“Tybalt!”

  Mariella lunged forward, clutched him to herself, and dragged him forward and to the side, pulling Tybalt behind the cover of the rocks that had shielded her from view while she was bathing.

  “Don’t die, don’t die…”

  “Trying not to,” he muttered, smiling weakly.

  “Is your heart all right?” she asked absurdly. If his heart had been perforated, he would be dead already, right?

  He managed a nod, blood still rushing out of his wound. His voice was raspy as he spoke. “Hardened my ribs when I saw the arrow coming.”

  That’s great, she thought numbly. His heart’s fine, and even if the arrow might have nicked his lung, he’s obviously still breathing.

  His mana control was phenomenal, though it was hard to know exactly how good, since Tybalt hadn’t been a mage for long, and he had been manipulating mana for years longer than most newly minted mages. Regardless, she felt certain it had saved his life this time.

  Another arrow whizzed past his head, and Mariella instinctively pulled him closer. Tybalt winced and let out a little pained gasp, and she realized she had jerked the arrow inside him, tearing his flesh open a bit more. Blood gushed from the hole, and she found herself blinking back tears.

  I tore it open! No, it’s not that much blood, he won’t die like this… Stay calm, take a deep breath.

  Mariella inhaled, and her brain seemed to start working again. At least her body knew what it had to do. She moved almost on autopilot. She saw her left hand pull the arrow out, while at the same moment, her right hand wreathed itself in flames, and the palm pressed itself against his chest.

  Tybalt let loose a quiet scream through clenched teeth, as much from surprise as from pain, it seemed. She tried to ignore the sound, swallowed, looked down, and made herself think clinically.

  The medic training came in handy again. No apparent injury to the heart. Breathing seemed to be impacted. Wound cauterized, bleeding controlled. Mostly. There was still a very thin trickle of blood from one corner her hand hadn’t properly reached, but he wouldn’t bleed out from that. I hope I at least didn’t make things worse again…

  Her thoughts were barely coherent after that, and she would not be able to recall them in any specificity later. What she did remember was that she grabbed Tybalt by his shoulders and tossed him, as gently as she could, onto the part of the shore that was behind the rocks, giving him cover. She managed to land him so that his body was still upright, back against the stone. She wasn’t sure if he would drown in his own blood or something if he was suddenly supine.

  “Don’t die,” she whispered again, fiercely.

  Tybalt’s eyes were fluttering open and closed as she watched him, like he was trying to remain conscious, but he made no response. Mariella had to focus on the enemies. There were stones as well as arrows coming now, and from more than one direction.

  The first few projectiles missed her, but one rock glanced off her shoulder. Her gambeson protected her from the brunt of the impact, but the hit got her attention.

  They were ignoring Tybalt now, focusing their fire on her, the only one who could stand and fight.

  A quiet rage kindled inside Mariella.

  She was barely even conscious of who the enemies were. Some beastfolk, apparently out for revenge against the people who had wiped out dozens of their fellows, perhaps hundreds or thousands over the years. But she didn’t care why they wanted her and Tybalt dead.

  Mariella had wanted to go along with his plan, to negotiate some sort of peaceful settlement with the beastfolk. Now, for the moment at least, her feelings had changed.

  She didn’t give any thought to talking with the enemy, trying to reach a truce, or even just getting them to stop loosing arrows and slinging stones. She wanted to destroy them.

  She rose from the water and stepped onto the shore. As a stone whizzed by her head, inches away from her scalp, she stripped off her clothing, barely maintaining the presence of mind to remember that it would be destroyed by her skill.

  Cloak of Fire!

  Less than a second after she had thrown her gambeson and underwear to the ground, flames erupted over every inch of her body, covering her like a dense second skin.

  Wrath of Flame!

  Long tongues of fire exploded out from her fingertips, quicker than she could normally conjure them, and she began whipping at the mountainsides. She couldn’t see precisely where the enemies were, but it didn’t matter. They were close enough to shoot at her accurately, despite the awkward angle of her and Tybalt having been in the pool together. They were probably close enough for her to hit with her fire. She struck every space that she could see, and every place where there was cover for an archer or a slinger to hide, indiscriminately, with passionate violence.

  It took ten seconds for her to hit the first target. A fox man fell from a tree growing out of the cliffside, wrapped in flames and screaming.

