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  A rain of gigantic arrows fell into the center of the millwheel of death. The Thog archers were firing on their own forces trying to hit Quintel. The tactic did not work. He was never where the arrows landed.

  Quintel's stolen sword shattered during one of the vivisections. The Thog weapons were too primitive and cumbersome to use so he began ripping out the black spheres with his bare hands. To Quintel the action felt like plunging his hand into warm mud. The technique was not as fast as a sword, so he left the fray and visited the human Thogmasters who still lingered at the back of the fight.

  Quintel saw Taln among them. Taln was the general who almost killed him the night of Huk's triumphant banquet. Quintel could tell by Taln's ornate armor he was Huk's replacement, Sirian Ru's new warlord.

  Quintel leaped on the back of Taln's steed with the default warlord still in the saddle.

  “Do you remember me, Warlord?” He whispered into Taln's ear. “You had a blade to my throat but months ago. Now I need to borrow it.”

  Quintel confiscated Taln's sword before the general could even twitch and jumped back into the frenzy like a grasshopper. He wasn't going to kill Taln or any of the other humans. There was no need. The human fighters couldn't have gotten close to Quintel. They would have been crushed by the mindless stampede of Thogs in the attempt. Quintel's intrusion upon Taln was a warning. He was letting the human attackers think he could take them down at will. They didn't know about his weakness.

  The cascade of Thog parts continued to rain with mechanical precision. The beasts did not know how to retreat. There was no such command embedded in their limited brains. They kept entering the fight despite the fact the Thogmasters shouted orders for them to run away.

  The rising and falling hum of Quintel's blade mixed with the rhythmic thuds of its impact to create a strange music that carried over the battlefield. All the sounds synchronized into a tribal melody that celebrated slaughter. The splash of body parts joining the stacks punctuated the song.

  Aul rode to the growing mound of carnage with ten horsemen bearing clay casks of flammable oil, sawdust and pitch. The casks were intended to be flaming projectiles for the catapults, but the situation required more precise placement than the mangonels could allow. They approached with pikes, in case the Thogs turned on them, but the effort was not necessary. The Thogs never even noticed them. The beasts were too focused on stepping into Quintel's blade.

  Avoiding the few still-moving torsos of the disassembled Thogs, the horsemen climbed the mountain of amputations and emptied the viscous contents of the casks. When finished, they threw a lit torch at the base of the stack and watched as the conflagration consumed its fuel. The fire soon reached high into the sky, a mountain of red flame and dense black smoke. Quintel keep feeding the flames with more of Ru's constructions.

  Hours passed. Ru's human warriors had run away. A few of the Thogs had the intelligence to follow their masters, although they would have been happy to line up for the slaughter.

  Several pyres now blazed like gigantic bonfires as night descended upon the scene. A zealous warpack pursued the remnants of Ru's retreating army. The rest of the Abanshi forces eventually meandered up to the edge of Quintel's fight. There was not much for them to do. They had come to die and now they were merely bored. They chopped at the torsos that still showed life, cutting out the black spheres that animated them.

  After a few more hours, the sound of Quintel's sword stopped. The fires had consumed most of the fuel and only mounds of ash and unblemished spheres remained. The battle was over.

  Caked in dried black blood and smelling of burnt Thog flesh, Quintel tossed his twelfth ruined sword aside and approached Aul and her generals, who had pitched large tents beyond the stench of the fires and were well into their second cask of wine. They had made a picnic out of the battle.

  “I'm going to join the pursuing forces,” Quintel said. “If the Thogs turn to fight they will kill the warpack.”

  “By all means, Thog Stacker,” Aul said, referring to him by the name her troops had circulated. “But you should join us in a chalice of wine before you go. It is not often we get to share a drink with a god.”

  He could tell Aul was drunk. Although her outward composure was controlled, if not overly measured, her lifelight was fuzzy at the edges.

  “I will join you when I return,” he said. “For now, there is a part of me that feels euphoria by spilling Thog blood. And it is not done celebrating.”

