The rooster god’s strange, echoing song broke the silence of their preparations, growing louder with each repetition. Trenn stood near the resting Gem-Croc, his hand hovering over the grip of his pistol.

  A rapid, pounding rhythm intruded on his sonar, dissolving the mist into a vibrating map of movement. Six distinct heartbeats hammered in the grey, closing fast.

  Light footfalls pattered through the brush. Mara’s ears twitched, and she spun, bowstring taut.

  “We’ve got company,” Trenn warned.

  Six Rabbitlings burst from the tree line, sprinting on all fours, powerful hind legs digging into the earth. Brown and grey fur bunched over haunches; long ears pinned flat against skulls to reduce drag. They skidded to a halt and rose to their hind legs.

  Dust settled around them. Heavy leather cuirasses creaked over their heaving chests. Thick goggles hid their eyes.

  The leader, a lanky buck with a notched left ear, kept his paws resting on his holstered flintlocks, his pink nose twitching as he worked the air.

  Beside him, a stocky doe clutched a blunderbuss to her chest. A spotted scout fumbled with a bandolier of alchemical flasks, paws shaking.

  Three riflemen fanned out to secure the perimeter.

  The patrol froze as their gaze landed on Almitad.

  She descended until her skeletal feet hovered inches above the turf, effectively blocking their path. The necrotic bloom pulsed black-green within her exposed ribs.

  The blunderbuss slipped in the doe's grip. The spotted scout whimpered and dropped a flask.

  "Dead-one," the doe breathed. She stepped back, ears flattening.

  Despite the terror rippling through his team, the notched-ear leader stepped forward. He tore his gaze from the necromancer and locked eyes with Trenn.

  "Come with us," he blurted out, gesturing frantically toward the dense tree line behind them. He side-eyed Almitad. "All of you."

  Trenn frowned, stepping closer to his friends. "Why?"

  "The One-Eye has taken the Quarry and the Assembly hostage," the leader said, eyes wide. "It forced the Twin Cities to send the Legion. It wants you all dead—gods, ‘kins, ‘lings, the smooth-skin."

  He shook his head violently. "We signaled the Golems to the crocodile. Its death should satisfy the One-Eye. We don't want to add you to the list."

  The spotted Rabbitling stepped forward, clutching his bandolier. "Killing beasts is one thing. Murdering people is another. Come with us. We'll hide you. We'll lie."

  "What about the crocodile?" Trenn asked, his voice quiet.

  The Rabbitling Leader shook his head grimly, his long ears flattening against his skull. "It's too big to hide. It has to die," he said, with the cold certainty of a soldier. "If we fail, the One-Eye will keep us trapped in the mist until the plants wither, and the animals go mad. It will watch us starve!"

  Ezy didn't hesitate. She looked at the mist, then at the mountain of scales behind Trenn.

  "We go," she said, her voice tight with pragmatism. "We can't fight a legion, Trenn. Not in this state."

  Zeen nodded, his gaze flicking to the net of hard-won resources—the White Metal, the Husk plates—then to the dark sanctuary of the treeline. He slung his soul-bound musket over his shoulder.

  "Our fight is with the One-Eye," the gnome said, shifting his weight off his bad leg. "If we die here, protecting an animal, we fail."

  Trenn looked at the Gnomes, his eyes filled with tears. "But the Gem-Croc will die!"

  Almitad descended, her skeletal frame blocking his view of the god. The necrotic bloom flared within her ribs, casting a sickly green glare across his face.

  "The beast is already dead," she stated, her voice booming over the rising tremor of the march. "If we stay, the One-Eye wins. That is unacceptable."

  “We just let it die?” Trenn’s voice cracked. “We don’t even try?”

  Her skull drooped and shook from left to right. "It is a terrible exchange. But it is the only currency we have left."

  A deep, rhythmic tremor vibrated up through the soles of their boots.

  THUD.

  For Trenn, the mist dissolved into a grid of dense, inorganic vibrations. Shapes of stone and metal marched in lockstep through the haze. They were statues, nine feet tall at least, each carrying a long, serrated pike.

  Fifty. A hundred. The grid extended beyond his range.

  The Rabbitlings froze as one. Their ears swiveled in unison, locking onto the direction of the approaching sound. The leader’s face went slack, his fur bristling.

  “There’s no time to argue,” the leader said in a horrified whisper. “We have to go!”

  The spotted grenadier let out a sharp, panicked whistle. The patrol’s discipline shattered. The riflemen scrambled for the pile of goods, their movements a frantic, clumsy tangle of limbs. They grabbed the thick Husk-tendon ropes and heaved the clattering load toward the trees.

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  “To the Assembly! Now!” the grenadier shrieked, turning to flee.

  THUD. Thud.

  Zeen yanked on Trenn’s wrist. "It’s an animal, boy! Snap out of it! Move!"

  Trenn remained still. He gently removed the gnome's grip.

  Zeen’s face twisted. He reached for Mara, but she stepped back, aligning her shoulder with Trenn's.

  “Mara, you can’t be serious?”

  “I’m not staying,” Ezy said, already hobbling away on her crutches. She shook her head without looking back. “Don’t let this be the end, Trenn.”

  Almitad descended rapidly. Her skeletal feet struck the dirt with a jarring clatter, blocking his path to the Gem-Croc. The necrotic bloom flared within her ribs, blinding him with a pulse of sickly green light. She leaned forward, her empty sockets filling his vision.

  "Do not waste my sacrifice," she boomed, the sound vibrating in his chest. "You bought this life with my death. Spend it on the One-Eye, not a corpse."

  THUD. Thud. THUD.

  Zeen cursed. He grabbed one of Ezy’s crutches and slid under her arm. Together, they retreated into the fog after the scouts.