  Burn, she thought. She kept one tongue of fire touching him, burning through the back of his clothing, ripping through flesh, searing nerve endings, scorching bone, until she reached his heart and reduced it to cinders. Then she pulled back her fire.

  An arrow whizzed seemingly from out of nowhere, faster than she could react with her flame attacks, but the shaft burned up instantly on contact with Cloak of Fire, while the arrowhead was gently redirected from her body by the violent force of the Cloak.

  Found you.

  Another tongue of flame whipped out, slapping down over top of a rock formation in the cliffside nearest to her and Tybalt. There was a yelp of pain and surprise. Again, she kept the pressure of her giant fire limb on the beastfolk’s body, burning through the center of his chest as quickly as she could. She would kill all of them like this if possible.

  You managed to get very close, she thought. She became dimly aware that where he was positioned, this beastman might have been watching her bathe. He certainly would have seen the last few minutes of her and Tybalt kissing, at the very least. Perhaps they had been waiting for the two to become intimate to launch this attack. Her rage burned just a little hotter at the thought, a mix of shame and righteous outrage bubbling in her like lava.

  At the same time, the beastman began to scream, and the smell of burning flesh and fur filled the air.

  Once, the screams of beastfolk had filled her with a sense of inner conflict, even when she had thought that they were simply being forced to leave their homes. Not now.

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  We wanted to help you…

  There was a sudden impact against the side of her head, and Mariella reeled to the left, suddenly dizzy.

  For a moment, her skill faltered. Her flames diminished slightly, and she was just a naked, vulnerable woman with a thin rivulet of blood running down her temple.

  Another stone struck her in the shoulder. She spun, staggered backward, almost tumbled into the pool. She barely caught herself, and she felt a tiny flicker of fear as she felt her foot land, half on the edge and almost touching the pool.

  If she fell into the water, her powers would be useless until she got back out of it, which could easily be fatal.

  But Mariella was a fighter. She stepped forward, planted her feet firmly on the ground, inches from the water’s edge, and she let loose a roar. Another torrent of flame surrounded her, a Cloak of Fire denser and stronger than the first. She lashed out with ten tongues of flame, one for each finger on her hands, scouring the cliffsides for the remaining enemies who were hiding and taking shots at her.

  Though she was outnumbered, and she could not see the ones trying to kill her, she would at least make it hard for them.

  I may lose, if there are too many of them and they hide until my mana runs low. But even then, I might still win a physical fight if I can make them spend their arrows and stones now. I’m not going to let them win!

  As her flames struck, there were two more screams of pain, and she smelled the odor of burning flesh and fur, thick and nauseating.

  “I’m getting out of here!” a voice yelled.

  “Damn it, Karl, we can win!” shouted another.

  “Fuck that,” Karl replied. “She’s lighting us on fire!”

  “Motherfucker!” a third voice exclaimed. “Coward!”

  More enemies.

  Mariella tried to trace the voices and aim her flames where they were, without abandoning her attacks on the three she was already targeting with her tongues of fire.

  Then she saw him, around forty feet away. A male fox beastfolk, clambering up out of hiding behind some rocks, trying to climb up the cliffside. He was just at the edge of her accurate range. He carried a bow, and Mariella imagined for a moment—probably inaccurately—that he was the one who had hit Tybalt.

  Darn…

  She knew in an instant that the foxman would probably escape. She turned two of her tongues of flame into fireballs and hurled them after him, but a pair of stones flew toward her at the last moment, and she was forced to pivot to the side to dodge. Cloak of Fire was less effective at deflecting stones than arrows, since no part of the rock was flammable except at very high temperatures. One of the stones scraped her shoulder as it passed, but Mariella barely noticed.

  Where are you…?

  There were at least three beastfolk still in fighting condition, counting Karl, although he was scaling the cliffside fairly quickly. He must have been almost as good of a climber as Tybalt, or perhaps he was just that afraid. Maybe it was a beastfolk thing, being good at climbing.

  An arrow flew toward Mariella from the other side, but it partially burned and was partially deflected on contact with her Cloak of Fire. Now she had a location for a fourth beastman, which was good, but she also felt something unwelcome.

  The Cloak of Fire had flickered a little on contact with the arrow. That was the tell that she had come to recognize meant her flow of mana to the Cloak was weakening.

  She felt the icy grip of fear tighten around her stomach.

