Araxis buried the last of his village before dawn. He stood over the ash with his father's blade in his hand. The sword's edge caught the morning light and threw it back in cold flecks, like broken stars. The raiders had come three nights ago. They took everything and left only smoke. Now Araxis had no home, no family, and no plan beyond one word: south. The men who did this rode south. He meant to follow them and make them answer. He walked for a day and found a rough wooden shack at the edge of a dry field. Packs and coils of rope hung from its walls. Someone lived a life without roots here, same as he did now. The door stood open. Inside, a cold hearth and a cot told him the owner was gone. Araxis took shelter and slept with the sword across his chest. Voices woke him at dusk. Three small folk crouched in the field outside, pulling at a horse's lead. The halflings had sturdy arms and travel-worn boots, but the animal dragged them through the grass like dolls. It was a black horse with eyes that burned red. It screamed, and the sound was wrong, too deep for any beast. Araxis ran out with the blade drawn. "Let it go!" he shouted. "We can't!" the lead halfling cried. She had a braid whipping across her face. "It's rounding up loose horses in these fields. This one belongs to the men who burned the eastern villages. We saw their mark on its saddle." Araxis's grip tightened. The same men. The same road south. The horse turned its red eyes on him and reared. Its hooves came down where his skull had been a breath before. He rolled through the wild grass and came up swinging. The blade bit into the animal's shoulder. The horse shrieked and bolted into the dark, saddle and all, before he could strike again. The halflings dusted themselves off. The braided one offered her hand. "You saved our necks, stranger. That thing would have trampled us flat." "It got away," Araxis said. He watched the dark where the horse had vanished. "Not far. It'll run straight back to its masters." She studied his face, then the blade. "You know those men." "They killed everyone I had." She was quiet a moment. "Then our road is yours. We're tracking them too. They've been taking more than villages lately." Araxis sheathed the sword. He had come looking for revenge alone. Now three strangers stood in the grass, waiting on his answer, and the horse he had wounded was already carrying word of him to his enemies. His hunt was no longer a secret. And he was no longer walking it by himself. "Which way," he said, "and how fast."

He then touched the orb and in brilliant light his body glowed golden! He absorbed the beyond power contained in the orb!

The golden light did not fade. It roared through Araxis like a river with no banks. The orb's power had filled him, and now it fought to break free. His hands shook. The grass at his feet withered, then burst into bloom, then withered again. He had the knowledge of the beyonders in his skull, too much to hold. His bones hummed. If he could not master this power, it would burn him hollow. The three halflings backed away from him. The braided woman did not. She stepped closer instead, boots crunching on scorched dirt. She had tracked raiders at his side, and she did not flinch now. "Look at me," she said. "Not at the light. At me." Araxis fought to meet her eyes. Golden fire leaked from his fingers. A wild tuft of grass near her boot flared and crumbled to ash. "You're trying to hold all of it at once," she said. "You can't. Pick one thing. Pour it there." Her voice cut through the noise in his head. He looked at his father's sword, driven point-down in the earth beside him. One thing. He reached for it. He did not grab the power. He aimed it. He drove every surging thread of gold down his arm, into the blade. The sword drank it. The light left his skin in a hard, bright rush, and he screamed through clenched teeth. Then it was gone from his body. The gold now lived in the steel. The blade glowed warm and steady, no longer wild. Araxis fell to his knees, breathing hard. The ground stopped burning. The air cooled. He wrapped both hands around the hilt and felt the power answer him, tame and waiting. "You held it," the braided woman said. She crouched beside him. "Barely." "It had to go somewhere." His voice came rough. He stared at the shining sword. He understood it now. The orb had made him a weapon, and the weapon had made itself his. A high, broken sound carried across the field. The halflings turned. Far off, a black shape tore through the long grass toward them. Red eyes burned in its skull. The demon horse. It bore the raiders' mark on its flank, the same beast Araxis had wounded before. It had not run from him this time. It charged. "It felt the light," the braided woman said. She drew her knife. "That much power. Every raider south of here felt it." Araxis stood. His legs held. The glowing blade felt light in his grip, eager. He had wanted the strength to protect people who could not protect themselves. Now he had it, and it had called his enemy straight to him. He set his feet and faced the charging horse. He snapped his fingers and it became tame and obeyed him! Now he has a ride! A magnificent ride!

