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Khadizroth physically swelled, drawing in a long breath, his face descending into a deep scowl. “You, Kuriwa, I had minimal patience for to begin with. If—”

“Truce,” Mary said calmly, holding up a hand, palm forward.

The dragon paused and narrowed his eyes. “Truce? Why?”

“Let me second that incredulous question,” added McGraw. “With you bein’ here, finally, this ruckus seems about to take a turn for the beneficial. For some of us, that is.”

“There are some things you should all know before pursuing this matter any further,” Mary said equably, lowering her hand. “If you will kindly give it a minute or two, let the others gather. I’ve had to send help for some myself, but—ah, here they come now.”

Now might have been overstating it for those without the benefit of elvish hearing. Vannae turned his head slightly toward the far end of the square, narrowing his eyes; Khadizroth glanced fleetingly in that direction before focusing his attention back on Mary.

“I am impressed, at the least, with your nerve. That you should presume to speak politely with me after our last encounter…”

“Khadizroth, I will not have this conversation if you plan to contend that your treatment was unwarranted,” Mary interrupted. “Existence is not fair, and people cannot be expected to be scrupulous in their judgment; we are not all Avei, nor Themynra. Your actions have consequences, and you knowingly took a substantial risk by launching a scheme which, frankly, was beneath you on multiple levels. If you wish to discuss the removal of my curse, we can. As soon as you are no longer attached to Justinian.”

“I see,” the dragon said evenly. Vannae scowled deeply at Mary and opened his mouth.

The sound of footsteps came from around the corner at the end of the square. The flaming green silhouette of the Jackal, eerily visible through intervening buildings, dashed toward the corner and whipped around, not slowing as he pelted straight for his compatriots. A second later, the huge panther rounded the corner, sliding on the dusty street, and lunged after him.

The Jackal unashamedly skittered behind Khadizroth; the panther skidded to a halt and glared at the group, tail lashing.

“Raea, please don’t play with that,” Mary said with a smile. “You have no idea where it’s been.”

“Look who decided to show up,” Raea shot back, her expression decidedly unfriendly. “After leaving this whole situation to devolve into carnage, here you are to clean everything up and take credit. As usual.”

“Petulance does not become you, child,” Mary chided gently. “If it makes you feel better, there will be very little credit here for anyone. If you will join us, we are going to have a chat shortly. I’ve had to send some help to escort the last few interested parties to this location.”

“Did you sign off on this?” the Jackal asked, peeking around from behind Khadizroth.

“Regardless of any outstanding personal business between myself and the Crow,” the dragon intoned, folding his arms, “it has been my long experience that it is worth listening when she speaks. I’ll grant a few minutes to hear this…revelation.”

“Oh, good,” said the assassin, brushing fruitlessly at the flames on his sleeves. “Can you do something about this?”

Khadizroth half-turned to glance over him. “Probably. Not here, in the presence of opportunistic hired thugs who I don’t trust not to take advantage of my distraction.”

“That’s a little rich,” Joe protested. “All’s fair in war, as they say. Now we’ve agreed to a truce.”

“This is the first time I have heard you voice such agreement,” Khadizroth replied. “Regardless, complex magics can wait.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll just wait,” the Jackal said sullenly as Raea came to stand next to McGraw, laying a hand on his shoulder. After a moment of no visible effect, the old wizard straightened up slightly and rolled his shoulders as if suddenly freed of stiffness, then smiled and tipped his hat to her.

Everyone shifted to stare at the mouth of a side street when a swirling cloud of dust emerged from it, moving far too slowly to be natural. The cloud slowed and arced back toward the street from which it had come, and for a moment during the shift a vaguely humanoid outline was visible in its form. Then it shifted again, drifting toward Mary, and rippled in an indecipherable series of gestures.

She smiled and bowed to the air elemental from a seated position. “En-shai da.”

The elemental swelled outward and dissipated, a few leftover streamers of dust drifting to the ground.

From the street behind it came Weaver, carrying Billie seated in the crook of his left arm; he had his wand in his other hand, pointed currently at the ground. The bard glanced rapidly around the growing assemblage in front of the well, but spoke to his passenger.

“Quit drinking those, you idiot. You of all people know what the effects of healing potion overdose are!”

“Ah, quit yer maunderin’,” Billie said with a grimace, tossing the vial she had just emptied to the ground. “All the worst times I ever had seem to’ve begun with somebody tellin’ me not ta drink somethin’.”

“And did you ever follow that advice?”

“Course not, what d’ye take me for?” She grinned at his ostentatious sigh, raising her voice to address the others. “Well, what’ve we got ‘ere? Back to talkin’, eh? You wankers had enough?”

