A burning rune scarred the sky above the hill where the rider stood. Fashioned of angry flame, made all of writhing lines and jagged, claw like protrusions like an upside down trident. I realized it was an auremark, or something similar, only turned upside down.

I felt I knew the symbol, or should know it, but the knowledge didn't come. Either way, it struck me as profane.

I had no time to figure it out. The Burnt Rider charged.

It doesn't do the moment justice, to just say "he charged." The horned steed Jon Orley rode reared, letting out a terrible scream that sounded something like tortured metal, then slammed its blazing hooves down on the hill.

The hill rumbled. Then with a burst of flame the Rider began to tear down the slope. He moved faster with every passing moment, more of those concussive bursts of flame erupting in sequence, emitting echoing sounds like cannon shots, each one seeming to propel him forward with greater momentum like some misfiring alchemical rocket.

He left a smoldering trail of steaming snow and burning grass in his wake.

"Brenner!" Ser Kross snapped. Only then did I realize we'd all been frozen, transfixed by the sight. Even me — why? I'd seen many terrible and supernatural things in my life.

It's his aura, I realized. The Scorchknight had struck us with an enormous wavefront of power, of pure awe and terror. Not unlike my own ability to compel people with my voice, but done on an enormous scale. The kind of sorcerous might that would take…

I'd rarely faced anything that potent.

What is he? What is this? What is behind this?

No answers. I needed to act.

He'd be coming for Emma. She stood at my side, as transfixed as the rest.

"Form up! Lances!" Lord Brenner's roar pummeled the air, breaking through the wavefront of awe the Rider projected. No magic there, just charisma, training, and loyalty. The knights and lesser men-at-arms in the village scurried into motion, archers spreading out into loose packs, shieldbearers passing their burdens to their masters, and the Hunting knights themselves forming ranks with their war spears raised like a line of trees.

The villagers started to scramble into their houses in a panic. There were screams, shouts, an onslaught of sound that drowned out any individual voice.

They need to be going to the hills, I realized. If he breaks through, he'll burn this whole village down and slaughter everyone.

Hendry tried joining the cavalry, but his father grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "Rearguard," was all he said, his voice a savage snarl.

He donned his own helm, an elaborate piece with antlers of gently shining elfhorn and a white plume. He took his own spear, a broad-headed thing of ancient make with a black blade. To my auratic senses, it blazed near as strong as the oncoming threat.

The power in me knew the weapon's name. Ursinhunt. A mighty arm.

Brenner took the lead of his knights. Ser Kross joined them. The knight-exorcist had armed himself with only his old sword and wore no helm.

The Burnt Rider had already cleared half the long slope, quickly bearing down on the village's bridge. Brenner ordered his retinue to a trot, and the kynedeer began to leap forward, quiet and graceful in comparison to that oncoming blaze. Ser Kross drew his blade, his face calm as a statue's, and spurred his lionhound after them.

Leaving us behind. Emma's face was pale. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she seemed to be mouthing words.

"Emma?" When she didn't respond, I spoke more firmly. "Lady Emma."

Emma blinked and looked at me. She swallowed, opened her mouth, then drew in a shuddering breath. "It's him. He's here for me. I can hear his voice in my head."

I cursed. The damned revenant hadn't just struck us all with a broad wave of magical power. He'd gripped the young Carreon in some sort of psychic hold, just like that day in the woods.

I didn't have time to break it just then. At least it would keep her back, away from the fight. "Stay here," I said. "I'll be back."

She only blinked at me, eyes unfocused. I didn't know if she heard me, but I took my axe in a tight grip and unfastened one of the long-haired chimera from the coach. It had no proper saddle. I cursed at that, but there was no time to deal with it. I mounted. The creature nickered, an odd sound with its canine head, but didn't throw me.

I turned my mount toward the hill. All the mystery and uncertainty, the mortal and supernatural politics, the fluid moralities in my life, I barely knew how to navigate all that.

But my enemy had placed himself in front of me, placed himself in my reach.

I could handle that.

