He weighed his options as they walked. Attacking their kidnappers would be risky. He was confident he could get out of the shackles—he wasn’t looking forward to it, but he could do it—and that would at the very least give him a couple of surprise shots at them. But he was left with the problem of what to do about Araxes and Rashun.

Although, the better choice might be to simply go along meekly, allow the kidnappers to bring them out of the anti-teleport radius, then grab Rashun and Araxes and teleport as far away as he could.

Not the most heroic of choices, but perhaps the most prudent. It would allow the kidnappers to escape, but it would keep Rashun safe. And then he and the others could fortify the dungeon against further attempts. Because if the lich king had indeed put a price on their heads, it was a near certainty that these would not be the last adventurers to seek to claim it.

He was moving on autopilot, deep in thought, so much so that he almost missed it. But the eye is drawn to light, and the muted flash from the nearest hilltop flickered at the corner of his vision and he turned towards it automatically. For a second he thought he’d imagined it, and stumbled forward when Bennet the dwarf prodded him roughly in the back.

But then it came again. A brief flicker of reflected moonlight, perhaps a hundred yards away at the crest of the hill. It came again, and again, at regular fast intervals. He stared for a long second, uncomprehending, then blinked and turned away, resisting his first urge to jerk his gaze elsewhere.

Someone was up there. Someone was signaling. And there could be absolutely no reason to signal, save to get the attention of someone who did not have access to the message system.

A friend? An ally, almost certainly. Why else would they be trying to get his attention? He glanced up again, but the flashing had stopped. Had they seen him turn their way? Were they now on the move? Was an ambush of the ambushers about to take place?

Damn this inability to communicate. He needed to warn Rashun to stay down. To warn Araxes to be ready. To coordinate, to plan, to for the love of the gods tell them that something might be about to happen!

“Come on, come on,” Eyebrows growled, gesturing with her crossbow. “Pick up the pace.”

Sam stumbled as he was prodded again, and the overall speed of the little group quickened. He tried not to let Rashun’s whimpers with every footfall drive him over the edge into rage, but gods it was difficult.

They rounded a copse of boulders, and there was the skiff. It was a dull black shape against the background, low to the ground and wide-bodied. The driver’s chair was up front, with a cargo area and more seating near the back. And as they drew closer Sam recognized the model. A cheaper variant, but very fast and reliable according to what he’d heard.

It also should have been sitting on four wheels. Instead, what it was sitting on was bare earth, with the wheels flat on the ground beside it. The sight brought their kidnappers up short, and the elf let out a heartfelt curse.

“What the hell?” the human blurted. He reached for the handaxe at his side and started to turn. Eyebrows came forward and stared, clearly shocked at the vandalism. The elf spun around, wide eyes staring into the darkness around them.

Bennet the dwarf let out a shriek and stumbled forward into Sam’s back. Sam spun around to see the dwarf collapse to one knee, an orcish throwing axe embedded between his shoulder blades.

Several things happened at once. The other kidnappers spun, eyes wide, to see their stricken comrade. Sam turned back just in time to see a dark figure rise up from behind the skiff, spear and sword in hand. It vaulted over the back of the skiff, hit the ground running, hurled the spear at the elf, and lunged at the human. The kidnapper barely had time to shout, barely had time to draw his axe, before Captain Ard Shi of the Melloram Guard was on top of him, sword blurring like a steel windstorm.

The elf shrieked and dodged away from the spear. Eyebrows brought her crossbow up and aimed at the guardsman, but a second axe spun out from the darkness and crashed into the weapon, knocking it to the side and causing her shot to go wide. And from the darkness in that direction, Kereshe Stormfollower. The orc woman was bare from the waist up except for a chest wrap, and from the knees down, which only served—to Sam’s eye—to make the twin fighting axes in her hands even more scary.

