Lich for Hire

It was a brutal engagement. Even Lyon had never imagined it would one day face an army of dragons.

The sight of dozens of them circling overhead was enough to shake even the steadiest soldier.

What Lyon's forces hadn't expected at all was that Allen, the traitor their emperor had been chasing through the sky just minutes ago, would turn around and fight for them.

The soldiers on the ground watched Allen flickering back and forth across the sky, sending red dragons scattering in every direction, and found themselves thinking, against their will, of their emperor.

Both men had faced the red dragons. The young emperor in his Draconic Armaments had barely managed to struggle before panicking, diving into his own formation and crushing a swathe of his soldiers flat. Allen, alone and on foot, was up there hunting dragons.

The comparison was impossible not to make, even if doing so was unforgivable.

The truth was that Allen could do this because his legendary boon happened to be a near-perfect counter to red dragons.

His boon was a teleportation-based strike: he could lock onto a target, flash to it instantly, and guarantee that his blade would connect. The hit itself was certain, though the damage depended entirely on Allen's own strength.

His anti-magic blade was designed to pierce magical effects. Against dragon scales it was about as effective as pressing a steel needle to a steel plate. The hit would land, but it couldn't do meaningful damage.

Eyes were a different matter. Dragon bodies were extraordinary, but their eyes were not.

And Allen's teleport-strike was too fast for the dragons to respond to. They had no time to turn, no time to flinch. The blade went into the eye before they knew he was there.

It was a perfect counter, the same way Ambrose had kited that legendary druid into helplessness with nothing more than range and maneuverability.

The red dragons didn't dare let Allen get close and began to scatter. Allen pressed the advantage, trying to drive them off entirely—but then three fireballs came at him from different angles at once.

He teleported onto another dragon's back, but this time couldn't lock onto its eyes in time. He landed on the tail instead, but the dragon's tail found him first, sending him tumbling through the air.

He fought the spin with the jetpack and got himself level again, just in time to see a bolt of lightning coming straight at him.

This strike, he couldn't avoid. The shock locked up his muscles and he fell.

He was still falling when dozens of divine spells landed on him simultaneously.

Featherfall, Bless, Heal, Guardian Chains—the effects layered over him until he was practically glowing, a sphere of divine light descending through the chaos. The spells purged the paralysis and helped him reclaim control over his body.

But a red dragon was already diving toward him, and on its back was the githark in silver armor, the legendary spellcaster who had called down acid rain, who had thrown the fireballs and the lightning.

An acid arrow, yellow-green and hissing, shot toward Allen from the githark's hand.

This time, Allen was ready. He teleported directly onto the head of the spellcaster's dragon and drove his blade toward its eye.

But this dragon was different. It closed its eye in time.

Dragon eyelids weren't as tough as scales, but they were still about as thick as three layers of leather armor. Allen's blade had barely bitten in when the dragon whipped its head sideways and sent him flying, breathing fire after him as he went.

The raw force of a dragon's body was something Allen had no answer for. He was thrown into a spin with no chance to flash clear, and the dragonbreath hit him full on.

He felt a searing heat, but it was less hot than it should have been. Down on the ground, several priests cried out as the burns appeared on their own bodies instead.

Guardian Chains didn't just boost resistance across the board; it redirected a portion of incoming damage to the priests who had cast it. The split was enough for Allen to absorb the rest and stay in the fight.

He flashed immediately, this time aiming for the githark spellcaster himself.

He reappeared in front of the githark in an instant, sword pointed at his chest.

The githark's Mage Shield activated automatically. Every capable spellcaster learned it, and for good reason. A legendary spellcaster's Mage Shield could even absorb a direct hit or two from a magitech cannon.

But against Allen's anti-magic blade, it lasted as long as a soap bubble.

Every magical device on the githark's body flared in sequence as the blade passed through them all. None of it meant anything. The blade went through the thin robe and into the githark's chest.

The githark's face held an expression of pure disbelief as Allen pulled free. He could not understand why not a single one of his defenses had functioned.

The moment his rider took a killing blow, the red dragon swung its head around to snap at Allen.

Allen flashed clear.

As he did so, the githark pressed his hands to the wound and began pouring healing potions over it.

The wound closed quickly on the outside, but the internal damage was another matter entirely. The blade had missed the heart but caught the spine. Half his body wasn't responding.

He had no choice. He urged his dragon back toward the astral passage and retreated within.

