“You should not have called him! Not today!” shouted Androkles, nearly wanting to leap into the sky and fly away.

“Let him come!” the King shouted back at him. Gathering all his strength, he lost his Kingly composure and took on a more bestial aspect. His face contorted into animalistic barbarity and his intent felt like it grew claws.

A dozen gods gazed down from their thrones. Androkles could feel their eyes, their immense minds rolling over him. He could feel how they blessed their chosen, the King. Pure vigor, pure fire, pure focus, and much more besides. It all flowed into the King without losing its distinct aspect. His spirit shone like a throne of gems and gold.

And yet, all that divine power trembled and feared when Androkles’ spear tip drew near. He redoubled the pressure of his assault, performing a dozen shadow-quick thrusts at full distance, using all the length of his arms. Then a dozen more. The glowing lettering on the spear tip left trails of light in the air.

The King stepped backward, barely turning each thrust left or right as it came, waiting for his chance. The fury in his blood seethed. His eyes sparked with lightning. Then backward again, and again, ready to strike the instant Androkles extended too far. The fight hung in perfect balance, like dancers on a wire of iron above a pit of flame.

A groan from the earth gave them both pause. It was the groan of a voice, impossibly deep and loud, and far, far away. Small tremors came up through Androkles’ toes. All the hair on his body stood on end. He was coming.

Time was short. Androkles dare not risk meeting him again, especially not with his family so close. The Hewer would go where the crowd was and insist on a show and crush them all into red paste when he didn’t get one like he wanted. The forest was probably full from end to end with soldiers, but the crowd, the fighting crowd, was back behind him, nearer the crest of the mountains. Where the Night People men made the first line of defense and the women the last.

King Lugubelenus saw the fear in Androkles’ eyes, or perhaps he felt it in Androkles’ killing intent. Either way he grinned and relaxed his posture slightly. “Surely you didn’t think a few broken beast men were the extent of my glory? That my sword was all for show? Someone else took all those heads?”

Androkles changed his grip on the spear, holding it near to the middle to bring the fight in closer. He struck over and over again, alternating between the spear tip and butt end. The King changed his grip to match, holding the blade with one hand to keep up with the shifting directions.

He tried a hesitation followed by a feint, tried a trip, tried a misdirection and a kick, but nothing worked. The King was a true veteran, careful and wise.

The best advantage Androkles had was length, but the King’s counter to that was armor. He could take a hit or two and Androkles could not.

The King turned the pommel of his sword in toward Androkles’ gut, but he stepped back just in time to save what was left of his ribs. Lug tried to move the momentum of the fight in his favor with a series of low cuts and a high feint, but Androkles was no greenwood recruit either.

Androkles began to notice other presences in range of his killing intent. A glance revealed nothing but empty air, and he had very little attention to spare them. These were not the far-off eyes of the Allobrogian gods, or the conduits of their power far above them; these were new. There seemed to be several hovering near the King, and a few at Androkles’ side or behind him.

Their presence in his awareness grew and nagged at him, and each time one moved he flinched, reflexively expecting an attack. Was this some new trick of the King’s? Some menace by the spirits he controlled? Androkles couldn’t tell, but nothing had happened yet.

The King stepped back, easily twisting away from Androkles’ spear thrusts. He raised his sword his over his head and pointed it toward the skies. A crackling bolt of lightning descended with a stunning flash and wrapped itself around the blade.

Androkles stepped back, spear ready for anything, and marveled.

“Smudge, I have half a mind to let you go free. It pleases me to think of facing you again in the ruins of your City and killing you then, once your despair is complete.”

“Great. Go ahead. Turn your back on me and try to leave,” said Androkles. He hesitated trying another attack; his eyes were on the King’s crackling sword and the sharp, glowing lines shivering up and down its length.

“No. I will take your head here, and you can watch from my belt. Call on your gods, Androkles Giant-slayer. You have not done so yet. Call on them, and then die.”

Androkles gripped his spear more tightly in both hands and shifted his feet for maximum mobility. But now that he thought about it, what did he have to lose? Only one god had ever answered him. “Palthos, I appreciate all the orphans, but what else have you got?” he said.

The King startled and jumped backward, and it took Androkles a moment to see why. Palthos stood at the end of the spear, holding the end of the haft in his hand. He looked like he was reading the words engraved there, still glowing with white fire. He turned his star-filled, eternal eyes to Androkles and said, “It says right here, silly. Make the fire come out of the spear. You should hurry, though.”

The god of orphans looked down into the ground, in the direction where Androkles felt the Hewer coming, and vanished.

“I can’t read that!” complained Androkles.

“You had a long time to ask and you never did,” came a reply on the wind, faint enough to vanish beneath the sound of the burning trees nearby.

The two men looked at each other, faces tense. “The gods hear you, do they, Lug?” said Androkles.

King Lugubelenus brought his sword down and Androkles raised his spear tip to deflect it. A loud crash echoed through the trees as the two powers met. The collision sent energy in every direction, numbing his forearms. He returned with an attack of his own, a stab for the gut that the King circled his sword around and flung to the side.