Chaos erupted. Eyebrows spoke a word and a long glowing scimitar appeared in her hand, and she closed with Kereshe. The human and Ard Shi danced around each other, trading heavy blows. Bennet howled and surged to his feet, hands scrabbling for the axe in his back, or the sword sheathed back there, Sam couldn’t tell. The elf spun back around and their hands came up, glowing with unshed mana. Araxes dove forward and flung himself on top of Rashun.

And Sam brought up his harness controls, grabbed the nearest skiff wheel from where it lay on the ground, and winged it with all his telekinetic might at the elf’s head. He didn’t wait to see if it connected. All he needed was to keep the elf off-balance for a moment, to keep them from casting their spells. While he reached around with the telekinesis to his shackles. He doubted the magicked steel would break, even under the power of the harness.

That was okay. The shackles weren’t the only things that could be broken.

The snap of his left thumb was lost in the ringing of steel and thumping of boots around him. He bit back a scream as white-hot agony flared up his wrist, containing it to a groan as he worked his now-narrower hand out of the manacle. And as soon as the steel bracelet slipped off his wrist, his messages came crashing back to him in a wave of sensation.

Booger(secondbestgobbo): Hey, has anyone seen bossman? Been trying to get in touch with him for ten minutes now. Messages ain’t going through.

Cora(Sparklynotball): His messages are being blocked.

Annie(Boss-Mama): Anyone have eyes on?

They scrolled through his consciousness at the speed of thought. A dozen negatives came in reply to his ma’s question, a dozen more were asked in its place. He could feel the panic setting in. See it in the frantic tone of the messages flooding through the system.

Kereshe: I see him. Half-mile north of the entrance, in the foothills. He is restrained. Four adventurer-types around him. Rashun and Araxes are with him. They all appear to be prisoners.

There followed a fast series of back-and-forth messages between Sam’s family and Kereshe, who was keeping an active watch. It had been her who signaled him with reflected moonlight. And apparently it had been Arde Shi—who had been with her at the time—who had disabled the skiff.

He was going to have to buy both of those two as many beers as they could hold after this.,

With his hands free, he spun and Called Thumb Bane to his good hand. It slapped into his palm with satisfying weight just as Bennet the dwarf managed to yank the throwing axe out of his back and turn around. The man’s eyes had one second to widen in shock before the darksteel war hammer came in and cracked against the side of his skull.

Sam followed the hammer blow with a hell-kick with his booted foot. It caught the dwarf in the chest and sent him stumbling back. Instead of pressing the attack, Sam turned and swept his eyes over the chaos around him.

Ard Shi was pressing the other human hard, but the two seemed about evenly matched. Kereshe, despite her state of undress, was forcing Eyebrows to give ground under a frenzied axe assault. And the elf—

Finished casting a spell that zipped past Sam’s shoulder. He spun, tracking the glowing trail with his eyes, and saw it impact the dwarf. The man’s whole form glowed for an instant, and when the glow faded…

He was three times his original size.

Sam let out a startled curse and flung himself to the side as the dwarf’s sword, now roughly the size of of a bloody cathedral spire, crashed down on the spot he’d just vacated. Then it swept towards Sam flat-side first at chest height, and he only barely managed to duck it on its way past.

“I don’t give a damn if the lich wants you alive,” the dwarf howled, swinging the huge blade again and again missing by inches. “He can resurrect you if he wants. You’re going to him in pieces!”

“Why does everyone assume that just because I am a lich I know how to resurrect people? That is sub-racism at its finest, right there.” Araxes voice rang out from behind Sam.

Both titanic dwarf and Sam turned to blink at the lich, who was now standing up, feet planted, between Rashun and the chaos of battle.

“You—“ The dwarf’s voice had gotten deeper and louder with his size increase. “You had the shackles on. How did you—“

By way of response, Araxes reared back and flung something at the dwarf. A complete skeletal forearm, wrist and hand and fingers included, pinwheeled through the air and slapped into the dwarf’s gigantic nose.

Where it clung. And began to crawl upwards.

