Once we were close enough for manipulation but far enough not to be crushed when it fell I got to work.

  From my vantage I saw the people in enemy uniform around it. There were not too many of them. Maybe a hundred or so. Most sensible people stayed far away when there was a risk of golems crushing them to death.

  I craved freedom not slaughter.

  My senses were alert as I started dismantling the last obstacle standing before us. We were far up—near its head. The boat rocked constantly as mana bolts continued their assault. The shield held on, for now.

  He was unraveling work in real time. Or something or someone was. I couldn't see clearly from this elevation—it was impossible through the dust and the chaos of a hundred bodies moving below. I could feel the conductivity field stitching itself back together with more precision than I unravelled them. Someone who understood exactly what I was doing and exactly how to counter it.

  Methodical. Intelligent. Intimate.

  The mage who built this maybe?

  I pushed harder. The resistance responded with redirection—using the magic from the thin mana layers I created to feed the larger conductivity field instead of breaking it. Using more power now would only help them.

  I heard her before I saw it. A cough that kept racking up—lungs rupturing.

  I turned, and saw the dark red blood already on the ground. She was sagging against the side of the boat, one hand holding on and the other trying to stop herself from heaving any further. Her rosy complexion sallow. Her expressions told me everything I needed to know.

  "Agnes—"

  The boat broke.

  It happened before I could offer any words of comfort. Three arrows hit in perfect unison—a coordinated volley that punched through the ruby control panel blasting it to smithereens. The expansion enchantment reversed and the hull folded inward in a blink.

  Then we were falling.

  The wind tore past my face and my self preservation instincts reached for an answer—some method to lower the impact. A way to make us all survive this.

  Keiran's arm found my waist.

  He pulled me against him in control even through the chaos—one arm locked around me, and the other reached out towards Agnes, catching her wrist somehow as we continued our descent. Then the ground itself started rising. He was entirely focused on his task doing magic than he had done all day. It was a desperate gamble that worked anyway.

  We hit the ground. It was wet and muddy. I was on top of Keiran. His body protecting me from the worst of it—I felt the shock travel through his chest against my back. I heard the mangled sound it forced out of him.

  Agnes hit beside us, the grip having slowed her enough for it to be survivable. I could see her breathing although she didn’t get up immediately.

  I lay still for a moment. My eyes closed—trying to make the ringing in my ear stop.

  The battle of course didn’t come to standstill to give us a moment to recover.

  Earth pulled from under us and we fell to the ground once more.

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  That’s when I saw the most terrifying beings I had seen all day.

  Short bull-like bearded men carrying warhammers etched with runes that glowed red. They were running straight at us blazing with open rage. There was no performance or order or grace in action. Hammering down anyone who stood in their way. To me. To the person who was destroying what they built. I could see it in their eyes even halfway across the ground.

  One of them stepped over a fallen ally without looking down. Hunt came first.

  I recognized them as they got closer—dwarves—had seen pictures in a book once. The illustrations had made them look like patient craftsmen. They were more than that.

  Keiran was on his feet before I finished cataloging what I was looking at. Sword in hand he placed himself on my right with practiced battlefield instincts. A dwarf came in low with a sweeping hammer strike. Keiran stepped outside it’s range, just but, driving his sword onto it’s neck. Dwarves bled red too.

  Another replaced him immediately.

  Agnes was on my left.

  I don’t know how she stood standing despite it all—she was trembling and her own blood graced her hands. She uncoiled a lash from her belt like she practiced that motion a thousand times and snapped it outward, catching an incoming dwarf across the forearm.

  Crack.

  He stumbled.

  She wrapped the weighted end around his hammer wrist before he could recovered and wrenched it again. His own hammer crushed his legs.

  Coughing and fighting. Agnes was prevailing.

  I stood in the safe space they had made between them and tried to figure out my course of action.

  Tornadoes at this range risks Keiran and Agnes. The golem is fully upright and stabilised now. Powered in many parts by own magic. Dismantling it without taking down the mage(s) countering me seems impossible. Even if I cleared the immediate threat around us the golem would simply—

  If I topple it from here the fall radius includes us and our knights.

  If I—

  The golem is—

  Time uninterrupted—

  Then what. Then what. There has to be—

  The hammer cracked open my shoulder.

  It wasn’t a full swing. I would be dead if it was.

  A dwarf slipped past Keiran's left during an exchange with two others, and the blow that barely gazed me blasted me three metres to the side.

  I could only half open one of my eyes. The sharp pain concentrated entirely on one side.

  All my plans exposed for what they were.

  I got to one knee. The deranged dwarf didn’t look at me like a four year old. He was out for blood and raised his hammer patiently and precisely to make the next one count.

  I didn’t have to put in effort to shove him. My magic came instinctively when endangered. Pure mana blowing his head off his body.

  I heard Keiran shouting my name engaged in battle. I heard Agnes's lash snapping against dwarven armor.

  I heard the horns of our Knight reinforcements finally arriving at the flank. Hitting the dwarven formation from the back. It would help.

  Another dwarf advanced towards me. Hammer raised to attack.

  A hand closed around my uninjured arm and lifted me.

  Effortlessly, I was placed behind a broad muscular back before I understood what was happening.

  He was tall enough for my view to change entirely. The dwarves actually looking small. His hair was blonde and dirty with sweat and dust. He put himself between me and the dwarf and I could somehow tell he would die to make sure I could live another moment longer.

  The dwarf attacked and the Knight caught the hammer shaft and redirected the momentum returning it back in a single motion.

  He turned back to me.

  His eyes found mine and stilled. Even as the battle raged on.

  It was only a moment but something passed between us. A quiet moment of intimacy.

  His eyes were the same crystal blue as Rowan's. The same shade as the pond on the farm.

  "Can you stand?" he asked. His voice sounded steadier than it had any right to be.

  "Yes," I nodded.

  He moved so they could form a triangular formation around me. Protecting me from all directions. Agnes was leaning on a stone fragment large enough to support her weight as she fielded enemies. Keiran and my strange protector working together against any dwarves that came through side. I managed an air based shield around me. It wouldn’t be enough if another hammer struck.

  I looked up at the golem.

  Fully upright. On the move. It would be here to flatten us soon.

  Our forces were engaged on all sides and none of constraints or parameters had changed at all. The fall radius was very same. Our knights would be crushed even if I managed to topple the golem. Which was a big if—someone was redirecting any attacks I threw at with precision. There was no way to flee with the boat destroyed.

  I looked at Agnes. At Keiran. At the strange Knight who would die for me.

  I looked at the golem.

  There was only one solution. The costs would be immense. It didn’t meet the constraints I set for myself but I had better make peace with it before everyone I knew in this world is killed due to my indecision. It would be murder either way.

  I knew what I had to do.