Hot dust obscured the air as a dying Chuffa tried to cover their retreat, but without his horse the [Dust Rider]’s Skills didn't cover a wide enough area.

  Shouts rang out, and half-glimpsed shadows loomed as the already-dark running battle was thrown into complete chaos.

  Sirrochon lunged at a shape and pulled his blow at the last moment as the reeling figure of Dappled Shadow lurched towards him, cradling a broken arm, sword lost and dagger clutched awkwardly in a hand that was drenched in red.

  A clang of metal on metal told him Eldun was still fighting somewhere, and when flashes of dulled light reflected off the particles hanging in the air like lightning through a fog he knew the others were still trying to escape.

  Their spellcasters are coming out. [Battlemages]?

  He stopped that line of thinking as it began to lead to [Mages] and the one he’d left behind, and the crotchety old quarterling that had refused to leave her.

  There was no other way.

  As the remaining members of the Spellswords and Evermore's Flame faltered on, a Skill shouted in a language Sirrochon didn't understand rocked both him and Dap as they headed in what they hoped was an eastwards direction, and before they'd taken another step the cloud cleared to reveal Chuffa kneeling in partial moonlight, dazed at what had been the centre of the obfuscation moments before. The bloody rag he'd stuffed the hole in his gut with had fallen out.

  There wasn't time to react before the cadre of [Soldiers] pursuing them fell on him and hacked him apart.

  Minds blank, the adventurers pushed back tears of rage and despair and felt fear fuelling their fading feet as they staggered on.

  Boots pounded, blisters bursting, blood flowing, desperation growing.

  Less than a minute later they passed round the side of a scree-covered slope, and skidded to a stop as they saw what was arrayed in front of them, where a valley began to descend into the countryside.

  “To the top of the slope!”

  Sirro wasn't sure who'd shouted it, but they all turned left and the five remaining companions scrambled, panting, muscles tearing, as they stumbled uphill.

  In the distance, the roar of a broccsus brought a final gleeful thought into Sirro’s head.

  Some of them didn't learn from the first time.

  Then, the tiny part of his brain still capable of processing information worked out how far off the broccsus would be, and how loud the roar had been, and recognised a certain timbre to the terrifying sound. And then the [Verseblade] realised what he was hearing, and felt a fleeting glimpse of hope.

  —

  The men and women running alongside Marie were dragging in deep breaths of hot air, stuffy with summer’s heat and tinged with the tang of blood. Even Thror and Chiritta were beginning to suffer.

  Only Napoleon was entirely unaffected.

  The remaining horses were labored and spent, their riders now afoot save Lady Kypria, but the rage burning inside the citizens of Wayfarrow outmatched their exhaustion as they left the bodies of the fallen behind and sought to save their remaining friends and comrades from the same fate.

  For once, the tracks were obvious enough for Marie to follow, and she led the way as they descended further south and west, feet pounding on hard-packed earth, ignoring the occasional wounded [Bandit] limping away from the path they were forging.

  They had to find the adventurers, if they still survived.

  —

  Sirrochon paused, hands on knees, as he reached the summit alongside Eldun. His fellow adventurer was staring down the opposite side with shoulders slumped.

  “I think this is as far as we go, Brightfeather.”

  Looking at the force streaming out of the fortified position in the valley, cutting off any chance of escape, Sirrochon had to agree with the hollow ringing of his companion’s voice.

  So that's where the real force was hiding.

  If there were fewer than a hundred armed bodies moving below, it wasn't by much.

  Eighty? Ninety? Not as many as there might have been, but enough to see this through.

  Men and women clad in plate armour, swords and spears glimmering in the moonlight, barred any hope of escape in that direction.

  Why were they hiding? Why didn’t they come out earlier?

  Dap looked over to him, her swollen, tear-stained mess of a face attempting to smile as she regained her breath.

  “Just like back in Qintilla, right?”

  “Almost exactly, except we were younger then.”

  “And they were goblins.”

  “And there were half as many.” Leam coughed.

  “And you had that magic sword.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “But apart from that…”

  “If you lot want to sit around and reminisce,” Eldun was leaning on his long spear, visor raised for a moment of fresher air revealing a mask of sorrow despite the brave face they were all trying to put on, “I’ll take the next wave of them.”

