“They’ve abandoned the outer ring entirely, haven’t they?”

  Clay looked up from where he crouched. It was the Baroness who’d spoken, still studying the ruined tower with a critical eye. She seemed entirely resigned as the others milled around the place. There were no signs of the monster’s corpses; even the ones that had been buried in the destroyed building appeared to have been rooted out and consumed. He made a mental note to start burning the corpses; if he wanted to really cause them problems, he needed to stop providing them with free food.

  Then he sighed. “I’m afraid so, Lady Janburg.” He looked over at the others. “We haven’t seen any groups of swinefolk outside this first ring of towers today. I think there are more of them inside the ring than I was sensing yesterday, which suggests that they are regrouping.”

  “Which means we’ll need to push further in to find any more of them.” She nodded. “You are still committed to this course, Sir Clay? You’ve already driven this Lair back further than I’ve ever been able to do on my own.”

  He glanced at Olivia, who was steadfastly ignoring him today. Her continued anger was painful to think about, but it only made him feel a little more stubborn about continuing the course. “Yes, my lady. I started this. I’m going to finish it.”

  The Baroness nodded. Then she stepped closer and spoke quietly enough that the others wouldn’t be able to hear. “You should know that little Olivia is planning something. She’s already offered me… lessons of a sort. You know what about?” When Clay sighed again and nodded, she continued. “I would refuse, if you think it would be unwise.”

  He blinked in surprise. Why would she refuse if Olivia was offering her the kind of magic she could use to defend her people? Then he caught a hint of worry in her expression and realized what she was actually worried about. “I am going to do what I can here regardless of your decision on that, my lady. My… disagreements with Syr Olivia have more to do with how the Guild is likely to react, and the dangers that certain spells represent. I’m sure she will be able to explain more when you speak with her.”

  Lady Janburg nodded slowly, her worry fading. She glanced at Olivia. “Thank you. You should know, however, that I was not the only person she approached.”

  Clay grimaced. “I’m not surprised that she’s already offering it to the others, too.”

  “Not just them, Sir Clay.” The Baroness shook her head. “I believe I heard her speaking with the Rector and some of the villagers as well. She’s made the request to have a large amount of parchment and ink. I have the impression that she might be writing a book of some sorts.”

  A lance of anger tore through him, but Clay clamped down on it. His jaw clenched for a moment. “Syr Olivia will make her own choices, Lady Janburg. She knows my opinion about it and if she feels ready to face the Guild over it, then I wish her luck.”

  It took an effort not to bite off the last words, and the Baroness gave him an amused look. She started to turn away, and then paused. “You know, Sir Clay, it occurs to me you might need some advice.”

  He looked at her, taken off guard. “About what? The swinefolk?”

  She coughed into her hand, almost as if she was trying to cover a laugh. “Not… precisely, Sir Clay.” The Baroness glanced back at the others and crouched down next to him. “I know that you and Syr Olivia care for one another.”

  Clay shifted slightly. His anger vanished like an extinguished flame. “She is a good friend.”

  “Something tells me a bit more than that.” The Baroness’ smile seemed to soften her scars for a moment. “Whatever you feel towards her, it pains me to see you at odds. Both of you have sacrificed enough. You deserve some measure of happiness.”

  He very deliberately did not glance in Olivia’s direction. “Thank you, Lady Janburg. I’m sure that someday we’ll find that.”

  Janburg snorted softly to herself. “Someday. I’ve never heard a word I like less.” She shook her head. “Take it from someone like me, Sir Clay. Someone who’s given so much to this fight that there was never time for much else. Someday is a poison that leads to nothing but regret. Be patient, true. Be wise. But do not fall into the trap of bearing so many burdens out of sheer stubbornness that you forget what you’re doing it for. If that happiness is something you want, do not hesitate so long that it leaves your grasp.”

  There were echoes of old pains in the Baroness’ words, and Clay turned to look back at her again. The wistful look in her own eyes, as she stared out across the ravaged hills, said almost as much as she already had. For just a moment, Lady Janburg looked back at him, their eyes meeting in unspoken understanding.

