Emily turns to fully face Oscar, taking in his nervous shifting as she waits for him to eborate.

  “Please e transte for Ivor. He’s trying to tell us something and my sign nguage isn’t good enough to uand him properly.”

  “Sure,” Emily agrees, stepping past Oscar to approach Ivor.

  Ivor makes eye tact with her as she walks up, and she instantly notices the fusion in his gaze.

  “What’s up, big guy?” Emily signs as she es to a halt before him.

  “I think something’s following us,” his first sentence sends a shiver down Emily spine as she gnces into the fog cealing the trees behind their group.

  “What do you mean think?”

  “I’ve felt something odd the st three ss I’ve done. I ’t tell if it’s the movement of a beast: it doesn’t feel like footfall. At first, I thought it was nothing, so I ig. But this time I’m certain I felt something moving in our wake, even if I still ’t tell what.”

  Emily frowns and activates eartheion after his expnation, fog her senses orail behind them. Standing with her eyes shut and her full attention on the s, she notices a faint buzzihe edge of her dete range, but it vahe moment she feels it. She keeps her attention on the area where she felt the buzz, but finds nothing after a minute of watg.

  “There’s something there for sure. I wouldn’t even have noticed it if you hadn’t said something. But whatever it is, it stopped moving the sey s reached it,” Emily says with , turning to Oscar. “It’s able to sense our eartheion. How about I go out alone and have a look?”

  She taps her eyes, activating infra-sight aing its warm e glow vey her i. Oscar frowns at her suggestion.

  “No way am I letting you set off alone.”

  “I’ll still be withiie: you get Ivor and Enzo to watch my back from here. I’m faster than any of you, and if something happens, I defend myself for long enough for you all to reach me!”

  Oscar looks unvinced, but acquiesces with a sigh.

  “Fi’s not like I have aer ideas, and I sure as hell don’t want an unknow following us.”

  “Great,” Emily says with a griing off towards the back of the chattering group. “Also, if you don’t want things following us, maybe shut them up.”

  Leaving Oscar to sider her suggestion, Emily takes off back along their path. She dashes and weaves between trees, approag the area where she felt something amiss. ing to a standstill, she looks around for any warmth in the area and finds nothing. She pulses eartheion a few times, attempting to find the buzzing again, but nothing shows up.

  As the eerie silence of the forest closes in around her, Emily frowns and scours the area, pushing bushes out of the way and searg for anything out of the ordinary. After five minutes of searg to no avail, she heads back to rejoin the group. She breaks through the fog, emergio Matteo and startling him as she passes.

  Ign his grumbled pints, Emily walks up to Ivor and Oscar, inf them of her fruitless search.

  “Nothing?” Oscar asks dubiously.

  “Yep, not a leaf out of pce. Whatever’s following us is either a ghost, or so good at hiding we’ll never find it.”

  Oscar’s face twists in a fused mix of fear and anger.

  “Shit. We keep going. Whatever it is, it will have to reveal itself to attack us. You guys stay on guard.”

  Emily shrugs at his ands aurns to the head of the group.

  He’s n. As long as we’re careful, we should be fine. I always reset and check again once we know what we’re looking for.

  They tinue, heading deeper into The Gde. The rexed state the group had fallen into vanishes, with the fear of the unknown once again hanging over their heads. Everyone keeps moving, stig to the formation as usual, but several people repeatedly cast anxious gazes behind them, cheg for phantoms in the fog.

  By lunch time, they have run into three more small groups of beasts, and the odd tremors following them persist. As they take a break to eat, Emily, Ivor, Enzo, and Dante, set up at the edge of the group, fag the unknown pursuer.

  “Should we really keep going?” Enzo asks with his signature scowl.

  “Why not? If a beast wants to attack us, we’ll just burn it!” Dante fidently answers.

  Enzo rolls his eyes at his friend and turns to Emily for a reasonable response.

  “As much as the pyro’s answer was stupid, he’s n. It’s like Oscar said: whatever’s following us will have to reveal itself if it wants to attack us directly.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve noticed our enters with beasts increasing the further we ght? What if whatever’s following us is smart enough to coordihe beasts and it’s giving away our position?”

