The evacuation team and the three wolves spotted each other at the same time.

  They had made it all the way through the canyon, into the desert, got to the van... and got a look at the thralls that had made it into their resting spot.

  Somehow, Conrad felt it was appropiate, to discover that not facing them had never been an option. It certainly fit with the trajectory the entire quest had been taking.

  "Oh shit," gasped Maxell, the first of the group to speak. His eyes went to the torn slide-door that was lying besides the vehicle, and then to the doorles side of the van. "Goddamnit."

  The thralls were observing them in absolute silence, just like the first they had encountered had. They were all lying: one besides the van, covered by its shadow, another inside the van with its head sticking out the empty frame where there had once been a door, and the final and largest one relaxing atop the van's frame.

  Conrad's eyes then went to scan the ground around them, and saw that, though dry and hard, it wasn't barren. There were thorned bushes and patches of dark grass peppering its surface. Not ideal, but it would give Mila something to work with.

  "You three stay back," he said. "Mila, you use your powers to harass them however you can, okay? Make sure they can't move freely, keep them on their toes."

  "Got it," she replied.

  Nodding in acknowledgement, Conrad continued. "I'm gona maneuver around them to draw their attention, and then keep moving so that they can't surround me. That happens, I die. You make sure they can't follow me. You two," He continued, turning to Maxell and Alexis, "Are going to stay right here as a backup. Something goes wrong, you get just close enough to alert the thralls, toss rocks at them, whatever. They might be smarter than your regular undead, but that's a pretty low bar; their ability to keep track of threats and prioritize is atrophied, and we can use that. But that's all you'll do, you hear me? No engaging them. Those shovels? You are only to use them if they get close to you, not the other way around, and only until I get them off your back."

  The two college students seemed conflicted, but agreed to the plan all the same. No matter how much they wanted to contribute, the prospect of facing those things filled them with a dread that overpowered that desire.

  Conrad unsheathed his sword, its thin mithril blade glimmering in the sun, and dashed for the van covered by a haze of blue lightning. The wolf-things noticed him, of course, and they tensed, getting on their feet, ready to pounce at him and tear him to shreds at the slightest opportunity.

  He gave them no such chance. Instead, once he was sure that he had their attention, he pivoted on one leg and turned his charge sideways, parallel to the van. It was almost dizzying how easy it was, changing directions on a dime even at high speed without any whiplash or decceleration, but that's how the Blue Aura worked. It supported his motions, compounding the speed of any move he made.

  This meant that he still needed to move at some speed for it to be effective, and so when it came to doing stuff like pushing or lifting or anything that didn't let him accelerate, he was just as strong as a regular man.

  The Aura also only boosted the speed of his motions, not his reflexes, which meant that it was perfectly possible for his body to outrun his mind in ways likely to lead to a crash if he didn't keep good track of the where everything around him was, relative to his position, which made his current battlefield a bit convenient in that sense. Less stuff to keep track of, more freedom to move at super speed.

  He saw the wolves burst into motion, bolting from their resting spots and toward him. The largest one's jump carried so much force that it stove in the van's rooftop. He ran a wide circle around the van, giving his pursuers time to pick up speed and momemtum. Then, just before he completed his first lap, he planted his feet in the dirt, spun to his left and charged towards his pursuers, sword first. His Aura allowed him to redirect the inertia of his sprint, and so he could reverse it both instantly and without losing speed, as though he had bounced off an invisible, elastic wall.

  He would have liked to say that the creatures looked panicked at his attack, that they tried to scramble out of the way, but that would be lying. He couldn't see them as anything but dark blurs, he was moving so fast,and he knew that the undead were to fearless (Literally so; they actually couldn't feel fear) to do anything but keep their charge. But that was okay, he would get to feel heroic once he had felled them.

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  Relying on instinct born of battle experience, Conrad maneuvered around the thralls, launching a light slash at the largest one as he did. He felt his sword cut something, and he took it as the sign to press forward even harder. The aura around him darkened and swelled, and he sped up even more.

  He stopped completely after just a second, and when he turned he saw that he was standing at least a dozen yards away from the undead beasts. They were still trying to stop their dash when he first saw them,aand when they turned to him, he saw that the largest one's face had been decorated with a big cut, one that extended from the side of its nuzzle almost to its chest, giving it half a Joker's smile.

  It had no reaction to the injury, which didn't even bleed so much as it oozed black, stagnant blood that didn't even fulfill a purpose anymore. Godmanit, a little higer and he could have taken the eye, screw with its spatial perception. Even the faint plumes of dark smoke he saw rise from the wound didn't make him feel better; he knew that the cleansing power of his blade would only have a significant effect if he stabbed their cores directly.

  Conrad centered his attention at the wolf-things's chest, which pulsated with sickly green light, and cursed under his breath. He couldn't attack that deep without leaving himself exposed to the two wolves he didn't kill.

  His eyes went to the things forelegs which, despite their bulk, retained that wiry, almost-too-thin look that seemed common to all canids, knew what to do: crippling their mobility, get them separated that way, and then go for the cores.

