For one impossible battle, there were six of them again.
Kaylor stood at the center because there had never been another place for him when the world became unreasonable. Final Word rested in both hands, its edge carrying a pale radiance that seemed small against what waited ahead.
Hexen stood to his left with Grim Harvest angled across his body.
Nethnarel’s wings burned into being.
Fendor drew the Oathbow.
Isamu rolled one shoulder and let the whip fall loose beside him.
And Grazim Von, dead longer than any of them had wanted to count, lifted his holy symbol toward a goddess.
The Naked Goddess moved.
There was no mountain large enough to compare her to.
Mountains were things with edges. They began somewhere and ended somewhere. They could be climbed, crossed, broken, buried beneath snow.
She seemed to possess none of those reassuring limitations.
The shape before them was feminine only because the mortal mind demanded something familiar enough to survive looking at it. Vast pale limbs vanished into storm and light. Hair—or something that resembled hair—moved across the sky in great dark rivers. Her face existed in pieces depending upon where one stood: beautiful from one angle, ruined from another, empty when seen directly.
The world around her did not behave correctly.
Distance bent.
Stone rose without falling.
Fragments of landscape hung in the air behind her as though gravity had forgotten which direction mattered.
The heroes had seen gods.
They had bargained with powers that wanted worship and fought creatures convinced they deserved it.
This was different.
The Naked Goddess did not appear to require belief.
She existed whether anyone approved or not.
Fendor drew the bowstring.
“I preferred the dragon.”
Kaylor did not look at him.
“The dragon killed us.”
“Yes.”
“And you preferred it?”
“I understood the problem.”
The Goddess turned her head.
Every loose stone around them lifted.
Isamu’s eyes narrowed.
“Move.”
The world came apart.
Stone did not fly toward them.
It simply changed position.
One instant the battlefield stretched open around the six heroes. The next, slabs of earth and broken rock appeared where they stood, occupying space without crossing the distance between.
Kaylor vanished behind a wall of stone.
Fendor threw himself sideways as another mass appeared where his chest had been.
Nethnarel went straight up.
Isamu ran.
Hexen became something else before the first impact reached him.
His human shape expanded, shoulders widening, skin roughening beneath coarse hair. For an instant an enormous beast occupied the place where the druid had stood, then that form changed again as he rejected it for something faster.
Grazim did not move.
Light burst from his holy symbol.
The slab that should have crushed him struck a barrier that had not existed a heartbeat earlier.
The force cracked the ground around his feet.
Grazim remained.
Fendor stared from behind broken stone.
“Dead cleric.”
Grazim glanced toward him.
“Yes?”
“That was useful.”
“I’ll put it on my tomb.”
“You have one?”
“No.”
“Then we have work to do.”
The barrier vanished.
Kaylor exploded through the rock that had appeared around him.
Not literally.
Almost.
Final Word struck stone until stone developed the good sense to stop being in the way. The dragonborn emerged through dust and fragments with the expression of someone who had already died once that day and was beginning to consider additional inconvenience insulting.
He looked up at the Goddess.
“All right.”
Fendor heard him.
“That sounded ominous.”
Kaylor ran.
The distance should have been impossible.
It changed for him.
One moment the Goddess stood beyond shattered ground and floating stone. The next, Kaylor found himself much closer than his stride could explain.
He did not question the gift.
He attacked.
Final Word cut into divine flesh.
Or appeared to.
The blade passed through pale light, then met resistance with enough force to send a shock through Kaylor’s arms.
The Goddess looked down.
For the first time, she seemed to notice him as an individual.
Kaylor smiled.
“Good.”
A hand descended.
He raised his shield.
The impact buried him.
Nethnarel screamed his name.
The ground where Kaylor had stood collapsed under a force that would have flattened a fortress tower. Dust rolled outward.
Fendor fired through it.
The Oathbow’s first arrow vanished into the enormous shape.
The second followed.
Then the third.
He had no idea whether any of them mattered.
He continued.
Sworn enemy meant very little when the enemy was a goddess, but Fendor had spent too much of his life solving impossible distances to begin respecting them now.
