The gilded core cultist was shocked when he discovered most of the younger followers dead.

He let out a thin breath. With a smile, he drew a talisman, snapped it straight, and hurled it toward the stack of forty odd crates.

"Very well. I can answer in kind. Enough games. Fall back, every one of you."

He was not aiming to kill men. He was aiming to gut their supplies.

"Corpse melting mist!"

"Out of the way!"

Smoke boiled up at once. Whatever it brushed withered. Mortal men who knew nothing of such arts curled in on themselves and dried into brittle husks.

Rations turned sour between one heartbeat and the next. Rust bloomed over worked steel and crawled hungrily into fresh ore.

The captain did not wait to see what was left. He kicked off, each qi burst a foothold that drove him higher until he was racing through the air toward the cultist, rapier leveled at the man's throat.

The spearman rose with him, pouring his strength into the tip of his spear until it throbbed with light. Together they thrust for the hovering figure along crossing lines.

The gilded core cultist twisted away rather than meet them head-on. Blood boiled from his palm and swelled into a massive javelin.

He let it drop, all that weight and killing intent falling toward the wounded men below.

His movements looked slow and almost lazy, yet his aim did not waver.

The spearman and the captain refused to let it reach the deck. They wrenched their strikes off line and smashed into the javelin in the air.

Impact rang through bone and steel. The gilded core cultist slipped past on the rebound, cloak snapping in the smoke.

The blood-forged javelin was thick with qi and heavy as iron, yet it held together and did not burst.

"Bloody bastard. He slipped the noose."

"We've still got men alive. He'll bleed us dry if we give chase."

"This is your bloody fault. Had you even a hair more strength, we'd have brought him down."

The captain held his tongue. No one above them would care that the men still lived.

They would only see burned crates and empty holds. No supplies had survived, and both of them knew they would pay the price.

The starless sky gave no promise of safety. Quiet settled over the deck and made the men shiver as if another blade might slip out of the dark.

"Sail Knife, you did damned well tonight, eh?"

"Captain, I told you back in the day I'd swim a sea of swords for you, didn't I? I was a wee lad then."

The captain's face remained melancholy as they dragged the bodies of the dead.

"Look alive now, captain. You start pulling that long face and those ugly mugs will start doubting."

Seeing no reaction, Radeon, now Sail Knife, pushed his antics further, acting as if he could not feel the weight in the air.

He rifled through the dead and flashed an almost toothless grin.

"Look here, captain. Found me some treasure."

The captain knew Sail Knife was not a sharp man. He slapped him with his hat and chuckled, easing the heaviness in the air.

As the two of them bickered, the rest of the crew did not share their mood.

The spearman bit back his words. He knew the delay he had caused had set all this in motion.

A darker answer scratched at him. If every man here died, there would be no tongue left to stain his record.

He rose to his feet and let his spear trace slow arcs through the air.

In his head he walked the pattern, counting how many steps it would take to cut down twenty men with the strength he had left.

His swings quickened. His gaze slid from face to face, weighing who might beg, who might curse him, who would be believed.

His stance rooted in place. Each stroke landed heavier than the last until the air around him felt thin.

Radeon met the captain's eye. They both saw the same cold intent tighten in the spearman's grip.

"Captain, look at his face. That pup means to kill us all." Radeon shaped the words without sound.

"Aye. I see it clear."

Both of them reached for their hilts, ready to clash with him, when the air above them began to hum.

A spirit frigate twice the size of their galleon slid into place overhead.

"Board."

The word cracked down from above. Pure command. No room for an answer.

The spear master froze. Guilt flashed across his face, then sank under a hard scowl.

Radeon and the captain held their ground as thick ropes came snaking down, meant to haul up what remained of the ship's array.

The crew moved as one now. Men who, a breath ago, had been ready to spill each other's guts rushed to hook the rudder and the warped frame where the array had been mounted.

While they worked, Radeon let his eyes wander over the wreck for anything worth keeping. Then he remembered the bow where Fay had been tied.

"A moment, captain. Let me fetch something."

Radeon pried out the makeshift rail. In his hands lay a length of a tree too young to cut for lumber. It ran nearly two meters and showed no split or mark where steel should have bitten through.

"What's that now? Saving us firewood?"

"I'd have a bit of her over my grave, if you'll spare it."

"You can plant it after you've buried me. Now shut your trap."

The captain turned away, rattled enough by the loss to let the talk of graves pass.

Radeon kept his head bowed until the man's gaze moved on.

Only then did his fingers linger on the grain. This was no simple rail.

Treated the right way, it would become a peerless treasure, the first bone of the body he meant to shape for himself.

It did not take even the burn of a single stick of incense before they were aloft.

The captain and Radeon stood on the broken deck with their hands on the tethers while the wind hammered their faces.

Radeon felt only the weight of the wood on his back and the paths it opened in his mind.

The ship sailed in heavy silence. He closed his eyes and turned inward to weigh the power in his grasp.

Devouring had carried him through his first life. He knew its limits well. On a field of blades it was slow. It needed time to set the board. It was an engine for recovery, not a clean killing art.

So his aim now was simple. He needed a physique that could walk both mysticism and war. Flesh close enough to his own, yet marked by special traits he could claim as his own design.

His thoughts wound through bloodlines and stolen bones until the ship's pitch changed under his feet. They had reached the front-line camp.

Radeon felt the outer array brush against the first mate's token with a faint buzz as they slipped through its shell.

'This raid on a forgotten peak wasn't rushed. Someone's been planning it a long time.'

High above the ground, he counted at least a hundred bonfires. The largest burned white-hot. Forges. Each one spat sparks as hammers rose and fell, turning out swords in an endless line.

Alchemists hunched over their cauldrons nearby, steam and smoke coiling as they brewed draughts that could knit flesh or rot it, both welcome on a warfront.

In the center, the array masters clustered around a great pale platform. Their assistants held torches high while they fitted together a slab of alabaster broad enough to bear a city-sized array.

The ship eased into a slow descent. Cultivators on the ground and the captain at the ropes guided the broken galleon down along the camp's flank.

Radeon walked with the tree trunk strapped across his back. The captain watched him from the corner of his eye, melancholy softening his weathered face as he took in that old, rickety frame that still refused to break.

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