  Then the Baroness straightened up, dusting off her armor with one hand. “Well then, we should move further inside the Lair’s territory. I wouldn’t want you to disappoint your students.”

  She put a curious level of emphasis on the last word, and Clay grimaced. He felt his own face grow hot, and he tried to shrug off the feeling of embarrassment as he rose to his feet. “Of course, Lady Janburg.” When he looked at the others, he saw Olivia watching him, her eyes both curious and defiant in equal measure. “Let’s move. The monsters are waiting.”

  The next ring of towers was much the same as the first, only larger and double-layered. It made any attempt to slip by them unseen futile, but that wasn’t exactly what Clay and his fellow heroes were looking to do, anyway. There were easily twice as many swinefolk in each place, and considerably more patrolling the space between the rings, but it didn’t do them much good against the [Commoners] that descended on them, one at a time.

  By the time they retreated at the end of the day, four of the larger towers were left burning and in ruins. Hundreds more swinefolk were burning as well, and the columns of smoke marching into the sky were a fitting monument to the progress they had all made.

  The next day, they did the exact same thing again, breaking down each bloated, crude tower and leaving a fire to consume the corpses in their wake. Clay detected a hint of panic in the movements of the swinefolk as they left and wondered if they were going to abandon the second ring as well before long.

  They had good reason to fear. All four of the [Commoners] reached level five that day, a fact that had Lady Janburg looking a little nonplussed at their rapid rise to her level. Mitchell gained both [Stubborn] and [Harness Expert], something he seemed to be rather proud of despite his usual lack of enthusiasm. Lana gained [Unseen] and [Accurate], which had her practically skipping along. Andrew was boasting quietly about his own new [Experiences], [Calm] and [Improviser], which seemed promising.

  Olivia, of course, had been quiet about her own advancement at first. At least, until Clay had finally come out and asked.

  “[Hiker].” She paused. “And [Whisperer].”

  Clay blinked. He felt a mixture of awe and resentment. “Wait, really? That means—”

  “I have the [Warrior Poet] [Achievement] now too.” Olivia looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. “Outside of [Stats], I should be almost as good at [Chants] as you are, now. Remember that.”

  She’d walked away a short while later, denying him the chance to respond. He’d glared after her, trying not to grind his teeth. When he looked over, he saw the Baroness shaking her head and grimaced. At the very least, the swinefolk weren’t having any more success against her than he was.

  As they returned home that day, Clay had announced that they would all start training to use [Chants] alongside their own abilities. Olivia had quietly rolled her eyes, but the others had all set to training themselves with a fervor that mildly unnerved him. He doubted that they would be able to conquer the things in a night, but at least it would get them ready for the next phase of their work.

  Of course, he didn’t expect it to be easy, but given the way they were already tearing through the swinefolk, it wouldn’t be long before the monsters pulled back again. He didn’t know how many lines of defense they had built, but he felt sure that they were getting closer to their final ring. The one where the Lair itself was located, with its strongest defenders as well. If that was the next step, he needed to be ready. They all did.

  Clay looked up into the sky. It had been a beautiful summer day, but now the sky was streaked by smoke. Some of the fires were old ones, lit the previous few days. Others were more recent; at least four of them marked the newly destroyed towers he and his friends had broken that very day.

  The sun wasn’t even close to setting yet. If anything, it was even higher in the sky than it had been the day before. His companions hadn’t been level five for more than a day now, and they were already becoming a terror to the swinefolk. Once they reached the point where [Swinebane] doubled in effectiveness—which would happen the next day, unless something drastic changed—he doubted they’d need his help at all to break every remaining tower in the ring.

