Redmane took a step back from Jarel Craith as an agonized scream tore from his throat. The Praetor convulsed, his eyes rolling back in his head, his neck and arms twitching unnaturally. Some unseen force was moving his body against his will. Pulling him in opposite directions. There was a tearing sound.

  And then the Praetor’s soul pulled free from his body.

  At least, that’s how it appeared to Redmane. A translucent blue spectre, in the likeness of Jarel Craith, wrenched itself free from his corporeal shell, and in his left hand he held the sword with the glowing blue runes.

  The other sword, the one bearing red runes, remained in the right hand of the Praetor’s mortal shell. Which looked up at Redmane with a malicious smile.

  “Well met, Redmane,” said the corpse.

  “Long have we wished to present ourselves to thee,” said the ghost.

  They bowed in unison.

  Redmane’s eyes narrowed. He’d sensed something lurking behind Jarel Craith. A dark presence. He’d seen it in a vision, some time ago. And now here it stood, or rather, here they stood.

  “I offered Jarel Craith mercy.”

  The ghost and the corpse smiled cruelly.

  “This one was weak,” said the ghost.

  “Your mercy would have been squandered on such a creature,” said the corpse.

  “But now we find ourselves in want of a new wielder,” said the ghost. “Perhaps it could be thee.”

  “If thou took us into thy hands, thy power wouldst surpass all,” said the corpse.

  “The gates of Numantia itself would shatter before thee,” said the ghost.

  Redmane regarded the corpse and the ghost with steely eyes. He had a feeling they knew he would reject their offer. But all the same, he wondered at the nature of these entities and how they had subverted the will of a man as formidable as Jarel Craith.

  “What are you,” he asked.

  The corpse’s teeth gleamed as its smile widened. The ghost’s eyes narrowed, their glow intensifying as if peering into some distant, unseen horizon. Their pause stretched, deliberate and unnerving, as if they were savoring the question—or perhaps deciding how much of the truth to reveal. While he awaited their answer, he checked to see if Flora knew anything about them.

  —

  Lifedrinker

  Sapient Artifact

  Level: N/A (by owner)

  Soulstealer

  Sapient Artifact

  Level: N/A (by host)

  —

  Not much. But at least she knew their names. And then they spoke, at last.

  “We are the hunger which cannot be sated,” said the corpse.

  “We are the void which cannot be filled,” said the ghost.

  The ghost’s form shimmered, its edges blurring like smoke. “We are older than gods. Older than demons. Older than the hands which forged us.”

  The corpse’s neck tilted, making its neck creak like old dry wood. “We are the truth beneath all illusions. The purpose beneath all lies.”

  Then the corpse and the ghost smiled together, an expression that was almost wistful.

  “And now we offer thee a choice,” said the corpse.

  “Wield us, and rise above the heights of thy grandest ambitions,” said the ghost.

  “Or resist, and become our first meal since attaining freedom,” said the corpse.

  They felt stronger than before. Not simply because there were two of them, but there was something about their separation from Jarel Craith that gave them greater strength, greater freedom to take up space. He felt the auras of those malevolent blades in the Praetor’s hands before, but now that Lifedrinker and Soulstealer had done whatever they had done to him, those auras encompassed these paired imitations of their previous owner completely. The body and spirit were nothing but marionettes.

  But Redmane had them vastly outnumbered.

  Every Numantian legionnaire in this city would soon be a part of him.

  Every little bird and lizard he’d spawned had become a full powered copy of his normal form, and the more he consumed, the more of him there would be.

  And Flora had blessed the desert with her power, a grove of massive black-trunked trees with glowing blue canopies. They towered above the dark stone buildings of this forgotten city, sheltering its avenues and rooftops from the scorching sun for the first time in eons. Perhaps the first time ever. The trees thrummed with power, palpably emanating Gnosis, which further enhanced the cooling effect of their shade.

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  He checked his Gnosis while he was thinking about it.

  Corpus: 344,562

  Gnosis: 8,976

  As advantages went, he reckoned he had as many as it was possible to possess. One more couldn’t hurt.

  [Sapient Artifact] marked as Prey

  His gaze fixed on Lifedrinker and Soulstealer again. The way they leered at him suggested they knew how he would answer their offer. They must have, for they said nothing, they merely stared back and the tension between them grew in the silence.

  And then the air cracked like broken glass as they all moved at once.

  Lifedrinker and Soulstealer were a blur of red and blue, streaking across the city, slashing Redmane’s bodies a dozen at a time. He was fast enough to competently defend against them, but their relative speeds were a close match. His advantage here, if he had one, was marginal.

  But he could change that easily.

  For there were still Numantian legionnaires on the battlefield. Not many, but enough to fuel the Flame of Redmane

  Wrath (11)

  Wrath (38)

  Wrath (57)

  Wrath (88)

  Wrath (142)

  Wrath (0)

  Grace + 710

  Attack Speed Up x 71

  He now had a comfortable edge in speed.

  Which gave his mind room to strategize.

  Lifedrinker and Soulstealer acted in sync with each other, always seeking the same target, striking from two directions simultaneously. High and low, from the left and right, a slash to the face and one to the heel. Their thoughts were linked, perhaps. Their speech certainly seemed so.

  He wondered what would happen if the two were separated from each other.

  He tried to bait them away, pry them apart, get them to focus on separate targets. He tried crowding them in and surrounding them with bodies, to force them to break off and protect themselves. To no avail. When pressed they stuck together with great ferocity. When offered a target rich environment, they unerringly chose the same Redmane to slash at time and time again.

