Jackal Among Snakes

Argrave stared at the steel docks on the southern shore of the Great Chu at the front of the Sea Dragon. He could see great silos full of the liquid fire that filled their turtle ships. He could see mounted ballistae manned by spellcasters that imbued the bolts with energy. He could see a huge garrison manning this coastal fort. Commandeered trading vessels stood like a wall of wood to block their advance with only a skeleton crew of slaves manning them.

The southernmost portion of the Great Chu was, like the north of Vasquer, cold and rugged, with sparse population. But even beyond this remote fortress, Argrave could see the first of the cities of the Great Chu. Jade and amber decorated the tops of their buildings, slender spikes ascending from the roofs of orderly homes and shops.

During the whole of their approach, Argrave felt as though he was in a trance. He was having trouble avoiding a recent memory.

Argrave couldn’t remember the words Elenore said to call Argrave back to Blackgard, but it had been enough to make him return home even on the eve of the battle. He did remember entering Sophia’s room to check on her… but within, he only found her dolls.

They had all died.

Their small size had enabled them to last a long while, yet the creatures Sophia had created lacked key parts of what made something self-sustaining. They were living—they consumed energy to live, like anything else. But the dolls she’d made lacked the ability to digest, to drink. The small child didn’t understand those systems, nor how they kept a body moving, so the dolls were born without them. Like this they withered away, performing their tasks until their death. Only Castro seemed to be spared that fate, for he was made in imitation of a real human.

Elenore told him that Sophia didn’t yet know they were dead. It fell upon Argrave to bring that news to her.

“Life, Sophia, is a very precious and complicated thing,” Argrave had said to the young girl as she sat on their bed, Anneliese on the opposite side. “You’re very special. You have the potential to create that life easier than anyone. But that creation… you can do great evil if you don’t understand what it means.”

Sophia looked at him, not quite understanding his point. And, inevitably, he told her what had happened to the dolls. And when she didn’t believe… he showed her. The dolls, once alive, now… broken. Withered. Lifeless. Decaying. Sophia had been fearful and guilty of what she’d done before, but with their deaths, true sorrow came.

They comforted her as best they could.

“Before you use your power again, Sophia, the two of us should understand what it means. Life is an important thing—a precious thing, that you should value dearly. It shouldn’t be started or stopped without considerable thought.”

wrong to push you so hard,” Anneliese added.“You have no

small hand. “We’ll help you understand

created lives, yet her negligence also led

battlefield, lives passed away much

the gap, aimed at the whole of them. Anneliese soared forth, carried by her enchanted boots, and cast an S-rank ward to receive the first volley of magic. He saw her magic drain, then soar again as her foe’s

a goddess of protection, flying through the sky and creating golden shields that blocked flames, electricity, and all such atrocities of magic.

from ahead and above, revealing their unseen forms. And rising to oppose them were the deities of the Blackgard Union. Law’s Justiciar’s split through into this world, clashing blades with titans that had appeared from nowhere. Rook threw daggers that had his divine servants imbued into them, and these blades became possessed

the wounds of

echoes ahead where he saw power strongest. Once there, he cast spells to gut their foes’ operations before they could even get started. He saw people fall from the ramparts, torn apart so much as to be

wouldn’t be able to do it without his queen. Anneliese took half a thousand attacks without faltering. She was a machine of perpetual energy, conjuring wards that replenished her magic more than she spent. By the time any of her defenses broke, she had magic

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fell, lifting them up and casting them backward. Great Chu mages on the walls of the coastal fort acted in tandem, and the silos split from pressure on both sides. The sludgy white liquid poured on the land, inert without contact with water, and slowly streamed into the ocean. Meanwhile, their foes prepared to pour vast

din of the battle—their horn. That had come at Galamon’s order, as he was the commander in this battle. And it signaled a rather neutralizing tactic. It had been used at

the fleet behind the Sea Dragon, he saw countless mana ripples fill the air. With a deafening crackle, a wave of ice split through the ocean of greater magnitude than anything Argrave had seen before. It battered against the ward of the Sea Dragon, then broke past it. It continued on, on, and

and spellcasters continued to harass. The wall of trading vessels exploded violently, casting the Great Chu’s liquid fire all over the ice. They’d been packed with black powder and a slave bearing a torch—more than an obstacle, they were mines, meant to prevent or

storm of daggers flew around him as he jumped from blade to blade like they were platforms.

fell from the sky tower above. Tyrg—minotaurian god of strength and prominent member of the Qircassian Coalition—descended with a gigantic hammer clenched tightly in his hand. Argrave saw the gold mass permeating the skies above shift. It would

briefly, allowing some of the god’s power through to the mortal battlefield. The frozen ocean cracked, and wayward energy struck ships and troops alike, killing hundreds in

time in their lives. Argrave refocused and harassed those that fired upon them with his blood echoes, tearing holes into the enemy’s defenses piece by piece. Already, Argrave saw the gate on the right side slowly open. Lira’s connections proved useful—they had a man on the inside to prevent this from being