Reshid didn’t have much to pack. He had arrived at the village with nothing but the clothes on his back, which were starting to fray. Since then, he hadn’t acquired much, just his cultivation crystal and an old blanket. The village was too small for a proper market—not that he had any kind of currency to use in any case.

Em and Charlie were in much the same situation. The night before, they had scavenged some old rope and empty sacks, which they used to create makeshift packs at Idrin’s direction. Apparently, they would be expected to outfit themselves—the village wasn’t prepared to send a small army of revenants into the field.

That done, they joined the growing crowd at the village’s center, in front of the open palisade gate. It was nearly empty inside, most of the humans gone either on their way to the surface with Frederick or off to execute the other part of the plan.

Just a handful of soldiers were left standing and sitting in front of a large tent. One of them was glaring daggers at the group. It was Geoffrey, the officer that had tried to kill them. Reshid grumbled internally. How was he left behind? As far as “troublemakers” went, he was the worst of the lot. He should have been on the way home with Frederik.

Following his gaze, Reshid realized that he was watching Charlie, who wasn’t looking back, though he doubted that he hadn’t noticed the man. What was he doing here? Another man, who Reshid recognized as the medic from yesterday, grabbed Geoffrey’s arm and said something, causing him to turn away. His former patient was there as well, looking no worse for wear. He watched the revenants warily, but nodded in greeting when he saw Reshid looking.

Revenants were trickling out of the houses, but it wasn’t just the new recruits and Hasan’s guard. Many of the villagers came as well, armed and outfitted for travel far better than he and his team were. While not all of them carried weapons, those that did didn’t follow any particular standard. Some carried clubs, spears and staves, while others had modern smallswords and modified firearms. One hulking earth elemental, who Reshid had seen tilling fields a week before, carried a massive stone hammer that must have weighed as much as he did. At a rough guess, he thought there had to be at least two hundred revenants present.

It didn’t look like an army, but it wasn’t a disorganized mob either. They moved with purpose, forming ranks and preparing to march. He knew that they weren’t actually supposed to fight the Lich and his band of ghouls, but if they were half as dangerous as Hasan’s guards, he couldn’t imagine anyone getting in their way.

Idrin’s voice cut through the noise as she appeared behind them.

“Ah, there you are! We’ve got orders!” Reshid took a step back as the heat hit him. It was rolling off her in waves like a hearth, and he wondered if she was doing it on purpose when he realized that it wasn’t coming from her directly. She was wearing a pendant around her neck—a metal cage in which a fiery crystal floated, suspended in some way that Reshid didn’t understand. It must be her source. Fire crystals were notoriously delicate, to the point that humans rarely even used them in their essential technologies, but she had somehow managed to make one portable. Agatha would probably kill to learn how it was done.

“Good morning, Idrin. What’s going on?” Em asked when no one else responded.

“You two and I,” she said, pointing at Charlie and Em, ”are going to move out ahead to join the strike force. Reshid, you’re going to be with the medics. You impressed the pinkies’ chief medical officer the other day and he asked for you. Hasan agreed because he thinks it'll help improve our image. You’ll set up in the woods in the rear to help manage any wounded if the worst should happen. Some of the prisoners might also be injured and you have the best chance of getting them up and moving.”

“Did you see who’s with them?” Reshid answered, gesturing over to the group of humans. “I don’t think I’ll be improving anyone’s image with Geoffrey around. He attacked us! I heard why they couldn’t discipline him, but why did Hasan let him stay?”

“Politics and bureaucracy, I think. They’re not allowed to put a unit directly under a third party commander without an officer. That and he insisted. He’s a relative of one of the medics, or something. Just do the best you can, and don’t get into any fights, alright?”

Reshid wasn’t convinced that would be possible.

“What do I do when he slips a knife in my back?” He asked sourly.

“Oh, don’t pout, you’ll be fine!” She patted him on the shoulder, smiling in a way that Reshid did not find reassuring. “I doubt he can do anything to you that you can’t heal just as quickly. Don’t cause an incident, his family is important in Duskhaven!”

“Hmph. What do you think of Hasan’s plan?” Reshid asked, changing the subject. “Do you think it’ll work?”

“I think it will delay them—that’s for certain.” Idrin said, “Duskhaven will be fine. If we’ll get through it without a fight… I’m not so sure.”

“Hasan sounded sure.” Charlie interjected. “I don’t think he’d take a risk like this if he didn’t believe it would pay off.”

Idrin grinned at him. “Sure! Never one to take risks, our cautious commander. That’s why he sent messengers to the lower levels and Barty to alert his elders.” Her smile grew brittle. “He’s minimizing the damage that the lich can cause, but he’s focused on Duskhaven and the caverns overall, not us specifically. Our numbers should make the lich hesitate, but we’re only a threat to his little army, not to the sorcerer himself.”

