No Class Found

The road into Glasshold was busy by the time Doc and Mazoga reached the gate.

Wagons waited near the gate while guards checked cargo and papers. Along the wall, tents and covered carts filled stretches of ground that had been empty a few months ago. A few cooking fires burned between them despite the morning hour.

Doc glanced toward one of the larger camps as he and Mazoga passed.

“Ironha wants to bring up the refugee issue during the meeting with Edda.”

Mazoga looked over. “What about them?”

“She wants Foroughfore to take more.”

Mazoga was quiet for a few seconds.

“I don’t think Edda will have a problem with it.”

Doc glanced at her. “No?”

Mazoga shook her head.

“Last time I was back, Foroughfore was still growing. More houses going up, more land being worked. We’re not short on space.”

“That makes two of you.”

“Ironha said the same thing?”

“She seems convinced that if I ask, Edda will agree.”

Mazoga considered that, then smiled.

“She probably will.”

“That isn’t helping.”

They passed through the gate.

The guards barely looked at them. Doc had made the trip often enough over the past few months that most of the watch stationed along this route recognized him now, and Mazoga was a pretty well-known name in the Adventurer’s Guild.

Mazoga adjusted the strap of her hammer.

“Foroughfore can handle more people.”

“We’re already taking people in.”

“And we should keep taking them.”

Doc glanced at her.

Mazoga had spent more time on the road than almost anyone else at the depot. Even before she disappeared north on the contract, she had regularly moved between Glasshold, Threeburrow, and Foroughfore.

Doc hadn't been back in months.

“What does it look like now?”

“Bigger.”

“That tells me a lot.”

Mazoga chuckled at that.

“They’ve added more houses since the last time you were there. Brenn and Tor have crews working almost constantly. The new people are taking over work that used to pull everyone else away from something more important.”

Doc thought about Brenn leaving Glasshold specifically because Foroughfore needed him back.

Mazoga continued.

“Food’s good. Trade’s good. And the defenses are a lot better than you remember.”

“How much better?”

Mazoga thought about it.

“Honestly? Foroughfore is probably one of the better-defended settlements in the North now.”

Doc looked at her. “Really?”

“We’ve got a trained militia, rifles, launchers, enchanted armor, and enough people who actually know how to use all of it.” Mazoga shrugged. “Most settlements don’t have anything close to that.”

That caught Doc's attention.

Doc hadn't realized how far Foroughfore had come.

When he left, the settlement had only just started growing beyond the old dwarven colony. They had the tools and the knowledge to build something much larger.

What they had always needed was people.

Mazoga glanced toward the tents outside the wall.

“Foroughfore could use them. More miners, more builders, more people working the shops and standing watch. We’ve got room.”

Doc looked back toward the gate behind them.

Beyond the wall, the tops of several refugee tents were still visible.

“So Ironha’s right.”

“Usually is.”

“Don’t tell her I said that.”

Mazoga laughed.

They continued uphill.

Splitstone Row was already crowded. Shopkeepers had their doors open, and carts moved between the guild halls. Imperial soldiers moved through the traffic as well, a more common sight in Glasshold than they had been a few months ago.

He was about to ask Mazoga when she planned to head back to Foroughfore when two watchmen pushed through the crowd ahead of them at a run.

Doc followed them with his eyes.

Both turned onto the road leading toward the Arc Quarter.

Mazoga slowed.

“You see that?”

“Yeah.”

Another pair appeared from a side street.

One shouted something to a guard stationed near the intersection. The man immediately left his post and followed them uphill.

People were beginning to notice.

A merchant stepped out from behind his stall to watch. Two workers stopped unloading a cart. Someone farther up the street moved quickly out of the path as four Imperial soldiers came around the corner.

They were moving toward the Academy too.

Doc and Mazoga stopped as the soldiers passed without slowing.

One carried a shield already strapped to his arm. Another was fastening the clasp on his helmet as he ran.

That wasn't a patrol.

“Lux?”

Scanning.

Doc looked toward the Academy rising above the district.

From this distance, the Academy looked normal, but more watchmen were moving uphill toward it.

Mazoga's hand had already gone to the strap holding her hammer.

“Something happened.”

“Looks like it.”

