"He'll never drive the herds again," Kril intoned solemnly. The old man made no gesture, but a series of flames rose up along Mune's pyre. The dry wood quickly caught, and soon a fire was roaring to carry my friend to the warrior's moon.

"He needs to die, Ray," Fay said quietly. "If you don't want to, I will do it. We will have to tell the tribes that you did it." She had a hand resting on my shoulder. My face was stone, unmoving. The other chiefs and legion staff who had gathered to say farewell to the first of my Fangs to fall flinched whenever they met my eyes.

"I know." Gallagher was locked in a dungeon cell, bound to the wall by Shape Earth, and four golems were constantly watching him. He lost a limb every time it grew back. His screams rang out every hour or so, giving the palace a nightmarish soundtrack.

"It's been three days, love. It would be a mercy to give him to the women!"

"I know. I'll do it when the pyre has burned down. Knife to the brain. What's happened to his woman?"

"She's being watched by Haylin." I winced at her words. Not the guardian I'd have picked for her. Ouch, that will only make a bad situation worse.

"She needs to be taken care of properly. I want her gone."

"To kill a nursing mother–"

"Not gone, gone, Fay! She's going to hold a grudge. I need her away from you and our boy."

"I can break her like dry grass!" Fay snapped.

"Sure, but poison, a hit on the bairn? Not worth the risk. She goes somewhere else. An escort to Crathan or something, with enough valuables to live a good life. Can you set that up for me, please?"

She turned and looked up at my face. I was still focused on the fire, but I saw her expression in my peripheral vision. She didn't look pleased.

"Why not–"

"No love. I won't make her a slave." Fay harrumphed at my response but turned back to the fire.

I stood silently for over an hour as I watched the pyre burn. We'd gathered up as much of Mune's body as we could. Most of his torso had simply exploded when he was hit, but his head and legs had been recovered, carefully wrapped, and placed atop the timber.

Kos and Jandak stood on the other side, flanking Kril, and they joined me in my vigil. Most of the others drifted away. In the end, it was just my remaining Fangs, Kril, and Fay who stayed to the end.

As the wood finally collapsed into embers, I sent a short prayer to Hadesti, asking for special treatment for my friend. There was no crashing aura of rot or whatever the hell Death's presence felt like, but I hoped it was received.

"Let me do it, Mond!" Jandak snarled as we walked away. "Mune was one of us."

"I would like the honour of avenging him as well, if it's an option," Kos added.

A scream rang out from the dungeon complex below the palace as another limb was removed from our prisoner.

"You'd think he'd stop trying to grow them back," Kos said with an evil chuckle.

"I'm not sure what kind of spells he got, but I reckon it's some boon or something," Kril muttered. "You're going to do it now?"

"Yeah. How are the nobles taking their loss of power?" I asked as we made our way towards the side of the palace that led to the dungeon through the barracks.

The structure was intact, the long wings of the palace, ornately decorated with bright paint and intricate designs, stretched out around us.

"Not well!" Kril cackled. It felt good to hear the mad old bastard let rip with his signature noise. Mune… had laughed a lot as well. Always brave, always loyal.

We passed down the edge of the gardens. The plants were looking a bit worse for wear. They required constant watering at this time of year in the semi-arid climate of Urkash, and the gardeners had seemingly chosen to retire and seek other work elsewhere, all at the same time.

"They're too scared to do anything at the moment, but Mortimer knew his shit. Their heirs and daughters are all with his main army that went southwest. They know they're fucked if we take a dislike to them, and they know they're fucked if we don't. So they're a little torn at the moment!" Another cackle rang out from my mentor.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"The scouts have gone out to find him?" I asked.

"Aye. What about the bird?" Jandak asked. He was still pissed at me for abusing our thread, but he had calmed a little after we scraped Mune up off the flagstones.

"Glimpse is going to head out that way soon. The kill team, or what's left of it, needs a break. In a couple of days, they'll load up into a storage bead and be flown south to make more mischief. Bon is prepping a unit of Umbrati to go as well. I'm going to throw some Souls at them, give the boys some proper backup in case things go sideways for them like it did in this shithole."

I shoved aside the door to the dungeon, and a dozen levelled nomads all pointed spears at me.

"Easy, guys. I'm going to make you sitting here in this stone coffin unnecessary."

"Thank Aresk! Warlord, we're a hard people, but I've had to dispose of that bastard's legs fifteen times!" one of them complained.

