It turned out that they only had three days left before it was time to go. Benjamin spent much of that time focused on all the objects that needed to be made, but he still found some time to talk to the Prince, who only belittled him. That’s where he was when Raja came to let him know what was happening.

“If you were wise, you would have killed yourself already,” the man responded when Benjamin asked the translucent, manifested ghost why he was so fearless in the face of death. “Because if they take you alive, I’ll spend the next century torturing you before I grow tired of it. I’ll do it publicly, every evening after dinner.”

“Aren’t you the one that’s spent so much time telling me that I can do nothing to harm you and loosen your tongue?” Benjamin said with a smile.

“That’s only because you lack the will and the understanding,” Prince Agadrian assured him. “I would be happy to reincarnate you into the body of some slave day after day if need be, but you? You’re so soft you find the idea morally repugnant.”

“I don’t find it morally repugnant,” Benjamin corrected him. “It is morally repugnant. Torture aside, you’d be murdering all those souls just to play your sick games.”

Raja nodded at that, standing by the door as he watched the exchange and as the Prince opened his mouth to dispute it with the same arrogance as he always did, but Benjamin banished him back into his amulet before he could. Unlike Kitsune Miku, he had no independent existence without Benjamin’s mana, and as soon as he withdrew that, he collapsed back into his storage device to wait for the day of his eventual resurrection.

If Benjamin had his way, though, that would never happen; that monster would rot in his gilded grave for all time. The only reason that Benjamin had kept him alive this long was to try to find out things he couldn’t discover on his own and that well might have already run dry.

“Is that dude always like that?” Raja asked.

“Pretty much,” Benjamin agreed as he got up and stretched.

“Real charmer, then. Literally,” he said as he laughed at his own joke. “Only way that guy gets laid is with magic roofies and shit.”

“Well, I’m sure his immense wealth and power probably worked pretty well, too,” Benjamin shrugged, “but I guess. None of that tells me what you need, though?”

“Oh, right,” his friend smiled. “Matt wanted me to let you know that it’s time. They’re coming.”

Benjamin sighed at that. Some small part of him missed the quiet version of his friend who sent quick messages that explained what he needed in a couple words, thanks to the limitations of the interface. Now that Raja could speak again, he seemed to be twice as talkative as before, and though Benjamin could hardly blame him for that, he could see it becoming a problem in important moments like this.

Even as he thought about that, though, he got ready. Benjamin didn’t have much to pack, and everything that he did quickly went into his bag before they rushed out the door and toward the great all of the spire, where he was sure everyone was meeting up.

They never got that far, though. Instead, part way there, he found that most everyone was already starting to form up in the main square, and Benjamin immediately went to join them. Taking a quick look around, he didn’t find Matt, but he did find Emma, so Benjamin walked over to her instead.

“Where’s your man?” he asked, taking some small joy in the face she made at that, even after all this time.

“Where do you think?” She nodded toward the wall as she spoke. “He says to get things started on the exit, and he’ll stay with the defenders until it's time to follow.”

Benjamin shook his head at that. That’s not the plan, he told himself.

He didn’t say anything out loud, though. There wasn’t a point. Part of him had known that Matt would do this since the beginning. Instead, he started barking orders, telling the warriors that had been matched up to get ready as he walked toward the river gate, flanked by his friends.

Arden had been their domain for months now. It had served them well, but now every land route from the city was blocked by the encamped army, and a smaller unit stood on the far side of the river to make life difficult in that direction as well. The second army was only a couple hundred men, and it was meant to intercept any efforts to resupply more than anything.

He doubted very much that the Summoner Lords expected them to try to escape, let alone to try to escape in that direction, but that was exactly what they were about to do.

Benjamin walked out the river gate and pulled the heavy bronze rod from his bag, and when he reached the end of the longest pier, he tossed it in the water and activated the enchantment. Then he stood there and waited as men began to crowd around him.

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“Is that it?” Emma asked as several pounds of engraved bronze disappeared without much more than a small splash.

Benjamin ignored her, though, as he stared anxiously at the water. He knew it would work, but part of him worried that it wouldn't despite that certainty.

It wasn’t because they needed to escape this way, either. If worse came to worst, he was sure the walled city could support their burgeoning army of several thousand for a few more weeks before their stores were exhausted. It was because if this didn’t work, he had no idea how he was going to pull his own weight.

Despite being level 7, he had as much mana as a first-level mage. He was basically one-eighth of the caster he should have been without the crippling levels of soul damage, and compared to that, all the other symptoms of his recovery, like his headache, were nothing. His only real shot to bridge that gap was to program items that could cast spells much bigger than he’d ever be able to with his crippled abilities.

