Pashilyn was quick-witted under pressure and this time it cost her, though it probably saved the rest of our lives. She got that Light Barrier up above us at an angle, sloping down toward the front of the platform; the rocks and masonry that landed on it immediately rolled forward instead of just applying all their force straight down onto it. Which was the only reason that worked at all. She lasted about a second and a half under those impacts before letting out a strangled shriek and collapsing to the ground, the glowing shield winking out of existence along with her consciousness.

Most of the rocks missed us; Yoshi bellowed a desperate “Force Wave!” and saved us from the worst of the rest. Aster took a glancing hit that nearly pitched her off the platform and Amell went down with a blood-chilling scream of agony, her lower half pinned under debris.

“Amell!” Yoshi shouted, turning toward her. The abrupt motion caused a spiked iron ball to whiz past his head instead of taking it off.

Fuck, those goblins still weren’t dealt with. Their hanging contraption had managed to come to a halt while we were busy surviving the avalanche, and now was even backing up as they reversed their pedaling. Behind us Amell was screaming and weeping simultaneously, and there was nothing we could do for her because we had eight goblins now taking aim with slingshots even as they backpedaled.

“Force Wave!”

“Slimeshot!”

Yoshi and I, with all our power, only managed to turn their ambush into a temporary stalemate; the range was too great. His Force Wave only caused the thingumajig to rock violently, disrupting their aim and forcing them to hold on. I nailed them with several successive slimes, which…wasn’t much more effective. Slimeshot launched with enough power to literally take a man’s head off at minimum range, but slimes were the least suitable projectile imaginable, losing velocity fast as they flew—at that distance I was basically waging a sticky pillow fight.

Then one of the goblins toppled out of his seat with a hoarse scream, an arrow sprouting from his chest.

Nazralind calmly nocked, drew, and let fly, taking out another. Adelly was beside her, Lightning Staff abandoned on the ground as she raised her crossbow.

All four of us kept it up, Yoshi and I only growing more useless as the rapidly-diminishing goblins pedaled frantically away, but our archers took care of them. Naz was by far the better shot, but Adelly managed to hit at least one. Crossbows—at least the ones we used—were more suited for stopping power than long-distance accuracy, unless in the hands of a savant like—

—the blank expression of shock in Kastrin’s face as she jerked to the side like a broken doll with an arrow in her temple—

I drew in air in a frantic gasp, staggering backward from the flash of memory. Fucking hell, I did not need that right now. The real world rushed back in, and it was filled with screams and the all-too-familiar smell of blood.

“Help me!” Zui barked. I turned to find her having planted herself against the chunk of stone crushing Amell’s legs and straining against it. Her shorter height gave her better leverage than any of us would’ve had, unless— “Yoshi, bring that rock over here, plant it right by the boulder! Aster, we need that big-ass sword! Wedge the tip in—yes, there, good. Now work that rock in—Seiji, hold it steady. The rest of you butts, heave!”

A hairdresser (and executive assistant) she might be, but not for nothing did Zui work for an engineering company; she’d formed a plan in a single glance and started directing us to execute it. Aster’s indestructible sword made the perfect lever. Yoshi shoved a chunk of stone in place as a fulcrum, and he and I both dropped to wedge our feet against it to stop it sliding back as they tried to work. Aster, Flaethwyn, Nazralind, and Adelly all threw their weight onto the sword’s upper end, straining against the sheer mass.

Blood was already squelching under out boots in a spreading puddle; as the huge chunk of stone finally topped off Amell, more gushed out. Her legs were completely—

Yoshi slumped forward, barely managing to press his hands over his mouth in time to suppress his retching.

“Heal!” It was instinct at this point; I’d seen as bad and worse and I’d learned long ago to cast the spell before I could get a proper view of the injury or it would haunt my nightmares forever.

Amell sat bolt upright, inhaling a deep, desperate gasp as if she’d just been underwater. Jerking her knees up, she grabbed at them frantically with both hands, kicking and stretching legs that a second ago had been little but flattened meat.

It took her five more seconds to trust that she was whole again, and then she toppled over onto her side into her own blood, sobbing hysterically.

