The only good thing was that we were already on the Miller County side of Chandler County. That shaved time off the drive. The bad thing...I still hadn’t heard anything from Blaze. Every second of silence made my gut twist tighter. She could be hurt, unconscious, or dead. I didn’t want any of those things.

  [William of Brinsford:] [Blaze] [On our way. Talk to me. Let me know what’s happening. The silence has me worried. Please! Say something!]

  Nothing. Not even a hint of a message trying to come back through to me.

  Now I was worried. Very worried.

  Sweating in my fencing armor was normal. Sweating in an air-conditioned van wasn’t. My hands were damp on the steering wheel, and I could feel my heartbeat thudding in my throat as I pushed the van faster on the straighter stretches of road. The countryside blurred by...early summer green fields, patches of trees, the faint shimmer of heat over asphalt.

  I took the curves and ridge climbs as carefully as I could manage, but the urge to floor it never really went away. Carol kept giving me that worried mom side-eye, the one that said I was one bad turn away from hearing about it. She didn’t speak up, though. The rising hills between counties forced me to back off on speed anyway. Cresting a hill blind at sixty-plus wasn’t bravery...it was suicide.

  Stop signs at four-ways turned into suggestions. If the crossroad was empty, I rolled through; if I couldn’t see far enough, I slowed to a crawl. Hitting someone would slow me down more than any caution would. That thought slowed me down and made me more careful.

  About twenty minutes later, I hit State Road 318. It cut straight across the farmland like a gray arrow pointed at the county line. A mile down, I blew past a parked sheriff’s car with its red and blues flickering in the morning light.

  It pulled in behind me. I didn’t stop.

  [Sheriff Harper] [William of Brinsford] [Did you just pass one of mine on 318 eastbound?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Sheriff Harper] [yeah]

  [Sheriff Harper] [William of Brinsford] [Let him get ahead of you. Slow down. Follow him.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Sheriff Harper] [Roger that. Thanx.]

  I let off the gas. The van shuddered slightly as the speed dropped by twenty miles an hour. The patrol car slid around me, the driver giving me a quick thumbs-up through the window before pulling ahead and speeding up again.

  I matched him.

  “Okay...we’ve got an escort now,” I told my passengers. I let him control our speed. We were out of the ridges for a while.

  The fields to my left and right were narrowing between rising ridges again. The scent of ground, still damp from the heavy rains drifted in through the air conditioning vents. Carol looked relieved; her son was practically vibrating with excitement in the back seat.

  HealBot looked the calmest of all of us...her hands folded, watching the passing fields and barns like this was just a long Sunday drive. I hoped we wouldn’t need her skills, but deep down I knew we would.

  The deputy pulled over about half a mile from the county line. A small, two-story farmhouse and a barn sat near the invisible border, a gravel drive dusty in the bright sun. When I stopped, he pulled forward across the road, blocking it. Red and Blue lights flashing to stop anyone going eastbound.

  Stepping out of the van, the warm, humid air hitting me like a damp cloth. Gravel alongside the road crunched under my boots as I walked toward him. Carol and NiceIce trailed behind me...well, NiceIce bounced behind me; Carol kept a hand on his shoulder trying to slow him down. HealBot simply cracked her door half open, enjoying the cross-breeze.

  “It’s talk-to-the-deputy time,” I told my passengers. “We wait for more people.”

  He told me a bit about Sherif Harper’s plans.

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [William of Brinsford] [We’ve got Shadow. Leaving town now. What’s the word from Blaze?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Bartholomew Ironshaper] [No word yet. She hasn’t answered my chat messages after the first ones to me.]

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  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [William of Brinsford] [That doesn’t sound good. We’re maybe 20–30 minutes out. We just got to 318. Got three cars of Irregulars behind us. Eight more people plus three in the truck. Made my driver take a class so he’s Level 1 Metal Mage. No clue except for having shot a couple of test copper BOLTs. Better than nothing.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Bartholomew Ironshaper] [Gotcha. Thanks. Deputy says we have a farmyard to pull into beside the barn. Sheriff car and deputy will direct people in there. Pass it on.]

