At first, Vos looked at Redmane as though he were about to ask, ‘What could be worse than you?’

  But he didn’t ask. Perhaps it seemed as if the question were about to answer itself.

  Numantian legionnaires emerged from ruptures in space, rifts burning white with pure Gnosis, marching in rank and file onto the streets of this ancient city, only to encounter a small army of giant sentinels wrought from black stone. Who were already less than pleased at the number of intruders in their midst.

  But the silent guards of this place were about to have more trouble on their hands, for all of Redmane’s allies came charging out from the Abyssal Well at the same time. The Imbued of House Redmane, and a host of others, monsters and demi-humans and beastmen.

  They were no unified force, but they made a splash.

  A trio of giant boars charged at the leg of a Eugorid Sentinel, making it land on its back with a thunderous crash.

  The combined demi-human hosts of Vang and King Edd overwhelmed a line of Numantian legionnaires.

  Valtr and Vengarl picked off legionnaires from a rooftop with arrows and bullets, as their Coterie fought below.

  Krum of Asgoph leapt high into the air, swinging a punch that sent a black stone Sentinel backpedaling.

  And thus, the first stage of the plan was enacted. Place all the pieces on the board together.

  Redmane had moved his, and the Numantians did not disappoint in the haste with which they had moved theirs. He didn’t have nearly as many, but he suspected the move would attract their most important ones.

  He and Vos both flinched, shielding their eyes as a burning rift tore open right in front of them. Ten armored figures emerged from it in rank and file, their figures made indistinct by the intensity of the light. Redmane saw only the outlines of their shields and spears, but what little he saw told him these men were taller and better armed than normal legionaries. He quickly checked their System tags.

  Centurion

  First Generation Imbued

  Level 350

  Then a sixth stepped forth, head and shoulders taller than the others, and Redmane’s third eye burned.

  This one had broken worlds.

  He was the one they called when the natives grew restless.

  He had overseen the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of souls.

  His gaze portended a storm of fire and blood for any world unfortunate enough to fall beneath it.

  Tacito Fabian

  Legionary (General)

  Level 501

  General Fabian came into view as the fire of the rift behind him faded. He was more giant than man, thick of limb, barrel chested and broad shouldered, his hide tanned by the suns of a hundred scourged worlds, scars crisscrossing his exposed arms and legs.

  But the general’s armor was pristine. Gleaming Star-Steel of the finest grade. He wore a lorica and armored kilt, with bracers on his forearms and shin guards on his legs. The helmet’s faceplate was wrought in the likeness of a regal human countenance.

  “You,” the general’s hollow voice issued from behind the metal faceplate.

  His attention was on Vos.

  “A Quaestor would normally perform this task, but circumstances being what they are, you get me instead. Divine entity, I present you with a choice. Align with our empire and augment its its power with your own, and you will be richly rewarded. Or deny us, and face obliteration at my hand.”

  Redmane had no true way of knowing what Vos would choose.

  Only that he would have to choose.

  Instinct told him he had made a safe wager.

  Not a wager on whether Vos would side with his father against a new adversary. He would have lost that one.

  It was a wager on whether the First Sovereign would recognize an authority higher than himself.

  Vos’s gaze hardened.

  “This is my world,” he said. “And I bend the knee to no interloper.”

  Redmane grinned.

  “Then the two of you can perish together,” said General Fabian.

  He moved at shocking speed for his size.

  As Fabian’s hands blurred through the air, weapons appeared in them. A broad-bladed axe to cleave Vos from shoulder to hip, and a spiked maul to crush Redmane flat.

  A claw and a golden blade rebuked them, and the battle was joined.

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  Fabian’s Centurions moved to encircle them both, and Redmane waved his arm, blanketing seven of them in a wave of baleful fire.

  Flame of Redmane

  Gnosis: 2228

  Wrath (14)

  General Fabian let go of his summoned weapons and they vanished. When he brought his hands together, the long handle of a giant curved greatsword appeared in them and he swept that blade across their necks. Both maneuvers took place in hardly more than the blink of an eye.

  Redmane ducked that blade, but barely, losing some hair and a shred of his cloak. While crouched, he blasted the other three Centurions with a gout of his flame.

  Gnosis: 2128

  Wrath (20)

  He ought to have 30 stacks of Wrath, not 20. One of his Conditions wasn’t sticking. The flame still burned on their bodies, so he supposed they were immune to Venom.

  It would have to do.

  Redmane fell upon the Centurions to distract them while Vos charged Fabian with his golden sword, to gain in Wrath and become their equal first, and then surpass them. An unfortunate peculiarity of his power. If not for Wrath, either Vos or Fabian would have flattened him in short order from the sheer disparity in levels between them.

  But such was his nature. His power derived from consumption.

  And as he harried the General’s retinue with fang and claw, rending armor and flesh while his flames burned their bodies, he consumed plenty.

  Wrath (26)

  Wrath (49)

  Wrath (72)

  The blade of the First Sovereign rang against Star-Steel hammers, spears, axes, and whatever other weapon Fabian instantly brought to hand. The General always struck with the perfect tool for his position relative to his opponent, regardless of the direction Vos came from.

  They were doing an exemplary job of taking up each other’s attention.

  Neither one would know what Redmane was up to until it was too late to stop him.