Fire. Androkles had no focus to spare, other than the briefest of thoughts. Each twitch was a feint, each breath an attack, each furtive movement of the eye either a distraction or an alarm. Fire.

The King stepped forward with his swings now, seeking to drive Androkles back. He swung with tremendous accuracy and care, and Androkles had to use every bit of skill to keep from getting his fingers severed in the process. No cross bar guarded them like the King’s sword.

Another step back and Androkles’ foot landed wrong, catching part of a heat-dried bone under his heel. His reflexive reaction tweaked his ribs and made his torso spasm.

The King struck for Androkles’ left arm and connected lightly, only causing a mild cut. But the lightning circling the blade turned the whole side of his body into blazing pain. His arm went rigid and refused to move and the King came in for another strike, this time with focus and power behind it.

Androkles stepped into the strike and used his shoulder to push the King back, but the King circled his sword overhead and brought it down toward Androkles’ ankle. He lifted his foot over the strike and screamed move! at his arm, but he couldn’t even get his fingers to relax on the spear.

Fire. Androkles gathered what depths of rage he still had inside himself, drawing so deeply that his toes felt weak. He pushed all that anger into the spear and in his mind he shouted, FIRE!

A bright burst of flame roared from the very point of the spear tip, rotating into a swirling storm of fire. The King thrust his lighting-wreathed sword forward split the flames in two. They propelled into the ground to either side of him. He swung forward again, aiming to cleave Androkles’ skull.

Androkles circled-stepped and jabbed forward again, willing another pillar of flame from the spear. It came easily, even though he could feel how it drained him. The King deflected it with his sword, but the flames kept coming.

The King held his sword before him, stepping forward into the burning torrent and casting the flames aside in every direction. The fire traveled dozens and hundreds of paces to landed on trees and bushes catch them ablaze with shocking speed.

Androkles finally wrested the spear from his paralyzed hand and swung down with it like an axe, bringing an arc of flame onto the King’s head. The man cut it with his sword and tried to step in again, but Androkles called more flames with a swipe of the spear and held him back.

The fire seemed almost like an extension of his will, an extension of the length of the spear. It stabbed and cut and killed everywhere it was pointed, without hesitation or mercy. It was drying him up inside, but the King was doing no better. Every time he deflected the fire with the lightning on his sword, his own presence diminished.

Then Androkles noticed the wind at his back. He paused for a moment when he felt the presences he’d noticed before raising their hands in sigils of power that he could not see or comprehend, but only felt. The winds came to their call, blowing the quickly-spreading blaze deeper and deeper into the forest. Far off, he heard men and horses screaming.

It felt like an oven. His anger was no longer enough to protect him from the heat.

The King noticed it as well and lowered his sword. “Until next time, then, Smudge. Until I come and crush your walls.” Then the man turned and ran back toward his demons, or the place his demons had been. They had fled long ago, but a bit farther his panicked horses tried to escape his chariot.

“Hey! No! You don’t run from me twice, coward! Not after all this!” shouted Androkles, walking after him and considering breaking into a run. The smoke made his eyes water.

The King had a good head start on him. Androkles had hesitated too long. He scowled and tried to wipe the water from his eyes to get a better view, but the man had already brought his horses in order. How they had the discipline to stay put during all that, he could not fathom, but there they were. King Lugubelenus raised a bull’s horn to his lips and sounded a long note, then two short ones.

What signal was that? It must be retreat. Androkles wondered if anyone was close enough to hear it, but then answers came, two short blasts from a number of other horns barely audible from all directions. They sounded distant, and Androkles had no idea how many men it was per horn, but doubtless a lot.

The King spared one last glance for Androkles, then snapped the reins to get the horses moving.

Crows take that whoreson! Now or never. Androkles lowered the spear and pointed it at the King. Fire, he thought. He imagined it gathering inside him, building up pressure as his killing intent swelled in his gut. Fire, fire, fire. His focus narrowed. He looked down the spear like an arrow.

FIRE. Androkles thrust the full force of his intent into the spear and shouted. A fist of flame the size of a house exploded from the spear tip and shot out too fast to follow. It rang like thunder in his ears and the rebound from the force shook his bones.

A wall of yellow flame covered his entire field of vision, then faded. The fire had hit the King and exploded and as the ringing in Androkles’ ear faded, he heard the man screaming. Then a sort of whimper as life left him—a sound Androkles had heard a thousand times. Finally, at the barest edge of his perception, he felt the King’s presence snuff out. The eyes of half a dozen gods swept over the area. Their displeasure rested on him, then passed. All was calm.

That was it, then. The King was dead, and good riddance. A great man in the earth, a man to shake nations, and he was dead at Androkles’ hand. So much for the man’s hubris and domineering.

Androkles had no time to enjoy the moment, though. For the first time in his life, his killing intent had been exhausted. There was nothing left to call up. Nothing but a weary emptiness like vomiting too many times in a row. His insides felt like one large, raw, peeled blister. Sluggish and weary from his toenails to the ends of his hair.

All the while, the smoke grew thicker instead of clearing and Androkles came to understand he was in serious trouble. The forest was burning. That was a problem.

Another rumble came up from deep in the earth. Lovely. Make that two problems.