  [Bartholomew Ironshaper:] [William of Brinsford] [Got it. Passing it on.]

  After moving my van next to the farmer’s weathered red barn, I got out again and sat on the edge of my open door, back against the driver's seat, while messages poured in. The air smelled like hay, dust, and the faint smell of growing plants. Corn, I think.

  Blaze still wasn’t answering. My stomach felt like it was slowly being twisted into a knot.

  NiceIce pestered me about when we were going to fight until his mother gave him a hard enough look to stop him. He kicked gravel instead, head down. We needed more than the four of us and one deputy...a lot more.

  For the next fifteen minutes, I juggled messages from guildmates and officials. Lt. Marmari checked in. Most of the gamers in his platoon were already enroute. They were waiting on the next satellite pass for clearer intel.

  Nothing looked good.

  Marmari said their last images showed a few figures carrying rifles. A few rural folks might open-carry pistols, sure, but rifles in the middle of town? Not common. Not casual.

  Standing still wasn’t helping. Pacing didn’t help. I resisted the urge to scream in the general direction of Townsend. That wouldn’t have helped, but it might have made me feel better.

  Then PokerRun finally checked in.

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Sorry for taking so long to git back to ya. Me and some buds are on our way. We’ll be comin in from the ridges north of town. Ralphie and a couple guys are going the long way around to come in from the south.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [Thanks. I was worried. How long until you get here?]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Be a while. Closest I wanna ride is 2-3 klicks from town. Goin thru tha woods in pairs.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [Sniper pairs?]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Roger that. Me on one side and Ralphie on tha other. We talked to a couple people before we left. They didn’t wanna say nuthin. They keep dressed, the circle burns won’t show, but they talked.]

  The hairs on my neck rose.

  Circle burns? Then I realized hot gun barrels left circular burns.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [What did you find out?]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [They talked people into commin in from couple states around. Got one of their big shots in from NW Idaho, maybe. They took over a couple towns up there. Mostly made it official.]

  A cold chill slid down my spine despite the warm morning.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [Feds will want to know about that. Can I tell them?]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Best you don’t. No details. Don’t want word of how we found out commin back to us. I owed you n Blaze. You copy that?]

  I copied that.

  I copied that too well. It was a side of him I hadn’t seen before.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [Yeah. I do. Thanks.]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Supposedly they got a couple of mind bender types. High level for them. Guessin’ 5 or 6. Nobody who knows apparently can talk about it. Ya got that?]

  My pulse kicked into a faster gear.

  Mentalists. CHARM PERSON.

  Possibly SLAVER.

  Not good. Not good at all.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PokerRun] [Got it. I’ll pass it on to watch for them. Anything else?]

  [PokerRun:] [William of Brinsford] [Not for now. Talk at ya when we got eyes on.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [MamariL] [I hear some of you may be heading our way. Got some info for you.]

  [MamariL:] [William of Brinsford] [What have you got?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [MamariL] [Looks like far right, possibly someone big from Idaho or that area helping them. They have Mentalists, so be ready for CHARM PERSON spells at least. They might have someone with SLAVER profession. That’s a guess. Maybe more than one.]

  [MamariL:] [William of Brinsford] [That’s bad.]

  William of Brinsford:] [MamariL] [I’m passing it on locally to see if we can get some of the university people that were forced to take the class to show up. Hope they can counter them.]

  [MamariL:] [William of Brinsford] [I’ll pass it on to the others. Can I get your email on your phone? HQ has pictures of the town.]

  I gave him my email that I could check from my phone.

  He sent satellite images to me...Increasing resolution views of the town of Townsend. Then even closer photos from the last few minutes. Dark-clothed figures carrying rifles. No townspeople visible. Vehicles blockading roads.

  And there...on the third-to-last photo...

  Blaze’s Prius, parked just off the main street/highway, near the middle of town.

  There were also portable barricades to block the street on that and other side streets. Barricades both downtown and at the edges of town. They were holding it and obviously meaning to keep it.

  They had Blaze and Viviane. "They had them!"

  My breath caught in my throat. Townsend wasn’t just occupied. Townsend was occupied by armed men. Armed men who were holding Blaze!

  15 Chapters Ahead.