[Adrenaline Surge]

  Marie’s body trembled as she ran amidst the roaring mob of adventurers, pounding up the slope towards the line of [Soldiers], waiting for the Skill to activate and the burst of energy to kick in.

  Nothing happened.

  She growled as she tried again, her boots drumming on the hardened, blood-slick ground next to Gil in his cart, both the mule drawing it and the [Merchant] himself screaming in a disturbing mix of panic and exhilaration.

  Nothing happened.

  The only thing that flooded her system was fear and anger, each warring to dominate as she charged towards a wall of muscle and steel with nothing but the Skills this strange, fucked-up world had given her, which, in that failing moment, felt like nothing.

  "Putain, bande de fils de pute, je vais le faire moi-même!"

  She wrenched a splintered wooden board from the side of the cart mid-stride, clenching tight with shaking hands and tried another Skill as up ahead the two lines clashed.

  [Mighty Leap]!

  That at least worked.

  But she hadn’t thought it through.

  She sailed into the midst of swinging swords and thrusting spears and the flashing of a dozen energies that were flung back and forth in the swirling melee, searing or shocking or scarring people indiscriminately.

  Only the scores of Skills being shouted out by other adventurers saved her from being killed in the first few seconds. Aelind?’s whip pulled a sword-blow off-course. Ashe shot another arrow out of the air. Fodrin’s shield interposed itself between stabbing spears and her unarmoured belly and, as a squad with swords ran at her, a man she didn’t recognise reached into the pocket of his apron and pulled out a chisel and a piece of wood and suddenly a large wooden cabinet was falling out of the midnight sky on top of them.

  Her improvised spear shattered almost immediately, as did the second plank she picked up from the wreckage of the cabinet. After the third was destroyed, she switched to her rope, lashing out for a few seconds until a [Solder]’s Skill unravelled it.

  Ducking under the arc of an axe that grew as its wielder swung it, she felt a force blast her to the ground.

  [Evasive Roll]!

  She came up next to two allagi struggling to hold back a [Soldier]’s sword arm. She reached down and felt blindly for a weapon. She grasped something, and brought a severed leg up swinging like a club.

  [Swift Blow]

  It knocked the [Soldier] off balance long enough for Ulfran to skewer him through the neck with a dagger.

  There was no time for them to thank one another as all three were bowled over by a body crashing into them from behind. Her allagi friend kicked her out of the way of a grunting hog-kin’s falling blade that embedded itself in the ground with the force he'd swung it, taking a chunk out of Ulfran’s thigh in the process, but before she could check on him a surge in the swirling melee separated them. The hog-like beastkin followed her though, and as he drove his sword down at her again she rolled and grabbed the first thing that came to hand to block the blow.

  The bottom half of Fodrin’s pavise must still have had some power left in it, because the hog-kin squealed as his blade broke in a shower of sparks, driving the shield and her arms with it back into her chest.

  Mon Dieu.

  Ribs creaked and Marie gasped for air as the breath was driven from her lungs. It felt like she’d been sucker-punched by the fist of god.

  The beastkin would have ended her there and then, with a hoof between the eyes as she lay insensate, had not a sword separated his head from his neck. The next thing Marie knew she was being hauled to her feet, the blood-spattered face of an elf grinning at her.

  “Watch yourself, child. Stay behind us.”

  Aelind? guided her gently with the flat of her blade even as her whip lashed out and took the eye of a [Soldier] that’d been about to tackle Braer, and a smoldering Embris laid about with wide sweeps of her spear, leaving fiery trails in its wake and gaining them some space to move.

  Just ahead, they heard the cry of the shaggy-haired Kalminash.

  “Forward - forge a path ahead!”

  —

  [Batallionlord] Kaio stood with impassive regard for the scene unfolding below.

  How irritating.

  The disappearance of such a large group of adventurers would not go unnoticed.

  I told them to keep the raiding at a lower level.

  Now he'd have to accelerate their plans here.

  Once the local adventurers were dealt with, they'd have a few days at most before any other ones left in the town would come looking for them.

  Anicia will have to take a team north and draw the attention off the main camp. That can buy us a week. Then perhaps we relocate a few groups to the mountains. If we can make it to the end of the month…

  Next to him, Enardo, the [Tactician Emeritus] called out another Skill, sending a squad of illusory warriors to pressure a side - though they’d look real enough to their opponents.

  Far too timid. We should have overwhelmed and crushed the first group long before the second or third even showed up.

  But he supposed you didn't get to reach retirement age and beyond without being cautious, and the mousy-haired man had been exemplary in keeping up the ruse of banditry, and even training up some of the less-capable soldiers in the process. He had to admit that their losses until this last assault had been negligible.

  If only he weren't so…old. And slow.

