The day passed in a blur. We entered the Broken Lands and a few of us climbed as high as we dared, searching for our missing friend. If that’s what he was. But soon nightfall caught us, and we retreated to the safety of the lights.

"We can’t do anything.“ Manus said dejected as we gathered around a fire, Grim, Thimotheus and the First Mate included. "The Wyldlings have prepared a convenient way through the first parts of the floating mountains. They will watch that path, just to be able to receive news from their base, if nothing else. If he just walked there they would have caught him.“

"But why?“ I asked. "Why would he just walk into their arms?“

"Because he is a traitor? I cannot believe I said that. After all that beast has done to him and us.“ Zora thought out loud.

"I don’t believe it either.“ Thimotheus shook his head. "He basically carried me through the whole battle. Defended me as well, more than once, even if he looked as if it was the first time for him holding a weapon.“

While we all tried to keep a clear mind, Zora had decided to be angry a long time ago. "That fucking traitor. Used the first chance he got to weasel back to his master. He was the first of us that got caught. He was with the Wyldlings for almost all of it. We could not imagine a man as tortured as him to even think about something like that. But you just can‘t trust merchants. He is selling us out, I guarantee it.“

"For what?“ I asked. "He has nothing to gain but a return to the status quo.“

"I can see it.“ Higgins mused. "I have seen what pain can do to a man. Maybe he sees our cause as hopeless and instead of fighting for it, he tries to salvage what he can and uses our fight, doomed in his perception, to at least better his position in the future. As Squire Zora has said: He was a man of profit and coin, not a man bound to honor.“

"I don’t believe it.“ I said. "You were not there, none of you when I broke the chains that bound him to a wall, tight enough that he could neither sit nor lie down. You have not seen the sheer terror in his eyes. The desperation and pain that was his whole existence. Maybe he would betray us if confronted with his personal hell, I can see that, but never would he run towards it.“

"We went through the same hell.“ Manus said. "Albeit a shorter amount of time.“

"Did you though?“ I retorted. "You four were locked away and Barak came to you. He was within the reach of his captor every second of the day. He worked with him. And he was only a man, not a knight, trained [Mage] or a fighter of the resistance. He likely never knew pain before he met the [Shaman].“

Simue held up her parchment. Doesn‘t matter.

"It does, though!“ I argued. "Our Empire has fallen, our vows are nothing but dust in the wind. All we have left is us and our stubbornness to survive another day. He is part of that. What if he knows something we don‘t? If he has to do something he knew we would not accept?“

Simue held up her parchment again, pointing at the words with more emphasis.

"You are right, Simue.“ Manus said. "Let‘s focus on the things we can do and not the things out of our control. We must move out soon, and we must assume the enemy knows. Even if it is just for caution.“

We nodded, everyone, trying to bring order to their thoughts, while Grim stoked the fire, detached from our discussion.

Finally, I spoke up again. "I have crossed the Broken Lands. In normal mountains, light is a concern, because you can see it for miles. But the floating debris up there has so many angles and hiding places, that we should be able to rest undetected. One thing you need to know about Wyldlings is that they do not mess with the night. At all. It is deeply embedded into their culture. The night is the time for the protection of a campfire and nothing else. Even if they would not need to fear the creatures that stalk the night in the Wyld, they would not change their way of living.“

Something you can exploit?“ Thimotheus asked.

"That‘s what I was thinking. I have killed a Nightmare, which are the monstrosities that come out at night, and evaded them successfully another time. We can kill them again, getting a drop on the Wyldlings. Maybe.“

"Not if they hear us fighting.“ Zora interjected.

"Yeah, there is that.“

"What is the situation of these allies of yours?“ First Mate Higgins asked.