“Pashilyn!” I blurted out her name as my Healer instincts kicked in and I remembered the last person who’d been injured. She was slumped against the wall—praise whatever gods might be watching over us, no rocks had fallen on her. “Heal!”

“That won’t help, but she should be okay,” Radatina said. “Taking an impact to Light Barrier like that applied the hit directly to her own stamina. It’s strain, not injury. She needs a few minutes to recover herself.”

“Here.” Adelly held up Amell’s reinforced potion kit, which thankfully had also avoided being flattened. She knelt next to the weeping alchemist, speaking softly. “I know, honey, you’ve been through hell, but we need you. Pashilyn needs you. Can you sit up? Show me what bottle to use and I’ll take care of it…”

“Anyone else injured? We missing anybody?” I demanded, spinning about to look.

“Ah, excuse me.” Flaethwyn spoke in such an uncharacteristically soft, diffident tone it took me a second to realize who was talking. She held up her left hand, which was absolutely gushing blood from a gash across the palm. “I must’ve…when we leaned on the sword…”

“Heal!”

The elf exhaled in relief, flexing her fingers. “Ah… My thanks, Lord Seiji.”

I finished taking stock. Most of the goblins had escaped; Gazmo, Fram, and Maizo were all peeking out of the doorway, while Zui had retreated against the wall to check on Get Fucked, who hadn’t been able to do anything but hunker down there. I was sure I’d seen him get in through the door; he must’ve been dragged back out when Adelly reacted to the crisis, even though she’d subsequently dropped her end of the rope.

I reached him in one long stride. “You okay?”

The gagged goblin stared up at me through eyes shocked open wide, seemingly uncomprehending.

“Are you hurt? Wait, why am I asking? Heal.”

Get Fucked twitched in surprise at the sensation, blinking rapidly.

“Omura.”

Yoshi’s tone told me our bad day was just beginning.

I turned to look at him, then followed his stare to the other side of the cavern. One of the exterior entrances was almost directly across from us and slightly above, and by happenstance our perspective from this position cut between the structures of the stalagmite village to give us a perfect view. A whole squad of goblins was coming through, and even at this distance I recognized the figure in the lead by his livid green coat with tacky golden embellishments. Hoy had acquired a new polearm, but hadn’t replaced his hat.

“Oh, you little fucker,” I whispered. “All right, time for round two.”

I tried to step forward and was impeded by Yoshi putting out a hand to grab my arm.

“Omura, wait. We can’t finish him here.”

“We what?”

“Look around.”

It took me a second, I’ll admit, but then the realization snapped into place. This cavern was basically egg-shaped; there were no corners, anywhere. The sloping floor was a forest of stalagmites and Spiketown itself atop them was a maze of platforms and bridges, but whether it was goblin-made structures or natural rock growths, the obstructions were all obstacles to be dodged around, not something we could reliably pin someone against.

“Shit, you’re right. The plan won’t work if there’s nowhere to corner him. Okay, what if…” I thought as rapidly as I could, watching Hoy and his squad approach. Oddly, they did not seem to be in a hurry, sauntering across the bridges in an almost insouciant manner. “We can goad him into one of those buildings, or one of the structures carved into the walls. Dude is ninety centimeters of unmanaged rage issues, a couple good taunts and he’d chase us into an open furnace.”

Yoshi was already shaking his head. “We don’t know the layout in there; we’re as likely as he to get cornered. Plus, if we then drop the ceiling on him as planned, we’d be dropping it on ourselves too.”

“Also, those are people’s homes and businesses and a significant chunk of the local food supply,” Gazmo growled from behind us, “if that factors into your calculations.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. As urgently as that goblin needed to be fucking dead…

“Then we have to chase him off,” I said grudgingly. “Make him retreat.”

“Problem is,” said Yoshi with a grimace, “he’s ninety centimeters of ummanaged rage issues. Doesn’t seem like the retreating kind of guy.”