Reshid swallowed. Charlie and Em didn’t seem very bothered by the idea of walking into what might be a gruesome death. He couldn’t even really fault Hasan’s thinking. Sacrificing for the greater good was the right thing to do here—noble, even, if it turned out to be necessary. But Reshid didn’t want to be sacrificed, and he wouldn’t stand by and watch his friends die.

–------

Reshid had been in the underworld for months facing hunger, unknown horrors and a final death but only now did he consider that he might actually be suffering the punishment of the gods for some unremembered misdeeds committed in life.

Since joining the medics at the beginning of the march, Geoffrey spent every moment not-so-subtly interrogating him. Over the course of the past few hours, Reshid learned that the officer was deeply convinced that all creatures of the Deep Paths were a united dark force, bent on the destruction of the Pantheon’s gods, their faithful worshippers, and the Confederation of Free Cities in particular. As the only bearer of the seven-pointed star in the group, he was working hard to proselytize. The officer speculated loudly about their supposed plots and motives, unconcerned that he was also marching in a column of hundreds of revenants toward a small army of ghouls and monsters.

“It’s clever really, they slip a fellow like you into the ranks first. You can heal and make plants grow, so what’s the harm? That’s the idea, right?”

“Yes, sure.” Reshid said with a tired, dead voice. He had learned, through painful trial and error, to keep his answers as short as possible. Inwardly, he cursed Idrin and the others for abandoning him here at the back of the column while they marched safely out of earshot.

“Aha! He admits it! Did you hear that, Rory?” he called to the chief medic, who rolled his eyes instead of responding. At least Reshid didn’t have to suffer the idiot alone.

“Oh it sounds innocuous, but they can do the work of a hundred farmers, maybe more! You ever think about what that means? Before you know it, they’ll be running the entire agricultural sector. From there, they don’t even need to fight us, they’ll just burn the crops before winter and we’re as good as dead.”

No matter how Reshid answered the man’s wild claims and relentless rhetorical questions, he took every answer as confirmation somehow.

“Lieutenant. I asked the Master Merchant to have Reshid transferred to us. It’s not that complicated.”

Geoffrey snorted. “You’re being played, man. I can’t believe you fell for it. I know it’s hard, but just try to think for a second. How did you even know he could heal at all? A damned ghoul—this one’s boss!—nearly killed Viktor after storming into our compound right after a horde of other ghouls came out of nowhere to conveniently “attack the village”—with no losses, I might add. Then they send this guy to patch him up. You think that’s a coincidence? Please.”

Rory looked at Geoffrey, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

“YES!!” He shouted, clearly at his wits’ end. “Listen, if the revenants were working with the ghouls, don’t you think they’d simply kill us and invade the surface? You saw them fight. Do you think the city would be able to stop them if they killed us all off and just went up the stairs? Even if we blocked the entrance, Hasan or the trogg could probably tunnel a dozen new entrances into the city within a week, with us none the wiser. The city would have ghouls and worse popping up all over the place. It would be impossible to defend against.”

Geoffrey laughed heartily. “You think a bunch of ghouls can stand up to the power of the gods? We’ve been over this. They don’t stand a chance, they’re barely even armed. We have guns, never mind that the guardians would have them running in a second. They can’t stand up to us, so they try to infiltrate and undermine us from within. Just look around you!”

Rory sighed and threw up his hands in frustration.

“No, seriously. Look at how they live down here, trying to imitate real people with their crappy little village. They’re jealous of what we have and who we are, trying to get a taste of real life. That disgusting mushroom ghoul even robbed soldiers’ graves—he probably thinks that’ll make him a real soldier when the war comes, but we’ll show him.”

Reshid tried to tune him out, but found that he couldn’t. Geoffrey glared at him balefully.

“Do you think you can break our spirits by desecrating our dead heroes, ghoul? You’ll find that we don’t scare that easily.”

–-------

Geoffrey was still going when they finally stopped, but Reshid had finally grown numb, simply grunting every time the officer demanded a response.

Hasan shouted orders, and revenants moved quickly to follow them, taking up positions along the road. They must be close to the enemy camp. A moment later, Yannick jogged over and waved him down.

“Come on, we have a wight sentry for you to fix up. We had to get a little rough to make sure she didn’t get away before we were ready. It’s time to poke this wasp’s nest.

“I’ll come too!” Rory volunteered, probably just as eager to get away from Geoffrey as Reshid. “I want to see this.”

The medic grabbed a bag of medical supplies and the two followed Yannick toward the front of the group. There, Hasan stood over their patient, who was pinned to the ground by a massive stone collar, probably put there courtesy of Hasan himself. She looked almost like a normal, middle aged woman. The only thing that gave her away were her set of unnaturally sharp teeth, which she bared at them threateningly. Not that she looked particularly dangerous right then. Her right arm and leg were both badly broken and starting to swell grotesquely. A bit of bone was jutting out of her forearm, and her foot was nearly facing backwards. Reshid shuddered and felt a sympathetic twinge in his extremities just looking at it. The medic just crouched down next to her and began unpacking his bag, completely unimpressed.