  Dárinio on the other hand was a complete contrast. The fiery [Desert Sorcerer] was almost eager for bloodshed. Standing there, as close as Enardo would allow him, cackling as he sent skin-stripping streams of sand whipping into the desperate adventurers.

  Not the sort of leadership he'd have permitted in his regular battalion. It was sloppy. Unprofessional.

  Well, what can you expect when nepotism is allowed to flourish?

  Down on the hillside the men and women under his command were beginning to take more significant losses as the adventurers finally pulled themselves into one cohesive group.

  Can't be having that, no matter how useless the troops they gave me are. [Commanding Presence].

  He grunted to himself as he realised he was actually going to have to involve himself in this one rather than just lending his Skills and expertise.

  This wasn't what I was hired for.

  Well, perhaps ‘hired’ was the wrong word. It implied he’d been given an option.

  He started walking forward. Squads of [Soldiers] just weren't suited to this type of work on the whole.

  I told them, they should have given me adventurers.

  —

  Thror was breathing heavily. Cutting through the defences of scores of [Soldiers] working in tandem with the Skills of their commander and likely a [Tactician] on top was more of a workout than he was used to these days.

  If he hadn’t burned through all the guild’s scrolls so fast…

  Then we’d be dead already.

  Fortunately, spell scrolls weren't the only things the guild had kept in its vault or that he was permitted to use for emergencies.

  Reporting this all to The Alloyed Assembly is going to be painful.

  Pulling a chain out from under his mane, he held up a golden badge and bellowed over the din of bloody war.

  “[Guildmaster’s Reprive]!”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was a battle in itself to bring the civilians under the aegis of the guild in that moment, but his focus proved up to the task as a golden bubble erupted from the badge and forced every enemy [Soldier] within a hundred feet back to its edge.

  A second later, the light winked out and the symbol crumbled to dust, but the confusion and space it bought was enough.

  Before even he could make use of it though, a rust-coloured blur raced past as Chiritta practically flew at the enemy [Tactician], and as his own body lurched into motion, he caught Lady Ununcia lunging forward beside him.

  The [Chief Librarian] raised a hand as she ran and called in a voice which echoed out over the reeling hilltop as she picked out the enemy [Mage], standing with the elite soldiers and their commanders two dozen yards ahead, his arms and lines of sand already circling as he called up more of his devastating desert magic.

  “[Bound Spell: Silence]!”

  All sound ceased.

  The clattering of [Soldiers] struggling to their feet.

  The calls of avenging fury from the adventurers of Wayfarrow as they surged forwards behind their own leaders

  The straining of his lungs to draw in enough air.

  And, most importantly in that moment, the words that had been coming out of the [Mage]’s mouth.

  The swirling sand collapsed to the ground a split second before their attack hit.

  But even as lips moved in frantic silence, Skills were being activated, not least by the [Tactician] who somehow managed to react before the red streak that was Chiritta slammed into him with her staff. One second the mousy-haired man was standing there with a look of panic on his face, the next a squad of soldiers had taken his place, and the squirrel-kin drove into the armoured ranks like a hammer hitting a wall.

  —

  Chiritta cursed as her whole body went numb for a second as she crashed into the line of steel-clad men and women.

  Where did he go?

  The enemies around were too heavily armoured for her to hurt with conventional means, so she dove between one set of legs, punching sideways with all the force she could muster into one knee.

  There should have been a satisfying crack and a scream, but with the {Silence} she could only feel the grinding of bone and wrenching of metal, and the sudden shock as both gave way to her fist.

  That brought the savage grin back to her face as she rolled out behind the soldier and sprung up, kicking off another [Soldier]’s leg and the back of another to catch a glimpse of her prey.

  She spotted movement behind the lines - a small, robed form in the midst of a cadre of warriors sprinting away from the field of battle to a fortified encampment.

  Oh no, you’re not getting away from me.

  She blurred into action once more. It meant leaving the others to deal with the main force, but she had her orders.

  —

  Thror plowed through the first couple of [Soldiers] in his path. They were good but they weren’t Gold-rank levels, even if they had their commanders’ Skills behind them, and his morningstar had crushed rock golems in its time.

  They folded like stalks of wheat and he broke through to the inner circle.

  That was when he got his first proper look at the leader of the southern army: professional, well-groomed and supremely unconcerned with the huge tabaxi bearing down on him. For the first time, the [Guildmaster] felt the thrill of impending danger, and Wilhelmina’s words echoed in his mind even as the midnight air on the hilltop was utterly silent.

  Low chance of success; high chance of injury or death.

  But that had been before they’d secured reinforcements…

  His own Skills were firing off.

  He’s higher than a [Commander]. And he’s almost Platinum-ranked.