  “Very well, I will not stop you from enjoying your craft. When you get back, we will have a celebration beyond equal. A banquet fit for your achievement. You have saved the Abanshi kingdom and earned a name in our history. Perhaps the greatest of all names.”

  Quintel looked over the battlefield. Seven hills of Thog ashes, hundreds of feet high, had been added to the flat landscape. There was one more thing that needed to be done before the Abanshi could relax.

  “While I am gone, collect the black spheres from the ashes. They will not have been harmed by the fire. It is important we possess them all. If Ru retrieves them, he will be able to build more Thogs.”

  He knew Aul was not accustomed to taking orders, but had become a firm believer in his claims of divinity. He sensed her main concern was how to appease him without handing over her kingdom.

  “As you wish, brother,” she said and turned to her generals. “Gather what supply wagons we have. Fill them with the black globes. Not a single one should be forgotten.”

  Aul turned to ask her brother what he wanted done with the objects, but Quintel was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter 27

  Ru wept as he watched his army burning at the doorstep of the Abanshi, slaughtered by the thing Yuul had created. The height of his earlier joy made the fall even more painful. Victory had been transformed into devastation within the course of a day. How had it happened?

  Only a few of the Thogs had the intelligence to ignore the instincts he gave them and retreat. He had constructed them to be fearless. If their human commanders ran away or died, the Thogs were designed to continue fighting. They would never retreat. Ru now knew this was a fatal flaw. Even though none of them could get within striking distance of Yuul's creation, they continued attacking. They responded exactly the way he intended, but against an enemy he never foresaw. The result was tragic. They were lemmings following each other over a cliff.

  The god knew it was time to pull back and rethink his strategy, but the loss had wounded him. He could do nothing but lie on the floor of his throne room and cry.

  It had taken centuries to design the Thogs and years to grow the soulstones. He had made no error. They were perfect. They were invincible to any human army. But not against this maelstrom.

  How could Yuul conceive such a plan? How could that half-wit brat be so many moves ahead of him? How could it have known about the Thogs, much less built something that killed them so well?

  No answers came to him until the most obvious appeared.

  Yuul could not have done those things. It had not foreseen those events. This was coming from the transformed Abanshi. The human was acting on emotion, not strategy. The being was out of Yuul's control.

  The realization brought the god comfort. If Yuul had not planned this, it was in no better position than Ru. Perhaps worse. Did the thing even answer to Yuul? Had it abandoned its maker? This was no longer a match between the two gods. Now there were three opponents. And one of them was insane.

  An infinite array of futures opened before Ru. If only he knew more about the little Abanshi. What was the human thinking? Why hadn't he used his powers to form armies who would follow him blindly, or weave intricate preternatural strategies that seemed hinged upon impossible coincidence? Why didn't the thing attack Ru directly?

  Collapsed in a heap beneath his delicate wings, Ru inhaled and pushed down his sorrow. His realization had given him the strength to continue. Struggling against the pain, he rose from the marble floor and forced himself to face matters for what
they were.

  He had options. He still had options.

  Fifty thousand completed Thogs stood in reserve. They were worthless against the mad Abanshi, but Ru thought they still might have use.

  And, of course, he had the Demonthane, his hammer against Yuul’s monster. That was where he would begin.

  Gaining his composure, Sirian Ru cast his mind toward the Agara, who was still atop God's Finger.

  “Grom,” Ru's mind spoke from the air. “Awaken.”

  The Demonthane had been sleeping, bored with destroying the elaborate gardens crowning God's Finger. It lay amidst a nest of devastation.

  “Is it time, Lover of Life?” Grom asked, rising upon its elbows. “I am rested from the first killing and ready for another.”

  “Time has become even more valuable,” Ru said from his disembodied state. “Yuul's creation has routed my army. You are the only thing that can stop it.”

  The Demonthane stood and stretched its wings.