I spurred my chimera forward. It wasn't a war beast, but moved faster than I expected. I murmured encouragement to it in Sidhecant, the language of elves and other ancients things, and it responded with fervor.

We cleared the bridge. I was too far behind, but had a good view of what unfolded next.

The Burnt Rider — Jon Orley, Brenner had called him — tore down the snowy hill. He left a blackened, steaming trail in his wake, framed by a red haze clinging to the ridge at his back. Embers chased him like dancing insects.

Above the hill, that evil rune still scarred the sky.

But he was just one rider. Though Brenner only had twenty odd cavaliers in his retinue, the archaic design of the House Hunting armaments and their elegant, almost fey deer mounts gave them a near mythical aspect. Led by Brenner, crowned in his shining helm and holding aloft his dire spear, they seemed a company of faerie knights out of some ancient war.

They spread out as they cleared the bridge, their dextrous mounts leaping over the stream rather than bothering with the bridge itself, and took to the snowy field beyond Orcswell. They seemed to unfurl as they galloped, forming a pair of wide wings about Lord Brenner.

And yet the presence of the lone rider in black overwhelmed the scene. He blazed with infernal power, burning enough aura that even one without an awakened soul could have seen it. He surged forward, heedless of the numbers arrayed against him, and leveled the weapon in his left hand.

The lance was far longer than conventional, practically tall as a small tree, and made all of warped black iron. Cruel barbs sprouted from it.

I recalled the weapon that'd killed one of the griffons that first day. It had cooked it.

I urged my mount forward, getting the beast to stride forward as fast as it could go. It let out a surprisingly deep bark. Its hooves pounded the frozen ground.

But not fast enough. Jon Orley couched his ridiculously long lance and the Hunting knights did the same. Brenner led the charge, so he formed the tip of the arrow bravely closing in on the devil.

The devil…

I realized something then. I wanted to shout, to tell them all to turn away and flee.

Too late.

Brenner held a far shorter weapon than his opponent, more a boar spear than a cavalry lance, and not an instrument for jousting. When only twenty yards separated them, he lifted the ensorceled weapon and hurled it like a javelin. The black tip of the heirloom arm hurtled through the air, changing into a shadowy ripple as it completed its arc.

Brenner had aimed for the horned destrier the Burnt Rider rode, and his aim was true. Or it would have been.

With impossible speed, the revenant drew a slender sword from the horse's saddle and swiped it, leaving a blurring line of heat and embers in the blade's wake. A ripple passed over the fields, something part sound, part force, and the severed halves of Ursinhunt's smoking haft fell into the snow.

An anguished cry went up from many of the knights at the sight of the weapon's breaking. Brenner, however, only grimly steered his mount aside, moving out of the way of Orley's charge. Though he'd likely intended to land a crippling or even lethal blow, his throw had slowed the undead cavalier, even if just a bit, thanks to the blast from the spear's destruction.

Lords Hunting and Orley went by one another like two falcons streaking in opposite directions. Instead, the revenant's heat-blackened lance went through one of the Hunting knights who'd strayed from formation in the last moment, perhaps shocked by the magical eruption from the broken spear.

Orley's lance went through him, and then the man behind him, and then through a third rider—

The world detonated. My vision filled with a flash of flame just before I felt a wave of sulfurous heat wash over me in a sudden onrush of hot wind. When the blast cleared, I saw only a blackened patch of snowless, smoking, burning ground where three of the Hunting knights had been. Their remnants, along with their steeds, were scattered across the snow in sizzling chunks of flesh and metal, both fused together by the heat.

Jon Orley did not stop, barely slowed. He'd broken through Brenner's charge with ease, and now he had an open path to the village and his true target.

Well, not quite open. I still happened to be between him and the bridge.

The animal beneath me barked again and tossed its big head, terrified of the approaching threat. I whispered into its ear, lacing my words with aura this time. Beasts aren't immune to the preternatural charisma the elves gifted me, and the chimera picked up speed.

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I brandished Faen Orgis, sending a surge of power into its oaken hilt. The bronze blade began to emit an amber-tinted glow, less dramatic than Orley's own infernal blaze but no less bright.

