“That’s awesome!” Morgan clapped her hands with satisfaction, dancing in place after seeing Althenea switch between her forms several times. The discordance and sense of confusion no longer radiated from the bound soul, and Morgan relished in the lack of sensation. It had been an unscratchable itch from the time she had first attached her to the weapons, constantly echoing across the [Spell Resonance] link; the annoyance alone would have driven her to help, even if it weren’t for her own compassion and her desire to do something ‘cool.’

Dropping a mountain on the swarming things her friends had called ‘skitterlings’ had been impressive enough to see, certainly, but from a magical standpoint, it hadn’t been especially challenging -- or even all that fun. Once the deeper layers of earth and stone had been lifted up, all she had had to do was stand back and let gravity and inertia take their courses. It had required her to use most of her magical reserves, but it had been a matter of brute force rather than skill. Helping Althenea, however, had been satisfying in a deeply visceral way, and posed a fantastic test of her skill with enchantments.

The woman with the amazing suit of armor, Dana, was grinning as well. Morgan was extremely interested in the enchanted -- ‘circuitry’ is the only word I can think of -- that threaded from hundreds of points along her spine into the metal she wore. There were layers to the spellwork she didn’t think Dana was even aware of; based on their conversations, she felt certain her [Mana Sight] provided far more insight into the magic driving the engineer’s prosthetics than the sensors the engineer had.

She sensed heavy footfalls behind her, and turned to see the massive half-Ursaran, Foz, looming close. “Gratitude,” he said in a deep, bassy rumble. “A favor is owed, when you call.”

Almost out of reflex, she gave a slight bow. “It really wasn’t a big deal, but I won’t argue,” she said. The bear-like man radiated a sort of solidity and strength to her senses, and he had prepared excellent food. Good manners don’t cost me anything, she thought to herself as Terisa’s husband lumbered back towards the other beastkin youths.

Noting a distinct absence on her shoulder, she looked around for Lulu. The fort and its temporary denizens seemed to have attracted hordes of the scrubby’s brood and descendants, although none were as large and poofy as their matriarch and progenitor. Faint wurbling tones permeated the background noise of the fort, and she could see loofahs scrubbling their way around on almost every surface in sight. More seemed to arrive with each passing hour, drawn by the massive expenditures of magic and the scent of blood in the air around Castra Pristis.

She found Lulu next to Wuffle, the necromancer’s pet. The necromancer himself was solemnly pacing circles around the funeral biers, and Morgan’s mood was dampened by the reminder. It had been in self-defense, but her fires, once turned loose, made no distinction between friend and foe. One shrouded figure lay on a slightly taller bier of stacked wood than the others. She had hoped to have been able to speak with Nessara about magic, and possibly learn new skills or spells. Learning that the woman could not have been saved once she had been taken hadn’t assuaged her guilt very much, and the memory of the mage thanking her as she died twisted the knife even deeper.

“She was a good woman, and a good friend,” said Terisa, stepping closer to Morgan. The inquisitive audience to Althenea’s transformation had dispersed as the evening’s darkening skies heralded the approaching time of the funeral. “We were once a merry band of naive ambition, her and Kojeg and I, following in my sister’s footsteps looking for adventure.” The huntress rested one hand on the Colt’s holster, seeming almost apprehensive. 

“How did she--? Your sister, I mean.” Morgan didn’t quite know how to phrase the question, but the other woman understood.

“She left home and earned a name for herself while I was still a child, and I sought the same fame and glory.” Terisa spoke softly, watching as Biggles continued to thread his way in circles around the shrouded bodies. The magic of spirits and the cycle of life and death felt different to Morgan than her own elemental affinities, but still equally potent. “It was just Nessara and myself at first, and we met Kojeg soon after heading out on our own. We worked as guards for merchant caravans, chased down bounties, or took on other contracts. But we never could seem to reach the same heights Althenea had, so I always pushed us to take harder jobs.”

“My brothers compete with each other like that, always trying to outdo each other,” replied Morgan. 

“Foz had joined us by then, although we hadn’t married yet. The four of us took a contract to look into some disappearances in the southern forests of Weldtir. We thought it might have been slavers or just regular banditry, so we didn’t wait, and went in by ourselves.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow at the huntress. “Not either, I assume?”