“Hello, Billie,” said Mary, finally getting up from her perch and stepping over to them. As Weaver carefully lowered the gnome to the ground, she knelt and placed both hands on Billie’s cheeks.

Billie grimaced, then shuddered, staggering, and apparently would have fallen had Mary not held her up. “Ach! Blech, that tingles. Thanks, though. Feels a lot better.”

“He’s right, you know,” Mary said more severely. “One more vial of that and you’d have had much more serious problems than the internal bleeding. Remedying that was more difficult than what remained of your actual injuries.”

“Well, sorry, yer Crowness, but if you just turn up at the last second, don’t expect ta be handed the easy jobs!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Weaver said dismissively, glaring around the square. “Either someone explain to me why we’re not still killing these assholes, or let’s just resume.”

Khadizroth reached behind himself unerringly and planted a hand over the Jackal’s mouth, just as the assassin opened it. “We are as eager to learn the point of this as you, I’m sure, deathspeaker.”

“Just a moment, please,” said Mary calmly. “Our final guest is arriving.”

She stepped in front of McGraw, Joe, and Raea, crossing the space separating the two groups, and met a large figure emerging from another street.

It was easily eight feet tall and seemed made of stone, which made the silence of its movements deeply incongruous; only upon closer inspection was it apparent that the elemental was not made of solid rock, but slowly shifting sand. In its blocky arms was the unconscious form of Jeremiah Shook.

The sand elemental bent and carefully laid him out on the ground, where Mary knelt to touch his forehead. “Hm, he’s been healed recently. Your work, Vannae? Neatly done.”

“Mary,” Joe said tersely, “that man—”

“Is your diametric opposite in nearly every respect, Joseph, and altogether would have been a better choice for a first nemesis than a dragon.” Mary straightened up, turning her back on Shook, and strode serenely back to her perch on the rim of the well. The elemental, rather than rising again, slowly sank back into the dusty street, leaving no trace of its presence.

Shook twitched once, then sat bolt upright, groping at his belt where his wands should have been and not finding them. He fell still, staring at those gathered in the square through narrowed eyes.

“Come on, really?” the Jackal protested. “No one’s dead? Nobody? You guys suck at this.”

“Okaaaay,” said Shook, ignoring him. “What the hell now?”

“That is what we’re about to find out, apparently,” said Vannae, returning his attention to Mary.

“I have spent the last several days traveling widely,” Mary said, while Shook got to his feet and joined the other members of his party. “Much has been going on behind the scenes, and I’ve been working to determine what, and why, and at whose behest. I had some advance warning of these events, you see, thanks to my own divinations. When the oracles begin to warn of danger, there are always some of us who hear the alert first.”

“Thanks for keeping us in the loop,” Weaver snorted.

Mary raised an eyebrow. “I’ve worked toward the betterment of the world for a very long time before you came along, Weaver, though I would still have included you, had I any reason to believe you would act for the greater good when not being paid. Regardless, there is a point within your griping, whether you intended it or not. There is one secret I knew long beforehand, which I wish I had been present to share with you before you were sent off on this errand. It could have spared us all a great deal of needless fuss and bother.”

She folded her legs beneath herself and regarded them all solemnly. “You were sent here to obtain the skull of Belosiphon the Black—or more accurately, to fight over it. For the last eight hundred and twelve years, the skull has lain in a sealed barrow in the mountains outside Veilgrad, reachable through the city’s ancient catacombs.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Veilgrad?” Shook said incredulously. “Bullshit.”

“Veilgrad,” Mary continued, “has been the scene of all manner of catastrophe in the last few months. Necromancy, werewolf activity, multiple misfired spells. Chaos cultists.” She cocked her head to one side. “Exactly the sort of goings-on one would expect to see in the presence of a major chaos artifact, and which has not been seen here.”

“Well,” McGraw mused, “suddenly I feel a lot less intelligent than I did this morning.”

“So…what, this is a race to Veilgrad, now?” Joe asked. “Then I don’t see what’s different about this encounter. Stands to reason we’d be best advised to prevent each other from settin’ out first.”

“I suspect we are not done being surprised,” said Khadizroth.

“Indeed,” Mary said with a smile. “The skull is now secure, or will be very soon. An extraction team sent from the Universal Church, composed of members of the Holy Legion and spellcasters of multiple schools form the cult of Salyrene, were dispatched in a borrowed zeppelin. Their operation was exquisitely timed; I expect they either have the skull in their hands now, or will within the hour.

