The bike exploded.

  Metal and fire Tore at Peter.

  The rider’s howl ripped away in the chaos.

  Then Peter was falling.

  Panic, natural and primal, lurched in his gut as he plummeted, then logic took over.

  He gripped the shotgun tight to his chest and arched his body, diving headfirst at the ground.

  Air ripped at his tattered clothes, and the shrapnel pieces of the machine hovered around him as tents from the refugee camp rushed up.

  Figures glanced skyward, then fled as a scream tore from his lips. Not panic, or fear, but thrill.

  It cut off abruptly when he impacted like a meteor.

  He sat up, cries of panic echoing through the dust.

  Picking himself out of a shallow dirt divot, relief washed over him when he saw he still gripped the rider’s weapon.

  But—where was the rider?

  Two tents burned in the dust cloud.

  Two wrecked, motionless forms denoted poor souls unable to clear the crash site.

  Chrome steel and shattered black glass littered the ground.

  Peter lifted the stolen gun, a shotgun with a pistol grip, much less bulky than a premernox gas arm.

  In the distance, a lance of violet light streaked up, slamming into the flesh barge they had flown in on.

  The hovering mass trumpeted in pain as its side started to decay.

  It dropped from the sky, crashing down just outside the fort’s walls.

  Peter wiped sweat and dust from his brow. That hadn’t been a boon expression. That was a court spell; no doubt Rahashel or Nebetka had shot down the assassin’s vehicle.

  He started a slow circle, scanning the camp. Where was the rider?

  The leech light flared bright behind him, and he whirled, a finger finding the trigger.

  But it wasn’t the rider, just a filthy refugee.

  The man’s face twisted in horror as his years sucked out of him.

  His proximity wasn’t an accident; it was an ambush, his hatchet descending in a blur.

  Peter slipped the wedge blade before slamming a fist into his jaw, knocking him out cold.

  He danced back from the unconscious form, now many decades older than he had been just moments before.

  Then there were more.

  Three then seven men inched forward, gripping knives, clubs, and pistols, torn and filthy civilian clothes.

  “Stay back!” Peter said, raising the gun over his head and pulling the trigger.

  It roared, not the hiss of compressed gas, but a violent channeled combustion.

  The figures flinched back.

  He dropped the weapon back into his left hand, trying to work the action, but the bottom tube didn’t ratchet out.

  No—that wasn’t how the rider had done it.

  Peter racked the forend back, then pumped it forward.

  A casing ejected, not brass, but pale and feather light. It skittered across dirt with a muted thud.

  Why were the refugeesattacking him? Then it clicked. He couldn’t say he’d do any different if a man with court powers crash-landed on his home. They probably had no idea who he was.

  “I’m Corporal Van Seur, Court for Nine Fingers. Stay back! I fell with an enemy. A ghoul, or a lich.”

  “Over here!” one man waved, and Peter strode through the pall.

  More refugees gathered, though fleeing away from him if he drew near. Maybe a dozen now.

  Peter peered down the sights and coiled ready for combat—but he didn’t need to.

  The top half of the rider panted heavily, back against the bent chrome chassis of his vehicle, each rise and fall of his chest labored and heavy. Tubes, wires, and organs trailed from under his exposed ribs, revealing flesh and machine in equal measure. The shoulder where one of his arms had torn free sparked, lighting his face in popping flashes. One of his eye lenses had shattered, exposing a milky-white, pupilless eye.

  His shoulders heaved in amusement, voice gargling out from his respirator.

  “Something funny?” Peter demanded, leveling the weapon at the rider.

  “Came for a baby court,” his voice rumbled. “Didn’t expect Rahashel.”

  “Rahashel wasn’t the one who blasted you out of the sky,” Peter growled, finger moving to touch the trigger lightly. “That was me.”

  The rider’s laugh dissolved into a wet cough, which flushed fluid out of one of the severed tubes on his mask.

  “Bounty hunter,” Peter said. “That’s what Rahashel called you. Who hired you to come for me? Rahashel paid you, didn’t he? An external enemy, so he could save me? Tell the truth, he betrayed you.”

  The rider’s breath grew even more labored and pained. “No bounty. No contract. Just an opportunity.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter demanded.

  “You’re at the bottom—of the list—easy target. More will come.”

  “More will come?” Peter asked, recognizing the life fleeing the wrecked form. “More what? Hunters?”