A fourth arrow struck.
Something changed.
The vast head turned.
Toward him.
Fendor lowered the bow slightly.
“Well.”
Isamu ran past.
“You got her attention.”
“I had noticed.”
The Goddess reached toward Fendor.
Isamu intercepted a god’s hand.
There were moments when training ceased to have a sensible relationship with reality.
This was one.
He ran up the broken face of a floating slab, pushed from its edge and crossed open air. The Swarm Gloves stirred around his hands, living darkness crawling over his fingers. The whip snapped outward.
It wrapped around nothing visible.
Isamu pulled.
The magic caught.
His body changed direction in the air.
He swung beneath the descending hand, released, twisted and landed upon the Goddess’s wrist.
For perhaps half a heartbeat, the entire battlefield went still.
Fendor stared.
“I refuse to pretend that makes sense.”
Isamu ran up her arm.
The Goddess moved.
He almost disappeared.
Her skin became light beneath his feet, then shadow, then something like polished stone. Each stride crossed a different reality. Isamu kept moving because stopping would require him to understand any of them.
The Goddess tried to shake him away.
He leapt.
The whip snapped out again.
Caught.
He swung higher.
Nethnarel laughed.
It was not joy.
It was the sharp laugh of someone watching a friend make such an aggressively terrible decision that fear had nowhere else to go.
Then she followed.
Fiery wings opened behind her.
The sorcerer climbed.
Wild magic crawled over her skin.
Not uncontrolled.
Not yet.
She held the Staff of Power in one hand and built magic with the other.
The Goddess’s attention remained divided between Fendor below, Kaylor somewhere beneath the collapsed ground, and the monk currently using her body as terrain.
Nethnarel aimed for the face.
“Look at me.”
Power left the staff.
The spell crossed the impossible distance as a violent line of force.
It hit.
The Goddess recoiled.
Not far.
Enough.
Isamu nearly lost his footing.
He drove one hand into the shifting surface beneath him, swarm insects spreading outward as if eager to consume even divine flesh.
For the first time, the Goddess made a sound.
The heavens tore.
Hexen heard it differently.
Not as pain.
Recognition.
He had spent too long around gods not to understand that distinction.
The Naked Goddess knew them.
Perhaps she remembered the people who had opposed her before.
Perhaps she remembered their interference in the world above.
Perhaps a creature like her did not remember mortals at all until they became painful.
Whatever the truth, her attention sharpened.
That was dangerous.
Hexen ended his transformation.
The human druid appeared again amid dust and broken stone.
Grim Harvest waited in his hands.
The scythe had taken life before.
Plant.
Monster.
Things whose souls or essences had fed something inside the ancient blade.
Hexen had never attempted to reap a goddess.
He suspected this was not the moment to begin assuming limitations.
The Goddess turned toward Isamu.
Hexen cast.
Roots burst from ground that should not have supported them.
Not ordinary roots.
Great twisting lengths of living wood erupted through cracks and wrapped around floating slabs, each other, and eventually the immense pale shape above. They could not hold her.
That was not the point.
They gave the others something stable in a battlefield that had forgotten stability.
Fendor understood first.
He ran onto one of the enormous roots.
Its bark rose under his boots like a roadway.
He drew while moving.
Arrow.
Arrow.
Arrow.
The Goddess swept a hand across the battlefield.
The root shattered.
Fendor jumped.
For one deeply regrettable moment, he was airborne.
Then a second root rose beneath him.
Hexen grinned.
Fendor landed running.
“I take back nothing bad I have ever said about you!”
“That seems unnecessary!”
“It felt important!”
The Goddess struck again.
Hexen’s roots tore free.
Stone erupted around him.
He disappeared beneath the collapse.
Grazim raised his holy symbol.
“Hexen!”
Radiance descended.
Not from the sky.
There barely was a sky anymore.
It came from everywhere.
A pillar of sacred flame consumed the broken stone where Hexen had fallen. Rock burst apart beneath the divine force, but the druid at its center was untouched.
Hexen emerged coughing.
He looked at Grazim.
“Still useful.”
“I heard.”
Something hit Grazim.
