Glade had been worried he might never find the main guardsmen’s outpost, especially after losing sight of Ameena. But, halfway through the next day of running, he arrived at the top of a hill and looked out over the landscape. A small stone fortress perched on the next hill to the west. It had star-shaped walls, but wooden buildings had been stacked onto the ramparts, and newer cobblestone additions spilled over the main fortress wall, boxy and haphazard.

But its builders had probably never intended it as a first line of defence, nor to hold up to a long siege. Rather, it would’ve been a headquarters.

That meant it’d be less resistant to an invader like Glade, while still housing some decent treasures.

Glade navigated across the small valley towards it, sliding down terraformed ridges of dirt and sprinting across flat ledges. The orchard continued for another quarter-mile, but closer to the fortress, the trees thinned, and he found himself running across a band of bare soil.

The walls rose steeply ahead. An old, rusting portcullis barred the main entrance, and he probably could have broken it down given time, but he chose the easier route. He turned to an overflowing mound of old stone structures just to the left. They might have been additional barracks, or just individual cycling chambers for the fortress’ inhabitants, or maybe they did have some defensive purpose.

When Glade fuelled his enhanced body and flooded his muscles with a touch of mana, he leapt up to the roof of the first lower cobblestone box. Its flat wooden ceiling shook under the impact of his landing, and when he kicked off and sprang to the next level, the old boards shattered.

He hopped from box-to-box until he was high enough to leap over the main wall of the fortress. His feet clipped the crenellations, and he skidded to a halt on the rampart. Rusty cannons lay strewn about, having crushed their rotten carriages long ago, and other wooden debris littered the ground.

The inside of the fortress was plain, but there were so many little buildings crammed into it that he couldn’t see the ground level.

He ran around the edge of the rampart, searching for a way down and trying to make a mental map of the fortress. The back of his neck began to tingle when he reached the east side of the fortress. At first, it was a logical tingle—if Ameena was here, then he’d sense something. But then it built and grew stronger, until it was at least thrice the strength that he had felt from her before.

There were more God-heirs here.

He drew his sword and ducked into the nearest wooden shelter built upon the wall. A weapons rack hung on the front wall, laden with dusty, cobweb-crusted muskets, and a shelf ran along the back wall. The shelf was a little more useful—it had probably once been covered in orange, mana-restoring elixirs, but now there were only three left. He plucked them all up and clipped them to his belt just in case.

Then, he veiled his core, as best as Nathariel had taught him.

Either he was facing someone thrice as strong as Ameena, or he was facing a group of God-heirs. Neither sounded particularly pleasant to deal with.

Once he had his veil set in place, he crept out onto the rampart and walked around, drawing closer to the source of the tingle. He rolled his feet with every step, trying to avoid any sort of debris that might make a sound.

He passed a set of barracks, revealing a small courtyard. He dropped to his stomach as soon as it came into sight. At the center of the courtyard stood a pair of sun-Path God-heirs—the golden halos behind their heads gave them away. They wore white vests and cumberbunds, and they carried straight sabers at their hips.

Glade crawled into cover at the next wooden watchhouse on the ramparts—they wouldn’t be able to see him with their bare eyes.

He made it inside, controlling his breaths and holding his Arcara in place, but the two God-heirs started whispering and clamouring. One drew his saber—Glade heard it hiss out of the scabbard.

“First the lapinn, now this? This was supposed to be our score!” said one. “And now you say that First Lieutenant moth lady is headed our way? This was a bad idea!”

Glade shut his eyes. He felt a pressure thrice the power of Ameena’s. If she was here, and there were two other God-heirs…they must have been Second Lieutenant each.

“Well, just kill him!” one of the God-heirs snapped.

Not good.

Something screeched outside. Glade dove to the side—just in time for a beam of golden, concentrated sunlight to blast through the wooden wall where he had been hiding.

He ripped the veil off his spirit and ran his hand down the fuller of his sword, conjuring a razor-thin wedge of Arcara along the blade.

Another smaller beam of light blasted through the second half of the wooden hut, and it came too fast to dodge. He slashed his sword through the beam, using his Arcara to split the attack. It crashed around him like a wave, shredding the old wood around him and kicking up a cloud of wood chips, but the technique didn’t hit him.

But he wasn’t the Mediator. He couldn’t take on two Second Lieutenants at once.

He sprinted out along the battlements, splitting and slashing a few more beams of concentrated sunlight. They melted the stone and seared through crenellations, leaving behind molten stone.

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One of the God-heirs leapt up onto the ramparts in front of Glade. Beams of yellow light swirled around the blade of his saber. It swished at Glade’s head.

Glade spun his sword, deflecting the man’s blade into the ground, then leapt off the ramparts and down into the courtyard.

On one side, the other God-heir closed in. He looked slightly older than the other, but they could have been close brothers, with their yellow-blonde hair.

Glade didn’t need to mess with them, either. They had set up camp in front of an armoury with heavy stone doors—open doors. The doors had runeic markings all over them. It was probably a locking mechanism of some kind. If he could get inside…

He sprinted across the courtyard, tucking his head down. He dodged and deflected beams of sunlight into the ground or the surrounding buildings, whirling his sword as he ran. He used a complex defensive pattern that the Order had drilled into him since he could lift a sword, but it protected all his vital points.