"I have no way of knowing where they are. They should take more time to reach us, even if they can travel a known path and would be quicker than I have been initially. If we want to combine our forces, our best bet would be to keep an eye on a bridge that leads to a forest on the other side of the chasm. It is the most convenient way in, and the way my brother will take.“

I got out the little pouch that Cogar had given me a long time ago. I had planned this with Kara, that time I fought her guards and ‘freed’ her, coming up with a plan of action. We had decided that I would try to rescue the humans, while she would return to the Mad King and the rallying place of the Bear Clan, fetching as strong a force as she could. Which would be exactly 15, because that had been the number of Dragonamber amulets we had at our disposal at that time. Now I had way more with me, stashed into my chest, to give to the Bear Clan. The rest of them was and would be still in danger, no matter the fate of the 15. They needed the Dragonamber.

Kara had seemed confident to be able to do everything in time, even if it had taken me almost a month to do the trip one way. Then again, maybe she had a way of talking to the Mad King and enlisting his help I did not know about. There had been an agreement in place, prior to the incident, between him and the [Shamans] and [Seers] of the Wyldlings.

"We will look for you near the bridge to the Broken Lands. Move with all haste, Barak knows we are coming for him and I need your help. Look for stacked rocks.“ I whispered into the pouch of seeds, dried flowers, and spices that Cogar had given me as a parting gift and threw it into the flames. Cogar had explained to me that the message I could send was limited, and I had no way of knowing if it had worked or not. But the pouch was burning in a sizzling purple flame and I took that for a good sign. The idea with the stacking rocks had come at the last second. Just a way to catch his attention if the situation turned out to be different than anticipated.

The next day saw us moving into the Broken Lands, leaving the prepared paths as soon as we could without losing too much speed. We had briefly shaken the hands of Thimotheus and the Captain, who would hold down the fort in our absence, preparing for the worst-case scenario. The Wounded Pride had scavenged armor and weapons, crude leather combined with stolen mail and plate. Manus even had a shield that was nothing more than planks nailed together crosswise with a rope to hold onto. Simue had at least found a pair of suitable daggers, while Manus and Zora still carried axe and sword. Grim had the longbow and Higgins was armed with a cutlass and a curious little crossbow, meant to be shot with one hand only. Out of all of us, Manus would slow us down the most. He was the biggest and wore the most pieces of metal armor and had confessed not to be too keen on climbing.

On my first way through the Broken Lands I had jumped and climbed from rock to rock with little effort, using [Airwalk] and Zero wherever necessary. Now we had to turn back a few times, just because I had not remembered every step and jump I had made, and a lot of them proved to be too much for an armored group, which was pretty much stuck with a route that could be traveled using only climbing and smaller jumps. Our way to the peak of the mountains, so we could actually look for signs of our mettle, was a long and arduous one. Out of the group, Higgins impressed me the most. I had thought him to be way out of his element, so far away from the water.

When I asked him about it, he grinned at me: "[Sea Legs], [Balance of the Ship‘s Monkey], and [Eye of the Storm]. If I can climb the rigging of a skewing ship to reef the sails in the mother of all storms, I can climb and jump a few rocks and plants.“

We got attacked twice this first day, both times flying creatures trying to grab a quick snack. The first crashed to the ground with an arrow through his eyes, a feat which raised the respect the group had for the abilities of Grim to another level. The second attacker grabbed Manus on the shoulders when the rest of the group already had climbed up a knot of roots.

Manus got dragged across the stone for a couple of feet, the flying reptile desperately flapping its wings to make some air with its heavy prey, before Manus got a hold of the beast and some branches for stability and sent it tumbling down with a strike from his axe. The group was clearly strong enough to handle the common dangers of the Wyld. Nevertheless, we made sure that we always had a lookout in place before we attempted any challenging climbs, only one at a time and only secured with a rope.

The first day brought us up from the sea of debris and isles to one of the bigger mountains next to those the Wyldlings had prepared with their slave labor. We thought to watch out for those that surely would watch the path. Hopefully, we were in their backs, or all that effort of climbing the complicated route would have been for nothing.

