Xin strained his ears. At first, he heard nothing beyond the ambient hum of the Zephyrium. Then a faint scraping sound. Like something moving beneath the floor.

  No. Not beneath the floor.

  "Beneath the bodies." Realization dawned as he whispered.

  "Run!" Sigrun shoved him backward just as the corpse nearest them twitched.

  Then it exploded upward, revealing the Bone Fiend that had been burrowed beneath it.

  More bodies erupted. Six Bone Fiends burst from their hiding spots, pale exoskeletons slick with decomposition fluids. Three larger shapes emerged from near the walls—Skuggrs, their bulk sending smaller corpses rolling aside.

  "They'd been using the dead as camouflage!" Xin shouted.

  "Fucking whatever, just fight!" Sigrun was already moving, Járn spinning in a blue arc. The thermal blade caught the nearest Fiend mid-leap, bisecting it in a spray of black blood and cauterized flesh.

  Another Fiend lunged at Xin. He stumbled backward, his 10mm Magnum Jade coming up with trembling hands.

  "Bheda Atisīmā!" The Devavā?ī spell burst from his lips.

  The targeting assist kicked in, emerald targeting reticles appearing in his glasses.

  Verdant energy erupted from his palm, the 'Pierce Beyond' spell punching through the air.

  He fired three shots in rapid succession, the AI-assist guiding each one. The Fiend exoskeleton cracked as it collapsed, twitching.

  But there were so many more.

  "Behind me!" Sigrun shouted.

  She switched weapons—Járn folding back to her belt, Skuld expanding from its compact form. The Breacher Shotgun thundered in the enclosed space, making Xin's ears ring.

  A Fiend charged at her. She caught it with Skuld's stock, using the weapon like a club to knock it sideways before firing point-blank. The creature's head exploded into a paste of red and black.

  "Skj?ld!" H?kon's tiny voice rang out.

  A shimmering barrier of moonlight erupted around Xin just as a Skuggr's acid bile arced toward him. The liquid splashed against the shield, sizzling harmlessly.

  "Good boy!" Xin ducked low as the shield dissipated, firing at another approaching Fiend.

  But they were being pushed back. There were too many.

  A Skuggr's acid caught Sigrun's shoulder, sprayed on her coat. She hissed in pain, staggering.

  "Dritt!" She fired Skuld again, the shotgun's recoil making her stumble on her injured ankle.

  Xin's magazine clicked empty. He fumbled with the reload, fingers clumsy with adrenaline. A Bone Fiend saw the opening and charged.

  He barely got the axe of his gun up in time, using the stock to block snapping mandibles. The impact sent him sprawling, his glasses flying from his face.

  Everything became a blur.

  The Fiend loomed over him, a pale smudge of chitin and teeth. He could smell its breath—rot and chemicals.

  "Bheda Atisīmā!" He cast blindly, desperately.

  The spell activated, but he couldn't see what his bullets hit without his glasses. It recoiled but didn't fall.

  Was this it? Forty years old, dying in a tunnel beneath Mars because he'd thought he was clever enough to go over a death trap for money.

  At least H?kon would—

  Something violet tackled the Bone Fiend from the side.

  Xin blinked, trying to focus. A skeletal shape, roughly dog-sized, with a single glowing eye. It tore into the Fiend with savage efficiency, rending chitin and flesh.

  Another appeared. Then another.

  Two of the creatures—like hounds made of purple bone and tattered flesh—were suddenly in the chamber, attacking the Fenris Radi-Mons from behind.

  "What the fuck?" Sigrun's voice, shocked.

  A massive shape lumbered through one of the side passages. Easily twice Xin's height, it looked like a giant turtle made of hardened sandy clay. Glowing blue eyes set deep in its head surveyed the carnage.

  Then it roared. A deep, resonant sound that shook dust from the ceiling.

  Every Skuggr in the chamber immediately turned toward it.

  Xin found his glasses, jammed them back on. The world snapped into focus just in time to see one of the skeletal hounds tear out a Bone Fiend's throat.

  "These aren't Fenris creatures," he breathed, checking his watch's readings. "Their bio signatures are all wrong. Someone summoned these!"

  "I don't care!" Sigrun reloaded Skuld with shaking hands with a magazine drew from inside her coat. "Just shoot!"

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The clay turtle-thing was absorbing acid attacks from two Skuggrs, its body seeming to neutralize the corrosive bile. The skeletal hounds moved with coordination, systematically biting, tearing—destroying distracted enemies!

  Sigrun took advantage of the chaos, switching back to Járn. She was like a Valkyrie in the blue glow of that Thermal Axe, cutting down one Fiend after another. Her movements were economical and brutal.