Terisa’s grim smile was all the answer she needed. “Warlock. Not a dabbler getting their toes wet either. A full-fledged demon-binding warlock, and a [Soul Mage], or some variant. The [Oracle] had already informed the Rangers of Forvale, but Althenea didn’t arrive in time to stop us. She got there just in time to kill him before he could kill me, but he was crafty and had a spell on a dead man’s trigger, set to go off when he died. It destroyed her body and trapped her in the gem. She took my place. And now you have saved her.”

“It was the least I could--”

“No.” Terisa’s voice, hard-edged, cut Morgan off, her flat gaze boring into the other woman’s. “I owe you a debt.”

“I don’t know what to ask in repayment,” Morgan exclaimed, exasperated.  Lulu had returned while they were speaking, and hopped back up to Morgan’s shoulder, sensing her distress.

“Then think on it,” the huntress replied. “Dana tells me you cannot repair the bridge, so Foz and I, at least, will travel with you until we get out of Wildlands -- however that may happen. There is time.”

Morgan shook her head, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s not that I can’t fix the bridge; I just can’t do it before winter. There’s a ley line running along the bottom of the gorge, which means we’d have to work slow and careful. It’s not like a nexus or a node where two or more lines meet, there’s no extra mana being given off.” Morgan shrugged in resignation. “If it was a nexus like at my valley, I could use the excess magic and get us across in just a few days. But if I tried that here, the flow of magic would pull mine in instead of giving me a boost, so I can’t tap into it. My dad could, or at least I think he could. But he protects the lines, he doesn’t mess with them.”

The necromancer, having finished his ritual, quietly approached as the two women talked. “It is done,” he said, weariness tinting his voice. “Give everyone some time to make their peace with lost friends, before lighting the fires.”

“Was that soul magic?” asked Morgan. “I could feel something, but it wasn’t like any of my own magic.”

Biggles looked almost offended at the comparison. “It is not magic. Not in the way of mages or sorcerers. Not quite prayer either.” He leaned on his staff, catching his breath. “Necromancers, we talk directly to the spirits, although talk is really too strong of a word. Some can impart enough mana to them to allow for manifesting words, but in my case it’s a matter of images and feelings.”

“I don’t know how much Dana has told you about our world,” said Morgan, “but necromancy doesn’t exactly have a nice reputation in our stories. At all.”

Terisa chuckled. “The stigma is one they all face. Biggles here is one of the better ones.”

“Much is misunderstood about my craft, it’s true,” he agreed. “A few bad seeds ruin it for all of us. Using necromancy to bind souls to empower the caster or their constructs or raise corpses is a shortcut to power for the greedy and stupid. I find it much more effective to bargain on equal terms.” He shook his head vigorously. “The other methods come with a whole host of problems, not least of which would be the [Oracle]’s attention.”

“Oracles have their own reputation in Earth’s mythology; most of them are insane,” replied Morgan. “I think I follow what you mean about necromancy though. Probably not the kind of magic I’ll ever be into.”

“An [Oracle] most certainly can go insane; it has happened before,” added Terisa. “But they usually have other problems. Going blind is common, or being driven to suicide by their visions. It was the [Oracle] who helped Althenea the first time, offering to send her to the other side or let her stay with me.”

“Sounds powerful,” said the sorceress.

Biggles shook his head again. “They can be, but they’re an extreme example of powers and prices. Where the [Oracle] has authority depends on a lot of things that only the [Oracle] herself knows. Where she has authority, it is absolute; where she does not, she is powerless.”

“The [Oracle] saw you, when you arrived,” Terisa continued. “She saw all of the Worldwalkers. Her vision was announced at every temple and chapel, from Stormbreak all the way to Eastharbor. They call Dana ‘The Broken,’ and you’re ‘The Burning Woman.’” Terisa sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Nessara was supposedly sent by the Magisterium to look for sign of you...that may even be true, depending on when she was taken.”

Morgan grimaced and shuddered. “I really don’t like that I killed innocent victims. The Deskren have a lot to answer for.”

“If you intend to go against the Empire, you’ll need help, and I’ll get to pay off that debt all the sooner,” said the Huntress. “I owe a debt to them as well, and I intend to pay it. I bounced Nessara’s children on my knee, and I do not look forward to my next visit to Stormbreak to tell Kanessa what happened.”

Dana had lagged behind the others, growing more agitated as they talked. Morgan turned as the other woman’s suit buzzed and whirred through several different configurations before returning to a normal-seeming armored form.

“It’s all bullshit!” The engineer seemed on the verge of screaming. “Four hundred years and nobody’s done anything about them?” The outburst was as much a demand as a question.