The dwarf shrieked and slapped at the hand, which dug its fingers into the pores of the man’s nose and held on like a leech. The huge fighter danced back, yelping and howling. It dropped its sword, which hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Just when you think you’ve seen everything, the thought drifted almost lazily through Sam’s mind as he whirled on the elf. They were staring at the dwarf in shock, then at the lich. The elf’s hands came up, began to glow as they fell into spellcasting.

And Sam, done with this shit, slapped his Guardian’s Wrath power and hurled Thumb Bane at them.

The heavy darksteel weapon spun end over end, green and gold flames erupting along its entire length. The elf caught the movement out of the corner of their eye and turned its head. Eyes flew wide, and they had time for a single shriekd. The hammer thrummed with power, cut through the air, and slammed into the elf’s chest. There was a great flash of light and an eruption of noise.

The shriek cut off with a gruesome sort of finality. The elf lay spread-eagle on the ground, smoke rising from their chest.

“No! Ty!” The human facing Arde Shi cried out. The moment of distraction was enough for the guard captain to step in and slam the hilt of his sword into the man’s temple, then follow it up with a heavy slash that laid open his right leg to the bone and swept his feet out from under him. He landed flat on his back, then gasped as Arde Shi came down with both knees right on his chest.

“Stop struggling,” the captain suggested, laying his sword-edge across the man’s throat.

Sam turned back to the dwarf, who had finally torn Araxes’ grasping hand off of his nose. He flung the appendage away from him and turned back—just in time to see Sam pull the bolt-thrower out of his inventory and aim it right at his eyes.

“Sit down with your hands on your head,” Sam growled, “or get used to people calling you ‘Blinky’.”

The dwarf tried to lunge for him. Sam shifted his aim just slightly and sent a bolt through the fleshy part of the dwarf’s ear. Bennet howled and staggered in his charge. Sam put a bolt into his kneecap, bringing the huge dwarf crashing to the ground in front of him. He was just taking aim at the top of the man’s head when the spell wore off, and dwarf and equipment shrank back down to their normal size. Without a word, and without raising his face from the ground, he put up his hands, palms out, and placed them on the back of his neck.

And that left one. Sam glanced to the side, just in time to see Kereshe get Eyebrows in a sleeper hold. The gnome struggled for a brief moment, then went limp, her glowing scimitar dropping from nerveless fingers and disappearing before it hit the ground.

And quiet fell like a guillotine. Sam’s heart was racing, his blood singing in his ears, his hands quivering on the stock of the bolt-thrower.

“Everyone good?” he called out.

A chorus of affirmatives came from all around. Rashun’s voice quavered, but joined in. Araxes sounded miffed. The other two were flat and business-like.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief, then marched over to the face-down dwarf. He nudged the back of the man’s head with the barrel of his weapon.

“Shackle keys,” he said in as deadly-calm a voice as he could.

Moving very slowly, the dwarf’s hand went down to his belt and came back up with a silvery key. Sam beckoned Araxes over. “Get it,” he said. His bad hand was supporting the bolt-thrower, his good hand on the trigger. He couldn’t use either of them to get they key. “Unlock me.”

“Right.” Araxes scuttled over and, despite only having a single hand, unlocked the manacle from Sam’s wrist. Then stood glaring at the manacles on his own arm like they’d offended him. “And how the devil am I supposed to get my own off?”

“I will,” Rashun piped up, scampering over. A moment later, Araxes was likewise freed.

“Saaaaaaaaaam!”

The familiar cry made Sam’s head come up, and there was Pearl, Staple Cutter unsheathed and glowing red in her hand, winging her way towards him. He braced himself, and only had to take a small step back as the little fairy slammed into his chest and buried her face into his shirt.

“You are not allowed to get kidnapped,” she said, her voice shaky and muffled. “Not ever. Not again!” She pulled her face back and looked up at him with relief and tears in her eyes. “Okay? Promise!”

“Can we take care of the prisoners first?” Sam asked with a little grin. She blinked at him then turned her head owlishly to stare at the dwarf, and the gnome, and the human.

“Oh wow. You escaped!”

Sam couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud.