Death nearly found me with my trousers around my ankles. What an embarrassing way to go that would have been.

  Luckily, the assassins stalking the night, aiming to kill us in our sleep, had underestimated us. We were more powerful than their usual prey, and instincts honed to a razor’s edge over half a year of strife and struggle saved me. A prickling at the back of my neck, an itch underneath my fingernails, and a creeping feeling of dread up my spine warned me before the spear found my flesh.

  I'd awoken in the night, bladder straining, and moved just outside of Nathlan's first ward circle to relieve myself. His outer ward was still silent and unbroken, and I was confident in his abilities. Too confident, as it turned out.

  So it was with surprise that I threw myself to one side, recoiling slightly at the feeling of bare flesh scraping against the roots and sticks hidden within the mulch that covered the forest floor. I heard a quiet exhalation, sharp and tightly contained, as if the person trying to skewer me was doing their best to keep noise to a minimum. I rolled over, unable to get my feet under me, but now at least able to see the shadow wielding the gleaming steel point that even now quested out towards my throat.

  Resolution was still tucked neatly underneath my bedroll, I had no armour to speak of, and my trousers had fallen to snare my ankles…suffice it to say, things weren’t looking good.

  I willed my mana to coalesce and flood into the skill constellation for Axis-Shift, aiming to disorient the man as he lunged towards me. I noticed a slight unsteadiness in his front leg in response, and, capitalising on the moment, swung both my legs into his calf in a vicious kick. He buckled, and I smacked aside the spear with a forearm as it came within range. The shadow of a man fell to the earth, his limbs tangled amongst my own, and I rolled onto him, smearing mud from my hands over his face as I tried to grapple with him.

  I caught a wrist, the knife clutched within the man’s fist coming perilously close to my side, and I gave him a brutal headbutt for his troubles. His nose broke and blood sprayed my face, and as I heaved back, I took advantage of the brief moment of respite to shout at the top of my lungs - “Ware!” – hearing chaos break loose immediately afterwards.

  The man I fought wasn’t alone though, and these were no common bandits. My opponent was definitely in the 2nd tier, though I didn't have time to get a good feel for their strength. They recovered impressively fast from the broken nose and shoved me in the chest with both hands. Rather than fight it, I went with the movement, falling back and accepting another kick to the chest as I did, which propelled me a few feet along the forest ground.

  Sticks, roots and other objects scraped across the naked flesh of my ass and thighs, and I knew that if I survived this fight, I would be the subject of mockery around the fire for the next few weeks. ‘There goes Lamb Bare-Arse, sliding across the ground again’. If nothing else, that thought spurred me on to finish the fight and dress properly, quicker even than the threat of death.

  Enough time had now passed since the sudden attack for my mind to wake up and begin to understand the situation I was in, and I finally called Resolution to my hand using the artifact link within my soul. I could hear shouting now; grunts of shock, a few cries of pain and the panicked shouting of a commander trying to restore order to an ambush gone wrong.

  Fire bloomed to life, crackling and raging through the canopy as Vera joined the fight, and far to my left I saw a bright green glow rush between the trees, a shining silver streak as a great twin-headed axe cut a man near in half in a single blow. I flipped back to my feet, springing off one hand and landing with the other one extended in front of me, in time to catch the spear that flew towards me. A thud of wood against flesh as Resolution landed in my grip, and then the sharp crack of wood against wood, as I deflected another strike with its red-lacquered haft.

  My footwork was extremely limited given the situation with my trousers, and so I couldn’t fight with anything approaching my usual dexterity. But even with short shuffles and poor balance I was able to fend off the flurry of blows sent my way, and in the next moment I reversed our positions, striking out with a careful lunge, Shatter Point activating and blowing a hole through the banded steel of my opponent's shoulder pauldron, along with the flesh and bone beneath.

  They screamed then, and whether it was because they had no reason to keep quiet any longer, or because their discipline failed, I wasn't sure. A few heartbeats later and the scream cut off as my spear found their chest and punctured their heart.

  I looked around frantically, pulling my trousers up as I assessed the chaotic scene, and then I bounded into the fight once more. I had no armour, clad only in trousers, my chest bared to the cool night air. Thanks to A Frozen Pyrre, however, my weapons were always close at hand, and my hatchet thudded into my open fist only a moment later.

  Spear and hatchet gripped in hands clenching with both excitement and fear, I stormed the battlefield that our camp had become and brought death to my enemies, savage grin splitting my face like a spectre in the gloom.

  *Jacyntha*

  Jacyntha was woken by Lamb's hoarse call, and she needed no further explanation. Cold-Fang was in her hands, and she launched herself from her bedroll, eyes wide and rolling, her white teeth bared to the night.

