Elijah’s ears rang, the high-pitched sound drowning everything else out. He shook his head, the motion emitting a cloud of dust before he planted his palms on the uneven ground and heaved himself upright.

Or that was what he tried to do.

The tons of rock on top of him made it much more difficult than it should have been. Still, all those attributes on his status weren’t just for show, and with a mighty shove, he gained an inch. Then two. Grunting, he finally tipped the rocks over. They fell in a cascade, revealing what was left of the battlefield.

He didn’t really know what had happened. He remembered the details, just not how they all fit together. One second, he and the pack were preparing to fight what appeared to be another titan – not dissimilar from the memory they’d defeated what felt like a lifetime ago – when a spear came flashing out of nowhere. When it hit the half-coalesced titan, the thing had exploded.

Which prompted only one reaction.

“What the hell was that thing?” he muttered to himself. He’d shifted back into his human form, so he used the opportunity to heal himself as he searched for the rest of the pack. His efforts were trivialized by Soul of the Wild, which told him precisely where everyone had been buried. It also told him which ones were the most seriously injured, so he concentrated his rescue operation on them.

Predictably, the casters had gotten the worst of it. Ray had multiple broken bones, which Elijah didn’t hesitate to set. The dog yelped as the bones slid into place, but Elijah kept at it before casting a heal to mend the damage. Next was Escobar, who’d been crushed beneath a particularly large boulder. Thankfully, aside from some bruised organs and a concussion, the chihuahua was fine.

After carrying him to where he’d left Ray, Elijah healed the damage, then moved on to Maymay. Then Oscar. Digby and Jackson came next, followed by Sophie and Freddy, who was the least injured among them. By the time Elijah had finished digging them free, the others had recovered enough to help. So, the process went much more quickly than he’d expected.

Still, over an hour had passed before everyone was back on their feet. Not fully recovered, but enough to continue the fight.

A good thing, too, because they’d not received any more experience, indicating that the giants were still alive. As Elijah and Oscar led the dogs across the churned landscape, one thing became clear.

“We went further than I thought,” Oscar said, giving voice to precisely what Elijah had been thinking. “Ten miles or more.”

“We’re lucky we all ended up in the same area,” Elijah remarked.

Oscar grunted in agreement. Soon enough, they reached the site of the explosion. That’s where they found the twisted remains of the spear that had set everything off. It had fallen apart into three distinct pieces.

“Does that look like a dagger to you?” Elijah asked, holding up a misshapen hunk of metal. He thought he saw a distinct hilt, blade, and crossguard, but it was so twisted that he couldn’t be certain.

“Not really.”

The shaft itself was in a similar condition, meaning that it was more pretzel-shaped than anything else. It had also been flash-melted, robbing it of whatever form it had once held. Finally, the blade had survived better than anything else, which meant that it still maintained its basic form, though it had been curved into a half circle.

“What the hell was this?” he wondered aloud.

Freddy let out an urgent bark, which Oscar translated to, “Each of those pieces was a weapon. Dagger of Flowing Waters. Blade of Gusts. Staff of Staunch Earth. And the Stiletto of Churning Flames. All destroyed. Useless now.”

“There are only three pieces,” Elijah pointed out.

“The shaft is the staff. The spearhead was the Blade of Gusts. Two knives were the…what do you call the two bars that jut out on a boar spear?” Oscar asked.

“I don’t know,” Elijah admitted. But during the other man’s explanation, he was reminded of the bane weapon Sadie had used against Yloa back in the Trial of Primacy. He asked Oscar if this was something similar, adding, “It seems like it, right? But who threw that thing?”

“One of them,” Oscar said, pointing into the distance where nearly a hundred people approached. They were still hundreds of yards away, but even at that distance, Elijah could see that they were all more than worse for wear.

“I think I recognize that one in the middle,” he said, squinting as he used Eyes of the Eagle. It was difficult to tell with all the dirt covering her, but she looked like the woman he’d met in the camp outside the Elemental Maelstrom. He couldn’t remember her name, though. Maybe she’d never given it.

“Hostile?”

“I don’t think so,” Elijah said, seeing a couple of other familiar faces. It had been months since he’d seen them, but he recognized the group he’d healed after his encounter with the Mito del Mohán. Surely they wouldn’t hold any enmity toward him. “We should –”

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The earth once again let out a deep rumble, cutting Elijah off. He didn’t have time to turn his head before, maybe a quarter mile away, a figure burst free of the rocky terrain. Then another. And another after that. The final giant climbed free, and the quartet arrayed themselves as if ready for a fight.

But they didn’t look up to it.

All four had been grievously wounded. Werk was missing an arm. The water giant’s entire left side had been crushed. And even the earth giant was a shadow of his former self, with deep gouges in his torso. The air giant was the worst off, and he looked as if he could barely stand.

Judging by their expressions, none looked ready to give up.

Then again, neither were Elijah or Oscar ready concede. The pack was ready to continue the fight as well. So, together, they strode forward. The giants did as well, though with far more difficulty.

Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Master. Oscar, having recovered much of the ethera he’d spent in the previous fight, embraced a pair of abilities to augment the dogs attributes and hasten their steps. Jackson and Sophie trotted out front, while Elijah and Digby took the right flank. Oscar and Freddy, the left. Escobar, Maymay, and Ray pulled up the rear, each of the trio already casting their own spells.

The clash came with the unleashing of a half dozen spells, all in quick succession. Fireballs rained from the sky as spears of earth erupted from the ground. Wind blades swirled, cutting more cleanly than any razor. And waves of water appeared out of nowhere to crash into Elijah and his allies.

They were not taken unaware.

Jackson and Sophie worked overtime, summoning one shield after another. Meanwhile, Elijah maintained Wild Resurgence on everyone as he leaped into battle next to Digby. They both hit the water giant’s bad side. It tried to react, but they were too fast, and it was far too injured.

Elijah hacked into one leg while Digby burst through the other like a furry missile. Blubbery blue flesh sprayed in every direction, but neither stopped. They attacked with all the fury of a pair of combatants who’d seen far too much to allow for a fair fight. In seconds, the water giant fell, though it managed to rise on a plume of water only a moment later.

Elijah buried his scythe in its chest while Digby ripped its throat out.

Meanwhile, Escobar danced through the air, running circles around the injured air giant. All the while, he bathed the thing in dense flames that turned the giant’s flesh to mist.

Oscar and Freddy took out the earth giant, chipping away at its slate-like flesh with a fury bevy of blows. Tooth and Claw bit deep while Freddy relied on blunt force to shatter the stony flesh. The earth giant fell, too.

Elijah dodged one cutting stream of water after another, contorting his salamander-like body in ways he never knew possible. His efforts were assisted by Ray and Maymay, who’d already shackled all four enemies, hampering their movements and reducing their attributes. One by one, charges of Heart of Fire built, but even when it passed fifty, he didn’t unleash Incinerate or embrace Child of Fire.

Instead, he and Digby continuously whittled the water giant down even as Oscar and Freddy did the same with the earth giant only a few dozen yards away. Escobar finished his opponent first, but only because the air giant was so wounded. He buried the creature in so much fire that when he was finished, there was nothing but a crystalline skeleton left.

Elijah finished the water giant only a second later.

And the earth giant fell to pieces soon after.

That only left one.

Werk looked tired, though he’d kept up a steady stream of fireballs throughout the fight. However, he leaned heavily on his staff, a sad expression on his face as Elijah and the pack surrounded him.

“I knew it was a mistake to summon the titan. We could not have controlled it. The others…they were furious. They did not understand that you were a cindrandir,” he rasped, finally letting his powers fall dormant. It was only then that Elijah really grasped how deeply the fire giant had tapped into his reserves. Werk looked up, asking, “How was it? The Legacy of Titans? Was it…enlightening?”

Elijah had no idea, but then again, he’d never had a chance to examine the crystal he’d taken from the shattered pyramid. For all he knew, it contained all the knowledge of how a giant might ascend to a titanic existence.

But he doubted it.

He wasn’t certain why, but he did. Still, for whatever reason, he felt sorry for Werk. So, he said, “It was. We never would have gotten so far without it.”

“Good. That is…good,” Werk said. Then, he simply collapsed, his core entirely dry. His body shriveled in on itself, leaving only a charred husk behind.

Elijah – and presumably the pack – received a wave of experience.

He ran his hand through his hair, then glanced at Oscar. “That was anticlimactic, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“If that’s how you feel, I’d hate to see what you consider…ah…climactic,” came a feminine voice from nearby. Elijah had felt her approach, along with all the others.

“You here to fight?” he asked without looking back. “Because I have to tell you, that won’t end well. I’m not in the best shape, but I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

Indeed, his Heart of Fire was at sixty charges, give or take, and he could use Incinerate in less than a second. None of the people there seemed strong enough to take such a blast – not without significant consequences.

The kind that would get them killed by Oscar and the dogs, even if Incinerate didn’t finish them off.

“Not unless you are,” the woman said. That was when Elijah finally turned to face her. In the Shape of the Master, he was more than a foot-and-a-half shorter than the woman, but still, she flinched away from him. “Your eyes…”

Elijah didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Are you the one who threw the spear?” Oscar asked before Elijah could inquire about what she saw when she looked at him.

“I am. What was that thing?”

Freddy barked, and a hundred people backed away.

Oscar answered, “An echo of a memory. It was not fully formed. If you had not killed it, we would have needed to do so. Thank you for sparing us the trouble.”

“I…you’re welcome,” the woman looked around. “What now?”

Sensing that the danger had passed, Elijah let the Shape of the Master fall away. Then, he said, “Well, there are a bunch of giants back there if you all want to loot. I’m not going to bother, mostly because I have a giant crystal and a geode taking up my storage space.” He frowned, then reached into his satchel. When he pulled his hand out, he held a grove fruit. He’d thought they were all gone. He offered it to the woman, “Want a snack? And I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Chelsea,” she said, taking the fruit. She stared at it for a long moment before taking a bite. Her expression instantly changed, going slack as torrents of vitality and ethera flowed into her. She let out a light moan.

Elijah grinned. “I have that effect on women sometimes.”