  When he looked back down, he caught Andrew glancing at him. The young [Commoner] had grown far stronger in the past few days. Eyes that had once been worried were quickly growing more and more confident, and almost all the other companions were using some bit of equipment that he’d come up with to counter their foes. Whether it was the ear plugs to defend against the shriekers, or the bits of glass that they could use to shine in the crusher’s eyes, the [Crafter] seemed to have an infinite amount of ideas about how to baffle and confuse their enemies. Clay could easily imagine him taking apart a Lair like he’d faced in the Tanglewood, one invention at a time.

  Just the hand signals he was developing with Olivia had been incredibly useful; the [Student] and [Crafter] were already developing it into a language that they could use to communicate even with their ears blocked, or their voices occupied by [Chants]. It was taking him a bit longer to learn it than the others, who were using it almost constantly now, but Clay was already starting to grasp the basics.

  Andrew was an incredible warrior, one the monsters were learning to fear. All of them were reaching that point. Once they were done here, he wouldn’t be the only Commoner Hero. Just the first, perhaps of many.

  The thought made him smile a little, at least until Andrew spoke up. “You’re going scouting, aren’t you?”

  Clay raised an eyebrow, and Andrew shrugged. “We’re almost through this ring of towers. Even if there’s another one past that, I don’t think they will hold up against us forever. Not with most of us learning those [Chants] that Olivia and you can use, and with [Swinebane] increased. Which means the last thing left is whatever is hanging around the center of the Lair. The worst stuff.”

  Impressed, Clay nodded. “You’re right. I figured I could push further in to see what’s ahead of us. Do you think you can get back to the others all right?”

  Andrew nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just take care of yourself. Don’t try to finish it all by yourself, all right?”

  Clay chuckled at the thought. “Don’t worry. I’ve never done that before, and I don’t think I’ll start now.” Andrew still hesitated as if he didn’t quite trust Clay’s word on it, but he still nodded eventually. A few moments later, he was headed north on his own, while Clay turned back towards the south. He wouldn’t have long, but he had every intention of making each minute count.

  The towers seemed to be clustered together more and more as he pushed closer to the core of the Lair. He and the others had broken apart a portion of the outermost layer, which made it far easier to slip past the second ring and into the territory beyond, but there was a third ring already waiting for him, an unbroken string of towers once again surrounding the center. They were packed far closer together, and they seemed even larger than the ones he had slipped by.

  It was as he was attempting to find a way to bypass that third ring when he accidentally stumbled upon the ruins of what could only have been Zelton.

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  The town had been a prosperous one, or at least, had enjoyed enough resources that they could afford a decent wall. Plenty of houses and shops had been built throughout the small valley where Zelton had once thrived, and Clay thought he could identify the remains of roads running in several different directions. Perhaps there had once been trade through the area, even if it had been on the border of two unfriendly nations, and with a Lair nearby to boot.

  Now, however, there were only ruins. Unlike Sarlsboro, Zelton had not been left to stagnate, almost frozen in time. The swinefolk had harvested the town, ripping away timber and stone to build their awful little towers. Whatever they had left behind had long since decayed to the bare foundations, with most of those parts nearly completely buried by overturned dirt or overgrown plants. Even the Shrine and the manor house had been broken down and left destroyed.

  Only two real clues remained behind that the town had ever been present. The first was the old marks that had represented the old town walls. They made no more than an indistinct mound that encircled a part of the valley, but they could still be seen beneath years of pillaging and neglect.

  The other was smaller, but no less recognizable. Right in the middle of the clearing where the town had once stood, there was a Stone of Choosing. It had been defaced, with terrible scars carved into it, but Clay could recognize it all the same. While all around it had fallen into decay or been carted off, the Stone still stood, as if it were a gravestone for the entire place.

  Clay paused long enough to take in that sight, and then continued forward. Vengeance burned in his heart, and he snarled to himself as he finally found a small opening in the next ring of towers. The swinefolk hadn’t been as diligent about cutting back the plants in a particular spot in the line. He waited, using Hawk’s Flight to watch the shriekers that were standing sentinel atop the nearest towers. When they were distracted, he rushed across the open space and dove into the hidden patch.

