“That’s…concerning.”

Aside from the workings of the pistons that kept the propellers spinning, Esmelda’s voice was the only sound in the gondola. Intercepting it wasn’t our goal, and the dirigible was tacking along a course sure to swing us miles around the demons and their new weapon, but we could still see it.

The titan’s body was obscured by smoke, which filled the sky above it, providing shade for the host of monsters that marched and shambled below. My first thought was that this entity was the granddaddy of the Pebbleheart, but it was impossible to be sure what it was made of from this distance. It had four pillars for legs, and a massive hump on its back that resembled an active volcano.

Beneath the center of the cloud, the only available light came from the ominous red glow at its peak.

“It’s faster than I thought it would be,” I said. Not that the behemoth was racing across the landscape, but there was a trail of spawns at the rear edge of its covering smog, shamblers who couldn’t keep up with its inexorable progress.

“How can we fight such a thing?” One of the templars, Thrund, asked. He stood out from his fellows in that he was shorter, stockier, and completely bald. A dark complexion suggested he was from one of the farther-flung segments of Kevin’s empire, one of the many places that hadn’t even heard there was a new lord in charge.

Dargoth was huge and mostly empty. Properly unifying it would be impossible until Gundurgon was liberated.

“Bombs,” I said. “Lots of bombs.”

“I have seen some of your tests…” he trailed off rather than complete the statement to voice his doubt. Sure, my dynamite sticks, rockets, and TNT blocks wouldn’t be more than a nuisance to something that big. But they’d never seen me set off more than one at a time.

“We aren’t fighting it yet,” Esmelda said. “By the time it comes anywhere near the mountain, we will have siege weapons capable of taking its legs out from under it.”

“I do not doubt it, my Lady.” That was Hurin, who stood at the rear of the cabin, stoically fast-pressing the button that made the propeller spin.

Harpies called to each other in the air around the dirigible. We were approaching the border of Grimwald, as clear as any drawn on a map, the stark line of the storm powered by the cauldron we intended to destroy.

A sudden wind battered the gondola, causing it to sway beneath the balloon. We began to turn.

“Keep us on course,” I told Thrund, who went to help Hurin push the propeller buttons. Through the windows, we could see that the gusts were giving the harpies trouble. Even Noivern, who flew at the head of the flock, was struggling.

Even with all the propellers running and a leashed wyvern keeping us on course, we were soon veering to the right. The wind was too steady to be natural, and the gusts of the cursed storm had never been this consistent.

“I think we’ve got a demon problem.” Esmelda nodded at my words as she walked around the gondola, searching the sky for signs of a flying spellcaster.

“They could be above us or below us,” Esmelda said, “or hiding in the clouds. If it is a demon, this isn’t an attack. It’s herding us.”

We were miles away from the titan, which must have plodded out from under the storm before nightfall. Even with the wind pressuring us to fly at an angle, we would never cross its path. It was already behind us.

I reached out with my Presence, but didn’t feel the aura of a demon nearby.

“I need to get out there,” I said. “Have a look around.”

“We’re still on course,” Esmelda looked worried. “I don’t want you separating from us unless you have to, and if a demon is doing this, they could be far away.”

I agreed to wait and see, and in the following minutes, the resistance intensified. Our progress didn’t stall, but we were being driven to the right.

Then the phantoms arrived.

There was a flash of red lightning as a swarm of dark, triangular shapes descended from the storm. Hundreds of them.

Esmelda readied her bow as the templars undid the window catches and grabbed their own ranged weapons. The harpies screeched, dropping their tethers, and Noivern echoed them. My airborne homies had repeatedly proven that phantoms were no match for them, at least individually, but as the swarm closed in, it became obvious that this was too many.

I shouldered my Elytron and slotted a firework.

“William,” Esmelda said, the warning clear in her tone.

“They need help,” I said. “I’ll stay close.”

Her frown was deep, but she nodded, and I donned my helmet.

The wind was already loud in the cabin, but when I opened the door, it became a roar. Hopping out, my Elytron spread, and I was immediately thrown into a tumble as a gust tossed me up and into the dirigible. Its Unbreaking enchantments kept it from being punctured, and I spent the next half a minute fighting to get control of my flight. I could have lit the firework and zoomed through it, but I wanted to save that for when it was needed.

A harpy squawked as we nearly collided, and I spun away from the dirigible. A phantom snapped its tail spine against my armor, and I lashed out with Smaragdine, severing its wing.

