Meanwhile, Chiefling Ygor traded blow for blow with Rytlock. Sparks flew as the weapons met. Sohothin glanced off the morning star to graze Ygor's leg. The ogre roared in fury and reeled back out of range.
The old ogre charged up protectively before Ygor and rushed Rytlock. A roundhouse swing of the morning star caught the flaming sword and wrenched it out of Rytlock's hands. Sohothin flew through the air and crashed down to gutter at the base of the rock wall. The old ogre kicked Rytlock onto his back and towered over him, morning star poised to strike.
"The honor of the kill goes to the lord of the hunt."
Ygor stomped up on the other side of Rytlock and raised his morning star. "My pleasure." The weapon moaned in the air as it fell.
But it never reached Rytlock, because a war hammer shattered Ygor's hand. Shrieking, he reeled back, and the old ogre caught him.
Rytlock scrambled toward Sohothin, but Logan ran for the sword as well.
"Get away from my sword!" they both yelled.
Rytlock grasped Sohothin and rolled over.
Ygor lunged atop Rytlock, trapping him beneath his crushing weight.
Rytlock gasped, the air driven from him. He bashed the chiefling's shoulder, but only managed to get him to roll to one side.
Logan meanwhile brought his hammer down on Ygor's temple. The chiefling hissed, slumping to the ground beside the charr.
"Wow, do you owe me," Logan said.
A second later, a huge claw latched around him. The old ogre, eyes cracked with rage, hoisted Logan into the air.
Rytlock scrambled to his feet, grasped the ogre's belt, and launched himself up to bury Sohothin in the creature's heart. The blazing blade pierced the great muscle and boiled the ogre's blood. His eyes went black; his claws opened.
Logan tumbled to the ground.
Rytlock landed beside him. "Now you owe me."
"We're even," Logan replied, steadying himself on the dead ogre. "I saved you, and you saved me."
"We aren't even," Rytlock snorted. "The life of a charr's worth more than the life of a human."
Logan laughed. "Then by that logic, you owe me."
Rytlock spat a gobbet of blood, which spattered the ground. "Once I get my breath back, I'll kill you."
"Yeah, me, too." Logan spat a glob that sailed just past Rytlock's mark.
The charr glared at him.
Logan said flatly, "I have to check on my troops."
"I as well!" Rytlock grumbled. "But I'll still kill you afterward."
"Course."
They staggered out into the darkness of the canyon and checked for signs of life, but there were none.
"We need more light," Logan said.
Rytlock rumbled, "We need pyres."
"Which means we need wood."
"Which means you gather wood." Rytlock looked at the sword that flamed in his hand. "I'm the one who has the light."
Nodding wearily, Logan strode to the woods and gathered deadfall. He hoisted it and dumped it in a pile, his forehead dappled with sweat.
"One more pyre," Rytlock said. "Can't burn charr with humans."
"True," Logan replied. "That'd be disgusting."
"Hey!"
Logan returned to the forest, gathered another armful of wood, and dumped it on the other side of the canyon. Rytlock stepped up to him, thrusting his sword into the pyre and igniting it. Then he went to the other pyre and did the same.
"All right, then," the charr said. "Let's get to work." He sheathed the blade.
The two foes turned their backs on each other and went to gather their dead. Logan knelt above each of his fallen friends, speaking a prayer to Grenth and kissing their foreheads. Rytlock meanwhile knelt above his comrades and sang an ancient war song of the Blood Legion. He cradled the head of each warrior just as the primus of their fahrar had first cradled them-"First breath to last…"
The man and the charr hoisted the fallen and carried them to the pyres and bedded them in flame.
Soon, twin fires sent twin columns of soot into the sky.
It was hard work-kneeling and whispering and lifting and hauling and burning-eleven humans and ten charr. And when the work was done, Logan and Rytlock staggered, bloodied and soot-blackened.
"I suppose we have to kill each other now," Logan said.
"Yeah," Rytlock replied dully.
"You're going to die like a dog."
"I'm more like a cat," Rytlock pointed out.
Logan shook his head. "You can't die like a cat. They have nine lives."
Rytlock spread clawed arms. "That's what it's going to take!"
A new voice-a woman's voice-broke in and said, "You two have the strangest conversations."
GOLEMANCY
Garm yelped-a strange sound from a dire wolf-and his claws skittered on the stone floor as he ducked back from the huge golem.
Eir also leaped back, her mallet before her.
"Oh, nothing to fear," Snaff assured. He patted the golem's metalwork ankle. The leg was articulated with arrays of aura pumps and servos. "She's harmless." Snaff frowned. "Well, not exactly harmless. She could kill us with one swat if she wanted to… but she doesn't want to."
"How do you know?" Eir asked.
"Because she doesn't want anything," Snaff explained. "Oh, let me show you!"
He scrambled up onto the stone table where the golem sat, clambered onto her leg, and climbed the metal piping that crisscrossed her barrel-shaped torso. Reaching the golem's face-Zojja's face at five times the height-he waved his hand in front of the stone eyes. "See? Nobody's home."
Garm trotted in a wide circle around the golem, watching it warily.
Eir had not lowered her mallet, and her other hand hovered near the chisels on her belt. "But why?"
"Why, what?" asked Snaff, lounging happily in the metal collar of the creature.
"Why make this thing?"
Snaff slid down the broad torso of the creature and landed on the thing's legs. "I just feel that every golem ought to have a good head on her shoulders-especially the eighteen-foot-tall ones. Not that the Arcane Council agrees. They're churning out golems with no heads at all-easy to build, sure, but they're as dumb as posts. What's the point of that?"
"He doesn't do anything the normal way," Zojja noted.
Snaff glanced fondly at his creation. "I think I'll call her Big Zojja."
Normal-size Zojja stomped her foot and stared daggers at him.
"And she'll have quite a ferocious look when she gets into combat."
"Into combat?" Eir asked.
Snaff nodded. "She's a war machine."
"War machine!"
"Why not? Wars shouldn't be fought with flesh and blood. Somebody might get hurt. I'm hoping to revolutionize war-make it the province of golems without people involved at all. Let them bash each other's brains out. The nation with the best golems wins." He gestured behind him to another stone table where a second metal warrior lay. "I'm what you call a philanthropist."
Eir laughed. "We pronounce it profiteer." She slung the mallet at her waist and wandered between the tables, surveying the golems.
"They're a special design of mine," Snaff said. "Cephalolithopathic."
Zojja broke in, "It means 'psychic blockheads.'"
Snaff smiled patiently. "You see, these golems are designed to be fitted with massive basalt heads, which provide resonance points that channel energy into these powerstones"-he lifted what looked like a golden laurel and pointed to the small powerstones embedded around it-"which infuse the signals through the cranium of the wearer, allowing remote experience of somatic sense and reciprocal control of motor functions."
"What?"
Zojja sighed. "You can control the golem with your mind."
"Precisely," Snaff said. "Very experimental. No one else is even close to doing this sort of thing. It's difficult not to wax poetic about one's own inventions." He carried the golden laurel to his apprentice. "Would you be so kind, my dear? After all, it does have your head."
"Fine," Zojja said, taking the golden laurel. She slid it down until the ends rested on her ears and the middle cradled her skull. The moment gold contacted skin, the powerstones began to glow.