  The rider chuckled a final time before he rasped, drawing in breath that couldn’t be expelled. Then he went still.

  Peter stepped forward, watching the mechanical arm carefully. No leech light drew from the body. No potential time to be syphoned. He was dead.

  Peter bent, grabbing the rider’s wrist before squatting and loading the rider's half-body onto his shoulders.

  He turned to look into the faces of dozens of staring refugees.

  “If anyone finds the legs, have them sent to the fort.”

  Peter’s boots landed heavily under his burden, the rider’s torso bearing into his neck and shoulders. Thick black fluid dripped down his side, either filthy oil or ghoul blood. He couldn’t tell.

  Sentries turned at the sight of him. “It’s Van Seur, he’s okay!”

  They cleared back as he stepped through the smoking, blasted gate, no longer on fire.

  Calls went up, and Peter marched past soldiers towards the tomb. They watched wordlessly, stepping aside to let him pass.

  Peter’s throat tightened at the destruction around him. Nearly twenty figures lay in a line, covered by sheets, threatening to blow away in the wind.

  One of the green-haired gunsmiths stared at the destruction with a worried grimace plastered to his face. Was it Cas, or Fin? Hard to tell.

  “Hey!” Peter called, jolting the gunsmith out of his spell. Peter threw the biker’s shotgun to him.

  The twin caught the weapon in a snatch so spazzy he nearly threw it to the ground.

  “Happy birthday,” Peter called. “To both of you.”

  He ignored the startled reply, spotting another pair of corpses, piled without consideration of dignity: a pale woman and a stone goblin. Peter stomped up to the pile and dropped the half-rider onto it.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rahashel, wearing his avatar, watched the ceremonious disposal, amused. His arm was missing at the bicep, stopped by a bandage with red blood seeping through.

  Red. That was disconcerting.

  Peter had thought ghoul blood was always black. Apparently, Nebetka’s lungs functioned like a human’s, oxygenating the blood.

  Colonel Van Den Hoek stood nearby, wearing the commandant’s uniform, and Van Graif faded into the background dressed as a Colonel.

  “Where’s the spider?” Peter asked.

  “The leng,” Rahashel corrected. “He fled. He is a skilled hunter.”

  “Are they Libshee’s?” Van Den Hoek asked, pulling his coat tight against the rising wind.

  “Unaffiliated, no doubt,” Rahashel said. “Mercenaries, oathless, masterless warriors, always seeking the next contract.”

  “This one said they weren’t after a bounty,” Peter said, nudging the rider’s corpse with his boot. “Said something about a list?”

  “Of course,” Rahashel said. “The list will be in your necronomicon. You have it, I assume? You did steal it from my librarian.”

  Peter blinked, recalling the tome of court writing that had called to him with clicks and whispers. So it had a name—Necronomicon.

  “Julian has it,” he said. “He’s working on translating it.”

  Rahashel frowned. “Why would he need to translate it? You should be able to read it.”

  He couldn’t. The whole metal book was filled with court glyphs. Just another reason he was broken as a court.

  “I can show you mine,” Rahashel said, then he turned, taking in the chaos of the camp. “Perhaps we can have this conversation somewhere more private?”

  Peter, Rahashel, Van Den Hoek, and Kulafu met in the command tomb, circling the control table. Apparently, Van Graif trusted Van Den Hoek enough to play the role of Commandant without supervision.

  White gaslight illuminated the strange group, and Peter’s jaw swelled in irritation.

  Even missing an arm, Rahashel glanced around the headquarters with far too much complacency. He was in no danger puppeting his emissary. He had no stakes. No risk—their greatest enemy regarded them like they were old mates meeting in a pub to catch up years apart.

  Peter’s hand instinctually went for his hevig, but both holsters were now empty. Hopefully, whoever picked them up would recognize them as his.

  “I’ll show you this as a sign of good faith,” Rahashel said. “But I need an answer before I reveal too much about my peers.”

  “Your peers? The courts?” Peter asked, not having previously considered the sheer wealth of knowledge Rahashel represented.

  Rahashel nodded. “Before I explain the list, just know these huntings will continue and get worse. Not every being that came with us is a Court's retainer. Thousands of wights and liches roam free and independent of the politics.”

  “What’s a wight?” Van Den Hoek asked. “We know about ghouls and liches, and this blood wraith, but wights are new to us.”

