“I have convened with the conclave,” Surface-Scouring-Watcher stated, his star-shaped mole nose twitching as he squeaked out his words. “They were displeased to be forced to make such choices in such a short time. The armorers were even less pleased. However, we have come to something of an agreement, if you would have it.”

  He shifted his claws on the stone tunnel, and there was a shifting of the earth as a circle appeared. It descended down through the stone, almost like a dumbwaiter, then rose into the air. As it appeared, I gaped at the offering.

  Four jars large enough for me to fit my head into, shaped from the strange bloodline crystal that the moles used, stood there, filled with ether crystal dust. No single bit of ether crystal was even a quarter carat, but it was still an enormous amount of the dust. Each jar contained thousands, maybe tens of thousands on the open market. But the crystal dust wasn’t the only offering. In front of the jars there was powerful ether enriched iron, probably potent enough to be carried with us until we were seventh circle mages. It wasn’t a ton, not enough for multiple mage tools, but it would probably be enough to create one. Finally, there were strange, chunky bracelets made of the bloodline material, almost long and large enough to count as a bracer.

  “They were unwilling to offer the large crystals that we utilize to empower our innate magics, and only gave those metals that are difficult to alloy into our own armors,” Surface-Scouring-Watcher said, his squeaks somehow managing to convey an apologetic tone. “We also were unable to create true armor. But those rings should fit you all, and they contain a temporary measure of our bloodline. It will manifest a sphere of our bloodline crystal around you three times, then the magic will be gone.”

  My eyes focused on the ether enriched iron, and it suddenly made a lot more sense. I’d already noticed these moles used ether in conjunction with their bloodlines, almost like an angelus. That meant they’d be able to absorb large crystals to restore or empower their bloodline, but the dust would likely provide less of a benefit without any actual spells. Absorbing it would take years, since each mote would need to be absorbed individually. Only some of their children would be able to make use of it.

  Then there were the notes of faerie in their bloodline. It wasn’t enough to call them true fae, and by that same token, iron wasn’t true bane to them. But it was difficult to work with, and likely provided less of a benefit, meaning they were far more likely to use things like silver, copper, or even magical metals like mithril if they could get their hands on them.

  The mole’s conclave was giving us their trash. If I was being a bit more charitable, maybe they were able to recognize the materials possessed potential, just not one they could draw out. The bracelets, at least, were on the level. They were potent magic items, even if limited in use. I frankly didn’t even understand how they’d managed to imbue properties of a bloodline into an item like this, which did a lot to help me recognize just how little about magic I really understood.

  “This is more than acceptable,” I said, nodding. “If you could escort us to their alpha…”

  “Their what?” Surface-Scouring-Watcher asked. “Oh, their great one?”

  “Yes,” Salem agreed, and Surface-Scouring-Watcher tapped their claws again. This time, a smaller circle that only covered the jars of crystal dust and the ether-enriched iron appeared, and the six items sank into the earth, leaving the things he had described as rings, though they were far too large for that on us. We stepped forward, sliding on the bracers, and then Surface-Scouring-Watcher nodded to his back.

  “Climb aboard, and I will take you as near the great one as I dare,” he said. We all clambered aboard, and I only had a second to marvel at the softness of his fur before he was rushing down the tunnel at a speed that could have outpaced even the fastest horse I’d ever seen.

  We rode for what felt like hours, though it was hard to tell without the sun for reference, before we slowly came to a stop about five hundred feet from one of the molehills. Surface-Scouring-Watcher turned and nodded to us. We dismounted, and I removed my staff from my locker, then began to cast. The day before, I’d spent a bit of time with Yushin going over the magic of the dogs, and while I wasn’t exactly confident about taking on an alpha that was purportedly as powerful as Gerhard, I had my friends with me this time, had grown a lot as a mage, and had some specific advantages.

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  First things first, I empowered a suit of greater arcane armor with my fire, while my friends cast their own defensive spells. I let Orla slip out of my spirit, then I turned my attention to casting mass energy barrier. Applying it four times in a row – one for each of the dog’s toxin glands – was expensive, but it would hopefully mean that we weren't entirely reliant on the bracelets to protect ourselves. Since the spell could protect myself and four others, I placed the protection on me, my three friends, and on Orla. Seren was in danger too, of course, but he was sitting on my shoulder, within the volume of my sphere.

