The red glare filled his world.

  Then a giant bronze spear punched through the window.

  Dain didn’t decide to move—his silverplume wingcloak decided for him. His wings bucked like a spooked animal, yanking him sideways towards the bed as he grabbed his Altar. The spearhead carved the space he’d just occupied, and half his room went with it. The roof cracked apart. Plaster dust fountained. His study desk and everything he’d stored inside it plummeted as the floor caved in, and he slammed back first into his bed, breath punched out of his lungs.

  What the fuck?

  He snapped his head down. His prosthetic and his oreblade cane lay half-buried in a small mound of debris, but—fortunately—his Altar was still intact behind him, and he still had his wingcloak on.

  Then he snapped his head forward again, and he locked eyes with his hunter.

  This golem would stand six meters tall if it stood up straight, but it was hunched like a gargoyle torn off a cathedral, two giant bronze wings folded behind its plated back. Its armor was thicker than the golem he’d fought. It was more bird-like than the golem he’d fought, with webbed fingers and webbed toes, and its four round eyes glowed red in a chiseled mask of a face.

  On top of all that, it held a bronze spear large and long enough to skewer an entire building through.

  He swallowed. The gargoyle golem glared at him, four eyes tightening…and then its eyes flicked away as the townsfolk in the square finally began to scream, realizing what’d landed right in front of them.

  People scattered. Minecarts tipped. Doors and windows were flung open as people ran from the square. The golem immediately lost all interest in him. It turned around slowly, cocked its spear, and swung. The fountain in the center of the square exploded into hammered coins of stone and water. A second swing clipped the bakery right beside the inn, and an oven blew, sparks flying into the night sky.

  It began its rampage.

  While dozens of people streamed away from the square, Dain’s eyes snagged on motion that didn’t follow that pattern. Anisa and Yasmin must’ve been shopping for relics, so they had their crossbow and staffblade on them, and they didn’t hesitate to charge towards the golem instead of away from it like everyone else.

  … Shit.

  He didn’t have his cane. He didn't have his prosthetic. He had one arm, one wingcloak, and two good legs, but they had to be good enough. He slung on his Altar and threw himself out of his half-room—caught some splinters on his ankles on the way down—and flapped his wings to generate some forward momentum.

  As he hit the ground, he skipped forward, bouncing across the square like a hare—faster than the golem locked onto the charging ladies—and then he tackled Anisa.

  He hit her like a battering ram, throwing both of them into a side street, and they just barely managed to dodge the giant bronze spear that hammered into the cobbles where Anisa would’ve been. Yasmin dodged the stab easily enough, ducking in a side alley herself to get out of the golem’s line of sight.

  Dain rolled up first, dust in his teeth, and grabbed Anisa’s head. “Pay attention!” he snapped. “What were you thinking running straight at it?”

  “I… I was gonna—”

  “You’re an archer! Run behind cover until you can find a vantage point to shoot, and then make sure you have a path of escape in case you’re discovered! Don’t just—”

  “Dodge!”

  His wingcloak reacted for him, yanking them both aside as the golem yanked out its spear and stabbed again. The shock kicked them back. They rolled across the street, hurting, and then scrambled onto their feet at the same time to face their giant enemy.

  The gargoyle golem stared back at them from the town square, cocking its head at a bone-wrong angle. Like the other golems, it was already half-damaged with torn-up metal plates and grinding, creaking cogwork underneath, but it was only damaged. At six meters tall and wielding a giant weapon capable of smashing through an entire building, it could easily kill anyone in town with a single blow.

  So this is the golem designed for battle.

  It must be… what? Uncommon-5? Uncommon-6?

  A million questions churned in his head. How did it locate him? Did it track his mana trails like the Guild automatons could? Were there more golems on the way, and this one was only the vanguard sent to soften up the town?

  None of that mattered. Not now.

  The golem’s eyes whirred in their sockets as they scanned left, then right, then—as if on a one-way mission to destroy everything in its path—it pivoted towards the nearest building and raised its spear again.