  “Routed your army?” Grom rumbled. “The thing's mind was just here last night. It is cowardly and awkward. Split in two. Barely able to control itself. I don't believe it is even a threat.”

  “You are wrong, Agara,” Ru replied. “The halves have reconciled and they fight like a warrior. He is not using his power to lead the Abanshi. He uses it to swing a sword. By himself, he slew fifty thousand of my Thogs in a day.”

  “Fifty thousand?” Grom looked into the distance toward the Abanshi kingdom. “Alone? How is that possible?”

  “There was a flaw in the design of my creatures. They did not know how to retreat and walked into his blade willingly.”

  This caused the Demonthane pause.

  “Yes, I see how such a flaw could lose an army,” the Agara said and flapped its wide wings. Dust and debris swirled in the air around it. “Very well, Sirian Ru, I am ready to face your nemesis. Guide me to Yuul's abomination. I am eager to fight. The thing may be a match for your Thogs, but it is no match for me. Nothing can pierce the flesh you gave me.”

  “Then fly west, demon,” Ru said. “Neither the Vaerians nor the Lanya have joined the battle. But they will soon. Now is the time to crush the hybrid.”

  The Agara stepped off the edge of God's Finger and plummeted toward the ground. With a tilt of its wings it swooped upward, shooting high into the night sky.

  “Already I have a scent for the thing,” the Agara said as Ru's mind moved beside it. “Although you did not give me eyes, I can see the abomination over the horizon.”

  “Your vision does not come from physical sight, Grom,” Ru said. “I gave you the ability to see only what you needed to see. Kill Yuul's creation and I will endow you with a thousand eyes.”

  With a single scoop of its wings, the Demonthane pushed to the top of towering clouds that rose from the abyss at the edge of the world.

  “Prepare your rewards, Lover of Life, for I have mastered this body,” the Demonthane said. “I infuse its limbs with the might of Non. I guide its blows with skills learned from a thousand wars. I lust for blood. I am starved for conquest. Nothing within this realm can stop me.” The Agara paused. “Save you, of course.”

  Ru did not like the Demonthane. He did not like having the creature walk upon his world. For now, however, he was thankful he had freed the monster. Were it not for the Agara, the god would be defenseless. When all of this was over, Ru was not sure how he would handle the matter.

  “I must return to my factories and make adjustments to the Thogs,” Ru said banking away. “My new armies will not be flawed. When you have killed the abomination, return to my castle and you will receive riches beyond our bargain.”

  The beings parted. The Demonthane flew southwest to the Abanshi kingdom, Ru’s mind banked to the east returning to his castle. He had much work to do and the hours were burning away.

  Back inside his body, Ru stepped out of a window in his throne room and descended to his workshops. He felt in a hurry.

  His construction of the Thogs was divided into stages. First came the soulstone, then the skeletal structure, then the network of nerves and internal organs, then the muscle and skin. He would have to make significant changes to the brain function of the Thogs to remove the combat reaction. By making some careful adjustments, he could give them the option to retreat. The mechanics were simple; the nuance involved would be complex. The Thogs would have to make the decision to run or fight on their own.

  The change would also affect other parts of their behavior, but Ru didn't know which ones. He had built the Thogs to smash foot soldiers, crush cavalrymen and thwart castle walls. The possibility of a single swordsman being able to kill thousands of them was not something he predicted.

  On the ground, a pod of human workmen scurried over to assist the god, but he waved them away and entered the factory. Inside, he found a Thog in the proper stage of development.

  Ru focused his mind upon the half-formed creature. His four arms traced elegant circles like a spider's spinnerets, weaving magic from the fiber of existence. In the same way he sent his mind outward into the world, the god narrowed his focus upon a single cell of the creature's coagulating brain. His thoughts penetrated the cell wall and found the tiny neural code needing to be changed. After lengthy examination, he realized the extent of the problem. He would not be able to modify his existing army. The solution would require a complete redesign of the soulstones.