  A long game of cat and mouse ensued after that, with him worming his way past innumerable patrols and avoiding the notice of the sentries atop the towers. Any of them could have spotted him and brought an army down on him. True, he might have slaughtered them all anyway, but even he would get tired, eventually. More importantly, he wasn’t entirely sure how close he was to the center of the Lair and whatever was waiting there.

  When he made it past the line of towers, Clay found himself in an entirely different kind of terrain. The swinefolk had continued their habit of stomping through the grass and weeds, plowing up the soil as they went. He could see the tracks of countless hooves in the dirt, overlapping with the tireless tread of their feet.

  Yet there was also something very different about the place. Some of the plants seemed strange. There were tubers he’d never seen before, and some kind of flowering weed that seemed like it had almost been planted deliberately. He began to see trees, but not the type that he knew. They were odd, broad-leafed things, with branches that seemed far too delicate and poorly supported to endure the snow. At the very least, they provided plenty of shade, but Clay still felt unnerved as he passed them by. A part of him didn’t even want to take cover beneath them, in case they were some kind of new monster the Lair had created.

  As he made his way closer, the number of the strange plants grew and grew, until it had almost seemed like they had taken over the natural vegetation. The air felt hot and heavy, more humid than it should have been, even in the summer. Clay felt sweat sliding down his face as he walked, and he wondered if he would need to find water before he got back to the camp.

  He was weaving past another set of hills, shaded by a patch of the strange trees, when he caught sight of something new ahead. Clay paused, peering through the vegetation, and then blinked. It was a wall. More than that, it was a wall that looked like it had been built from actual quarried stone, rather than the salvaged remains of the homes that people had built. It was an odd kind of stone, red and pink rather than a more usual grey, with what looked like black spikes of metal sticking out of it. Shapes moved beyond it, and faint grunts and squeals told him he’d found another group of swinefolk.

  Clay peered at it a moment longer and then turned to head up the nearest slope. He wanted elevation to be able to look down at whatever he was seeing. There might have been a little appeal in simply walking up to the wall and trying to shatter it, but something told him that it would be more trouble than the towers ever were.

  The scope of the wall revealed itself more and more as he climbed. It was a barricade of some kind, with a deep ditch dug in front of it. A small camp had been constructed behind it, complete with actual tents made from some kind of pale fabric.

  His first instinct was to bypass those low areas and keep hiking over the hills. After all, the swinefolk could guard the passes all they wanted. It wouldn’t stop him from just passing them by.

  It seemed like an entirely reasonable plan—which was why it probably failed just a few minutes later.

  The side of the hill closest to the barricade suddenly ended in a single sharp cliff. Clay looked in both directions, and saw that it continued in both directions. It was a drop farther than he’d ever fallen before, and while he thought he might be able to use the Ladder to scale it, he didn’t know if he could do so quickly enough.

  Every single hill he could see had the same sheer cliffs. They seemed as if they were unnatural, as if the swinefolk had excavated them so that they could act like a crude, gigantic set of walls. They formed a bowl around the next valley, with more barricades blocking the easiest routes inside. He could barely see the most distant of them under the canopy of strange trees that filled most of the bowl.

  Yet what truly caught his attention was not the trees or the barricades. Instead, it was the massive fortress at the center of the valley. It had been built of the same strange stone, rising above the canopy. There were three layers of walls, each a little higher and more covered in spikes than the last. At the center, rising high above all else in the bowl, was a tower.

  Clay felt a chill when he saw that tower. It should have been entirely unfamiliar. He’d never seen that kind of twisting architecture before, and the haphazard spikes sticking out of it were entirely alien to anything he knew.

  Yet at the same time, he’d seen something exactly like it before. It had been in the center of the Tanglewood, where the Guardians of the Lair had nested. He pictured gigantic spider legs extending from the windows, ready to strike. Orblike eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness, watching for him to show himself.