“Most interestingly, to me,” she went on, her expression growing more serious, “is the timing. That skull was inside a casket sealed by Salyrene herself. It has endured for centuries and in theory should have indefinitely. This summer, the roof over it was collapsed, cracking the seal—a most interesting development, considering the protections laid upon that place. I would venture to say such a thing could not happen unassisted. This caused the taint of chaos to flood Veilgrad, slowly growing until it became a severe enough threat to alarm the oracles, leading to…all of this.

“So Justinian sent you here,” Mary said, turning to nod at Khadizroth’s group. “Bishop Darling, to whom I spoke just yesterday, researched the oracles’ warnings on his own time, finding the Church’s records to indicate the Badlands as the skull’s resting place. There is no historical reason why they should.”

“Wait,” said McGraw, frowning. “There’s the matter of Imperial Intelligence. Darling looked through Imperial records too, and got the same info. And they’ve sure as hell been a presence in Desolation of late.”

“The inner workings of the Empire are frustratingly opaque to me,” Mary allowed. “Who has done what and why in the halls of Imperial Intelligence I cannot say. But I can interpret the events unfolding as I see them. The new Imperial presence and construction in Desolation, among its other aims, is directly targeted at extending the Rail network to Rodvenheim and Puna Dara—two sovereign states which have emphatically refused to give Tiraas a clear route to their front doors. Now, with adventurers brawling, plains elves prowling and rumors of a major chaos artifact flying about the desolate region where all their territories abut, I rather suspect both governments are under significant pressure, from both within and without, to join hands and impose mutual civilization on this last piece of wilderness.”

She paused to let her words sink in for a moment before driving them the rest of the way with a veritable hammer. “Of course, there is exactly one man who could arrange for the skull to be exposed, you four and your succubus companion to be sent here, and a trail of breadcrumbs laid exactly where Darling would look for it. Now, I’ve said my piece. We can resume this affair to its logical conclusion, which in any outcome involves massive damage, injury, and likely fatalities. Considering who has arranged all this, who is the only party who will benefit from both our groups weakening each other… Well, I find that I, for one, am disinclined to dance for his amusement. I am even less interested in helping the Tiraan Empire advance its foreign policy ambitions. My proposed truce has now seen its purpose fulfilled. I suggest that rather than continuing to fight… This is a good time for us all to walk away.”

The wind whistled emptily over the shattered rooftops of the town, carrying the scents of smoke and ozone. Both groups assembled in the square stared suspiciously at one another, at their own members, at Mary positioned neutrally apart from them.

Then Joe, moving slowly and very deliberately, slipped his wands back into their holsters.

“I said it to begin with,” the Jackal said, still swiping absently and fruitlessly at the green flames limning him. “Whatever problems we’ve got with each other, with Darling or anyone else—and you’d better believe there are going to be a series of reckonings on all those scores—at the end of the day, Justinian’s still the big spider in the middle of this web. And the son of a bitch went and made us forget that for a while.”

“Yes,” said Khadizroth softly. “A fitting reminder why he is dangerous.”

“You don’t have to answer to him,” said Joe.

“Someone does,” Khadizroth replied. “I like him better in my proximity than weaving his schemes behind my back.”

“Aye?” Billie snorted. “How’s that workin’ out for ye?”

Shook grunted. “Pains me to admit it, but the gnome makes a point. We have every fucking one of us just been played like a whole band of fiddles.”

“A veritable orchestra of dupes and patsies!” the Jackal said, grinning. Shook gave him a filthy look.

“Now, I might be mistaken,” said McGraw. “It wouldn’t be the first time. But all this talk seems to be leadin’ toward the conclusion the lot of us have more urgent matters in common than we have reason to fight.”

“You’re not completely right there,” Weaver replied. “The matters in common, yes. But every time we meet, this shit gets more and more personal.”

“I’m sure this has nothing to do with the proclivity of several of you to be gratuitously vicious toward each other,” Raea commented.

“The enemy of my enemy,” Vannae began, and was drowned out by a loud snort from Shook, a peal of hysterical laughter from the Jackal, and a theatrical groan from Weaver.

“Enough.” Khadizroth did not raise his voice, but it nonetheless cut off the noise. “You are all right. We have between us matters which must be settled. However… The Crow is also right. The matters need not be settled right now, and we have in common one figure who would presume to control or destroy all of us. We would be wise not to let ourselves forget that, when next we meet.”

“I can’t help but see the utility in havin’ one group in the Archpope’s camp and one outside it,” said Joe. “If we were willin’ to…compare notes, so to speak. Not to mention that, let’s face it, Darling ain’t a whole lot better. If he’s any better.”

“Darling is as duplicitous a player as the Archpope,” said Mary, “and I think has an even greater capacity for viciousness. The ultimate difference between them, however, is that Darling does not aspire to rule. He is Eserite to his core; his aim is to bring down those who would set themselves above others. That makes him useful, despite his…numerous annoying character traits.”