  Then in one unhurried motion, the leader of the southern force drew his sword and leapt to attack.

  —

  Ununcia’s borrowed Skill was fading. The flamberge, which had felt like an extension of her arm until now, flailed as she swung at the [Mage] hiding behind his honour-guard.

  She did little more than force them back a step, and in the wake of its ineffectual passing one of them jumped forward to stab her.

  Her armour held, but with every strike the knowledge of how to fight faded that little bit faster.

  At least the [Mage] doesn’t have [Silent Spellcasting].

  It had been the gamble she’d been leaning on when she’d marked him for her quarry, but now she was here…

  I need help.

  The [Mage]’s bodyguards ducked back and raised shields, leaving her unengaged for a second. With no audible clues, it happened too fast for her to work out why… and then the body of [Guildmaster] Thror came hurtling out of the darkness even faster.

  A veritable boulder of fur and bone and muscle slammed into her and sent her sprawling, the right side of her body suddenly in agony from the force of it.

  The [Guildmaster] himself had already been spinning in the air, and landed on his feet in complete silence, lashing out at one of the bodyguard as he sprinted back to his fight, breaking the [Soldier]’s arm in a soundless strike.

  By the time she’d regained her own feet, an allagi wearing an apron and wielding a cleaver was standing on one side of her, and a genasi brandishing a badly-singed spear leapt into formation on the other, and as the last of her martial ability drained away, she launched into an attack alongside them.

  —

  Marie watched the leonine [Guildmaster] fly through the air and crash into the [Chief Librarian] in utter silence. With Aelind? and a seven-and-a-half foot Kalminash thrown back in the next breath, the enemy commander was unengaged, and though his sword was glowing like a magnesium-rich meteor and longer than she was tall, she still hurled herself at him alongside and the wren-headed alati and a grey-faced Sirrochon.

  She swung a blood-covered helmet, but the immaculate commander parried all three of their attacks in a single blow that would have rang out over the hilltop if there had been any sound, and returned a counterstroke which severed the alati’s wing and almost took her head off.

  [Lucky Dodge (Once per Day)]

  She felt the Skill activate as she stumbled just enough from the helmet being parried for the glowing tip to scratch the skin of her shoulder.

  Spinning, [Sure Footing] barely letting her keep her balance, she watched with horror, screaming silently as the blazing blue blade headed directly for Sirrochon’s chest.

  It didn’t connect.

  Sirrochon’s left hand - normally empty unless swinging his sword two-handed or holding a wineglass - had already been moving in a flourish that was in no way reflected by the grim expression on his face, and as the southern commander struck he found his blow blocked by a buckler that had materialised, though the power of the strike deformed the metal and pushed the [Verseblade] back a full step.

  The officer frowned - the first expression that had crossed his face beyond resigned boredom - and then glared as Sirrochon’s own blade flashed out and drew a line of red in the exposed tanned skin of his arm.

  Before Marie could blink Sirrochon was sent cartwheeling back into the swirling mass of adventurers, and the commander would have ended her and the alati had not a now-familiar whip curled out of the darkness to wrap round his wrist and foil his aim.

  Aelind? backflipped over the strike he sent her way with a grace that was so unnaturally beautiful it broke through Marie’s pain and shock and rage for a second and left a sense of wonder, which only grew as the elf parried as she spun and flicked out with her whip, altering her trajectory to land on the commander’s weaker side as Thror came rushing back in.

  The elf might not have had the raw level or Skills, but she had decades of experience in using them.

  Beset on one side with the lithe grace of the elven [Adventurer], and on the other by the raw fury of Thror’s morningstar, the commander merely narrowed his eyes and shifted his stance, deflecting every attack they sent his way as if they were no more than children.

  The top of the hill was a raging melee formed of the citizens of Wayfarrow and the most elite warriors of the southern force. A circle had formed around the furious exchange, but ranks of lower-levelled [Soldiers] that waited just outside the silent chaotic clash were ready to step in when their fellow warriors were injured, or to stab someone who was forced too far back.

  As Kalminash and a Silver-ranker she didn’t recognise ran in to pressure the enemy commander - who was forced to give ground for the first time - Marie grabbed the injured alati, now clutching the stump of his wing which was spurting blood, and tried to staunch the gushing torrent before he bled out.

  She sensed a shape looming behind her and turned, grabbing a shard of stone as a knife, to find Gilded Paw and his cart.

  The [Merchant] was rummaging in a pouch before giving up and tearing off his cravat. He tossed it down for her to begin tying it around the bloody stump before finding it tightening itself.

  [Preservation Touch]...just in case…

  As the bleeding slowed, she gestured to the fat tabaxi [Councillor] to help her lift the now-unconscious adventurer onto the cart, but as he nodded and leapt down to help, sound returned to the hilltop, and they both fell back as a roaring whirlwind of steel and fur and skin crashed through their location, trampling the wren-headed alati underfoot.

