“How- Mars told you?” asked Pertabon. “No matter. Fine, we’ll make it available to you. Follow me.” The big friendly giant seemed a little less friendly once he became aware I knew about the stash, whatever might be in it. He led us slowly back down the winding trail that twisted along the cliff face until a few hours later we were once more on solid ground. Wilson bounded ahead and disappeared onto the step to hunt the giant deer that were the primary herbivores in this area. I could feel him in my mind. I could sense his emotions and the fuzzy outline of thoughts and with a thought I knew I could summon him back to my side.

  “Thank the gods!” muttered Nuk as he stamped his feet into the dirt and moved freely for the first time in hours.

  “You and me both, brother,” Mune muttered as he finally relaxed.

  “Come. They’ll have seen the waters change and know you conquered the Source. You’re a Champion. Can I see the mark?” asked Pertabon as he trudged along beside me. I pulled up my new left sleeve and noticed a dot had appeared above the tip of the spear as I twisted to show him my shoulder.

  “You see the change?” he asked, noting my surprise at the new addition.

  “It didn’t have the dot before.”

  “If you conquer more Sources you’ll get additional dots. There are a number of them out there in the world,” he rumbled, turning back to watch where he was going. Our path led us into the Narbolik town which it turned out was an illusion. The place was real enough but it was a fa?ade meant to hide something else.

  “How many more Sources are there?” I asked. We’d moved through the neatly laid out yurts and were heading up a narrow ravine. The Vialith roared past us on our left, the waters a blend of blue and white like any fast flowing river. I checked again but couldn’t see any hint of the green and bronze that had made war on each other on the surface of the Source.

  “I don’t know. I can sense you passed close by at least one before coming here but where are they hidden? No idea. The Gods don’t make them easy to find for obvious reasons. Losing control of a Source is like losing a limb to them.” I was pleased to learn I’d dealt some real damage to the witch that had murder-tricked me into this world. “This is our true home. You will not speak of it to anyone.” His words weren’t directed at me or the Fangs but to Nuk and Mulius who had been tagging along behind us.

  “Pah. Fine.”

  “Make them obey, Legate,” Petabon almost ordered me.

  “You swore you’d accept some Souls from me if I passed the test. The test that was much more dangerous than you let me know in advance!” I retorted. He grimaced then ran a hand back over his hair and nodded.

  “I only knew it was dangerous and I told you that much. None of us can approach the Source. We can’t fit down the tunnel and the stone cannot be mined to make a passage big enough for us. I did make that promise…” the Huskar pulled off his right gauntlet and extended a hand down to me. I wondered if it was best to just give him the minimum Souls needed to take control. I’d extracted the promise under duress and the Narbolik, despite the awkward name they’d chosen for themselves, seemed like - well they seemed like regular people. Just a lot bigger.

  The other clans had all seemed degenerate. A fallen species. This clan that had stayed close to the Source seemed almost normal in comparison. I reached up and spent a thousand Souls to give the giant five hundred.

  “If you want any advice about the interfa-” I stopped speaking as his stats changed.

  Soulbound Servant

  Body: B+ Mind A- Souls: F

  Ok. He was a natural born ogre-mage.

  “I know what to do. My inclination is to magic. I’ve chosen Ice, Space and Life.”

  “You’ve got records of soulbound?” I asked him as he straightened. I could feel the bond there in my mind but I held off from abusing it for now.

  “We do.” He refused to elaborate and I didn’t push it for the time being.

  We approached a bend on the narrow road that veered to the right. The smooth flags, well cambered for drainage, cut to one side and Pertabon did his vanishing act again for a moment until we caught up. The path ahead was blocked by a pair of massive doors, much larger than even Mulius would need to pass through without stooping.

  “Make them swear,” our guide repeated and I reached out and added a new command to their bond-threads. Pertabon saw them wince as the order landed in their minds and nodded. “Welcome to the First Hearth of the Huskar.”

