The snarls in front of me got louder and now, there were other noises mixed in. Screams of pain, cries for help, commands to form up, as a commander tried to get his people into a semblance of order, the dull sounds of weapons hitting wood - all of it combined to form a horrific racket. It only made my smile wider, there was no way that anyone would hear Rai or me approach with that much going on.

We ghosted past the trees until we saw the first centaurs, their backs turned to us and apparently completely oblivious to our approach. The two furthest in the back had their bows out, their heads swiffeling around, looking for threats approaching from their flanks. For a moment, I shared a look with Rai and he gestured upwards, towards the trees above us and, after a second, I understood his intent.

Drawing upon my magic to further strengthen my muscles and delving deeper into the shadows to lighten my weight, I leapt upwards, softly landing on the branch I had aimed for. Nearby, I noticed that Rai had managed a similar feat, sitting on a branch like a squirrel, only to leap to the next. I had to shake my head at his audacity, doubting that I would have tried it, if not for him. I had acted with the limits of my human body in mind, forgetting that I had a strengthened body to begin with and was strengthening it even further using my magic.

And the magic I used to blend into the shadows did more than visually shifting me, it was something I had been experimenting with for quite some time, ever since I had travelled through the shadows when we attacked Sigmir’s former tribe. It allowed me to become partially part of the shadows, at least that was the best explanation I currently had, making my mass affect the world around less. The problem was that I needed to shift out of the shadows to attack, otherwise my weapons lacked the presence, so to speak, to actually cut anything. It wasn’t just a lack of my part, at least from what I had observed in my experiments, it was more than that. For now, I just didn’t quite know what it was, so I shifted from that state before attacking.

Silently, Rai and I got into range of the two centaurs in the back, they had looked over their shoulder once, during our approach, but with us in the branches some distance above their heads, they had missed us. Which would be their demise.

We moved in concert, with me jumping slightly before Rai did and I did something rather risky, I aimed to stab before even fully landing. The armour of the centaurs looked relatively good, except for one major downside: It was lacking a neck-protector, their helmets were simple, leather skull-caps and their leather-jerkins weren’t making up for that flaw. As such, my attack was something straight out of an action-movie, both blades raised in a reverse grip, attempting to stab into the neck and body from above. It had a few advantages, the biggest was that I planned to actually land with both feet on the equine back, using the hand-hold provided by my blades to steady myself before moving on to the spellcaster.

As I flew through the air, I let go of the shadows, allowing my form to become fully visible and corporeal, before making contact with the centaur at four points, all at the same time. My feet landed on his back, slightly spread to absorb what was left of my momentum and keep me steady but most of my momentum was absorbed elsewhere. My two blades, both as sharp as I could magically make them, stabbed into the neck-opening, using it as a guidance to slip past the bones, down into his chest-cavity, wrecking havoc as they went.

The centaur tried to scream in pain, while bucking to get me off but I had two quite useful handles stabbed deep into his body, so I held on, not quite for dear life, but to shorten his. After the second buck, I decided to move on, only to realise that my blades were stuck. Annoyed, I let go and pushed off, using his latest buck to propel me in the direction I wanted to go, towards the spell-caster that was just turning around.

“Ambush!” the spellcaster shouted, seeing me flying towards him, with the other two centaurs dying behind me. It wasn’t quite as I had planned, but for now, it would have to do. He must have noticed that I was rather small, especially compared to him, and I realised that I had made a stupid mistake, I had given up my secure footing - hell, I had given up any kind of footing - sending me hurtling on a straight and predictable trajectory, one that he was about to painfully exploit. I felt Bullet Time activate, as my mind frantically tried to find a solution that didn’t involve me getting stopped by the dagger the spellcaster had ripped out of his belt. That would certainly ruin my clothes, something I would rather avoid. And it might kill me, something else I wanted to avoid. I would come back, sure, but it would be a major pain in my behind.

My best chance was to use my flying shuttles, either to block his attack or to strike at him before he could actually attack. Sadly, I was unable to move myself with them, they just didn’t transfer force over to me or anything I carried. I had no idea why, it was something I had experimented with a little, it just didn't work. Maybe there was some sort of trick to it, some sort of way to define my reference frame, but so far, I had no idea how.

But causing them to burst from the sheaths hidden in my cloak, shooting past my shoulders towards the centaur that was about to stab me, that was something I could do. Not terribly precisely, even Bullet Time had its limits to giving me time to react, but it was enough to send one shuttle towards his knife-hand and one towards his face.

The shuttle that stabbed into his hand caused him to slightly shift his attack and, instead of simply skewering me right through my chest, he just cut a deep gash into my upper arm and shoulder, causing me to hiss in pain, especially when I crashed into his lower body, roughly where his equine and human bodies met, before tumbling to the ground at his feet. That hadn’t been my finest moment, I realised when the centaur reared up, trying to simply stomp me to death.

“You will not harm her!” a voice thundered through the forest, loud enough to drown everything out, even the sounds of battle from nearby, and suddenly, a glowing red figure slammed into the centaur, slightly smaller but with enough momentum to cause him to stagger back. Above me stood Sigmir and I was quite happy to see her, her shield still raised from the shield-bash she had used to stagger the centaur back, a feat only possible thanks to the fact that she had actually charged it, using her full speed and abilities to get enough force to do so, despite the difference in weight and his advantage of having four legs, which normally allowed him to brace himself with ease.

Ignoring the wound in my arm, I managed to scurry back a little, out from Sigmir’s legs, giving her room to move, before struggling to my feet. That flying tackle had been an incredibly stupid idea, but for now, I had a battle to fight. I still felt my flying shuttles nearby, still connected to me, thanks to the amount of time I had spent with them, so I used my Ice-Magic to pull them back to me, using them to guard Sigmir’s back. For now, I had enough of fighting on the front-lines.

And I wasn’t the only one using ranged attacks to harass the centaurs, Adra had somehow managed to get into a descent firing position, allowing her to bring her bow to bear, shooting the odd arrow into the centaurs, trying to prevent them from actually rallying.

Thanks to my support and the fact that she was righteously furious, Sigmir quickly managed to cut down the centaur-spellcaster, burying her axe into his chest, before we moved on, looking for more enemies. The centaurs were still in disarray, something our attack prolonged, but after a two more of them were killed by Sigmir and my flying shuttles, I felt Lenore push against my mind, getting my attention.

“We have a runner.” she told me, once she got me to listen to her mental voice.

“We can’t have that, it would ruin our fun.” I answered, linking my eye to hers, allowing me to see and cast spells using her senses. What I had in mind was rather simple and thanks to her, I was able to see the fleeing centaur, despite the fact that they tried to get out on the other side of the battle. Using overflow, I channelled a burst of dark magic through Lenore, using the fact that it didn’t hurt her like ice-magic would, creating a beam of Dark Radiance that shot from her eye, towards the fleeing centaur. It instantly connected and delivered the rest of the spell, a pure, stunning blast of mind magic, augmented by Lenore’s affinity to death-magic, as the spell had been channelled through her. I wasn’t sure if the centaur died from it, but it certainly went down hard. I would have to check it out later, just to make sure.