“Son of a bitch,” Gazmo hissed with a sudden weight of venom unlike anything I’d heard from him. I glanced down at the Judge in surprise, then followed his furious stare back to Hoy, who’d by that point reached a platform roughly in the middle of Spiketown and stopped for some reason. He was close enough to afford a better look, and…

Oh. As we stared, the Void witch grinned and flicked a switch on the polearm he was carrying, causing the bulky apparatus at the other end to snap open and reveal a blade.

That was a Judge’s weapon. They weren’t all identical; I could tell it wasn’t one of the ones Rizz and Rhoka had been carrying, and didn’t quite match Gazmo or Fram’s, either. But the general style…

“Why did he stop,” Yoshi murmured, narrowing his eyes. “What’s he waiting for? What’s with this standoff? He was so aggressive before…”

He was right, Hoy had planted his feet in the flat central platform suspended between three huge stalagmites which appeared to be Spiketown’s main square. Grinning, making a show of his stolen polearm, but not attacking as was in his nature. Behind him, seven goblins carrying slingshots and clubs had straggled to a stop just out of easy projectile range, looking uncertain. I could believe Hoy would waste time taunting us, but not at the expense of time spent trying to murder us. What was…

My eyes widened as realization set in.

“He is trapped,” I whispered, causing Yoshi and Gazmo to turn confused stares on me. “Socially trapped. Jadrak and Hoy are trying to ride a wave of violence and fanaticism, but goblins are so peaceful normally they have no cultural framework for how to do that. He’s afraid to back down in front of his goons there, or he risks losing control of them the way he did the last batch. That bombing was supposed to take us out—or at least one of us. It failed, and now he’s facing two Champions again. He can’t win or retreat. Okay, I know what to do.”

“Give him an out,” Yoshi said, as if I hadn’t just announced I knew what to do. “The enemy will always fight harder when cornered; you have to leave them an avenue of retreat. Or so Sun Tzu wrote.”

I had to give him a surprised stare of my own. “You’ve read the Art of War?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Yoshi avoided my eyes, his cheeks coloring slightly. “I, uh. I had a chuuni phase. Just a bit.”

The funny thing about Yoshi was how very easy it always was to make fun of him, and how I usually just didn’t have the heart.

“Hey, man, that’s a lot of us.”

“You, too?” he said almost hopefully, chancing a sidelong look at me.

“Hell no, I had a girlfriend in middle school.”

“I think you’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” Yoshi grumbled.

“Now that’s just not fair, you’ve met Hoy.”

“Good point. Sorry.”

“You two about done with the vaudeville?” Gazmo demanded.

“Relax, this is strategic,” I assured him. “I’m drawing this out, ramping up the pressure. Making him wonder what we’re scheming over here. Judge, I need you to brief our team back inside the walls, please. Tell them to take positions at every window they can find and stand by: if this comes to a fight and Hoy gets within range they’re to hammer him with projectiles, that part of the plan is still on. No explosives, though.”

He waited the merest second, just to emphasize that he was deciding to cooperate, not obeying me, then nodded once and eased backward from us.

“Zui,” I said, turning to look over my shoulder, “take care of the prisoner.”

For once, she didn’t make noise about how I didn’t get to give her orders—just held my gaze and nodded, indicating with her expression that she fully understood what I was implying. Man, I needed a good executive assistant of my own, and possibly a hairstylist. What were the odds I could find myself a less annoying Zui while I was down here?

“C’mon, Yoshi,” I said, stepping forward. “It’s showtime.”

The Hero strode alongside me as we crossed the first bridge. They cut an erratic, zig-zagging course between the platforms and stalagmites holding them up, but we were able to keep Hoy and his little entourage within view as we moved.

I came to a stop one platform short, leaving the space of a single bridge between us, and Yoshi fortunately followed my lead. We were well within spell range, but far enough back that his Void effect didn’t start shutting off our artifacts. For a moment, we all just stared at each other; the weight of our last encounter hanging heavy in everyone’s memory.

This was a fight nobody wanted. As badly as we all wished each other dead, we were too close to a stalemate, now that everybody’s gambits had failed. His bombing attempt had missed us and the choice of venue made our Hoy Directives unworkable. If this came to another brawl, it was just going to be another big, messy waste of time.

