A keen whine drilled through his ears, intensifying the searing ache behind his eyes. Blood ran in warm tracks down his cheeks.

  He stood on unsteady legs, resting his weight on the worn grip of his enchanted club. The One-Eye’s escape had muffled the battlefield. The Gem-Croc’s heavy breathing and groans filled the air.

  The great beast was lying on its uninjured flank, webbed feet the size of cars dangling in the air. The raw flesh of its facial wound gaped wider now, studded with obsidian shards. A ten-foot-wide charred spot of burnt scales marred its flank. One of its paws was slashed to the bone, and two large gangrenous wounds dominated its tail.

  Beyond the ancient crocodile, the giant red and white coop was silent. The hen gods had retreated from the entrance. The distant giants had scattered when the Armored Dog ran past them, Dawn locked in its jaws.

  Trenn’s gaze settled on the colossal, breathing mountain of scale that lay motionless on the ravaged turf. Through the tether, he felt its confusion. Its fear. The raw, directionless terror of a wounded animal waking in a strange environment inside a world of pain.

  He limped across the torn earth, his focus entirely on the creature. The Gem-Croc's immense head lifted from the ground. A low, defensive growl rumbled from its chest. It angled itself to gaze at Trenn with its one good eye.

  The fear in the tether gained a new, hostile edge, a primal warning.

  Trenn stopped a dozen feet from its snout. He closed his eyes, focusing only on the shimmering cord that connected them. He pushed a single, simple feeling down the bond: calm.

  You’re safe now.

  Something changed in their link. The edge of its fear softened, replaced by a weary recognition. The growling in the creature's chest subsided.

  He approached, his hand rising to the creature’s face. His fingers found the edge of a jagged obsidian shard embedded in the creature's cheek, near the ruin of its left eye. The scale was rough and warm.

  He gripped the shard and pulled. It came free with a wet, sucking sound. The Gem-Croc flinched but held still, a shuddering exhalation rattling its immense frame. Golden ichor, thick as sap, welled from the wound. He worked his way across its jaw, pulling another shard, and then another.

  Mara’s tether pulsed with a frantic worry. He glanced away from his work as she slid from the Gem-Croc’s flank and sprinted toward Zeen, still trapped by the trench of earth and rock that had torn open during the beast's thrashing.

  His hand, steady against the scales of the Gem-Croc’s face, Trenn started moving towards them. The deafening ringing had subsided. His migraine was turning into a simple headache.

  Across the field, Mara was tearing slabs of turf from the trench of earth and rock. A scream erupted from the rubble as she dug her fingers into the earth and heaved. The large, upturned rock shifted with a groan of grinding dirt and stone, and then she tossed it aside to free Zeen.

  Mara bent to inspect the gnome’s bloodied legs, but a violent shudder wracked her frame. Her limbs locked, and she collapsed to her knees, her eyes squeezed shut.

  “Mara!” screamed Trenn, moving faster now. A shattering wail tore from Mara’s throat. She fell to the ground, wracked with spasms.

  Trenn ran clumsily. A wave of dizziness hit him, but he held on, put a hand to the ground to steady himself mid-run.

  When he reached her, she was calm, unconscious, and back at her normal size. Her stretched and ruined armor lay sagging over her resting body. Next to her, Zeen, his legs crushed, was panting in the dirt.

  “A potion…”

  Trenn’s attention shifted from Mara’s resting face to her alchemist’s satchel. He opened it and rifled through its reinforced lining.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “There’s only one left,” he said, taking it out and handing it to Zeen. “I… I need to set your bones first,” Trenn said, shifting his position to reach the gnome’s tiny legs.

  As he worked, a distant wolf howl, then a second, echoed across the field. He glimpsed Vavnaar and Janaree standing over Wutren’s form.

  Three younger Wolf Kin emerged from the Sequoia Gate, moving with a practiced discipline to lift their fallen packmate and carry him back toward the forest. Janaree and the pups disappeared through the gate, while Vavnaar turned and began a heavy tread in his direction.

  Almitad’s silent, floating form drifted overhead as Trenn returned his focus to Zeen. He placed a strip of thick leather between the gnome’s teeth. "Bite," he ordered. Zeen's jaws clamped down.