  She saw shadows circling their camp and called on her mother’s power. A flare of emerald light filled the twilight, scattering green off the empty boughs around her and turning the winter forest into a scene of spring for a brief moment. New strength flooded her body and then an arrow came whizzing towards her out of the darkness. She interposed the large head of her axe, metal clanging against metal as the projectile was deflected to one side.

  Not like this. It had been just over a month since the lowest point of her life, and she was now finally beginning to claw her way out of that empty hole and taste the fresh air once more. Her skills, once so distant, were now within grasp and she could taste purpose on the horizon. Redemption was too much to hope for, even now, but even the hint of it was enough to fill her with hope, and she would not risk losing her path now that she had one.

  She reached for the skills that had been so clouded by the ritual years ago, parted those cloying mists until she saw her life-force flow towards one, and activated Swift-Strike.

  She closed the distance with the archer in front of her with unnatural speed, a quick double step around the tree that they hid behind and then her axe, propelled with extra power from her skill, slammed into his midriff, carving through flesh and cleaving bone. He was split nearly in twain. Her shoulder hit his upper torso and he flopped backwards, spine severed and no longer able to hold him, while his legs stayed rooted upright for a half moment.

  It was a gruesome sight, but she was already through the man and looking for another foe. She didn't care that they wore the livery of soldiers rather than bandits, didn't care that they may feel their cause just. All that mattered was that in this moment they were trying to kill her and any dream she had of moving forwards.

  Absolution, once so far out of reach, now seemed to dangle before her and she knew there would be blood to be spilled, her own and that of others, before she could reach out and take it. Gritting her teeth as a blade shot out towards her, knowing she was unable to halt her momentum in time, she committed to her charge, turning her body sideways and accepting a score of fire scraping across her ribs as she slammed into a woman bearing the sword that even now dripped with Jacyntha’s blood.

  Her elbow cracked the woman's jaw and while the action stung and set her whole arm to ringing, the thin metal flanges protecting the soldier’s face bent inwards and the woman fell to the floor. Jacyntha slipped under a spear and stood again, her axe rising with her in a brutal arc, painting the trees behind with blood.

  It was a tough fight, and she accumulated wounds with every moment that it continued, but Jacyntha's body was riddled with scars already, and a few more wouldn't make a difference. With her old skills accessible she slashed and hacked, cutting through soldiers with frenzy.

  Cold-Fang sang a keening cry as it parted air and wood, flesh and bone, in equal measure, and Jacyntha fought with her mother’s weapon and strength flowing through her. She didn’t know what she was truly fighting for, she had secured vengeance for her mother already, after all. But something pushed her on, and she surged towards it across the battlefield, unheeding of the wounds she accumulated as she searched for the truth that would set her free.

  *Nathlan*

  The moment he woke to Lamb's yell, he knew something was wrong. Two shapes blurred from their camp, one flaming and orange, the other black as the night, which Nathlan knew to be the figures of Jorge and Vera. Then he heard Jacyntha’s roar as she charged into the fray, and he finally understood what it was that was so wrong.

  They were under attack, but no feedback came from the ward he had set. It was as if there was nobody here at all. He frowned to himself even as he rolled to his feet, gripping his scabbarded blade in one hand while reaching out to the weave of magic that laced through Tsanderos with the other.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He felt the tattered remains of his carefully laid ward drifting away on the magical tide, dispersing by the moment. Like it had been snipped without his notice, undone by a hand skilled with ward-craft and familiar with the pattern he had set.

  Panic was a tempting emotion, considering the urgency that it lent one's movements, but Nathlan had had spent many days, many weeks, many years even, training to lead. His face betrayed nothing as he stood and walked calmly into the chaos.

  No golden light enveloped his blade, as while Truth Is A Knife - the upgraded version of Veracity's Edge - was one of his most powerful skills, it was also flashy and drew attention. With Vera and Jorge causing havoc, and Lamb and Jacyntha running amok to distract the soldiers, Nathlan would find whatever mage the enemy had that had destroyed his ward.

  For such an end, he would need a darker set of skills, and that was part of his class as well. To bring truth to light, but also to walk in the darkness, and root out the lies where they lay. Dark shadows clung to his blade, obscuring the gleaming steel beneath with A Whispered Lie – the upgrade of Deception’s Call.

  Nathlan strode calmly through the night, illuminating the truth of his opponent's incoming deaths with the edge of a black blade, even as he searched for the one that had deceived his wards.

  The fighting seemed to be over, and I took the chance to shake blood from my spear. It was not entirely that of my enemies though, for I'd received a nasty gash along my chest that wept crimson tears down my torso.