  Then he shook the image off. Even the Guardians in the Tanglewood wouldn’t have been able to see him at this distance, and even if they had, it would have taken them an hour or so just to reach the spot where he was standing. There was no possible threat to him here. Unless a random swinefolk patrol happened by, he was as safe as a man could be.

  He kept telling himself that as he stepped back and away from the sight of the tower. All he wanted to do was get a better look at the barricades. It had nothing to do with a sudden desire to hide from the tower. Nothing at all.

  It had taken a bit of time, and some use of Hawk’s Flight, but Clay finally caught sight of the swinefolk’s higher monsters as the sun was just starting its final descent towards the horizon. They were behind the barricade, which was what he’d expected. Not all of them would be—he was fairly sure that the fortress would be full of them—but at least he would have the chance to see what they would do.

  There were three of them, one of each type. They were clearly in command of the others, ordering the others around with squeals and grunts that held no real importance for him. The lesser creatures obeyed without hesitation, however, with good reason. Clay could feel the menace those creatures exuded even as far away as he was.

  The most obvious of them was the shaker. It towered over the rest, a massive hammer laid casually across one shoulder. Clay didn’t know how it had reached that size; the thing was bigger than any other creature he’d ever seen. Its hide was a deep, reddish hue, and its muscles bulged as it walked. Each step shook the ground near it, and Clay thought he could see the dirt fracture and reform beneath its boots.

  As promising as that was, the soul eater seemed even worse. It was about the same size as the land eaters had been, with a hooded cowl that seemed a little lighter in hue. The whip that hung at its side was spiked and vicious-looking; it seemed to drink in the light, as if even the sun’s glow couldn’t escape its clutches.

  Its most disturbing feature, however, was its face. The twisted maw was something Clay had grown used to, but it had a second set of eyes, now, just above the first. Both of the upper eyes were completely and utterly pitch black, and they seemed to glimmer as the eater’s head moved. Something about the way it peered around the trees told him not to underestimate its sight; the one time it had glanced in his direction, he’d gone still, even though he was hundreds of strides away.

  The last of the major threats was quite a bit more difficult to pin down. It moved at such speed that he had a hard time realizing it was there at first. Only the continual, panicked dodges of its fellow swinefolk really gave it away, as they tried to stay out of its path. The one time the thing paused long enough for him to get a clear view was enough to tell him that the screecher would be trouble. It held a double-bladed sword in each hand, with the blades running parallel to each other. They dripped with some foul, pale-yellow substance, and the speed with which it moved made Clay very reluctant to face it in the open.

  Clay watched the things for a while longer, trying to get a handle on how they moved and acted. The way the others reacted to their presence was instructive as well; they seemed almost as scared of them as they were of any threats from the outside. Perhaps they used lethal discipline among their own at this level? Or was there some other kind of motivation at work?

  He did not stay long, unfortunately. The sun, by that time, had started to dip far too close to the horizon, and he doubted he could afford to be out amongst the swinefolk at night. Still, at least he’d managed to get a clear view of each of them. In the meantime, none of them realized he’d even been there.

  After all, he could be back there tomorrow easily enough.

  The sun had already set by the time he reached Janburg.

  It had not been nearly as difficult to reach that point as he’d expected. Once he had made it out past the first line of towers, the number of swinefolk had dropped dramatically. In part, it was an encouraging sign that the enemy had been forced to reduce its presence so significantly. Of course, the large number of fading columns of smoke probably had about as much to do with it. The others had obviously been hard at work while he’d been gone.

  When he reached the bridge, Clay murmured the [Chant] for Heart’s Light. As a glow spilled from his fingers, he heard the [Guard] that had been posted to watch for him shout something. The gates creaked open a moment later, something that made Clay sigh with relief. For a moment, he’d worried that he would need to climb over them himself.

  He wasn’t surprised to find Olivia waiting for him on the other side of the gates. She was watching him with a steady stare as he nodded to the [Guards]. Clay looked back at her and sighed. “I’m sorry. It took longer to get back than I expected.”

  Olivia blinked. She glanced back at the gates, which had started to creak closed again. “You went scouting, correct? What did you see?”