Lux spoke a moment later.

Multiple elevated mana signatures detected in the direction of the Academy. Precise source cannot be determined at current range.

Doc's attention stayed on the road ahead.

Then another group of Imperial soldiers ran past them.

Mazoga started walking again.

Faster this time.

Doc matched her pace.

Neither of them said anything else.

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By the time Doc and Mazoga reached the Arc Quarter, the Academy gates were crowded.

Students filled the open space outside the grounds in groups while magisters moved among them with lists in hand. Names were being called out one after another as instructors checked their classes and sent students farther down the street once everyone was accounted for.

The city watch had cleared most of the civilians away from the Academy approach. Several guards stood across the road, directing anyone coming uphill toward another street.

Closer to the gates, Imperial soldiers had formed their own line.

They had cleared the space directly in front of the Academy entrance and were facing inward toward the grounds with their weapons drawn.

Doc slowed as he took in the scene.

Whatever had happened, the Academy wasn't treating it like an ordinary alarm.

A watchman stepped into their path.

“Road's closed. You need to head back.”

“We're supposed to be at the Academy,” Doc said.

“Not anymore.”

Mazoga looked past him toward the gate.

“We have a meeting with Archmagister Kaine.”

The watchman shook his head.

“Everyone's coming out. Nobody's going in.”

Doc was about to ask what happened when someone called from behind the Imperial line.

“Doc?”

He looked over.

Cassira stood with a group of students near the edge of the Academy grounds.

Mar was beside her.

The half-giant was difficult to miss. He wore the same blackened plate Doc remembered, his war axe resting across his back. He stayed close enough to Cassira that anyone approaching her would have to pass him first.

Cassira said something to one of the magisters before walking toward them.

Mar followed.

The watchman noticed who was approaching and straightened.

“My lady.”

Cassira stopped on the other side of the line.

“They're with me.”

The watchman hesitated.

“Lady Cassira, we’ve been ordered to keep everyone away from the Academy.”

“And I’m telling you to let them through.”

“That doesn't change the order.”

Mar stepped forward.

“They’re not civilians.”

The watchman looked up at him.

Mar nodded toward Doc.

“He collected the bounty on Rellan Vex and was one of the people who brought Lady Cassira back after she was taken.”

Then he looked toward Mazoga.

“And she’s a level forty-nine Warden with the Adventurer’s Guild.”

The watchman looked between them again.

Mar continued.

“If something happened inside that Academy, those are two people you want on this side of the line.”

That settled it.

The watchman stepped aside.

Doc and Mazoga crossed the line.

Cassira looked between them.

“You picked a bad morning to visit.”

“So it seems,” Doc said. “What happened?”

“I don't know. I was in class when the alarm started. The magisters began clearing the halls almost immediately.” Cassira looked back toward the groups of students. “They moved everyone out before anyone told us what was happening.”

“Anyone missing?”

“Not from my class.”

Mazoga looked toward Mar.

“Do you know more?”

Mar gave a small nod.

“Some.”

His attention shifted briefly toward the Academy entrance.

“Serin told me about the specimen yesterday. She said the necrotic mana hadn’t faded after death, so Kaine had it kept in one of the secured examination chambers.”

His eyes went back to the Academy.

“The first alarm came from that wing. Kaine and Serin went down there before they started evacuating everyone.”

“You think it's the specimen?” Doc asked.

“I don't know,” Mar said. “But the wing was sealed shortly before the evacuation started.”

“Where's Serin?”

Mar's jaw tightened.

“She went down with Kaine.”

Cassira looked up at him.

“You didn't tell me that.”

“You didn't ask.”

“Mar.”

“She is doing her duty.”

Cassira clearly had more to say about that, but Doc was already looking toward the Academy.

“Lux?”

Scanning.

Mazoga pulled the hammer from her back and let the head settle against one shoulder.

One of the Imperial soldiers tightened his grip on his weapon.

Mar raised one hand toward him.

“Leave her.”

The soldier relaxed slightly.

Doc looked toward the Academy doors.

“What else do you know?”

Mar shook his head.

“Nothing confirmed. The magisters coming out were told to evacuate their students and stay clear of the lower wing. No one has come out from that section since.”

