A sharp spike of pain alerted Erich that he was alive. Unfortunately.

  He opened his eyes to darkness. There was a trickle of light coming from above, faint but red and angry, like he was looking at the embers of a dying fire.

  Erich groaned, shifting slightly. The steps of the stairwell dug into his back, and a dull ache marked where they had bruised him in his sleep. He reached out blindly, putting a hand to the wall and feeding some mana into the crystals

  They lit up with a gentle white glow that still managed to stab Erich’s eyeballs like needles. He groaned again, rolling over onto his hands and knees and standing unsteadily.

  Now that there was light, he could see the archway he’d come through with Harold, Gwen, and Kaden. Bile rose in his throat as he saw the dismembered, flash frozen and cooked remains of their bodies for the first time.

  There wasn’t any dignity in their deaths. Torsos and limbs were tossed about haphazardly, ruptured and charred beyond recognition. The smell of charred flesh stung Erich’s eyes, clinging to the back of his throat even as his stomach churned.

  He made it one step up the stairs before dropping to his knees a second time. Vomit stung his already sore esophagus, burning his lips as Erich’s body shook. He threw up a second time, eyes watering, as he tried his hardest not to think about his dead companions. The unfair suddenness of their deaths. The way Harold had sacrificed his own chance to dive for cover in order to push him to safety. The-

  Erich shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He couldn’t think about it. That was the path to madness.

  Once again he stood up. The world spun around him, but by planting a hand on the wall Erich was able to steady himself enough to slowly walk up the twenty or so steps that separated him from the remains of his companions

  He pushed another burst of mana into the glowstones before carefully stepping over what looked like Kaden’s leg and into the main cavern. Its walls were torn apart, massive furrows dug in them as if by a gigantic sword. Rubble was scattered about the floor, its jagged edges softened as if it was melted and refrozen by the titanic magical battle that had taken place in the room.

  Near one wall, the cinderborn lay half covered in debris, his eyes unfocused and his chest moving shallowly. Erich froze, staring at the man for almost a full minute before moving.

  He was unconscious. Even though the warrior’s eyes were open, there was none of a cinderborn’s trademark glow coming from them. Still, Erich wasn’t going to risk waking him. He’d seen a fraction of what the man could do before he was knocked out in the fight, and even being injured, challenging him would be like a kitten picking a fight with an elephant. The safest bet was to simply sneak away to-

  Erich’s thoughts ground to halt. Where could he go? He didn’t know if the Major was alive, and he didn’t know if his survival would be welcome news. Even if he managed to make it back to the lines without the elf, a human surviving where his superior officer perished would be treated with suspicion at best.

  Quietly he took a step into the room, looking back and forth. Both the cinderborn’s sword and his backpack had survived, likely the result of enchantments of some sort. Erich silently padded over to the backpack as he pondered his next steps.

  If he returned to the Empire, he might be interrogated and put back on the front with a new squad. They wouldn’t trust him, and in all likelihood his commander would assign him one of the frequent suicide missions that seemed to exist solely to whittle down the army’s human contingent.

  The cinderborn practiced slavery. All of their prisoners were brought back to their worlds in chains and forced into labor. That was hardly appealing, but at the same time, his other options were grim.

  He dropped to one knee in front of the backpack, his stomach sloshing dangerously from the aftereffects of the concussion and stepping through the corpses of his friends. Once he pulled back the flap, disappointment assaulted him.

  There wasn’t really anything in the cinderborn’s pack. Carefully stowed food, water, a glowstone and a handful of letters in a language he couldn’t read. No currency or magical items. Not even a backup weapon. It was like he was looking through the possessions of a pilgrim or a beggar.

  The cinderborn warrior groaned and stirred slightly.

  Erich’s head snapped up to look at the man as he froze. The cinderborn’s face was screwed up with pain, but the man’s eyes weren’t glowing yet. Whatever nightmare he was suffering through, it hadn’t woken him up.

  He bit his lower lip, chewing gently as he weighed his options. Outside the cave, the unclaimed lands were as dark and silent as ever. For possibly the ten thousandth time, Erich wished that that the bridge would have some sort of weather. A breeze, rain, even a storm would be better than the eternal stillness that lurked just outside the cavern.

  There could be a predator just around the corner and he could never tell. Worse than that, worrying about which battle line he would escape to was trivial. Even with a glowstone, Erich didn’t have a map or any way of guiding himself. The odds of him going anywhere but in a winding circle until a scavenger found his desiccated corpse were slim.

