Jarel Craith was experiencing some kind of inner dilemma.

  And Redmane wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste. If there was a time to strike decisively, it was now.

  Claws of the Exalted Hunter

  Gnosis: 671

  Redmane leapt in a tight arc, high enough to meet his foe at the point of descent and no farther, and the Praetor snapped out of his trance at the last possible instant. Redmane’s claws rang off his blade and struck thrice more, Jarel blocking two with success and then crying out as the third carved deeply into his side.

  Craith staggered back a few paces, clutching the wound. His face was tight with pain. Or was it something else.

  This man had unfriendly voices in his mind.

  Redmane didn’t know why he thought that. Just instinct. A hunch. The look in the Numantian’s eye.

  The man looked like he was doing his utmost to push something away. To restrain himself.

  “You look haunted, Praetor,” said Redmane. “What do the ghosts command that has shaken you so?”

  The question drew his glare.

  He didn’t dignify it with an answer. He went on the attack instead.

  This time Jarel Craith took apart all the sequences he’d thrown at Redmane thus far and wove them together into new patterns and combinations, setups and finishing moves. The speed at which they were moving, and the power in their exchanges of blows, made them into a pair of blurred figures traversing wide swaths of the burning forest so fast their passing created shockwaves. As did the ringing impacts of blade on claw.

  Redmane could keep up now.

  And more than that, he could claim the upper hand.

  Flame of Redmane

  Gnosis: 571

  He set alight another cluster of Flora’s trees, increasing the amount of fuel he was taking in. With it came more Wrath, which meant more speed, faster reflexes, more raw toughness and striking power. Whatever he required to maintain his advantage.

  It freed his mind enough to consider the great possibilities of such a tool.

  Presuming Flora forgave him for burning her already burning trees.

  Perhaps he should see how she felt about that, before he made any big plans.

  That would be wise.

  Jarel Craith’s blade swept across the space where Redmane’s head ought to have been, but it found empty air. He continued with a series of quick thrusts, which flew like bullets, but Redmane retreated off of them, faded away like a specter. The Numantian did an admirable job keeping up with an ever-changing opponent, Redmane thought. Perhaps he possessed Skills made for this very purpose. To aid in the slaying of more powerful foes than oneself.

  Whatever his best Skills were, they would be a fine prize.

  A trophy for the victor of Volos’s war with Numantia.

  The Numantian War. Or perhaps they would call it Redmane’s Rebellion.

  Corpus: 23,353

  Gnosis: 787

  Wrath (18)

  Redmane pondered what to do with his latest gift from the flames.

  Wrath (0)

  Might +180

  A demonstration was in order. A statement.

  He struck the ground so hard it caused an earthquake.

  The earth heaved and split open, fissures snaking outward in jagged lines, burning trees toppling, their roots exposed and torn. Boulders shattered, sending shards of rock flying in all directions like shrapnel. Fueled by the sudden rush of air the flames leapt higher, and the sound of the impact echoed throughout Midva Forest. It was a deep rumble which came from the earth itself, as if it were voicing its displeasure at the disturbance.

  Jarel Craith swayed and staggered, barely keeping his footing. A tree fell toward him and he leapt away from it, and then leapt again as the spot he’d chosen for a landing became a sinkhole rapidly filling with a torrential downpour of rocks, trees and burning shrubbery.

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  Redmane, meanwhile, found it simple to stand his ground.

  He watched the Numantian struggle with a certain satisfaction in his eye.

  The man was still contending with whatever forces occupied his mind. He could see it in the strained eyes, the gritted teeth. As if continuing to deny it, whatever it was, cost him more and more each time he had to say no.

  “You may as well let the demons out, Praetor,” Redmane called out to him. “You can’t win without them.”

  Redmane hadn’t planned on the reaction he got.

  It simply seemed like the right taunt to deliver.

  But the raw fear in Jarel Craith’s eyes when he looked up at Redmane was priceless.

  Redmane’s third eye burned, and opened.

  There was a flash of heat in his mind, like a curtain burning away to reveal what lay behind it, and suddenly he understood the cause of that fear.

  He saw the silhouette of Jarel Craith standing before him in the blazing forest, and behind him floated two dark presences. Vast in their power and their hunger. They were old. Ancient beyond reckoning. Something about them reminded Redmane of himself and Flora. But if these things were long separated parts of them, he felt no sense of kinship or recognition.

  It was more akin to recognition of a similar thing. Of beings moved by the same forces which moved through he and Flora. The principles of Corpus and Gnosis embodied. Except these two did not stand together to balance their consumption with creation.

  No. They were the void itself.

  The dual presences reached out into Jarel from either side, found his heart and laid their hands on it. Redmane could feel the man’s terror, his lament. For he had opened the door to these creatures in an hour of desperate need, and in doing so, in believing he would be their master and not their tool, he had condemned himself.

