Between the remains of the old wood shed, the dry weeds and dead crops in the field, and the straw stuffed into the undead scarecrows, the three youths soon had a fire burning bright and hot, enough so to fight off some of the encroaching night.

  “I hope he sees the smoke,” Cadence muttered, finding herself unexpectedly vindictive. “I hope he knows that we're not afraid of him–or whatever he can raise.”

  Cadence knew about undead, of course. The reanimated corpses and twisted facsimiles of life that crawled into the Realm from the soulless expanse of the Ruined World were a common feature in the stories she had grown up with. The stories hadn’t prepared her for the realities of fighting the walking dead, though. They hadn’t described the smell of the long dead corpses and the way it coated your mouth. She tied a strip of cloth over both her nose and mouth early into collecting and burning the corpses, but it wasn’t enough to repel the foul scents all together.

  By the time night fell, the three had stoked the blaze into a bonfire, large and strong enough that foul-tinged woodsmoke soon replaced the fetid smell of torched corpses. Allana returned shortly thereafter–so soon after, in fact, that Cadence had a sneaking suspicion the wraith had finished her scouting a while ago, then kept her distance until the gristly work was over.

  “Could be better,” she said by way of introduction, “could be worse. Doesn’t look like there’s anyone still living in town besides our man.”

  “Xythen,” Oli provided.

  “Right, Xythen. He’s holed up in a big building near the center of the village, one of the few still standing. I couldn’t get close enough to see inside, but he’s got something in there with him–he keeps ranting at it, but it doesn't respond.” Allana pursed her lips. “He… doesn’t seem particularly stable.”

  “He’s a necromancer living alone in a town of people he killed,” Tenebres replied, his voice tight. Cadence recalled that the small boy claimed to have been from Culles–given that, she couldn’t blame him for being upset. “I’d say that counts as not very stable.”

  Allana shrugged noncommittally, hunkering down next to the fire.

  “Any other undead?” Oli asked.

  “I saw a couple wandering through town–it looked like he put them on guard duty. I haven’t seen anything like them before, though.” The girl indicated the fire with a tilt of her chin. “One looked kind of like those scarecrow things, but if you used a big dead tree instead of some twigs.”

  “And the other?” Cadence asked.

  “Some sort of bloated thing, like a corpse left to soak too long. It was dragging itself around by a spear, like it couldn’t stand up right.” Allana looked to Tenebres, who was chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Any thoughts?”

  “Not particularly…” Tenebres said. “Best I can think of is wights, but Geoffrey’s notes didn’t say too much about them. Some sort of undead with elemental affinities, made from Primal gifted.”

  “Wood and water then, probably,” Cadence guessed, based on Allana’s descriptions. “At least that’s something.”

  “Is it?” Oli asked, her tone belligerent. “Are we not even going to ask why the kid that can summon monsters also just so happens knows all about undead?”

  “I learned it from a master assassin, if that helps,” Tenebres said dryly.

  Olivia’s eyes widened, but Cadence put a gentle hand on the eclipsed girl’s arm before she could respond. “It doesn’t,” Cadence responded, “but that’s fine.”

  “We’re not just going to tell you everything because we fought together one time,” Allana insisted.

  “I’m not asking you to.” Olivia started to open her mouth again, but Cadence tightened her grip. “And neither is she. But if we’re going to go into battle together, we need to know each other’s gifts and what we can do.”

  “I don’t talk about my gifts,” Tenebres said simply.

  “Neither do I,” Allana echoed, crossing her arms.

  “If they’re not, I’m not,” Olivia announced.

  Cadence lifted a finger to rub the bridge of her nose, suddenly feeling no small amount of sympathy for her mother, after how much attitude Cadence had given Ryme growing up.

  The stories never included this part, either.

  “Will you all stop it? Look, I’m not asking you all to share your deepest darkest secrets with people you met less than two hours ago. But if we’re going to fight together, we need to know each other’s abilities!”

  “Cadence,” Olivia pointed out, “you’re not always exactly the most open with your abilities either.”

  Cadence huffed a breath. She couldn’t argue the point, but… “Fine. I’ll go first, alright?” She looked back and forth, but no one tried to interrupt her. “I’m Novice level, and I have the gift of the wanderer and the gift of the echo. The wanderer is more of a utility gift, it just lets me find north and identify objects I’m not familiar with. It gives me an awareness and a stamina boon. The echo is what I get by with in fights–I have a flexible buff that can apply to any of my attributes and I can copy one ability at a time from other gifted.”

  There was a moment of shock from all three of her companions, new and old, before they all started talking over each other.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What kind of broken power–”

  “I’ve never heard of either of those gifts!”

  Cadence addressed Tenebres’s question, fighting through her habit of keeping her gifts to herself, and explained, “The gift of the wanderer is from an obscure archetype, the gift of the echo was given to me by a weird man who called himself Storyteller the night after he saved me from an ogre.”

  “So it’s a relic gift?” Tenebres asked.

  “No.”

  “So… what? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Welcome to my life. But since you all don’t want to overshare, let’s move on. I’m a flexible combatant. Depending on what gifts I can copy and what attribute I Surge, I can be a hard-hitting melee fighter or a ranged sharpshooter. Now who’s next?”

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  There was a moment of silence, before Tenebres finally volunteered, “Me. I’m a Novice too. I have the gift of the evoker, from the Mage. It mostly gives me some ranged force magic and a couple utility tricks.” He swallowed, and looked like he was bracing himself, then plowed forward. “My other gift is the void. It lets me summon fiends by sacrificing my own attributes, and it gives me an augment that strengthens my spells if I damage myself.”

  Olivia’s mouth hung open for a second. “Gift of the… Cadence, are sure he’s not one of the people we’re after?”

  “Yes. Now stop whining and take your turn.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “Well unlike the rest of you, I guess, I have normal gifts. Vanguard and wind, both Novice. I specialize in melee combat, but I have some mid-ranged options from the gift of the wind.”

  “Makes sense,” Tenebres acknowledged, nodding quietly and ignoring the intense look Olivia was giving him. “Allana, your turn.”

  “No.”

  “Allana, we agreed–”

  “I didn’t agree to anything! I’m not telling some random people about my gifts!”

  The androgynous wraith blew out an exasperated breath. “Would you give us a second?”

  Cadence couldn’t help a grin, but she nodded. Olivia rolled her eyes and waved a hand, obviously frustrated.

  “Thanks,” Tenebres said, before grabbing Allana by the arm and dragging her away. Obviously, the slender little mage didn’t have the muscle mass to move the muscular girl, but she went anyway.

  “I don’t–”

  “Shh!” Cadence hissed at Olivia, “I’m trying to listen!”

  The two had gone just far enough away that Cadence couldn’t hear them clearly, even with her awareness boon, over the crackling fire next to her. But she caught a few snippets from Tenebres she could barely make out.

  “Adventurer… new… Emeston… okay?”

  Allana rolled her eyes–but she nodded, returning to the fire with Tenebres a moment later.

  “Go ahead,” Tenebres prompted her.

  “I’ve got the gifts of poison and the trickster. I stab people, and if that doesn’t kill them, I poison them.”

  “And you teleport?” Cadence asked.

  “Yes.” After another moment, Allana begrudgingly added, “I’m half decent at making distractions too.”

  “She’s also mid-level,” Tenebres added. “Initiate with one gift and Apprentice with the other.”

  Cadence whistled. “Well. Okay, that’s good to know.”

  “Poison and trickster though…” Olivia mused.

  “You have a problem with them?” Allana asked sharply.

  The eclipsed girl raised her empty hands. “No, no. Sorry. I just mean… those don’t sound like very aggressive gifts. Do you have any special attacks?”

  Allana crossed her arms, but admitted, “No.”

  “That’s Allana’s biggest weakness,” Tenebres explained. “Until she hits Initiate and gets her third gift, she doesn’t have any way to give her attacks potency.”

