Kevin McLaughlin

Chapter 188 - The New Order

It was the day of the council meeting, and everything was in place. We decided to hold it in the same KingsHaven hall that Peter had used to welcome Clay and I when we first visited. The idea had symmetry, which I thought was appropriate, and the room was already set up for large meetings.

This one had a lot more people attending than the first time I’d been in the space. I was t...

Chapter 187 - Strength and Honor

The next few days went by fast, with all of us working so many hours of each day that sleep felt like something we used to do and feeling rested was more a memory than a familiar thing. We made it work, though, staying on in Peter’s castle—my castle, now—and beginning the exhausting process of undoing all the damage he’d done.

I sent out riders to all the ‘vassal...

What's next?

If you're a paid reader here, then you can see we're fast approaching the end of the third book! Things are heading toward resolution now, and while I'm not 100% sure how many chapters remain, I've been aiming for about 190 for a while now. The book will end somewhere between chapter 188 and 191, for sure.

So, what's next? For the time being, we are leaving Selena and her crew behind at t...

Chapter 186 - Judgement

I followed Peter down as he dropped. About halfway to the ground he must have recovered enough to use his Flight spell again, because he began slowing down. It wasn’t enough to stop him from imitating a lawn dart in his landing. He hit pretty hard. But he wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. I saw him moving on the ground as I hastened by descent.

A few seconds after Peter hit the cobb...

Chapter 185 - Breaking Chains

More than anything, Clay wished he’d gathered more stat crystals. He’d done what he could, and as one of the leaders at the Farm, he’d certainly been given more access than many to what resources they had. But they were a small community, and in spite of their luck against several monster domains, like the ants and goblins, there was simply a depth of scale to Eddings’ operation ...

Chapter 184 - Duel of the Skies

The dragons spun wildly as they continued to claw at one another. I was only remaining attached thanks to the rope I’d used to tie myself to Tenebris. How the hell Peter was managing, I didn’t know. He must have a lot more Strength stones socketed than I’d suspected.

“Miss you? Are you insane?” I shouted back over the rushing wind.

His sword flashed forward toward m...

Chapter 183 - Not Leaving You!

Peter reacted as soon as he saw us starting to move. He urged Big Red into a quick ascent so that he could catch us before we reached the tower. But we dropped from the sky too quickly for him to react before we were in range for my dragon's fiery breath to bathe the tower's roof.

The guards on the rooftop saw us coming, too. They wanted no part of what was coming, so they practica...

Chapter 182 - Violence in the Vault

After continuing down the corridor through three more passages filled with three different kinds of traps, Clay decided that Eddings had clearly spent too much time watching Indiana Jones movies. This amount of effort spent on traps wasn't even sensible! Sure, they might slow someone down a little bit, but they weren't half as effective as a simple vault door would have been, and they mu...

Chapter 181 - It’s a Face Off

Time for a face off. Tenebris settled himself on the battlements of the tower, his skeletal claws cleaving into the stone. I peered over toward Peter, highlighted from behind by some flames still guttering in the ruined remnants of a ballista. He was drinking something. A potion, maybe? That was awesome. He'd be back at full health again, undoing all my efforts toward killing him. His dr...

Chapter 180 - Check For Traps!

Clay opened the door and almost tumbled down the steps just inside it before he caught himself. He swore under his breath. That would have been painful and embarrassing. But the stairs were a good sign. Peter would want to keep his leverage over the dragon as secure as possible, and when you were defending something against a dragon, that meant down. The deeper into the...

Chapter 179 - Tyranny of Rank

There he was. I clenched my hands into fists at the sight of him, fury roaring through me. I wanted to unleash hell on the man, wanted to drop the heavens on him and destroy him for what he'd done. He'd shattered our budding alliance, killed one of the leaders, destroyed the home my friends and I had spent a lot of time putting together. It was too much. He had to go down, and I wanted t...

Chapter 178 - Risky Plans

Tenebris and I waited silently overhead while our friends fought their way through the enemy castle. We kept shadows wreathed around us long enough to hit the clouds, which hung low over the world that night and gave us plenty of cover. Once we were up in the lower portion of the clouds, high enough to be obscured yet low enough to still see the castle itself, we simply circled in place....

Chapter 177 - Whispers and Walls

Clay was moving the moment his feet his the deck. In so many ways, this new world was a blessing as much as it ever had been a curse. He used to be one hell of a security operator, way back in the day. He'd been active duty Air Force, worked as a pararescue soldier. That was when he was young. The Air Guard was a nice place to keep some of his skills from turning entirely to dust while s...

Chapter 176 The Second To Last Error

A gentle touch on my shoulder roused me to wakefulness. Everything was still pitch black. Even the moon was hiding. I was on my feet and reaching for the sword at my side before I realized it was Kara. She flashed me a worried smile.

"Jumpy today, huh?"