  Clay tilted his head. Her voice sounded cool… but not as angry as it had been. That was encouraging, at least. “I got a good look at the center of the Lair. Some looks at the kind of monsters waiting there, too.”

  Her eyes sharpened. “What was it like? What can they do?”

  “Hard to say what their abilities are yet, but at the very least, I’ll have to fight them behind some kind of barricade.” Clay grimaced. “The center looks like some kind of a fortress. Couldn’t see anything of the Guardians, but they’re probably in the tower at the center. I’ll try to find out more tomorrow.”

  She hesitated. “Do you need help?”

  Clay almost said no immediately, but then he paused. He looked a bit more closely at her and then shook his head. “You all still need to finish off the next part of [Swinebane]. Once you finish that, I think you and the others need to practice with the [Chants] before I bring you in deeper. I’ll do what I can in that time, and then I’ll be ready to keep you all alive.”

  Olivia shifted slightly, her expression unhappy. Then she shook her head and spoke as if she were talking to herself. “I don’t need to worry about you, do I? You’re going to be careful. You’ll come back without getting yourself almost killed, the way things happened in the Tanglewood.”

  He paused, sensing a trap of some kind in the words. “Yeah, I will.”

  “Good.” Her gaze locked onto him. “Because even if we can continue this fight without you, we can’t destroy the Lair unless you are there. So if you aren’t going to do the smart thing and share the Garden’s Peace with me, you should at least make sure that you survive long enough to do that for me. I can trust you to do that, can’t I?”

  Clay felt a flicker of anger glimmer through his fatigue. He fought it down for a moment.

  Then he gave up.

  He stepped forward, seeing her eyes widen a little as he drew close. “That’s right. The one thing you can always depend on me to do is protect you. From the monsters, from the Guild, from anything that’s out there that wants to hurt you.” Clay looked down into her eyes, feeling a mix of frustration and hurt well up in him. “Olivia, you know who I am. You know why I do things like this. You can’t just ask me not to protect you.”

  She looked up at him, her face still in that same blank mask. Then her expression softened slightly, and she tilted her head to the side. “You know me too, Clay Evergreen. My vengeance on that Lair is a part of me, and has been for as long as you’ve known me. It’s something that I owe to the people I left behind. My family. My friends. All of them. How long are you going to ask me not to be who I am, while asking me to let you do what you are meant to do?”

  “I…” Clay paused. He saw a moment of vulnerability in those green eyes, and his anger immediately faded. His certainty began to waver along with it, and he looked away. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Her hand touched his cheek, and he turned back to face her. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his for a moment that seemed to last for an eternity. Clay could feel his heart hammering in his chest. The skin of her hand seemed rougher than he’d expected, worn by hours of practice with her scythe. It was almost like he could feel the warmth of her, despite the small gap of a summer night’s air that separated them.

  Then Olivia sighed, and some of the tension fled her. She quietly leaned into him, her head butting into his chin. “You know, this would all be easier if you were just some idiot who never listened. It would be simpler if I could just hate you.”

  Clay laughed softly, his arms going around her naturally. She felt right in that embrace, like she’d always been meant for it. He looked up, seeing the first handful of stars beginning to shine in the sky. “Olivia, since when do we ever do things the easy way? Why would we start now?”

  She snorted, her breath puffing against his armor. Then she pushed back, her hand falling to his shoulder. Her gaze grew intense again. “I’m serious, Clay. If you get hurt out there…”

  He held up both hands in a gesture of innocence. “Have you ever known me to do something like that?” She gave him a look, her lips twisting in a suppressed grin, and he smiled. “I mean, lately. In the past few weeks or so.”

  Olivia thumped a fist into his chest, light enough to barely be felt through the armor. “Just do your best, Sir Clay. We don’t have that much time left here.”

  With a slight feeling of regret, he let her step back and then followed her back to where their campfire was burning. Dinner was waiting, but he already felt far more refreshed than he’d hoped for.