Jack’s flight through the air ended when he crashed into one of the crusading devotee’s fighters, the sudden loss of momentum causing him to drop to the ground and tumble to a rolling stop. He lay there for a moment, then blinked the dirt out of his eyes and climbed to his feet.

“I’ll hand it to you, lady. That was a new one,” he said with a chuckle, his glib response belying the effectiveness of the devotee’s attack. Instead of getting into a protracted fight with a melee fighter, she had simply tossed him halfway across the camp, putting him out of range and into a spot where he’d have to pass through a half dozen warriors to get back to her.

Looked like it was time for Plan B: Taking out the support fighters.

“I’m sorry, he did what now?” Beth asked, trying to wrap her head around Naomi’s words.

“He is in some kind of battle; I’m not sure with whom,” Naomi said. “He was struck by a spell that threw him nearly ten metres. A telekinetic blast of some sort, but he’s shaken it off and is back on his feet.”

“Jack got blasted far enough for a first down and he ‘shook it off?’” Peter said incredulously. “Just how tough is that old root?”

“Will he be able to get away?” Beth asked, ignoring her husband. “Is there some way to distract them?”

“He’s 95 years old, hon; I don’t think running away will work.”

“You appear to be right,” Naomi said, her eyes darting as she read the unseen magic. “He has squared himself to his enemies and is moving to engage.”

“Really?” Peter said, cocking his head. “Not what I meant, but okay.”

“Peter, no! He needs to run!” Beth said, unable to help herself. Why? Why was her grandpa doing this? Why was he engaged in this pointless battle? She’d never really held out hope that the ritual would work, but now that it had, was it going to become a macabre way of watching her grandfather die? Perhaps he would be reborn downstairs, but they didn’t know that for certain. Any of them could be on their last life without knowing it.

Beth felt absolutely wrung out. Peter seemed to be keeping it together, but Angela was visibly haggard. Whatever this ritual demanded from her, she was giving it her all and then some. As for Mark…

Her stomach clenched. She knew that look. The glazed eyes. The slack muscles. The burst blood vessels across his neck. It was the aftermath of a grand mal, but how could he have had one without them noticing? What was going on with him?

Jack sprinted at the swordsman closest to him. Despite the chaos of the ambush and the collision with Jack’s flying body, the man was ready for battle and met Jack’s charge without hesitation. His blade was a skinny, fancy affair that allowed him to strike with deadly precision, only for his eyes to go wide when the tip skidded off Jack’s chest. Too shocked to follow up his attack properly, the man instead let out a scream of pain when Jack dropped low and smashed his club backhanded into the man’s knee, bending it at a nauseating angle. It was a good start, but Jack had no idea what kind of magic healing the guy might have, so he used the hand holding the club to deliver a vicious uppercut that resounded with a booming thwack, dropping the guy into glassy-eyed unconsciousness.

Holy hell, that was a nice punch, Jack thought, feeling for a moment like Indiana Jones punching out a Nazi. He soon regretted the distraction when something hammered into the back of his neck, rocking him forward with so much force that he nearly tripped over the man he’d just downed.

“What the hell?” Jack groused, slapping at the spot where he’d been hit. It felt like a damned hornet sting and itched like crazy. He turned around and delivered a fierce scowl at the stunned man holding an empty crossbow.

“But…but…” the man stammered. The crossbow slipped from his fingers as he tried to draw the short sword on his hip, but Jack answered the guy’s unspoken question with a club to the face that relieved him of both his teeth and his consciousness.

“What do you mean, ‘the crossbow bolt bounced off of him?’” Beth asked.

“Exactly that,” Naomi said. “It hit him, but it did not penetrate the skin. I thought your grandfather was human? He fights like a stone elemental.”

“Of course, he’s human!”

“Maybe he did that evolving thing?” Peter suggested.

Naomi actually opened her eyes for a moment. “Evolutions require blood. How could he possibly evolve into a stone elemental? ‘You can’t get blood from a stone’ is a saying for that exact reason.”

“I don’t know!” Peter said, throwing up his hands. “I just got teleported to a different planet where my kids can do magic, I live in a house that changes location every night, and I’m in the middle of a ritual where a woman young enough to be my daughter is doing play-by-play on a battle my 95-year-old grandfather-in-law is fighting on the other side of the country. Blood from a stone seems perfectly reasonable at this point!”