A dull sound carried from somewhere inside the Academy.

Doc barely heard it through the stone.

Mazoga did.

Her head turned toward the building.

A second impact followed.

This one was louder.

The Imperial soldiers near the entrance shifted.

One of the magisters stopped calling names and looked back toward the Academy.

Cassira's face changed.

“What was that?”

Mar reached for the axe across his back.

Another impact came from inside the Academy.

Then the doors opened.

Kaine stumbled through first.

Serin was beside him, one arm pressed against her side. Both looked exhausted.

Mar moved immediately.

“Serin!”

The creature came through behind them.

It hit the doors hard enough to throw one of them off its hinges.

The Imperial soldiers reacted before anyone else.

“Forward!”

Half a dozen moved into the courtyard with shields raised. Two more spread out behind them, weapons already glowing with mana.

Kaine turned.

“Wait—”

The creature reached them first.

It struck the center shield hard enough to fold the soldier behind it backward.

Another soldier drove a spear into its side.

The creature caught him by the arm.

Doc saw the man's feet leave the ground.

Then the flesh along the creature's chest opened.

Dark tissue wrapped around the soldier before the others could pull him free.

He disappeared into it.

The creature grew.

Its shoulders widened. One arm thickened enough that the skin split along the forearm before knitting back together.

The soldiers hesitated.

That was enough.

The creature crashed into their line.

A shield went spinning across the courtyard. Another soldier hit the ground several paces away and didn't get back up.

The remaining Imperials pulled back.

Mar stepped in front of Cassira.

“Back.”

The city watch farther down the road had seen enough. Their line shifted away from the Academy entrance, forcing the students and civilians farther back with them.

Mazoga lowered her hammer from her shoulder.

“That thing got bigger.”

Doc was already watching the wounds left by the soldiers close.

Lux?

Biomass increase confirmed. Necrotic output rising.

Kaine was shouting something toward the soldiers, ordering them away from it.

Doc looked at Mazoga.

She was already looking at him.

Neither needed to ask.

Mazoga stepped forward.

Doc followed.

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Kaine got one hand up.

"Back! Everyone back!"

The words barely carried past the soldiers still stumbling away from the doors. Serin had gone quiet beside him, one hand pressed hard against her side, and neither of them had anything left to put toward the thing standing in the courtyard.

The creature turned from the broken line of soldiers.

It saw Mazoga first. She already had her hammer in both hands and was closing the distance.

The creature charged.

Mazoga set her feet.

It hit her at a full run. Her boots slid back across the stone. One heel caught and split the flagstone under it, and she stopped.

The creature did not. Its upper body pitched forward over her, and Mazoga drove the haft of her hammer up into its chest and shoved it back onto its heels.

Kaine had watched that same charge put an armored soldier on the ground.

Mazoga had given up two steps.

It swung the thick arm at her before it had its balance. The blow caught her across the shoulder, nothing under it but cloth, and turned her half around.

She let the turn carry her a step, planted, and brought the hammer around into its side.

The head landed under the ribs. Pale lines spread through the dark flesh where it struck.

The creature left its feet.

Kaine felt it hit the ground from where he stood.

Serin had lifted her head.

"That's the one who took its head."

"Yes."

It rolled and came up on one knee.

Doc was already moving.

He came around Mazoga's off side while the creature was still on one knee, and there was light in his hand.

Kaine hadn't seen him draw it. A plain hilt, and from the hilt a blade of azure light with silver running through it in lines. The air along its edge bent.

Then the mana reached him.

Divine.

For a moment, Kaine forgot how exhausted he was. Few magisters ever felt divine mana.

Beside him, Serin went still.

The creature pushed up to stand.

A tiny amount of mana moved through the metal arm. Then a sheet of ice spread across the stone under the creature's planted hand. The hand slid out from under it. It dropped back onto the elbow, and the blade went through the thick arm above the joint.

The limb came away.

Kaine waited for the cut to close.

It didn't. The flesh burned back from the edge, and the necrotic mana in it went out. He felt it go.

The creature came up off the ground with the remaining arm swinging.

Mazoga was there.

She took the swing on the haft and shoved the arm wide. The creature's shoulder had already started to change. Mass moved under the skin toward the stump, and the ruined end began to thicken.