“We’ve fought several wars with them,” retorted the Huntress. “I was in the last one myself.”

“That’s bullshit, too,” Dana shot back. “None of you have been to war. You’ve just fought them off when they go on raiding campaigns to take more slaves.”

“Uh oh…” murmured Morgan, backing away from the other two women as tempers flared.

“Careful, lass.” Kojeg tried to step between Dana and the Huntress, but the engineer rounded on him next, a tempest in her gaze.  He continued in a softer tone. “The Empire are no’ the only ones we’ve fought against. An’ you just gave Terisa a weapon of war of your own world.”

“I’ve skimmed enough of your books to get an idea,” spat Dana. “You march twenty thousand onto a field and think it’s a mighty host. A hundred thousand in one army? I can count the number of times that’s happened in Anfealt’s history without needing the toes I don’t have!”

“Your world may have better technologies than ours, but we are no strangers to destruction, Dana,” said Terisa calmly, refusing to rise to meet Dana’s anger. “It isn’t as simple as marching to the Empire. Nothing can cross the Elemental Desert, not since the battle at Oasa that ended the First Deskren War. Dead sands stretching farther than any two of the northern nations added together, and it was a jungle forest before the war.”

“Half a million people died in that campaign, most of them on that very day or the weeks that followed,” added Biggles almost meekly.

“That may be true, but it isn’t an excuse for that!” she said, pointing at Nessara’s bundled form on the funeral bier. “Four hundred years, and that still happens?”

“What would ye have us do?” asked Kojeg. “Kings and Queens and Thanes and High Councils, all need see to their own people and borders before all else.”

“I’m gonna build us an airship to get us out of the Wildlands, and your Thanes are going to owe me for that. What is built once can be copied.”

“For summat such as that, by my beard ye can name price to the Thuns and they shall pay it.”

Dana crossed her arms and stared at Kojeg. “My price is that you stop hiding in your tunnels and actually fight, like the other nations are gathering at Possibility to do.”

“The Stoneborn have no part in the Bargain of Kings,” he replied, shaking his head.

“That’s an excuse for cowards!” she exploded. “If no one else was fighting them then you should have been leading the way!”

Kojeg froze, muscles tensing, expression turning frosty. “Lass,” he said slowly, “be very careful of your next words.”

 

Dana stalked from side to side, shaking her head. Her suit went from two legs to four to six, spider-like motions taking over her gait. “You want to know how we make war, Kojeg? My people? What’s different about it, and what it means?”

“If it helps ye calm down? By all means, educate me.”

She turned and lunged, planting one hand in the middle of Kojeg’s broad chest and shoving him back a step. The front legs of her suit shot out and slammed into the earth, holding her fast. “We take your dirt. You were standing here--” she pointed down, to where her legs were anchored-- “and now this dirt is mine.” Kojeg glanced from the ground to Dana, confused. She raised her legs from the ground and stepped forward again, pushing Kojeg back another step. He moved back, a frown flickering across his features. “Now this dirt is mine, too. It is no longer yours.”

Kojeg opened his mouth to make some protest; Dana shoved him back, driving her legs into the ground again and scarring the earth anew. “Again.” Once more, Kojeg’s protest was interrupted. “And again. It’s not about killing; that’s just a side effect.” Anger burned in Dana’s expression, and her suit creaked as she advanced. Another push, and Kojeg had been crowded back almost to where Morgan stood with Biggles.

“It’s your dirt we’re after. We take it, and it becomes ours. And we do not stop.” She shoved again, grunting with exertion. Kojeg took another step back. “Not until you are broken. Beaten. Exhausted! Until you have no more dirt. No place to retreat. No shelter. No rest.” Each sentence was punctuated with another shove, another step, and another pair of holes in her wake. She crossed her arms, seemingly done making that point. “You think half a million dead is war?” she asked, scoffing. “You don’t know the meaning of the word. We’ve lost that many in single battles that lasted weeks, months! A hundred times that many in a single war spanning years! A hundred thousand dead with a single bomb! And we dropped two!”

Kojeg seemed lost for words; Terisa fared no better. Both looked rattled and confused. Dana still looked angry, but it had cooled. Morgan spoke up, then, to fill the sudden silence.

“She’s not wrong. It really was that bad, maybe worse. And she’s telling the truth about the way the Army approaches warfare, at least the way my dad tells it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Terisa.

