As we moved along the tunnel away from our friends, I passed a darker spot where one of the wall torches had been extinguished.

I heard Grastad shout, “You disappeared for a bit there, Lord Clive. Well done!”

I shook my head. “So much for stealth,” I hissed across the bond to all of my friends.

“I have scolded, Grastad. My apologies,” Grigor replied.

“You can speak in my mind?” Maex said. It came as no surprise that he sounded very troubled.

“’fraid so, dude. Though don’t worry, I won’t make a habit of it.”

The fact that we could communicate through the bond meant that, as a stealth group, we were even more effective, which was a welcome bonus.

We moved quickly and surely in the tunnel. With Sania and Danivra’s senses, we weren’t going to be surprised by anyone unless a portal opened up.

The way was clear all the way to the entrance where we hunkered down in the shadows while my two companions assessed the lay of the land. There were bodies scattered everywhere in the area of dense forest that I could make out—demon, Hycantha, and Dokalfar.

“How many people lived in Rushing?” I asked Danivra.

“Around eight thousand Dokalfar. Though, perhaps only half of those would have been competent to fight.”

“And Halak was the leader here?”

“In a manner of speaking. Rushing has a governor, though if Halak were to make a command of the governor or any other, then they would obey, providing it was reasonable. The problem with age and power is that it is quite easy to become too far removed from the people you lead. I try very hard to remain grounded. It is not always easy.”

“Why did Maex call you ‘my queen’ too?”

“Because I am Queen of Helvien.”

“Which I assumed was your city. Now I’m beginning to think I may have been wrong.”

“Helvien was both the capital city of the Dokalfar and our own name for Kalabri. All of the Dokalfar who live in Kalabri or Helvien are all under my care, for what that has turned out to be worth,” she said bitterly.

“From what I can see, you couldn’t be doing much more than you are,” I replied.

She didn’t respond, so I left it there as Sania took over.

“I can't sense any enemies nearby, though the death here is limiting my senses. I would say the dearest demons are at least a mile away.”

“Okay, shall we move then? Do we know where Halak would be?”

“In the center of Rushing,” Danivra replied with certainty.

“And you know where that is?”

“Follow the road,” she said, indicating the road in front of us that led from the tunnel.

“That makes a certain amount of sense,” I said with an ill-timed attempt at brevity. This was definitely not the time for humor, though. Which was unfortunate, considering that was when my mouth was most likely to make the attempt in an effort to lighten the mood.

Some moods shouldn’t be lightened. Such as the massacre of the people you’re sworn to protect.

I pulled my cartwheeling mind to a halt and followed Sania and the queen out along the side of the road where there were far fewer bodies and a lot more shade to move between.

We moved quickly and confidently until Danivra brought us to a halt with a raised hand signal.

“Movement ahead.”

“I can't sense anything,” Sania said, her doubt at the queen's instincts clear.

We couldn’t see each other at the moment, each hidden in our own section of shade. Nor could we see an enemy, which made sense with Danivra’s next words.

“Shadar. They are prowling. I can sense one close by and another further down the road.”

“Shit. That would explain it,” Sania replied. “Thank you, Danivra. I would have missed those. We don’t see any as far south as I lived.”

“I will deal with them. Remain here. I will call when you can come forward.”

We both reluctantly did as she said.

After a few minutes and only one brief and quickly muted shriek, Danivra called us forward.

“The second one managed to cry out. We will stay here for a second and make sure no one comes to investigate.”

“I can’t believe you just took out two Shadar so easily,” Sania remarked. “That is amazing.”

“Sadly, it won’t be enough.”

As I waited in the shadow of a tree on my knees, water seeping through from the wet leaves, I still felt really exposed as I could see myself. My eyes darted around looking for enemies, waiting for them to clap eyes on me.

“I can't see you, Clive. Put your mind at ease,” Sania said, somehow reading my thoughts.

Hearing her words and calm voice did help though, and I took a moment to meditate to settle myself even further. Focusing on the movements of my core was akin to staring into a fire or sitting watching the ocean. Opposite but the same, beautiful, destructive yet strangely soothing.

“We appear to still be clear. Come,” Danivra said.

