As Darius waited for the maid to return, he glanced towards Lyla and found her staring at him.

  “Darius,’ she said, tipping her head slightly in his direction.

  “No Lord or Lord Commander?” he asked with a small smile. The Shadows existed outside his chain of command, but they still used honorifics when addressing him.

  She smiled back. “You’re no lord or commander of mine. Not anymore.”

  Darius’s eyes flickered to the top of the temple stairs, at the man there. “You’re with him now, are you?”

  “I’m with no-one. I’m making my own choices.”

  Darius raised an eyebrow. “Are you? You know the Emperor won’t let you be. You’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. When he finds out that you’ve betrayed the Empire, he’ll send one of the other squads for you.”

  “He can try. I think he’d be wise to think twice.”

  “That’s why you’re with him?” Darius replied, nodding his head at Elliott. “You think he’ll protect you?”

  “I’m with him because I think he’ll make me strong enough to take care of a few things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things the Empire should never have allowed, and those with power should never have turned a blind eye to.”

  “Why do you want to fight against the Emperor? The Empire clothed you, fed you, trained you.”

  Lyla looked at the ground at his feet before meeting his eyes. “Do you know why the Empire did that? Do you know the Empire kidnaps children? Do you know how many children died as I came up through the ranks? One day they were there in the dorms with the rest of us. The next day they were missing. Overtrained, maybe? Killed for insubordination, perhaps? Or used for some other entertainment if they were deemed not strong enough for the program?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  He was aware of the Empire’s shadow programs. He didn’t know where the programs were – only the Emperor’s closest would know that – but he knew they existed. He knew how they churned out a conveyor belt of soldiers for the Shadows, Wardens and Blackguards, the very best of whom would be the Starforged that underpinned the strength of the Empire.

  “So you do know about them?” Lyla said. He didn’t realise his face gave it away.

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “And like others in your position, you ignored them.”

  “And you want to put an end to it?”

  “I will put an end to it.”

  There was an edge in her voice. He hadn’t known her for long. The Delta squad had only joined them in the past couple of weeks to help clear the last of the Rhianian resistance. He’d only met her a few times but she’d struck him as a little shy and timid, ready to follow orders from her squad leader. He didn’t imagine her thinking for herself. In fact, most of those Starforged he had met didn’t seem to think for themselves. They just followed the orders they were given. That’s what made them so frightening and ruthless. They didn’t question. They just did.

  “And you think a man like that is going to help you? You think a man like that is any better?”

  She glared at him and remained silent. A few moments later, she suddenly smiled. A rueful smile but there was a glint in her black eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve helped me to understand something.” With that, she turned her eyes back to the temple stairs. “You might want to pay attention.”

  He frowned, not quite sure what she meant by him helping her to understand something. He also turned to see Elliott and his maid at the top of the stairs, but they were facing him. The girl and the soldier they had been with were missing – clearly, they’d gone into the dungeon. He recalled Lucius saying they wanted to let Elliott take the dungeon, but it was curious that he wasn’t the one going inside.

  Before he could mull over it further, Elliott appeared at the base of the stairs, the maid at his side. Darius’s mind hadn’t even registered him disappearing at the top of the stairs – it was so sudden – and even as his mind caught up to the unexpected change, the mounds of thousands of bodies at Elliott’s back and sides rose into the air and began hurtling towards one another as the man approached Darius. Flesh and bones and blood as well as all the grass and tents, banners and furniture around them twirled upwards like upside-down tornadoes, spiralling to a point high above Elliott’s head.

  The remnants of what had occurred here writhed and twisted and fused into a sphere that grew ever larger, a limb sticking out here, a head screaming to the heavens there. Elliott continued walking towards them, the hilts of his weapons protruding from his back, orbs gleaming on his belt as his black eyes narrowed at Darius, and his lips curved into a perturbing smile.

  The man was putting on a show for Darius’s benefit.

  And it was working.

  He had never seen anything of this sort from anyone before. This was magic on a scale hitherto unheard of. At least by him.

  “If he could do that, why even get me to pile them up in the first place?” Lyla muttered.

  As the last of the remains joined the rest and the sphere – tens of metres wide – resembled a ghastly globe where the lands were marked in flesh and the oceans in blood, it began to blaze with a white-glow that became so bright that Darius had to almost shield his eyes. The glow worked inwards, the outside of the sphere shrinking as Elliott walked the last few metres to where Darius stood, the maid at his side. The doll was nowhere to be seen.

  Stolen story; please report.

  By the time the Murderhobo was in front of him, the sphere was the size of a peanut above Elliott’s head that then blinked out of existence. There was no indication that it had tired Elliott in any way. The man didn’t even have a bead of sweat on his forehead.

  The message was clear.

  “Welcome, Lord Commander Darius,” Elliott said with a cheerfulness at odds with the display he’d just given. He was as tall as the maid, wearing a coat in a style Darius had never seen, and black leather combat boots laced to the knees, but Darius’s eyes were drawn to the symbol on Elliott’s forehead. The mark of the Order of Balance. Was he connected to them in some way?

  “Lord Carpenter,” Darius said, though he almost struggled to speak. He didn’t know if the man was a lord or not, but he wasn’t about to risk offending him. A man who could so callously murder thousands, then make any evidence of it disappear wasn’t the sort of man Darius wanted to insult. There were levels to the power people commanded, and Elliott was magnitudes of levels above Darius. Titles were meaningless in the presence of someone like this.

  “I hear your Emperor agreed to the terms of Aldren and Rhian.”

  “He did. I’m here to ensure the treaty is signed.”

  “Follow me.”

  With that, Elliott brushed past Darius, who stood utterly still, his eyes facing ahead. As the man walked past him, Darius had felt a feeling he hadn’t had since he was a child. When he’d done something wrong, and feared his father hearing about it.

  There was a quiet menace in Elliott’s step.

  Darius got hold of himself, and took a deep breath, turning around to see another gateway, this time leading to some sort of living quarters. Very lavish living quarters. Elliott and his maid stood by the side, gesturing him through.

  As he led the two scribes towards the portal, there were two thoughts passing through his mind. That he wanted this done with quickly so he would never have to deal with this man again. And that he needed to tell the Emperor just how powerful this man seemed. He knew the three elite military arms – the Blackguards, the Wardens and the Shadows – had multiple Starforged in their ranks, but given what he had already seen of the Delta squad, and what he had just witnessed, he wondered how many of them it would take to take this man down.

  His eyes flickered in Elliott’s direction as he stepped through the gateway.

  The Empire needed to be ready.

  Rose and Parek were spat out onto smooth grey stone in a dimly lit hallway. Torches flickered in sconces on the walls to either side of them and a few metres ahead of them, massive golden doors stretched until they disappeared into the shadows above, the ceiling invisible. Behind them, where the colourful entrance should have been, was a solid block of black wall. There was no escape. Not without completing the dungeon.

  Elsie unhooked herself from Rose’s belt and clambered back up her stomach and chest to perch on her shoulder.

  This was it. A real dungeon. From what she understood of the dungeons on Earth, they had stopped working as they should when the dimensional barrier materialised. Those dungeons that were active when they were shut off had become dark and empty caverns, where children dared their friends to go. That’s what the history books said.

  She took a deep breath. “Are you ready?” she asked as she gripped her staff tightly.

  Parek drew his curved blade and held it in both hands. “Let’s go.”

  They walked side-by-side to the golden doors and Rose stretched out a hand to give it a push. She barely touched it when both sides slowly swung open to reveal only darkness.

  Parek scoffed. “Guess we won’t get a look at what we’re facing first. Not that it matters. Not like we can leave.”

  Elsie started patting Rose’s face, pointing forwards with her other hand. Rose wished she had the same fearlessness. She could almost feel her heart trying to run off without her, thudding in her chest like it was doing a drum solo.

  “Well, we can only go forwards.”

  They walked into the darkness and once they passed the doors, they swung closed behind them with a loud metallic clang and the entire room lit up from an unseen light source. Rose blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the new light.

  Blueish-grey stone stretched in all directions, across the floor and the walls that surrounded them and to a ceiling that soared fifty metres into the air. To either side of them were two rows of square marble columns, climbing to the ceiling above, coloured in the same blueish-grey as the floor and walls. There were eight columns in each row, stretching from a metre ahead of them to the other side of the room.

  “It’s as long as the temple,” Parek said, turning his head to the walls and the ceiling, eyes sweeping across the room to take in its majesty. Rose did much the same until she stopped, her eyes drawn to the other side of the room, right across from them.

  At the far end of the chamber, two metallic grey spheres sat on the floor, between the last columns on either side. Each looked to be three or four times her height, resting on what looked like blocks holding them in position.

  “Over there,” Rose whispered to Parek.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think? Maybe the room is trapped or something? Maybe we need to get to those orbs but the floor is going to fall through or something if we step on the wrong tile?”

  Elsie glanced at her with a thumbs up, which she figured meant ‘good thinking’. Elsie hopped down to the floor and stalked forwards, lifting her legs unreasonably high as she tiptoed towards the first tile, right next to the column to their left. She felt it out with the tip of her pink boot first, then gently rested the whole of her foot on the tile. Nothing. Then she put her blue boot on the same tile and cowered down, knowing full well the ground falling away wouldn’t pose an issue for her. She looked up, turned around to look at Rose and Parek and held her arms out like she was making a star, a beaming smile on her pink threaded lips.

  “I guess that means we’re okay?” Parek asked with a slight laugh.

  Rose sighed with a smile. “I guess so.”

  They guessed wrong.

  A mechanical whirring echoed through the vast room, bouncing off the walls, screeching in their ears. Immediately, they all looked across the room and saw the globes spin slowly as they rose, segmented metal legs extending from the blocks they stood on. She realised then those weren’t blocks. They were feet. Within seconds, the globes had spun a half-circle and stood on legs as tall as they were.

  A thin horizontal white line emerged across the face of both globes, then split open, the metallic grey lids peeling back to reveal what she could only describe as an oval eye. Just one black disc, with whites on either side and both eyes were looking directly at them.

  “Welcome.”

  It was a mechanical voice that reverberated around the room.

  “Those who are worthy may proceed.”

  “I think we need to run,” Parek said, grabbing her arm.

  The black discs of the eyes began to faintly glow white from the outside-in.

  “I think you’re right,” Rose replied, but before either of them could do so, Elsie grabbed them both and flung them through the air as a shrill high-pitched wail sounded from the two eyes.

  As Rose dived towards the column to her left, she managed to glance in the direction of the eyes and see white beams of light shoot from those globes and tear through where they had been standing a moment ago.

  She crashed to the floor Parek scrambling beside her as they both rested their backs against the column. Elsie peered around the corner and quickly pulled her head back as two beams of light shot towards her, grazing the marble. Rose turned her head to the right and was about to peer around the corner when something got a hold of her hair and pulled her head back.

  “Ow!”

  Elsie appeared in front of her, a frown on her face. Rose understood. These globes might be too fast for her. Elsie peered around the corner instead, ducking her head back again, and a split second later, a beam of light shot past between the two rows. That meant a third globe. Probably a fourth on the other side. And there was still enough space between the last row of columns and the wall for yet another globe.

  Maybe six in total, covering each gap between the columns.

  “We seem to be in a bit of a pickle,” Parek said.