Have you ever seen one of the Cultivators do battle? It’ll make your stomach turn.

Are they Gods? Devils? Don’t rightly know. I’m a soldier not some simpering, book worshiping theologian. But I saw one take to the battlefield, east of Al Kadeeri. He danced with fire in his hands and the darkness did his bidding.

The only reason I walked away was because I wasn’t his target.

— Zeki Al-Umawi, Major General of the Ring of Swords

***

Rift took the stairs four and five at a time, his long legs eating up the distance like a sure-footed mountain goat.

The scouts below didn’t notice his rapid descent. Didn’t hear his silky soft footfalls or the whispered rustle of his unnatural cloak. He was nothing more than a shadow against the rock face and their senses were too dull to pick out his presence. The Watcher would surely have preternaturally enhanced hearing and sight, but he was too focused on the girl sprawled out in the dirt to notice.

His head didn’t so much as twitch at Rift’s rapid approach.

Chains on the other hand, picked him out at once.

What’s the plan? Her hands flashed, the motions slick and smooth. Mukhtir Fingerspeak.

Idwan will get the villagers to safety, Rift replied with his freehand while he ran. I’ll attempt to take the Watcher before he can make us. You kill the rest.

Price? She sent with a fluid flick of her fingers.

Rift grunted. Of course.

Even here, now, mere seconds away from battle, she wanted to haggle over what he was willing to pay for their heads. Typical. Chains was a pragmatic sort and though she was loyal in her way, her ultimate loyalty lay only to coin. A true mercenary’s mercenary.

Eight silver moons per head, he sent all the while his feet lightly carried him down the steps.

Gold sun a piece? She countered.

Her price gouging was not at all unexpected. It was her way. Better to ask a dune cat to change its stripes than expect Chains to change her nature.

Agreed, he sent, not willing to argue further. On my mark.

Chains simply nodded, though the ghost of a smile played across her lips. She was likely already tallying up her haul for the evening.

Rift put her from mind, bounded down one more set of stairs, then propelled himself from the side of the mountain with an inhuman burst of speed that carried him a hundred feet or more through the open air. He fell like a stone, plummeting toward the armored scouts some eighty feet below, who were still threatening the assembled elders as the girl sobbed, her knees drawn tightly against her chest.

Wind whipped past him as he plunged, yanking on his cloak, and tugging at the spiked edges of his armor. A fall from this height would’ve splattered a normal mortal against the earth like an overripe tomato, but Cultivators were made of sterner stuff. Rift, doubly so as a member of the Peerless. His Twice-Forged body could survive a fall three times this height without incurring so much as a bruise.

As he approached the ground, silent as a wraith, he sent a small pulse of Mana spinning out from his core. The bloody cloak, trailing from behind him, fanned outward in response, catching the cool desert air, and slowing his meteoric descent.

In an instant, he was a feather, lethargically drifting to the ground.

He raised the crimson spear, settled his breathing, and lined up his shot.

There was no honor in killing the Watcher from afar. No ma'izzan in planting a knife in the man’s back like a common cutthroat. Xenoch bootlicker or not, the Cultivator still deserved a cleaner death than that. But better a knife in the back and a dishonorable kill, then to alert Archon Katsura. The Sorcerer-God’s spymaster had been dogging Rift’s trail for years, and even a whiff of his presence would draw more Watchers like flies to a corpse.

That or worse.

The withered old husk of a man might send Zhao Jing, and that was trouble better avoided.

A clean strike to the base of the neck, neatly severing the spinal column, was the best way. The Watcher would be dead before his corpse hit the dirt, snuffed out like a candle’s flame.

Rift exhaled, reinforcing the bloody spear with Mana, then hurled the weapon with all the strength he could muster. The spear was a blur of red and white that whistled softly as it flew.

It was the sound of approaching, inevitable death.

The weapon flew straight and true but a heartbeat before it found its mark, the Watcher whirled like a top, deflecting the death strike with a crescent-bladed khopesh forged from violet prismglass. The spear, knocked from its course, veered right and slammed into the ground, kicking up a plume of gritty sand and leaving a crater in its wake.

The Watcher’s eyes latched onto Rift as he touched down and widened in a mixture of terrible recognition and bewildered surprise. That gave Rift a moment of genuine pause. He’d assumed the scouting party had come here searching for him and his crew, but the look tattooed across the man’s face told a different story. Whatever business this patrol was about, it had nothing to do with Rift or Chains or Idwan.

Rift silently cursed himself for a blind fool.

He should’ve listened to his gut.

Should’ve fled over the mountains, then turned north for greener pastures.