After a mile more of sneaking, the trees began to give way to the start of homes. I grew more tense at moving into more open places, but there was still good shadow available from the buildings. There was a strange thumping noise that came from the city in a rhythmic beat.

“I can smell demons clearly now,” Saina said. “They are many still here.”

“There are,” Danivra said. “But so is Halak. I can sense his core, and it has not yet been extinguished. Though it is very weak.”

We continued on through the tree-lined streets of Rushing. The place would have been beautiful if not for all of the death and blood. The buildings were a blend of stone and wood, and while not every surface was carved as Nuinaer was, there were areas that had been attended to with the greatest of detail.

Danivra called us to a halt, a second before Sania, as a twenty-foot Baatazu appeared at the end of the long street we were traversing. A huge axe held in its hand, it stretched out, emitting a loud satisfied roar before moving off again, completely unaware of us.

We moved again, heading down a narrow street, the thumping beat growing ever closer. I kept getting glimpses of Sania and Danivra as they passed in and out of shadow briefly, and I worried we would be spotted as we ran.

After a short while of intense speed-sneaking, we came to the end of the narrow street which looked upon a main square.

The horror of the scene increased what we had already witnessed dramatically. There was what I could only assume to be a Gashadokuro sitting on the floor. The unbelievably enormous bone creature didn’t look entirely like a skeleton as I’d imagined. There was something like skin covering most parts of it, and it had one giant, freaky eye in the middle of its face. It was smashing down its fists repeatedly on the ground as Baatazu demons walked around as if they were scouting.

“What the fuck is the giant doing?” I asked, unwilling to risk the pronunciation.

“Killing Halak,” Danivra said.

I looked more closely, using my ability to sense Neuma in the environment, and I could see what she meant. What amounted to a puddle of gore and broken bones that the Gashadokuro was thumping at had a faint glow of gold and purple energy to it. I felt sick at the sight.

“This is pretty fucked up, Danivra. But how would Halak feel about being bonded to me?”

“He would hate it, but if it saved him, I believe he would accept it.”

“And if I brought him back to life, would he and you be able to defeat the Gashadokuro and the Baatazu here?”

“Not unless he was brought back before they knew we were here.”

“But you could?”

“Yes, I believe we could.”

I felt the confidence and hope in her words. Even so, I wasn’t convinced I should be doing this.

“If you can, you should in this instance,” Sania said, easing my worries. Honestly, as long as she was good with it, I would do it.

I focused on the Neuma in the pool of mush that was once Halak and sent out a tendril to his core to pull over his Neuma to my own. As soon as it touched and I pulled, it resisted. Not only did it resist but began pulling back, and despite his body being fucked, his core still held some serious strength. I hadn’t thought of this possibility, and I really should have.

“Oh shit, guys, he’s pulling my power away and I can't stop him.” I was in an instant panic as my power was quickly pulled away. It was a stupid idea to try and bond someone so powerful without their say so, even if they were a pile of mush.

His voice came booming in my head, a hint of madness clear. “You dare try to steal the mighty Halak’s soul, demon? I will rise from this stronger and defeat you all!”

“I was trying to fucking save you, Halak. Queen Danivra asked me to make the attempt; otherwise, I wouldn’t have risked it.”

“Danivra? She is here?”

“Yes, right next to me. But if you kill me like this, she will die. She is bonded to me too.”

“Bonded—how can this be?”

I was relieved that he had all but ceased the draining of my core.

“If she hadn’t, she would have died. She asked me to bond her so that she could save her people,” I said.

“This is the foulest thing I have heard. You should not hold my queen’s bond, weakling.”

“I might be weak compared to you, but I’m getting stronger quickly. That said, she only allowed it because I carry some of the God of Creation’s powers within me.”

“You do? Truly? I can sense so little in my current state.”

“I do. Now, will you let me bond you and save you?”

There was a moment of silence before he answered, “I could not bear such a bond. Even if you became the new God of Creation himself, I would rather die here, having done my best. Knowing that the queen yet lives and might rally our people is enough for me to die at peace.”

“I understand, Halak. I’m sorry we were too late to help.”