"It ends now." I brushed past them and moved through the barracks area into the dungeon proper.

"Wait here," I ordered.

"Brother, you need guards around that monster!" Kos argued.

"He's been disarmed, literally and repeatedly. There are four golems in there as well! He's from my world. I want to do this alone." They didn't look happy, but they nodded reluctantly. Kril just leant against the wall, but the Fangs moved to flank the door to Gallagher's cell as I stepped within.

"There he is!" Gallagher gasped. "The monster in human skin!"

The man was braced to the floor with flowing stone that I had conjured to wrap him in place. He had exhausted his mana after the first few amputations. There was a pile of bloody limbs in one corner of the dank cell, and Bob and his friends were each standing to watch the limbs slowly regrow.

In the end, it was as easy as any other killing. Humans are such fragile bags of blood delicately strung over bones. Thoughts of my friend's demise flashed before my eyes, his chest vanishing into a pink mist, his startled face and shoulder launching into the air. But they weren't what drove me to slide my dagger into Gallagher's brain and twist it back and forth. He was too dangerous, too much of a threat to those I'd come to love to risk sparing.

I stepped back and wiped my dagger off on my tunic before slipping it into the sheath on my belt.

"Sorry, bloke. You were a good fighter. Too good. For Aresk!"

One of the Six has fallen! Raymond Cobbler has killed James Gallagher! The first player to make a real kill!

Raymond will have access to a curated selection of rewards for taking the first step on his true path.

Shikrakyn slain x1.

No Souls harvested.

Choose one of the following rewards.

Stolen power. You will inherit James Gallagher's regeneration boon.

Efficient Soul Transfer. Loss of Souls on transfer reduced to 10%.

Hunter's Gaze. You will know roughly where the other four Exiles are at all times. The closer they are to you, the clearer your sense of them will be.

Make your choice…

I hadn't even had a chance to ponder the options before a cry rang up, all across the city. Nomad ululations echoed in through the tiny barred window of Gallagher's cell.

"What did you get?" demanded Kril as he shoved Kos out of the way to burst into the room first. The Fangs followed him and offered their congratulations.

"You saw that notification?" I asked.

"Sounds like everyone did. There's going to be a party tonight!" Kril grinned at me. "So what did you get?" the irascible old man asked. I wasn't happy about this notification being some kind of universal ping. I briefly prayed that it wouldn't be for everyone, only those I had given Souls to.

It isn't. Everyone with stats saw that notification. I'm proud of you, boy! Aresk's voice echoed in my mind. Shit.

"Maybe we can help with the choice?" Kril offered with a gleam in his eye.

"I already know what you'd pick, you old rascal. No, give me a minute."

Soul transfer would undoubtedly be the best option in terms of making the most of my Souls. Stolen power would make me as tough as Gallagher had been. As long as I was literally disarmed, I'd be unstoppable. Hunter's Gaze would let me find the other four easily, or see them coming if they came after me.

Think, Ray. Do you need more powerful followers, more survivability, or an easy option to hunt down the rest of them? Gallagher had made it pretty clear what Poseidon's poisoning of the well had done to my chances of "living to let live".

I clicked on Hunter's Gaze and screamed as my head felt like it was fracturing into pieces. I knew where they were. One was a hundred miles or so southeast, a clear beacon in my mind. Way off to the southwest was another, their location much vaguer. I could point to them, but it could be ten or fifteen degrees either way.

Far in the east, the other two sat there, amorphous blobs in the perception of this skill. Too far away to be an immediate threat. Mortimer must be the closest, Aresk only knew who the one ot the southeast was.

I do know, and so do all the other gods.

Suddenly, he's a chatty Cathy. I liked it better when he was quiet.

"I've taken the power that lets me know where the other Shikrakyn are. I need to speak to the scouts. Actually, I need to get some letters written for the ones already on… they're fucking illiterate, aren't they? Dammit. Well, they're just gonna wander around for a week or two while the main army moves. I'm going to leave the legion in charge here. Urkash is too big, despite Mortimer feeding so many poor bastards to amalgams, to leave it to a tribe. And if more than one tribe is in charge, they'll just fight for power and fuck everything up."

"How far?" Kril asked excitedly.

"Maybe a hundred miles or so. Less than a week's march for the army."

"So two or three days. We'll be marching towards them at the same speed, Mond," Jandak interjected.

"Yeah. We need to march now. Go get the Tribunes and the chiefs. We're going to end this war."

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