On the first night, we agreed to challenge the Nightmares. It was a calculated risk, derived from my own experiences and how I had been able to handle them reasonably well, with the help of the not yet Chosen of Bear, of course. But I needed the others to know what they were dealing with if we wanted to use the night as cover for our activities. I found us a resting place near the summit of the mountain, protected by a few rocks jutting out of the ground, that screened us just right so that the light of our fires would not be seen from the direction we assumed the Wyldlings to be. We were so high up that snow was covering the ground a couple of feet above us.

But before we faced the Nightmares, we prepared ourselves, so that Grim, who would be in the middle of us and the rocks, could ignite the fires quickly. But first, we needed the twilight and darkness to spot the fires of the Wyldlings without our own fires interfering with our eyesight.

And sure enough, one after the other we called them out, as they ignited in the darkness around us. Two on the mountain we had been watching, those that watched the path themselves. Two further ahead on an isle between a couple of bigger boulders. And one in our back, on the same mountain. There was no way the Wyldling would not notice our fires.

"Well shit.“ Grim spoke the first words he had spoken in hours.

Then we felt the ground rumble and shake.

"The fires, Grim!“ I shouted as a creature rolled over the heap leading up to us. There was a snake-like, maybe worm-like, body of bloated flesh, screaming maws and jaws screeching, scattered over the body of the thing. The thing dragged itself forward with dozens of powerful scythe-legs.

"I thought they would be smaller, by the gods!“ Manus yelled, stepping in front of the group and raising his shield, already shimmering as if coated with liquid silver. The fires slowly began lighting up behind us, while we waited for the thing. Grim was faster. Before the worm had reached us, an arm long arrow impacted the flesh with an audible squelch, completely disappearing into the flesh. The creature roared in answer, reared up, and threw itself towards us. Manus jumped back, flying stones clattering off his shield, while the others moved around the [Guardian Knight] to threaten the flanks. Which were threatening back, to be fair, with all those teeth and whatnot.

Who would have thought I might regret selling off [Whisperer of Worms]? That would have been a foe I would love to send over to the Wyldlings. As it were, I just cursed while I carved off chunks of that bloated flesh, gooey ichor rushing out of the wounds, wherever the skin split under our steel.

I had seen the Wounded Pride fight, and they did not surprise me with new Skills. They were just good. The way Manus caught those scythes on his shield, answering with short and hefty swings of his axe, precisely timed to raise his shield again to answer another threat. The way Zora held her distance until an opening, however small, presented itself for her to strike, and to strike true. Simue was a blur, dancing with the danger, always far too close, always gliding under a scythe passing her by with nothing between them than a finger-width of air, always going in close. Her hands did not rest just a second. Always moving, always blurry, always stabbing.

Grim‘s aim was true. That is all I can say about him. But First Mate Higgins was a surprise again. He fought with a weapon in each hand, the cutlass in his right, and the small crossbow in his left. I never saw him reload, that could just be chance, but I saw him weave his shots between his attacks with the cutlass. He was not as skilled a fighter as the other three, but he had solid instincts and knew when to retreat and jump back, and when an opening could be abused. He did not use a Skill I could discern, but he moved with the balance and grace I had learned to expect from him, often using the terrain and the sharp rocks to position himself better. And then there was I, hacking away with Kingsbane and [Ghost Strike] like a lumberjack. I was numb to the horror of the Nightmare, it was just a piece of flesh that had to go down fast.

And fast down it went.

"That was terrifying.“ Zora breathed out, as the thing collapsed and we retreated to the fire.

"And disgusting.“ Manus added, trying to get some ichor off his armor.

"I sure know now why the Wyldlings don‘t mess with the night. I just don‘t understand why a creature like that would fear the fire.“ Zora added.

I shrugged. "The Wyld is a strange place. And it is not only those Nightmares. There are creatures in the Wyld that do not care for the fires, like everywhere else.“

We sat back down, rubbing the ichor off our weapons on the grass.

"I don‘t know.“ Higgins finally said, looking back to the pile of flesh and chitin. "Seems hard to sneak up to someone with something like that in your wake.“