  Rahashel sighed, a close approximation of an adult who had more important things to do than explaining common-sense principles to children. “Yes, your Aarts Undead Classification Method. A quaint, overly simplistic take on my people’s technology.”

  “How do you know about that?” Tobias asked.

  “I’ve had hundreds of your agents killed,” Rahashel waved a dismissive hand. “My spy master retrieved dozens of copies from their corpses. It’s amusing, watching you stitch theories together about what we are.”

  “How about some clarification, then?” Peter demanded, irritation rising at Rahashel’s arrogance.

  “This would be much easier back in Stalpia,” Rahashel murmured. “You were right about ghouls, they’re merely corpses reanimated with voor glyphs.”

  “Voor?” Peter asked the academic part of his mind, rebelliously drowning out the part of him that hated Rahashel. “That’s—the name of the court script?”

  “Not bad,” Court Rahashel nodded. “Yes, there are countless variations of forms a ghoul might take, but so long as it’s a voorish machine, it’s a ghoul.”

  “And a lich is a living person who’s altered their body. Like Anubis or any of your other elder liches,” Peter said.

  “Wrong, Van Seur. A lich isn’t a type of person, but a profession. Anyone who writes and programs in Voor is a lich. Modified living people, like my lieutenants you slew—they’re called wights. The word simply means a person, as in—not undead. Now, most of my wights were coincidentally liches as well, but that’s simply because I require all of my senior retainers to write Voor. That way, they can help me create ghouls by hand.”

  “Could we make ghouls?” Peter asked. “Learn to write Voor? Become liches without being wights?”

  “Of course,” Rahashel said. “Right now, Khnum is preparing a curriculum to begin training Nine Finger’s liches. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get you to Stalpia. Every moment wasted out here is a moment Libshee draws nearer.”

  “I can make ghouls,” Peter whispered, mostly to himself.

  “You, Van Seur, shouldn’t need to write Voor. That’s part of being a court. You should be able to will codes into empty corpses. I intend to figure out why you can’t, but in the meantime, learning Voor will be a great first step.”

  Rahashel considered for a moment, as if recalling something or summoning a personal philosophy. “Those courts that take the time to learn the fundamentals of Voor tend to be able to leverage their Bedorvans to make sophisticated servitors. Far more impressive than those who rely on it to do all the work.”

  Peter latched on to that, with more hope than was probably wise for an enemy’s words. Could his handicap pay off? After he fixed himself?

  “I’m ready,” he said in a tone that probably conveyed more desperation than he wanted.

  Rahashel smiled. “Now. These bounty hunters will continue to hunt you. The Gilded Chain publishes our power scores and the planets we reside on. Your name is at the bottom of that power index, so they’ll see you as easy prey.”

  “Guilded chain?” Peter asked, grasping for any context they desperately needed. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t worry about it for now. But it’s a banking confederacy of courts. Not every court is a warlord who conquers with armies and fire. Some achieve the same effect with loans and interest.”

  “Courts have money?” Tobias asked.

  Rahashel’s eyes snapped to him, twinkling as if appreciating a joke. “Money? What is money? You’re thinking about it backwards. Money is a token representation of time. Time from services rendered. Goods created. In a world of courts, we don’t waste our efforts with such tokens, for we can leverage the source.”

  “Time,” Peter said. “Tiles.”

  “We call it Tijd, but yes. You saw my time vault. The centuries of Tijd that the Gilded Chain holds in its crypts make mine look like a sagging purse.”

  “They don’t have armies,” Van Den Hoek said, surprised. “So they publish locations and let the mercenaries claim Bedorvens for them.”

  Rahashel nodded. “The Chain has claimed two Bedorvans already in this way. Van Seur’s will be next if you don’t accept my protection.”

  He cast his remaining hand to the side, and a voor glyph ignited on his palm. Peter flinched from the flash of violet fire as a tome appeared in Rahashel’s hand. He plunked it onto the table and slid it over to Peter.

  “This is my Necronomicon. You should get yours back from the House. It’s academically dense, but it’s a Voor handbook. Every Bedorven is paired to one.”

  Peter picked up the book, a clicking hiss sliding from it like a whisper. He flipped through it, exposing glittering metal pages that turned like paper. Tiny glyphs flickered Tijd violet. Rather than running from right to left or top to bottom, the voor characters seemed to start in the center and spiral outward, with brackets and lines that locked each page into a single, complex sigil.

