"It's hot. Damn hot," I muttered. "Is the boy ok?"

Fay looked up from the baby wrapped in fine, and most importantly, thin, linen sheets. She gave me a broad smile and winked.

"He's of the steppes. We aren't a soft people, Ray. Even our newborns are tougher than most shit-sitters!" she laughed. Fay shifted the baby from her hip and held him out to me. I took him and held him up in front of me to peer into his face.

The odd eyes babies seem to have when they're born, the darkened iris, had faded and been replaced with my own brilliant blue colour. He still looked like a fat Winston Churchill, but I knew enough that even she understood the reference; women rarely liked the comparison. I pulled him in close and held him against my chest as we walked South behind the army.

"I don't like it, husband." Uh oh. "Husband" was usually a bad sign, especially when we were alone. "You'll be alone and separated from the army."

"I'm taking half a legion and about the same number of leveled-up warriors! As well as Wilson, the Fangs, and Kril. I'm really not going to be alone, love."

"And that sick bastard will have his entire army around him!" she snapped. The baby stirred at the anger in his mother's voice, then settled his head against my chest with a burbling noise. One tiny hand clamped surprisingly strong fingers around one of my thumbs.

"But he's no fighter. If I'd seen Gallagher coming, I could have… What's happened with the woman?" I asked. I'd left the arrangements for Nakelin and her kid to Fay and the coven.

"She has gone east. A small escort and far more wealth than you should have given here went as well! You can't be frivolous with money, Ray. We need to support our herds!"

"I owed her that much at least," I muttered. "She's got a baby, like you."

"So, because you're a new father, you go all soft in the head! Are all men from Earth so deranged? That woman will hate you and your sons until the day she dies. She should have been put down and the child fostered." She nodded her head firmly in my peripheral vision..

"No. I was the worst of the men from back home! Glimpse is going to be busy for the next couple of days, deploying the advanced parties, so I won't be able to watch over you while I'm gone. Stay close to Haylin, please?" Operation Change the Subject had begun.

"How big is his army?" Fay asked quietly. Operation failed. Abort! Was this really what had been worrying her?

"It's not small," I hedged and got a slap on the arm that prompted the baby to roll his head around and burp loudly. "Ok! It's fairly sizable?" Another arm slap. "It's fucking huge, Fay. BUT! It's a few casts of Burning Skies away from being ashes. So don't worry! The others are all far away. Once I deal with Mortimer, we'll have some peace for a while."

"They will move against you, sooner rather than later. I would. You were the first to claim a Shikarakyn life. They will all be after you now."

"They were before." I bumped my shoulder against hers. "Poseidon guaranteed that when she gave them a truncated version of my life story before she killed us."

"Were you such a threat to them? Mortimer is a shit-sitter parasite, a rent-seeking leech, but Gallagher was a fighter. What of the rest of them?"

"An academic, scholar, I guess, a high-ranking soldier, and a social media influencer are all that will be left once Morty is feeding worms."

"What's a social media influencer?" she asked.

"Kind of like–" the nomads had no concept I could compare it to other than Dreamers, but they were more akin to priests. "Like someone who makes money by telling people what they want to hear? In a way that they find entertaining? I think. You guys don't really have the equivalent. Do the shit-sitters have bards, skalds, or troubadours?"

"Singers? We have singers, Ray," she said acerbically.

"They don't always sing back home. Or have any real talent, if I'm honest."

"I'd like to see this world of yours one day," Fay said softly. "When you go back–"

"I don't think I will. I'm not going anywhere." She reached up and kissed my cheek, her hand stroking our son's hair, just beneath my chin as she did so.

"But that means?" she prompted me like she was Aresk reading my thoughts.

"That means I need to keep at least one of the others alive. And not die myself!" I chuckled.

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"What about accidents?" she asked in a worried voice.

"I'm not going to have an accident, love," I reassured her. Another arm slap that made the baby gurgle.

"Not you, idiot! What if the last one of them falls off a roof or gets trampled by stampeding aurox?"

"Huh. I honestly don't know. Next time Captain Brass Bollocks summons me to his lair, I'll ask him. I'm guessing I need to make sure nothing happens to them. Dammit. That won't be easy to arrange."

"Perhaps a job for the kill team after the war is done? Not like that! But spies who are constantly watching out for one of the other Shikrakyn, keeping them safe." I had raised an eyebrow at her initial suggestion, but I could see some sense to it. It would make sure I didn't have to be anywhere near the others and run the risk of a lethal misunderstanding.

We talked quietly as we approached the rear of the army, and I passed the boy back to Fay, who settled him against her breasts.. They had stopped to make camp for the night. Seagulls circled overhead, coming inland from the coast and trailing behind my forces, looking to snatch up any scraps that got dropped on the march.