  “Ha. If it’s that smart, we’re already dead! It would have to be at least third circle for that, and a third circle beast that good at hiding is a death sentence,” Dante says dismissively.

  “Okay that’s fair.” Enzo sighs. “But still, that doesn’t mean it won’t wait till we’re exhausted to attack.”

  Emily and Ivor nod at his words.

  “True. We’ll just have to stay on high alert then,” Emily agrees. “What’s got you so ed though? You don’t normally strike me as this nervous?”

  Enzo flinches slightly, staring into the fog while shifting unfortably.

  “It’s hard to expin. Something about whatever’s following us just feels wrong.” He turns to face Emily as he tinues. “You’ve tried deteg it, haven’t you?”

  Emily nods silently, w what about the ss is making Enzo so nervous.

  “Well, you remember how I couldn’t tell what the mudscraps were?”

  “Yeah, they distorted eartheion.”

  “Yeah, well this thing is doing something simir. I didn’t notice it the first few times I sed it because it’s scarily subtle, but it’s not going still every time we try to locate it. It’s dist the s somehow to stop informatioing to us. The mudscraps ged what the s read by messing with the earth they stood on, but this thing’s messing with the spell itself.”

  Das an arm around his shivering friend, to reassure him, while looking to Emily and Ivor.

  “Have you guys not felt this?”

  Ivor nods in agreement, and Emily frowns.

  “I haven’t. Give me a moment. Both of you stop sing if you are.”

  After receiving two nods, Emily shuts her eyes and els eartheion with her full focus. She watches the outskirts of their path, feeling around for the buzzing she felt before. She locates the problem area quickly, so she focuses on feelily what signals her spell is sending back to her cortex.

  The returned information is faint, ing back to her as a blur, not providing the usual crity eartheion offers. It feels weaker, fragmented even, as if the intended return has been ripped to pieces a ba a jumbled dump of data. The information dead zone, as Emily chooses to desig for now, covers a rge area, a circle of ground at least fifty metres across, pletely indecipherable tical senses.

  Opening her eyes again, she nods to her friends.

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. There’s a dead zone where I ’t gather any valid information. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe a high level earth spell?”

  “I don’t know.” Enzs, standing up auring towards the shifting group behind them with his head. “I just hope it reveals itself soon, otherwise we won’t sleep soundly tonight.”

  They set off again. Emily, walking at the head of the group, distractedly sulting her knowledge of magical beasts to try and work out what’s following them. The afternoon is long. They’re attacked every hour, sometimes multiple times an hour. Emily runs out of silent bullets a few hours before they make camp, switg to throwing jured bdes at enemies above instead.

  By 9 pm, the group is exhausted, everyone having used up over half of their mana reserves, when Emily calls for them to stop again.

  “How many this time?” Oscar asks tiredly, to which Emily raises her hand asking for sileh a look of on her face.

  Well that’s not good.

  Flickering in the fog, Emily spots a catlike form before it steps bad fades into ence.

  “Fog cats!” she hisses, dropping infra-sight and double-castiheion.

  In sync, four ss fill their surroundings, mapping the footsteps of their approag foes on all sides.

  “Twelve in front, six to the right,” Emily says, almost wing at the numbers as she waits for Enzo and Ivor.

  “Six on the left fnk,” ac vocalises for Ivor.

  “Eight behind,” Enzo warns.

  Gng back, Emily sees her groupmates’ faces falling in despair. With a sigh, she makes eye tact with Oscar.

  “How far off is our camp?”

  “We moved slowly today. An hour without interruptions. Two at our current pace.”

  Nodding, she turns back to the front and reaches for her bandolier.

  “Use grehen move quickly. We ’t waste the st of our mana here, we won’t even reach camp.”

  Then, before he respond, Emily charges two grenades with maa and lobs them far into the forest ahead.

  “Shit. Carriers, three greo the bad sides!” Oscar shouts hurriedly.

  The luggage carriers scramble into motion, reag into their packs and produg greo hand to the mages beside them.

  “Brace!” Emily calls out while sending a small stream of mana into her earrings.

