I’d seen this before. I knew what to do. I could save her.

  That was what I told myself in the half-second it took me to process what had happened. I leaped into the air, bringing my knife down towards the corrupted enemy while activating Val’s magicks that were Etched into the blade. My wife’s life-drain magicks would be far from enough to take down the enemy, but all I needed was a second of opportunity—my priority was to save a life, not to take one.

  As I passed over the enemy, I flung one hand downwards to open a portal beneath Arzak, and sent the other pointing towards the sky. Arzak tumbled through the portal and I fell after her, letting the portal close behind me so tightly that I felt it pass over my skin.

  We tumbled through bitter winds and frigid air.

  I snatched at Arzak’s flailing leg as we soared. My fingers slipped free on the first attempt, but on the second, I got purchase. I used my grip to pull myself up to Arzak’s arm—to where the corruption had touched her.

  The cold air would slow the spread of corruption, I knew, but there was still no time to waste. Every second that passed could be the difference between life and death—though Arzak’s arm was already a goner.

  I sliced through the straps that held the armour in place on the orc’s arm, tossing the metal plate aside, then raised my blade. I wouldn’t be able to cut through in one go. And I could do nothing to reduce the pain. If my friend wanted to live, she was going to have to go through extreme agony to do so.

  Arzak’s eyes widened when she realised what I meant to do. ‘No!’ she roared over the tumultuous winds. ‘I dual-wielder!’

  I brought my knife down anyway.

  Another arm snapped to meet mine, appearing through the blizzard.

  ‘No,’ the orc insisted, holding my blade back with ease. ‘No.’

  I glanced at the ground, making sure I still had time. I released my grip some, then slid downwards—upwards, really, considering we were falling head-first—to the orc’s forearm. The patch of grey skin had grown, and grown fast, even despite the cold air.

  So I cut it.

  Arzak roared with pain, but made no effort to stop me as I stripped her arm of corrupted flesh, one strip at a time. I cut as delicately as I could, but falling through a blizzard was not exactly the ideal scenario for surgery, and so on occasion I cut living flesh along with corrupted. I cursed myself every time I saw an error, but let it go. There would be time for regret later; Arzak needed me to concentrate if she was going to have any chance of keeping her arm.

  The ground crept up on me. I glimpsed the solid white mass approaching a second too late. When I opened a portal beneath us to catch us, I was successful in putting it in our path. I was not successful in the careful placement of its other side.

  Arzak and I erupted through this second portal, a dozen feet in the air, and then tumbled across the snowy landscape. The thick snow helped to cushion our fall, but I still felt something snap in my right leg. I ignored the fierce, eye-watering pain and staggered over to where Arzak had landed, to continue my work.

  My hands shook, both from pain and cold, but still I worked, slicing ever more flesh away, carefully balancing ‘too much’ and ‘too little’. Cutting too deeply would damage Arzak’s ability to use her right arm. Cutting too shallowly would mean that the corruption would spread further—and losing an arm would be the least of her worries.

  I thought I heard a shout, but amidst the growing blizzard, it was impossible to tell. I continued at my work, assuming—no, hoping—that the shout had been a creation of my imagination. If it wasn’t, and if we were in trouble, I didn’t know how Arzak would survive.

  I heard it again. Lore’s voice.

  ‘Here!’ I cried back, forgetting for a moment the enemy that had done this. The very same enemy that I saw approaching, charging through the blizzard. I spared one moment to whip one hand back, opening a portal in the trunk of the nearest, largest tree. With my portal slice ability activated, the top of the tree was cut free of its roots, and its massive trunk tumbled towards ground, just in front of the charging enemy. I’d bought us only seconds.

  ‘Lore!’ I shouted, as loud as I could, supporting by my portal relays. ‘Lore, help! Here!’

  I sliced another strip of flesh away from the screaming Arzak, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the soldier of corruption leap over the fallen tree trunk in one stride.

  ‘Lore!’ I bellowed, though even with my relays, I couldn’t hope to match the volume of Arzak’s cries of pain anyway. It occurred to me only then that we weren’t all that far away from Arit’s camp; I could only hope they couldn’t hear our cries over the blizzard.

  The barbarian appeared amongst the falling snow, emerging in a flash to stand between us and the corrupted soldier. He met the enemy’s charge with the flat of his Bane Sword, crying out with effort as he fought against unnatural strength. I knew he could only last so long. I would have to finish now.

  I made one last cut, deeper than I would have liked, and tore free the last of Arzak’s corrupted flesh, leaving her arm looking… I tried not to see how bad it was. ‘Zoi!’ I cried out, but when I heard no response, I pulled one of Corminar’s fire potions from my satchel. I wrenched the cork out with my teeth, then poured it over Arzak’s arm. Even in such cold conditions, the potion blossomed into fiery life, the flames cauterising Arzak’s wound, just as Val had taught me. I used my Titan Husk-adapted hands to pat the fire out a second later.

  ‘Styk, I don’t think…’ Lore cried out, his voice straining, just as Corminar, Val and Zoi appeared in sight.

  ‘I know,’ I said. With that, I opened a portal beneath me and Arzak. We fell through it, and I left it open for my friends to leap through. I’d done what I’d sworn I wouldn’t—this was no regular portal, but a Saved Portal. This brought us out in a tavern a day’s ride to the south… and without our horses. I’d given Arit a huge lead over us, but if I hadn’t, the corrupted soldiers would have found us. Arzak almost certainly would not have survived.

