Taj's raden half blinded me, flaring over his body as I clung to his back. He hit awkwardly on
hands and knees, his raden buttressing his limbs and scattering soil. The impact sent me
somersaulting over his head. A pain shot through my cut left calf as I smacked down on my
back beside a short, gnarled tree.
"What the hell, Torrin?" Taj snarled, the remnants of the raden he'd used to survive the fall
just beginning to fade. He rubbed a welt on his head, probably from cracking it against mine,
as his eyes lifted to trace our fall. His mouth dropped open in shock at the jagged red rift
above us.
Dark shapes materialized in the rift, and I'd barely thought to roll clear when Seth landed
beside me in a perfect crouch. For a second, his eyes bulged in his head as they roved over
me.
"I'm alright," I said, and the stern frown returned.
Seth's hand on my upper back propped me into a sitting position, and a wave of nausea
followed a hammer-thud inside my skull. Digging my fingers into the crumbling soil of
whatever hell we'd dropped into, I tried to ground myself as I waited for the dizziness to
pass. When my head had cleared, I looked down and let out a sharp cry.
A set of fingers lay partially curled mere inches from mine, attached to a savaged arm that
ended in a bloody, protruding elbow joint.
I scuttled away from the severed limb but was unable to make my eyes do the same.
A high scream heralded a tumbling boneforger who hit the ground nearby with a nasty
crunch, his neck a knotted ruin and legs curling over his back like a scorpion's tail. My
horrified cry was drowned in a thunderous roar.
I twisted, adrenaline sparking like live wires through my legs and my head, and popped to
my feet, staring down a parabeast unlike anything I'd seen or read about.
The thirty-foot beast slithered out of a hole in a cliffside of blue-tinted rock, the circular
entrance lined with hunks of raw raden resin that protruded in rows like a leech's teeth. The
beast's sleek lizard-like body had golden veins running through its midnight blue skin. I had
no name for it, but my first thought was "dragon."
The creature's sides undulated, and glowing golden steam radiated from a sort of vent in the
right side. A large wound bisected the left-side vent, leaving the flesh deflated and collapsing
the vent itself. Other cuts dripped dark, gold-flecked blood as it opened its mouth at the
oncoming flood of charging, shouting ardents and revealed raden-gold fangs the length of
my forearm.
"Shit!" Taj yelped. "What is that thing? A naga?"
Once clear of the cave, the parabeast's body shuddered, and its skin hardened into a rocky
armor before my eyes. It stomped its forefoot, and smaller gold vents opened along the limb.
The impact shook the forest we'd fallen into, rustling lavender shrubbery and the spiny gold
leaves on the trees.
I staggered, and my legs tangled in my fallen pack. Seth's steadying hands gripped my
biceps.
A loud crack rang out as the dragon's thrashing tail felled a tree. An ardent sliced clean
through the oncoming knotted trunk with a war cry only to have his head and shoulders
ensnared in the dragon's glowing jaws. There was a flare of raden as the ardent tried to
protect himself, but a haze of golden steam billowed from the dragon's mouth, sinew and
fangs lighting up, and the jaws snapped together like a bear trap. The ardent's aura
shattered, his blood splashing over the dragon's muzzle.
Seth flipped me around to face him and shook me. "Torrin." His steady voice cracked
through the cold terror icing my limbs. "Stations." His fist knotted in the back of my jacket,
and he practically tossed me toward a cluster of a few boneforgers gathered beneath the
farthest edge of the inner rift. Most were calling or waving to their shell-shocked fellows, but
a few had begun to set up the fold-out worktables.
The runesmith, donning safety goggles, loomed behind the scrambling boneforgers and
medics. He watched the carnage with only a slight furrowing of his brows to signal distress.
My damaged calf screamed at me, but I limp-sprinted the rest of the way to the first readied
station and plopped my pack on top, preparing to set up, when an arm swept it away.
"No. We need this clear," the head boneforger, an older guy with flyaway brows, barked at
me. He pointed to a second table, where supplies were being laid out in categorized piles for
quick handover to the worktable. "Unpack over there." As I picked up my fallen pack, he
stared right through me and said, "Whoa, look alive."
A whistle by my head was the only warning that Rhea's axe was incoming. The head
boneforger caught the tossed weapon with ease and clunked it down on the table, assessing
the long crack running through the axe blade. He and another boneforger fell on the weapon,
dripping calcinated bone resin into the crack. Raden hot in their hands, they started to
harden it.
Rhea hadn't waited around for the weapon. She was already sprinting back into the fray,
heading straight for the rampaging dragon. More miniature vents had opened along its limbs,
firing out gold steam as it lashed out with its claws, the erratic movements almost too fast for
the eye to follow.
As I unpacked my kit, keeping only my personal tools and my custom solvent inside, I
watched her shove an injured Gavin clear of a swiping claw and flare her raden into a solid
shield-like encasement around her remaining axe, throwing it up to take the blow across the
protected blade. Using the impact's momentum, she parried the claw downward, then threw
the shielded axe in an uppercut. It bashed into the dragon's lower jaw and jowls, but asecond before impact, the armor of the beast's head thinned into a scaly surface that flexed
and rippled, dispersing the concussive force. A band of raden, extending between Rhea's
outstretched palm and the axe handle, snapped taut and yanked the tossed axe back into
her hand. The dragon reared and stamped, snorting, its earthen armor restored.