There wasn’t a lot of light left now that the sun had dipped below the horizon, but it was enough for Jack to count seven bodies on the ground and three still standing. That meant Eliza’s count had risen to four while Jack had been busy, but the devotee was unfortunately still in play. The remaining two were a bulky duo in heavy armour who had situated themselves between Jack and the devotee. This freed up the magic-user to launch frozen blasts of magical artillery into the forest where Eliza was hiding, the whistling orbs of glowing ice causing the trees to explode in showers of snow that sent splinters raining down onto the hypothermic and frostbitten men in the foxholes, every one of them praying and wondering if the next shell would be the one that—

“Damn it!” Jack swore, gritting his teeth and shaking his head to clear it of the unwanted imagery. Whatever the devotee was throwing around may have been freezing the forest, but it wasn’t artillery, it wasn’t winter, and this sure as hell wasn’t Belgium. But Jack’s fellow soldier was in trouble, and if he was going to stop it, he had to keep his head on straight.

Jack refocused on the heavily armoured duo in front of him. If he wanted to avoid a protracted battle, he needed to take the weaker fighter down quickly, then handle the stronger of the pair one-on-one.

Instinctively, Jack took a half-step towards the woman—he was born in 1926, after all—then forced himself to heed Eliza’s advice and do a proper evaluation. It was a good thing he did. While the woman wore her armour like it was the best tool for the job, the guy looked like he’d loaded up on metal ’cause he was scared to death of dying. He would definitely be the easier of the pair to take down, so Jack would have to get to him quickly and—

“Aaaagh!” the man screamed, dropping to the ground and clutching at the arrow that had just embedded itself at the top of his right hamstring. He snapped up his visor and turned to look at the injury, then rocked backwards as an arrow entered his now-exposed face, leaving him motionless in the dirt.

“Huh,” Jack said, staring at the prone form on the ground. He turned his gaze to the lady. “Guess it’s you and me.”

“Looks like it,” the woman said as she began prowling around him in a circle, her sword raised. “You’re a sturdy geezer, aren’t you? An old man like you must have a few tricks up his sleeve.”

“I been around,” Jack said, warily matching the woman’s circling motion. Only when she stopped did he realize she wasn’t looking for an opening—she was manoeuvering him to act as a shield from Eliza’s bow.

He nodded in appreciation. “Looks like you picked up a thing or two yourself.”

She laughed. “You won’t last long as a merc if you don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said with a nod. “Now let’s get down to business.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the woman shot forward, her massive sword coming in a horizontal slash that forced Jack to leap backwards. He intended to press his own attack as a counter, but the woman followed up with a backhanded blow that forced him to back off, allowing her to return to a guard position. Not willing to stay on the defensive, Jack followed that up with his own attack, but the woman blocked it easily and responded with a counter that had him stumbling to get out of the way.

In Jack’s experience, it was never a good sign when your opponent started smiling during a fight, but that’s what Jack saw when he regained his balance. Sure, the woman had shown some mild surprise when his bone club stood up to the steel of her weapon, but other than that, all he’d accomplished in their initial exchange was to erode the woman’s opinion of his combat prowess. Which was fair, because it was becoming apparent that his experience with a bayonet didn’t translate to sword fighting.

Shaking his head in resignation, Jack got to work.

What ensued was a scrap that would never end up on Jack’s highlight reel. He spent more time running than attacking, constantly waiting for an opening that didn’t come. The woman was simply too good, and it ended up prolonging the fight long enough for Jack to become worried about the continual blasts of cold that signified Eliza’s ongoing problems with the spellcaster. When it became overwhelmingly clear to the fighter that Jack’s lack of skill wasn’t some kind of elaborate ruse, she abruptly switched tactics and made a full charge at him, the sudden motion causing him to take a step back.

It was a simple mistake on Jack’s part, but it was the one she’d been waiting for.

While Jack had been focused on the battle, the woman had maneuvered him into a spot where his sudden step backwards caused him to catch his heel on an unfurled bedroll. It wasn’t much, but the stumble caused his defensive posture to drop, allowing the woman to come in with a vicious attack that contrasted sharply with the exploratory strikes she’d utilized up to that point. It was all Jack could do to get one arm up, feebly holding it over his head in a last-second defence from her onrushing sword.

Jack buckled under the force of the blow, dropping to one knee as the blade sliced a wide rent in his coat before completing its slashing arc with fluid precision.

Both of them stared at the hand that was inexplicably still attached to his arm.

The woman looked at him, flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

He shrugged. “Lady, I wasn’t even sure if I could. But now that we know….”

Before she could react, Jack grabbed the woman’s blade with his bare palm and shoved it aside before using his low position to drive forwards in a double-legged tackle that sent them both crashing into the ground. It turned out to be a good decision for them both. As soon as Jack and the fighter hit the ground, there was a crackling of energy just above their heads, followed by a wash of cold that felt like a bag of ice cubes down Jack’s shirt. Sparing a glance in the magic lady’s direction, he saw that not only had she shifted her focus to Jack, she no longer seemed to care about Eliza. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Dammit,” he muttered. He needed to finish this, and quick. Good thing he was willing to fight dirty.

