The search at the stream supported his statement that the djinn fire had shielded him. Outside of a few minor bruises and scratches from his tumble springing the trap, he was mostly unharmed. Backtracking had eaten the morning, and a delayed breaking of his fast consumed the final hour until noon. The sun was tipping past its zenith by the time we reached the forest’s edge again.

  As Hasda edged out of the forest, I ducked into the Veil and finally noticed that Kydon had slipped away. It must have been while Hasda was dealing with the pit, but the arbiter had made no indication of his departure. Why he would choose now, at the cusp of the Trial’s conclusion, to abandon us confused me. Perhaps he’d tracked Gunarra as she left, or perhaps he’d already split to investigate the Duraeins.

  Whatever the reason, his absence meant that Hasda’s party had dwindled to my champion and myself.

  An ill omen for the final hurdle.

  Crouching, Hasda crept away from cover, heading directly for Balphar’s Hall. It was unsettling, my boy in the open, no undead opposing him. He’d drawn his sword but kept the djinn fire unlit. Silence blanketed the scene, save for the soft scuff of his boots across the dirt.

  When he had nearly reached the first buildings, the bones came to life.

  With dry rattles, the scattered piles of bleached skeletons spiraled together, forming a jumbled tornade. Wider and wider it spun, until it’d grown to thrice the length of Hasda’s outstretched arms. Then it froze, shivered, and collapsed, spilling splintered bone shards over the ground.

  As the dust settled, a haphazard behemoth rose. Formed from the discarded bones, its head was uneven, its arms mismatched. One shoulder rose high above the other, giving it a sense of perpetually falling, and yet its lack of legs gave it a strangely sturdy foundation. It seemed to sprout from the ground, its spine planted firmly under the topsoil where its pelvis should have been.

  Dirt waterfalled from its jagged jaw as it screamed soundlessly at Hasda.

  He waited until it lunged, ducking inside its outstretched arms and hacking at the fold of its right elbow. The lower limb detached, and then the shards swirled back into place as Hasda darted out of reach. Another lurch, another segment shattered and reformed. While it made no move to advance beyond an invisible border, it also ensured that Hasda couldn’t cross that line.

  Frustrated, Hasda threw himself at the colossus. A clever twist brought his blade up its forearm, driving a wedge between its second and third finger that carried the strike nearly to its shoulder. The bones were almost paper thin, they offered such little resistance. Yet this wounded it no more than the previous strikes, even though Hasda followed this attack with several sound blows to its ribcage. Cleaving its jaw from its face, severing its spine, nearly decapitating it—all shrugged off with relentless regeneration.

  Hasda voiced his own growl, violet fire igniting along his blade. But the flames hindered more than helped. With the djinn fire active, the sword stuck more easily in the bones, nearly getting wrenched from Hasda’s grip. And it did nothing to scorch the skeleton or prevent it reassembling. So Hasda forewent the fire.

  Before they could fully settle into a stalemate, the giant whipped its head westward, snarled silently, and lurched off. Fingers digging into earth, it pulled itself away at amazing speed, cutting an arc along the edge of the village with its grounded spine. Not two blinks, and it was nearly out of sight.

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  Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to have drawn its attention. No sudden smoke or sounds of battle, and no surge of power, at least that I could sense. But the construct had arisen in response to Hasda’s arrival, so if it had been set to guard the perimeter, whatever had drawn it away posed a greater threat than my boy.

  Now there’s a thought.

  Hasda wiped away his own confusion and faced the village again. After waiting to see if the colossus would return and checking for possible ambushes, he slid across the boundary and officially entered the town. Fingernails of purple fire, no more than three at a time, danced around his back as the djinn waited to be summoned once more.

  Ahead of Hasda lay a straight stretch of road, empty until a trio of Sleepless burst into view from a taller house a good bowshot away. Strangely, they staggered to arrange themselves before walking abreast of each other, approaching Hasda with their hands raised in supplication. They kept their gait slow and measured, and made no move to attack or disperse when he flashed his sword.