The next few minutes were hectic, fighting gusts while avoiding being as much a menace to my allies as the floating manta spawms. Arrows leaped from the windows of the gondola, but only Esmelda had much luck in hitting her marks amid the chaos. There were simply too many phantoms, and I saw more than one harpy fall from the sky after being run impaled by their spines.

Several mobs were hovering around the balloon, stabbing the cloth like angered wasps, but the enchantments were holdings, and I cut through them in fly-bys.

Then a coil of wind wrapped around me like a hand, and I found myself thrown bodily into clouds.

Crimson lightning flashed around me, blindingly bright, but it was gone in an instant, leaving barely a tingle behind. There was no thunder at all.

I felt the demon’s aura as the air cleared around me, and was shocked to discover a literal dragon floating ten paces away. Silver-blue scales, a long, regal neck, and eyes that glowed with amber flame. My aetheric sense told me he was a demon, but I didn’t feel under assault by the magic he had woven to bring me to him.

“Greetings, human.” The quality of his voice was unaffected by the prevailing winds, carrying perfectly. “I am here to deliver a message.”

“Sure,” I said, gripping my sword and preparing to activate the rocket strapped to my back. “What do you have to tell me?”

“You have seen the Kachua striding behind us. Bringing it here was costly, both in essence and in life. Five thousand mortals walk with us toward your doom.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

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“Because those mortals will be consumed before we reach our destination. Every one of them will die, and their deaths will be on your shoulders for passing us by.”

No. They wouldn’t be. I wasn’t responsible for the actions of demons, and this was obviously a trap to force me to take on their titan before I was ready.

But logic wouldn’t change the fact that those people were going to lose their lives if I didn’t act. Citizens of what was supposed to be my kingdom. The whole never negotiate with terrorists thing is hard to argue against as government policy, but it’s a very different feeling when the decision is resting on your shoulders.

My mouth opened, but no words came out. A wave of calm swept over me as a screen appeared beside the dragon’s head.

Bune

Entity Rank: E

Alignment: Discord

Affinity: Air

“Thank you for the warning.” I activated the rocket socketed into my Elytron and shot forward out of the loose bonds of air. I’d never considered whether a dragon’s eyes could widen in surprise — this one’s certainly could. He narrowly avoided being skewered, twisting out of the way as my viridium sword cut a clean line through the scales of his left side.

He hissed his anger and spat a bolt of lightning as I zoomed by.

It came within inches of cooking me, and I felt the electricity crackling over my armor even from a narrow miss. Making a sharp turn with a rocket-propelled Elytron was virtually impossible, so as I banked, I called an atreanum dagger into my other hand and threw it.

It would have likely missed either way, but he couldn’t use a spell to deflect the atreanum weapon, so he dodged, and the distraction gave me a few more seconds to swing around. The essence of his next spell twisted in the air around him, strands of magic that Calcion’s gift allowed me to see.

I rolled out of the way of where the lightning was going to be a moment before it appeared. The crack of its passing burst one of my eardrums, and then I drove Smaragdine into Bune’s abdomen. My momentum carried us both forward into the thick of the storm, and as I ripped the blade free, I lost control of my flight.

Spinning wildly, I barely held on to Smaragdine as I tumbled down out of the clouds. My stomach lurched, and even when I got the rocket switched off, it was still a struggle to right myself. A phantom slammed into me, and a scattering of harpy feathers passed before my face. The dirigible was a thousand feet away.

Dismissing the sword and swallowing against impending nausea, I managed to pull back into a controlled glide. But I was too low now, the battle and my companions were shrinking as I continued to fall.

A massive, leathery body swooped in behind me as huge talons latched onto the pauldrons of my armor. Noiverns wings beat, carrying me back to the dirigible.

Though the phantoms still outnumbered the defenders, they had lost their cohesion, and parts of the swarm had already broken off. Their shrill calls filled the air as templar arrows began to find their targets.

When Noivern brought me alongside the gondola, I grabbed the edge of its frame and heaved myself inside. Esmelda shot me a worried glance, but seeing that I was still intact, continued her volley.

She was firing at an absurd pace, almost an arrow every second. The draw of the string appeared effortless - it gave her no resistance at all. With a few slow breaths, my heart rate fell, and I watched the phantoms fall.