No one saw what.
One moment he stood upright.
The next, his body crossed twenty feet of broken ground and struck the base of an uprooted stone.
Kaylor saw it.
He had clawed his way free from the depression the Goddess had made around him. Blood ran from beneath his armor. His shield was damaged. Final Word remained in his hand.
Grazim did not rise immediately.
Kaylor stopped.
The world narrowed.
Not Craven.
Not the Void.
Not the Goddess.
Grazim.
Again.
“No.”
The cleric moved.
Barely.
That should have been enough.
It was not.
Kaylor charged.
The Goddess’s hand descended toward Grazim.
Kaylor reached him first.
Final Word came up.
Light erupted from the blade.
The strike did not block the Goddess.
Nothing so clean happened.
Instead, the divine hand struck against Kaylor’s weapon and reality seemed to split between them.
White light flooded the battlefield.
Kaylor roared.
Final Word screamed.
The sword did not break.
Neither did Kaylor.
The hand drew back.
Fendor saw the opening.
He planted his feet on a surviving root.
The Oathbow rose.
There were shots one practiced.
Shots one calculated.
Shots one accepted because the alternatives were worse.
Then there were the shots Fendor had built his life around.
A goddess the size of catastrophe.
A moving battlefield.
Kaylor directly beneath the target.
Isamu still somewhere above.
Nethnarel crossing his line.
Hexen’s roots twisting through everything.
Grazim wounded.
Fendor drew.
The opening was perhaps three inches wide.
At this distance, against this target, under these conditions, three inches was generous.
He released.
The arrow passed beside Nethnarel.
Through a gap between two moving slabs.
Across the flare of Kaylor’s weapon.
Past Isamu as the monk leapt from one impossible foothold to another.
Then into the Goddess’s eye.
The scream became physical.
Fendor smiled.
“There.”
The Goddess recoiled.
Kaylor reached Grazim.
The halfling was sitting against the stone, looking more irritated than dead.
“You all right?”
Grazim looked down at himself.
“That question has become complicated.”
Kaylor offered a hand.
Grazim took it.
The dragonborn pulled him upright.
“You don’t get to die again.”
Grazim stared at him.
“Kaylor.”
“No.”
“Kaylor.”
“No.”
Grazim almost laughed.
“I am already dead.”
“Then stop getting worse.”
“That I can try.”
Above them, Isamu fell.
Not uncontrolled.
Directed.
He dropped from the Goddess’s shoulder, caught one of Hexen’s roots on the way down and converted the fall into a swing. The whip released at the bottom of the arc.
He crossed toward the ground.
Nethnarel caught him.
Not gracefully.
The impact nearly knocked both of them from the air.
“You are heavy.”
Isamu looked at her.
“You flew into me.”
“I rescued you.”
“I had a plan.”
“You were falling.”
“Yes.”
“That is not a plan.”
“It was part of one.”
They hit the ground badly.
Both stood.
That was sufficient.
The Goddess changed.
The great body folded inward.
For several terrible seconds the heroes believed they had won.
Size collapsed.
Light narrowed.
The impossible distance around them relaxed.
Then something stepped from the brilliance.
A woman.
Almost.
Tall, but no longer vast.
Pale skin without warmth.
Dark hair moving in air that had gone perfectly still.
No armor.
No ornament.
Nothing to soften the violence of a divine form reduced to something a mortal could look directly at.
Naked.
Not vulnerable.
The name finally made sense.
The Goddess looked at them.
Six heroes stood among the wreckage.
Her gaze passed over Fendor.
Isamu.
Nethnarel.
Hexen.
Kaylor.
Then stopped on Grazim.
She knew he was dead.
Whatever expression crossed her face was not surprise.
Anger, perhaps.
Or offense.
“You do not belong here.”
Her voice was quiet now.
That was worse.
Grazim lifted his hammer.
“Neither did you.”
Fendor inhaled.
“Oh, I missed him.”
The Goddess moved.
The fight became smaller.
And far more dangerous.
She crossed the distance to Grazim faster than sight.
Kaylor intercepted.
Final Word met her bare hand.