That blaze closed in on me, impossibly huge in my vision. I could see more of him in detail then. His armor had once been very fine, the visor fashioned into seraphim wings, the lines of the cuirass and pauldrons elegant and etched with scripture. Now, heat and flame warped the armor, stretching it over the body beneath, forming an almost organic mass of charcoal-black metal made all of jagged edges.

I couldn't see eyes through the beaked visor — perhaps he had none. He seemed a shadow, an iron carcass left behind by an inferno. His limbs were too long, his frame too thin, heat fusing metal to flesh just as he'd done to the Hunting cavalry.

Yet this was no mindless thrall. The Rider couched his barbed lance, his form perfect, his movements decisive. He came at me like the best of tourney champions, that impossibly long weapon intent on skewering me.

My weapon wasn't long enough to match it, nor did I have a mount trained for that kind of combat. I also didn't much like the idea of meeting that explosive charge, capable of turning fully armored men into little more than scattered debris.

This entity was like a living cannonball. More than that, I wasn't sure I actually had a means of killing him -- after all, he was already dead.

So I'd have to do something painful and unpleasant to give myself an edge. I'd have to use my weapon's magic.

Humans aren't the only vessel in which Auratic Art can take root. Objects, locations, and even natural forces can become host to Phantasm. Many warriors across the world have their armaments imbued with power by clerics and mages of all sorts when they lack a magic of their own. Even with a personal magical technique, having additional powers attached to one's arms and armor can serve to give a fighter more tools in their arsenal.

The armor I wore, which once belonged to the dark elf Irn Raya, could cloak me in shadow and swallow sound. The ivory ring on my right hand devoured parasitic spirits who invaded my dreams, at the cost of taking those dreams from my memory.

And my weapon, the Axe of Hithlen, also known as the Doomsman's Arm, has a hungry magic all its own.

I whispered old words, and the axe woke from its fitful slumber. The oak handle was living wood, and I felt its presence in the world as it stirred like any tree old enough to become awake.

I braced myself, clenched my jaw, and almost as soon as I had spurs like new-formed branches erupted from the uncarved oak the axe's handle had been fashioned from. Two pierced my hand, essentially fusing it to my grip, and the pain sent agonizing lines of fire up through my arm.

I could feel the tiny branches digging into my flesh, weaving through ligament and bone.

Drinking.

A crackling sound filled the air, and the axe's handle began to twist in my hand and grow. As it drank my blood, hungry as any vampire, amber-tinted wood split and stretched to reveal a darker substance beneath.

It continued to grow, bending and twisting, grinding and cracking all the while.

Moments after I'd activated the weapon's Art, it had grown to the length of a halberd. Branches and spurs formed along all that length, the upper end of the haft twisting around the hooked blade, several long spurs of sharpened wood forming a point like the spear-tip of a true halberd.

Molten gold burned in gaps and wounds along the weapon's mutated body, like sap released from within a rent trunk.

I veered my mount far to one side, clearing myself of Orley's couched lance. As I passed him ten feet to his left, I took the halberd in both hands and swept it through the air like I might a cavalry glaive or a mounted reaper bearing his scythe. Even as I swung the gnarled tree the weapon's handle had become grew, extending to the length I needed.

The shining crescent of my weapon's blade struck Orley, catching him in the shoulder above his left arm — the one holding the lance.

Light burst into the world once again. The shock of impact went through the weapon and into my arms with teeth-biting intensity, but I kept my mount and kept hold of my weapon, completing the sweep with a shout. Amber embers burned through the air for several seconds, showing the arc of my swing, and the overlong handle bent dramatically from its own weight.

The length of my weapon and the shock of impact caused my mount to falter. I managed to get it under control and turn. Orley had also slowed to a stop. I hadn't knocked him from his horse, but I saw a burning golden line crawling over one warped pauldron and along the shrunken metal of his backplate. He stood there for a moment, both he and his horned horse eerily quiet.

He lifted his left arm. It trembled, and he didn't seem able to bring it up more than halfway. The winged helm turned, showing me its profile from the side, and I felt the full weight of the creature's attention on me for the first time.

I'd been an obstacle before. Now, I sensed I'd drawn his interest.

I'd hoped to kill him. I cursed, steeling myself. "You won't go near the girl," I said. I'd drawn on enough aura that it escaped my lips in little plumes of gold-tinted mist. "She's under my protection."

Jon Orley didn't say a word. He and his dark steed only stood there in deathly stillness. Out of the corners of my vision, I saw the rest of the Hunting knights gathering in a wide circle around the Burnt Rider, surrounding him. Brenner had drawn a new weapon, a spiked hammer, which he rested on his shoulder as he glared at the fiendish lancer.

Orley sheathed his black sword and took the great lance in his right hand. He flexed the fingers of his left, the sound of bending metal as he moved those digits gratingly loud and subtly sickening. The gauntlet had fused to the hand beneath, forming steely claws at his fingertips.

He lifted the lance in a salute at the Hunting cavalry, raising it defiantly toward the sky.

"You are not welcome on my lands," Brenner growled. "Back to Hell with you, devil."

I caught Ser Kross lurking behind the knights, pacing his leonine mount around the standoff's periphery in search of an opening. He had his old bastard sword in hand, and looked calmly determined. He drew near me, close enough we could talk.

"Brenner's on the mark, isn't he?" I asked. "Orley… he came here from Hell."

Kross's stark features were grim. "Yes. He is a Scorchknight of Orkael."

I shivered. I'd heard that name before.

An executioner of Hell.

He is you, Nath had said. Now I understood what she'd meant.

I felt a shiver in the air, not of cold. Orley had started shifting his aura into a new configuration. My eyes were drawn up by some instinct, and I noted how the tip of the Scorchknight's lance almost seemed to form a centerpiece to the burning rune in the sky.

He wasn't saluting, or challenging. He was channeling.

That's how he's able to use so much power. This is some kind of magic I'm not familiar with.

Infernal sorcery.

The others hadn't noticed. "Brenner!" I shouted. "He's doing something!"

Brenner growled in frustration. "Stop him! Forward!" He spurred his own mount on.

Previously still, the devil horse turned its burning eyes on Brenner. The man's kynedeer bucked beneath him without warning, letting out a cervid scream of terror.

The other knights hesitated, and then it was too late. With inhuman dexterity, Jon Orley began to sweep his enormous lance around him, spinning and twirling it. I didn't understand what he did at first, but then I saw the smoldering lines forming across the frozen ground beneath him wherever the barbed tip of the war spear slashed. It left glowing wounds on the ground, forming complex patterns and intersecting lines.

He was drawing a rune.

"Kross!" I bellowed. Then, spurring my mount forward, I brandished the elongated Faen Orgis.

Too late. Orley finished his sketching and then once again aimed his lance at the sky, almost as though attempting to pierce the heavens with it.

And he did pierce... something. I felt it, like a wound in myself. Two realms, two worlds fused together, for only a moment, one gnawing into the other with teeth of flaming iron, savaging it.

And that other place, which I felt for only a moment, spat poison into the wound.

Black ooze began to bubble up from the ground around Orley's horse. Like shadowy pustules they burst, revealing hot slag within, and something else rose out of them.

Blunt, leathery heads split to reveal iron teeth, red eyes opened to glare out at the day with bloodshot hate. They were front heavy things with huge paws, each near large as a full grown man, their hides covered in patches of dark scale emerging tumorously from ash-filthed fur.

Hounds.

Hellhounds.

One of the beasts shook itself like any ordinary dog, clearing away the tar clinging to it, then opened its mouth and seemed to cough. A plume of flame emerged from its jaws, catching one of the nearest knights. The man immolated, and I didn't even hear his scream as the heat scorched his lungs. He fell from the saddle as his kynedeer, also set ablaze, began bounding away in a mad panic.

A score of the nightmares crawled out of the tar. What came next was chaos.

The hellhounds began to leap from the sigil Orley had carved into the ground, flying through the air like smoldering shadows. Wherever they went, they brought death. One flew at me, and my mount would have panicked if I hadn't pressed my own will on it, keeping it calm. I brought my transformed weapon down, cleaving the infernal beast from spine to chest so one shoulder gaped open.