  I'd gone to ground with a soldier of immense strength. He was clearly in the 2nd tier, and highly placed within it if I had to guess based on his strength compared to my own. We’d wrestled in the mud like a pair of pigs in shit, squealing and goring at each other with knives instead of tusks. Our shared blood soaked the earth and painted each other's faces and weapons, and while I had come out on top, it had been close. Far closer than I would like.

  I stumbled over to where Nathlan stood, concern etching my face, but he waved me off, and I realised the blood that coated his robe was not his own. Sadrianna was nowhere to be found, and I whirled around looking for the others.

  Jacyntha was leaning against a tree, holding her side, blood sheeting her torso. I moved over, trying to ask if she was badly injured, but my lips were swollen from a nasty punch to the face and the words didn't come out properly. She seemed to get the gist of it though, and shook her head as she spat to one side.

  “I’ll live,” she said. “The others?”

  I sniffed, before realising that simply looking might not be the best way to do this. Bodies were strewn around the small enclave of our camp. Broken weapons, broken armour, broken men and women littering the ground and turning a once peaceful forest glade into a scene of slaughter. There were two dozen at least just within eyesight, and I knew more had been killed further away, hidden behind trees and beneath rotting logs.

  If this ambush had managed to kill Vera or Jorge, then we would die soon ourselves too, whether or not I drew attention with my shouting. So, I heaved in a breath, and then bellowed, “Vera? Jorge?”

  It took less than a handful of breaths for the old man to appear, and while Jacyntha and myself looked like we'd been through a battle, which I suppose we had, and Nathlan looked if not injured, at least spattered by gore, Jorge was clean as a whistle.

  He bore not a mark on him, or his gear, and I was reminded of when we had hacked through the Wandering States in monsoon season, that strange shield he'd managed to work around himself to keep off the rain. I wondered if he had some sort of incredibly fine-tuned personal aura, or armour skill, but the thoughts were kicked from my head as he replied.

  “Peace, Lamb. Sadrianna and Vera are culling any stragglers that tried to run, and they’re uninjured too, thank the gods.”

  I scowled and spat to one side, and he continued, “I know you don't like it, lad, but we can't let them live. If they report what happened here, we’ll be hounded all the way through this cursed country.”

  I ran a swollen tongue along teeth that felt slightly too loose, and grimaced.

  “It's not that, Jorge. Fuck ‘em – they attacked us first. My face just hurts, that’s all.”

  He seemed taken aback for a moment before nodding. “You came around quicker than I thought, little Lamb,” he said quietly.

  “Right,” he said louder, clapping his hands to get our attention, “how are we all looking?”

  He looked to Nathlan who waved him off. “No injuries. I am fine,” he said.

  Jacyntha nodded next, lifting her arm to show the deep gash across her upper stomach, just below her chest binding which was marred by crimson mud rather than its previous pristine white. Her blood had sheeted down her torso, obscuring the ridges of her abdominals, and the cut looked deep. A several inch flap of skin and flesh hung away from her stomach, as if a butcher had taken a flensing knife to her to carve her like a turkey. It would need stitches, I knew.

  “Anything else?” Jorge asked calmly as he approached.

  She gestured vaguely to one side of her head as she replied, a little blearily, “Took a blow above my ear. Balance is all crooked,” she said huskily.

  Only then did I notice the blood matting her hair, and I wasn’t sure if her speech was simply a product of the intense fatigue and adrenaline rush common after a battle, or whether the head-wound was having an effect.

  And then it was my turn. With a grin I pointed at my mouth; Bloodied lips, one ragged where it had split upon my teeth, the other swollen comically. “Teeth are a bit loose,” I said. “Took a gauntlet right in the face. Luckily it missed my nose though, so I’m still the handsome one in our little group, don’t you worry.”

  I said it with an overdramatic wink, but my lips were so swollen that the words came out all screwed up, and it took a moment for the others to decipher my joke.

  “Well, nice to know your spirits are still up, at least lad” Jorge said with a smile, and I grinned a crimson smirk in return. “How about that chest of yours?” he asked.

  “Ah,” I grimaced. “Lost a lot of strength in my left arm so I think it's as deep as the muscle,” I said, shrugging.

  Jorge simply nodded. “Good. Good.”

  Even Jacyntha looked a little put out at that, and Jorge hurriedly amended. “Coulda’ been a lot worse than that, mark my words. Good job on the warning, Lamb. Other than you two,” he said gesturing at me and Jacyntha, “we're unharmed, so this won't slow us too much. But we need to get out of here. This is...”

  He blew air out between his cheeks as he indicated the mess around us, and I nodded.