Rhea's axe flew out again and hit… nothing. In a single breath, the dragon had shot across
the expanse of its cliffside dwelling and crash landed in a destructive roll that took out trees
and ardents alike. Not all of them got back up again as the dragon found its feet. I saw Jace
shake off the pain and slash out with his longsword, but the weapon glanced off the rocky
armor in a streak of sparks.
A boneforger bumped me as he tried to grab a spare chin strap from the pile of parts, and I
winced as the cut in my leg pulled. I needed to quit gawking and start helping, but my calf
was going to slow me down, and I was slow enough already compared to these guys.
I looked around for a white-clad medic, but those in shouting distance were preoccupied, so I
dug around in my pack and pulled out my tube of paraglue. It wasn't as strong as the
bonding agent we used to attach weapon parts, but it helped in a pinch, and most
importantly right now, it was skin-safe. I used a sterile bandage to wipe away the worst of the
blood, trying not to gag at the exposed, pink flesh, and put a line of glue on each side of the
cut, then squished them together with a groan. It sealed in seconds. I stood and tested my
weight on it.
"You. New guy."
I looked around to find the head forger holding out Rhea's axe to me. "I'm making you a
runner. Get this back to Dunn."
He plopped the axe handle in my hands, and I grunted at the weight.
My feet faced the chaos of darting bodies across a graveyard of misshapen lumps, and the
tang of copper stung my nose. The dragon's sheer size overwhelmed the ardents; every
sweep of its claws terraformed the environment and stirred up golden particles in the air.
I told my legs to move, and for a few awful beats, they refused to obey. I looked down at the
axe and set my jaw. The ardents needed their weapons. The faster I could help them, the
faster we'd get through this. I could do this.
Sweating, pulse ticking like a bomb, I jogged as close as I dared, standing level with another
boneforger runner who was rushing to snag the two broken daggers Priscilla had just tossed
onto the ground for pickup.
"Priscilla," I called to her as she turned her back, "tell Rhea—"
She flared raden around her thick-soled, knee-high boots and sprinted at the dragon so fast
she was a blur. She tapped Rhea as she passed, streaking behind the dragon and slashing
two new blades across the tendon of its back foot. She dashed out again before the hissing
dragon could even turn its long neck to see what had unbalanced it.
Rhea was running toward me, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the beast at her back, my
muscles twitching, as if I had a chance at dodging if it charged. The dragon had taken one
wobbling step on its slashed back foot and roared its frustration as the ardents formed a
closing ring around it. Colter barked orders I didn't quite catch as a thick spout of golden
steam began to puff from the giant wing-vents on the dragon's right side. Its right legs rose
off the ground, but the gashed left vent only spat a thin haze.
I caught a glimpse of Seth, his steady frown zeroed in on the undamaged wing vent fifteen
feet above his head, sword at the ready, cloak streaming behind him. The shadowy outline of
his rune aspect surged around his form, dimming the ring of golden light around his irises.
Before he could reach his target, the vent spewed a sudden violent burst of hot raden that
shot the dragon through the ardent line, but it lilted left and came down hard. Golden slits
opened in the underside of its flailing tail, jetting out steam to try and straighten itself. The
wild jerk of the raden-powered tail sent Seth flying, crashing into Jace, and my stomach
flipped.
I hardly looked at Rhea as she snatched her second axe from my hand. Seth got to his feet
and instantly snapped into a fighting stance, bracing himself in front of Jace, who hadn't yet
recovered. The tail was swinging back the other way, and rather than duck, Seth executed a
spinning slash that would have been an unintelligible blur had I not seen the slowed version
a hundred times in our training. He brought his glowing bone blade downward in a strong
diagonal that carved deep into the meat of the tail. The impact skidded him sideways, but he
held rock steady, his aspect's shadowy outline expanding, then shrinking as he channeled a
massive burst of raden down the broadsword, carving through armor, sinew, and bone. The
blade might have gone clean through had the tail vents not fired again. The resulting
sideways torque snapped off the top third of the blade.
The tip of the tail dangled by a strip of sinew, spilling blood that Seth kept off his legs with an
aura of raden, but his damaged broadsword forced him to run clear and leave Jace to take
his spot. With that much raden pouring through the blade, it shouldn't have snapped so
easily.
I sprinted to put myself in his eyeline, stopping only to snatch up a fallen short sword lying
next to a dark, mangled form. Careful to keep a good hundred yards between myself and the
dragon, I waved the blade in both hands, calling my brother's name. Seth's head swiveled to
me like a magnet. Locked on my brother, I almost bumped into Colter, juking around him at
the last second and jogging the last few paces to meet Seth.
I swapped him the short sword, then turned on my heel to bring Seth's broadsword back to
the table, mind narrowing on the task ahead instead of the raging monstrosity at my back.
"Forger!"
I skidded to a stop, searching for the owner of the voice. An ardent with a knife-sharp jaw
and dark hair pulled back into a small bun was backing clear of the dragon and searching
over his shoulder. When our eyes locked, he tossed his halberd across the battlefield at me
like it was a stick. Even with half its long shaft missing, it could knock me on my ass, so I dodged and let it thud to the ground. I grabbed the splintered end, its steel core peeking out
from the bone casing, and dragged the rest behind me.
Colter nearly bumped into me this time, pacing like a stalking wolf, his eyes locked on the
dragon's every move, seeking an opening.
I dropped Seth's sword on the workstation and the halberd at my feet. Already, the blood
was drying on the remnants of the sword, and the halberd's spear-tipped axe looked even
worse off. I looked along the workstations, but there wasn't a single hand free. I knew I'd be
kept busy in a live rift, but the number of broken weapons was getting out of hand. That
dragon's armor was even tougher than it looked.
Switching from runner to forger—authorization be damned—I slung my pack off my shoulder,
dug out my pitiful supply of solvent and poured it over Seth's weapon, shaking the last drops
out. As I started scrubbing, the well-used muscles in my upper back and right arm firing up, I
searched again for a free raden user to help get both these weapons back quickly. The
bushy-browed head forger was bent over another sword, hands and whetstone glowing with
raden. A few others were repairing cracks and digging around in the spare parts pile,
another was making a racket with a hammer. Damn. I really needed—
"Taj!"
He was standing by the supplies, fingers hovering over the bonding agent bottles but wide
eyes staring off at the battle. His tawny skin had an ashen cast, and he turned to me as if
underwater.
"Taj, grab that bonding agent. I need your help."
His hand curled around the bottle, but an ear-splitting roar made his head twitch back around
like a startled rabbit, and his body locked up.
"Taj!" I snapped in my best impression of Seth. "I need you. Now."
That got his feet moving, and when he reached me, I stared hard into his face, keeping his
focus on me. "I've got a broadsword with a snapped blade and halberd in need of a new
shaft. The point needs sharpening, too. And they both need cleaning. Can you start on the
halberd?" I kicked it with my foot, drawing his gaze. "I'm going to check the spare parts."
I handed him the abrasive sponge and ran to scour the supplies. I found a spare shaft no
problem, but a broken blade was another issue. Mind screaming at me to hurry the whole
time, I passed over a few badly damaged dagger blades, completely avoided the raw,
unformed bone, and landed on a Norse-style spearhead, at least seven inches long. It was a
tad slim, but it would restore the original length of Seth's sword. I headed back with it, then
rattled off my thoughts to Taj, who'd already cleaned both weapons.
When I got to the part about Seth's sword, Taj cut through my explanation with a curt, "Got
it," and snatched the spearhead out of my hand. He started gliding the nozzle of the bonding
agent bottle on the two pieces, preparing to press them together.
"No," I cut in, nudging the bottle aside and blocking his view of his work with an outstretched
arm. "That will work on the halberd's handle no problem, but that fusion won't hold the
broadsword. The break is at a stress point, and the spearhead is half a centimeter narrower.
It'll just snap right off again."
His forehead wrinkled, but his hands moved to the shaft pieces. "So why even grab it?" The
golden tones of the raden he infused into the bonded halbert shaft gave him back some of
his color, but I thought I saw a tremor in his fingers.
"Just trust me. I've got an idea. You start shaving down the ends of both pieces, get them as
even as you can."
Running at top speed, I charged back toward the body of the dead ardent whose short sword
I'd taken. The closer I got to the battle, the harder my heart pounded and the more difficult it
was to tear my eyes from the gore and destruction wrought by the dragon's every move.
The raden vents in its body made every strike hit hard and swift as a cannon. One slash, and
a claw drove up through an ardent's jaw and poked out of his skull. One stomp of its hind
foot and a spine snapped.
Putting one foot in front of the other became an internal wrestling match, but I reached the
cold corpse and crouched beside him. Careful not to look too closely at his face, I unbuckled
his leather vambrace and slid it off in one swift tug, but the arm nearly came off with it.
Tamping down nausea, I looked at the clean, deep tear through the shoulder. His armor and
his raden had both failed to protect him.
What the hell am I doing out here?
I gritted my teeth and shoved the thought away. Everyone else had already questioned my
ability to be out here enough. I wasn't going to start questioning myself, not after all the
thought I'd put into this. I needed to be here. I could do this.
Cries and roars echoed in my ears, but I blocked them out, diverting to grab a cast iron bowl
and another chemical agent from the supplies before returning to Taj. The halberd stood
upright, braced against the table, and he was standing back to assess his work on the ends
of the spearhead and blade.
I shoved the vambrace at Taj. "Cut me a strip, please."
He squinted at me, but used his raden to help carve through the vambrace in one clean slice
of his utility knife. I put the strip in the bowl, poured the chemical agent on the parabeast
leather, and watched it break apart the sinuous bonds.
"What good is that going to do?" Taj asked as it started to wrinkle, then crack into smaller, curled pieces.