  “And I’m guessing poison isn’t a lot of good on undead, either,” Cadence said.

  “Not undead,” Allana said, a little smirk settling onto her pert lips, “but I’ve yet to see a necromancer shrug it off.”

  “And how many necromancers have you killed, exactly?” Olivia challenged her.

  “Two.”

  Olivia huffed a breath, the sound derisive.

  “And how many have you killed, big guy?” Allana shot at him.

  “That doesn–”

  “None,” Cadence answered for Oli, giving her a hard look. “Which is why he’s going to shut up and listen to the people who have actually fought someone like this before.”

  “Agreed,” Tenebres backed Cadence up. “We can all go back to being at each other’s throats after we’ve gotten the people we’re after.”

  “And how, exactly, are we going to do that?” Allana asked him. “I’m not seeing any sign of our hag in Culles.”

  “One thing at a time,” Tenebres told her. “Xythen comes first. The hag can wait until he’s been handled.”

  “And then we’ll find her too,” Cadence added, her tone flat and insistent. “We’re in this together now, right?”

  “Right,” Tenebres agreed.

  “Sure,” Allana said, less exuberant.

  “I guess,” Olivia shrugged.

  Hooray for that, Cadence thought with a sigh. “Okay. We know what we’re going into, at least. Two wights and the necromancer, who has one more undead with him. Probably also a wight.”

  “Four-on-four,” Oli mused. “Not awful odds.”

  “Only wights are all lesser ranked undead, and near the top of that rank,” Tenebres explained. “Fighting them one-on-one is a bad idea.”

  “But if we hit one hard enough,” Allana suggested, “we might be able to take it down before the next one shows up.”

  “Unless the necromancer stands them back up again.” Cadence sighed again. “I hate to say it, but… I think we need to split up.”

  “Agreed!” Allana said immediately. “My abilities are better for killing necros than undead. Seo and I can go after Xythen while you two tie up the wights.”

  “Seo?” Olivia asked.

  “Tenebres,” Allana hastily corrected herself, drawing an eye roll from the boy in question.

  Cadence shook her head as the two bickered. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Allana’s stance quickly grew belligerent again, and Cadence continued, “I know you’re as stealthy as they come, but Tenebres isn’t. If I spotted you both tailing us, Xythen might be able to, too.”

  “So you think I should go alone while you three take the wights?”

  “No. I think I should go with you.”

  “What!?”

  “Why would I–”

  “You can’t be–”

  “So you want me to–”

  Cadence closed her eyes, waiting for Allana and Olivia’s matching outbursts to die down before she continued. “I’m the only one of us with an awareness boon. I might not be as stealthy as Allana, but with a coordination Surge I can handle myself–a lot better than I can against lesser undead, at the very least. Oli, on the other hand, has the brute force to take down the wights quickly, especially with Tenebres and his fiends to cover his back.”

  Olivia cast a cautious look at the other two youths, while Allana narrowed those violet eyes of hers, inspecting Cadence critically.

  The four of them were a volatile mix, and Cadence’s plan, such as it was, was only going to exacerbate their problems. Allana seemed habitually suspicious and secretive, which was a bad combination with Oli’s abrasive and judgemental nature. Tenebres seemed more on the level, and Cadence couldn’t help but feel a little kinship for the sun-kissed boy, but she had to agree with Olivia that the gift of the void was a little concerning.

  And then there was her. The wanderer with no credentials to her name, two gifts she shouldn’t have, and a motley collection of skills and equipment that didn’t excel at any one task. Jack of all, master of none.

  But as it seemed unlikely that Storyteller was going to swoop in and solve this whole situation, the four of them had to go for it anyway. The other option–leaving Xythen and his unknown master to continue their plans–wasn’t an option at all. Regardless of their differences, none of the four had even mentioned the idea.

  “It’s not ideal,” Tenebres said, breaking the silence, “but I think it’s the best we’re going to get.”