The sword stopped.
The Goddess closed her fingers around the blade.
Kaylor pushed.
Nothing.
She looked at him.
Then smiled.
Kaylor head-butted a goddess.
The impact surprised everyone.
Possibly including Kaylor.
The Goddess released the sword.
Fendor laughed aloud.
“There he is.”
Kaylor followed with a slash.
This time the blade cut her.
A line of light opened across pale skin.
No blood came.
Something brighter escaped.
Isamu arrived from the side.
The whip struck.
Then his fist.
Then another.
The Swarm Gloves erupted.
Insects poured across the Goddess’s arm.
She looked down at them with contempt.
They burned away.
Isamu was already gone.
Hexen came next.
Grim Harvest swept low.
The Goddess avoided the blade.
Hexen reversed the swing.
The haft struck instead.
She staggered half a step.
Nethnarel hit her with magic before that step ended.
Force exploded across the Goddess’s back.
She turned.
Nethnarel smiled.
“Hello.”
Wild magic broke.
There was no holding it now.
The air filled with impossible color.
Heat.
Cold.
The smell of rain.
For one instant Nethnarel became younger.
Then older.
Then herself again.
A circle of fire appeared around her and vanished.
Her skin flickered blue.
None of it mattered.
The spell mattered.
The Goddess took it directly.
Fendor fired.
The arrow struck the same wound Kaylor had opened.
Another followed.
Then another.
The Goddess raised one hand.
Fendor disappeared.
Kaylor’s stomach dropped.
“Fendor!”
A heartbeat later the elf reappeared thirty feet away, upside down.
He fell.
Hexen’s root caught him.
Fendor hung by one leg.
He looked at the Goddess.
“I have had worse dates.”
Nethnarel stared.
“Now?”
“I may die twice today. I am using everything.”
The Goddess attacked Kaylor.
He blocked once.
Twice.
The third strike went through his defense and threw him across the ground.
Isamu replaced him.
Strike.
Move.
Strike.
Disappear.
The Goddess could destroy any one of them.
That was becoming the problem.
There was never only one.
Hexen bound her feet.
Nethnarel forced her to turn.
Fendor shot whenever she did.
Isamu occupied every place she wanted empty.
Kaylor returned every time she put him down.
Grazim kept them alive.
Not completely.
Not cleanly.
Enough.
Sacred light moved from his hands again and again, closing wounds that should have ended the battle, lending strength where mortal bodies had begun to fail.
Kaylor felt it enter him after another strike.
Warmth.
Familiar.
He looked toward Grazim.
The cleric was fading.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Kaylor understood.
Every miracle cost him something.
“Grazim.”
The cleric ignored him.
He healed Hexen.
More of the halfling became translucent.
“No.”
Grazim looked at him.
“Kaylor—”
“No.”
“There is a goddess trying to kill you.”
“I noticed.”
“Then let me work.”
“You’re disappearing.”
Grazim smiled.
“I was never staying.”
Kaylor hated the truth enough to almost stop fighting.
The Goddess solved that for him.
She struck.
Kaylor turned.
Final Word caught the blow.
The impact tore something in his shoulder.
He held.
Behind him, Grazim raised both hands.
Light poured through the dead cleric.
Not onto the heroes.
Into them.
Fendor felt his exhaustion loosen.
Nethnarel’s failing magic steadied.
Hexen straightened.
Isamu’s breath returned.
Kaylor’s grip tightened.
The six of them looked at Grazim.
For one heartbeat he appeared not ghostly, not dead, not borrowed.
Simply himself.
“Finish it,” he said.
The Goddess turned toward him.
That was her mistake.
Fendor fired first.
The arrow struck the wound in her chest.
Isamu came second, crossing the battlefield so quickly his movement existed only as beginning and end. His fist drove into the same place.
Hexen’s scythe followed.
Grim Harvest cut across divine flesh.
The weapon screamed.
Not aloud.
Something inside it recognized what it had touched and wanted more.
Hexen refused it.
He pulled the blade free.
Nethnarel raised the Staff of Power.
There were safer choices.
She had never been defined by them.