  Beautiful, some distant part of Xin's brain insisted. She's the beautiful existence I've witnessed.

  "Lucky Skuld didn't jam this time!" Sigrun shouted, firing three more shots in rapid succession. Each one found its mark.

  The battle was turning. Between Sigrun's ferocity, the mysterious summons, and H?kon's shields keeping the worst attacks at bay, the Fenris forces were being overwhelmed.

  The last Skuggr fell to the clay turtle's crushing bite. The final Bone Fiend tried to flee, but one of the skeletal hounds ran it down.

  Then, as quickly as they'd appeared, the summoned creatures began to dissolve. The skeletal hounds broke apart into purple mist that dissipated in the stale air. The turtle crumbled back into clay dust.

  Within seconds, there was no evidence they'd ever existed.

  Sigrun and Xin stood in the suddenly quiet chamber, surrounded by corpses both fresh and old, breathing hard.

  "That was..." Xin started.

  "Insane," Sigrun finished. "That was insane."

  H?kon chirped weakly from Xin's shoulder. His scales had gone gray with exhaustion.

  "You did so good," Xin whispered, stroking his head. "Such a brave little dragon."

  "Not dragon yet," H?kon mumbled. "Tired..."

  "Okay. Take a break, now. I'll wake you up when we get home."

  The little Diabolisk was already falling asleep.

  Xin could feel his own heart aching a little. He wish he was stronger so H?kon would not have to do so much. But they've become a unit on adventures like this. Without H?kon's Little Moon Barrier and instincts, Xin could've died many years ago.

  "The Zephyrium," Sigrun said. She was limping now, not bothering to hide it. "Let's grab it and get out before something else decides to show up."

  The container sat on a raised platform at the chamber's center, undisturbed among the carnage. It was smaller than Xin had expected—a reinforced case about the size of a toolbox, with bio-locks and encrypted seals.

  "It's intact," he said, relief flooding through him.

  "Can you open it?"

  Xin studied the lock mechanism. Military-grade bio-scanner, quantum encryption, the works. "Normally? No. This would take specialized equipment I don't have..."

  "But?" Sigrun prompted.

  He pulled out his hacking tools, connecting them to the case's interface panel. "But Diabolisk DNA is special, I've found. A lot of Xing Hong's system categorizes them as Radi-Mons, and their genetic structure is unique enough that it confuses most scanners."

  He gently took H?kon's small claw—the little one still dozing—and pressed it against the bio-scanner.

  The lock beeped. Whirred. Then clicked open.

  "Good boy," Xin whispered. He carefully unzipped his puffer jacket's chest pocket and tucked H?kon inside, leaving the zipper open enough that the little Diabolisk's head poked out. "Big snacks for you tonight. I promise."

  H?kon made a sleepy trill, already nestling into the warm pocket. His scales remained that contented amber.

  "That's..." Sigrun stared at the opened case. "Wow."

  "Just a bug in the security system." Xin lifted the lid fully. "But I'll take it."

  Inside, nestled in impact foam, were crystalline structures that seemed to contain tiny rainbows. They pulsed with soft luminescence—red shifting to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple and back again. High-Grade Zephyrium, maybe five kilograms total.

  It looked like bottled rainbow.

  "Fifty thousand Atomic Dollars," Sigrun breathed.

  "Each." Xin closed the case carefully. "I mean, if we split it evenly. Twenty-five thousand each."

  Twenty-five thousand would cover H?kon's supplements for months. Proper medical monitoring to check his growth patterns. And maybe enough left over to take Sigrun to that noodle place with real pork. As a thank you. As...

  He looked up to find her watching him. The blue light from Járn—still powered on—cast harsh shadows across her face. Her blonde hair was disheveled, trench coat damaged, blood and ichor staining her clothes.

  She'd never looked more real.

  Their eyes met. Xin's throat went dry.

  This was the moment, he realized. The moment in every heist story where partners turn on each other. Where greed overtakes sense. Where the weak link gets eliminated.

  He was very much the weak link.

  Sigrun's hand moved to Járn's handle. Her blue eyes studied him with that same careful neutrality she'd worn at the Bounty Board.

  "Split evenly," she said slowly. "Twenty-five thousand each."

  "That's what I was thinking." Xin forced his voice steady, tried to project confidence his stats didn't support. "Enough for H?kon's food for months. Maybe even get him those growth hormone treatments they advertise on the Extranet. The ones that—"

  He realized he was rambling and shut up.

  Sigrun's expression shifted. Something between frustration and reluctant fondness. "You're really not worried I'll just kill you and take it all?"

  "Are you going to?"

  "I..." She looked away. "No. I'm not."