“Hm,” Shook muttered, frowning at nothing.

“I accept your recommendation, for now,” said Khadizroth, taking one deliberate step backward. “We will continue to play Justinian’s game because we must. Henceforth, however, we must be very careful not to find ourselves doing his dirty work.”

“Agreed,” Joe replied, nodding. The dragon nodded back.

There were a few more mutters and grunts from various persons, but with that, it seemed the main topic of conversation was exhausted. Mary stood and strolled calmly over to join her own group, as both parties began shuffling backward from each other. They eased away in reverse at first, keeping eyes on their rivals, but gradually, as they neared the edges of the square, everyone relaxed enough to turn around and slip into the streets on opposite sides.

The desolate wind whistled into the space left behind as both groups walked away.

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A nimbus of arcane blue ignited around Shook, Joe’s first shot slamming into nothingness just above his heart. A split-second later, Shook had squeezed off two return shots, which sparked against shielding charms over Joe and McGraw, and then absorbed two more clean bolts of light from Joe’s wands and one flash of lightning from Weaver’s, forcing him backward.

Before the shoot-out had a chance to burn through anyone’s shielding charms, the Jackal hurled a tiny object to the ground at his feet, and with a burst of highly compressed air, a fog of dense gray smoke billowed out over the ruined street.

More wandshots flashed blindly through the sudden darkness, and the high-pitched, theatrical laughter of the Jackal faded rapidly into the distance.

“Circle up,” McGraw said urgently. “Don’t let the bastard flank anybody!”

Raea, again an elf, had called up another burst of wind to clear the smoke away from them, giving the group a clear view at least of each other. Following the old wizard’s directive, they swiftly arranged themselves back-to-back in a knot, with McGraw and Joe facing down the street at where their enemies stood.

In the next moment, the Jackal’s smoke was dissipated entirely by another burst of wind, this one conjured by Vannae. Shook still clutched his wands, and raised them once he had a view of McGraw’s team again. Of the Jackal there was no sign.

Before Shook could fire, Khadizroth stepped forward past him, placing himself at the front of the group. McGraw unleashed a bolt of pure arcane energy straight at him.

The dragon made a contemptuous swatting motion and the blast veered sideways, slamming into the half-collapsed front of what had long ago been a general store and completing its demolition. With his other hand, Khadizroth made a grasping motion in midair, then gestured sharply upward.

A conical spire of rock burst out of the ground in the dead center of their formation, hurling them in multiple directions. The formation was twelve feet high in seconds, the violence of its emergence tossing everyone away, and its ever-expanding base preventing them from regaining their footing—except Raea, who nimbly bounded up the rising tower.

She just as nimbly leaped away from it as the peak of the now twenty-foot outcropping exploded, emitting a burst of fire and superheated air. Blazing droplets of magma oozed over the edges of the tiny crater thus formed, adding considerably to the heat of the air and forcing the adventurers still further away. A few more wandshots from Shook and a couple of fireballs hurled by Vannae herded them farther away from each other, until the whole party was forced to split, each diving for whatever cover they could find.

“That was good advice,” Khadizroth said calmly. “Stay together, gentlemen; with the exception of our assassin friend, we are stronger as a group. Force them apart and pick them off one-by-one…” He broke off suddenly, frowning and swiveling his head to stare at a collapsed structure behind which one of their foes had taken shelter.

“My lord, what is it?” Vannae asked urgently.

“A pocket of fast time,” Khadizroth replied, narrowing his glowing eyes. “The sign of a mage who wants to cast something very complicated very quickly. Stay together and move back; whatever he is doing will—”

Again, he abruptly stopped talking, this time to turn and dash between Shook and Vannae, down the street in the opposite direction. Behind him came a veritable wall of air which picked up both men and dragged them along, Shook cursing vehemently.

Moments later, Khadizroth skidded to a stop over forty yards away, at the very outskirts of the town, and released the air spell that had gathered up his comrades, along with a great deal of dust and rubble. Vannae laded lightly on his feet, but Shook was hurled face-first to the street with a small drift of rubble dropped atop him. Having his face in the dirt stifled his obscene commentary for a moment.

Not wasting any time, Khadizroth gestured again, pulling up a wall of rock from the ground between them and the place where they had been standing. Not a moment too soon; an enormous fireball had come screaming out of the sky, slamming into the street where they had tried to form up and trailing a retinue of smaller objects which peppered the already-demolished town. The main impact shook the earth and threw up a shockwave of dust and heated air, which was mostly ablated by the dragon’s hurriedly-summoned wall.