  Wrath (97)

  Wrath (113)

  The Centurions took their punishment admirably and kept fighting, not even bothering to try to put out the flames on each other’s backs. They simply pressed in, as stone-faced as the massive Eugorid Sentinels doing battle with their comrades all around them. Redmane ducked and weaved through their well placed strikes, watchful and canny, focused on defense, and the preservation of his strength.

  For this wasn’t the true fight. It wasn’t even the prelude to the true fight.

  He had lined up all his foes and crafted a plan to knock them down in the proper order.

  This one, Fabian, was a surprise. But perhaps it would turn out to have been a welcome one.

  The one he truly had to keep an eye out for was certain to be near, however. Jarel Craith. But Redmane wouldn’t show on their map, only Vos, which might have been why he hadn’t yet appeared.

  When the Praetor figured out where he was, the battle would surely be joined again.

  That would disturb his plans.

  Better, then, to end this quickly.

  Wrath (0)

  Evasion +130

  Might +1000

  Redmane turned, just as a Star-Steel war club descended on Vos’s head.

  The First Sovereign had miscalculated.

  Fabian swung two swords low, a double cross Vos caught with his own golden blade. But rather than counter or push the bind, the general instead opened his hands, banishing those weapons in order to conjure two more and strike again.

  Vos swatted aside the first, an axe that swung out wide as it rang off his blade. But he wasn’t fast enough for the descending club.

  Which was the precise moment, by equal parts preparation and serendipity, Redmane took his turn to strike.

  He struck Fabian on the faceplate with an overhand claw.

  The blow shredded that finely wrought Star-Steel face. It sent shockwaves out past it. Blood flew from the general’s head. His eyes — and Vos’s eyes — were wide with shock.

  But only for an instant, because in that same instant the downward force of Redmane’s blow sent Fabian’s face into the black stone street at such speed that it cratered it, the impact knocking over all the Centurions around them and sending up a great cloud of sand.

  Vos’s incredulous gaze shifted to Redmane. Not just stunned at the display of power, but in the act of saving his skull from General Fabian’s hammer.

  Evidently he wasn’t used to his father doing anything altruistic.

  “Why did you—“

  “You didn’t fail in your task,” said Redmane.

  Vos’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean.”

  “You and your five mortal friends. You pulled me apart and sealed me away, for good reason. Your plan didn’t fail on its own merits. Not entirely. It’s their fault I returned.”

  Redmane pointed at the prone general, who at the moment had his palms pressed flat to the street, groaning as he tried to pry his head from the epicenter of the crater.

  “The Numantians came to conquer and despoil. The old me nearly consumed this world, yes, but they consume worlds deliberately and far more efficiently. I can prove what I’m saying to you when this is done. But for now, please trust me.”

  Vos’s eyes tightened at the word ‘Numantian.’ It seemed he’d heard it before. He looked down at the general, and readied his blade as Fabian was rising to a crouch, looking dazed, pulling off his ruined helmet and casting on the ground. His Centurions were regrouping as well, though all ten were badly damaged.

  “Stronger than you look…” said Fabian. He glared at Redmane through the blood running from the deep cuts across his face.

  Then he charged like a thunderbolt.

  Now that he was the principal target, Redmane was pleased he’d had the foresight to augment his Evasion.

  He was barely clearing the edges of Fabian’s attacks, even with it. The general’s blades cleaved the air itself. His hammers cracked the stone streets and walls. His spears flew like they had been fired from ballistae. Vos charged in to attack Fabian as well, and now father and son contended with the giant Numantian general as a duo, while their respective allies did battle all over the city around them.

  And the General was at the very least their equal.

  He kept them both occupied with their own defenses.

  He had power, speed, precision, timing, and flawless technique. Truly he was a master of the arts of war.

  But all Redmane had to do was connect once or twice more…

  Vos gave him the opening he needed.

  He brought his blade low, across the General’s legs. Fabian answered with a block, using the haft of the spear he held in his left hand. In his right he wielded a hammer he’d been using to harass Redmane’s attempts to close in.

  Redmane’s focus sharpened the instant Fabian let go of the handle of that hammer.

  His third eye blazed.

  And all at once he knew how the next crucial seconds would play out.

  The general would dismiss his spear, conjure twin blades, and sweep them in a scissor-like cross slash at Vos’s neck. Then he would immediately release those weapons and switch to paired hammers, to thwart Redmane’s next attempt to close the gap between them.

  In the instant he struck with that cross-slash, he would be completely vulnerable. But the window of time would be so small, no normal opponent could have taken advantage of it.

  But Redmane was no normal opponent.

  Everything happened as he’d foreseen. Vos’s low slash. Fabian’s block, and the beginning of the counter…

  Redmane waited for the general to turn, his hand already transforming…

  And in a moment when non-prescient opponent would have been able to throw an effective strike, a punch from a spiked fist took Fabian full in the back of the head.

  Which burst like a melon.

  There was an odd sound at the moment of impact. Like he’d struck metal, even though the general had removed his ruined helmet.

  But then the force of the blow took hold of him, and blew his body forward to smash against the wall of the building he’d been facing.

  And there General Fabian remained, motionless.

  Redmane’s veins ran cold…

  With the death of this one, Jarel Craith was sure to arrive at any moment.

  Level Up!

  PATREON