“Well, look who finally found their fuckin’ balls,” Hoy sneered, breaking the silence. “So you two dipshits went right for the Spirit, huh? Guess you’re not quite as dumb as you are ugly.”

“Ara, ara, ara,” I drawled. “Childish insults right out of the gate? Not even the pretense of a pleasantry? My expectations were zero and somehow, you still manage to disappoint me.”

From my peripheral vision I saw Yoshi turn his head toward me, blinking rapidly in surprise, and only belatedly realized what had just come out of my mouth.

God fucking dammit, there was exactly one person on this blasted planet I just had to not do that in front of, and here I went and… Why was that my compulsive response to stupidity and bullshit? So help me, if I ever saw Obaasan again, I’d—

Do absolutely nothing, I was still terrified of that woman.

“Aww, is the baby disappointed?” Hoy simpered obnoxiously. “You gonna cry, Dark Lord?”

Good grief, he was bad at showtime. Did he actually think this was earning him points? Only a pre-pubescent schoolyard bully would be impressed by that. Even his followers couldn’t manage to scrape up sycophantic chuckles, though a couple of them unconvincingly tried. Several others looked openly embarrassed.

“Well, Hoy, since we’ve got you here,” I replied in a pleasant tone, “why don’t you tell us all why you’re so interested in getting to Spirits?”

“I see you still think you’re a lot smarter than you are,” he said, his face collapsing into a contemptuous sneer again. “This is a new Kzidnak, asshole, and your old-fashioned preconceptions aren’t worth a crawn’s shit. We’ve got no use for Sanorite or Viryan rhetoric. Goblins stand for goblins, and we only need our Goblin King. We’ll take power wherever we can find it.”

That drew me up short, I have to admit. The taboo on Void magic had seemed universal and deeply-embedded in all Ephemeral societies I’d interacted with so far, but now the goblins arranged behind Hoy just looked… Well, they did not look happy, but no one was offering to speak up against him. In a way, it was a smart move. He and Jadrak couldn’t possibly keep the lid on their devil-dallying forever, so getting out in front of it and normalizing the Void was their only real option, politically.

“And does that include sacrificing your followers?” Yoshi asked, his voice tight with barely-restrained fury. “Are you planning to throw away their lives like you did the last bunch?”

“Traitors deserve nothing but death!” Hoy snapped, his fragile temper clearly starting to unravel again.

“Oh, we agree there,” I said smoothly. “Considering you turned on them first. You got quite a lot of your people killed before they were pushed so hard they had to fight back.”

“Feel free to run your mouth, fuckstain,” he snarled. “Nobody’s gonna believe you. So what’s it gonna be, boys? You got the stones for round two, or you just wanna stand there and talk, like a couple of sniveling crawns?”

“You were supposed to be leading those goblins to freedom,” Yoshi snapped, baring his own teeth in rising anger. “You promised them a better life if they fought for it, and then you threw them away like garbage! What is wrong with you? How can anyone be like this?!”

Hoy’s face lengthened into a deeply ironic expression. He looked Yoshi up and down once, then turned to me, raising an eyebrow.

I shrugged. “Just cos it’s a little naive doesn’t mean he’s wrong. You’re a piece of shit, Hoy. I really hope Jadrak isn’t as cavalier with people’s lives as you are, or this whole uprising is gonna end up being worse for goblins than a century of Fflyr oppression. But hey, you’ve made your feelings about talk plenty clear. If you want at the Spirit, try getting through us. Maybe it’ll be less embarrassing for you than last time. Not that that’s setting a high bar.”

I was expecting another outburst of his escalating temper, but suddenly Hoy got a crafty, knowing look on his face, and I began to worry. This guy was not crafty or knowing, not to mention hilariously bad at masking his true feelings; if he thought he had some advantage we didn’t know about, then one or the other of us had just made an immensely stupid mistake and would pay dearly for it.