Khadizroth pushed the wall back into the ground, its duty done, and called up another burst of wind, again dispelling the fog of dirt from the air.

“How did he do that?” the dragon demanded.

“What the fuck?!” Shook choked, dragging himself upright and immediately falling into a coughing fit.

“I see the portal magic,” Khadizroth murmured, peering intently back down the street at the brand new crater. Of their enemies there was no sign. “He… Ah. Temporal bubble, open a portal to the upper stratosphere and conjure a rock. I can only guess how he handled the trigonometry—the math involved is more than even I could do in my head. Truly, the man’s technique is inspiring. But the thing should have taken considerable time to fall this far—how did he shorten it? One can only twist time a very little bit before Vemnesthis intervenes.”

“How ’bout this,” Shook rasped, pausing to cough again. “Less admiring the fuckers and more killing them!”

“I suppose so,” the dragon mused, shaking his head. “Tis a shame—one always hates to destroy a true artist. First, though, we now have to find them.”

Billie plunked herself down atop the very highest point of the half-building, half-rubble pile that had previously housed Khadizroth’s office and began withdrawing components from her pockets.

“There y’are,” she murmured, squinting at the three figures well down the street even as she connected a sturdy tank of liquid to a metal charm containing impossibly pressurized elemental air with an extremely durable hose. “Don’t suppose I could get ye to stand still fer a bit? Aye, that’s even better,” she added with a predatory grin as the three began cautiously advancing back up the street. Screwing a wide spraying nozzle onto her nearly-finished apparatus, she glanced down the other side of the pile, where from this vantage she could see McGraw and Joe lurking behind cover across the street.

Suddenly the air around her seemed to thicken; several arcane charms pinned to her coat blazed to life, and a shockwave of pure force blasted outward from her in all directions.

Dropping the device she’d been crafting, Billie bounded to her feet, dipping one hand into a pocket and spinning around with the other outstretched. The indicator charm pinned to her cuff pointed her dead in the right direction; the instant she came to a stop, she pulled a rune-engraved cylinder from her pocket, slapped it into her other palm, then released it. The directional charm flashed brightly once more and propelled the object forward in a straight line.

She was quick, but not as quick as an elf. Even elves were subject to the laws of physics, however, and the Jackal’s agility and speed did not enable him to change direction in midair. The runic device struck him in the back before he touched the ground, still in the process of being hurled backward by the blast.

The charm flashed brightly once and tumbled to the ground, inert; the Jackal went the opposite direction, shooting three yards straight upward, where he hung, grasping at nothing.

“Joe mentioned that trick,” Billie said, gathering up her pump device and beginning to pick her leisurely way toward him. “Makin’ an entire suite o’ the best shielding charms available just up an’ collapse. Once I got to thinkin’ how such a thing might be done, it was child’s play slappin’ together a little countermeasure. Ach, what’m I sayin’? I don’t do little. Ironically enough.”

“A bard once told me,” the Jackal commented as she neared, “that if you find yourself delivering a monologue to a helpless foe, you are clearly the villain of the piece.”

“Now, now, lemme brag a bit. I’m very smart, an’ I want ye to appreciate it before ye die here in a minute.” She stopped, grinned, and aimed the pump at him; he was drifting rapidly lower, whatever magic she had used wearing off quickly. “Smile pretty, now.”

The Jackal hurled out a hand, propelling a cluster of small throwing knives at the gnome; they flashed against her shield charm and fell to the ground. In the same moment, she activated the pressurized air in her gadget and sprayed a gout of green fire directly at him.

The elf yowled and twisted about frantically in midair, unable to dodge; he was coated completely in flames. He continued to yell, thrashing and flailing, as Billie backed up a few paces and set down the pump.

“Oh, quit yer whinin’, ye big baby, it doesn’t hurt,” she said dismissively.

Indeed, the assassin quickly found that he was unharmed. He was on fire, completely coated in flickering green flames, but they weren’t even hot. They just didn’t come off, as he discovered upon trying to pat and brush at his sleeves and torso.

Billie, meanwhile, produced a palm-sized leather ball attached to a brass runic seal and hurled it. More prepared this time, the Jackal swatted it away, but the device activated upon impact with his hand, letting loose another blast of compressed air and sending him sailing off toward the edge of the town. The levitation charm gave up the ghost under that abuse, and he hit the ground gracelessly for an elf: bouncing once on his rump and only belatedly getting his feet under him.

The assassin glared up at the gnome, lunged to the side, and vanished.

While he disappeared from sight, the green flames clinging to him did not.

“Oi!” Billie shouted gleefully from above, waving with one hand and pulling out another grenade with the other. “That’s some right top-notch stealth magic ye got there! Be a shame if somebody went an’ made it completely useless!”