  The Thermal Axe powered down with a soft hiss. She shouldered the Zephyrium case without effort, testing its weight. Despite being just a few centimeters taller than him, her body was clearly much stronger—all that power in an hourglass frame that most women would kill for.

  "I wish I could be as strong as you," Xin said without thinking.

  Sigrun blinked, genuinely surprised. "Strong?"

  "You just lifted that like it's nothing. And the way you fought..." He shook his head. "I could barely reload my 10mm. You were taking on three enemies at once."

  "We wouldn't have made it this far without your..what do you call it? Navigation." Her voice was low.

  Heat flooded his face.

  "Most guys I know can't think beyond what to kill, or who to fuck." The corner of her mouth quirked. Almost a smile. "You're different from other men, I guess."

  Xin had no idea how to respond to that.

  "Let's get out of here," Sigrun said finally. "Before I do something I shouldn't."

  The route back was easier. Xin had memorized the maintenance tunnel layout, and without immediate combat threats, they made good time.

  Halfway through, Sigrun started limping worse. She tried to hide it, but he noticed her grabbing walls for support.

  "Your ankle—"

  "I'm fine."

  She wasn't. But when he moved to help, she waved him off.

  They emerged from Warren Exit 7-B into fading daylight. The post-terraforming Martian sky stretched orange-red overhead, tinted by atmospheric dust. After hours in dark tunnels, the open air felt surreal.

  Xin realized he was still alive. They were both still alive.

  And they would be rich soon.

  "We should..." He started, then exhaustion crashed over him. His vision swam. The adrenaline that had kept him upright drained away all at once.

  His legs gave out.

  Sigrun caught him one-handed—the other still holding the Zephyrium case—steadying him with surprising gentleness.

  "Easy," she murmured.

  Her hand was on his arm. Solid. Real. Warm through his jacket. In his chest pocket, H?kon made a worried chirp but didn't wake.

  "Sorry," he managed. "Resilience one. I'm not built for... any of this, really."

  "You did fine." She didn't let go immediately. "Just do better next time."

  They stood like that for a moment—H?kon sleeping in Xin's pocket, the Zephyrium case between them, both of them covered in grime and blood and tunnel dust.

  "We should get checked at a clinic," Xin's voice came out rougher than intended. "Make sure nothing's infected. Or... broken."

  "Yeah." Sigrun was already pulling up her Nucleus Watch. "Good idea."

  The autocab arrived within minutes, hydrogen engine humming across the waste. They climbed in carefully.

  Xin leaned back in the seat. In his chest pocket, H?kon made tiny snoring sounds. He could feel the little Diabolisk's warmth against his chest.

  "Welcome, Subscriber #6969. Where to?" the cab's VI asked.

  "Clinic Chakraborty," Sigrun said. "Eagle District. Fast route."

  "Confirmed. ETA: 37 minutes."

  They sat in silence as the Warren fell away behind them. The Zephyrium case rested on the seat between them.

  MEDICINE & POISON

  An Epic Fantasy

  The gods did not create the world.

  They re-moulded it in their own image.

  But as the newly arrived deities empowered Kings and Prophets,

  the shadows of human nature affected heaven, too.

  That's how the wars began.

  ?? Volume I — Complete

  Oli is always getting lost in the forest. He's the only Sevener who can't see the paths, no matter how hard his parents try to teach him. But this time it's serious. He goes missing on the brink of a war between the devout Western Kingdom and the anti-theist Republic, with his homeland – Saltleaf Forest – caught in the middle.

  As he travels with an unexpected companion – a medicine man gifted with magic inseparable from his madness – he unearths the hidden histories of his tribe, his family and the life-cycle of a forgotten god. When he learns about his own place in it, he realises he must find the courage to enter a terrifying new world or face losing everyone he loves.

  ?? Volume II — Rain on the Godsroof

  Prince Tancred has been cast aside as heir to the Western throne in favour of his adopted brother. Still smarting from the injury, he nevertheless champions the cause of the Sevener refugees flooding the capital. But their charismatic leader, Adalina, is viewed with suspicion by many of his peers – and helping her could cost him what status he has left.

  Meanwhile, Advocate Demetos licks his wounds following a shocking defeat at the forest border. Armed with his fearsome new weapon – the firearm – he's on the verge of an alliance that will secure him a place of glory in Republican history, and infamy in the rest of the world.

  ??

  Gods & Monsters

  Divine politics meets ancient horror

  ??

  Rich Worldbuilding

  Kingdoms, republics & tribal nations

  ??

  Faith vs. Science

  Firearms challenge the divine order

  Gods, science and ancient monsters clash in a struggle that could earn its victors eternal glory – or tip the world into chaos and ruin.

  Free on Royal Road ? Two Volumes Available

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