Instead, he’d had to do the right thing and now months of work would be undone. The Paragon in charge of this man would see this moment branded in time and, in turn, Archon Katsura would see exactly what the Paragon below him saw.

By tomorrow, news about Rift would be on every noble tongue in Chentoufi.

Rift sighed in disgruntlement. None of that mattered now.

What was done was done, and there was no point in second guessing himself further.

Fight them, kill them. Cut them down where they stand and make them pay for their transgressions, his unwelcome traveler demanded. The voice was stronger now, harder to ignore. It always was in the heat of battle, especially when he wore the armor and cloak.

Screams echoed through the night as Chains landed, her blades already swinging in a frenzy of steel and razors.

Rift thrust one hand forward and the spear flew back to his palm as though called by reinforced strands of air.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The spear morphed into a long single-edge blade with a slight curve called a shamshir. It was the weapon of choice for the Sword Dancers of Kenza to the far south. Rift had trained with their order years ago, back when he was still a lowly Twice-Forged, and on the run from his former brothers in the Black Lancers.

The shamshir sang in his hand as he surged forward, feet kicking up little puffs of dust.

But the Watcher wasn’t interested in a fight. He took one step and shot back like an arrow, carried by a furious gust of wind.

Coward.

The man was going to die, but at least he could’ve comported himself with some degree of dignity.

Rift took the briefest of moments to let his spiritual presence roll over the enemy Cultivator like an incoming sandstorm. Rift expected to find a mind affinity but was surprised to see that the man’s primary Aspect was some derivation of Aether—Path of the Soaring Skies, perhaps, or the Sect of Whispering Breezes—while his Twice-Forged discipline was indeed some sort of mind fortification, ruled by Order.

That certainly explained the man’s reaction speed and how he’d managed to deflect Rift’s initial strike. Those blessed with Aether were fast and agile, even by the standards of other Cultivators. Many could even sense otherwise invisible air currents, making it nigh impossible to launch any sort of attack that required an element of surprise. They made excellent rouges and archers, and masters of the Soaring Skies could even fly through the air, held aloft by conjured winds.

“Formation,” the Watcher bellowed at his troops, even while he retreated. “Hold the line!”

The scouts—hard trained men, one and all—formed up without hesitation, even though they stood as much chance of stopping Rift as a wheatfield stood in stopping the scythe blade.

They came at him in a wall of armor and steel.

They were already dead, even if they didn’t know it yet.

Rift effortlessly sidestepped a zealous sword thrust that overextended the warrior’s arm. With a flick of his blade, Rift took the man’s limb off at the shoulder. His blood-forged shamshir burned with Ruin and passed through the lamellar armor as though it were simple burlap. Another twist of his wrist removed the man’s head from his shoulders.

A second scout tried to flank Rift from the rear, but that was a fool’s errand.

Behind you, the voice inside his head warned, even while his scarlet cloak lashed out with a will of its own. It struck like a cobra, wrapping around the scout’s throat, then lifted the man straight up, his feet dangling uselessly a foot or more above the ground. The living garment constricted, and the man’s head exploded from the abrupt pressure, splattering the sands in gore.

Rift tossed the body aside with casual contempt and strode toward the scouts barring his way.

One attacked with a hooked halberd, the gleaming axe blade descending in a sharp arc. Rift didn’t even try to dodge the blow. The weapon clattered against his armor without leaving so much as a scratch. Even the most accomplished and skilled mortal warrior couldn’t hope to wound one of his kind. Even the lowliest Bronze had the strength of three fully-grown men and only weapons tempered with mana had any hope of penetrating their skin.

Rift let loose a small burst of Ruination Aspect, and the halberd blade cracked, then shattered as though it were made of delicate porcelain. Instead of launching a proper counter assault, Rift swiped at the man with his free hand. Scarlet talons extended from each of Rift’s fingertips, and he ripped the man’s throat out. The scout dropped, eyes wide, blood gurgling from his lips as he groped at his ruined neck.

One of the officers—a bear of a man, bearing a prismglass tulwar—let out a booming warcry and swung his blade at Rift’s head. Unlike the normal steel weapons, prismglass was naturally reinforced with mana, making it one of the few weapons capable of hurting or killing the Urza that bubbled up from the Null. Those same unique properties made them a danger for Cultivators as well.

Not that Rift was particularly worried in this case.

The man moved with all the grace and finesse of a boulder tumbling down a mountainside. He had no real sword technique to speak of and had likely relied on his sheer size to push others around and intimidate them into submission. In short, he was a bully with more bravado than ability. And Rift wasn’t so easy to intimidate. He canted his shoulders and let the curved blade sail harmlessly past him, then countered with a quick thrust from his own sword.