He dove through the open doors of the armoury, then grabbed both halves and heaved them together. His Dawnspear body carried the bulk of the effort. The doors slammed together with a puff of dust, and he flooded the rune-lock with a stream of Arcara. It cycled through the runes of both doors, sealing them together.

Panting, he leaned back against the sealed doors. The fortress’ main armoury was a hall thrice his height and large enough to be a stable for a detachment of dragoons. Shelves and racks lined the walls, all filled with powder kegs, muskets, bayonets, sabers, and a few field cannons. Light filtered in through thin windows near the ceiling. At the back of the hall, there were a few mismatched weapons, stacked cleanly in rows.

As he caught his breath and stood up, he gulped. The doors had been open, and this place had practically welcomed him in. There had to be a reason the two sun-Path God-heirs hadn’t gone in.

“Ameena?” he called. Maybe she had holed up in here, setting a trap.

Nothing.

He held his sword ahead of him, ready to address any sort of threat he might find. When he reached the end of the hall, the floorboards hadn’t even creaked.

He walked back and forth in front of the weapons at the back of the hall. There was a hand-cannon for grapeshot and a few ornate sabers. Many of the weapons had rusted and crumbled over the years, turning into tiny little razors on the ground. Glade bent down, about to scoop them up into his pouch of metal filings, when he noticed a pale horn.

A voidhorn. He picked it up. There was nothing special about it, save for a ring of starsteel engravings around the mouth, but it was about as heavy as a metal ingot. To his disappointment, when he pulled the leather cap off, there was nothing inside.

But some of these weapons would be very valuable. A gold-starsteel mace hung a few feet above, and, controlling the voidhorn with a puff of Arcara, he drew the weapon inside. He also took a few daggers, and a musket made of Moulded Arcara. If nothing else, they could sell the weapons or trade them.

But the moment he set his hand down on the hilt of a giant sword—it was twice as thick as his longsword and a few feet longer, with a splayed tip and an empty cutout down the center—a wind blasted through the armoury.

There should have been wind anywhere in the greenhouse.

The gale picked up all the flakes of rust and tiny razorblades. First, it whirled into a silver-red tornado at the center of the room, before condensing and taking the shape of a dog-sized, wingless dragon.

Glade whirled around and pointed his own longsword at it. He let the giant sword fall back against the wall.

The rusty dragon pranced forward in a flash and pounced. Glade raised his sword and wedged it into the creature’s jaw. An image of the bookwyrm of the Mascant archives flashed through his mind—though this was more of a swordwyrm, it had the same general makeup. It even had eyes of darker rust flakes, staring right at him with their vertical slits.

A swordwyrm would be drawn to armouries and blades, just like normal dragons were called to hordes of gold.

But this one wasn’t nearly as big as the bookwyrm had been. It must have been younger. Heaving the dog sized creature back and away, he held up his hands. “Wait! I mean you no harm!”

He held his sword out to the side in a gesture of friendliness, but the Arcara technique along the blade glinted. That could be seen as a threat. He swallowed nervously, then held out his pouch of metal filings. He dumped out a trickle of them as a peace offering.

The swordwyrm inhaled them in a single breath. Then, it lowered its front legs and raised its haunches. Its reptilian tail wagged.

“Oh no…” Glade breathed.

The swordwyrm pounced on him like a dog chasing after a stick, knocking him to the ground. It stretched out a metallic tongue and licked his cheek, and he feared that it’d scrape all his skin away—but the particles of the tongue turned all their sharp points inwards. In a breathy voice, it uttered, “Sword friend…sword friend!”

Glade raised a hand and patted it on its head, careful not to slice his hand on any of the razorblades along its back. “Uh…sword friend?”

The dragon hopped off to the side, then pranced in a circle. “Free? Walk? Walk far?”

“You…want to leave?” Glade asked. He’d never heard of a wyrm wanting to abandon its horde before.

“Bigger horde. Want. More swords. Want. Not enough swords here.”

Glade raised a hand and ran it through his hair. He groaned, then lowered his arms. “You want out of here? I can get you out of here.”

He just hoped the wyrm wasn’t imprinting on him.

“Free?” the wyrm asked, its tail wagging. It trotted in a circle. “Deal. We leave. You open doors. Then break boundary lines.”

Before Glade could say anything else, the wyrm dematerialized into a puff of rust. It whistled through the air, then snapped onto the hilt of the giant sword like it had just been bound to a magnet. It wove around in complex patterns, turning into swirls on the sword’s blade.

Wyrms could be bound, he figured, and there was something keeing it here. Even with the doors open, it must not have been able to leave.

He walked over to the sword and pointed his voidhorn out towards it, preparing to draw the weapon in. But there wasn’t enough room in the horn for such a large weapon—the starsteel ring around the horn’s mouth sputtered and sparked with Arcara, denying the weapon access.

With a sigh, Glade heaved the sword up. “Listen, wyrm. We need a way out of here. Can you help me fight those men outside? Or get me out?”

As if in response, the sword slipped out of his hands. It fell to the floor, but instead of falling with a metallic clatter, it hovered on a bed of air. “Help sword-friend. Will help! Sword-friend flies!”

Glade took that as a ‘yes.’ Hesitantly, he stepped onto the floating giant sword.