  They wanted him to give in to them, and the weight of their desire threatened to smother his soul. To snuff him out like the meager flame of a candle in the wind.

  Redmane felt a swell of fear himself, feeling the power of those two. In order to match them, he would need much fuel. The entire forest, perhaps. If even that was enough. Having experienced the vast presence of Kraal so recently, Redmane couldn’t help but compare it to the two beings hidden behind Jarel Craith.

  Just one of them was Kraal’s equal, or more.

  But there was still an ounce of fight in Jarel Craith.

  The Numantian bared his gritted teeth, the corners of his eyes tight with strain.

  “No!” he shouted.

  Then he waved his hand, and in a flash of blue light he was gone from Midva Forest.

  Jarel Craith collapsed to his hands and knees, his breath heaving in ragged gasps.

  Blood dripped from his wounds, painting the floor with splotches of crimson that spread slowly, the liquid reflecting the calm lighting of what was now the Governor’s chambers.

  The first thing he felt was gratitude at the sensation of the cool, smooth marble beneath his palms. Then the slightly perfumed scent of the climate-controlled air. A most welcome relief from the oppressive heat and acrid smoke of Midva Forest.

  Under normal circumstances, on an average day, the sight of even a small stain on the pristine floor would have vexed him. And here he was, making a terrible mess. He was drenched in sweat, covered in dirt and soot, and bleeding. The flavor of blood and ashes mixed in his mouth.

  He had to laugh.

  He’d lost, but he’d won.

  The voices of Lifedrinker and Soulstealer had gone silent. He could feel their presences withdrawn from his mind, in the background, having retreated to regroup. This was their boldest attempt yet to take control of him. Their voices were louder and closer in his mind than they had ever been before.

  Redmane had somehow intuited what was happening to him. And the voices of Lifedrinker and Soulstealer responded, needled him, trying to provoke him, mocking his restraint. For a terrifying moment he thought they were going to call themselves into his hands on their own, shunt his mortal mind aside and make him a helpless spectator in his own body.

  They would return, of course. But Jarel would be ready for their next battle of wills.

  And he would be ready for his next battle with Redmane, as well.

  He had learned much. The next engagement would benefit from this knowledge and from proper planning.

  Victory was possible.

  There was a path to it. All he had to do was find it, chart it, construct a plan and execute.

  Jarel Craith, wielding the sword Lawbringer, would be the one to slay Redmane and end all of this.

  Triumph would be his. Redemption would be his.

  Midva Forest lay in silence, the air heavy with the scent of ash and woodsmoke. The blackened trunks of trees stood with their branches stripped bare, reaching skyward in skeletal outlines. The ground was a patchwork of scorched earth and smoldering embers, the remnants of leaves and underbrush reduced to a thick layer of soot. And the canopy of the forest, so recently dense and vibrant, was gone, the hazy orange sky obscured instead by an immense column of smoke rising from the ruin of the forest.

  Redmane sat upon the wreckage of the last of the Numantian fire machines. Surveying the scene with a heavy heart.

  At least he’d gotten Flora to safety.

  Too bad he hadn’t done so quickly enough to spare her several gruesome deaths.

  How strange it must be to experience such a thing more than once.

  If it were a different person, in a different set of circumstances, he might have been tempted to ask about it.

  But he’d rather not see pain in Flora’s eyes ever again.

  Pietr, he said in his mind.

  My lord! How fares the forest?

  Burnt to cinders.

  I see… My apologies. It shall grow again, my lord.

  How fare the others.

  Ah, well I am with Kard and his clan in Morazan Valley. Valtr and Vengarl’s Coterie are securing Castle Redmane. And I believe King Edd and his wild boar friends are with Krum of Asgoph, working to push back a sizable Numantian force approaching Beroh Keep.

  I’ll assist them, then. We must remain separate for now. If I were to call another gathering, we would invite a second ambush. For now we shall have to communicate like this.

  Of course, my lord. But if I may offer a suggestion, perhaps it would be most prudent to make for the last Seal with haste.

  Redmane frowned thoughtfully.

  They could use his help.

  But if he came to their aid, that was time spent doing something other than preparing for the ultimate battle.

  Time he would need. Now that he had met his opponent, and felt the power of the beings standing behind him. Surely they would prevail over that man’s mind, and when it happened he would have to be ready to fight all three of them at the same time.

  A daunting prospect. Especially if the circumstances and the terrain were not in his favor. The only reason he’d won the day was because Flora’s trees surrounded him.

  He would need to craft a plan.

  But first, as Pietr wisely suggested, he should make for the Aridorn Wastes.

  For the Seal of the Dragon.