  Next, I summoned a pair of lightning ermines, since their absurd speed and biting abilities would hopefully be enough to avoid the blasts of poison that the alpha would throw. I followed up by conjuring a handful of wind and earth elementals, which would hopefully be able to harry the alpha without being at too much risk.

  “Maybe I should get into summoning,” mused Jackson. “It seems like it’s done a lot for your capacity. That’s almost as much magic as I could use.”

  I gave a half-nod, half-grunt, too busy repeatedly summoning to really respond. By the time I had finished, the others had managed their own preparations as well. A spell from Salem floated in my vision, providing information about the location of the alpha, as well as any powerful dogs in the vicinity – there currently seemed to be six of them. It would also, hopefully, provide us with some information about where the ideal spots to strike would be. Yushin had merged her own spells, chi, bloodline, and assassin affinity, and was currently entirely unnoticeable to my senses, even my powerful sense of smell. There was less for Jackson to do, but he was prepared with his own magic, sparks of white-hot flame dancing over one of his palms.

  I used Maugrim’s surge to restore my ether, then drew my broom from my locker and slipped onto it. Everyone else lifted into the air and we flew down the tunnel – or flowed into the rock, or blasted forward on lightning, or invisibly did something, as the case may be. When we emerged into the sunlight above, I took the second before the battle began to look around the open plains and to see who we needed to fight.

  The alpha was immediately obvious, a massive creature that resembled a demon far more than a canine. It towered above all of the other dogs, easily the size of our entire cottage, with three heads filled with fangs, six legs coated in knifelike blades, nine tails that ended in stingers, and thousands of pustules that were easily the size of my head. Punctured abscesses oozed out a poison that dripped to the ground, killing the grass of the plains and salting the earth.

  Around the alpha was a crowd of at least a hundred different dogs, each of them stinking of venom in a lesser amount. Mostly they were the weakest dogs, though a few stronger ones stood among them.

  While I had gauged the battlefield, Yushin had struck. Shadows and venom curled together, and an explosion of power erupted through the battlefield. It was potent enough that it would have been enough to kill me instantly if I didn’t know it was coming beforehand, and it might well have killed me even if I’d been able to prepare my countermeasures. Tendrils made of Yushin’s power exploded out of every shadow on the entire battlefield. Each of them was only as thin as a string of hair, but each and every one of them glimmered, made sharper than a razorblade and carrying the power of an incredible amount of poison.

  All of the razor-thin whips of shadow went for the dogs with the efficiency of an expert assassin, mixed with the cruelty of a truly sick torturer. Limbs were severed, necks exploded with blood, eyes were drilled through, ears slipped into, mouths sliced apart, stomachs ripped open, and more.

  The most impressive effect by far was on the alpha. Where each of the other dogs had produced one or two strings of shadow, maybe three in the case of the six more powerful dogs, almost a dozen of them ripped from the ground in the shadow of the alpha. They rose into the air like the limbs of some great beast, then launched their attacks, wrapping around the necks of the dogs like a garotte wire, tearing long gashes across the entire body of the alpha.

  The entire battlefield spent a second that seemed to stretch for an eternity in a state of carnage as blood, bone, gristle, and poisons of all types exploded into the air.

  And then it was over. All of the weakest dogs were reduced to little more than a red mist, and two of the six powerful ones were in a similar state. The other four were severely injured, basically knocking on death’s door. The alpha was the least injured, but even he was bleeding and oozing poisons and diseases worse than he had been when we had arrived, and one of his three heads had sections of muscle and bone exposed on its back.

  In that same second, Yushin appeared in the air near me, her magic so depleted that she was barely able to maintain her flight spell. She was panting hard, and as she used Maugrim’s surge of her own, she nodded to Jackson. He thrust his palm out, and the sparks he’d been holding suddenly crashed down as a pillar of white-hot fire atop the alpha and remaining members of the pack.

  But the dogs weren’t caught off guard this time, and a swirl of green poison began to leak through the ground, then slide up along the fire. The green and white mixed together, for an instant looking strangely beautiful, before the storm of flames vanished, revealing the alpha and three remaining hounds. The alpha’s mouths opened, poisons swirling into three copies of itself.

  Then the beings made entirely of poison solidified into warped flesh, and the four alphas launched into battle.

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