  But Yasmin suddenly dashed out of an alley between its legs—taking the only alley not already choked with fallen debris—and stabbed her swordstaff into the ground with a hard crack.

  Earth bucked. An earth wall rose under the golem’s left foot, throwing it off-balance and making it swing extra wide. As it staggered into another building, Yasmin leapt in to exploit. Her swordstaff chopped down at what would be a tendon if it were a flesh and blood giant—but it wasn’t. Her blade bounced off the bronze with the sound of a dull knife failing a hard nut.

  The golem recovered, infuriatingly quickly for its size, and hauled its spear around in a horizontal sweep. Yasmin jumped, but the shockwave from the swing fanned out anyways. Wind tore open the tailor shop’s front, cracked half a dozen chimneys down the street, and sent more flames and sparks flying outwards.

  Dain wrapped an arm around Anisa’s head and shoved both of them down. Shrapnel stung his cheek. Something sharper and longer bit his thigh and stayed there.

  Pain rippled down his leg, but he bit down a wince and forced himself to breathe. When he looked back up, even more of the town was burning, but Yasmin was still dashing circles around the golem, raising earthwalls whenever she could just to distract it from continuing its rampaging.

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  “... Drop the bow,” he breathed, cutting a look at Anisa. She still grippled her weapon like a drowning lady clutching a plank, but there was no use in it. If even Yasmin’s swordstaff bounced, no crossbow bolt would pierce the golem. “Help the people. Get them out of town. Herd them into the forest and scatter so the golem can’t track all of you at the same time.”

  Anisa snapped her gaze at him. She was pale, yes, but her chin was up and her eyes were still bright—the stubborn kind of noble courage he both cursed and… admired, just a little.

  But nobility wouldn’t do her any good, and she’d just be a drag if she stayed and tried to fight.

  He knew it.

  She knew it, too.

  “... What will you do, then?” she asked, breathless.

  He looked back at the golem again. Yasmin had thrown up another earthwall—not a high one, just a shin-high lip that made the golem check its step and buy herself half a breath. Meanwhile, the town he’d begun to like with its cheap materials, fair food, and kind shopowners burned in ugly petals around the square.

  The fountain was gone. A child wailed. The smell of sugar and smoke made his stomach turn.

  For half a heartbeat, the shadow of Corvalenne rose over Granamere, and he saw rows of sunken buildings and chasms where gardens had been. He saw Marna the baker, Rell the cobbler, the crushed children of Sorowyn Carpentry, and he saw…

  Old Hugo.

  And Serina.

  His chest cinched.

  So he clamped a hand on the panic and ground his jaw until it fled.

  “I’m going to destroy it,” he whispered. “I won’t watch another town disappear.”

  She stared at him like she wanted to argue—like she wanted to reach for him—but then she swallowed, nodded once, and spun.

  “Yasmin!” she shouted. “Don’t die!”

  “Understood, my lady!” Yasmin flashed back, dragging her staff to raise another wall that shunted the golem’s next step away from a knot of fleeing folk.

  Then Anisa went off as well, running towards a group of staggered vendors, seizing a boy by the hand, and angling the cluster of fleeing townsfolk away from the town. Her Title must be helping her out, because she shouted like a lady born to be heard, and everyone heard her alright.

  Good.

  Get as many people out as you can.

  Dain straightened, rolled his aching shoulders back, and faced the gargoyle golem again.

  The town square was a furnace now. Heat breathed out of shattered ovens and cracked hearths. Smoke clawed at his throat and turned the evening sky the color of bruised apples, while the golem itself crouched amid the wreck, four red eyes roving over the chaos it’d happily made. The only reason why he wasn’t sweating buckets was because his body still felt the internal chill from the Cursed Manabrew Potion.

  He needed his arm.

  He needed his damned arm.

  While Yasmin dashed at the golem’s feet from the side again, he bolted into the nearest alley, his wings snapping twice giving him an initial burst of speed. Pain screamed up his thigh where the shard still rode him like a nail, but adrenaline pounded thicker than pain. He vaulted a toppled stall, skimmed along a shed roof, and cut through a yard where someone’s clothes still hung smoking on a line.

