I check I still have enough arrows left. The quiver still holds quite a few, but less than I’d hoped. “Let’s go help Rworg and Mandollel.”

  The green light of the aurora plays on Finna’s hair, making it look even blacker than it usually looks. “What if there will be more mages? A mage never flew in like that on the previous times.”

  I stop mid-step. Should I just hold back from rest of the fight, watching the skies above? The last time there were a bunch of distortions in the mana field or whatever it is that is happening above us, though. I’ll keep one eye on the skies, but I’ll have to make sure Rworg and Mandollel are ok. If the rest of the riders are like the zig-zag-rider, even they might have trouble with them.

  “Let’s still go,” I say. “If you see anything weird happen to the sky, let me know.”

  “More weird, you mean.”

  Two horses lie dead near Rworg. He’s painted with blood, glistening black on his skin and sword.

  The shrill whistle of Mandollel’s sword cuts above the screaming and cracking as Rworg shears his sword through the shields of two Kertharians in a single swipe. Mandollel jumps, light and easy. He lands behind one of the Kertharian riders, and swipes down with his blade at him. The sword smashes through the helmet and bone and chainmail below them. Cut rings of metal shower into the air.

  Mandollel kicks off, almost hanging in the air momentarily. The horse whinnies and continues forward. The limp rider bounces along for a moment before leaning and falling off its back. Mandollel lands and steps aside to let a spear miss hitting him in the chest. It hits a rock behind him, bouncing and vibrating in the air.

  “If you could!” he shouts at me, as he turns to face another rider coming his way.

  The rider who threw the spear is pulling a second one from a large quiver of sorts attached to his saddle. He has the same problem as Rworg would have with his sword without the straps that snap open. There’s a wedge in the thing holding the spears, but he still has to pull the spear pretty far before he can twist it loose. It gives me easily enough time to prepare the shot.

  I shoot him in the exposed gap below his arm as he’s reaching up with the spear. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity, really. I know that if I stop to consider anything for a single moment, let my self realize what’s going on, I’m going to turn into jelly. My legs shake and wobble and when I speak my voice trembles, but that’s not important now.

  Rworg cuts the other Kertharian attacking him practically in half with a massive one-handed swing of his sword. The attackers top part falls backward and his legs forward, something still working as a hinge between them. The other rider swings his saber down at Rworg. There’s no way he can parry it, his sword is still moving away from the strike.

  Rworg slaps the saber aside with his other hand. He blocks it like I would block a punch, catching the blow on his thick leather bracer. The metal studs on it spark against the saber’s blade.

  The rider yelps, the war cry interrupted by his sword being struck to the side, dragging his arm to cross his chest awkwardly. Rworg continues the movement, spins half a turn, and swing his sword up at the rider. I don’t watch to count in how many separate pieces he falls from the horse, but it’s not one.

  There is a single rider left. He sits on his horse in the middle of us, eyes moving from one to another. Mandollel turns toward him and flicks his sword, the sound it makes like a single sharp note of a fiddle. Rworg turns to face the rider, covered head to toe in blood. I nock an arrow.

  The rider shouts at us, practically foaming at the mouth. He isn’t scared, only looking to have difficulty deciding who to attack first. Rworg is closest, and the rider yanks the reins of his horse to turn toward him.

  Rworg starts to ready his sword to intercept the man, but Mandollel appears next to the horse. It’s still hard to believe the speed he moves with. He spikes his sword up. The tip of the blade peeks up above the rider’s shoulder, vanishes down in an instant. Mandollel dances back a couple of steps and flicks his sword again. The blade is spotless, bright steel, green in the light. He turns the blade and pushes it into the loop in his belt. The blade crackles as it disappears. The last time I saw him pull out the sword, it didn’t spark or spit like that. The blade appeared smoothly, a slight glow showing where it came from. He releases his hands from the hilt and flicks his hair back from his face.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The Kertharian rider tilts to the side and falls. Finna and I jump by the sudden sound the body hitting the ground makes. After all the screaming and shouting, the silence is jarring.

  The auroras rattle quietly above us. Somewhere, a horse whinnies.

  I don’t find the corpse of the archer anywhere. I would have like to see if he had any more arrows. Rworg has wiped at least some of the blood off himself with cloth taken from the Kertharians, though only the ones killed by Mandollel or me have anything that’s not soiled with blood to begin with. The horses are gone. We wouldn’t have had enough for all of us, none of the horses could have carried Rworg and I’m not sure if Finna can ride in the first place. I know I can’t.

  “So, are we done here? We don’t need to wait for anything anymore?” I ask.

