“Gant?”

  The Stonehand turned to spit out a glob of blood, flesh, and bone. “Seems that way. Some of me is still in here. But it’s all a fog, you ken me? Sometimes, I can swim forward, but more often, a younger me has the reins. I don’t have the strength to hold him back.”

  Daine fought to keep her anger from flaring. “I suppose none of this was you? That you’re not to blame for any of this?” Her fist remained drawn back, poised to deliver the final punch.

  The destroyed face laughed, further splitting wounds open. Grey rivers flowed down Gallant’s face, staining his long white hair. “It was all me, girl. No matter how you view it, I haven’t done anything here I haven’t done a thousand times before. You thought I was a dragon at school? That was an almost mellow version of me. The Class, you know? The King understood. He saw I was on the brink and gave me an escape. Whatever this is” — he tried to gesture towards himself, but his arms hung broken — “I was on the cusp of being. Someone just let it have the reins.”

  Daine felt a hand on her shoulder. Donal. “My lady, I don’t know what Skill this is — I have no access to any of my powers — but even without them, I can feel your energies waning. If it is to be the end, it must be now.”

  Daine stared down at the Stonehand. What he said was right. He was a mad dog that the King had put a leash on, only for someone to let this horror free. Was it justice to put him down?

  I cannot help you with this. Whatever you choose to do within your will be just. It has MY sanction. But you must choose. And choose quickly.

  “You’re leaving it all to me?!” Daine could not keep the anguish from her voice. “I am supposed to enact your will. He deserves to die. If I don’t kill him, so many others will suffer. It must be right to kill him. That was our plan!”

  Do not be childish. There is no greater ‘right’. There is no ‘wrong’. There is just what you have the power to enforce. Will the world be a better place without a resurrected Gallant Stonehand raising chaos? For sure. Is the trade-off of having you as his executioner and breaking your mind worth it? I doubt it, but I do not know. This is a fixed moment in time; I cannot see beyond it. This may be the moment a terrible stain on the world is removed. It may be the opportunity to turn the tide against the Dark God. It may save Swinford. It might save the West. Or it could do the opposite. The death of Gallant Stonehouse may cause the King to let slip the dogs of war. Indeed — and believe me when I say there are far fouler presences than this old man at Court — this may be the catalyst for all-out war. And — and I worry most about this — it may be your undoing. I do not know. But it would be best if you chose a path.

  The Stonehand had slipped into unconsciousness. By the extent of his injuries, Daine suspected he might well die without her doing anything else. But no. That would be a dereliction of duty. And she had forever done her duty.

  A cry from her left caught her attention. It was Jessica the Stepper. She was looking down at the bodies of her two companions. had run out.

  Daine called out to her, “The Hyena said you were our way out.” The girl did not respond. Her attention was fixed on Azam and her fallen leader. “Girl, do you hear me? Can you get us back?”

  The girl rallied. “Yes, I have short-range portal abilities. I can move us back behind the walls in twenty, maybe thirty steps.” Then she blinked in alarm as she tried to access the Skill. “It won’t work.”

  Daine raised a hand to calm her. “That’s just temporary. As soon as I drop , you will be able to cast it.” She nodded towards the bodies.” Do you want to take them with us?”

  “It’s not our way.” Jessica shook her head. “You lie where you fall.”

  “My lady.” Donal’s voice became urgent. “You have gone a very unhealthy shade. I may suggest you are now drawing on your health pool. This is not a situation that can continue. In the words of my long-lamented first master, it is time to defecate or leave the chamber. Or words to that effect.”

  Daine raised her fist again, looking at Old Gant’s face. One punch, and it would be all over. The threat of this man would be gone forever. She felt everyone holding their breath as she smashed her fist forward with a colossal impact. There was a beat of silence, and then she cancelled .

  Donal was the first to speak. “Ah. So, it would appear you missed.”

  Daine leaned low and whispered into Old Gant’s ear, his wounds already healing. “You were a monster, no doubt. But who you were does not define who you can be. I beat you, and I let you live. But I don’t ask anything of you but to start anew. I did not know you as a Blade of Ruin. I can’t say I care for what you’ve shown me you were like back then. I did not care much for you as a Mentor, but I doubt I’d be where I am now — for good or for ill — without you and what you did. Whoever bought you back wanted the early version of you. I’m reminding you of who you became. You weren’t much better, but people said your name out of respect, not terror. Next time we fight, I’m taking your head. Make sure you remember that.”

  “As somewhat of an expert in blood feuds, this seems unwise.” Donal’s face was still. “I may remind you, we are still under siege from this man’s rather more than enthusiastic army.”

  Daine moved away from the Stonehand and crossed towards Jessica. “We never intended to hold Swinford this long. We were merely delaying until Eliud came to our rescue. What Gallant has done — slaughtering Souit’s forces — will raise the ante with the King. This is no longer a minor secession crisis; it’s a full-blown civil war. And we cannot fight from behind Mayor Elm’s breached walls.”

  “So, what do we do? We have the Trellecs, the Stonehand, and the King at our heels. There will be blood, and we are caught in the middle.”

