Marcus tried to stifle the spluttering, whooping coughs that racked his throat.

Marvin, he telepathed. How close to the surface are we?

The bulky human replied as his pickaxe bashed through clods of dirt and soil above them, while the rest of their troops waited behind. Two hundred of them – for now. The others were helping with the ongoing evacuation.

“Just two – more – hits!”

Marcus spared a look back at the hopeful hybrids as they clutched their weapons to their bosoms – Tigran with twitchy noses, Yokun with eyes as focused as hunters, and even a couple of Marvin’s humans shaking like leaves. They’d felt the flames of Hakka before. They’d probably heard the screams of their dying comrades as they ran from their former Masters far too often.

If this fails…

Marcus instantly threw the thought from his mind. Doubt had been what had failed him before. Doubt, and a lack of imagination. Now, he held more lives in his hands, and he wasn’t about to fail them. Not now. Not again.

Especially not when so many had already died to get him to this point.

What’s a few more deaths… Marcus Graham?

Marcus’s eyes bulged as this thought – intrusive and distinctively not his – forced its way into his mind with power unlike anything he’d felt before.

And then Marvin’s pickaxe finally struck true, and a hatch was opened above their position in the Southeastern tunnels. The dim light of evening dew streamed through the opening, covering Marvin in a deep, pale orange as he checked the surface and beamed a thumbs-up down to Marcus.

Alright, Marcus commanded. Two at a time. Slow. Once topside, keep low and stay low. We’ll approach as soon as the signal is given.

He grimaced as he ascended, helped by Marvin, right back up to Thea’s surface. A night operation had been out of the question in the Underkingdom – where darkness always reigned. But now that he was back on real land, he had more considerations that could be tactically crucial to consider. For one thing, he could already see that the ‘duel’ was about to commence – most of the Prince’s army was appropriately distracted by Hialjia’s boastful wails and retorts.

Gotta admit, that ‘Princess’ really can act…

As he helped the rest of the unit up, he couldn’t help but feel pangs of sorrow at having to use Mari as bait. But, as was her way, as soon as it was even suggested that she could play a pivotal role in their retribution, she had agreed without question. She led by example and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty – traits that were the marks of all great leaders.

And, if he was being honest, traits he’d never really known she possessed.

“We’ve got ’em with their pants down, Marcus,” Marvin whispered as he crouched low beside him, scanning the Yokun palisades, watching the rear section of the camp where the smoke plumes were the thickest – because that was exactly where they needed to go.

Marvin seemed jumpy beside him. Pre-battle nerves? Or something else? Marcus’s eyes asked those questions for him.

“Are… that is… are ye sure you can do your part?” he asked, licking his dirt-flecked lips. “I mean, I’m not exactly a stranger to seeing magic, but I hear tell it ain’t easy for a wizard to control his power. I mean, Jin’an did alright, but she was an ancient gal.”

Marcus brought up his twisted hand – eyes trained on the pulsing green veins that had been gifted to him by a rat more loyal than any he’d ever known, and then bolstered by a Yokun that he never knew at all but who, miraculously, had managed to link her power with that of Deekius to make Marcus what he was now.

And what am I now, really? he thought, his mind suddenly recalling the dark voice he’d heard in his mind – the voice that had sounded eerily similar to that of the many-horned rat that had appeared to him in his dreams beneath Grindlefecht.

Am I Gloomraava? Or something else entirely…

Just then came a berserker roar that split the trees behind the assembled Pipers, many of whom had to hold back cries of triumph as they recognized the powerful sound of Hialjia the Tauron, ready to rip her enemy to shreds.

“I guess we’ll find out what I can do soon enough,” Marcus replied to Marvin’s question. “That’s our cue…”

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Pipers! he then telepathed. Move out!

…

Prince Nagoya was relatively amused by how quickly his camp had turned into a tournament arena.

They’d brought the hulking beast to a pen just outside the Northeast watchtower. The place was usually reserved for cattle, but the prospect of a duel between the Prince of Hitogi and a fully grown mountain Tauron proved to outweigh the pastoral concerns of the army. The cattle were promptly cleared. The watchtower guards were doubled – each one training his musket on the horned head of the great beast as she fought against those who pulled and whipped her into position.

The Prince, meanwhile, was followed closely by his cohorts – his onyx-clad Kherja honor guard. Young Canjung was still insisting that he take his Prince’s place, but Nagoya, eyeing the Pale Lady as she watched from her knees outside the pen, made it perfectly clear that this was his fight.