  Erich turned his attention back to the backpack, pulling one of the metal flasks out and removing its cork. He took a swig of its contents. Regular water cut with just enough wine to keep it from going bad. No real taste to it, but better than going completely dry and collapsing in the dark.

  The brackish water swished back and forth in Erich’s mouth for a couple of seconds before he spit it out on the rocks, clearing the sour bite of bile. He winced as soon as the water hit stone, suddenly realizing that there were only a couple more canteens, and he hadn’t bothered to see if any of them were even full. There weren’t natural sources of water in the unclaimed lands, and every mouthful he wasted was another mouthful that he wouldn’t have access to when he might really need it.

  He looked down at the damp spot on the ground. It sat there, silently judging his rash actions. Finally, Erich shrugged and took another sip of water. He’d already lost a lot of fluids throwing up on the stairs. Unless he replenished them soon, dehydration would kill him before a scavenger got the chance.

  With a sigh, he took another swig. The water still tasted brackish, but the dull headache building behind his eyes didn’t really give him the option of conserving resources for later. He needed a drink now.

  Erich removed the glowstone from the backpack before slinging it over his shoulder. He walked to the end of the tunnel, careful to avoid the rubble that covered the ground. Finally, he stopped at the edge of the darkness, glancing back at the inside of the spire that served as the tomb of his friends and only companions for the past couple of years.

  The cinderborn groaned, whipping his head to the side as pain twisted his body. Erich looked at him one final time, biting his lower lip. After a second or two of indecision, he activated the glowstone and set off into the night with the unconscious man’s pack.

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  He only made it about twenty feet before the cinderborn groaned again. Erich sighed.

  Turning back into the cave, he trudged inside its mouth and set the backpack on the ground. It took a couple seconds to open it and find the canteen he had been drinking from.

  Hesitantly, we approached the unconscious cinderborn. With each step, self-doubt welled up inside Erich. Wasting resources was dumb beyond belief. Spending time with a hostile martial arts master, even an injured one, was dumb beyond belief. Everything he was doing was sheer lunacy, but still he continued.

  He dropped to one knee next to the injured man, uncorking the flask and tipping his head back. The cinderborn flinched away from his touch, moaning in pain.

  Erich redirected the martial artist’s face toward himself and carefully began to pour water into the man’s open mouth. The cinderborn stirred again, but rather than moan, he swallowed. A little bit of water dribbled on the man’s face but he opened his mouth again, eagerly drinking more of the precious liquid.

  He felt foolish dipping into the meager stores of water that he had looted from the unconscious warrior, but at the same time-

  The cinderborn’s eyes lit up, enveloping Erich in their accusing amber glow. Before he could jerk his arm back, the warrior’s hand darted out, grabbing his wrist.

  “Why didn’t you run away?” The cinderborn’s voice was ragged and hoarse.

  Erich tried to jerk his arm back, but the warrior’s grip was like an iron vice. Despite using all of his strength it didn’t even waver.

  “What?” Erich squeaked out an answer. It wasn’t dignified, but it was hard to care about that through the infusion of adrenaline and abject terror that were coursing through his system.

  “I was unconscious,” the cinderborn replied slowly, as if explaining himself to a particularly slow toddler. “You clearly went through my pack and were able to leave on your own. Why did you come back and put yourself at risk to offer me water?”

  Erich took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second as he sought to steady himself despite the driving beat of his racing heart.

  “I’ve seen people die from dehydration. Crossing the unclaimed lands after a failed attack. We didn’t have many supplies. Predators got one of us, but another just withered away. Frankly, the one dragged off into the night by monsters seemed like the lucky one. It’s a nasty way to go and it didn’t seem right to let you pass away like that.”

  “Really?” The injured warrior asked incredulously. “I know that there isn’t a lot of extra food or water in my pack. Giving me some when you have so little left is gracious to the point of foolishness.”

  Erich shrugged uncomfortably. The man’s grip on his wrist wasn’t painful, but it was clear that he wasn’t able to escape.

  “I suppose in the back of my mind I didn’t really think that I was going to make it anyway,” he replied uneasily. “There’s no way I could make it back to the front lines on my own, and even if I could it would take over a day. The minute I tried to rest, a scavenger would kill me.”

  The cinderborn released him, leaning back against the wall and regarding him curiously with his glowing amber eyes.

  “If you are resigned to die, then why do anything? I agree that your cause is likely hopeless, but you have voluntarily taken a miniscule chance of survival and halved it, all to help an enemy.”