  “Pay special attention to the list on the inside cover,” Rahashel instructed, and Peter dumped the pages back onto the back cover, marveling at how a metal book could be so light.

  He knew the answer. It wasn’t steel or titanium. It was athanium, a metal that could take Voor court glyphs or the Aklo runes of the House. Its anima sequence had probably been altered, the weight and metal properties programmed to resemble a more conventional codex.

  Peter’s brow cocked upward. The inside cover had character lines, listed top to bottom.

  “The list?” he assumed.

  “Like a scoreboard,” Rahashel confirmed.

  As Peter watched, two names switched places, luminescent glyphs sliding over each other. “What was that?” Peter exclaimed. “They moved!”

  “The algorithm for calculating power levels is complex,” Rahashel said. “But it keeps up to date. As you rise in power, your name will climb the list.”

  “And you said my name’s at the bottom?” Peter asked, finger trailing down to the last one. The seventy-third one.

  “You’re second from the bottom,” Rahashel clarified.

  “Someone’s less powerful than me?” Peter blinked in surprise. “How? I’m broken.”

  Rahashel frowned. “Seventy-three is—concerning. It says it’s inactive.”

  “How can a Bedorven be inactive?” Peter asked.

  “Because no one’s wearing it.”

  “Really?” Peter asked, tilting the book up and squinting at the seventy-third position as if it meant anything to him. “Why not? Doesn’t feel like the type of thing one would forget in the dresser.”

  “By not wearing it, the scoreboard doesn’t reveal which planet he’s on.”

  “He?” Van Den Hoek asked, leaning over the table. “You know who it is?”

  “Atlas,” Rahashel murmured.

  Peter looked up, recalling the name. “The Blood Wraith’s master?”

  Rahashel nodded. “He commands seven wraiths. Aberrant beings of power that even courts would be foolish not to fear.”

  “And he’s walking around as a mortal?” Tobias asked.

  “Probably passing as one.” Rahash's eyes narrowed.

  “The two courts we all fear the most are Archon and Atlas. Archon has already subjected two other courts and has a footprint on all three planets. That’s predictable—I can work with that. But Atlas vanished, his servants pursuing random and confusing ends. That terrifies me.”

  Rahashel met Peter’s eyes, and he believed every word.

  “The fact that the blood wraith is operating here is concerning. If Libshee weren’t trying to shove a sword down my throat, catching the wraith would be my priority.”

  Peter suppressed a chill. Isolated in Stalpia, Rahashel was the embodiment of evil. With the context the Necromicron provided, there was no question—there were bigger wolves. So, was Rahashel desperate? Did he truly need a working relationship with Nine Fingers, or was it all a trap?

  Peter wasn’t naive enough to abandon caution, though. A thought occurred to him. “Where are you on the list?”

  Rahashel grimaced. “I made it to ninth place. Now, I’m thirty-five.”

  “And Libshee?”

  “Twenty.”

  “So, I want to make sure I understand this right. A court, a full fifteen spots higher than you, is marching on us now. I can expect assassins from a banking clan to hunt me specifically because I’m weak. One of the most powerful courts is hiding, but has an agent acting at our doorstep?”

  Rahashel laughed, deep and amused, albeit a little performative. “You understand.”

  The line of bodies outside flashed through Peter’s mind. They had all died trying to save him. How had it gotten so backwards? He was supposed to shield them.

  Beyond that, he could become a lich, learning how to program ghouls with Voor. He needed to get to Stalpia and get there soon, maybe even before Julian returned.

  A sharp knock at the door preluded a lieutenant peaking in.

  “He’s back!” the officer exclaimed,

  Peter turned confused, then a grin split his face.

  Julian Gerrits, High Steward of the House of Nyamar, stepped into the command tomb, flanked by a Dinnian maid and a Churite butler. Julian stood, stocky, with a wide jaw, short, wavy hair, and glimmering green eyes.

  His gaze rested on Nebetka, currently wearing Rahashel’s face.

  For a moment, Peter feared he would draw his druk and attack.

  He didn’t.

  “I’ve been briefed about your offer, emissary,” Julian said simply.

  “Perfect,” Rahashel stepped toward Julian. “The final leader I wanted to speak to.”

  “You’ll have my answer in the morning.”

  Rahashel’s face soured. “I’m sure my terms will interest you—”

  “I’m hosting an urgent meeting for my people, ghoul,” Julian said. “I require this space. Someone blew up my damn tent.”