“Thank you for trying. And do not try to bond others of a high level in this way. We all develop the ability to directly manipulate our cores at the at the third tier. You will lose your life and cost the Queen hers. Take care of her for me.”

With that, he let go of my Neuma tendril. My relief was overwhelming as it poured back into me.

Once it had fully returned, I saw that Halak must have intentionally let go of his own power. He must have known that the queen might still try to save him and that there was little hope of redemption from what was happening.

“He’s gone,” I said sadly to Danivra. “We need to get out of here.”

The Gashadokuro had stopped slapping the area.

“How? Did the bond not work?”

“I’ll explain later, but my last promise to him was that I would keep you alive. We should go.”

Sania and I started backing away from the town square where the giant enemies still stood, roaring in triumph.

“Danivra! Come, now!” I shouted. I couldn’t even see her at the moment, and I felt a pang of anger at being commanded as she reluctantly backed away.

“Get back to the tunnel as fast as you can,” I said without leaving room for maneuver.

Danivra set off at remarkable speed, seeming to blur as she went. I could feel the anger and bitterness at the situation, but more worryingly from my perspective was that she was way, way, way fucking faster than I thought she was. Sania and I sprinted after her, Sania stilting her run to keep pace with my top speed.

I didn’t think it would matter as our enemy didn’t know we were here, too busy with their own victory over Halak to notice us, I thought… until a huge bony had crashed down a yard away from our left side.

I risked a look back as we navigated the last of the houses. The Gashadokuro was on his feet now and he was at least as big as the Nephilim had been. And he was coming after us.

The Baatazu weren’t as fast, but they were firing off energy projectiles in our general direction. Luckily, they couldn’t really get a lock on us for most of the time.

One more footstep took the Gashadokuro almost level with us, and he seemed to be sniffing the air, his one huge orb roving around over where we now raced.

Then he slammed his hand down again landing in front of me this time. Sania pealed left, and I jumped, pushing myself from the ground in an attempt to fly over the offending appendage. The ten feet in altitude that I had managed to rise took me out of shadow for too long, and I was smashed with a bolt of red power from the chasing demons that sent me spiraling to the ground.

My Constitution was up to the task, and I rolled out of the way, back into shadow where I activated my Claws of Brutal Dismissal. That didn’t stop another bony hand coming down exactly where I now lay, and I briefly wondered if my glowing red demon arm was giving me away. At least until I was imprinted into the ground, somehow remaining Clive shaped in the soft forest soil.

The hand soon retreated, and I pushed myself with a desperate powerful blast from my core to send me shooting up thirty or so feet, only just remaining in the tree line for cover. From my new vantage point, I could see the Gashadokuro making a follow up slap in the area I’d been. As the blow landed, I saw Sania appearing as if from thin air to crash down on the giant arm, her own Claw of Rending Salvation glowing as she struck hard and jumped safely away as more projectiles came in from the chasing Baatazu.

The Gashadokuro let out a deep guttural roar at the damage she’d caused. While the demons were distracted, I pulled the Cleaver of Clive out from my void pocket and dropped towards the wound Sania had made. The Cleaver of Clive burst to life almost of its own accord, like it knew I would need it to be at its best. I hit the area Sania had with a double attack, Claw of Brutal Dismissal first scoring a deep gouge followed a split second later by a heavy thudding strike from my glowing cleaver.

The Gashadokuro howled as his five-foot-thick forearm bone was cut clean through. I took immediately to the sky once more where Sania thankfully appeared alongside me, and we raced to the tunnel entrance, swerving to avoid any incoming projectiles and soaring as high as we could, out of reach of the one-armed Gashadokuro.

We flew faster than they traveled, and just as I thought we would make it, another monster reared up in front of us, directly in our path to the tunnel.

I could barely comprehend what was going on as the sixty-foot-tall spider spat a huge ball of white in our direction. Yet I didn’t even need to dodge as it sailed harmlessly past us. I turned when I heard a scream of rage. I turned to see that the injured Gashadokuro was now wrapped in thick spiderwebs and was falling to the floor.

“What do we do!” Sania screamed in my mind.