The edge of his shamshir grazed the inside of the man’s unprotected forearm, leaving a shallow gash behind. The wound was so small the man probably hadn’t even felt it, not with the heady rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Still, it was a lethal blow. Because now something else was flowing through the man’s veins: Rift’s blood.

An attack like this rarely worked against other Cultivators—their natural physical immunity was simply too powerful to overcome—but against a mortal? Without the benefit of mana or a reinforced body?

The man’s heart exploded inside his chest.

His legs promptly gave out and he dropped like a sack of barley, dead in the dirt. His glittering sword landed uselessly on the ground not far off.

The last of the scouts seemed to realize all at once that to stay meant death. He threw his halberd aside, turned on a heel and ran.

Well… he tried to run. He didn’t make it far.

Chains appeared in a swirl of inky shadow, her burnt-black chain snagging the man’s ankle, while the hooked edge of her kusarigama found his throat.

She smirked at Rift and flashed him a sign.

Nine so far. One more and you’ll owe me a Platinum Star.

Rift glanced back over one shoulder and quickly tallied up the devastation.

Bodies, and parts of bodies, were scattered everywhere, the baked dirt greedily drinking up the spilled blood. Chains had been both efficient and energetic in her work, though there were still a few stragglers left. Idwan had rounded up the elders and the girl. They cowered behind the enormous blue man as he fended off a pair of encroaching scouts with a glowing azure tower shield, half again as tall as he was. A pair of his summoned spirit beasts—one, an azure Sandman Lion, the other a Bristleback Badger as large as a man—flanked the group, fending off any soldiers who dared to get too close.

Idwan would kill if prompted but preferred to leave the dirty work to others.

“Take care of them,” Rift said to Chains, gesturing toward the remaining scouts, “I’ll deal with him.”

He turned back toward the enemy Cultivator, currently crouched on the flat rooftop of a nearby hut. The man was going to die, but instead of trying to intervene, he simply watched. And with good reason.

Because Rift walked an Unnamed Path—a path cobbled together from a dozen or more other paths—the exact extent and nature of his abilities were often the subject of great debate and speculation amongst the esteemed lords and ladies of the Xenoch Council.

There were those who said he could sprout wings of blood and fly like one of the great Boneaters of the Hellsteppes. Others solemnly claimed he could turn his blood into flames and boil a man from the inside out. More still swore he could take the form of any beast he killed. Or that he could use his blood to turn those with weak minds and wills into puppets. Some of those rumors were patently, ridiculously, false. Others, at least, brushed against the truth.

He also had more abilities besides that no one even suspected, and that was the way he liked it. All the better to keep the Council on their backfoot.

His legend was almost as great of a defense as his actual abilities.

Which was precisely why the Watcher watched.

He was gathering insight. Digesting the battle with his eyes, so that his superiors would be able to dissect it endlessly later on. All the more reason to be careful about what powers he used. Or didn’t.

Rift bounded into the air, the strength of his body alone carrying him to extraordinary heights, and raised one hand, index finger extended in accusation. Blood flowed from the gash on his arm and pooled in his palm. A pair of blood lances, no bigger than the bolt fired from a guardsman’s crossbow, formed at the tip of his finger. He let loose with both arrows, only seconds apart.

The lances were small, and not nearly powerful enough to kill a Diamond Envoy.

But they were powerful enough to maim. They were also fast. Faster even than the wind.

Too fast for the Watcher, recording the battle from the rooftop.

The man dropped with a cry, hands suddenly clutching at the ruined place where his eyes had been moments before. Given enough time, the Watcher would be able to recover even from such a terrible injury, which is why Rift had no intention of allowing him to live even that long. He fished out a pair of small red marbles from a pocket on the side of his Blood-Bound Armor. The marbles were connected by a hair-thin strand of manifested Ruination Aspect.

Rift wound his arm back and hurled the bound marbles. As they flew, they unfurled, spreading apart into a pair of enchanted bolas, typically used by hunters to capture fleeing prey. The tether would wrap around the animal’s legs, tripping them up and sending them sprawling to the ground.

These were different.

The taut string of Ruination Aspect was death. Pure corruption. As the enchanted bolas wrapped around the Watcher’s throat, they snapped tight without an ounce of resistance and the man’s head toppled from his shoulders.

Though Rift should’ve felt elated in the kill and in their victory, he didn’t.

Instead, he found his mind wandering back to the elders, cowering behind Idwan. What in the world could possibly draw a Diamond Envoy of the Blind Fathers out to this dirt-speck on the backside of nowhere?

Rift wasn’t sure, but he intended to find out. It was the least they owed him, considering that he’d just saved their entire village from slaughter.