I began walking back toward the Church of Nyx, and the others followed me. It wasn’t hard for the rest of my group to catch up, and I was soon the one limiting the group’s speed.

  “Why are you in Etron?” I asked David. “The First Army should be two hundred miles south of here.”

  “Right, I was with my battle-company in Fulvang when the town regent came in, looking like the world was ending. He said he needed the two greatest warriors in town. Naturally, me and Erasmus went with him.”

  “Erasmus?” I asked. “Do you mean Erasmus Thorn? White hair, stops time?”

  “Bingo. Basically, I spoke with Orion Arcturus over the magic phone, and he teleported me here,” David said.

  “No, there’s no way Orion Arcturus has access to the [Teleport] spell. He must have used the [King’s Leap] spell, also known as the [Castle] spell. It works like ‘castling’ in chess,” I explained, wagging one gloved finger as I spoke.

  “What? Castles?” David asked, obviously confused.

  I looked over at Miriam and Kinro. Neither of them had any idea what I was talking about. One of these days, I would need to get a companion who plays chess.

  “You weren’t teleported; you were swapped with someone else,” I explained.

  “Uh huh,” David said, clearly not sufficiently appreciative of my explanation. “So, I arrived here with Erasmus, and the King sent us out to fight the monsters attacking the city. At one point, Erasmus disappeared into thin air. He must have used [Time Stop] or something. Anyway, I haven’t seen him since. I tried to fight the dragon, but you saw how that worked out.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I said, not sure to be annoyed at the casual tone of his retelling or grateful for its brevity. Storytelling is an art form, after all. As you, dear reader, have seen over the past five-hundred-or-so pages, I take that art form very seriously. At the time, however, it was probably for the best for him to keep his explanation short.

  “Wait, hold on,” I said, realizing something. “Were you the one who left the ‘HELLO’ message near Fulvang?”

  “Oh, yeah. That was me,” David York said with a smile. “I figured I would leave a message for others like me to find.”

  “Well, it caught my attention. By the way,” I cleared my throat and switched to English, “did you ever play the game?”

  “Game?” David asked.

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  “Nevermind,” I said, sighing. “Before we go any further, I feel obligated to advise you that an apocalypse will befall this world in ten years. If concerted effort isn’t taken by us or others, the world will definitely end.”

  David York looked me in the eyes for several seconds, looking for evidence that I was lying. Finding nothing, he said, “Shit. There go my plans for an early retirement. How old are you, anyway?”

  I chuckled lightly before saying, “Physically, fifteen. Mentally, sixty.”

  We reached the front entrance to the First Church of Etron, and the doors opened wide to greet us. As we filtered into the church, several faces I recognized came into view. Beltane, Eadric, and Haydith stood guard at the door, and I saw a young boy with white hair standing near Haydith. The boy bore a striking resemblance to the young woman standing beside him, so I figured he must be Tancred Thorn, Prince of Etronia.

  I stepped quickly into the church. Looking around, I saw that several barrels had been pushed against one of the nearby walls. Without stopping to speak to anyone, I immediately began walking over toward the barrels.

  Beltane spoke first. “Thale, I’ve warded the church against fire. We should be safe for now.”

  “Thank you,” I said, spending half a second looking around at the interior of the church. The number of refugees hiding in the First Church had more than tripled since I was there last, and there was barely enough space for everyone in the church to sit down. “We really don’t want this building to burn down.”

  David cleared his throat and looked at the barrels I was fiddling with as I raked my fingers through the black charcoal contained within. It wasn’t nearly as pure as I was used to, but it would work for my purposes.

  Frowning, David said, “You’ll have to pardon my rudeness, Lord Feldrast.” I could hear the smirk when he spoke my title. “But I have to wonder how we’re going to kill that dragon.”

  “Lympha sphera,” I said, and a sphere of water landed upon the charcoal, seeping deep into the black material.

  David continued. “No offense, but nobody here strikes me as an [Archmage] or a [Champion]. Wouldn’t it be easier to just wait for the King and his knights to deal with it?”

  “You would run away?” Eadric asked, offended by David’s words. “It’s the duty of every Etronian man to resist evil and protect the weak when he has the power to do so. That obligation sits even more firmly around your shoulders as an officer.”

  “God, I hate knights,” David muttered.

  “David’s right,” I said as I sealed the barrel once again. “Eadric, could you tilt the barrel on its side? Thank you. Under normal circumstances, we would have no hope of killing the dragon. As it is, however, I am working on a weapon that would allow weak, inconsequential people like us to kill a dragon.”

  “Really?” Haydith asked. “What’s that?”

  “Some of you already know the weapon’s name. It goes by a few names, but Haydith and David probably know it as dynamite or TNT.” With the chalk I always held in a special pouch, I began inscribing an arcane circle on one side of the barrel as I spoke.

  Haydith Thorn and David York both gasped in surprise at my sentence, though the others were understandably confused. They looked at each other with realization dawning on their expressions.

  “You…” Haydith said, pointing at the mercenary.

  “Yep,” David said, “I didn’t know there were others.”

  “Come on, help me move these barrels outside,” I said, gesturing toward Eadric, Kinro, and David.

  As we left, Haydith whispered something to Tancred Thorn, and he stayed in the church with the other refugees.