  But Trenn stood his ground, his focus locked on the massive form of the Gem-Croc. Mara stood beside him. "Whatever you choose to do, I will follow," she said, resting her white-furred hand on his shoulder. “But without Almitad’s Mana Bloom, I lose my claws.”

  Dawn's echoing crow shook the air, swelling from a soft, distant call to a resonant noise that boxed in the senses.

  A deep, rhythmic tremor cut the noise as the call faded.

  THUD. Thud. THUD. Thud. THUD. Thud.

  It vibrated through the soles of Trenn's boots and rattled his teeth. It was the perfect, mechanical synchronization of dozens of heavy feet hitting the earth in coordination.

  A spike of territorial aggression lanced through the tether, searing Trenn’s mind. The Gem-Croc’s lethargy had evaporated. It launched itself forward, charging to intercept the invaders.

  The Golems halted. They were statues of Goat Kin and Rabbitlings clad in heavy crimson armor. Without an order or a war cry, they angled their spears at the barreling mountain of gold.

  The Gem-Croc slammed into the wall of spikes.

  Red Metal shrieked and buckled. Stone bodies crushed against the impact. Pikes skidded off the armored snout, carving shallow white lines into the scales. But beneath the jaw, serrated iron found purchase.

  The spearheads punched into the tender, pale flesh of its throat. They sank to the haft, their barbed edges anchoring deep in the muscle before the wooden shafts splintered under the momentum.

  Ichor gushed. The Gem-Croc spun, a blur of motion impossible for its size. Trees uprooted. Turf exploded in a wave of dirt as the hundred-foot tail whipped through the Golem flank.

  The impact sheared the Red Metal from the first rank of stone Goat Kin. Some were pulverized by the shock; others were stripped bare. The unarmored constructs froze the instant their Red Metal armor was ripped away.

  But the Golem formation did not break. It felt no pain, possessed no fear, and it was legion.

  They swarmed the sides of the beast. Dozens of serrated pikes thrust in unison. Most skidded harmlessly off the armor, but the Legion adapted quickly. They drove their weapons into the gaps between scales, into the armpits, and into the healing ruins of old wounds.

  Golden ichor sprayed into the air, painting the Red Metal armor with divine blood. The Gem-Croc thrashed, its roar turning into a gurgle of surprise and pain.

  The god thrashed, its body digging a trench through the Legion lines, pulping stone and metal alike.

  It rolled over while it was surrounded, stabbed from all angles. A barrel-roll of gold scales and fury. Golems vanished beneath the megaton weight. Red armors flattened into scrap. Statues were crushed into fragmented pieces.

  But for every statue crushed, three more stabbed the soft underbelly exposed by the roll. They jammed pikes into the gaps in its scales. The roll slowed.

  Trenn snatched the Wolf Kin pistol from his belt. He had to do something. Anything. His thumb cocked the hammer. He leveled the iron sights on a Golem driving a pike into the Gem-Croc’s flank.

  The weapon bucked against his palm. A deafening CRACK punched through the battlefield din.

  The lead slug slammed into the Golem’s breastplate. The bullet flattened and spun away as sparks showered the crimson metal.

  The construct ignored the impact. It drove its spear deeper.

  The pistol slipped from his numb fingers into the mud. His right hand drifted to his club, but his left hand convulsed, the stump throbbing a useless rhythm. He couldn't grip the haft. He couldn't swing.

  He grabbed Skate and dropped the slime to the ground, his leg coiling to punt the obsidian bomb.

  He froze. Shattering one Golem would be meaningless. The Legion was an avalanche; Skate was a pebble. I'll lose Skate, too.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He shoved his raw will outward, hunting for a mind to grasp, a tether to seize. He tried to cast his Charm spell at the advancing wall of stone.

  The psychic landscape was a barren desert. The will fueling their movement was an emotionless void. There was nothing to charm.

  “Stop!” The command died in his throat. There was no will to grasp.

  Unarmed. Unarmored. His left hand was a pulsing stump. He was a fragile, broken thing standing against a wall of stone and Red Metal. He stood paralyzed, watching the Gem-Croc thrash.

  He stood and watched the Gem-Croc thrash.

  He did not move forward.

  He turned away.

  He watched Zeen and Ezy vanish into the treeline. Followed by the Rabbitlings, who dragged their net of loot into the fog.

  “Don’t die here, Trenn.” Almitad drifted after them. “Don’t take Mara with you.”

  Mara gripped his shoulder. "She’s right, Trenn. The battle is over. Can you even tell how many there are? It’s suicide."

  He turned back to the Golem Legion. He felt the Gem-Croc's terror clawing at his mind.

  "Damn it," he hissed. Tears tracked through the grit on his face.

  The stone goats in their crimson armor shifted tactics. The chaotic stabbing ceased. Dozens of them gripped their pikes with both hands and jammed the serrated heads beneath the Gem-Croc’s rolling belly, before it crushed them.

  The Gem-Croc shrieked in confusion as its immense bulk was levered off the earth. Its claws scrabbled uselessly in the air, finding no purchase.

  In perfect, mechanical unison, the Golems heaved and planted their spear shafts into the ground. The god was hoisted aloft, a golden island suspended on a forest of steel.

  It thrashed, but the fight was bleeding out of it.

  A heavy phalanx of Golems marched forward beneath the suspended god. They braced their weapons against the ground and angled them upward.

  The Legionaries holding the god released their leverage.

  The Gem-Croc fell. Mara’s grip on his arm tightened to a bruise.

  Trenn closed his eyes against the tearing sound, but his sonar did not blink. He perceived the vibration of massive spearheads punching through soft tissue, shearing muscle, grinding against vertebrae.

  A loud SNAP vibrated in his spine.

  The thrashing ceased. The massive body went limp, a golden ruin draped over the forest of spears.

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