Jackal Among Snakes

“Argrave, the Hopeful is making steady progress through the southern valley,” Elenore told him, speaking directly into his head. “He’s already overrun a few of the checkpoints. The repelling enchantments we imitated don’t hinder him as much as they do others. Those shadows he projects seem to just… eat them.”

Argrave processed that information. He had hoped that when the Hopeful had consumed his flesh, the thing would’ve triggered the landmine Argrave had placed where his soul had once been. If the Hopeful had tried to read his thoughts, he would’ve received a burst of mental power equivalent to that of every living thing in the world. It wasn’t surprising he’d dodged it if he had the Heralds’ omniscience at his back.

“Sending me to die again, sis?” Argrave asked jokingly, but before she could respond continued, “Fine. I’ll deal with it. Tell Anneliese to be ready to send back vitality.”

Argrave cast one more glance at the fight against Gerechtigkeit. With the addition of Anneliese, the tide had been turned in this phase of the fight... yet above, a dark cloud formed of the ashes of his dying body, foreshadowing another battle yet to manifest. Elsewhere, his willing and unwilling slaves crept inward on Berendar, costing them more and more lives by the second. Argrave could say they’d kept their bearings in the face of this ambush, yet the fight remained of yet undecided.

With a heavy heart, Argrave again headed for the rematch against the only foe that could truly claim to have beaten him. But Argrave had definitely let him win, so it didn’t count as a real victory.

So he hoped… and coped.

#####

When Argrave alighted upon one of the many checkpoints on the southern valley leading into Blackgard, he felt that feeling of death he’d confronted not hours ago upon seeing the Hopeful again. The bestial giant clashed with one of Law’s many Justiciars. The Hopeful broke its blade, shattered its armor, and let his hounds of hunger tear into the thing before looking their way. When his dark eyes saw Argrave, he could’ve swore that smile widened.

“Your Majesty!” the commander of the fort kneeled just beside him. His tone sounded flavored with limitless relief. “Your orders, sir?”

Argrave looked to him briefly. “Take everyone. Fall back to the next checkpoint.” He looked back. “I’ll deal with this.”

“At once!” the man said, more than eager to follow that order. Doubtless he’d seen countless of his comrades die before the Hopeful’s onslaught.

As the garrison evacuated, Argrave jumped down from the fort, falling slowly and gently. He stood with the gargantuan enchanted walls at his back, facing this monster alone. He felt the fear, yet did it anyway—Orion would’ve been proud, he was sure.

“I never knew quite how important you were,” Argrave called out as he walked closer.

“I never knew how good your fear would taste,” the Hopeful answered as he shambled closer, barely fitting into the narrow valley.

The monster’s physical body did seem somewhat weakened in the confines of this valley, yet his shadows—the true threat of him—roamed all but unfettered. His advance would be slow, yet inevitable, unless Argrave could put a stop to it.

been making a study of you,” the Hopeful continued, straining against the invisible force pressing down on him with his tremendous grin belying the effort. “Of your mother. Of your father. Of the life you lived, and the reason it

changed much, and he didn’t care to die young again. So he answered. “My father was

“The things that you showed me… that war, those weapons, those strategies… they evoked a

you’ve a lovely new trick to try on me—a nice new angle to get me

of the coming change—perhaps the primary beneficiary. A key to this cycle. A Hopeful. It might be said that the hunger all around is produced not by some supernatural phenomenon, but as a manifestation of the depth

It’s a cycle,” Argrave pointed out. “One

even… to remove impurity. To perfect the product. Nothing lasts forever. Everything,

Argrave said with a shake of his head. “Why

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his hands, every dropof his being, Argrave unleashed a torrent of blood magic upon the Hopeful as he stood restrained. He could feel his link between Anneliese funneling back vitality into his system, replacing what he spent as quickly as it was lost. He scarred the

result was just as before. The shadows surrounding the Hopeful were simply too

upon Sophia?” the Hopeful taunted, voice projected through his shadows. “Have her unmake my power, as she did Jaray. Why not use her power of creation as a fuel for your vitality, that you might prepare an attack of the same

his fists as they reconstituted. “My daughter is sleeping. She needs to be at her best when we take the fight to where Gerechtigkeit retreats—where

delusions—both of kinship with Sophia, and of any victory,” the Hopeful continued, rising to his feet as he began his steady advance forward once more. “She’s using you as a puppet. Not by choice, mind you—by instinct. She’s as malevolent as Gerechtigkeit.

joke,” Argrave dismissed easily. “If you’ve studied me, you’d know that I’ve overcome worse

“You’re a child who proclaims themself master of their sandbox, king of the playground. You’re a sow who claims emperorship over their enclosure, sovereignty of their slaughterhouse. A wiki editor? What a joke. The things you understand about this world are a fraction of what there actually is.

Argrave took a deep breath. “Hope alone is useless. You have to deserve what

their cause in the past day. This wasn’t an opponent that power alone could beat—and more than that, he wasn’t someone suited to using brute force. He’d fought against Good King Norman what felt like thousands of times, and he’d eventually

This was no different.

#####

to one another as they looked upon a calming battlefield with the sunset as their background. The barbarians

said

the stomping of our enemy, or the rage of that

axe of blood—where his fingers touched, the blood sept into his skin, rejuvenating it.

is true for you!” Orion praised, kneeling on the ground as he surveyed the area. “You fought like a thousand men so that yours didn’t