  He did not have time to develop a template that would fix the problem. The variations were too diverse, the different ways to attack the problem too numerous. And if he created a new flaw, all the beings would share it again.

  His strategy became one dependent upon chance. Never had the deity turned to luck for his destiny. Now a spin of fortune's wheel was his best tactic.

  He would have to pull new stones from his body. Ones rich in diversity so no single error would again be able to wipe out his forces. Ru would burn an image of the Thog-killing Abanshi into the collective memory of his creations. In the future, when they sighted the half-god, the Thogs would avoid him with fear, cunning and spontaneous reaction. The changes would manifest themselves in a spectrum of outcomes. Some would be successful, some would not.

  Such dependence upon chance did not sit well with Ru.

  He flew back to the top of his castle, landing upon the perch of a spire he had not visited for years. It was a sacred place for him, one that represented creation, birth, life. It was the tower where he grew the stones within himself, where he reached into the realm of the gods and siphoned the ether to form them. In the world of matter and time, they appeared to be smooth, black, almost luminescent spheres. In reality, they were more like tiny punctures in the fabric of reality, holes that drained energy from the spirit world.

  Ru meditated upon his circumstance. Yuul had been a threat to him since the beginning of time. But only a threat. Never had the younger god scored a blow. That was true no longer. Clumsy as it may have been, the blow had done him damage. Yuul's monster had tipped the board.

  Sirian Ru looked out over his world. He saw the Demonthane narrowing the distance to the thing, but it was still hours away. Ru should have made the Agara faster. Would that have been possible? Could the Great Stone have given more? Could the Demonthane's power been less restrained? These were questions that intrigued him as he looked around the soul chamber. He had pulled a hundred thousand soulstones through himself inside that room. It had taken years. Perhaps a single stone would have served him better.

  He had learned much during his construction of the Agara's body. Things he wished he had considered hundreds of years ago, before he designed the Thogs. He had new ideas now, new approaches that could have avoided his current problems. It was time to harvest more soulstones. Better stones. Bigger stones.

  Beyond the horizon, Ru could see the transformed Abanshi, a white spike of power occupying two dimensions. Not like the soulstones. Not small nodules seeping through the cracks of reality. More like a sword slash, cutting through both dim
ensions. Perhaps, even, the sword itself.

  And it was headed in Ru's direction.

  Chapter 28

  Quintel sped through the narrow canyons, closing the distance between himself and the fleeing Thogs. He worried that the Abanshi army would reach them first. They had left many hours earlier and were moving quickly. If the Thogs turned, the humans would be destroyed. Bravery and skill meant nothing against the creatures.

  His god-half burned with battle lust. It wanted to find more of Ru's toys and destroy them. It was causing the Living God misery on the other side of the world and rejoiced in the task. Quintel was glad the god piece had joined him. Now he knew what he was capable of doing. He could kill millions of the beasts without fatigue or regret.

  But was that his greatest goal? Now that he and the fragment were working together, where did his limits end? He knew that merely killing Ru’s creations was not his final destiny. He knew, in the end, he would have to face the god himself.

  As his mind scanned the stony panorama miles ahead, he detected something that surprised him. The escaping Thogs were already dying. Indeed, they were being killed in droves with almost the same efficiency he had delivered. And the Abanshi pursuers had not yet caught up to the retreating horde. They were still a good mile to the rear.

  Stopping to assess the mystery, Quintel watched as the escaping Thogs clustered into small groups and simply died, their sallow lights winking out like snuffed candles. Someone was slaughtering them, but he could not see who. The attackers were invisible to his mind’s eye.

  He reached the advancing Abanshi troops, who were flush with battle rage. A thousand or so men had pursued the Thogs in hopes of getting a piece of the fight. Quintel knew they were going to be disappointed. Alive, but disappointed. Already the Thogs who had fled his blade were dwindling.

  He zipped passed the Abanshi ranks, leaving them behind in a few strides. Bounding up a canyon wall, he perched upon the lip of a high cliff to see what was happening below.