  As they watched, more than a dozen wounded bodies were trickling into the camp behind the main force - limping in from the north and east - [Soldiers] they’d fought earlier and not been able to finish now returning to their base of operations.

  Were we just a test for their lower ranks? A hurdle to sort the wheat from the chaff?

  More figures, still dressed as bandits, were streaming in from the countryside behind, steadily closing off any chance that the five of them could flee back down the slope. Not that they had the energy to.

  Leaping Mist’s voice wheezed in the oddly silent air.

  “I don’t think they want us to go, now we’ve seen who they really are.”

  Sirrochon thought he was referring to the small army that was steadily surrounding them, but after a moment he realised the [Curtterwaul Fighter] was gesturing towards a specific point: a trio that stood apart behind the main lines.

  “Most likely their lead [Mage], a [Tactician] of some description and a [Field Commander] perhaps? That’d be standard for a Chamaian battleforce.” Eldun’s voice held a note of resignation, and not a trace of fear. They were all beyond it now. They were all resigned to their deaths.

  Except Sirro.

  “Just have to hold on a little longer. It’ll take them a minute to encircle the hill completely. Catch your breath and be ready for anything, and for goodness’ sake Leam, stand up straight when they come this time. Slouching is so unprofessional.”

  The tabaxi twirled his axes and grinned, showing broken and missing teeth, and crouched lower as the [Soldiers] below began to draw bows.

  —

  Omesia cursed as they ran, her blonde hair streaked with dirt and blood.

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  “[Advanced Dangersense] is flaring, Sir. Something’s ahead.”

  A second later, Marie’s head began to ring with alarms too, so much that she half-stumbled and almost crushed Napoleon’s paw underfoot before she willed the Skill to silence.

  But Thror didn’t let up, and they pushed forwards at the same pace they’d kept up for the past few minutes, and with the image of Quartz’ and Brinalda’s battered and maimed bodies fresh in their mind, no one was going to complain.

  —

  The five adventurers took what cover they could in a withered copse of trees as another volley of arrows came flying out of the darkness. Most thudded into the ground or wood with audible thunks, but one or two curved mid-air, and one pierced straight through the trunk of a dying birch and still dented Eldun’s shield.

  Sirrochon cursed as one split the skin of his cheek, but compared to some of the other wounds he’d taken his heart wasn’t in the anger.

  “Just hold on. Any time spent shooting is less time spent closing in on us.”

  The others were more or less ignoring his attempts at encouragement, especially as he was saving every Skill that could buoy them up in some manner for when the fighting really started.

  He tossed a shaft towards Fodrin, then pulled his hand back a hairsbreadth before it was impaled by yet another.

  The beastkin was stockpiling a few, stripping broken heads with his oversized teeth to make sharpened stakes as he lay flat under his pavise, which made him resemble a porcupine more than a beaver.

  As if his words had tempted fate, the hail of arrows stopped, and the sound of marching feet replaced the constant hiss of falling missiles, and then the marching quickened, and the five adventurers stepped in close to each other, until they were back-to-back, and Fodrin began emptying his makeshift quiver as fast as his Skills would let him.

  —

  Without Thror’s Skills, Marie would have been left behind as the Adventurers Guild members and [Chief Librarian] Ununcia rushed through the last few hills. The sound of battle was audible above the thudding of her heart and the gasping of her breath, and though the spade felt heavy in her hand and adrenaline was pumping even without her Skill, there wasn't an ounce of her being that considered avoiding the danger that lay ahead.

  Not when her friends continued to draw breath.

  She glanced down at Napoleon.

  Or even if they do not.

  —

  Fodrin went stumbling backwards as the great shield of his pavise was finally cracked by a veteran with a broadsword. Some version of [Power Blow] or [Mighty Swing] had overcome the meagre defensive Skills of the beastkin and his equipment.

  If only I understood Chamaian.

  The thought flitted through Sirrochon's head as he registered the [Deadeye] go tumbling into Leam, but his attention was focused on the warriors he was facing himself.

  He turned aside another blow.

  So many spears. Formation fighting is the worst.

