It was not long until the half-crumbled wooden door in the back of the church opened. Standing in the threshold was the gray, lean figure of Mavier, who beckoned for Ellie to join him in the building. Immediately Ellie leapt forwards, careful to avoid the puddles of molten glass and stone that had sloughed off the building like ice under a hot sun. Her mind filled with an unending cascade of questions for the demon! How was Galler? Who was the man in the suit? What happened to him? Why was he here? What were they to do now that Mr. Mavier had found them? And…

What was crying in the church?

As soon as Ellie passed the doors, she flung herself towards Galler to sit on his knee, her first question answered. He was resting on one of the few unbroken pews, miraculously unharmed despite the obvious devastation of the interior. Cloth rustled quietly as Mavier followed her, gracefully choosing to stand against the splintered podium in silence as he pulled out his blade. He observed the two amongst shattered stained-glass windows to the rasp of his whetstone on his scimitar.

From where he sat, Galler looked down with his sightless eyes, adjusting her poncho with scarred hands and smiling wearily.

“Just another problem, Poncho.” He rumbled, neither party noticing shallow drops of blood dripping from his neck to join the myriad of stains on Ellie’s poncho. “That man, Heinser Gelbrich, represents an oddity. A different group than us, or even the heroes. We were lucky that Mavier was as close as he was. Still, we were unable to kill him this time. Even as helpless as Heinser Gelbrich was against the power of Mavier, he was slippery enough to avoid a death blow. He’ll be back, but we need to keep moving. No time to waste.”

“Indeed.” Mavier cut in, charred wood cracking as he shifted his weight against the podium. “I sent Santet with a few of her scouts to look ahead, and she sent word that there are heroes on the move, heading in almost a straight line to our territory.”

Those words sent an electric jolt through Ellie’s spine, her few remaining questions fading from her head to be replaced with faint sounds of splashing and the desperate shouting of men.

Heroes.

A faint whisper tickled her ear of a friend long gone. Reminding Ellie about the sort of people who had hunted her through the sewers like a dog. Ellie flinched as a rough hand covered her own tiny palm, lifting her up like a great hoist to rest on Galler’s shoulders.

“We’d better get moving then.” The gnome huffed as he accepted Mavier’s hand to haul himself to his feet.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mavier watched the child sitting on Galler’s shoulder with exhaustion written cleanly across her face as the unlikely group left the melted church behind. Would she truly prove of some use in the future, as the Rat King had muttered a few days ago? Or was his choice to sally out of his country, to temporarily leave the borders in the hands of Dimitre as he left for lands he was not welcome in simply a sign that he had become more sentimental? While it was true that he had come to regard Tim as a brother-in-arms after the few weeks that the two had fought alongside each other, perhaps if it was the sentimental side of himself showing, that side ought to be cut out. Every minute that Mavier spent outside of his country, the home of his heart, was a minute that it was undefended from incursions from those heroes.

Heroes that he knew were, for the most part, fresh. Green, raw from their own world, but still with a veteran hero to guide them. To make them faster than the last batch had been, and now he did not have the advantage of surprise, a way to pick them off one by one like Tim had given him. Mavier’s hand tightened around the grip of his sheathed scimitar as he thought about it. Even though the Rat King provided some protection for the country, It had moved little from the wreckage of the archives that It had spat out in the middle of the demon’s largest city. Instead It had chosen to be… no, to exist within the confines of those walls, behind the wooden door carved with monsters from another age.

However, now that Mavier had spoken with Galler, that former follower of Tim, he understood in part why that was. The gnome had spoken to Mavier, spoken of the cry of an infant that cut through the air. It was an odd happening, but what the demon had heard next piqued Mavier’s interest even more. For Galler had continued to tell of what he had saw, a plane of stinking mud that knew no end.

And that had made Mavier truly understand why the Rat King had nudged him to come here. To meet Galler and pick up that scrawny child on the side. For that information alone, along with what Mavier could do with that. After all, it wouldn’t be that much of a detour. And… if Santet was right with her guess on the path the heroes were going to take, they should be passing right by it.

Ahhh, it only Tim could see him now. Mavier knew that the half-elf would have been grinning with sadistic glee. Indeed, that face-swapping suited bastard mattered little when Mavier could have a chance to kill some heroes instead.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Horses jangled along the dusty road, their riders ignorant to the demon who watched them from the trees. More dust than demon by this point, Santet stifled as much of her breathing as she could as she watched from her perch, the only indication of her discomfort being the minute adjustments Santet’s hands would make every so often to the damp cloth over her mouth.

Forty-five… that makes fifty men. Santet silently counted, signing over to her second in command next to her to write down the figure. Add another twenty coming from that elven town Pert, ten rather large orcs joining them from a mining camp, and twenty dwarves marching to meet up with the heroes from the mountains.

In total, a hundred fighting men that Lord Mavier would have to deal with, along with three heroes. The men alone would be tricky to deal with, assuming they weren’t a bunch of newbies ready to piss their pants at the first sign of combat; their gear looked quality enough, and a small force escorting heroes like that was likely to be well trained. Still, the three heroes concerned her the most, particularly because aside from the cleric hero, they had yet to reveal their skills. Santet made sure to note in her report. Nonetheless, she trusted that the storied hero of her race would find a way to make it through. Even without that half-elf helping out.

A hand patted her dust-caked shoulder, signaling to her that all the relevant figures were noted down on parchment. Santet looked down, watching as the rearguard of the invading force passed noisily beneath her tree, the horses ahead kicking up a choking smokescreen for the strained riders behind.

She quickly calculated the relevant distances in her head, stored her report and fastened loose straps, then inhaled deeply. She tensed her legs, smiling as she shot forwards to cut through the woods, the very trees shaking as she ran past them.