He entered the pen to cheers from his men, cracking his scaled neck and unsheathing his katana from its scabbard. The blade cracked the air itself as he drew it out, sending ripples of excitement through the crowd.

“Where is Hialjia’s weapon?!” the Tauron bellowed.

“’Weapon?’” Canjung spat. “You are a beast of burden! A wretched Keji-Sai who is lucky to even look upon his Lordship’s magnificence! You should fight with nothing but your dirty claws and hoofed, demon feet!”

Amid ripples of agreement from his men, Prince Nagoya swiped his blade through the air again, as though cutting through their voices with a single, precise slash.

“This is a matter of honor,” he told the warriors – Zhurkin and Kherja both. “We Yokun are not base creatures who scuttle beneath the earth. Nor are we afraid of our enemies’ tools of death-dealing. The Mandate of Akira teaches that all duels be conducted with fair play to both parties. Tauron – if the weapon we took from you is your instrument of death, then you shall have it.”

Murmurs of discontent rippled through the crowd, but another swipe of the Prince’s blade made his commandment most clear. Hialjia’s axe was laid at her feet, and a bloody grin crept across her face.

“She’ll kill you with that, you know,” Mari said from the periphery of the makeshift arena. “Without it, you might have stood a chance.”

The Yokun Prince shifted his sharp eyes to her bound form only for a moment before he smiled back up at his massive opponent.

“Watch closely, ‘Pale Matriarch.’ See what a true warrior of this world is made of.”

The Tauron was released, her captors scurrying away almost instantly as they let their chains go. She shook them off, charged towards her axe, and scooped it up with one swift motion that seemed utterly incongruous with her size.

As she charged towards the Prince, every Yokun’s heart was in their mouth. The great beast lowered her head, ready to gore their grand leader’s stomach…

“Fah-SHA!”

With one swift, practiced, utterly fluid motion, the Prince stepped aside and brought his blade across the Tauron’s cheek, gouging deep into her face before withdrawing and spinning away to her flank, his every move like that of a trained dancer.

“HAIL, PRINCE NAGOYA!”

The crowd loved every moment. The Tauron spun her axe around, striking down the walls of the enclosure behind her and smashing the weapon’s bladed side into the ground where her opponent once stood. As she lifted her blade, she then felt a stabbing pain sear up her left side and looked down to see that the Yokun Prince had embedded his sword in her ribcage.

Her axe hand faltered. Her mind went blank, and she let out another roar that this time shook the very foundations of the wooden palisade. The Prince, however, was not to be cowed, and pushed off against her thick hide to remove his sword.

But the hand of the great beast found his blade and kept it there, in her side.

“You think Hialjia does not know pain?” she growled. “Hialjia has lived through worse.”

The burly fist of the beast came reeling back. Then, with power that even the spectators could feel behind it, the beast slammed it into the Prince’s face, sending him skidding towards the other end of the arena.

“Lord Nagoya!”

The musketeers above leveled their weapons at the snarling creature, but the mailed hand of their Prince punched the air, halting their attack.

“Do nothing,” the Prince called out as he rose, purple blood frothing at his mouth. “The beast is mine.”

Hialjia tore the katana from her rib and threw it aside, turning to Mari with a ravenous grin.

“Hialjia thinks this will be easier than she thought!”

“Kick his ass, Princess.”

Mari received a stout strike across her face for that quip, and the Tauron leveled her axe at the Yokun who delivered the blow.

“Hold, beast!” came the voice of the Prince. “Your fight is with me!”

The axe of the Tauron came crashing down in response, breaking apart the ground and sending the Prince into a roll that brought him within claw's reach of his blade. He took it up and met her next swing, their weapons clashing in a spark of steel.

To the dismay of the entire crowd, Prince Nagoya was not pushed back. He smiled up at the bemused beast and then threw her axe off in a flourish that would have impressed an air-elemental. The axe skidded away, the Prince twirled out of the Tauron’s next punch, and his blade found its mark in the creature’s chest.

“Hialjia!”

Mari’s voice was almost completely lost as the Prince twisted his blade and brought the creature to her knees. His men’s cries of triumph were now louder than even her roars of pain.

“Your kind,” the Prince snarled in Hialjia’s face, “will never stand on our level. I hope now, at the end, you realize your mistake.”

The Prince did not know what he was truly expecting – he’d never slain a Tauron before. But when the great beast’s bloody lips curled in a sly smile, he couldn’t hide his surprise – and the sudden deluge of heat from an explosion he felt at his back did nothing to alleviate his sudden concern.

“Hialjia hopes you realize yours,” the smiling Tauron then replied.

***

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