  “The evacuation has started?” Donal nodded in reply. “Good, then we take the only road left open. We run.”

  Chapter 60

  “Epilogue”

  The Dark God raged.

  Of course he did. He raged at his mother, for giving her favoured instrument a Class and a Skill that could — however temporarily — negate him. He raged at his brothers for interfering in their chaotic way. He raged at the Stonehand for not being able to live up to his reputation for clinical destruction.

  But most of all, he just raged.

  Genoes watched him carefully, his eyes still in his calm face. He knew he should be terrified of the situation he was in. He had been kidnapped by a literal god. No matter how the deity chose to manifest himself — most often in the body of a ten-year-old boy — there was no denying the destructive power he possessed.

  Genoes had no idea how long he had been trapped in this realm. He suspected time passed differently here than it did back in the real world. Indeed, the only way he had to mark the passage of the days was by the periods of ecstasy and despair in which the Dark God rose and fell as he schemes unfurled.

  From this latest outburst of wrath, Genoes took it that his friends still lived. The Dark God had been so smugly satisfied that Daine and the rest were doomed, and this was a significant relief.

  “What are you smiling at?” The Dark God’s eyes were now fixed upon him, ablaze with fury.

  “I am not smiling,” Genoes answered levelly. “And you need to stop shouting.”

  The grass on which the two stood instantly turned brown, and birds fell from the sky to crash onto the dying Earth.

  “You don’t tell me what to do! You are nothing! You hear me? Nothing. They’ve forgotten all about you, you know? Despite everything they said about never resting until you were recovered, do you know how little they mentioned you? Should I show you?”

  Images of Eluid and Kirstin walking through a series of rooms — Savage and Josul with them — flashed before his eyes. They seemed . . . content. Then pictures of Daine, Taelsin, and Donal followed. All were seemingly going about their everyday lives.

  “They don’t miss you, Genoes. They have more important struggles with which to concern themselves.”

  There were more moving visuals now — Eliud in chains. Kirstin fighting . . . was that a Dragon? Daine and Donal fighting each other, murder in their eyes. Taelsin stood above his City, looking down at the smoking remains of one of his broken walls.

  “You are nothing!” the Dark God spat at him. “I took you because I thought it would cause them pain. Well, guess what? It didn’t. Poor little Genoes. The Orphan no one wants!”

  Genoes felt tears prick his eyes, but he willed them away. He would not allow himself to fall into this boy’s trap.

  “They’re all still alive, then? Thank you for telling me.” He gave his broadest smile back. The Dark God gave an incoherent scream, and a rain of dead and dying birds fell from the sky. Twisted roots forced themselves upwards from the earth, tearing great swaths of ground away. Lightning flashed, striking the ground around Genoes.

  Through it all, Genoes stood still, letting the anger of a god explode around him. As it began to subside, he bent down to pick up three stones. Turning his back on the still-raging god, he began to juggle. He’d always been able to do it for as long as he could remember.

  When he got his rhythm with three, he added a fourth, then a fifth, enjoying the tumbling movement. He had eight moving in a smooth parabola before he realised the sun was back out and the only wildlife around him was fit and healthy.

  “How’d you do that?” There was a soft, almost feminine voice behind him. “Is it a Skill?” Genoes let the stones drop and turned to face the god, who was now in the form of a much younger boy of perhaps six or seven.

  “I don’t want to play with you if you lose your temper. It isn’t nice.” Genoes’s voice was firm.

  There was a moment when he feared the blazing fury in the child’s eyes would burn out of control. But then it faded, and the god smiled.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

  There was a silence as the two regarded each other. Then Genoes sat cross-legged and indicated that the god should do the same. “Okay. But I don’t like it when you’re mean. If you want me to play, stop it. Now, the trick is to get two into the air at once. You do that, the rest all falls into place.”

  And as the two settled down to play, a pair of glowing, golden eyes watched them at the edge of the Dark God’s realm.

  And She was pleased.

  *

  The retreat from Swinford was brutal.

  Even though many of the civilians had passed through Donal’s portal whilst the battle raged at the walls, it was still taking far too long for the rest to escape.

  After Angharad’s death, those fighting at the breach were quickly overwhelmed. Souit dispatched the rest of his Mages to help manage the retreat, but they fell to the more significant number arrayed against them. Thanks to Donal’s planning, though, enough of Souit’s men extricated themselves from the mess for the King’s Army still to be a force. At least on paper.

  Degralk had been charged with holding the increasingly thin line covering the retreat to the portals. Cattle and his squad had joined them in those efforts — at least those of them who had survived the conflagration at the walls.

  “How far?” Cattle called over his shoulder, thrusting out with his sword and stepping backwards before any response could land.

  “Not far!” Jinks was doing his best to cover his Captain’s flank, but the street was too broad, and their numbers were too low. “If we turned round and ran . . .”

  “And that’s why I get paid the big coins,” Cattle said, wincing as he took a glancing blow on his helm. “The only way we make this is step-by-step to that portal. We aren’t going to be able to run faster than those guys.” Cattle nodded at the cavalry pacing towards the back of the press of mercenaries harrying them.

