Aster exchanged a few words with one of the men closest to them. The man she spoke to seemed to recognize her, but he kept glancing at Isaac between sentences. Then a call went out and although Isaac didn’t hear it the first time, he got several more chances to figure it out as the callsign traveled up the line. It was just one word, repeated again and again from man to man. Isaac wrinkled his brow. The call sounded a lot like they were shouting: “Phoenix”.

  A man appeared over the line of soldiers some moments after the call had traveled out of earshot. He had far more pieces of the same gleaming armor the rest of the men wore, in fact he was covered everywhere except his face. A scabbard about the same length as his height stuck out from a belt. Everything about him was colored gold, except for his skin, that it was as if he’d been dipped into a vat of liquid gold.

  He stood on a platform, no, a hand? The hand rose above the line of men until Isaac could see it better and Isaac once again since he came to the Endpoint, struggled to understand what he was seeing. The hand was as golden as the man it carried, and it attached to a huge lumbering creature, clumped and hunchbacked like Quasimodo. Perhaps the height of two men and the width of five or six.

  It had no real eyes or face, just the outline of one. It was as if someone had given up halfway into hewing a human out of rock and instead tried to melt the figure into the correct shape but abandoned that attempt too. The creature positively towered over everyone around it and Issac hoped it could at least slow Crassus down long enough for them to escape.

  The man hopped down from the creature and his overlong scabbard dug into the ground and he had to adjust it irritably with one hand to keep it from bulging his belt out. He wore a styled beard, cut into strips and sections. He had a long hooked nose and flowing dark brown hair that clashed magnificently with his golden armor. He resembled a hawk dive bombing a jewelry box.

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  “Aster,” he said looking her over from head to toe, sparing only a glance for Isaac. “It ‘as been too long.” He had a horribly botched french accent.

  “Crassus is chasing us,” Aster said without preamble.

  The man gasped and scanned the fog wall for a second before returning his gaze to Aster. The reaction lasted only for a moment. “Zhat’s impossible, ‘ow can he smell you all zhe way out ‘ere?”

  “Either let me through or fight me. Then Crassus can have what’s left of you.”

  The man pretended to be taken aback by her threat. “Why aster,” he said, drawing out the ‘r’ in her name with a long scarring consonant. “You ‘ardly look fit to battle, my fiery friend,” he laughed heartily, “If I were you I would not go around making threats so idly, no?”

  Aster stared at him. He chuckled and continued, “after all, there’s only one of you,” he nodded at Aster, “and more than fifty of us,” he finished with shifting his gaze to Isaac as if to draw attention to the fact that he hadn’t included Isaac.

  Aster didn’t respond this time around either, she just crossed her arms.

  The man laughed and threw his arms up in mock exasperation and traded glances with his men as if to lament the futility of arguing with an unruly child. “Ah, but I do not ‘ave the time to play with you, Aster,” he said, and he even sounded apologetic. “Run along now little bird and say ‘allo to Tejhal for me, no?” A mirthful smile played across his lips, “tell her I look forward to zhe day zhat roof falls down on her head.” At that he almost choked himself he laughed so hard.

  Aster grabbed Isaac’s coat and he winced as pain shot through his broken arm. She elbowed her way past a man with golden armor strapped to his arms over the numerous furs he wore. He had two shoulder pads with horns sticking straight up that looked so fierce they almost seemed to grow out his actual skin. Isaac was careful to give the man ample room as he passed while Aster dragged him along. The golden man laughed behind them all the way past the soldiers, up a small incline and into the forest. None of his men joined him in laughing.