  Trenn's hands went to Zeen's left leg, his sonar giving him a perfect image of the broken bone beneath the skin. He took a firm grip, inhaled, and pulled.

  Zeen's body arched, and a strangled sound tore from his throat, muffled by the leather. The bone grated and seated with a dull thud.

  Once both legs were set, the Gnome spat out the leather strap and downed his potion in a single gulp. His bones fused, his wounds closed, his scrapes disappeared, but the pain stayed.

  “Don’t stand, your bones are brittle. It will take time to heal properly.” Trenn told Zeen, who was pulling his numb legs beneath him, tentatively.

  Trenn felt Vavnaar’s exhaustion and a complex, grudging respect through their frayed tether. His sonar pinged the Wolf Kin leader’s approach.

  He dizzily pushed himself up to meet Vavnaar. Ezy, beside her Scrapper, joined them, her flintlock sniper rifle held over her shoulder with her good arm.

  “After all this,” Vavnaar’s voice was a low rumble, “we are not killing it?” he said, gesturing to the groaning Gem-Croc.

  “No. We are not,” Trenn answered. He forced himself to stand straighter, meeting the Wolf Kin’s gaze despite his dizziness.

  His quiet grunt of assent surprised Trenn. “Good.” The Wolf Kin leader gestured with his head back toward the gate. “We’re loaded on the giant rabbit’s ichor. It would be a shame to kill the biggest god I’ve ever seen, and let all its golden blood waste in its corpse.”

  Vavnaar looked from the groaning Gem-Croc to Trenn and his companions. “Your team fought well for inferior breeds.” His voice was a low rumble. He turned his head just enough to meet Trenn’s stare. “You will continue to hunt the One-Eye?”

  “Yes,” Trenn said. “It’s personal.”

  “We have a score to settle,” Ezy added, her voice flat from the Scrapper's cockpit.

  Vavnaar’s stare shifted to the gnome in her macabre machine. He gave a minute, formal dip of his chin. “Then keep the guns,” he grunted. “Part of my daughter will go on to kill the creature who killed her,” he said, straightening, towering over Trenn.

  “Maybe they’ll keep you alive long enough for you to succeed, piggy.”

  He turned without another word and followed his pack through the Sequoia Gate. The last of the Wolf Kin tethers stretched across the distance, thinned into incandescent threads, and winked out of range, leaving Trenn and his friends alone on the field.

  Almitad’s voice resonated from the air. "They have left us more than their flintlock weapons,” she said, gesturing to Wutren’s discarded arm.

  She pointed a skeletal finger, and it convulsed and writhed. Its skin bloated, rotted, and fell off the bones. The skeletal arm pulled itself out of its clothing and armor.

  “Your hook. Place it on the ground, next to the arm,” Almitad’s disincarnated voice ordered as her skeleton returned to the ground. The undead Mana Bloom tinted Ezy’s face with its green-black light.

  A profound stillness settled over them. The tethers connecting him to Zeen and Ezy went taut with a shared apprehension. They were reassessing the necromancer, this new Almitad.

  After a moment of hesitation, Ezy loosened the straps of the leather sleeve that wrapped over her stump. She slid off her hook and placed it on the ground.

  With a few finger twitches, the severed arm lowered itself to match the hook. Almitad swiped her hand, and the bones shattered, leaving only part of the forearm attached to the hand.

  She continued her work, making the skeletal hand drag itself onto the hook. Gangrenous black threads coalesced in the air, weaving between the bones and the metal, lashing them together.

  “Tonight, I enchant and runescribe your new hand. It will be animated by your will alone. Like your Scrapper. It will not decay.”

  A wave of excitement washed through Ezy's tether, chasing away any apprehension. She approached the necromancer and looked at the morbid prosthetic.

  The forearm was the right length, but significantly thicker than hers. The hand itself was three times the size of her own. It was also another left hand. She would have to wear it thumb down instead of up, in order for both her hands to face each other.

  She stepped forward and took the morbid prosthetic. She hefted it in her living hand, turning it from side to side as her fingers traced the curve of the bone. A slow smile spread across her face.

  "It's perfect."

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