  Dappled Shadow covered his back as he did for her, the two facing east and west, edging closer towards Leaping Mist where they'd been forced apart by Fodrin falling.

  Eldun came out of the chaos to the side, more collapsing into than springing upon a group with swords and shields as they sought to take out the tangled tabaxi and beastkin.

  Sirrochon lashed out with his own [Cutting Words], buying Eldun a second more to get Fodrin back on his feet and for the beaver-headed man to grab a sword from one of the dead, and heft his broken shield back into place. He pushed forward again as Leam took another cut to the arm, the tabaxi snarling out a Skill that made his axes shriek as he hewed back, throwing off his opponents’ balance.

  A shard of ice pierced Sirro’s back, and he instinctively pulled away.

  Dap really should have caught th-

  Realisation hit him and he spun to see the shadowy outline of the [Bladesinger] staring down at her chest, and the blade that was sprouting from it.

  He screamed her name as the tabaxi woman half-turned and fell to her knees, flecks of blood sputtering from her mouth as she struggled to breathe, until a spear flashed out and ripped down through her throat and out through her stomach, and then she stopped breathing forever.

  Everything seemed to slow as Sirrochon watched his oldest friend die, and a part of him died with her.

  He began shouting Skills. More than half of them weren't ready, but the ones that were cut into the men and women in front of him, bouncing off their combined defensive Skills for the most part, though one or two fell back, letting fresh [Soldiers] take their place.

  Pain was building in his head, from both his own attempts to force his unavailable Skills and the shock, and the multitude of wounds he'd taken since the whole terrible night had begun, but minutes later, or perhaps hours, or mere moments, given how slowly everything seemed to be moving, a thrumming roar eclipsed all else.

  —

  Eighteen adventurers, a librarian and an undead dog charged uphill and into one side of a force five times their number.

  With the speed they were moving, only the rear rank of the bandit-soldiers had time to turn before they were amongst them, a score of people lashing out with a score of different weapons, but each one finding purchase in flesh or carving into armour.

  Taking her spade two-handed, Marie brought it down on the head of a young man with coral for hair, clad in steel, the force of her [Quick Blow] snapping his neck as it caught at an odd angle.

  Ahead of her, Aelind?’s whip flicked out to take the eye of another, whilst her sword parried a desperate cut of one of the few that had managed to turn to face them.

  One of the [Bandits] shouted a Skill and slashed out in an arc of steel towards Embris’ neck, but Chritta’s staff was suddenly there, intercepting the blade and redirecting it into the ranks of his own people.

  Yet all of them were nothing compared to the [Guildmaster]. Thunderous Roar’s morningstar rose and fell so quickly it was a blur, and each time it connected it shattered arms or ribs or skulls. In the first few seconds, he'd reaped a tally equal to the rest of the group combined.

  Until Lady Kypria entered the fray.

  Still atop a horse that should have collapsed long before, the [Librarian] in the guise of a [Warrior] sliced around herself with great sweeps of the wave-bladed flamberge, cutting down two or three at a time. Half a dozen spears stabbed into her mount, finally killing the poor creature, but before it could fall to the floor and trap her beneath it, she flipped out of the saddle with the grace of a gymnast, and landed a dozen feet into the press of bodies, a wide swing opening up a space for her to stand as she shouted another Skill.

  “[Form an Orderly Queue].”

  It was only then that Marie realised the gulf between Silver and Gold ranks, as the swirling mess of a melee around her transformed in the space of a second into two neat lines of enemy combatants, and as they reeled from the disorientation of the forced repositioning the [Chief Librarian] sliced through another three bodies.

  The carnage was dreadful, but in the moment of her Skill, a path to the summit of the low hill they were fighting on could be seen, and standing there, back-to-back, were four unmistakable figures.

  —

  Through a parting in the press of bodies, Sirro glimpsed salvation at hand, and before he could do more than parry another blow, the adventurers of Wayfarrow were coming to his rescue.

  The huge [Guildmaster] and a warrior-woman he didn’t recognise weren’t the first through the gap though; Chiritta moved almost too fast to be seen as she lashed out with a wooden staff. It might not have had the force to kill, but it sent [Soldiers] reeling and opened up the way for the others.