It bled molten lead.

It fell, and my chimera went over it. I chopped another, the longer reach I'd gained letting me keep them at bay, then had a clear path to Orley.

Kross had beaten me to him. His lionhound, previously placid, almost dopey in appearance, had one of the hell beasts in its jaws, its snout wrinkled as it crushed the smaller creature. I could smell sizzling flesh — the creature's burning blood was terribly hurting the chimera, but the knight-exorcist's mount endured it stoically.

Ser Kross slashed at the Scorchknight, who caught the exorcist's sword on his lance in a spinning motion, wielding the cumbersome weapon with one hand as thought it were no heavier than a baton. The motion must have had incredible force behind it, because it nearly knocked Kross from his saddle.

Orley continued that whirlwind motion, sweeping the iron pole in a downward slanting arc. The motion made an audible whoosh, generating a gust of blistering wind I felt even twenty feet away.

The lionhound made a mournful, baritone sound, then slumped to the ground. A great gash had formed across its broad chest, just below its throat, the edges of the wound cauterized by the lance's heat.

Orley brought his lance up above his head, spun it so the back end of the weapon — no less sharp than the other end — aimed square at Kross's throat. Never once did either he or his black steed make a sound, save for the low crackling of flames and the whistling wind of his weapon's motion.

The Church knight looked up from his dying steed, blinking in mute shock.

I reached them and in a desperate, foolish move, hurled myself from my chimera's saddle. I slammed into Orley from the side, and we both went tumbling to the ground. I rolled, losing him in the tumble, and managed to stop in a crouch, breathing hard, bruised but intact.

My armor had protected me from the worst of it, but I'd been burned wherever my skin had touched the more fully armored rider. I ignored the pain, adrenaline and focus keeping my edge sharp.

Orley stood to his full, impressive height. In silence, his iron-masked visage rotated to face me sidelong. That melodramatic cloak of flames had vanished, leaving him as little more than a charcoal shadow in the world.

Until the seams of his armor began to glow red hot and he turned to face me fully.

"Pissed you off, did I?" I grinned wolfishly at him, tasting blood in my mouth. I'd bitten my tongue during my tumble. I rested the butt of Faen Orgis on the ground. The weapon had become most of two feet taller than me, a true halberd now instead of the bearded battle-axe it normally resembled. My own blood ran in rivulets down the handle, where several branches still pierced my palm, curling back around as though the oaken haft were jealously holding my hand close.

It still grew, though that change had slowed. The grating sound of breaking bark formed an odd music with Orley's growling flames.

In a whirl of wind and embers, Orley swept his lance down and aimed its tip at me. I could read no emotion in that masked visage, but the crackling heat in the air told me I'd angered him.

Good.

Before either of us could indulge in that meeting further, our attention was drawn by the sound of a sword hissing out of its sheath. I looked to one side, where I saw a dark-haired, hawk-eyed figure standing in a gap amid the dance of fiery hounds and fighting soldiers, striding toward the Scorchknight.

"You wanted me?" Emma Carreon snarled. A red haze writhed around her as her aura unfolded into the world. Sweat beaded across her skin, and she looked very pale, but her face was set with grim determination.

No. "Emma!" I shouted. "Get back, you can't take him!"

She ignored me. "You killed my parents," she hissed, her voice taking on a dim echo as she drew power. "You murdered my grandfather, my mother, my father. You destroyed my family, and now you won't leave me alone."

Two slavering shadows approached the young noblewoman from behind. I started to shout a warning as the hellhounds lunged.

Emma lifted her chin, bared her teeth, and no less than six scarlet pikes erupted from the ground around her with banshee shrieks. They skewered the monsters, breaking limbs and bending them with the force of impact.

Emma swept her sword across the grass, and the pikes dissipated into red mist. The hellhounds fell to the ground, exploding into flame as they died.

The last survivor of House Carreon never took her eyes off the Scorchknight. "Let's finish this blood feud, Orley."

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