Hissing a curse, the Jackal changed course, dashing around the edge of the town and pressing himself close to a still-standing wall, placing some cover between himself and Billie.

There, he skidded to a halt, face-to-face with a giant panther.

She growled once, crouching to spring.

“Raea, my dear,” he said with great dignity, straightening up and adjusting the invisible lapels of his coat as if they weren’t on fire, “since this is our first real meeting and I may not have the chance later, I just want you to know something.” He smiled pleasantly. “Your mother pays dire wolves to fuck her in the—”

The panther lunged.

“That is a right disconcerting spectacle,” McGraw mused, staring at the figure of a slim man outlined in green fire. It was a good twenty yards away, and on the other side of a collapsed building and a standing one besides, but the flames were visible between it. According to Billie, they’d have been visible on the other side of the planet, if anybody there had eyesight keen enough to see it. He was correct; the ghostly image was deeply disconcerting, making the brain struggle to place it against its backdrop.

“Mm hm,” Joe murmured, jerking his head up the street, where Khadizroth and Vannae were approaching at a walk. “Can you occupy these two for a moment?”

“Reckon I can whip somethin’ up,” McGraw said idly, taking aim with his staff and unleashing a blast of pure, destructive arcane force.

Again, the dragon deflected it, then the second one, but he slowed under the onslaught as McGraw continued to pepper him with arcane bolts. Vannae ducked into a side alley behind his master.

“The other elf just went outta sight,” McGraw said tersely. “Watch your ass, Joe.”

“Damn,” the Kid hissed, lowering his wands, their tips smoking. Neat holes had been burned into the pile of rubble between them and the Jackal, but were quickly erased as the debris shifted. The Jackal, engaged in a fighting retreat from Raea, had moved out of the way of the shots, not that it mattered; powerful as Joe’s wands were, it was simply too much mass for him to shoot through. “I’m gonna—”

“Son, do not go off chasin’ him,” McGraw ordered. “We’ve taken his element of surprise; he’s not a match for Raea hand-to-hand. I could use your help here!”

Joe whipped around, baring his teeth, and stepped up next to the old wizard, adding a barrage of wandfire to McGraw’s assault.

At that, Khadizroth was finally forced to halt his advance, ducking into another alley. A final blast from McGraw collapsed the entrance after him.

“So,” the wizard said, breathing heavily, “he can deflect unfocused bursts of arcane power, but not wandshots. Interesting.”

“And good to know,” Joe added. “Gives me an idea. C’mon.”

Sometimes simple devices were the best devices; rather than relying on any magical augmentation, Billie’s Throwing Arm was a simple length of pipe with a gripping claw attached to one end linked by spring to a handle on the other. It enabled her to lengthen her arm by more than her body height, and thus hurl bombs a very great distance. She had practiced with it extensively. Not enough to bullseye an elf in an alley at seventy yards, but the nice thing about bombs was that you didn’t really need to bullseye anything.

She chuckled to herself as the grenade hit right in front of Vannae, reducing his path to a pile of rubble and catching him in the blast. It was too much to hope that it had done him in; between elvish relfexes and magical defenses, he wouldn’t be taken so easily. Unfortunately the fire, smoke and debris prevented her from seeing the results of her attack in any detail.

The only warning she got was a rasp of stone on stone behind her.

Billie whirled, another explosive in hand, but Shook was already on her. The angle of the climb to her perch had prevented him from just shooting her down, and he’d given himself away by clambering fully up onto the small ledge rather than reaching out to grab her. He was there, though, and close enough to land a vicious kick square on her chest.

The gnome was propelled into space, plummeting over twenty feet into the crater below. Baring his teeth in an expression that was triumphant but not a smile, Shook stepped up to the edge of the platform, leveling both wands.

He, unfortunately for him, was much taller than a gnome; the angle of the climb did not protect him from wandshots.

His shielding charm sparked at the impact of a lightning bolt; he whirled, almost losing his balance, and blindly returned fire.

Weaver stalked forward up the much gentler side of the rubble pile, the one Shook had avoided because it was within Billie’s line of sight. The bard glared fury at the enforcer, both wands upraised, and pressed forward one step at a time, unleashing blast after blast as he came.

Shook regained his balance and shot back; blue flashes lit up around both men as their respective charms absorbed wandfire. Meeting his assailant’s glare with his own, Shook began striding down the incline right at him.

Both men advanced at a walk, surrounded by flickering shields of light, and pouring on arcane destruction with two wands each. Those shields were starting put put off smoke and high-pitched whines of protest; they were not meant to stand up to continuous fire. Neither man wavered or slowed, however.