  “Are you an enemy?” Erich muttered. “Right now the enemy feels like Major Nettlewisp rather than you. The elf tried to sacrifice my entire squad while you showed us mercy. I refuse to let myself die a pointless death just because he ordered me to. If I get lost or killed out in the unclaimed lands, that is what it is, but I’m going to die trying to escape.”

  “A proper attitude for a warrior,” the cinderborn replied, with an approving nod. “If it makes you feel any better, your elven superior is dead. He surprised me with a seventh circle blizzard attack. Had I not just advanced to the ninth tier it would have killed me instantly. I was able to slay him with Asura’s Eruption from a distance, but as you can see the surprise attack and having to fully exert myself came with a price.”

  Erich looked at the cinderborn again. The man’s soot black bare chest was moving normally once again, and his eyes were clear and focused as he returned Erich’s gaze.

  “Did you not actually need my help?” He asked the warrior hesitantly. “I was worried that you might be in a coma or something like that, but you seem to be more or less fine despite being covered in rocks.”

  “I suppose my body is fine,” the cinderborn replied with a chuckle. He brushed his hand across his legs, removing rocks that weighed at least a hundred pounds as if they were nothing more than dust. “The elf’s spell roughed me up, but it didn’t do any permanent or serious damage. I can feel the bruises fading as we talk.”

  “Must be nice,” Erich muttered, reaching back to touch the sore spot on the back of his head where he’d slammed it into the stairs.

  “It’s a useful ability,” the warrior responded. “By the time you pass the fifth tier you’ll begin to understand. Without the power to heal yourself overnight, it’s almost impossible to push yourself hard enough in training to actually advance your mastery over your techniques. Almost every warrior whose image doesn’t include the life or earth elements makes a point of learning a body enhancement art in order to speed up their healing for that very reason.”

  “But I must ask,” he continued, cocking his head slightly to the side as he leaned up against the torn and damaged rock wall of the cavern. “Why are you using an image that focuses on the element of water when you have no water affinity? I probed your body slightly when we touched, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a so great a mismatch between a martial artist and their image.”

  “What?” Erich blurted out the question. It was like the cinderborn was speaking a different language.

  “You are clearly very talented with regard to elemental fire and lightning with lesser talents in life and light,” the cinderborn replied. “I’m considered a prodigy with fire and your affinity slightly exceeds my own. I’m not even able to fully map your compatibility with the element of lightning, largely because I don’t have a terrible amount of experience with it. Your current image wastes and cripples you.”

  Erich’s mind went racing as he struggled to process the cinderborn’s words.

  “But I’m not talented,” he said slowly. “I could only learn a cadet branch of my school’s swordsmanship and I haven’t been able to progress to the second tier no matter how much I practice. It’s true that I’ve been able to refine my skills with the blade more than my comp-”

  He stopped, a lump in his throat as his gaze was drawn to the charnel house of the stairwell. He couldn’t even make out Harold’s head. It was just gone.

  The cinderborn martial artist followed Erich’s gaze and sighed.

  “I apologize for your friends’ deaths, young warrior,” the man said soberly. “I had no intention to harm your companions. They fulfilled their end of our bargain. Unfortunately, the elf’s surprise attack was truly powerful. As you can see, I struggled to protect myself. There wasn’t enough excess mana to shelter strangers.”

  “I understand,” Erich replied, trying his hardest to swallow the rock that seemed to be lodged in his throat. “It’s just that the world is so unfair. They were all so much more talented than me. If Harold had jumped for cover rather than pushing me aside, he probably would have survived, yet here I am while they’re nothing but meat.”

  “They were not more talented than you,” the cinderborn corrected him. “If they were, the Cothleer Empire would have conquered Tempest long ago. You have an absurd amount of potential child, more than I’ve ever seen or even heard of. It is just that the methods that you have learned are crippling you.”

  “Are you sure?” Erich asked uncertainly. “No matter how hard I worked, I could never keep up with them. For every step they took, it seemed like I needed to take four. That doesn’t sound like talent to me.”

  He stopped, frowning slightly.

  “This isn’t a ploy to have me drag you to safety is it?” He asked. “I have bad news if that’s your plan. The chances that I survive the unclaimed lands alone are minimal. If I’m carrying someone? It might be easier and more humane to use my sword on both of us now. At least that would involve less humiliation and pain.”

  The cinderborn waved his left hand dismissively, a tired smile on his face.

  “I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here, human. We appear to have gotten off on the wrong foot, so it might be best for us to restart from the beginning. My name is Sathis Takkmor. I am a ninth tier swordsman and there is no need to save me. I am already dead.”