“I’ll need her in shape to deliver a message in a few minutes.” Hasan told them. “Make sure she doesn’t look too banged up.”

Reshid winced. “I don’t know, those look like bad breaks. I might need to cut her open to get everything lined up right. How much time do I have?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rory interrupted. “I can set the bones while you do your thing.” He hesitated, then went on. “That’s something you might want to learn to do yourself, too. Magical healing can only get you so far if you don’t have any medical training to help you apply it correctly.”

Reshid shrugged. The man had a point. “Sounds good, show me.”

As the two got to work, Hasan crouched down next to the wight’s head.

“Sorry about the inconvenience, but I had to make sure that we would avoid any misunderstandings. What’s your name?”

“Feane.” She hissed through clenched teeth as Rory took a firm grip on her shin and began manipulating it, finding the injuries and explaining the different kinds of breaks she had suffered. The stone collar holding her down blocked her view, but she stared down toward her feet anyway, breathing heavily.

“If you feel here, you can tell that a bit of bone was ripped off along with the tendon right on the joint—right there. If I get it into place, can you reattach it without fusing any other parts?”

Reshid nodded and put his hand on the wight’s knee, carefully directing his essence into the joint. He couldn’t see or feel her injury exactly, but as the essence sank in, he could feel its purpose—how it wanted to grow and where. While the impression was brief, it gave him a little bit of feedback about what was happening inside. Could he use that, somehow? Most of the essence naturally worked on the nearest injury, accelerating the natural growth and healing of the fracture right beneath his hand. Some of it leaked away, though, probably starting the healing process everywhere else.

He added more essence, trying to focus it on just one thing—one break, and not the others. The essence had its own purpose, but it was his essence. His will was greater. This time, it worked better, sealing the bone without any loss. Instead of dispersing, the remaining essence stayed contained in the bone until he drew it back out and into himself.

Interesting.

“Don’t worry about them.” Hasan ordered. “You’ll be just fine in a moment. Now, I heard that your scourge is being led by a lich. Is that true? What is he called?”

“Yes. The master. He calls himself Antonius the Eternal. You are very foolish to try to sneak up on him with an army. He doesn’t fear those like you.”

She spoke a little bit awkwardly and with a slight accent, not quite like a native of the Confederation. Reshid wondered where she might have come from. She gasped as Rory finished aligning her shinbone, and Reshid quickly repaired it. It was easier than the knee—probably because it was much easier to see and visualize what he was doing.

Meanwhile, Hasan gave his message to the wight.

“Ah, well. We’re not going to sneak up on him. You are going to announce us! I’d like to talk to him about what I believe to be an unsanctioned raid on my village. A vampire led a scourge of nearly 30 ghouls into my village two days ago.” Hasan went on. “While I can’t interpret that as a serious attack, it’s an insult that I’m not willing to ignore.”

Feane twitched as Rory and Reshid began working on her arm, but she looked up and met Hasan’s gaze steadily.

“Foolish. We know nothing about your village, and you aren’t a threat to Antonius. If you’re smart, you’ll run.”

As if he hadn’t heard her. Hasan just kept talking. “Of course, I’m not a savage. I am not the type of man who would spit in the face of a diplomatic solution.”

The wight laughed. “You want to extort a lich? You have some stones on you. Big ones. And I mean that like a metaphor.”

Hasan smiled at her without any real humor. Apparently he didn’t appreciate puns.

“Tell him that I want the revenant that his vampire took—and the vampire itself, for that matter—as a sign of good faith.”

“Or what?” Feane responded.

“What?” Hasan looked around in mock surprise, as if noticing his own army of revenants for the first time. “You think I brought my friends here to threaten your master? No, no, you misunderstand me.” He patted Feane’s broken arm, jostling Rory’s grip and causing her to gasp in pain. “They’re just here to sweeten the deal.”

The wight looked at him skeptically, and Hasan smiled winningly.

“The truth is, we have our own business to see to on the surface. If it turned out that this unfortunate attack was the result of a misunderstanding, a rogue vampire in need of discipline, then there is no reason that we couldn’t work together to achieve a mutual goal.”

Reshid knew what Hasan was doing, but he was still surprised at him. The typically gruff revenant chieftain was wheedling like a merchant or a politician. Perhaps it wasn’t a random coincidence that both troggs and the Confederation had chosen to work with him.

Feane’s eyebrows rose in surprise, or maybe disbelief.

“What?”

Hasan gestured at the revenants all around.

“We’re here to help you raid the surface.”