That was why he watched the interface with bated breath, waiting for it to show a draw. Even when it showed, the object under the water began to pull three, then five mana a second. He stood there with a blank expression on his face. It was only when the first chunk of ice bobbed to the surface that he finally allowed himself to breathe.

“Still doesn’t look like much,” she said, leaning over the water.

Benjamin shrugged. “It’s a grower, not a shower.”

Only Raja laughed at that, but Benjamin never took his eyes off the small patch of spreading ice. The key reaction was based off the chains of ice spell that he’d gotten early but rarely used. It was only the scale that was much bigger. In this case, it was exponential. At first, it was just a few ice cubes, but as it greedily sucked down a couple mana a piece from the hundreds of people that were networked to it through him, the effect doubled and doubled again.

Soon there was a thin sheet of ice spreading across the surface near him, though each small wave in the large river chipped away at it. Seconds later, the ice was thicker, though. Now, it was racing away from him toward the opposite bank, and though he wanted to give it another minute before he trusted the weight of hundreds on his impromptu path, it was moving quickly now.

It’s going to work, he told himself, as long as the rod doesn’t short out.

That, of course, was a very real possibility. It was channeling 10 mana a second now. That was why he chose such a large piece of metal and why he chose to do his first experiment in a body of very cold water. He was hopeful that would keep the whole reaction below some critical point, but he didn’t know for sure. The Summoner Lords might have a book about how all of this stuff was supposed to work. Hell, they might even teach classes on it, but all he could do was collect data.

Less than two minutes later, he judged the ice to be thick enough and cut power to the rod as he yelled out, “Alright, people, let's move!” before he climbed down onto the ice.

“You sure this will hold us?” Raja asked, right behind him.

“Of course,” Benjamin said, feigning confidence. He was sure enough to go first, but he was far from certain. They’d find out soon, one way or the other.

The forces on the far bank were starting to mobilize, but they were still confused about what exactly it was that was occurring. The last thing they’d been expecting was a water-walking excursion to bring the fight to them, and by the time their commanding officer emerged from his large tent, there were already warriors on his side of the river charging forward to engage.

The battle was practically lost before it was started, and Benjamin watched the man try and fail to open a rift and escape before Raja, or someone with a similar skill, took the man’s head off with an exploding arrow.

Benjamin stood there in the mud, turning back and forth between the men and animals that were streaming from the city and the short but bloody fight that was already unraveling in front of him. It had taken almost 300 mana to build this bridge, and in the heat of the day, it would be gone within an hour.

That should be enough time, he told himself, as long as Matt doesn’t dawdle.

On that, there was no guarantee. Benjamin watched shields flare to life on the north and east walls several times over the next few minutes that indicated a burst of heavy fighting, and the large purple beam that could be used as a form of magical artillery swept the battlefield several times, but it was hard to say what they were fighting, or if it was decisive.

Five minutes after the final trickle of stragglers, just when Benjamin was concerned that they might have to go back and drag their friend from the fighting, Matt and the dozen men who’d stayed with him to keep the semblance of defenders in place until the final moments came running across the river as quickly as they could.

Unlike the group that Benjamin had crossed with that had moved purposefully but cautiously, Matt’s team ran as fast as they could. As a result, all of them slipped on more than one occasion, but by the time they were halfway across the river, it became clear why.

The front gates had been breached, and enemy soldiers were in hot pursuit. Only a few of them got out of the river gate, and even fewer of them made it to the ice before the city exploded in a series of violent, eye-searing green explosions and began to implode on itself.

Benjamin had known this was the plan from the start: leave the city out the back door, lure their enemy inside, and detonate the vast gemstone mana batteries that powered its arcane defenses. However, it was one thing to know that it was going to happen and another to watch with his own eyes as the spire began to lean, and debris clouds spewed into the air as explosion after explosion ripped through the fortified city.

From where they were standing, they couldn’t see how many had died, but since the green fire was powerful enough to make even the stones burn, Benjamin doubted there would be very many. His only hope was that there had been a Summoner Lord or two in there.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” he asked Matt as he stumbled to shore amidst the fracturing ice.

He looked back at the smoldering rubble and then turned to Benjamin and smiled. “Nah. We had all the time in the world.”

“Maybe we did, but there’s no way the beacon is still working under all that,” Benjamin said as he rolled his eyes. “So we need to disappear like now.”