  Soon I’ll run out…

  Her mana hadn’t been full when this started. If it had been, this would have been a relatively easy fight. But it had been a full day of sparring, and during the later hours, she had been using mana to protect herself from Tybalt’s new attack. That, coupled with spending energy on heating the pool under the waterfall, had left her almost empty, despite having not used any of her flashy skills until now.

  She took a deep breath and quietly wondered if she would make it. If her mana ran out, it would only be a matter of time before a stone or an arrow hit something that left her dead or unconscious. What would happen to her if she failed? What would happen to Tybalt?

  She didn’t dare to take her focus off the fight, to look at where he was, but she was afraid, not just for herself, but for him. He was her… well, what were they?

  She would have to survive if she wanted to figure that out.

  She lashed out at the beastfolk who had loosed the last arrow, and as her screams filled the air—this archer was apparently a female—Mariella hurled two more fiery whips at the remaining two targets. One of them struck home, eliciting a scream, but the last beastfolk seemed to have shifted places.

  Where are you…?

  Mariella felt a tiny surge in mana from a level up hitting, but she suppressed the notification for the moment. That might have been just what she needed, but she couldn’t let it distract her.

  A stone suddenly shot into her field of vision, and Mariella managed to turn slightly. She almost avoided it, but she felt it like a punch in the face as the rock grazed her nose. She felt a sharp pain that brought tears to her eyes, as a trickle of blood began to drip from her nostrils.

  She tried not to wonder if the stone had broken her nose.

  Focus.

  She looked closely at the direction the projectile had come from, and she saw a flicker of feathers in the distance, at the edge of her accurate range. Mariella lashed out again with her flames.

  A giant pair of wings caught fire, but the harpy who had finally broken cover managed to keep flying. She batted her wings hard, even as the feathers in the back burned.

  A part of Mariella wanted to give chase, but she knew it wouldn’t be wise. She could feel her mana running lower and lower by the second. Her Cloak of Fire had retreated to cover only a few key areas of her body—the same areas that her undergarments typically covered, plus her head and neck, as that was another easy area to score a fatal hit if left unprotected. In a minute or less, she would just be a target for these ranged weapon users.

  A moment passed. She waited for more arrows or stones to tell her where to aim her flames next. She could hardly see; the sunset had turned into dusk. But as long as she just paid close attention, she should be able to keep a good track of where any projectile came from. Hopefully.

  Nothing.

  There’s no one else left, she assessed. The beastfolk named Karl retreated unharmed, and the harpy was engulfed in flames. She’s not coming back to fight anytime soon. I’m… alone. I won? Another couple of seconds passed, and she let her shoulders slump. The gods are good, after all.

  Mariella dismissed the Cloak, and as the flames disappeared, she immediately shivered.

  “Why is it so cold?” she muttered.

  She knew the answer, of course. The sun had finally fully set, and the day’s heat was rapidly fading away. Her body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, not from being surrounded by fire but from the physical exertion of controlling it and dodging attacks. All the little things one did in the heat of a combat engagement.

  Now that sweat just added to how cool the sudden temperature drop left her.

  She looked in the direction of her clothes but rushed to Tybalt first.

  His eyes were closed, and she reached a hand to his bare chest—he was still as naked as she was, having been hit while in the middle of bathing. To her relief, she felt a slow but steady heartbeat. He at least wasn’t dead.

  “Thank you, Astara,” Mariella whispered. “Thank you, Vika. I will—we will make sacrifices in your honor when we return to Enh. Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

  She bent and kissed his forehead. The temperature felt normal.

  She let out a little sigh of relief.

  It was surely some kind of a miracle that both she and Tybalt had survived the ambush. She could feel the beginnings of a mana exhaustion headache, but she didn’t care about that. Tears of gratitude beaded in the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them away. Now was not the time.

  She quickly pulled her gambeson back on, then her underwear, and finally her pants and her shoes. Then she grabbed Tybalt, his clothing, and the key possessions they had been traveling with. She began to walk carrying everything.

  The beastfolk would know that the two of them were worn down from the fight. Doubtless, the two who had survived would bring reinforcements. That was the smart choice, when you had almost killed two of your deadlier enemies. If someone came to attack them now, she could not adequately defend herself, let alone Tybalt. She could only hide.

  As the darkness started to deepen around them, Mariella began to look for a new cave.

  Truth and justice must prevail.