  There was no chance to see if he still lived as Thror wrestled with two heavily-armoured [Soldiers], careening off the side of the cart and rolling in the blood and dirt, grappling with bare hands.

  Sound overwhelming her senses, Marie caught the glint of the [Guildmaster]’s morningstar and dove to get a grip on it before it was lost in the melee.

  Overhead, Kalminash cried out as the commander’s sword sliced into his chest with a sizzle that gave off the scent of cooked meat and the huge man took a step back, narrowly avoiding crushing her hand.

  Behind her, the remaining allagi gave a piercing cry as they hurled themselves on the enemy [Mage], and for a second gusts of sharp sand flew through the air until the hunters’ blades, sharpened by Braer’s Skills, plunged into the southern caster’s body over and over.

  Marie strained to lift the [Guildmaster]’s weapon, but barely got it dragging through the hard-packed earth, until a cherry-red hand reached out to help.

  Embris had lost half the skin on her arm to the elbow, but she didn’t seem to register the pain as glowing yellow arteries and veins beneath shone brighter, and the two of them heaved and hurled the massive spike-headed mace in the direction of the [Guildmaster].

  It was close enough to a throwing axe for [Proficiency: Improvised Weapons] to take over, and with Embris lending her strength, one of the [Soldiers] fighting Thror crumpled to the ground.

  The [Guildmaster] grabbed his weapon before it could fall out of reach again, and dispatched his second opponent before turning back to the commander, but Marie didn’t miss the hint of fear in his eyes.

  Kalminash had fallen back, and in his place Braer and Ununcia had stepped in, but the [Chief Librarian] was looking less and less like a warrior by the second, and almost as soon as she stepped in to meet him her foe he disarmed her, and reversed his stroke to slice her in two at the waist.

  Marie’s heart stopped as Braer threw himself into the path of the sword to save his fellow civilian. He collapsed to the ground as everyone held their breath - one of the highest levelled amongst them fallen - but before Marie could scream, he wiped a hand over a ruined apron… revealing a remarkably unbloodied stomach beneath.

  “Bad call trying to cut a [Butcher], redmouth.”

  For a moment longer, the summer night seemed to pause in anticipation, then the allagi threw himself back at the warrior with the glowing sword, along with the highest levelled individuals Wayfarrow had to offer.

  The enemy officer faced down Thror, Braer, Ununcia, batting aside attacks from Kalminash and Aelind? and Embris, all of them empowered by the verse of lamentation that Sirrochon was spitting at the man, and didn’t break a sweat.

  Even as she watched, Braer grunted as the commander backhanded him across the face, spitting a tooth out as his cleavers swung wide of the mark.

  Aelind? rose up behind only to be elbowed away, and Lady Kypria sent a spray of ink towards his face which he dispersed with a wave of his hand as he called out a Skill-

  -all whilst duelling Thror and Kalminash as Omesia and a half-blind Eldun waded back into the fight.

  Blades moved too fast for Marie to see, and too fast for anyone else to risk getting close, the adventurers and civilians being beaten back two or three at a time.

  Indeed, even the commander’s own elite guard had moved back; with the [Mage] dead and the [Tactician] fled, the entire hilltop was fixated on the fight which was never less than six-on-one…and it didn’t look good for the men and women of Wayfarrow.

  Then Aelind? died.

  She’d gone in high, whip lashing out to wrap around Eldun’s spear both to pull him out of harm's way and pivot her direction mid-air, but [Batallionlord] Kaio had seen it coming this time, and a flick of his blade had severed the whip, sending her tumbling to his feet, and her neck exposed to the crushing force of his boot…

  The scream that tore from Embris’ throat was terrible to hear. Even Sirrochon’s dirge paled beside the raw volume of pain and anguish trapped in that single sound and every living being within a hundred yards hesitated as [Dangersenses] began ringing.

  She began to glow brighter and brighter as the scream rose, climbing higher and higher in pitch and loss and fury, until it passed beyond Marie’s range of hearing. Only the waves of heat-warped air erupting from her open mouth showed it wasn’t stopping.

  Her eyes were white hot coals in the fire of her face as her hair caught alight and rose up in a burning inferno. Her skin followed as a line of flames ignited her body until she was standing, screaming, lighting up the countryside as though it were midday - an incandescent figure of insensate grief.

  Marie had to flinch back as the heat pouring off the [Fireblade Spearwoman] burned the moisture from her eyes and dried the tears and blood coating her face.

  She only knew something had happened when she felt the rush of superheated air as the grief-stricken genasi threw herself at the cause of her loss.

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