  Val leaped through the portal next, followed by Corminar and Zoi, before finally Lore jumped through, yelping as he did so. I closed the portal the moment that he was passing through, but the soldier of corruption reached a gray hand through after him. I rose, shakily, to attack, to force them out of the portal, but instead…

  It closed through the hand. Whatever the Council had done to these corrupted soldiers to make them more obedient, it had also made them less… sentient. The system no longer considered them alive. And, as a result, my portals could cut through them.

  ‘Huh,’ I said. ‘That’s new.’

  A lifeless, corrupted forearm dropped to the floor of the tavern, in front of me, Lore, and a particularly alarmed innkeeper. The stranger watched, mouth hanging open, as I opened another portal to drop the dismembered arm into the raging fireplace.

  ‘We… can explain,’ Lore told the innkeeper.

  * * *

  Arzak was resting upstairs, in one of the bedrooms, while she recovered.

  The rest of us waited downstairs, barely touching our ales, as Val reappeared. I wanted to ask how it had gone, but the pale look on my wife’s face said it all.

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  Still, it didn’t stop Zoi from asking. ‘How is she?’

  ‘I…’ Val trailed off, then approached the table and took a big swig of my beer.

  I pointed to the untouched drink next to me. ‘I did buy you one.’

  Val took another swig of my ale before continuing, ‘I did what I could, but… What I could do wasn’t enough.’

  ‘You couldn’t heal her?’ Zoi asked. ‘I know someone, not far from here, who might be able to—’

  Val shook her head abruptly. ‘No.’ Another swig. ‘I’m not the best healer, I know that, but that’s not why I couldn’t do enough. The corruption, it did more damage than anyone would be able to heal. The malae, they leave lasting marks.’

  Lore raised his eyebrows, as if to say “I could’ve told you that”.

  My wife took a seat at my side, her hand drifting to my right thigh. I’d thought it a loving caress before she began to squeeze, and then I realised that she was checking that Corminar’s healing potions had been enough to fix my broken leg. That was loving too, in a different way.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Corminar asked, eyes locked on Val.

  ‘I…’

  ‘How bad, Equivalence?’ the elf asked again, this time using her full name.

  ‘If she can use her arm at all, I’ll be happy,’ Val said.

  Silence passed over the group. Lore and I took hefty swigs of our beers, and Corminar must have decided this was a good idea, because he quickly followed suit.

  ‘Was she awake, up there?’ Zoi asked.

  Val nodded. ‘Awake, just resting. I want her off her feet.’ My wife downed the rest of the pint she’d stolen from me, then began to rise from the table. ‘I was just coming down to give you all an update, really; I should—’

  But Zoi stood. ‘I can go up for a bit. Keep her company. I think you… I think all of you could do with some downtime too.’

  I nodded, and gestured for Val to sit back down again. It was good to have someone travelling with us who reminded us of the need to look after ourselves every now and then. We’d become so focused on taking down the Council over the past few months that maybe we’d forgot to leave room for ourselves. The one bright side had been that it’d kept our squabbling to a minimum; we were all hyper-focused on the same objective.

  We drank in silence for a time. Well, nearly in silence—Lore very quickly drifted off to sleep sitting upright, and his snores were like a swarm of hornets. I tried to occupy Corminar and Val with a game of cards, trying to get their minds off Arzak’s injury. The elf was quickly invested when it became apparent that he was on a winning streak, but Val’s eyes kept drifting to the stairs.

  ‘Maybe you should go check in,’ I told her. ‘Zoi’s been up there a while, and if it’d make you feel any better…’

  Val opened her mouth as if to say something, but then sighed instead. She nodded, threw her cards down on the table—a winning hand, if she’d been paying attention—and disappeared up the staircase.

  ‘This game requires a third,’ Corminar said, apparently eager to continue. He nudged Lore with his elbow, gently. When that did nothing to awake the big man, he elbowed him much harder.

  ‘Is the food here?’ Lore spluttered as he woke up.

  Corminar answered by dealing him a hand.

  ‘Oh,’ the barbarian replied, but otherwise didn’t put up any fuss about being woken for a game of cards.

  We made it through half a hand before Val appeared back downstairs again, her face bright red.

  ‘Val?’ I asked.

  The woman shook her head, but her face was bright enough that it distracted even Corminar from the game.

  The elf placed his hand on the table. ‘What is it? Am I to assume that something terrible has happened up there?’

  Val licked her lips, her mouth opening slightly then closing again, as she searched for the words. ‘Arzak and Zoi, they’re… getting on a bit better than I thought.’

  ‘Oh?’ Corminar said, a smiling creeping across his face.

  ‘Oh,’ I added, catching up a moment later. ‘They’re getting on.’

  The three of us looked to Lore, who was busy rearranging his hand. When he felt our gazes upon him, he looked up at us. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Val said that Arzak and Zoi are getting on better than we thought.’

  ‘That’s nice!’ Lore said, then began rearranging his hand of cards some more.

  Corminar placed his hand gently atop Lore’s card, forcing him to lower them. The elf looked into the barbarian’s eyes, willing him to catch up. ‘They are getting on better than we thought,’ he said again.

  A few seconds later, Lore’s eyes widened. ‘Oh!’ He broke immediately into a wide, toothy grin. ‘Oh, that’s really nice. I guess we all need a little comfort at the mo.’ The barbarian placed his cards down on the table, and Corminar groaned when he realised his winning streak was over.

  ‘Bet they’ll wish you hadn’t see that, though,’ Lore said, nodding to Val.

  Val remained flushed.

  Corminar suddenly sat up straight, no longer interested in the game of cards in the least. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘Bet they’ll—’ Lore started, before I waved him down; Corminar’s question had been rhetorical.

  ‘Cor, what’s up?’ Val asked the elf.

  For the second time in as many minutes, Corminar smiled. ‘I think I have an idea.’