‘My mother visited us in the night.’

  Lore, Corminar and Arzak didn’t react, but Zoi raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh?’ the tiefling said. ‘Is she still with us? Should I make her a nice cup of tea?’

  Corminar smiled to himself, biting his lip, while Lore looked at Zoi in horror.

  The tiefling looked around at the wide variety of reactions. ‘What? Did I say something…’

  ‘She try kill us,’ Arzak said, filling Zoi in on the finer details of my family’s dynamics. ‘She one of Players. Of Council. She not want us here.’ The orc turned next to me. ‘You fight her off? Without waking us?’

  ‘Did you use your Silence ability?’ Lore guessed. A sensible guess, particularly for him, but obviously not the right one.

  ‘We didn’t fight,’ I said.

  Corminar pointed at Val. ‘Your spouse has a fresh, if light, wound upon her throat.’

  ‘We didn’t fight much,’ I corrected myself.

  ‘Then what—’ Lore started.

  It was Val who answered, and pretty concisely, at that. ‘She’s pretty annoyed we lied to her. Came back to kill me.’

  ‘Yet you live,’ Corminar observed.

  My wife nodded. ‘Styk told her about the baby. I guess she didn’t want to kill the mother of her grandchild.’

  Arzak joined Zoi in raising her eyebrows. ‘So we lucky. Again. How long we be lucky for? I sure not much longer. How long until she decide kill one of us after all?’

  The tiefling raised her hand timidly. ‘Can I ask… Why are we worried? You told me you have killed Players before. Why not simply kill her before she kills you? That is the usual arrangement, is it not?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Because she’s your mother?’

  ‘What? No. If one of you kills her, I’m perfectly fine with that. I’d just rather not do it with my own hands if I don’t have to. No, the problem is that she can turn invisible.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yeah, you can see how that poses a few issues.’

  Zoi nodded thoughtfully. ‘Alright, so we look for a spell that can aid us in seeing invisible people. We—’

  ‘And how much time do you want to spend doing that?’ I asked. ‘Because every moment we spend doing something other than hunting down the malae is another moment they grow closer to Auricia. For all that there are two hundred corrupted soldiers protecting the caravan now, it’s not like it’s gonna be easier to get to the malae later, once they’re in the palace city. No, we’ve gotta focus on the malae.’

  ‘I suppose you have an idea of how we do that?’ Corminar asked.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Why’s it always me who has to—’

  ‘Do you have an idea, Styk?’ Corminar pushed the question.

  ‘I have the start of an idea, yes. We don’t go straight for the malae. They’ll be expecting that, they’ll have planned for it. Instead, we go for Arit. We take the general from the army. We leave them in disarray. And when chaos spreads through their ranks, we take the first opportunity we get.’

  Five pairs of eyes looked at me.

  Val sighed. ‘I suppose that’s the best idea we’ve got.’

  * * *

  We rode north. Our horses’ healths were fading fast, not because they weren’t trained for long distances, but because of the cold, and because we’d found so little food for them. But they’d only need to hang on a while longer, then they could rest. And when I say that, I mean rest—I’m not using cryptic language to mean “then they can die”. They deserved more than that for how much they’d helped us.

  There was no ‘Welcome to the Goldmarch: where all your dreams come true’ sign—slogan provided as an example only—as we crossed over from the Sundorn into the new continent. In times past, the border would have been marked by a dramatic increase in wealth and quality of life. Houses would be larger, and freshly painted. Roads would be well-maintained, with signposts clearly marked at every junction. The people would even be happier.

  But while we’d been south, in the Sundorn, things had changed. Fast.

  We barely saw anyone in the towns we passed through, and those we did see ran at the sight of us. Buildings were razed, or demolished, or had worryingly large claw marks in their doors. There was no patterns to the incidents that had befallen these towns; in some, it seemed that hags had attacked, in others, giant neereagles. In one town it almost looked like an elderbeest had passed through.

  It was Lore, in the end, who pointed out that this was a pattern. We hadn’t seen devastation caused by a single type of creature because it was all creature types. All manner of monsters had emerged from the darkness, and we knew from previous experience that this only happened when they were drawn to great power. It was Arit’s army moving north that had caused this, or rather the malae they transported north. Until Zoi could burn the malae—until we could get the malae in reach of her flames—this would keep on happening.

  When we finally reached a tavern that was still in business—if only just—I elected to position a Saved Portal there. If we had to use it to flee, then we’d be giving Arit’s army a significant time advantage. But if we had to use it, we almost certainly had bigger problems on our plate. If it came to us being in that much trouble, a hearty stew and some decent ale would do us some good.

  It was another two days before we caught up with Arit and his army. The snow had really taken hold by then, piling half a foot deep. Though it slowed down our progress significantly, we at least had my portals to support us along the road. Arit, on the other hand, wouldn’t have enough portals to transport an army that size; they’d be slowed down more than we would. We knew we’d grown close when we saw the wheel marks cutting through the snow, and from there we kept quiet, not a word shared, not wanting to risk alerting Arit’s army to our presence. We kept our horses to the paths trodden by the soldiers, and our eyes fixed straight ahead. In the depths of winter, we couldn’t see far, and it was Corminar who heard the army before any of us saw it.