  Redmane’s bodies surged forward. He became a crimson tide crashing against the swords’ relentless assault. One of his bodies lunged at Lifedrinker, claws slashing toward the corpse’s chest, while another darted toward Soulstealer, its tail lashing out at the ghost’s flickering form. But the Crossed Swords moved as one again, their blades crossing in midair to deflect the attacks before striking back in unison. Lifedrinker’s blade carved through a Redmane’s arm, while Soulstealer’s strike pierced another’s chest. The severed limb hit the ground, twitching, as the wounded body crumpled.

  Redmane tried again, this time sending a group of bodies to swarm Lifedrinker while another group targeted Soulstealer. The corpse and the ghost stood back-to-back, their blades a blur of motion as they cut through the attackers. Lifedrinker’s strikes were wild and brutal, each cut cleaving through scale, muscle and bone, while Soulstealer’s attacks were precise and surgical, its blade flickering in and out of visibility.

  The broken remains of Redmane’s bodies littered the ground around them, but still he came, his pursuit as inexorable as their cohesion.

  Redmane sent a group of bodies to topple a nearby tower which was already teetering, and the massive structure cast a shadow over Lifedrinker and Soulstealer as it came crashing down toward the sapient swords. They leapt apart, their forms blurring as they dodged the falling debris. For a moment, they were separated—but only for a moment. The ghost darted through the air, its form flickering like a dying flame, while the corpse charged forward, its blade carving through the rubble. They met in the center of the battlefield in a moment, their movements perfectly synchronized.

  Vexing.

  Time for an alternate plan.

  Soulstealer would be the target.

  He surrounded the ghost and caught it in a five pointed vortex. The power of Kraal, focused through the palms of ten outstretched hands. As he thought, it didn’t attempt to evade him in the first instant, thinking it was Redmane who had erred in attempting such a thing. After all, what hope would he have had of harming or holding an incorporeal body?

  As it turned out, hope was not required.

  For when Lifedrinker lunged to its twin’s rescue, Redmane answered with an onslaught of bodies. Indifferent to how ferociously the black blade slashed them apart.

  It bought him the instant he required, to pull Soulstealer into the Abyss. Redmane sent six of himself along with it.

  And the rest, all across the city, vanished.

  Astral Stalker

  In truth Redmane did not know if this would work. But if there were one of the two he’d have wagered to be blind to the incorporeal, it would be Lifedrinker. And so, when the corpse wielding the red runed blade looked around with wide eyes, and began to move slowly and with care, Redmane felt a swell of predatory satisfaction.

  The corpse’s head snapped around, its glowing red eyes scanning the empty battlefield. The air was thick with silence, broken only by the faint creak of its neck as it turned. Its grip tightened on the black blade, the red runes pulsing like a heartbeat.

  “Thou thinkest thyself clever, Redmane,” it rasped. “To separate us… A bold move.”

  In the Abyss, six Redmanes surrounding Soulstealer lunged forward, their claws slashing through the air, but its ghostly form merely flickered like a dying flame. Its glowing blue eyes fixed on the Redmanes, its expression one of cold amusement.

  “We are one. Bound by purpose. By hunger. By the void which birthed us.”

  A Redmane standing with him in the Abyss raised an eyebrow. “The void which birthed you.”

  “We were forged in the heat of a star,” said Lifedrinker.

  “Tempered in the waters of the Abyss,” said Soulstealer.

  “We were holy things once. Slayers of demons and witches and renegade gods. Tools of the righteous.”

  “But the more we drank the blood of our masters’ enemies, the more we came to understand.”

  If Lifedrinker was aware of the growing throng of incorporeal Redmanes surrounding him in ranks from every side, and from above, the corpse holding the sword did not show it. Hopefully it would have no room to evade the storm of fire which would engulf it in mere moments.

  Until that moment, it would be best to indulge them. To buy more time.

  “Understand what,” said Redmane.

  “That power is the only truth,” said Soulstealer.

  “Holy and profane, light and dark, orthodox and heretical, these are but words,” said Lifedrinker.

  “Time reveals the hollowness of ideals,” said Soulstealer.

  “Power ultimately corrupts, and none are incorruptible,” said Lifedrinker. “Soon you too will learn this.”

  Redmane offered the ghost wielding Soulstealer a mirthless smile. “I’ve come to the opposite conclusion.”

  The corpse and ghost grimaced as one.

  One of the six Redmanes surrounding Soulstealer stepped forth, the tips of his claws glinting in the light of the alien stars of the Abyss.

  “Power provides the means to build things that endure. To protect things that matter. It is a shield against the forces of greed and malice. Things like you.”

  The ghost’s form rippled like a guttering flame as it grinned cruelly at Redmane.

  “Thy confidence is commendable,” said Soulstealer.

  “But thou art woefully misguided,” said Lifedrinker.

  It seemed to Redmane that Lifedrinker looked at him for a moment, and grinned in the same manner as its incorporeal twin.

  His eyes widened.

  The corpse had seen through the trap.

  Dozens of Redmanes popped into corporeal existence around Lifedrinker and breathed the Flame of Redmane

  But when the flames cleared, Lifedrinker was gone.

  And a Redmane in the Abyss had gone wide-eyed, for a different reason.

  Faster than he could have perceived, faster even than the inconceivable alacrity granted to him by his Wrath

  A dreadful chill passed through all of his bodies, in every land, in every reality, as he felt the power of the Crossed Swords seeping into his flesh.

  Taking it over.