“Oh, I could, don’t you doubt it,” he said, smirking now. “But why bother? There are other Spirits in Kzidnak. Let’s see, you two losers came here from that smug twat Sneppit’s place, didn’t you? And the people I sent to lock down Digger never reported back, so I assume you slaughtered them. Then the next Spirit on your path from here would be Mister Flats. How ‘bout it, boys, wanna have a race? Bet I can beat you there. Although.”

His shark-like grin widened to truly alarming proportions and I gripped my rapier tighter, instinctively readying myself for all of this to go south.

“There’s something I bet even your familiars didn’t know: corrupting Spirits isn’t the only source of Void spells.”

I snorted. “Yeah, obviously. But you and Jadrak only have two souls to sell, between you. With your little anti-magic zone and his giving out Blessings of Magic, you’ve blown your entire wad.”

“Oh, you’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Hoy’s expression was now of pure, manic glee; behind him, his buddies looked a lot less happy about the direction this conversation was taking, though so far none of them appeared about to turn on him. “And sure, for normal Void witches, you’d be right. But there’s something you’re not considering: Jadrak is a King. As far as a devil’s contracts go, the souls of his followers are his to sell. That situation just plain doesn’t come up all that often, I bet even your familiars have never seen it before. In all of world history, there’ve almost never been actual rulers commanding the Void. Maybe I’ll just forget about Spirits, and go straight back to Fallencourt, where there are hundreds of goblins loyal to Jadrak dug in and ready to fight. It’s not like they could stand up to a Dark Lord and a Hero—if they’re doomed to sacrifice themselves for the cause anyway, then the cause might as well get something out of it other than funeral expenses. Just think of all the goodies he could get for that many souls. Wouldn’t even have to use them all. In fact, yeah. I’ll just leave the King to his work and take on the Spirits myself. Keep your asses nice and busy so he can do what he needs to and finish this.”

For a moment, I couldn’t find anything to say in response to that. Neither could Yoshi, apparently. Neither could the goblins behind Hoy, all of whom looked increasingly alarmed. Clearly they hadn’t been informed of this ahead of time.

In the immediate term, that meant we were winning this; Hoy was the kind of asshole who couldn’t take a step or open his mouth without alienating people and so far every encounter we’d had with him did more harm to the loyalty of Jadrak’s followers than it did to our counter-rebellion. Here he was, at it again. We could chalk this up as a success…unless he was telling the truth.

And, come on, what were the odds of that?

“Bullshit,” I finally said, projecting more confidence than I felt.

“Oh, sure, you’re right,” he said merrily. “I’m probably lying. I’m a piece of shit, after all! You boys should definitely go after the Spirit. Yeah, now that I think of it, Jadrak doesn’t need my say-so to turn those goblins into an arsenal of Void spells that could flatten fucking Godspire. So let’s you and me race for the Spirits while he settles this once and for all. Whaddaya say, boys, gimme a sporting head start?”

“Force Wave!”

All of us jumped in surprise; neither Hoy nor Yoshi had cast that spell. I didn’t see who had, or at what, and the confusion lasted until the wave impacted the ceiling directly above Spiketown’s central platform, pulverizing a bunch of stalactites which immediately plummeted down on Hoy’s party as so much incredibly heavy shrapnel.

“Flicker!”

No, of course taking him out wouldn’t be that easy. It sure wiped out his party, though; I heard a couple of strangled screams as the entire metal platform was crushed under the falling stone, tearing free of its moorings and plummeting down to the cavern floor below.

Only then did I spot the caster: on the flat roof of a nearby goblin house stood Zui and Get Fucked, the latter untied, ungagged, and with his hand still outstretched in casting position. Clearly I was right to count on her—and my gambit with the goblin sorcerer had gone exactly the way I expected. Now I just needed to arrange for Hoy to voice his thoughts in front of the rest of Jadrak’s people and we’d have this whole thing wrapped up by dinner.

Unless Jadrak turned them all into Void spells first. Which…surely he couldn’t actually do that. Surely not.

Yoshi clapped a hand to his forehead. “Force Wave at the ceiling. Why didn’t I think of that?!”

Hoy had Flickered to the next platform over; I could still probably launch a Slimeshot at him from here, not that there was any point. At least, he was still close enough to call back at us.