  The golem’s spear raked across the roofs, tearing through even more buildings. He heard Yasmin over the din—“What’s the plan?”—and for once, he didn’t immediately have one that reached beyond three breaths.

  “Buy time!” he barked back without looking. “Just dodge and distract it and try not to die!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Being stupid,” he muttered, and then louder: “Getting my relics!”

  He burst from his alley into the street that fronted the inn—or what was left of it. The place had collapsed in on itself like a kicked anthill. Tables lay upside down in a wash of sparks, the bar was a black scar, and half the building on the right side slumped in a burning pile. The heat punched him the way the spear’s shockwave hadn’t, but he flung his forearm over his nose and plunged into the ember-haze anyway.

  His desk had gone through the floor earlier. His prosthetic and his cane with it.

  Gotta dig for it!

  Passing through the wreck on the ground floor, he slid down at the base of the rubble heap and began shoving splintered wood aside. Hot grit bit his palm, but he’d just thrown his broken chair clear when a low groan snared him by the back of his neck.

  A human groan.

  He whipped his head to the left. Beneath the collapsed stairwell, a fallen support beam pinned Wenna to the floor by the hip. Ash streaked her face, and her fingers scrabbled without leverage.

  Serina flashed across his eyes—Serina with blood in her hair and a lightning-torn hole in her throat—and all the nice, practical thoughts about digging up his relics died under a tide of anger.

  “Hold still,” he croaked, and dashed over to get his hand under the beam.

  It was hot. It burned. The wood bit and his skin hissed, but thank the chill from the potion and the muscles he’d earned from Sorowyn Carpentry, because he was able to set his feet and heave anyways.

  Come… on!

  I’ve lifted… heavier than this!

  The beam first came up with a creak and a fresh splintering of something he didn’t want to identify, and it just didn’t budge. He heaved again, wheezing as he did, and this time it lifted—just slightly. Wenna coughed, and his arm shook; his teeth did, too.

  “... Go,” he coughed through his teeth. “Elderhush Forest. Now. Anisa’s herding.”

  She stared up at him, shocked stupid that a one-armed stranger could lift what three miners would think twice about.

  Then he glared at her to go, and that did the trick. She flinched and crawled out from under the beam, then scrambled onto her feet, limping out of the building with one hand on her ribs.

  When she vanished, he let the beam slam back down and turned for the rubble.

  The town still roared outside. The gargoyle’s spear still sang. In the distance, he heard Yasmin letting out a cry of pain as something must’ve flung her into a building—a shockwave, maybe—and he knew he didn’t have much time left.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he hissed and dug. Boards gave. Plaster sloughed. His fingers closed on wood, then stone, then leather, then on cold, familiar metal… and he almost laughed.

  His cane, prosthetic, and satchel were all buried in the same spot.

  Lucky me!

  He slung the satchel over his shoulder, jamming his prosthetic into his shoulder, and picked up his cane.

  The moment his prosthetic reconnected to his nerves and a jolt burst through his torso, the giant spear stabbed through the side of the inn.

  No time for the front door. He funneled mana into his prosthetic and fired a windsphere right above him, shattering the already weakened roof, and leaped to dodge the spear.

  Clearing the speartip by half a heartbeat, he burst into the open evening air much, much higher than he’d expected with his wings spread.

  He stole a breath at eye-height with the golem.

  ... Hello, handsome.

  He flicked his wings and swerved around mid-air—skimming past its four red eyes—to land on its hunched nape. The seam between its plates was there, praise The Tales of Seeker Orland, and that thin little service gap showed him a bright, throbbing spinal cord.

  His wings drove into the seam and hardened like spikes, anchoring him to its nape. Then he wedged his cane into the seam to pry it open just a little further before aiming his prosthetic down, pouring in a quarter of his mana.

  Bite through!

  The windsphere screamed down the seam. It met the spinal cord—

  And a lightning barrier snapped up to meet it.