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.

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 is you, of everyone, managed to reach this place. None of the others cared enough, but I had little to

his plan of attack hadn’t changed much, and he didn’t care to die young again. So he answered. “My father was the

a swell of deep pride in his tone. “The things that you showed me… that war, those weapons, those strategies… they evoked a sense of remembrance in me. They spoke of things I had forgotten, of memories that my own hunger had eaten through.” The thing

you’ve a lovely new trick to

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 of my desire for the

It’s a cycle,” Argrave pointed

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

steel folded one thousand times,” Argrave said with a shake

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could feel his link between Anneliese funneling back vitality into his system, replacing

The shadows surrounding the Hopeful were simply too dense, too constant, for a single attack to

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 magnitude

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

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.

Argrave dismissed easily. “If you’ve studied me, you’d

the playground. You’re a sow who claims emperorship over their enclosure, sovereignty of their slaughterhouse. A wiki editor? What a joke. The

You have to deserve what you want. And

This wasn’t an opponent that power alone could beat—and more than that, he wasn’t someone suited to using brute force.

This was no different.

#####

amidst carnage, their backs to one another as they looked upon a calming battlefield with the sunset as their background. The barbarians had come in endless waves, led by gods emboldening their invasion of the Great Chu. Together, these two

said

of our enemy, or the rage of that earth deity.” Orion looked around warily. “Do we move to another

rejuvenating it. Hause had brought

the ground as he surveyed the area. “You fought like a thousand men so that