Doc's blade went through the new growth at the shoulder.

The edge burned. Whatever had been building there stopped.

The creature drove forward into Mazoga with its weight. She took it and held. Her boots didn't move this time.

Frost climbed the creature's knee.

Only the knee. A thin white shell over the joint, and the mana that had made it was already gone.

Mazoga's hammer came down.

The frozen joint broke apart under it. Pale lines ran up the thigh and down the shin, and the leg gave.

The creature went down on its face.

Kaine watched the metal arm.

Six months ago he had given a man with a metal arm access to the general library and not seen him since. The librarians mentioned him now and then. Another introductory text on circulation. Another on rune structure. Questions a first-year would have been embarrassed to ask.

The mana in that arm would not have lit a reading lamp.

It was all Doc seemed to need.

The creature got its good leg under it. The broken knee was already moving under the skin.

It came up facing Mazoga.

Then it looked past her.

Down the courtyard the Imperial soldiers had closed their line again, shields up. Behind them at the gate, a magister was still turning a knot of first-years toward the street. They were the last group. Cassira stood among them with Mar at her back.

The creature went for them.

It went straight past Mazoga. One long stride on the good leg, the broken knee taking the next before it had finished rebuilding, and it was moving faster than that leg should have allowed.

Kaine's hand was still up. He had nothing to put behind it.

The soldiers set their shields. Mar stepped in front of Cassira and did not move again. The magister at the gate got her arm across two of the children and pushed.

Mazoga was already after it.

Kaine had watched her walk into the courtyard. He had watched her take a charge without giving ground. He had not seen her run.

She crossed the stone in three long strides, the runes along the hammer bright, and hit the creature from behind and to the side hard enough that the flagstones broke outward from where it landed.

It went off its line and down on one knee, a shield's length from the soldiers.

It got up still facing the gate.

Mazoga was in front of it now.

It didn't swing at her. It leaned its whole weight into her and pushed.

Her boots didn't move. Her knees didn't bend. The haft was across its chest. The runes along the hammer's head lit blue-white as the weapon took the strain.

Doc came in on the trailing side.

Ice took the creature's planted foot. Not the knee this time. The whole foot and the stone under it, frost climbing past the ankle before the mana that made it was gone.

The creature didn't slow. It leaned harder into Mazoga, and the frozen ankle held, and the leg above it did not. The flesh tore. The foot stayed in the ice, and the creature came down off it onto the stump and the broken knee, and for a moment its weight came off the haft.

Mazoga brought the hammer up from her hip and into the chest with everything the haft had been holding.

The sound reached Kaine at the doors.

The chest folded. Pale lines ran through the whole torso at once. The creature went over backward, landed with the ruined leg under it, and did not get up.

Doc put a boot on the remaining arm and drove the blade down through the center of the chest.

He held it there.

The burn started at the blade. Kaine saw it before he felt it. The flesh around the entry went black, then the ribs, then the burn spread out under the skin faster than the body could push new mass ahead of it. Then he felt it. The necrotic mana went out of the chest. Out of the shoulders. Down the ruined leg and the good one. Where it disappeared, it didn't return.

The body thrashed once. The remaining arm came up off the stone under Doc's boot and fell back.

Then nothing.

Smoke came off it.

Doc didn't move the blade.

Mazoga kept the haft across what was left of the chest.

Nothing came back. No mass moved under the skin. The stump at the shoulder stayed a stump. Kaine reached for the necrotic mana and found nothing.

Doc pulled the blade free, and the light went out of it.

The divine mana left with it.

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For a moment nobody in the courtyard moved.

Then the soldiers did. Two of them went for the man who hadn't gotten up. The magister at the gate got the children turned and moving down the street, and she didn't let any of them look back.

Mazoga straightened and let the hammer's head down onto the stone. Doc stood over the body a little longer before the hilt went back to his hip. He looked toward the gate.

Kaine did not move from the doors.

Months ago, he had asked that man how he'd killed the adaptive undead in the Waste.

I had a weapon that could hurt it.

Kaine looked at the smoke coming off the thing in his courtyard.

Doc had neglected to mention that the weapon carried divine mana.

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