“We’re back on course,” Hurin reported. It sounded like he was talking to me through a wall, and I realized I’d gone deaf in one ear. A loaf of bread had it fixed in a few swallows, along with restoring the few hearts I’d lost in the aerial skirmish.

“You found the demon?” Esmelda asked as her bow twanged, slowing her rate of fire only a fraction.

“Yeah, I think he’s dead. At least he’s wounded enough not to bother us for a while.” If Valefor was expecting me to fall for his bait, it suggested Gundurgon would be practically undefended. If we kept to the plan, the cauldron would soon be broken, and we could knock down the monument as a bonus. Then all our problems would be in one place.

No. That didn’t feel right.

“Esmelda…” I had trouble completing the sentence. It was like I had two brains that didn’t agree with each other.

My wife looked at me with concern, lowering her bow. “Raise your visor,” she said, and I did.

Her cheeks paled.

“The blackness in your eye,” she said, “it’s nearly total.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Don’t joke,” she frowned. “Did something else happen? Has Discord shown you something?”

“Not exactly,” why was my tongue sticking in my mouth? I shook myself, dispelling the strange sense of sharing bodily control. “The demon, Bune, said they brought captives to feed the titan. They’re going to kill them all before they get to the mountain, if that’s even where they’re going. He wanted us to go after them unprepared.”

The templars stilled, watching us. Though the skies were not silent, they had quieted.

“They’ve used hostages before,” Esmelda said. “I’m sure he wasn’t bluffing.”

“It’s a trap,” I said. We ignore it - I didn’t say. That wasn’t a thought I wanted to be mine.

Her nod was slow. “We are not the ones who will suffer the most risk.” Esmelda turned to address the handful of men who had accompanied us. “What say you, my templars? Do we go forward to complete our mission, or back into almost certain failure in an attempt to save lives that may already be lost?”

They were a long second in answering. It was Hurin who replied. When he lifted his visor, he could have been a cousin to Gastard.

“My Lord and my Lady, we served the Dark Lord before we served you, and we have seen many changes come upon the realm. A true sunrise…” he shook his head, “even that much was a miracle. If our aim is to release this land from the hold of demons, then we must banish the storm. How many reside in Gundurgon and Grimwald? How many can we save by going forward or back? I do not know the answer, but I will follow you both wherever you lead. That is the oath I gave, that is the path we have chosen.”

The others gave their agreement. Heartening, though not particularly helpful in making our decision.

Logic told me we should leave the titan for another day. Attempting to save those sacrificial victims could cost more lives if we failed. Assuming the demons had no way of trapping Esmelda and me, which was a big assumption, we would respawn. That would still mean losing all the resources I’d brought with me, and the atreanum was irreplaceable in the short term.

The atreanum.

I’d killed the dragon with my sword. Why hadn’t I felt its tainted essence corrupting me after its death? The eye didn’t stop my “evolution,” it only controlled it.

Esmelda and the templars all gave me variations of odd looks as I brought up my nice, blue, not evil-at-all System screen.

Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint [Viridium Sword]

Damage Rating: 12

Speed: Average

Perfection: 20%

[Looting II]

[Mending II]

[Evolution II] Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint has absorbed sufficient Thermit essence to alter the course of its Perfection. Each strike carries the chance of releasing a portion of the weapon's stored essence in a wave of pure destruction.

Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint has absorbed sufficient demonic essence to alter the course of its Perfection. It has gained the attribute [Greedy].

[Greedy] This item has developed a taste for the essence of Discord. Its Looting effect is doubled when absorbing the death emissions of entities aligned accordingly.

That name was…not worse? Still bad. Awful, really. And it was evolving fast. It would probably slow down as it got further along, but already being at twenty percent was almost scary. The damage had gone up a touch as well.

Did this mean using Smaragdine was as good as using atreanum for killing demons? It didn’t have the magic-breaking effect but it would reduce the corrupting influence. All of it, or just most?

All the more reason not to risk losing a weapon I couldn’t replace.

Still, the perspective granted by the eye, Calcion’s perspective, told me to turn away from people who needed saving. That wasn’t advice worth taking.

“If it seems impossible,” I said, “we can turn back. But I want to try.”

Esmelda smiled. “There is the reckless hero I married.”

I squinted at her.

“I thought you wanted me to stop being reckless.”

“Only without talking to me first.” Esmelda’s hand grazed my vambrace before turning back to address the templars.

“Gentleman,” she said, “adjust our heading.”