Lichos had found Pyrhic less talkative by far as they trudged their way towards the gangers. It would scarcely have bothered him, certainly the change brought a puzzle to occupy his mind, however he found the cause concerning.

Whether the woman had heard of his confrontation with Kaiosyni or was simply maintaining a stupor from her experience with combat the previous day, he couldn’t say.

Lichos almost felt guilty hoping for the latter, so that he may be spared the friction that would surely be brought by the former.

He glanced at her, found no evidence either way on the woman’s ever masked expression. Turning away before she noticed, Lichos silently cursed and continued the march.

Leagues shifted by lazily underfoot, distance passing as it always did on such treks. Lichos was captured by thought in the movement, his mind drifting back to Gol.

There had been many marches there, too. Longer, perhaps, certainly far more inhospitable. Across uneven terrain or deathly elements, in a world where the sky might turn hateful, the wildlife vicious, at any moment.

Compared to that the march through Udrebam was no march at all, but the boredom remained. The boredom always remained.

Lichos amused himself as he always did, thinking and watching. He studied the city as it shrank and withered with each mile farther from the centre they moved. Carefully observed the changes in stonework and architecture, from indulgent to minimalistic. Healthy to decrepit.

Most of all, he kept his guard high and his senses sharp. Subtly scrutinising the area around them for any hint that yet more attackers might approach to finish what the last wave had started.

None came, and before long the changes grew monotonous and predictable, but still Lichos watched. There was nothing better to do.

After hours, their destination loomed high ahead. Lichos took in the sight with a face of flint, hiding his awe habitually

Towering hundreds of feet into the air was a great building made of steel as much as stone, walls level and top capped with a great, glinting mirror. Only the degradation of time took from its majesty. Vines clung choking to its side, face discoloured and bleached in parts, entire structure tilting precipitously where its own weight strained it.

“An agricore.” He noted, turning to eye Pyrhic. “I don’t think you told me we’d be meeting anyone in an agricore.”

The woman met his gaze impassively.

“I hardly think this qualifies. It’s been disused longer, I believe, than it was ever functional for. I’m quite sure its great mirror would snap and fall from the mechanism if we gathered enough mystics to turn it.”

“I wasn’t talking about it growing food.” Lichos answered. “More the size of the place. Don’t like the idea of meeting with any gang big enough to fill this.”

“You’re so sure they can?”

“No.” Lichos admitted. “But I still don’t like the possibility being there. This is a last stand if I ever saw one.”

He saw the woman’s confusion, quickly explaining further.

“Wrath jargon, a place dangerous enough that none of us are willing to attack it no matter what advantage we have or what might need securing inside. So an unnamed and unidentified member of our unit is reported captured by the enemy before detonating a large amount of gunpowder to cause damage extremely, one might even say suspiciously, similar to several nights of shelling. Being dead, he can’t exactly be punished for his insubordination even after causing whatever damage he did.”

Lichos almost laughed out loud at the appalled shock brimming from Pyrhic’s face, finding himself wishing he could reveal the anecdote all over again. It was only the realisation of who he spoke to that sobered him.

He forced his face flat, hiding his regret as best as he could. It wasn’t hard. Pyrhic’s focus shifted back to the agricore without any prompting from him.

“Amazing to see it like this.” She said, almost impassively, dutifully changing the topic. “A city feeder, capable of growing as much food as a dozen square leagues of farmland. Now look at it.”

Lichos did look, and soon all the emptiness he heard in the woman’s voice wormed its way into his own thoughts. They were two hundred paces nearer than they had been, and the place was all the more ruinous for it.

“Was it replaced?” He asked, fearing he knew the answer already.

“No.” Pyrhic answered, voice sharp and bitter. “It only produces food, after all, nothing so vital as gold. Whyever would the Alliance care to maintain it when doing so required mystics to fertilise the dirt and angle the sun with its mirror?”

They continued their walk, moods lower and thoughts darker than before. It took minutes more before they were near enough the place’s entrance to catch sight of two guards leaning lazily against its outer wall.

Both men were big and broad, Taikan tall and resting matchlocks across their draft-horse shoulders, yet it wasn’t until Lichos and Pyrhic were within ten paces that either looked up.

