“Chaos and the Fallen Sun!” someone cursed behind Virgil and he couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.

The crescent moon was high in the sky, shedding only a little bit of light. The swarmlings weren’t moving, most likely at rest. Some of the ones they could see still had glimmering carapaces that slowly changed shape: a clear sign of newly materialized Wyldlings from beyond the Tidelands. Low, guttural grunts and high-pitched keening could be faintly heard.

Virgil strode to the other side of the willow tree, carefully checking what lay beyond. He hoped it was the rest of the forest, but it was a hope that was quickly dashed. There were only a few trees in the distance, the rest was mostly the plains. Thankfully, the hills where he looked, and for several longstrides after, were clear of the swarmlings.

“Where are we?” Balliol whispered.

Sarra’s eyes glowed yellow as she activated one of her Facets. Above her palm, a sphere the size of her fist materialized along with a series of runes that Virgil could barely identify. One of the runes meant north but it was not pointing in that direction, he was sure. The sphere had initially been the same colour as the Inquisitor’s Animus but quickly changed into a sickly green shade. It was translucent enough that he could see a smaller sphere, this one pale red, in the centre of the larger one. The one inside pulsed several times in quick succession, froze for a couple of seconds, before pulsing again. Virgil counted seven pulses.

“Mid marches,” she muttered, “not too far from the edge of the Shallows. We’re seven waypoints from the edge of the Tidelands. Did you nod off?” She glared accusingly at Craig.

He shook his head but seemed hesitant. “I don’t think so. But I may have blinked both eyes at the same time. I don’t remember. I only realized we were elsewhere when the silence of the woods disappeared.”

“Gather your things,” Sarra commanded quietly.

“What now?” Virgil asked while he packed up his bedroll.

“Can you see a leader?”

“Not yet.”

“When we’re ready to go, please look.”

“Understood.”

It took only a couple of minutes for everything laid out in camp to be put away and packed up. Virgil stood near the edge, hidden by the curtain leaves. He took a deep breath and channelled his Animus to his Facet, located in his Anima, where his heart would be in his body. The pattern was far more complex and larger than what Yuriko had seen in her vision, with branches around his lungs, up to his shoulders and down his arms, as well as a few patterns reaching all the way to his head and both eyes. The entire pattern lit up but almost immediately, the light focused on the area of his eyes.

His irises glowed purple and, as he turned his head or moved his eyes, it left streaks of purple afterimages.

Since they were out of the forest, he could see to the extreme range allowed by his Facet and what he saw made him shiver. The plains weren’t exactly flat: there were dips and ridges. Half a longstride away, around five hundred paces from where they were, there was a ridge that limited vision.

The pattern in his head gathered the reflected light off the skyline, from droplets of water too small to see normally, to the Chaos energy floating in the air. It helped build an accurate image of what was behind those ridges. Three heartbeats later, the image had solidified.

The cost in Animus was prohibitive, eating up a tenth of his current reserve in a few seconds. But it was enough.

“Resting swarmlings all throughout. I see a bigger shape to the left of the horde. Its Field distorts the image, but it is roughly humanoid in shape.”

“Hunter,” Sarra hissed. But then, she frowned and shook her head, “No worse. It might be a Wyldknight or Warlord.”

Chaos Lords were divided into several ranks. The Empire was the first to create this division and it had been adopted by other nations, then by the Chaos Lords themselves. They were ranked not so much by power as by behaviour. But any Chaos Lord was dangerous not just because of raw power, but by intellect.

A Hunter was barely a Chaos Lord and some scholars would classify them as an in-between rank. They weren’t true Wyldlings in the sense that they were no longer ruled by their instincts, but they weren’t completely sapient yet either. Some Hunters still looked like Wanderers or swarmlings while some had taken a more humanoid appearance.

Virgil couldn’t see the details of its appearance and only saw its silhouette.

“Worse,” he said grimly, “there’s more than one.”

The silence between them was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Can you take them out?”

“Yes, but we will be exposed immediately after. Worse, I don’t know if there are more than the ones I saw. The horde continued beyond my range.”

“Craig, please look for a place we can build a sniper’s nest.”

Craig nodded. His body was covered in blue light for a second before his body seemed to fade away. Even for Virgil, it was hard to see his outline. Only when he moved did he have an easier time identifying where Craig was and only because he marked where the pathfinder used his Facet.

“The rest of you stand ready.”

“Can’t we just burn all of them?” Amiri grumbled.

“Better to kill the leaders,” Balliol murmured, “otherwise, we might trigger the Wave early. Aren’t we going to warn Faron’s Crossing?” he asked Sarra.

“We should try to eliminate the Lords first; only if we fail will this horde become a danger.”

It didn’t take long for Craig Zorin to return, dropping his camouflaging field as soon as he was undercover.

“The best spot is just a few hundred paces away. I’ve identified and marked five fallback positions for you, Virgil.”