  We did as before. Corminar and I left the team with the horses, and we pressed on, through the torrential snowstorm. We approached slowly, in a crouch, then in a crawl, using the thick white layer to our advantage, to keep us out of sight of the dozens of corrupted soldiers that served as guards. Finally, satisfied with our vantage point on a low hillside, we set about our work. Whereas before we were looking in a gap in the malae’s defences, now we had another target: Arit. We sought to cut the head off the hydra that was this army, though hopefully no more heads would regrow in Arit’s place. At least, not until after could get Zoi to the malae, to work her flaming magicks.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The enemy worldbender pushed back the flap of the camp’s central tent as we approached, escaping the cold. If we’d approached a moment later, we wouldn’t have seen him, yet we would still know exactly where he was. Only one tent in the whole camp was made of such sturdy material, and only one was guarded by a half dozen corrupted soldiers. From the look of it, there were more still inside the tent. Arit was watched over at every moment, it seemed; he knew we were after him, and he was taking no chances.

  I considered opening a portal then and there, to inside the Player’s tent. If he were anyone else—or if he were less well-guarded—I could snatch him out from under his army’s nose, and we could deal with him as a team. As it was, though, Arit was an experienced enough worldbender that there was no guarantee that I’d be successful in snatching him. And his soldiers of corruption reacted quickly enough that they might not let me get away, even if I had Titan Husk active. After all, their ability to spread corruption was just one of a great many advantages that these former humans had over regular soldiers—they were also faster and stronger than most. Perhaps even faster and stronger than some Players.

  As it stood, it was useless. We’d need to separate Arit from his guards before we could strike. I took one last glance over at the carts, over on the far side of camp, and confirmed that they, too, were under heavy guard. I looked at Corminar, discovering that he was already looking at me. The elf nodded glumly; we were on the same page.

  I began crawling backwards, through the paths in the snow we’d left before, keeping my head down. As we retreated to the team’s camp, intrusive thoughts whirled around my mind—was this a hopeless task? would we chase Arit all the way to Auricia, and the protection of the Council, without ever having a chance to strike?

  Corminar’s hand whipped out to grab my leg, and I froze. It took me a few more seconds to hear it—for my human hearing to catch up with Corminar’s enhanced elven senses—and I forced myself to remain as still as possible as the trouble approached. I bit my tongue as the singular enemy scout grew close, and then I bit it harder still when I realised that it was a corrupted soldier. I could portal Corminar and I out then and there, but then the enemy would know that we’d closed on them, and that was why we’d approached on foot to begin with.

  The crunching of snow under enemy foot grew louder as they approached, and with every step, I heard the pounding of my own heart grow louder too. I only released my breath when the footsteps began to quieten again, their owner drifting past us. Only when Corminar tapped on my leg again did I begin to move once more, trusting the ranger to be a better judge of this kind of thing.

  We skipped the crouching stage on the way back to our woodland camp, and instead I opened a portal immediately in front of Corminar, slipping through it behind him only half a second later. This portal dropped us atop a nearby hill, and from there, we returned to camp at a sprint.

  Lore stood when he heard us approach, drawing his blade. At the sight of us, Val raised her eyebrows. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Scouts,’ I said through loud breaths. ‘Not sure how far away from the camp they’re coming, but we should pack up. Play it safe.’

  Zoi looked up from the fire, then pointed to it. ‘I just started this the non-magick way.’ It was the kind of slightly irritable point that Val would make; did we rub off on people that easily?

  ‘Then you’ll have to do it again. Better safe than—’

  Corminar’s hand whipped out once more. This time, my heart truly sank. Corminar and I being in danger was one thing, but if the enemies had found us here, with Val around… I forced the thought out of my mind, instead focusing on action. The elf nodded to our left, to where he’d apparently heard the noise.

  ‘Fire. Out. Now,’ I breathed to Zoi. The tiefling tore the flames away with her magicks, but it was too late.

  A woman with pallid grey skin and eyes that were totally black emerged from the trees.

  I turned on the spot, whipping my hands towards Val, opening a portal beneath her that sent her falling away, out of trouble. Lore, who was half over the opening of the portal, tumbled through it sideways.

  Without turning back, I activated Titan Husk, then shunted backwards into the path of the charging soldier to give my friends a chance to escape. Corminar was already pulling Zoi by the arm, but Arzak reacted with intent to fight, not flee, raising her blades.

  The corrupted soldier and I collided, sending me flying across the small clearing and clipping the side of a tree. I pushed myself back up in a daze, head spinning, the taste of blood in my mouth.

  Staggering, I raised my hand to open a portal between Arzak and the corrupted soldiers, to protect my orcish friend.

  But I missed.

  The corrupted soldier slipped nimbly around the portal, bring her axe down to meet Arzak’s raised dual swords. It was a clash to behold, a duel of immense strengths, the soldier pushing down with her axe against the swords held in an X-formation, Arzak holding her own even against someone with supernatural strength on their side.

  But I didn’t get to see how this would end, because instead of pressing the attack, the enemy grabbed Arzak’s wrist.

  And corrupted began to spread.