  Seconds later, the adventurers were forming a ring around the last of the Spellswords and Evermore’s Flame, picking up Leam from where he’d been crushed under the body of an ox-headed beastkin, thought not all of them made it to the protective circle as one of Algar’s Hunters was cut down, a blade opening up his back in a spray of blood.

  Sirrochon opened his mouth to give desperate thanks as the figures wavered and blurred in his sight, but all that came out was a wheeze of forced air, and a pressure built in his skull and everything went black.

  —

  Marie watched Sirrochon collapse, but couldn’t do anything about it except send Napoleon over to guard him as she was beset by another [Bandit] and had to raise her [Improvised Shield] pan to block a blow that would have taken her head off. There was no room for an [Evasive Roll] as she was pushed up against Embris and the wren-like alati whose wing-arms proved hard enough to deflect steel.

  With the advantage of surprise and the initial furiosity of their charge spent, the adventurers were forced on the defensive as the mass of bodies surrounded them.

  [Basic Level Analysis]... merde.

  They were all in the mid-20s or over; every single one of them was higher level than she was.

  And they have proper weapons and armour.

  She felt [Lucky Dodge (Once per Day)] activate in the opening seconds as a swordtip passed less than an inch in front of her nose, but she’d tripped over a dead body, and she fell back into the centre of the defensive circle, Aelind?’s hand kept her back as the elven woman sprang into the gap and flashed out with whip and sword. The second she had space to breathe the woman pushed Embris back from the outer ring too.

  “Signal our position. There’s too many for us to take alone.”

  The fire genasi nodded her agreement and raised her spear to the sky, sending up a series of jets of flame which burst into scarlet showers of sparks a hundred feet in the air.

  In the centre, Marie found herself next to Eldun, who was swaying on his feet, and Fodrin, who was sitting on the stump of a shattered tree, feeling around for arrows and shooting them off into any gap that opened up. Embris lept back into the fray as soon as she’d sent her flares up, but the other adventurers dipped in and out as they were forced back or wounded.

  She bent down to check and breathed a sigh of relief as she found that Sirrochon was still alive. That sigh caught in her throat as she saw a familiar cat-like figure lying a few feet away, impaled by a sword.

  Marie blinked back tears as she alternated binding the worst of the wounds she could see on Sirrochon and the other adventurers forced to the centre of the circle in those first minutes, and hurling improvised missiles of rock and armour and broken weapons into the mass of bodies that swelled and pushed in around the valiant defenders.

  A moment later she spotted a man struggling as a huge minotaur bullied him backwards, and with a whistle she sent Napoleon to aid Algar, the undead dog harassing the allagi’s opponents to buy him a second more.

  It gave enough of an opening for the armoured form of Eldun to slam into the monstrous opponent with a Skill and force him backwards, but before the [Sentinel] could retreat back into the defensive circle a falling arrow impaled him through the leg.

  It stuck into the ground, and it was only by snapping it in half that the man was able to throw himself back out of the way of a block of swordsmen that had charged his position.

  Fodrin sent a hail of arrows into them and Omesia and Dusty plugged the gap as Eldun stumbled in. He was removing one of his greaves to better withdraw an arrow that had pierced it when she reached him. With his helmet visor raised, she could see a face more bruise than flesh, streaked with sweat and grime and tinged red from a thin sheen of blood.

  “They’re not [Bandits]. They’re [Soldiers].” The [Sentinel] stared at the seventeen adventurers arrayed around them as Marie took over with a makeshift bandage, and shook his head. “There are too many. You shouldn’t have come.”

  He was right, she realised, as Algar was forced back again despite Napoleon’s help, the [Hunter] bleeding heaving from his shoulder, and Dusty had to step sideways to cover his spot as the circle contracted that little bit more. Then a streak of green-black energy made it through a gap in the defenders and laid Fodrin low. If it hadn’t been for Thror, Lady Kypria and the whirlwind that was Chiritta, they’d all be dead already.

  She attempted a reassuring smile that came out more of a grimace as she glanced at the unconscious forms of .

  “We are just the first wave. We just need to hold on until the rest arrive…”

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