The men’s eyes widened as a startled bark escaped them, and in an instant both the oafish guards were scrambling to act. One levelling his gun straight at Lichos’ chest, the other, surely sharper, having the presence of thought to fumble with a tinderbox and try to light his slowmatch first.

Lichos felt tempted to bark them into formation and show both men the proper way to handle a gun, so brazen was their ineptitude. Instead he held his tongue and awaited Pyrhic’s speech.

It came quickly, carrying a placating tone and threading the foreign words as softly as Lichos imagined they could be. Still it took a few moments, and many furtive glances at his own armament, before either of the men seemed to relax.

Soon one had disappeared into the building, and after but a few minutes’ wait he returned with another, far more composed individual. More words were spoken before Pyrhic turned to him.

“We’ve been granted entrance.” She said, beginning to follow the man inside. Lichos fell into step, eying their guide.

“Do you think it’ll help negotiations if he knows the first thing I’ll do if we’re ambushed is shoot him?”

She arched an eyebrow, remaining silent and allowing the gesture alone to answer him. Lichos shrugged.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Alright then, I’ll just let it be a surprise for the bastard.”

They made their way through the corridors at a brisk pace, every footfall birthing a dozen sharp echoes, every breath seeming to disappear ahead. Even in spite of the place’s size, Lichos found it cramped. Walls narrower than the halls of the Crux, and ceiling lower by far.

When they came to their first turn, the feeling only increased tenfold.

The corridor bloomed into a hall more expansive than all but a few Lichos could name, towering and sprawling, rendering everything within it insubstantial. Walls extended upwards fifty paces from the centre, curved and ragged as those on the outside, and it was only dozens of feet upwards that a ceiling was found. Its bottom made of glass, guts seemingly packed with dirt rather than cobbles.

It took Lichos a moment to realise he stood in the very heart of the agricore. Its layered planting slides long since removed for room, guts infested by the gangers he saw shifting all around him.

By his count they numbered a hundred, though more were doubtless hidden from sight. A quarter armed with guns, the rest blades and cudgels. Lichos had worn his armour to the confrontation, insisted on not going without it, but suddenly he found the protection a small comfort.

Pyrhic, as if standing among a hundred children, stepped forth fearlessly, projecting her voice outwards with volume enough to rebound endlessly from the walls.

She found an answer in kind as a woman emerged to speak with her, grinning calm and confident the way leaders seemed always to in the midst of their troops.

The two of them locked gazes for a long moment before conversation resumed, and even without understanding a word either said Lichos recognised the sight of them taking one another’s measure.

He hoped, for his own sake above all else, that Pyrhic would prove the greater.

While the conversion continued, Lichos reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew his snuffbox, cautious not to give any of the gunners still eying him cause to shoot. Three snorts of the magically enriched arcstock powder within left the world a sharpened, perfectly clear tapestry.

Lichos caught every nervous shift among the gangers, picked apart the dull edges of metal and serration hidden within sleeves and pockets. After a few moments more he found he could smell their very sweat on the air, as if he’d borrowed the nose of a bloodhound.

All the fear and worry he’d harboured began to melt as he wrestled with his own senses, finding himself at risk of being overwhelmed by the sheer input alone. Ordering his body to remain still even as it quivered with twenty men’s strength.

Suddenly the matchlocks seemed far less of a threat.

Pyrhic’s voice barely caught in his ear as he continued scanning the masses, and Lichos found himself staring at the woman while she spoke. Marvelling at every alien syllable and the bizarre sluggishness with which they were delivered.

It took moments before the pause between two words ended, then moments more before another came. A fascinating sight, as if time itself had slowed around the dula.

But it hasn’t slowed. He marvelled, seeing the effect repeated in the ganger. I’ve gotten faster. Impossibly faster.

He’d always noticed a difference when magic ran through his veins, but it had never been strong enough to leave conversation such a tedium. That his new arcstocks could enhance something so inefficient as speed that much was another testament to their power.

Lichos found himself almost hoping discussion would devolve, so that he might pit his newfound power against an enemy.

For what felt like a quarter hour more, Pyrhic spoke. Words crawling from her slow enough that Lichos might have failed to understand them even in Taikan. He studied her alongside the ganger woman, scrutinising both for hints to how things were unfolding.

With his newfound sensory prowess and mental haste, even the most fleeting twitches and hesitations were an obvious display, and it soon became clear that Pyrhic was growing more nervous by the word.

Lichos studied them still, noticing before long that the tempestuous power burning inside him was trickling away.

By the time the conversation ended, the world seemed just a shade faster than it had before. It was almost enough of a difference to make Pyrhic’s words bearable as she turned back to him.

“We will receive the information we need.” She said, torturously slow. “But there is a stipulation.”

“Of course there is.” He mumbled.

The woman frowned, eying him curiously, and Lichos realised only then how fast he must have spoken to her unenhanced ears.

“Arcstock.” He muttered, trying to slow his voice to intelligible levels. “Don’t ask, just explain what we need to do.”

Lichos wondered if the arcstock made Pyrhic seem as slow to him as he usually did to her. Seeing her face contorting millimetres at a time left him hoping otherwise.

“Very well. You notice the pit over there?”

Lichos followed her sluggish gaze, recognised at once what she described.

A section of floor had been carved away with imprecise force to make way for a jaggedly edged descent downwards. He could imagine its function.

“Let me guess.” He grunted. “You need to calmly and politely converse with their debating champion.”

“No guns are allowed.” Pyrhic answered, pushing past the joke without even the ghost of a smile. “Nor are blades. It’s a fight using bare fists and bludgeons alone, assuming it lasts long enough for a cudgel to be tossed in.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult.” Lichos noted.

He didn’t mention his magiphagery out loud, fearing what might come if the gangers learned they stood among an unnatural. Already he’d seen several squirm unknowingly in his presence, and outright panic around gunmen rarely ended well.

Still, the implication was clear.

Magic roared even as he continued digesting it, filling his body with the power of a mystic. If they sent an inept man before him, Lichos would crush them. And one wielding magic would find the terror of his nihil to strip it away.

He was as great a gladiator as either of them could have hoped for.

“Very well then.” Pyrhic said, chewing a lip thoughtfully. She seemed to relax fractionally, confidence bolstered in the face of Lichos’ own. He began his stride to the pit before the certainty could leave her.

Dropping over the edge, he fell ten feet before landing and eying his arena studiously. He noted the walls were too smooth to climb, all uniform save for a single point which stood broken by the presence of a gate.

Darkness loomed behind it, denying Lichos any glimpse of what it held. The magic still burning within left him almost disinterested.

Words rang out from above, and he glanced up to see the ganger woman calling out. She spoke with a booming oration, almost mirroring Kaiosyni in its confidence and clarity.

Every passing moment seemed to leave her subordinates more excited as they crowded the pit like hungry crows, gathering until hundreds of faces peered down on Lichos from above.

It was almost comforting. No matter the continent, blood would always capture eyes and stir loins in men.

Tossing his guns up for Pyrhic to catch, then sending his knives to join them, Lichos waited for his enemy to descend. Eager to see what obstacle they would pit before him.

A grinding caught his focus as he waited, drawing him around to peer at the gate as it rose on rusted mechanisms.

He stared into the darkness beyond, a sliver of fear piercing his surety. Just as Lichos considered snorting more of the distilled strength in his snuffbox, movement broke the monotony.

A roar rang out, followed by thunderous strides.

Great pads tipping tree-thick limbs struck the ground like hammer blows as shaggy fur shifted in the growing light, dark eyes igniting with a glint and a lengthy maw splitting to reveal yellowed teeth.

Lichos stared as the creature emerged, quadrupedal and hunched, its shoulder stood higher than his elbow. Stepping towards him with deliberation, parted mouth leaking drool and heaving breaths venting steam.

Ribs pressed tight against skin with every step, and he swore the very ground shook with each of the abominably large monster’s footfalls.

Finding his confidence and certainty abandoning him, Lichos met the gaze of the bear as it approached. Found himself with only an instant to steady his nerves before the great beast charged.