When they were only five yards apart, though, Weaver suddenly dropped his wands. Shook finally paused, hesitating in his own assault.

The bard reached into his coat, pulled out a flute, and raised it to his lips. The enforcer unleashed a furious volley of blasts straight at his face; Weaver’s shield sparked dangerously, the charm pinned to his coat glowing hot enough to make the fabric smoke.

Then Weaver blew a single note, and the world tilted out of balance.

Shook lost his footing, stumbling to his knees; he dropped one of his wands, barely catching himself from keeling over entirely. Weaver continued to play, the sound seeming to make the very air resonate sickeningly.

Then Shook raised his head.

His lips were peeled back in an animal snarl, eyes bulging with pure rage. Weaver’s own eyes narrowed; after a quick pause for breath, he blew harder, the note resuming even louder than before.

Shook stumbled again, wavering… Then, slowly, straightened up, climbing fully to his feet. Blood began to drip from his nose. Raising his remaining wand, he took aim at the bard.

Weaver let off playing for a moment. “It rattles the brain, y’know. To stand up to that, you’d have to be more wild animal than man. You’ve got some issues, don’cha, Mr. Shook?”

His shield sparked against the wandshot that would otherwise have burned through his throat. He put the flute back to his lips.

What struck him from the side was not a gust of air so much as a compressed sphere of it. Weaver kept his hold on his flute, though his wands were sent flying away even as he himself was tossed off the incline to skid down it on his back and land in a heap at the base.

“Stop,” Vannae ordered, bounding onto the ledge as Shook made to follow Weaver. “Persevering through that would damage your mind. If it is not healed—”

“I’m fine,” Shook snarled, his features twisted in animal fury. “Fuck off, I’m gonna finish—”

A light touch of the elf’s fingers on his forehead caused him to slump forward, unconscious. Vannae caught him, grunting as he carefully lowered the much bigger man to the ground.

“In my opinion,” the elf murmured, gently placing a hand over Shook’s eyes and concentrating on the healing flow of magic, “it would be more sensible to let you finish him off and kill yourself in the process. Two birds, as they say. But Khadizroth has stated all our lives are to be protected above all other considerations. There, that should—”

A brilliant tower of pure light burst up from a juncture of streets over a block distant, accompanied by a wail of agony in Khadizroth’s voice.

Vannae bounded off the ruined building in one great leap, leaving Shook unconscious at its peak.

McGraw stumbled backward, barely getting an arcane shield up between himself and the fireball thrown by the dragon. There was barely room to maneuver in the square; this end of the town was less destroyed than the other, but it was also more cramped. The only reason there was an open space here at all was due to the old well at one end, set in the base of a rock outcropping atop which a house had been raised.

Joe and McGraw had intercepted the dragon here and managed to hold him for a few minutes. While the wizard approached at street level, Joe had positioned himself on the rooftops, firing streams of white light in an intensity that left molten streaks of glass in the sandy dirt of the street. His onslaught had forced Khadizroth to keep moving, even as he himself had had to rapidly dodge and shift to defensive measures when the dragon hurled fireballs, and at one point caused an enormous thorned vine to crawl up the wall on which he was standing. Joe’s wands were crafted with the ability to project tunnels of ionized air to redirect incoming wandfire; it didn’t work nearly as well on fireballs, but worked somewhat, at least causing them to lose cohesion.

McGraw, meanwhile, had poured on a more direct attack, hitting the dragon with fire, ice, lightning, wind, sheer kinetic force and blasts of pure arcane energy. His assaults, while stronger pound-for-pound, were less concentrated than the wandshots, and Khadizroth mostly chose to block or deflect them rather than evading.

The dragon was kept busy with defense and evasion, only finding time to fire off one counterattack for every three or four of theirs, but still, it was apparent from the beginning that they were only keeping him at bay. And while both humans grew increasingly sweaty and short of breath, Khadizroth remained in perfect equilibrium, and even wore a calm smile.

Finally, sensing a moment’s weakness, he followed his fireball with a wall of solid air, smashing McGraw backward into the house behind him. The wizard lost his footing at the impact, stumbling to the side and barely catching himself on his staff.

“Stop!” Joe thundered as the dragon stepped forward. He leaped from the rooftop on which he’d been balancing, landing in the street a few yards away.

Khadizroth did, indeed, pause, turning to face him. “Unless you intend to parley, Mr. Jenkins, I do believe this matter is at an end. I would take it well if you did; I told you once before that your brand of honor is sorely needed in the world. It would pain me to expunge it.”

“Step away from him,” Joe grated, advancing with both wands upheld, “and don’t you dare speak to me of honor, you two-faced filth.”

The dragon’s sage smile finally vanished. “Child, you speak of things far above your understanding.”