“You didn’t set all of these fallback positions on top of the trees as you did in Cerine, did you?”

Craig blinked at him innocently. “Er, no of course not. I chose some ridges as well.”

“Fine.”

“Good shooting,” the other four said as they left. Shouldering his pack, Virgil split from them, following the subtle markers Craig created. They were mostly unobtrusive items, like a pile of pebbles heaped up in a pyramid or twigs laid out in a pattern.

The first sniper’s nest was on top of a tree. At least this one had several branches and it was easy for him to climb. About twenty paces up, he settled into a branch. The higher vantage point was a necessity if he wanted to conserve his Animus for a war of attrition. Although in the Tidelands their reserves recovered faster, it was better to keep himself topped up.

Guided Shots also consumed far more Animus than a normal one but it came with the advantage of making it harder for the target’s allies to determine where the shooter was positioned.

This high up, he didn’t need to activate his enhanced sight. The nearest humanoid silhouette was two thousand three hundred twenty-three paces away.

He activated both his Facet and the Plasma Caster, allowing it to siphon his Animus, then formed a Field-piercing bullet. Having marked the target, he moved his weapon twenty degrees to the right, his eyes still fixed on his target.

The next instant, he pulled the trigger.

Whumpf!

The rifle barrel hummed and disgorged a violent burst of superheated plasma coated in the violet glow of Virgil’s Animus. The bolt crossed a thousand paces in less than a second then curved and flew straight at the presumed Chaos Lord.

Hsst!

The bolt splashed against its protective Field, melting through in an eyeblink, before burning into its head. The Chaos Lord slumped soundlessly to the ground. The swarmlings remained quiet and undisturbed.

“That’s one,” Virgil muttered. He waited for a few minutes but there was no alarm. He kept an eye on the next Chaos Lord which was two thousand four hundred seventy-nine paces away. This one was slowly moving.

He readied another Guided Shot, feeling his reserves dip even further. He aimed up at the sky and the same twenty degrees to the right. He locked onto the target with his mind and pulled the trigger while releasing a slow breath

Whumpf! Hsst!.

The second Chaos Lord fell but this time, it was noticed. Another Chaos Lord had been approaching when Virgil’s bolt struck.

Like a disturbed ant-hill, the creatures stirred. Indignant roars filled the air as the swarmlings were roused from their slumber.

A few moments later, another purple bolt of superheated plasma burned through the third Chaos Lord’s head.

“Three,” Virgil murmured. He was in an emotionless state now, focused only on the kill. The Plasma Caster charged up for another shot. He had enough Animus to shoot two more bullets and still have enough to get to safety. Or he could shoot straight instead and possibly have enough juice to kill a dozen more.

Just as he was about to pull the trigger and take down another of the humanoids he hesitated. A group of Chaos Lords skylined over a distant ridge and in their haste, their Fields weren’t as tightly controlled as before.

His eyes widened in realization.

“Burning Moon,” he muttered as he stowed his weapon, drawing back his invested Animus from it as soon as it rested on his back, and shoving it into another pattern next to his Facet.

He jumped off the tree. A moment later, he landed on the ground and took off at a run, leaving puffs of dirt behind him. Craig had marked the next fallback, but he didn’t head that way. Instead, he ran to the rendezvous point. Less than a minute later and he crossed an entire longstride to the last fallback, finding his team in the process of laying out a camouflaged camp.

“Pack up, we have to go.”

Though he could see that they were filled with questions, they didn’t hesitate and gathered everything while he kept a lookout. He maintained a light enhancement on his eyes and it wasn’t long before the first humanoid creatures appeared at the tree.

“Cover us,” he said to Craig, “we need to go.”

They could have left their gear, of course, but without cleansing them, the Hunters could easily trace them using those.

Craig flung his arms wide and blue Animus touched each of them.

“Four minutes,” he said with a strained voice.

“Back to the Shallows!” Virgil growled.

They nodded and focused on their destination, running away from the horde. Craig’s technique would not only hide their movement from being reflected in the Chaos, it would also remove their scent. But only for four minutes. At least their tracks wouldn’t be an issue; if they had been in Rumiga, they might have found themselves in trouble but in the Tidelands, the ground changed if no sentient paid attention.

As they ran, Sarra asked, “What did you see?”

“Hunters, more than a dozen.”

She gasped, “But that means…”

It had already been unusual for Hunters to join a horde of swarmlings: not unheard of, but highly unusual. Small groups of Hunters, three to four at most, would work together. But most Hunters worked alone, and once too many of them were in the same area, they were more likely to kill each other than work together.

That there was a large group meant only one thing: that a higher-tiered Chaos Lord was there.

“Stop!” He suddenly yelled, and they jerked to a halt.

For the first time since he retired from the army, he felt cold sweat running down his back. He pointed at where they were going. The air in front was a uniform hue, pale bluish-grey. He swept his gaze left and right, and up to the canopy.

“We’re surrounded.”