This was the end of the first day's march south. Mortimer's army was hurrying towards us, hugging the coastline as it hurried to retake his capital. We would intercept him and offer battle, while portions of the army were deployed behind his troops via Glimpse, so we could hammer his rear and flanks if he chose not to run.

I guided us to where my bird was waiting, a thousand troops standing in front of where he was perched on the end of a wagon. The Legionaries were in neat lines, holding formation like automatons while they waited, while the nomads lounged about in untidy groups, most of them stretched out on the ground and passing jugs back and forth.

"Legate. It's done!" Pertabon said as soon as he saw me. He pulled what looked like a steel twig from the back of his belt and passed it down to me. I took the five-foot-long shaft of silver metal and examined how they had seated the black orb at one end. Bands of metal held Hadesti's Source in place, turning it into the head of a very heavy mace.

The other Sources we'd found had all had fairly obvious uses or benefits. Converting the Huskar to my side and beginning the legion on board, the God-forge and the golem cores were all easy to take advantage of. I'd had no idea how to benefit from the God of Death's pearl, but the Huskars had come to my rescue with their ancient knowledge. Using it the same way that Mortimer had done was out of the question, not only for ethical reasons but practical ones as well. I wasn't a necromancer.

But if wielded as a weapon, it would inflict terrible effects on anyone it struck, if it didn't simply kill them outright. So legion crafters had forged my new death-mace quickly, using the enhanced metals Sulk regularly sent south.

I spun it in my hands, leaving a blur in the air as it twirled fast enough to hum. It was weighty, even with my strength stat. It would be a good weapon.

"Are you ready?" I asked Bon as I leaned on my new short staff.

"We await your command, Legate!" Bon replied with a booming laugh. I nodded and grinned up at him. "Mages in first! Umbrati next! Then the line troops!" he bellowed at the Huskar soldiers around us. Glimpse flapped down to settle on my shoulder and draped a necklace made of stone beads over my shoulder that he carried in one claw.

It must have made for quite a sight. Long lines of giants walked towards me and vanished into one of the fifty-odd beads slung on the bird's necklace. Then the nomads followed suit, joking and grumbling as they steadily vanished.

"See you on the other side!" laughed Kos as he and Jandak vanished as well. Kril just cracked as he stepped into the blank state of the dimensional pockets.

"Be careful, love," Fay kissed me long and passionately, then turned and walked away without looking back. They weren't a sentimental people, that was for sure. I looked around for the final member of our party and realised he was hiding. I reached out via a particular soul-thread and sent a gentle nudge to come and join me.

There was a yip from behind a nearby wagon, and I moved to find my errant wolf. Wilson peered up at me from under the cart he was hiding beneath.

"C'mon, boy. Time to go." He whined and slipped further back behind the nearest wheel. "What's got into you? You're usually all up for ripping some zombies' throats out?"

Another whine, and a head shake. He sent me a mental image of darkness, fear, and urinating.

"Charming. Look, Wilson, it's only for a couple of hours. We'll be let out before you know it. I don't experience anything while I'm in storage."

Another yip, and the wolf began shuffling along on his belly towards the far side of the wagon. I leapt over the three-metre-tall vehicle and landed facing where I started on the other side. Wilson jumped, and his back made the whole wagon bounce.

"Shit! Sorry, bloke. Look, I won't force you. You could stay and guard Fay and the baby instead?"

His tongue lolled out, and he inched towards me, close enough that I could ruffle the fur between his ears. He inched his way out and shook violently once he was back on his feet. His nose came down to my face, and I got a lick of gratitude. I patted his shoulder.

"I'll miss you, big guy. I could really use another friend to watch my back, but if you're scared of going into storage, I guess I'll just have to manage without you." I sighed dramatically as Glimpse landed on the wolf's head and let out a cackling caw of derision.

Wilson shook the bird off and snapped half heartedly at Glimpse as he jumped over to my shoulder. Big amber eyes looked at me from his bronze-furred face, and he chuffed unhappily. He glanced from the crow peering up at him with its head cocked on one side and my face, which was desperately trying to suppress a smile.

"It's fine, pup. Go find Fay. Make sure nothing happens to her!" He wagged his tail and took off at a loping sprint in the direction she'd gone.

"And then they were two," I muttered.

Never. Tens of thousands are praying for your success. I'll deploy the kill team first, then let the advanced team out a little further away.

"Thanks, Glimpse. Maybe we will get a little peace after this is done." I looked around the army, troops bustling around as they ran errands, or sat around cooking fires, working on their weapons and armour. I couldn't see it myself. This wasn't a force that could just retire. Endless conquest was what the nomads wanted. Revenge for all the slights the shit-sitters had given over the centuries.

"Let's go," I said, and Glimpse hopped to my other shoulder, then the world vanished.

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