The black horse stood still before Araxis, its red eyes fixed on him. Moments ago it had charged to kill. Now it breathed slow and waited. The glowing sword in his hand had done this. The orb's power ran through the steel, and the steel had bent the beast to his will. Araxis stepped closer. The horse did not flinch. It lowered its great head and pressed its muzzle against his chest. "Careful," the braided woman said. She kept her knife out. Her two companions stayed behind her, one gripping a short spear, the other half-hidden behind her shoulder. They had tracked these raiders with Araxis for days, and none of them trusted a demon that had just tried to trample them. "That thing wears their mark. It knows where they sleep." Araxis had not thought of that. He looked at the horse again. The power in the blade pulsed, and a strange certainty filled him. He could feel the beast's mind now, dark and cold, but open to him. He snapped his fingers. The horse lifted its head. A low voice came from it, rough as grinding stone. "The camp lies south. Past the dead river. Thirty men. They wait for the one who carries the light." The words scraped out of a throat never made for speech. The halflings froze. The braided woman lowered her knife an inch. "It talks," she breathed. The one with the spear took a step back. "They are waiting for you," she said to Araxis. "They felt the orb. They set a trap." "Then they know I am coming." Araxis gripped the reins that formed from the horse's black mane. "Good. Let them wait." "Thirty men, Araxis." The braided woman stared up at him. "Four of us. This is not a fight we can win by charging in." He knew she was right. But the horse had given him more than a direction. It had given him a way inside. He swung onto its back. The beast held his weight without a sound. From up here he could see the long grass bend toward the south, toward the dead river the horse had named. "We don't charge," Araxis said. "We ride in wearing their own mark. They see one of their mounts return. They open the gate." He looked down at the three small faces. "Will you follow me that far?" The braided woman weighed it. Then she sheathed her knife and nodded once. Her companions moved to her side. "That far," she said. "No further until we see the odds." Araxis turned the horse south. The sword glowed steady against his hip. The raiders had set a trap and named him their bait. He meant to walk into it on their own cursed horse, and spring it from the inside. The beast carried him forward, and the halflings followed on foot through the bent grass.

The black horse carried Araxis through the raider gate. Two guards saw the mark on its flank and waved it through. Araxis kept his hood low and his glowing sword hidden under a cloak. The halflings slipped into the shadows along the fence. Thirty men filled the camp. But all of them faced one spot at its center, where the ground had been cleared and ringed with fires. A hooded figure stood in that ring. Dark armor covered his body, and a mask hid his face. Two points of purple light burned where his eyes should be. In one hand he held a staff carved with the shape of a dragon. This was the man who had ordered Araxis's village burned. The raiders bowed their heads when he spoke. Araxis had chased a faceless enemy for days. Now the enemy had a name on the raiders' lips. They called him Dr. Oblivion. "The light has come to us," Oblivion said. His masked face turned straight toward Araxis. "Did you think your little horse would hide you?" Araxis threw off the cloak. His sword blazed gold in his fist. The horse reared and the raiders scattered back. For a moment Araxis stood alone in the firelight, blade raised, heart pounding. Oblivion laughed. He raised the dragon staff high. The ground split and smoke poured out. From the smoke rose a dragon, black-scaled, its wings leathery and torn. Its eyes glowed cold blue. Oblivion reached up and stroked its long neck like a man pets a hound. "Vorthak," he said. "Burn the field. Leave nothing." He swept the staff toward the far side of the camp. "The next village waits past the ridge. We ride at dawn." The dragon's head snapped toward Araxis first. Fire gathered in its throat. Araxis had no plan for a dragon. He had planned for thirty men, not this. He thought of the braided woman, somewhere in the dark, counting the odds he had just ruined. Araxis raised his sword and reached out with its power, the same power that had bent the horse. He pushed into the dragon's cold mind. For one breath he felt it. Then it slammed shut like a door of stone. Vorthak was dead already. No living will remained to bend. The fire broke loose. Araxis dove behind a cart. Flame washed over the wood and lit it like dry grass. Heat tore at his back. He rolled through the gap in the fence where the halflings waited, their faces white. "Run," the braided woman said. She hauled him up by the arm. "We saw the odds. The odds just grew wings." They fled into the dark fields while the camp roared with fire behind them. Araxis had found the man who killed his village. He had learned his name and seen his face of iron. And he had learned one thing more. His sword could not command the dead.