  “Don’t need to run faster than them, Captain,” Jinks murmured. “Just need to run faster than your fat arse!”

  “Be grateful for my girth, lad,” Cattle replied, catching a downward slash on his blade and pushing it away, “it’s the only thing between you and those nasties.”

  “Front row, kneel!”

  Degralk’s voice came from behind and was weighted with such authority that those at the square’s front had knelt before their conscious brain kicked in. Even then, it was only just in time to avoid the flurry of quarrels that flew over their heads to obliterate those attacking them.

  “Now run!”

  Cattle waited until the last of his men stepped through the purple portal before taking his eyes away from the approaching mercenaries. “You first,” he said to Degralk. They were the last remaining members of the King’s Army in Swinford.

  “Not on your life.”

  “Got a reputation to maintain, sir. Spent years developing it. First in, last out, and all that.”

  “You were captured on my watch, Captain Kettle. That’s not going to happen again. Once I know you’re safe, I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Appreciate the sentiment, sir. But not sure that was rightly your fault. Now, if you would be so kind to get moving, they seem to be regathering themselves for another a push . . .”

  “Charming as this is” — Donal’s head appeared from the other side of the portal — “maintaining this portal is the mana drain equivalent of a sucking chest wound. It would simply be marvellous if we could all agree that you both have enormous members, and I can close this off.”

  He’d barely finished speaking before the mail-plated arms of the Lady Darkhelm reached through and dragged them to the other side. The portal snapped shut behind them.

  *

  “A Mayor without a City?” Taelsin said, staring off into the distance. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

  Donal looked up from the man he was healing — he had switched his class to High Druid to better support the retreat — and shrugged. “Not sure I’ve much time for a pity party, sir. If you’re looking to brood, there’s a Great General who hasn’t spoken to anyone all day I can direct you to.”

  Taelsin looked over to the small group of riders to the left of the refugee column which marked the presence of General Souit. That man was taking his expulsion from the City about as well as the Mayor was.

  They were not sure where Donal’s portal had sent them — “Definitely to the east of Swinford. Maybe the south-east, but no further than that, I’m sure!” — but Taelsin was comforted that if they did not know where they were, it seemed likely neither did the Stonehand. Or the King. Or the Trellecs.

  My, what a number of opponents I have at my door, he thought, and then laughed as he did not have a door anymore.

  “If I were a wiser man,” Donal began. “No, wait. I am a wise man. This is going to be golden. As a wise man, I might point out that a City is merely the stone and mortar around a people. I still see most of those under your care before me.”

  Taelsin nodded. Five thousand men, women and children. All of those who had not been able to flee when news of the approaching army was shared.

  “We have you, my lord. More importantly, we have me. And we have the remains of a pretty solid fighting force under the command of a Great General who I will assume is pretty motivated to win his next engagement.”

  “But where are we heading, Donal? Who is going to take us in?”

  “Sir, and I mean this with all love,” Donal’s eyes danced with stars, an after-effect of his most recent Class change, “let us not borrow trouble. Swinford held until it could hold no more — far longer than any of us had truly anticipated. That chapter is closed and a new one begins. There is the story of the West to be written and I can think of no better way for that to begin than with desperate people led from chaos into the promised land. Under the banner of a great Lord, with the advice of a charming, attractive genius protected by the swords of those who used to be his enemy. To be honest, sir, if we hadn’t lived through it, I would be suspicious this is all a little too perfect.”

  Taelsin, thinking of the friends who had not made it through the portal, wrinkled his nose in distaste at that. Then his eyes fell on the lone figure in the distance at the back of a column. He frowned as she bent to touch the Road.

  *

  Daine’s hand brushed the dirt of the King’s Road.

  This had been her Tour for thirty years. She knew every inch of the West and shed blood to keep the King’s peace in every Town, Village and City she visited, and now . . .

  Why did you not kill him?

  Daine ignored the Goddess. She had repeatedly asked the same question since they had escaped the Stonehand’s command tent, but Daine did not think She was owed a reply.

  And, to be honest, she did not know the answer herself.

  She knew that within the , it would not have been a just execution. And such things mattered greatly to her, perhaps more so since supporting the rebels.

  The ground beneath her shifted, and Donal stepped up from the dirt. He was enjoying the Skills of his new Class far too much. “How is it looking?” he asked without preamble.

  “Was there a ‘my lady’ in there somewhere?” she replied, only half joking.

  “Probably. So, any idea where we should be heading?”

  “That’s for the Great General and the Mayor to decide, surely?”

  Donal nodded. “I may be out of line, but I don’t think either of them is thinking too clearly at the moment. Might be as good if, I don’t know, two epically talented and legendary figures gave them a nudge?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Donal pointed to the left. “Over there, the ocean. There are lots of coastal Cities and Towns where we could lose ourselves.” He pointed to the right. “That way . . . not so much. Scrubland and empty plains. Maybe a few rural homesteads. Neither makes my socks roll up and down. So which way?”

  Daine smiled at Donal explaining the local geography to her. Then a rattling noise began in her head. By Donal’s reaction he heard it too

 

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