“You return to the tunnel while I hold off the forces of Destruction,” Danivra said to both of us across the bond. The realization had already hit, just as she had begun to speak.

“You’re the giant spider, right?”

“I am the Dokala you see before you, yes,”

She spat another ball of white, but I didn’t look back this time. I just flew headlong toward the giant, ugly ass spider that I couldn’t compute as being the otherwise outstandingly beautiful Queen Danivra. Though, I knew without a doubt, they were the very same.

As we came in close, she shrank back into her normal form, and we dropped from the air alongside her to race into the tunnel and quickly slip in between the huge partially closed doors, which were promptly slammed shut behind us.

“This isn’t going to go down well! You lead their forces right to our gates showing that we helped you!”

“Fuck off, Halbraker,” I replied, kneeling on the tunnel floor trying to recover from the trauma of the last twenty minutes.

There was pounding at the door.

“Has a bloody Baatazu climbed through the tunnel?” I asked amazed.

“I think so,” Sania laughed, clearly exhilarated from the chase.

“Fuck off?” Halbraker ranted. “Fuck off, you say? Wait until Darkness hears that we’ve let ourselves become engaged. He’s going to be very fucked off.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of a convincing enough story for whoever needs to hear it,” I replied, waving off his angry complaints. “It’s not like we did it on purpose. Oh and I suppose I should thank you for keeping the gates open too.

“I would have closed them,” he spat. “Only word from Grimstrom caused me to leave them open. Though, he’s not happy either.”

“Am I supposed to feel sympathy or something?” I said back coldly as I got to my feet. “From what I can see, almost the entire Dokalfar race is getting wiped out, and you aren’t lifting a finger to stop it. What did you all think was going to happen with me moving through here to find people for our war?”

“That doesn’t make it all right,” Halbraker said and stood back.

“We almost had to fight them,” Grigor said, coming to my side. “When you were being chased back, we couldn’t come out and help because we were in a standoff against the Dwarves to keep the doors open.”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I asked disappointedly.

“I am not,” Grigor said, eyeing the Dwarves warily. “It was only Grimstrom’s message that brought the standoff to an end. By then, you were already in the other section of tunnel.”

I looked to Halbraker for a response.

He shrugged. “You know I have my orders. What do you expect?”

“Nothing, Halbraker. I don’t even know why we’re doing this anymore to be honest. At least Grimstrom showed a little compassion.”

I turned away from him so that I didn’t have to look at his annoying face anymore and my eyes fell on Danivra. She had her usual mask of serenity up, but I could feel her devastation as clearly as if it were my own.

“Sorry for commanding you back, Danivra. I panicked and… well, it wasn’t fair. Also thank you for your help at the end there.”

“You do not have to apologize, Clive. The fault is mine. I froze in grief. You made the right decision. Though you shouldn’t have made me leave your side as we ran.”

I was confused by her words for a moment, then it clicked. “Oh I didn’t. I just had literally no idea you could move that fast.”

“Ah, I see,” she nodded, somewhat appeased. “Also. How did you damage the Level 108 Gashadokuro?”

“With everything we had.” I smiled tiredly.

“An impressive feat whilst on the run,” she replied. “Now we should probably leave this area, and rest. We can talk in more detail about everything that happened.”

“I agree. I could do with a drink after that.”

“We’ve our own conversation to have, too,” Halbraker warned. “Not least being those two Dokalfar who shouldn’t be here.” He pointed at Maex and the other Dokalfar we rescued. “And then we’ll part company.”

“Why shouldn’t they be here?”

“After everything? You really need me to tell you?” he snapped, red-faced.

“Yeah,” I said, moving towards him. “Because from what I can remember, we were allowed forty fucking people in our group. And those two only bring the number up to thirty-nine. So fuck you, Halbraker.” I couldn’t help but flash a wide smile at him, despite the anger I felt.

He said no more, spinning away and leading us from the doors. The banging had ceased, but even so, there was a whole other squad of Dwarven warriors there now with the Grobbler soldiers still on the way in case they were needed.

The mood was somber as we marched back along the tunnels towards Prismar. Thankfully, it was only a few hours away.