  Mandollel looks up to the sky. The auroras are fading, rising up toward the stars. “We’re done here and we should leave as soon as possible. I’m worried about the mage. More might come to investigate.”

  Finna looks up at the sky, frown on her face. “What use was stopping teleportation, if they can still move that damn fast?”

  “Flying is cumbersome and slow. You have to prepare, protect yourself from the elements, make sure you can see something.”

  Finna scoffs. I shiver, remembering how cold the air above the clouds was.

  “She must have been already somewhere close, maybe flying somewhere. Maybe she just saw the lights. But still, I’d prefer we quit this place as soon as possible.”

  Rworg tosses a piece of cloth to the ground. He has managed to clean himself up somewhat, but I hate to think how he will smell in couple of days. “More lights on the plains.”

  Mandollel jumps up on the rock and shades his eyes from the green light still shining from above. “You’re right. Not on horseback, but marching fast.”

  “What are we waiting for, then,” Finna says. She lifts the backpack and pulls the straps tight, securing it against her back.

  I glance at the gnarly trees. There’s nothing suitable growing here that I could use for crafting arrows. Most I shot during the battle broke or were lost. Snapped as the mage tumbled down from the sky or dragged away by the horses. “Let’s go. But at some point I need to find something suitable for crafting arrows.” I have everything necessary in the gear we brought from Tenorsbridge except the wood. Arrows crafted on the field won’t be as good as proper ones, but better than nothing.

  “We’ll keep an eye out. We should be able to find Ironwood or Desert Willow or at the very least some Juniper. I’ll tell you if I see something suitable,” Mandollel says.

  I help Rworg with his sword as Mandollel and Finna look over a map. The light above as settles into a hazy green. Like a real aurora might be, even if I have never seen on myself.

  “From now on, we can’t rely on memory anymore,” Mandollel says. “This is as far as any of us has been. Stay on your toes. We’ll take breaks to consult the maps, but try to get as far as we can while it’s still dark.”

  We leave before the Kertharians are anywhere close enough to see us. The ground is hard and dry, and growing drier with every step. Tracking us won’t be easy, unless they have dogs. So far I haven’t heard anything barking. Something howls in the night, but it comes from another direction than the Kertharians. The Kertharians are coming from the east, which is where we should be going as well. Mandollel leads us south, circling the Kertharians much closer than I would prefer.

  We’re sitting behind a bush, breathing hard, but quietly. The pace Mandollel makes us travel is intense and unrelenting. At least the night is still cool. The Kertharian unit jogs past, armor and weapons jingling, torches blazing and spreading a cloud of thick smoke behind them. The smell of oil carries all the way to us.

  The Kertharians sing as they run. Different song from the mad wail that has been the backdrop to every battle with them. It’s a rhythmic chant, call and response, the language still alien and guttural.

  Rworg chuckles quietly. “I don’t know all the words, but it’s pretty dirty.”

  It might be the dawn breaking, but I could swear Mandollel is blushing. “Shh, let them pass.”

  The Kertharians jog ahead, heading toward the small island of trees. The auroras hang above the trees, high up in the sky, but localized around the area. Small streaks of light flash through the green occasionally, but the dawn is already washing out the colors.

  “The effect will intensify with every stake that we use,” Mandollel says. “At least that is what we’ve been told.”

  “It was pretty intense to begin with,“ Finna says. “And don’t you dare start explaining what happened.”

  Mandollel closes his mouth and rolls his eyes. “Fine. Please help me decide a spot to camp for the day. I see at two Kertharian camps ahead of us and one patrol. We have to continue being very careful. More so now than ever.”

  “They will increase patrols. Try to stop us from getting further into the country,” Rworg says. “We have to be ready to cut them down if needed.”

  We have been on this mission for such a short while, but it feels like weeks. I’m used to camping, living under the open sky, spending days tracking something and then hours approaching it carefully, slowly. Yet the excitement has always been over after the prey was felled. On this mission, there will be more fights, more and more the longer we spend here. Never a chance to fully relax. We’re surrounded by raving madmen. Mages could fly in at any moment. And we have to announce our location to them all three more times. Maybe next time we just wait, instead of making a racket.

  I still have so many questions I’m not sure if I ever will have a chance to ask them all, but suddenly Mandollel’s head twitches. He raises a palm to silence us.

  After a moment, I hear it too. A soft pad, a light thump, scrape of something hard on stone.

  “What is it?” Finna whispers.

  I inch my hand toward my bow. Other hand’s fingers playing lightly over the fletching of an arrow.

  “Dinner,” I say.