  He slammed a fist against one of the doors three times and they ponderously swung open. Beyond the road fell away into a massive, dimly lit cavern. While the lights were sparse, what they revealed was a vast expanse of little townships huddled around the perma-lights that some past Shikrakyn had crafted. There were dozens of them within half a mile of where we stood looking down at them. In the far distance more glowing blobs suggested this underground world was far more vast than I could have imagined.

  “How many?” I asked softly as I stared in shock. In the nearer towns I could see dozens of Huskar moving about and the flashes of smithing threw stark shadows around the workshops when hammers fell against molten metal.

  “We number perhaps fifty thousand in total.” Pertabon replied and my mind spun. I had hoped to head south with a few dozen Ur-viles dressed in furs and wielding tree trunks as weapons. Whatever the stash might hold, this hidden civilization was no doubt worth far more.

  “You’ve kept the rest of us from this?” snarled Nuk as he lunged for Pertabon’s throat, fingers curled to throttle the life from him. I snatched at Nuk's thread and he skidded past the other Huskar, arms snapping back to his chest.

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  “You would have tried to eat us, savage.” Pertabon was harsh and cold as he snapped out his words. “Your kind left our halls a long time ago and cursed us as you walked out. We never broke our oaths to the Legio!”

  I held Mulius back through the bond and forced Nuk to return to my side. I would have been able to feel their rage even without the bond and if my eyes were closed. Violence hung in the air.

  “Enough you two! Whatever happened is in the past. You’re tied to my purpose now and there will be plenty of opportunities for glory in the future. Focus on that!” I ordered. The Fangs grinned and nodded happily.

  “How many will march south?” I asked our guide.

  “Perhaps fifteen thousand. A thousand of the crafters will probably be willing to come south to work in your towns as well, if the humans will accept them.” I’d bloody make them accept the Huskar smiths whether they liked it or not. Fifteen thousand giants in full armour and armed with artifact weapons… My expression shifted and could perhaps best be described as a smile but there was no happiness or joy in the expression.

  “The stash?” I asked.

  “Follow me, Legate.” Pertabon sounded resigned to my raiding their storehouse. “I don’t know how much will be of use to you. Much of it is intended for my kind.”

  “Equipment for the other Huskars is valuable enough. There’s something in there for people my size as well?” He was leading us down a long straight road that descended into the subterranean world.

  “How long have you lived down here?” said Jandak in a quiet voice. At least something had snapped him out of his semi-constant fury.

  “Two thousand, seven hundred and fifty one years. Narbo carved these halls himself,” his voice conveyed the respect in which he held the Maker. As fascinating as it would be to pick out the history I had other priorities right now.

  “Where’s the fucking loot?” barked Jandak, apparently mirroring my thoughts.

  Pertabon led us to the right, I couldn’t tell east from west in the gloomy shadows and reached another pair of giant-sized doors. He didn’t bang his fist this time, he slipped a bracelet from his left wrist and pressed some kind of pendant against a fractal design cut into the centre of the granite slabs. There was a glow and series of grinding noises and the left door swung back six inches.

  “Bloody thing,” Pertabon grumbled as he put his shoulder against it and shoved, his feet skidding backwards but he forced the mechanism far enough that it caught and both doors finished opening with painful grinding sounds.

  Beyond lay a treasure trove of… carefully packed and stacked wooden boxes. Each was a metre and half square and they were completely non-descript. The ranks of boxes stretched off into the dimly illuminated distance.

  “I was expecting something a little more… shiny?” complained Kos as he peered around the side of Pertabon’s leg.

  “This is the largest known storehouse of ancient artifacts on the planet. All carefully catalogued and organised with clear instructions on their powers and usage,” snapped Pertabon. “Fine. This way.”

  I felt a bit like I was walking into the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark as the giant threaded his way deep into the stockpile and finally stopped to pull a crate down from four metres over my head. He dropped it with a thump and used his fingers to pry open the tightly sealed lid. He rummaged around inside producing a clattering sound as apparently priceless metal items were sorted through like he was looking for his favourite spoon in a badly organised cutlery drawer.

  He withdrew a pauldron made of black metal that had leather straps hanging under it.