The moment the legendary spellcaster withdrew, the acid rain dissolved. Several red dragons followed him back through the passage.

Even the githarks on the ground noticed, and a ripple ran through their formations.

Lyon's soldiers thought for a moment that they could press back, only to see even more red dragons pouring through the astral passage, and more githarks behind them.

How many of them were there? Had they lost this war before it could begin in earnest? They had marched out to deal with the tiflings of the Unholy Kingdom, only to somehow end up surrounded by dragons.

As the Lyon forces wavered, Allen's voice came from above once again. "Fall back! Retreat to Lavarun!"

The call broke through their daze. The formation began to reorganize, falling back in the direction of the city.

Lyon's soldiers were not outclassed by the githarks in combat ability. Rather, the sudden appearance of dragons, enemies unlike anything they had ever trained to face, had thrown them. With that initial shock absorbed and a clear command, their natural discipline began to reassert itself.

Up in the sky, Allen was hitting his stride. He went from dragon to dragon, punching through one eye after another, forcing the massive creatures higher and higher until they were no longer in range of the soldiers below. With the aerial pressure lifted, the soldiers on the ground could focus entirely on the githarks before them.

Allen had become the army's anchor. His presence pulled them back from the edge of panic.

A calm Lyon army was something else. The paladin cavalry broke into smaller units and drove through the scattered githark formations, hitting them from multiple angles at once.

The priests found their footing and began working through their offensive repertoire—Fireball, Flame Strike, Solar Ray—against enemies that were humanoid and could be handled with standard doctrine.

The githarks discovered that the humans they had been cutting through with ease had suddenly become very dangerous indeed.

Lyon began its withdrawal in good order. Once they reached the city, Lavarun's defensive arrays would activate, and those same arrays could bring down every dragon in the sky.

From a distance, Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune watched the battlefield together.

Beside them floated the projections of Tiamat and Sariel.

Ambrose said, "The astral passage has stabilized. That completes our side of the contract."

Tiamat produced the contract they had signed and held it out. Flames consumed it. When the ash dispersed, both Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune felt something release: the binding that had constrained them was gone.

The contract was fulfilled. Tiamat, however, didn't leave. She looked at Ambrose with something close to amusement.

"I can guess what you're planning. Lyon has been pushed back. Now you intend to destroy the astral passage and prevent the githarks from continuing their invasion. That saves the Unholy Kingdom without making you the villains. Am I wrong?"

Ambrose said, without any particular surprise, "Close enough. Are you going to stop us? The passage was opened through mortal sacrifice. You can't directly intervene. That's the rule, isn't it?"

The restrictions on divine beings were considerable. Tiamat couldn't open an astral passage herself. She had needed those cultists to sacrifice themselves willingly, their ten thousand lives providing the passage's energy, while Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune used their divination to lock in the precise coordinates during the formation of the array.

Opening an astral passage was achievable. Placing it exactly where Tiamat needed it, given the vastness of the astral plane, required the precision that only a diviner could provide.

Throughout the process, Tiamat had done nothing directly. She had sacrificed the cultists she had influenced, and that was all.

And now, if Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune chose to destroy the passage, she couldn't stop them. The contract was already complete, after all.

Tiamat smiled. "I have no intention of acting against you. I'm not Loss. I don't make decisions out of impulse." She paused. "But I can order the githarks to immediately attack the Unholy Kingdom. Let me think: perhaps eighty thousand of them have come through by now, and with dragons on top of that. Destroying a kingdom already on its knees would take almost no effort. And then I would drag every soul in that kingdom down to Hell."

She watched Ambrose, pleased with herself. "So. What do you plan to do? Can the two of you hold off an army like that?"

Ambrose remained calm. "The two of us? No. We can't. Dragons and legendary fighters—even together, we wouldn't be able to handle them."

Tiamat's smile faded. She studied him. "Then what is your plan?"

Ambrose sighed. "What can two ordinary mortals do? Even if we stopped this wave, what about the next? Lords of Hell will always want this land and the people on it. If we can't win, the only option is to run."

By the time he finished speaking, Mr. Misfortune had already risen higher into the sky.

Countless threads of fate burst from his hands, and his fingers moved across them like a musician coaxing sound from strings.

The sky split open, revealing a churning, formless space beyond.

Ambrose looked up at Tiamat's projection. "We're taking the Unholy Kingdom and running to a place you won't be able to find."