Magic gathered until the air around the staff distorted.
Fendor saw it.
“Neth—”
“I know.”
She released everything she was willing to risk.
Power struck the Goddess.
The world went white.
Kaylor entered the light.
Final Word in both hands.
He could not see.
He did not need to.
Fendor’s arrow had marked the place.
Isamu had opened it.
Hexen had widened it.
Nethnarel had broken everything around it.
Grazim had given them the strength to reach it.
Kaylor swung.
Final Word entered the Goddess’s chest.
The blade struck something inside her that was not flesh.
The sound was very small.
A crack.
The Goddess looked down.
Kaylor pushed the sword deeper.
“No more.”
Her eyes met his.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
The crack spread.
Light broke through her skin.
Across her chest.
Her shoulders.
Her face.
Every line widened.
The Goddess lifted one hand toward Kaylor.
It never reached him.
She shattered.
Not exploded.
Shattered.
Pieces of pale light broke away and hung in the air around them like glass suspended in sunlight.
Then one by one, they went dark.
The battlefield became silent.
Kaylor stood with Final Word extended into empty air.
Nothing remained on the blade.
No blood.
No divine ash.
No proof except that the world had stopped screaming.
Fendor slowly lowered the Oathbow.
Isamu stood with his hands at his sides.
Nethnarel’s wings faded.
Hexen let Grim Harvest rest against the ground.
No one celebrated.
They had died for this victory before they ever reached it.
Celebration seemed greedy.
Kaylor turned.
“Grazim.”
The halfling stood where he had been.
Barely.
He was nearly transparent now.
The world could be seen through his armor.
Fendor crossed the distance first.
Again.
This time he did not joke.
Grazim looked at all of them.
“Well.”
Fendor’s mouth twitched.
“That’s mine.”
“I learned from the best.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Probably true.”
Nethnarel reached him.
“You could stay.”
Grazim looked at her.
“No.”
She nodded once.
Her face said she had expected the answer.
It did not say she accepted it.
Hexen stood beside her.
“You were with him.”
Grazim looked at the druid.
Something in Hexen’s question went beyond words.
The Hunt Lord.
Their god.
Whatever power had permitted the dead cleric to step once more beside his friends.
Grazim nodded.
“I was not alone.”
That was all he gave them.
It was enough.
Isamu bowed.
Deeper this time.
“Thank you.”
Grazim returned it.
Kaylor did not move.
Everyone else eventually looked toward him.
He stared at Grazim as though enough stubbornness might make the universe uncomfortable and reconsider.
Grazim smiled.
“You can’t keep everyone.”
Kaylor’s jaw tightened.
“I remember.”
“Good.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to.”
Kaylor stepped forward.
This embrace lasted longer.
When he released Grazim, the halfling was almost entirely light.
Kaylor stepped back.
Fendor raised one hand.
Nethnarel did the same.
Hexen nodded.
Isamu remained still.
Grazim looked at them one final time.
Six heroes had once awakened beneath a monument with no idea who they were.
Five had returned to that monument dead.
For one final battle, the sixth had joined them.
That was enough.
It had to be.
Grazim Von disappeared.
There was no thunder.
No divine gate.
No voice calling him home.
One moment the halfling stood with them.
The next, light passed through the place where he had been and found nothing to hold.
Kaylor stared at the empty ground.
Fendor came beside him.
Neither spoke.
Eventually Hexen looked toward the horizon.
The broken landscape was changing.
Stone settled.
Floating fragments descended.
The impossible folds in distance relaxed.
Somewhere far beyond them, ordinary sky returned.
Nethnarel took a breath.
“So.”
Fendor looked at her.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to ask how we get home.”
Fendor considered that.
“That is unfortunately reasonable.”
Isamu looked toward the clearing sky.
“We walk.”
Kaylor finally turned from the place where Grazim had vanished.
The Goddess was gone.
The realm still existed.
They were alive.
Again.
He sheathed Final Word.
“Then we walk.”
Five heroes started home.
Behind them, nothing remained of the Naked Goddess.
And for the second time in their lives, the dead had returned long enough to save the world.