Mandollel drops low and vanishes into the forest. His technique is immaculate, feet landing lightly on the soft forest floor, body weaving between the branches. He doesn’t hesitate or correct his movements even once. I wonder if he can see in the dark.

  Rworg, on the other hand, marches directly into the forest and toward the lights. He’s wearing light leather armor and holding his sword in one hand. He pushes the branches off his face with his other one, making an astounding racket. I grimace with every snap and crack.

  Finna does as well. She keeps turning around. ”Still the same place?” She takes a final look around the area and makes a rude gesture at Lictor. “You changed the deal. I’m out. I’ll take my own chances.”

  Lictor purses his mouth, but doesn’t react otherwise. He presses a finger on a cluster of runes on the shoulder of his cloak and they glow blue. ”Can’t win every time. Sorry, Locke,” he mumbles quietly to himself. I can make it out, even though I’m not sure if I was supposed to. He winks out, disappearing into thin air. At first I think he teleported somewhere again, but I can hear him take in a breath and a quiet thump as he jumps into the air.

  He must have just turned invisible. A ludicrous thought to have, or it would have been a couple of hours ago. I wonder where he jumped and wait for the sound of him landing, but it doesn’t come.

  During my wait, Finna has disappeared. I didn’t even notice her leaving. Can she turn invisible too? It seems unlikely. I shrug and move in the direction where Mandollel went. I’m not going to keep standing in an empty clearing, alone. I try to keep as quiet as the elf, but I can hear how my steps rustle and how loud my breathing sounds in the quiet forest. Somewhere ahead of us, there’s the crash of Rworg moving his way through the forest. He begins shouting something in a language I haven’t heard before.

  I creep closer to the camp and nearly bump into the elf. He’s leaning on a tree, almost hugging it. At the last moment, he lifts a hand to stop me. The lights of the camp reach us, and I peer from behind the branches to catch a glimpse of what’s going on.

  Rworg is standing at the edge of the camp, shouting in what I assume to be Kerthar at the people in the camp. There’s a large bonfire in the middle of maybe eight tents. The Kertharians are silhouetted against the light, and I have to squint. I keep my other eye closed so I’ll be able to see something in the dark even after looking away from the fire and torches. The people in the camp have weapons ready, but so far they are listening to what Rworg is shouting at them.

  Mandollel leans toward me to whisper. ”He’s asking them why they are here. Telling them to go back unless they want to be killed in a foreign land by foreigners.” He cocks his head to the side. “Somehow it’s worse than being killed at home, I think.”

  The people in the camp watch Rworg. Their mouths move, but I can’t hear what they are saying. A man in a robe pushes his way out of a tent. I guess he must be one of the warmages, and if so, I probably should be ready. I hesitate, but slide out an arrow from the quiver and nock it. I hope it’s not just someone coming out of a bath.

  Mandollel has been staying still, listening. ”His accent is atrocious. I wonder if the Kertharians can even understand what he’s saying. Now he’s telling them to—”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  His words are cut short by the screaming. The sound is a high-pitched wail that undulates up and down. The Kertharians nearest to Rworg start it, and everyone in the camp joins in immediately.

  The screaming is wild, voices breaking and cracking and raw. My blood kicks in response to the sound.

  Four men start rushing toward Rworg. Teeth bared and eyes wild, they stumble over each other to get to him.

  The man in the robe raises his hands high above his head and a blue glow starts to form between them. Power drags and sizzles around him. I don’t have time to think. I fire. I can’t hear the arrow connect from all the shouting, but my aim is true. The light winks out and the man drops to the ground.

  ”Beautiful shot,” Mandollel says.

  It was a reflex. I didn’t mean to. I glance to Mandollel, trying to explain, but he’s somehow far ahead of me, already much further than seems possible. His sword whistles and leaves behind a silvery after-image, as he twirls it while running.

  First two men reach Rworg. He cleaves both of them in half with a single swing of his sword. I’m not sure if I saw right what happened. That shouldn’t be possible. I’m happy that I didn’t see it more clearly. Curiously, it doesn’t affect the screaming. The high-pitched war cry continues, the remaining two men still charging at him.

  Two men are running near the warmage that I shot. They don’t stop to check or help him. One of the men jumps over the body and his leg snaps the arrow sticking up into the air. The body jerks but lays otherwise still.

  Something rises up in my throat and leaves an acrid taste in my mouth. I glimpse a blue glow farther back, on the opposite side of the camp. It contrasts against the orange and yellow light of the torches. The robed silhouette of the caster is easy to see, but they are really far. I spit to get the taste out of my mouth and nock the arrow.

  I don’t know how long I have, but I still take a moment to aim. The glow grows brighter and more intense, coloring the camp blue instead of orange.

  I release. The arrow arcs over the camp, but a rustle and a scream wrench my attention away before I can see if the aim was good.

  A woman rushes toward me. She’s maybe ten steps away, raising something over her head. She screams as she runs, the same wail as the others, teeth bared and tongue lolling out. She must have seen where the arrows came from. She stumbles over a root. I nock and shoot an arrow without aiming. It hits her in the stomach. I wince as she goes down.

  I was lucky it was only a single person who stumbled. She wasn’t lucky, at all. The hit wasn’t a clean one. She’s down, but it’ll take her ages to succumb to the wound. A thought flashes through my mind: Lille would scold me for that kind of shot on an animal and make me finish it at once.

  I freeze at the idea. The woman wriggles on the ground. She’s not just wriggling, she’s still crawling toward me. Her war cry hasn’t stopped either. It sounds pained, but still as angry. The arrow sticks out from her back, the wet tip drawing arcs in the air as she crawls, the black stain spreading on her clothes. The weapon she was brandishing is a large wooden ladle.

  ”Mage!” Mandollel shouts from somewhere inside the camp. ”Mage!”

  I wrench my eyes off the woman and sweep my gaze around the area. Rworg is wading in a pile of bodies. He’s been painted with blood, his teeth gleaming white next to the red that looks black in the moonlight. I notice the blue glow to my right from the corner of my eye. The mage must have been at the very end of the camp or visiting a nearby bush or something. As I see the glow, it’s replaced by something huge and orange and terrifying.

  I try to turn and run, but I trip on the ladle the woman stabs at my legs. I’m still falling when a massive force hits me from the side. I have time to register a piercing spike of pain in my right ear. The shock wave hits me and throws me into the air. The ground flies away from me. I spin and hit something back-first. It pierces through my shoulder and the impact would push the air from my lungs if they still had any left. A bloody branch sticks out from my shoulder. The mass of fire rushes toward me too fast to comprehend. It hits me before I have time to scream.

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