  The middle undead, tallest of the three, stumbled to a sitting position perhaps ten strides from Hasda. “We be the mouthpiece of the one you seek.” Its voice wheezed, as if an invisible hand pressed the air from its chest. “He seeks an audience with his persistent adversary.”

  “He waits until I stand within his walls to seek parley?” Hasda sneered at the withered corpse. “We have withstood hunger, famine, siege, and assault. Been forced to fight our own, stripped of their honor and the rest due them in death. Seen visions of our own impending demise as we wrestled with sleep deprivation on top of our mental and physical fatigue from being given no quarter, neither day nor night. Yet now, now, with death knocking on his door, now he shrivels and cowers and searches for a way to escape his fate.”

  As the middle undead sagged, the left raised its head. “He wishes merely for you to see him, as he has finally seen you.”

  The right one nodded. “Now that he knows you for what you truly are, he knows you will understand him for who he is, when you see.”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t behead the lot of you and march directly to the Stitcher.”

  Skin split on the face of the middle Sleepless as it smiled at him. “You will see, and understand. Come, comprehend. We are not long for this world, despite the extension granted by our master. He shall enlighten you.”

  Hasda leveled his sword at the undead. “Your master already saw fit to throw me in a pit and leave me for dead. Were it not for my own skill, I would not be standing here. And now you announce your own impending demise.” He smiled with a ferocity to rival Malia’s. “I think I’d rather you fell second dead. I’ll see the Stitcher on my own terms.”

  “Very well.” The trio sighed. “If you will not convene, our master shall send our brethren on your unprotected loved ones.”

  The leftmost smiled at his consternation. “What? You thought your entrance unimpeded by our master’s hospitality? Your advance was not unknown to him. So he, likewise, has sent his own envoy to the village you abandoned.”

  Hasda’s nostrils flared. “You really think I would leave them unprotected? Not only that, the Stitcher has been slowly weakening as this siege has gone on. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how the amount and grade of undead has diminished these past months. Even the monstrosities he sends, however experimental he claims they were, numbered but a handful, when before they would have walled in the village.”

  The right Sleepless shook its head. “If you wish to call our master’s proclamation a bluff, then you will have no way of verifying the consequences until it is too late to avert their fate. We, however, will see through the eyes of our brethren your people’s demise.”

  “More information games, yet you keep revealing the lot cast under your cup.” He grinned as they shifted. “Oh yes, I know. The Sleepless move independent of your master. We’ve tested numerous strategies to determine how directly the Stitcher interferes with you undead, and time and again we’ve seen directives carried out until order gives way to chaos. So unless your master is an idiot, he’s only capable of so much.”

  “Be that as it may, come and see.” The middle one twitched, its arms going stiff at odd angles. “He would have you witness his form, and he wishes to look upon the face of so tenacious an adversary. If you wish to slay him and steal his staff, he prays that luck smile upon you as you seek to corral undead loosed from his control. But, perhaps, the terms he offers, when you see and know, shall be acceptable to you.”

  “I’ve walked into enough traps as it is, thank you.”

  With piercing wails, the flanking Sleepless shriveled and toppled beside the middle speaker. Its teeth flashed as it smiled at Hasda. “A token of peace, and a sign of authenticity. Our master truly wishes to converse face-to-face, to discuss a truce and an end to conflict. And, mayhaps, an alliance.”

  Hasda scoffed. “It is best to placate the tiger before it’s climbed into one’s hut.”

  The Sleepless dipped its head. “And even a tiger may be persuaded, when hunters are afoot. But, go, meet my master. I am afraid my legs no longer work. You know the way.” It pointed behind itself to the distant hall which stood in the center of the village. “He will be behind his lodging, attending to his craft.”

  And with that, the corpse collapsed next to its fallen comrades.