  “Put this on,” he said as he offered it to me.

  “It’s not cursed or anything right?” I plucked at the bond so he couldn’t lie. He grimaced but shook his head.

  “It grants improved Regeneration. After you cast it you'll recover health and mana at twice the normal rate for an hour. This is one of the best pieces in here for your kind.” I resisted the urge to snatch the armour from him, instead reaching out slowly to take it like the treasure it was. I struggled to fit it over my right shoulder and Mune stepped in to help do the buckles up across my back and chest. I swung my arm back and forth. It didn’t restrict my motions at all and felt as though it weighed almost nothing.

  “What else have you got?” My greed had bypassed my brain and borrowed my vocal chords.

  We left the storehouse with our storage rings chock full of ancient artifacts. Most of them were armour or enchanted bows but we also acquired a number of spears and swords to hand out to the lancers. All in all I’d rate it as five stars: would loot again. And I intended to do so as soon as I’d emptied out my storage spaces.

  Pertabon was subdued as he led us back out onto the hills surrounding the Source. He wasn’t unhappy as far as I could tell but he seemed to be chewing on something in his mind that he couldn’t let go.

  “Spit it out man! What’s eating you?” I eventually demanded as we skirted round the Potemkin village the Narbolik used as a front to keep their real home secret. After I explained the euphemism to the scandalised giant, he’d assumed I was referring to the feral Huskar’s inclination to cannibalism, he sighed and began to explain.

  “You have a terrible purpose for my people. It’s what we were made for but… it will cost us. Can’t you negotiate with your rivals? It wouldn’t be the first time.” I glanced up as he spoke and bit back a quick response.

  “Some of them, maybe,” I said after a pause. “There’s no hope of that with Mortimer though. I came here looking for disposable troops, strong, terrible and replaceable.” I wouldn’t have cared if I’d fed Ur-viles into a meat grinder. They were just savage monsters at that time. “Whatever Narbo did when he made you he left just enough that I can’t see you as monsters anymore.” My bloody conscience was trying to make this difficult.

  “I still need soldiers. Your people are powerful infantry, coupling them with my mounted nomads gives us the best of both worlds. Add magic on top of that and with a bit of careful planning and luck our losses should be light.” I finished.

  “Spoken like someone who’s never been to war. There’s always casualties. Mars doesn’t care if you’re strong or tough or smart. The war god loves the lucky ones,” rumbled Nuk, earning a nod of approval from Pertabon.

  “I have been to war. On my own world and this one. You’re right but luck favours the prepared,” I replied. We were walking down the barren slope towards where my feral giants had set up camp. “I want some arms for these guys from the vault. I saw the bigger boxes, Bon, they held gear like yours.”

  “This lot isn't worthy!” he said as I snapped the bonds to hold back Nuk and Mulius to stop them lunging at Bon for his words. “They’ve got no discipline,” the cultured Huskar finished with a sniff.

  “Nonetheless. You can teach them that. I want a true legion. Narbo was a Roman and the Roman armies ruled a large chunk of my world for hundreds of years. There’s no reason your wayward cousins can’t relearn what the Maker intended you all to be.”

  “Mond’s a philosopher now! Kril will be delighted!” laughed Kos. I flicked a glare at him but Pertabon burst into laughter at my friend's words.

  “Oh no. I’ve got a lot of books he needs to read to be able to claim that title!” Bon snickered and I had a feeling this ancient being from an artificial race shared more in common with Kril than I was going to like.

  Two days later, ten thousand Huskar set out to march south to the steppe. Four thousand went out to subdue the remaining clans in the south of the tundra, then catch up and meet us at the north end of the Palliat Pass where we’d establish a logistics hub for the giants. Outriders chased herds of mammoth south behind us and the armoured ranks of Huskars churned the earth into mud as they passed.

  I had what I needed from the north for the coming war. I had no fear of raids or reprisals from the giants. I’d gained a massive infantry force that could outrun my human cavalry as well as priceless equipment and knowledge. It was time to drive the dead out of the steppe and unite the tribes.

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