“The Marines kick in the door. The Navy rules the seas. The Air Force commands the sky. And--”

“--the Army takes your dirt,” finished Dana. “I’m sorry, Kojeg,” she said, letting out a heavy breath. “I shouldn’t take it out on you -- but Nessara was a friend, and I don’t have many of those!”

“If ye wish to join the fight against the Deskren with the surface nations, I’ll be right there with ye, lass. But to ask the Thuns to march?” Kojeg stroked his beard, considering. “It may be a flying ship t’would spur the Thanes. I cannae say.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. A dozen nations and kingdoms, the Beast Tribes, the Gnomes, and the Dwarves, and nobody has put an end to this empire.”

“The southern continent is larger than the north, and more populous. It’s a bigger task than you think, when the desert is in the way and any invasion would be by sea,” offered Terisa gently.

“Airships will make that excuse worthless,” said the engineer.

“Tis a hard thing to believe, a flying ship,” said Kojeg.

Dana looked to Morgan. “If her valley is a safe place to stay for a couple of months, I can do it. Maybe...four months, depending on materials, if everyone pitches in for labor. I’ll need lots of witchwood, the taller the trees the better.”

“Nowhere is truly safe in the Wildlands, but my place is safer than most,” answered the sorceress. “And I’d love to see a flying ship,” she said with a grin. 

The last rays of the evening sun faded from beyond the walls of the fort, torches and campfires painting ominous dancing shadows upon the tents and low stone buildings. As the day gave way to night, the necromancer spoke up with a voice that seemed to have grown in power as the light faded away.

“It is time, Miss Morgan. You offered a gift of fire to cleanse this place of death, and the spirits have crossed with the dusk.”

She nodded, suddenly solemn once again, before turning to the stacked pallets of wood and their grim decorations. Lulu wurbled softly from her shoulder as she gathered her magic. A funeral pyre? she thought to herself. I’ll give them one to remember!

With a thought and a negligent gesture, seven mana crystals appeared from her storage runes, floating around her. Drawing deeply on her mana reserves, they flared into brilliantly-incandescent purple light, driving back the shadows and bathing the area in their glow. Terisa and Kojeg stepped back, covering their eyes, as Dana’s helmet visor took on a dark tint. For a moment, Morgan could hear murmuring from the gathering crowd, before the rising hum of her magic filled her ears.

She sent threads of fire snaking through the piles of stacked wood, throwing embers skyward as she took hold of them. As she leaned into the task, faint shimmers appeared in the space around the pyres as the air heated.

Then, she activated [Spell Surge], raising her arms skyward as pillars of flame rose up to engulf the fallen. A dozen spears of indigo and violet shot into the night sky, reaching nearly a hundred paces high. Waves of heat rolled out from the courtyard, breaking over those assembled. After a moment, she lowered her arms, releasing the magic. The spears faded, followed by the violet incandescence as the crystals returned to her storage belt, leaving the crackling flames to provide light. She stood quietly for several minutes, unsure of what she was expected to do next.

“Thank you,” Terisa spoke from her elbow. Morgan had not heard the huntress approach. 

“It was the least I could do. I wish there’d been a better way.”

“You didn’t put the collar around her neck, but you freed her from it before she died. Few of those so enslaved ever get to say the same.”

“Hopefully more will by the time we’re done,” said Dana from her other side, now composed and calm once again. With her helmet fully retracted, the engineer stood next to Morgan and Terisa. 

Updrafts from the flames stirred the winds, whipping dust into the air on currents the sorceress could feel tugging at her mane of hair. Lulu wurbled and hopped up and down on her shoulder, earning an affectionate pat. “I’m looking forward to seeing exactly how you plan to build a ship that can fly,” she said to the other Worldwalker.

“There’s a couple different options,” came the response, but she was interrupted as Lulu bounced insistently up and down once again. 

The scrubby seemed to be trying to jump higher, wurbling and warbling, and Biggles’s own Wuffle followed suit. Then the rest of the loofahs around the wagons and tents joined in as the winds quickened. Suddenly, Lulu sprang upwards into the wind with a mighty hop, leaving a trail of foamy soap bubbles in her wake before one big bubble formed around the precocious puffball. The scrubby wurbled frantically in panicked surprise as the winds drew it upwards, before the bubble gave way with a pop to return a frantic Lulu to her mistress’s arms.

“Actually, that’s the method I was leaning towards, simple air bags and displacement for lift…” Dana trailed off as hundreds of scrubbies were suddenly airborne, riding the wind currents into the sky.

“Lulu!” exclaimed Morgan. “What did you do!?”