  The beasts charged at him again, and this time he didn't move, insted dropping in a slouch, letting his sword almost hang from his hand, its tip barely hovering above the dirt.

  The wolf got closer. 9 yards. Conrad tensed, dropping more of his weight on his left leg, extending the right a bit more to the side. 6 yards. The group began screaming at him in horror, and Conrad saw the bushes and grass in the wolves's path sponteneously grow and reach for their legs. They tore through it, but it did slow them down a fair bit. 4 yards. Conrad's teeth gritted, the Blue Aura around him grew thick. 2 yards. The beasts bared their fangs at him, their balck eyes sucking all light away from his world.

  Less than one yard. Now!

  Conrad brough his sword in a wide, long slash carryng all the speed he could muster. A slash meant to take at least two of the beast's shins.

  Something else happened.

  In the last instant before Conrad attacked, the eyes of the large one shone with a measure of intelligence, of emotion, at it snapped its head, not at Conrad, but to the thrall at its right, the one whose legs where first in his sword's path. It closed its jaw at the loose skin at the back of the smaller one's head, and reared itself back, dragging the smaller one with it.

  That was bad. Conrad had commited damn near all of his weight and force in that slash, so when there was nothing in its path to absorb part of that power, that meant that all of it was free to complete its arc, forcing Conrad's arm behind like a large dog on a leash.

  He staggered briefly, and that meant that he turned and dashed to his left just a little later than ideal, his initial charge slightly sloppier. This small difference gave the leftmost wolf, the one that Conrad had planned to leave intact so it would go after him on its lonesome, enough time to throw itself at him, and to slam the top of its head against the side of Conrad's chest in an attemp to down him. It felt like taking a baseball bat to the ribs, but Conrad didn't let himself fall. Falling here would mean a very gruesome death.

  Forcing his feet beneath his body, Conrad tried to run, slashing wildly behind him as he did so. This distraction, plus the pain coming from his ribs, distracted him enough for his foot's side to it a fist sized rock. He spun around, getting a brief glimpse of the hell hounds pursuing him, and fell on his ass.

  He didn't know what possesed him then and there, but it gave him just enough presence of mind not to struggle against the fall, like his lizard brain told him to do, but to let himself go, allowing him to roll on his back and, with some assistance from his Aura, vault back and onto his feet.

  The beasts were still within an arm's reach of him, and he slashed at the one on the right in a panic. Taking of its nose in a raw enough cut to send a spray of mud-blood into its eyes, blinding it. The thing tensed and slowed, not because of any pain, but due to the disorientation of suddenly losing its sight. Sensing this weakness, Conrad moved, maneuvering around the blind one's body, putting it between himself and the other two.

  Then, fightning against every panic instinct in his body, he leaned against the thing's side, planting his hands on its back for support, and directed all of his aura to his right foot, covering like a boot. He drew his foot back and up, until the heel was pressed against his buttocks, and then he threw the biggest and fastest kick of his life. He felt his leg cutting through the wind like a whip, and then felt a sharp pain coming from each of his toes as he all but burrowed the tip of his foot on the thing's stomach.

  When he felt something rupture, he couldn't tell if it was the thing's guts or his foot.

  Nevertheless, the kick did its job, sending the blind one nearly a foot into the air and against the other two, with enough force to make all three stumble into a heep.

  Conrad almost laughed in relief. But then he put his foot down on the ground, and the pain that shot up his leg killed any laughter he could have had.

  The front part of his foot was broken, shattered. Even if he sawllowed the pain, the hars reality was that anything past the heel just wasn't capable of holding his weight anymore, He had to plant the ball of his feet down on the dirt for support, while doing his best not to think about how he could possibly run like that.

  The things were getting up, and turning toward him.

  He couldn't run away. He could only try and slash at them to keep them away, and despair when that didn't work.

  It was then than it truly sunk in: he was dying here.

  This is a punishment,he decided ,God doesn't want me to reach Phoenix. He is going to kill me even sooner now, for actually going through with this.

  His mind raced through his every memory. Through the pain of realizing he just wasn't a sorcerer, through the dissapointment on his parent's faces, the disgust at their hipocrisy, taking solace on knowing that he had been blessed, chosen, by his power.

  Encountering that man. Realizing his 'gift' was in reality a horrible curse. Joining the Order of Myra, never making a friend.

  And then this trip with Mila and Kurt, and how...fun it had been, despite everything. Those two...they were his friends. He had fought against it, tried to avoid it, but he had made friends right at the last minute.

  He looked at the approaching thralss, and felt an eerie sort of calm. The world moved slower, the sound muted, and his brain was freed from any fear or pain. He smiled calmly, thinking about the last few days.

  He looked at the larger thrall, and his grip on his sword tightened.

  Well, I can at least take one with me.

  He pushed against the ground with his heel, readying his last lunge

  And then Christopher Robin landed on the big one's head.