“I understand integrity,” Joe snapped back, firing a stream of light at the dragon’s feet; Khadizroth stepped away, but made no other move as the Kid advanced. McGraw, against the wall, hauled himself upright, panting, but also held off, watching them carefully as if afraid to interrupt the conversation unfolding. “You know what kind of man you’re working for.”

“Yes,” Khadizroth said coldly, “and what kind of man you are working for. I’m certain you have this worked around in your mind so that you taking orders from your particular deceitful weasel is more noble than me doing so from mine, but—”

“Darling an’ Justinian aren’t the problem,” Joe interrupted, pressing forward. He fired another shot at the ground; Khadizroth glanced at it but did not move, the beam not coming close enough to singe him. “Neither am I. We work for Darling because of what he’s payin’ us—it’s that simple. We’re mercenaries. Not the noblest thing, but it is what it is, an’ none of us claim to be any better. You, though, you’re Khadizroth the Green. You’re supposed to stand for something. You’re supposed to matter, damn you! What can you possibly be doin’ with Justinian that’s worth leeching the honor outta the world?”

Khadizroth blinked his eyes, his expression very nearly shocked. “I—Joseph, much as we would like matters to be simple, we rarely have that luxury.”

“The world ain’t simple,” Joe said bitterly, coming to a stop only two yards from him. “It largely ain’t decent, and neither are a lot of folk in it. Difference is, people can be better. What makes ’em better, most times, is somebody settin’ an example. That is what you could be doing, and it’d matter a hell of a lot more than any a’ your schemes.”

The dragon drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I…wish I could say that you are wrong, young man. Perhaps it would be better for you not to live to understand the compromises that must be made for the greater good. You’ll be happier, not learning.”

“Whatever,” Joe said coldly. “Done with this conversation, anyway.”

He moved one foot forward, planting a toe on a still-hot length of burned, glassy sand, and closed his eyes.

Blue light flared up from the ground all around Khadizroth; the dragon whirled in sudden dismay, only belatedly realizing that Joe’s shots had carved a sprawling spell circle into the dusty street, and he was standing in the middle of it.

Before he could move, the air trembled as if rung like a bell, something rippling outward from the dragon’s form.

A column of blinding light blazed skyward and a shockwave of force ripped in all directions, tossing Joe and McGraw against the walls. Within the magical inferno, Khadizroth let out an unearthly howl of pain.

It was over as soon as it had begun, and the dragon collapsed in an unconscious heap.

“Whew,” Joe gasped, picking himself up and retrieving his wands from where they had fallen. “Well, that’s not gonna work a second time… You okay, Elias?”

“Wouldn’t say that, but I’ll live a few more minutes,” McGraw grunted, hauling himself upright using his staff. “Kid, what the hell was that? It looks like a simple transmutation matrix.”

“Yup,” Joe said, managing a weak grin. “Straightforward divine-to-arcane energy conversion. I figured, he wouldn’t have many divine spells, but dragons are known to use all kinds of magic, even apart from the one they specialize in. All four schools an’ even some shadow magic, right?”

“An’ if that quantity of divine energy were converted to arcane in his own aura, where he wasn’t expecting it to be, and reacted with the fae magic he’s filled with…” McGraw let out a low whistle. “Kid, you have any idea how risky that was? Quite frankly there are more reasons it shouldn’t’ve worked than reasons it did.”

“I figure we’ve learned by now that improbable plans are the only kind that work against dragons,” Joe replied, leveling both wands at Khadizroth, who was still unconscious. “Now, what to—”

Vannae lunged at him from the rooftop nearby, only prevented from hitting the Kid head-on by a blast of unfocused arcane energy from McGraw. The elf tumbled to the street, singed and snarling, where he swiftly planted himself between them and the fallen dragon, brandishing a tomahawk.

McGraw and Joe glanced at each other, then fired simultaneously.

Wandshots and arcane bolts alike slammed harmlessly into the rock wall that sprang up out of the street in front of them, incidentally obliterating part of the spell circle. In the next moment, it shattered into fragments, exploding outward and pelting both of them with shards of rock, knocking Joe over and pushing McGraw backward.

“I,” Khadizroth growled, getting to his feet, “have had enough!”

The dragon straightened up fully, baring his teeth at them, and held his hands out to both sides. White-hot flames burst into being in each palm.

Just as suddenly, they winked out, leaving him holding two handfuls of smoke and looking flummoxed.

A soft caw sounded on the air.

Everyone froze, turning to watch the crow as it glided down to settle on the rim of the old well.

Mary smiled, shifting to nonchalantly tuck one leg beneath herself.

“Am I late?”

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