XVII

With a night cat potion, Sorika moved through the forest silently as Mai followed from behind. Also with them was Liora. They had moved on ahead to begin the attack, but first they needed to scout the enemy camp to make sure no warding runes had been placed.

A powerful rune could tear an adventurer in two, while a weak one could still injure or even permanently maim. Mai held on to Sorika’s shoulder as she led the group forward. First they kept a respectful distance from the camp as they slowly moved closer. Mai held a warding of silence over them, her soft and continual whispers keeping it active about them, the magic invisible to Sorika but effective for them all.

A laugh came from the fire as the men ate and drank.

They were actually drinking.

Fools.

They would all be butchered.

It wasn’t something Sorika would take pleasure in, not like when she was killing monsters. When it was monsters, it was almost a sport. But to treat a situation like this the same was grotesque and dishonorable—even if these adventurers were mercenaries for the cult.

Honorless cretins!

After scouting out the enemy camp for several hours, Sorika finally turned to regard May and Liora, then she nodded.

Liora returned the gesture before leaving them to go tell the others to get into position. Once they were all in their right places, Mai was to send a signal into the sky for the attack.

The only thing that worried Sorika was the cave. It was situated into a rocky hollow near their fire, and she hadn’t been able to get close enough to see inside or to get an idea of how many men were truly in the camp.

It could have been that the ten or twelve adventurers simply had their bedrolls and other supplies stored in the cave while most of them were outside eating and drinking.

That was the best scenario.

An unfortunate one would be that most of the adventurers were in the cave, while only a few of them remained outside to cook the meal and to stand guard.

Standing guard…

Nice try.

Sorika moved. She wanted to be situated on the slight hill above the camp. But a sentry stood there, watching. As soon as the attack began, she would kill him first with an arrow to the chest. Then she would loose shafts from this elevated position while Liora did the same from atop the cave entrance. But there, too was a sentry. She would be able to take him down quickly.

As they loosed shafts from both sides, Sir Wynet and Andaloo were to attack from the west with the rest of the Blue Dragon Soldiers.

With Mai at her back, Sorika would be nearly invisible to these heavily armed and armored fighters.

They waited.

The time they had agreed upon had been two hand spans of the moon’s motion through the sky. It was imprecise, but they were all soldiers and adventurers, well trained at using nature’s signals to tell the proper time.

Sorika took the bow off her back and knocked an arrow.

The sentry ahead moved about, but it was clear to her that he was bored as he missed out on the campfire talk among his fellows. Even from here she could smell the succulent meat roasting over the fire.

The sentry touched his stomach.

Glancing up, Sorika looked at the night sky above the trees and narrowed her eyes. She found the star from which the moon had begun and put her palm up to the sky to measure the two hand spans.

“Any moment,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Mai said. “Just let me know when.”

The time was now. Sorika glanced back at Mai, then took two steps forward out of the cover of trees. She drew her bow and loosed, the shaft hitting the sentry in the chest.

He grunted and fell over, the sound he made audible, but not loud enough to carry to his allies.

“Now,” Sorika said as she glanced about for any signs one of their enemies had heard. If they came to investigate, she would have to take them down, too.

Mai moved passed her and onto the rock overlooking the camp.

Sorika followed as she hissed invocations. The crystal atop her gnarled staff lit, a bright plume of pink magic appeared and swirled with purple magic.

As she rushed up the rock, she called out the spell and flicked her staff down. The plume of magic shot forth and hit the fire where seven men stood about. It exploded, sending trails out and lighting the night sky. The men around the fire cried out as they were thrown through the air, their arms and legs flailing.

Sorika lifted her bow and loosed an arrow at the sentry on the other hill, but between the arrow’s movement and the adventurer’s strafing to dodge the projectile, she missed.

“Tch!”

Mai cried out another spell and a berrier went up over Sorika and herself. “Safe!” she called.

“Come on!” Sorika called as she unsheathed her black blade. She jumped off the rock and landed on the leaf-strewn ground.

One of the men was getting up, but she ended that with a quick flick of her blade, then as Sir Wynet and the others charged into the camp on her right, she broke left and ran in a zigzagging fashion between the trees.

“Protect the others!” she called, ignoring Mai’s attempt to follower her.

As she moved through the brush a shaft flicked past her. Sorika darted left, then right. As the sentry drew another arrow, she jumped behind a tree and tossed her sword into the ground so she could pull her bow off her back. She knocked an arrow from her hip quiver and moved, peeking out to get a look at the sentry.