"A little," I admitted. "But I figure there's good reason for that. Sorry for nodding off."

"You needed the rest,"...

Chapter 175 - The Seeds of Revolt

It didn't take long for us to reconnect with my friends. Tenebris spotted them as we sped by overhead in a second pass, and we set down next to the abandoned barn they'd holed up inside. Hope jumped down and ran over to bark at Kara. I followed with a little less energy. I was still exhausted from the fighting, so I took my time clambering down from the dragon's back.

Clay was ther...

Chapter 174 - Soaring Darkness

We made quick work of gathering up all of the crystals we could find. I didn't want to linger; the risk of Peter returning far outweighed the reward of finding one or two more stones. If he returned while we were still there, I wasn't at all sure how things would turn out. He wouldn't have the horde of Orcs at his back, but his dragon was still far stronger than mine. It wasn't a fight I...

Chapter 173 - The Bones Danced

I had a big finish in mind. Something that would end this battle for sure, and maybe give me a decent chance against Peter, next time we ran into each other. More than that, if my plan went well it might give some meaning to the deaths out there on the battlefield. Sue was gone. There was no bringing my dino back. When the orcs killed Sue, the spirit or energy that had been animating tho...

Chapter 172 - Buried Hopes

I woke to the sensation of being trapped, stuck in place. I couldn't move anything at first, and a panicked yell escaped my throat before I could stop it. Where was I? What the hell was going on? For a few more seconds I shifted around, trying to force my body into motion. As I did, it became clear I wasn't paralyzed; I was just stuck. I could move my fingers and toes. I could shift my l...

Chapter 171 - We Have An Accord

The lightning flashed, bright enough to blind Peter for a few moments. But that was nothing compared to the explosion that followed. The blast tossed him from his feet, sending him crashing into the muddy ground. Chunks of wood and stone flew everywhere, sailing by overhead. Peter rolled sideways as one large piece of debris plowed into the ground where he’d lain.

He staggered ba...

Chapter 170 - Scorched Earth

I let the tears fall for a minute. Losing Sue hurt. I’d had the dinosaur by my side through so much that it was hard to imagine that being over. I couldn’t afford to grieve for long. Those orcs were still out there and they wanted in. On the plus side, I’d ended the spells on both big undead just in time. Out there on the ground, Plum and Sue’s bones were both still available to ...

Chapter 169 - Terminal Ferocity

The look on his face was priceless. Peter clearly hadn’t expected me to answer that way. He spluttered for a moment, then shook his head and gestured wildly with his hands.

“Why all of this, then? Why the white flag, the meeting? If you didn’t want to negotiate a surrender, why do all this?”

I needed to be careful about my answer. If he knew I was stalling for time, h...

Chapter 168 - Hope for Peace

I had three siege towers rolling my way, backed by something like nine hundred orcs. That was a rough guess, mind. I felt sure he’d left some of the army back at Carver’s fortress to keep folks in line there. But he’d brought most of his fighting force to my Farm. Between Plum, Sue, and the pit traps, I’d already killed maybe a hundred of them during the initial engagement.

Chapter 167 - Bones and Ashes

I was ready to make my stand by the time the first orcs broke free of the woods. We’d cleared the area around the Farm out to a good distance, at Carver’s advice. His fortress was in the middle of a residential area, so he’d had to actually tear down dozens of buildings to make his killing field. In our case, most of the land around the Farm were fields or forests. Out to the west ...

Chapter 166 - Indecent Proposal

An hour later, my people were all long gone. Kara, Clay, and Alfred led them out through the underground tunnel. I wished them well as they took off, striding down the dark and not particularly well-built passage into the east. I was glad we had the tunnel, but I did wish we could have spent a bit more time on it. Thankfully, I didn’t hear about any collapses, so I was confident they�...

Chapter 165 - Fire and Flight

We rode hard, dashing down deserted streets as fast as Sue could carry me. All the while, I kept looking back over my shoulder for that damned dragon. I knew full well that Peter wouldn’t let me go. He had all the other alliance leaders under his control now. I was the last. Soon as he had me swear to him, that would be the end of it. He’d control the entire Burlington area ...

Chapter 164 - Kneel or Burn

We made excellent time down the stairs to the courtyard. We didn’t run, but Carver kept a pace which was swift enough that it would have left me huffing for breath, back in the old days. For an older guy, Carver was in pretty good shape. I supposed that might be true of anyone who had enough crystals at this point. Poor Stamina or Strength weren’t really things anymore. Loss of Agili...

Chapter 163 - An Hourglass Filled With Sand

By noon the next day, all our preparations were well underway, and I decided it was well past time to pay Carver a visit. If he did know more than I did about what was going on, I needed to get that info from him. If he didn’t, that was even worse. I wanted to share the intel I’d gathered, along with my fears about what it meant.

Of all the other alliance leaders, I tr...