“Nice chattin’ with you, suckers! See you ‘round—unless you decide to stop Jadrak instead of me. Better make up your mind quick, fuckboys. Tick tock. Flicker!”

He departed in a series of casts, Flickering from one landing point to the next until he was back at the tunnel through which he’d come in.

“He was lying, right?” I turned to stare up at Get Fucked, who was glaring intently down—not at me, but at Biribo, his voice heavily tinged with desperation. “He can’t—Void witches can’t actually do that, right? Sacrifice other people?”

I did not at all like the silence which ensued, in which Biribo and Radatina turned to stare at each other.

“Huh,” Biribo said after that deeply ominous pause. “It’s…a stretch, but… Boss, I think they may have found a loophole.”

“What the fuck do you mean they found a loophole?” I snarled. “I know you don’t mean that Jadrak can actually sacrifice his followers’ souls to the devil for more Void magic! Because obviously that would have been the first thing you warned me about when we found out the Goblin King is a Void witch. Right, Biribo?”

“The thing is, soul magic is, um… Well, this just doesn’t come up that often,” Radatina hedged. “The sacrifice of a soul has to be voluntary. There are conditions in which someone else can sacrifice your soul, but… That’s just not the kind of relationship a ruler has with his followers. We are talking about complete trust, absolute submission, an outright willingness to die for them and accept any possible fate. On a deep, emotional level, beyond rhetoric and politics. The ruler of a large empire might find a hundred people across his entire domain with that kind of fanatical loyalty. Maybe more if they were extremely religious.”

“That’s, uh, that’s normal conditions, though,” Biribo added. “I didn’t think of it because this has never lined up this way before, but… What we’re in the middle of here is a revolution, led by a cult of personality. He definitely can’t sacrifice every goblin in Kzidnak, but at this one very brief moment in history, at the apex of the fighting and before things start to settle down or drag on too much… There are probably hundreds of goblins down here who would give up their very souls for Jadrak’s cause, at least right now. So, uh, yeah. That’s…a possible loophole.”

“No.” Yoshi shook his head rapidly. “No, that’s not—that doesn’t make sense. If Jadrak could do that, he would’ve just done it to begin with. Right? I doesn’t make sense to hold it back for now.”

“Right.” Up on the roof, Get Fucked was staring with abject, horrified misery into empty space, dry-washing his hands. “Right, he… He was lying to us all. He lied from the beginning. Played us for suckers. So…so he would’ve done that first. That means he can’t do it.”

“Right, yeah,” Yoshi agreed, nodding now. “And anyway, if he could do it, Hoy wouldn’t warn us about it. He’s obviously just trying to distract us from protecting the Spirits.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly, and the looks everyone turned on me were full of grim anticipation.

“Jadrak’s first plan was to ally with me,” I said. “Making himself the Dark Lord’s lieutenant would’ve been just about the only way his little uprising could even theoretically succeed against the Fflyr. I might even have fallen for it, if he hadn’t revealed what a piece of shit he was by having his goons murder the goblins I was already friendly with to get them out of the way. He went from expecting to work with the Dark Lord, to having to fight the Dark Lord… To having to fight the Dark Lord and the Hero, to having his unstoppable Void witch accomplice beaten back in a fight and organized resistance entrenched on the fringes of Kzidnak… Every success we’ve had has just been pushing him farther into a corner. If he just wasn’t desperate enough for those extreme measures before…that could be changing.”

Get Fucked slumped down to his knees, cradling his face in his hands. Zui gently patted his back.

Yoshi inhaled deeply. “Radatina… In theory, if he could do this, what kind of Void power could Jadrak get if he successfully fed hundreds of goblin souls to his devil?”

His familiar didn’t answer immediately, which was as bad a sign as I’d ever seen.

“That’s…no Void witch has ever pulled off something like that,” Radatina finally said reluctantly. “I can hardly imagine the kind of monster he could become with that kind of power. It would at least rival the most successful Dark Lords at the absolute apex of their strength. Right now…there’s no force on Ephemera that could stop him.”