Whisper’s voice shot through Rasp’s skull like a bolt of white-hot lightning. Screaming, Rasp jerked free from Oralia’s arm and stumbled backwards. His ankle caught on a root, and he fell, still clutching the sides of his head as Whisper’s phantom voice pulsed within his mind. The others thundered past. Their fast footsteps grew faint in the distance, too enraptured by the call of war to either notice nor care that one of their own had fallen behind.

  Not everyone had gone on ahead, apparently. Wet snow crunched underfoot as someone approached where Rasp lay curled on the forest floor, writhing like a fish out of water. “What’s gotten into you, huh?” Mul’s shadow loomed over the top of his younger brother. He nudged Rasp’s shoulder with the tip of his boot in the brotherly sort of way that was simultaneously endearing and unnecessarily rough. “This is no time for a nap.”

  Rasp barely registered his older sibling's grumblings over the noise inside his head. He could have easily ignored him, in fact, had it not been for the way Mul kept nudging him with his blasted boot. Rasp batted Mul’s unhelpful foot aside. “Will you knock that off, already? I’m trying to listen!”

  “To what?”

  “Not you, obviously! Be quiet.”

  A second pair of footsteps approached. They belonged to Oralia, who wasted no time in barking at Mul to step back and give Rasp the space he needed. Mul didn’t take to her intrusion without protest, of course, and joined her along the sidelines, grateful for the opportunity to pick a fight with someone capable of fighting back. The rise and fall of their hushed voices melded together into an obnoxious background hum. Rasp pushed their noise from his mind and focused on what Whisper was telling him. His mentor’s voice was annoyingly soft, deafened by the distance, as though they were reaching him from the very edge of their telepathic range.

  “Alright, I got it!” Rasp snapped once the pain grew unbearable. Each word dragged across his mind like metal on rough sandstone. “Message received loud and clear. I’ll handle it. Just get out of my head before you pop it like a blister!”

  It was mostly true. He may have missed a word or two, but he’d gotten the meat and potatoes of Whisper’s message. Whether or not he understood it was a whole nother matter. Wouldn’t matter if he understood it if it came at the cost of his own skin, though. Living first. Understanding later. Finally, Whisper’s disembodied voice untangled from his thoughts. A wave of relief washed over Rasp, easing the debilitating pressure that pressed against his eyes, threatening to pop them from their sockets. Groaning, Rasp eased upright and massaged his pulsing temples.

  One of the two onlookers stepped tentatively closer, but refrained from reaching down and shaking Rasp by his shoulders for information. It was Oralia, given the voice and overall lack of kicking. “What is it?”

  “Whisper says we need to kill Cray.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Great plan, no notes,” Mul said. “But mind telling me who Whisper is again?”

  A howling gust of wind swept past overhead, bowing the quivering treetops into submission as not one, but two shadows blanketed the forest floor in temporary darkness. The air lit with the rancorous roar of prehistoric beasts as the pair passed overhead. Rasp instinctively ducked down and covered the back of his neck. He remained that way, content to stay curled in the fetal position until he was certain the danger had moved on.

  He lifted his head and squinted, realizing that instead of answering Mul’s question, Oralia’s blurry form merely pointed at the sky, indicating the larger of the two shadows. That, or she was flipping Mul the bird, which, while well-deserved, seemed unlikely.

  “The dragon. Right,” Mul said. “And they want us to kill Cray, huh? Seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it? All that effort just to say something we were already on our way to do.”

  Rasp opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Mul’s continued grumbling.

  “Well, maybe not us-us, I suppose. The others are all a good half mile ahead by now. We’ll be lucky if there are any scraps left over by the time we catch up.”

  “Cray’s not with the others.” Rasp went back to massaging the ache from his forehead with the pads of his thumbs. “Whisper says he’s out here, in the woods. Looking for you, Oralia.”

  “Me?” The orc’s tusks snapped so forcefully that it sent a cold shiver shimmying up Rasp’s spine. Rasp barely had the time to smooth the raised hairs on his arm before he was being jerked up onto his feet and pulled into a desperate run.

  “Give me a little warning next time, maybe?” he demanded. He was no match for the orc’s raw strength. Instead of fighting it, Rasp picked his feet up as high as he could to avoid getting tangled on the vegetation Oralia ploughed through without notice. Rasp didn’t understand what the rush was for. Sure, it would have been better to kill Cray as soon as possible, but it didn’t mean they had to work this hard for it. They already had what Cray wanted. The better plan would have been to sit and wait for him to come to them.

  Unfortunately, it was something he was going to have to spell out to Oralia before she single-handedly ran them right into a tree. “Will you slow down, please? Cray’s not anywhere near us. My magic sense would have gone all tingly if he were.”

  “Exactly the problem,” Oralia agreed. She spoke unnaturally calm for someone hellbent on leveling the forest one patch of scrub at a time. “Cray is not near us.”

  And here Rasp thought that was a good thing. Getting caught unaware by a deranged witch seemed like something they should have been grateful for. “I’m not following.”

  “Boss!” Mul called from behind them. He huffed and puffed to keep pace. “What in blazes has gotten into you? You’re running in the wrong direction! The manor’s back that way!”

  “Cray is not after me,” Oralia called over her shoulder. “He is after the powerstone.”

  The little dots connected at last in Rasp’s head. His gut sank so low it threatened to take him out at the knees. “The one you gave to Briony for safekeeping.”

  Briony, who, despite her stubborn nature and inexplicable ability to thwart death and capture at every turn, was still just a faun. Neither witch nor warrior, she was no match for the predator that stalked the shadows. What’s worse, she wasn’t alone. On her own, she might have been able to hightail it to safety, but she had a heart buried under all those layers of gruff and wouldn’t abandon her people to face Cray alone.

  A single word slipped from between Rasp’s tightly clenched teeth. “Shit.”