‘Phew,’ said Wyvera when they had defeated the monsters, stifling a yawn with a hand. ‘That was hard work! Aren’t we more of a target camping in a clearing?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Horatio, ‘but the point is it will be easier for us to see more coming from here, and if we do have to fight again then it will be easier here than in the trees. That’s likely to be the nearest monsters taken care of for now, but we should still set a watch in case any more chance upon us in the night.’

Horatio was too agitated and worried about further monster attacks to fall asleep anytime soon anyway, so he took the first watch.

As the others hunkered down in their two makeshift tents, he settled on the grass with his back to them, peering out from the clearing towards the rows of trees in the darkness.

Primus grumbled a little from within in the boys’ tent, and Egea yelled at them to be quiet when the old man told Ouzo off for fidgeting, but before long the bickering died down and the party members fell asleep, no doubt exhausted from the hard march they had been on today, and from fending off monsters.

As he watched the trees in the dimness Horatio had only his thoughts to keep him company.

As ever, they turned to Ceres, but then, for some reason, to his parents.

His parents hadn’t wanted him to become a sellsword. Either of them. He could still see his mother now, her eyes looking up at him pleadingly and threatening to fill with tears as she stood in her apron in the threshold of their house on the day he parted.

‘I just don’t understand,’ she had said. ‘Why do you have to choose a profession that takes you away from us?’

‘Come on, Mum,’ Horatio said back, ignoring the guilt rising in his gut. ‘We’ve been over this a hundred times. It’s not “us” any more, anyway—it hasn’t been for a long time. You’ll be fine on your own—even if he’s not living with us anymore, Dad makes sure of that. I need to do this for myself. This is what I want to do with my life.’

‘But why can’t you do something that keeps you here?’ his mother said. ‘Why couldn’t you become, say, a miller, or a shepherd, or a farmer? Why couldn’t you go into governing like your father? You’re a smart boy, Horatio, and likeable. You could even follow in his footsteps and become town mayor one day.’

She was trying everything now. She was making a last-ditch attempt. ‘You know I don’t want to do any of those things, Mum. I want to slay monsters. I want to travel the world. I want…I want to find a woman to wed. Just like Dad did before he settled down with you and became Mayor.’

The truth was, he wanted to do something more significant with his life than he felt any of those other professions were. For as long as he could remembe he had had the conviction that he was supposed to do something really significant and important with his life. And even if he was wrong, even if he was deluding himself, he needed to find out if he was or not. And Qind had made him big, and strong, like his father was too. He had the heart of a fighter. The road was calling him.

Somewhere in the present a twig snapped, interrupting Horatio’s thoughts.

He sat up straight at once like an animal twitching to attention, and strained to listen.

Egea snoring quietly. The rustling of the leaves in the night air. His own heart beating fast in his chest.

But yes, underneath all that, a faint shuffling noise, getting louder.

Someone or something was sneaking through the underbrush towards them.

‘Wake up!’ Horatio yelled, jumping to his feet and drawing his sword, ‘Wake up, everyone!’

‘No, you moron!’ yelled a girl’s voice from within the trees, in the direction that the sound had been coming from.

‘Whatzit?’ grumbled Primus from behind Horatio.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Ceres in alarm.

From out of the trees, into the clearing, ran a girl. All Horatio could see in the dark was that she was short and had long hair tied into two pigtails.

‘You moron!’ the girl said again. ‘I was trying to sneak up on you quietly to warn you! There’s an assassin nearby searching for you! You might have evaded him but now that you’ve called out like that there’s no way he won’t have heard! Come on, you’ve got to run, now!’

‘Too late,’ said a malevolent male voice.

Into the glade stepped a tall, hooded man. Moonlight glinted off two long swordblades which he held out to either side.

‘I would have preferred to have killed you in your sleep,’ the man sneered, his words oozing venom. ‘But waking will have to do.’

The man ran forwards.

Battle: Jack

Music: Boss battle

Background: Forest 5

Battle dialogue:

HORATIO: Who in Hell are you?

CERES: Horatio, please try not to swear!

HORATIO: Oops, sorry Ceres… (How can she be worried about something like that now?)

MAN: It doesn’t matter who I am! You can call me ‘Jack’ for all I care! All that matters is that I am going to murder every last one of you!