He loosed a shaft that brushed the air across her face as she pulled back to save herself. Her heart was in her throat for a split second, but with his arrow loosed, she wasted no time, turned around the tree in a lunge of three paces, drew and released in quick succession. Her arrow flew toward the sentry, but he swatted it out of the air.

And then he smirked.

She sighed inwardly. Not a low level adventurer, then. She turned, yankeed her sword out of the grass and rushed him. He saw what she was doing and tossed his bow aside to pull a long knife.

As Sorika lunged forward she struck sideways and he grabbed her wrist. He came down with his free arm, the blade glinting in the moonlight—a certain death, but she thrust her arm out in defense and caught him at the wrist.

Grunting, her wrist smarted sharply and she winced. He was stronger than her. He pulled his knife back for another strike. Sorika scrabbled for his wrist so she might grapple at him like he was doing to her, but he was too fast.

Instead, she brought her knee up between his legs.

He cried out as his eyes bulged.

Sorika whirled away from the sentry, her wrist ripping out of his grasp. She struck at him again, their blades coming into contact, but he was too stunned to continue his defense and she cut into his neck in a spray of blood.

As he fell over the leaves, Sorika turned as something exploded from within the camp in a massive greenish plume of dust and smoke.

Her eyes widened as she realized that whatever sorcery that was, it had nothing to do with Mai’s magic.

She ran forward, sprinting through the brush and between the trees as the battle before her—barely visible—raged on. Mai screamed, Andaloo shouted something as he cut someone down. Sir Wynet cried out an expletive and ordered everyone to continue fighting.

She had to move fast.

But as a rogue, she wouldn’t rush headlong into that fray and expect to stay alive. She moved left, cutting around that plume of magic and under the overhanging Cliffside.

Deeper in she saw the enemy mage in black garb, his clothes studded with little silver plates, a look of utter murderous concentration on his features.

When his eyes flicked to her, he flinched and reacted to her presence. The stream of magic projecting from his staff onto the battle to her left ceased immediately.

She lunged forward with the intent to strike him down with her sword.

It was brash and stupid.

Twirling his staff, a plume of silvery magic shot forth at her. Sorika jumped right, then lunged left as the magic bit into the dirt behind her.

The next plume came straight at her face.

She swung the blade and it deflected the sorcery away, which was a near thing because most magic was not affected so. Then she jumped, rolled across the ground and came back to her feet and struck at the mage with an overhanded strike.

Her sword hit his staff and was stopped with a dull thud.

With his male strength he forced her sword to the side and hit her with his staff. Without armor, the blunt impact hurt, but Sorika knew it hadn’t damaged her. She flicked her sword at her enemy.

The mage lunged back and struck out with his staff.

Something hit her like a boulder and everything around Sorika rushed away as she was thrown across the outer mouth of the cave. When she landed, something happened, because all the air inside her rushed out. Vission blurred and pain blooming inside her back like a geiser of acid, she tried to get up, but her strength failed and she fell back.

She struggled, sucking in air. Even in such a state, she reacted to the battle at hand, to her enemy just ahead.

Kicking her legs, she crawled back as she hunched in on herself, her arm over her chest. Why was she not dead yet?

Men screamed and scrabbled about. She forced herself to lift her head as her eyes watered. Sucking in a deep breath, men stamped past her. She realized it was Sir Wynet and his soldiers charging forward. One of them was cut down by a silver strike from the mage in a spray of blood. A sword came down over another of his men-at-arms.

He cried out and died badly.

Mai ran to Sorika’s side and took her hand in her own. “Sor? Sor?! Are you all right?”

Breathing deeply, she nodded. “Ye—yes, I’m fine. Hnngh! GO!”

She glanced about.

“They’re all dead,” Mai said.

Andaloo bent down over Mai’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Help me up.”

Mai pulled on her arm and she with no small effort. “Agh!”

Everyone glanced about, then at one another and nodded. Everyone still standing was lucky to be alive, especially Sorika.

“Who else did we lose?” Wynet asked.

“That was stupid,” Mai said quietly. “Why did you do that, Sor?”

“You were… you were in trouble.”

“Here, let me see if you’re well.” Mai pulled off her gloved and put her warm hands over Sorika’s neck. The touch reminded her of Dell and her eyes misted. But through this pain, that was to be expected.

“You’re okay,” Mai added.

“So I’ll live then?”

“You just had the wind knocked from you. That magic he used”—she glanced toward the mage, then looked back—“was simply kinetic in nature. Nothing is broken.”

Sorika nodded and regarded the others.

Wynet looked at her and a subtle smile touched his mouth. “We did it.”