“Sorry,” he said as he jammed his finger deep into the fighter’s eye, eliciting a roar of pain from the woman. It was something Jack had done once before—long story, but the guy had it coming—and in that instance, it pretty much ended the fight on the spot. This lady was made of tougher stuff, choosing instead to grab one of Jack’s fingers and twist it viciously, visibly dislocating it in the process. The injury looked terrible, but to Jack’s surprise, it didn’t hurt him in the slightest. Apparently, “joint pain” and “joint trauma” didn’t fall under the same heading.

With Jack distracted by the dislocation of his finger, the woman took the opportunity to pull out a knife and start jamming it repeatedly into Jack’s stomach. While the attack didn’t manage to break his skin, it hurt far more than Jack would have expected. It was clear that the attack was doing some kind of damage, but rather than trying to deal with the knife directly, Jack instead raised his club overhead—

And got blasted across the campsite once more.

“Again? Really?” Peter asked.

“Like you’d do better, dad?” Mark asked.

“No, I’m just surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make the same mistake twice.”

Mark considered the statement. “True enough.”

“I can’t believe I’m the one bringing this up,” Angela grunted, sweat pouring off her face, “but how the hell is Grandpa Jack managing this? You said he blocked a sword with his arm?”

“Maybe Grandpa Jack is Wolverine,” Mark suggested.

Angela shook her head. “Dude, that’s as plausible as anything else right now.”

“He is not a werewolverine,” Naomi said. “They prefer the northern latitudes.”

Mark and Angela exchanged glances.

“Are you fucking with us?” Angela asked.

“Langua…you know what, I don’t even care,” Beth said, slumping forward. “I can’t handle this.”

When Jack finally came to a rolling stop—again—he groaned and pushed himself onto one knee.

“Lady, I wish you’d stop doing that,” he grumbled, looking around for the woman he’d been fighting. She was lying motionless a good three metres away, her body caught in the same concussive blast and now positioned at angles that suggested she wasn’t getting up again.

Jack turned his attention back to the spellcaster, only for his eyes to widen in surprise. In part, it was because of the expression on her face—he’d expected anger, or pride, or disdain…he hadn’t expected sorrow. But it was more because the woman was a stumbling mess. Not only was her body riddled with arrows, her skin had a grey cast, like she was turning into concrete. It was disturbing as hell, and while he wanted to chalk it up to the effect of being backlit by the campfire, he was pretty sure that was wishful thinking.

“You have no idea what you’ve done!” the woman shouted.

“I got some idea,” Jack said, getting back to his feet before popping his dislocated finger back into place. “What the hell happened to you, lady?”

“You!” the woman sobbed. “You happened to me! You and your friend!” She took a staggering step towards him, her flesh audibly grinding as she moved.

“I didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve,” Jack said. “You stole a dragon’s kids. You think that wasn’t gonna cause problems for you?”

The woman shook her head bitterly. “One day you will see. You aren’t the noble ones here. We are trying to ward off the onslaught of Chaos!”

This whole thing was weirding Jack out. “Yeah, but those eggs—”

“You think it doesn’t horrify me to use the eggs? Of course it does! But we must win. If the eggs are the only way for the Palmyrian—”

Her eyes went wide as she bit off her words. Whatever their meaning, she clearly didn’t want them repeated.

“No!” she screamed, raising her hand in Jack’s direction. He had already spent enough time learning that particular lesson, though, so he dove laterally across the ground, just barely avoiding the magical blast that whistled behind him.

As Jack finished his roll, he turned and looked behind him. The unconscious man he’d been standing next to was frozen solid from head to waist, but he wasn’t the only casualty. Much to Jack’s surprise, the devotee appeared even worse off than she had before casting the spell.

Never taking her eyes off Jack, the woman dropped to her knees in a staggering thump. Her skin was almost wholly a uniform grey now, but she didn’t stop moving towards him, her exhausted state forcing her to crawl on the ground.

“Geez, you need me to get some help?” Jack asked. It was more of an instinctive offer than anything else. She was trying to kill him, after all.

“Help?” the woman rasped. She tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough that sent a grey cloud floating out of her lungs. She pointed an accusatory finger at Jack. “You cannot help! You have done—”

Whatever she meant to say next was lost to the wind when her body simply…fell apart, crumbling into a pile of fine stone dust.