  “A fucking catastrophe?” I offered, and he chuffed a laugh.

  “Aye, lad, you can say that. You see the armour? These aren't bandits, they're soldiers.”

  “What do you think this means? They recognise us?” I asked as I set down my weapons and looked for a clean bit of clothing that I could use to wipe down myself and my weapons.

  Jorge shook his head. “It could be targeted, but I think it's more likely they took us for bandits. The raid at Darrow's Edge was not the only one, I'd wager. And with that being true, there’ll be a lot of frustrated, angry soldiers looking for vengeance, someone to strike back against. Shit, their commanders may even realise we were travellers, but simply needed a win or else risk mutiny. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Typical,” Jacyntha muttered, and I grinned over weakly.

  “We were in the right place and time for you,” I retorted.

  She inclined her head to acknowledge the point and then looked down at her gruesome wound. “Starting to regret that a little,” she said, to laughter from Jorge and myself. Even Nathlan smirked at the joke.

  “Right,” Jorge said, clapping to get our attention. “We need to get cleaned up, salvage anything we can from this mess, and then get you both stitched up before we're on the move. Jacyntha, I know you don't want to hear this, but we might have to carry you. I'm not sure we have time for you to recover your balance. We're going to be moving at speed for a while.”

  Jacyntha just sighed warily. “Well, to whatever unlucky bastard I bleed all over, thank you,” she said.

  Jorge inclined his head and turned to head towards the nearby stream but was interrupted by Nathlan.

  “It gets worse,” the tall man said, and we all looked over to him. Seeing he had our attention, he gestured at the body below him, a man with a shaved head, dressed in fine robes, a thick red, a thick bracelet of some sort of red metal encircling one wrist. Once he pointed the man out, I realised that he did not match the others.

  “He does not share their uniform. This man is from the Leviathan Coast,” Nathlan said. “See the bangle? That denotes him as a member of the Wavebreakers. Minor, from an unimportant branch of the family most likely, but he has some skill with ward-craft.”

  At my startled look, he explained further in that clipped and direct way of his, his usual meanderings thankfully not present given the time constraints. “It is not entirely unusual. After all, the Wavebreakers foster and encourage ward classes in all of their children, but not all can work on the storm-wards themselves. Many like him, most even, see nothing more than an interesting class. There is a reason that my perimeter ward wasn't activated. We cannot rely on it any longer.”

  Jorge nodded again, seemed to process things. “Shit,” he said simply. “Well, good fine lad, better we know than not, but this does complicate things. We've got both the Desolate Empire and the Leviathan Coast meddling in things here. This smells to me like civil war.”

  “Why would they send a Wavebreaker here?” I asked, confused and missing what the others seemed to grasp.

  “Because, Lamb, they want the Riverlands strong, or at least stable. They know that there is trouble brewing and they’re hoping to lend support to the armies to tamp things down. Given that they have some of the most competent ward-crafters on the continent, I'm not surprised to see them here. It's also a common practice to send their young to experience combat and leadership in new areas. After all, there’s not much strife within the harbour cities themselves.”

  “Shit, okay,” I replied. “So, we just need to cross our country on the verge of civil war, avoiding not just bandits but soldiers, too.”

  “That's about the long and short of it, aye lad,” Jorge said, and I laughed bitterly.

  “No more fires then, I take it?” I asked somewhat plaintively, and he shook his head sadly.

  I saw out of the corner of my eye Jacyntha pout at that proclamation, and that brought a smile to my face. Her Cat-Bear companion had started to take great delight in cooked food, and I knew she wouldn't relish going back to feeding him jerky.

  “Right then,” Jorge said once more, and that was all we needed to hear. Weapons were cleaned and sheathed, and valuables collected from the dead. It didn't take long to, strike camp and head to a nearby stream. Weeks spent together in the wilderness removed much of the modesty we may have felt before, and so we stripped off quickly without care and set to scrubbing, rinsing our wounds in the achingly cold water before clothing ourselves again.

  Jorge had ensured we all had basic knowledge of wound-care, but Sadrianna and Jorge were the ones with the steadiest hands, so Jacyntha and I each had someone to stitch our wounds. Once we were all patched up, alchemical salves and bandages applied to particularly bad wounds, we were on our way. Running through the night and leaving the scene of slaughter far behind.

  Jacyntha had regained her balance by then, and didn't need to be carried. But we still kept a close eye on her, as we flitted over the countryside like starlings in flight.

  It was in some ways ironic. Here, as we travelled, we cursed bitterly the strife and war brought to a previously peaceful country, even as we aimed to reach the sunsets and bring blade and fire to a stable polity ourselves.