  Two loud bangs rip through the group, drawing a few yelps of pain from those too slow to cover their ears after Emily’s warning. Emily herself feels the thundering sound in her chest, but all she hears is a muted pop. A few shards of shrapnel fly past them, but the group, most embedding themselves in the derees between their detonation point and the group.

  Emily reactivates infra-sight, cheg for any approag fog cats while her teammates fumble to use their grenades. She spots a few crumpled beasts lyiween trees, their heat bleeding out onto the floor around them.

  Six weaker bangs go off around the group. A few shards of shrapnel are caught ier barriers proteg everyone, further adding to the defensive mages’ burden.

  “Cheovement!” Emily calls, now pletely uned about making more noise.

  She sets off two eartheion ss herself, finding three fog cats still moving in front of the group and two on the right.

  “Three on the left.”

  “Five still behind.”

  Clig her tongue, Emily g her resource reserves.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Mana:] 2150/3540

  [Maa:] 3153/3540

  _____

  I easily manage alone.

  “Everyoay on the defensive, I’ll deal with them,” Emily says before sprinting into the fog ahead, uned about the group’s rea.

  Dropping one of her eartheions, Emily’s hands quickly weave a set of hand signs as she runs. A pale blue glow envelopes her as a plicated magic circle forms around her. She carefully positions herself, lining up the footsteps of the fog cats in front of the group.

  She halts in position, smming her hands together to finish f the spell then pointing her right arm out, lining up her enemies with two fingers.

  “Bang,” she mutters with a grin, as the magic circle around her bzes to life with the crackle of electricity.

  A bolt of lightning tears a path through the fog, ripping the magically enhanced haze from existehree of the fog cats fall to the ground, smouldering, as Emily quickly pulls out her revolver. She tells her sed core to switch from eartheion to infra-sight as she brings the gun up to bear.

  The air before her is filled with dissipati, but she still easily spots the final fog cat on this side, quickly rag towards her after her fshy attack. A single pop and crack signals the cat’s demise as a lightly crag bullet flies from the barrel of Emily’s gun into the beast’s skull.

  Front clear.

  Emily turns on her heel, dashing towards the right fnk of the group where the fog cats have closed in on her group. She sees two cat-shaped red forms stalking the edge of the barriers, throwing themselves against them periodically and fading bato obscurity after each failed strike. She raises her gun. Two maa-charged trigger pulls fell the beasts as she tinues cirg the group to approach the left fnk.

  Three shots left, three cats.

  Lining up her firing angle, Emily pulls the trigger three more times. Two more cats drop, but the third reacts in time, jumping suddenly as Emily shoots.

  “Tsk.” Emily clicks her tongue, dropping the revolver into its holster and charging forwards.

  The fog cat, realising its cover is useless against Emily, races to meet her. At the st moment before their collision, Emily tilts her body sideways, slipping past the cat as her hand fshes out, slitting its throat with her Cw. Emily tinues moving, ing the Cw with a small spark of maa therag it again.

  As she rushes to the back of the group, Emily’s hands move with meical grace, blurring through the motions of another spell. Flying lightning forms around her right arm as she reaches her st five oppos. All five turn to look at her, and, as if in reition of the sying of their pack mates, switch targets and move to surround her.

  Emily takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly through a manic grin. Time stretches as she watches the first cat leap towards her. She whips her on, stabbing the cat through the eye with a shog impact. With a quick twist, she rips the bde and sends it flying backwards, sshing past atag beast and paralysing it with a spark.

  The other three beasts reach her, coordinating their attacks as they bite and cw at her legs and throat. With acrobatic fir, Emily springs up, spinning in the air with flying lightning’s wire trailing behihe wire brushes past the beasts, stunning them with lightning before the following bde sshes them to pieces.

  Emily nds in the tre of the three bleedis and calmly stands up. She tosses flying lightning into the head of the cat she only stunned, before dismissing the spell. Leaving the corpses behind, she rejoins her group, finding them standing together tensely, with the defensive barrier mages panting in exhaustion.

  “Everything’s dead,” Emily calls as she retakes her pce at the head of the formation. “Now, let’s get the fuck out of here!”