Xerxes’ half-expected the Abhorrent woman to suddenly jump up and start ripping the soldiers to shreds. That didn’t happen.

Squad One stopped at the ridgeline, and then a few groans could be heard. Tamharu’s shoulders slumped.

“Sergeant?” Captain Ishki said.

“The thing isn’t anywhere in sight,” Tamharu reported. “Ap and Goran are… they’re gone.”

Xerxes learned later that both men had been killed violently. Goran’s remains lay in a lake of blood just before the base of the hill. Ap had essentially been ripped in two, although his entrails connected the two parts. Xerxes didn’t see the sight with his own eyes though, for Bel woke up shortly after the conclusion of the frenzied melee.

After her eyes fluttered open, Sergeant Aniskipel helped her into a sitting position.

Gandash was already there. “Bel, are you okay?”

“Not sure,” she said, her voice trembling.

“You were ‘urt pretty bad, girl,” Aniskipel said. “Will an ‘ealing spell fix it?”

“I hope so,” she said.

She lost an entire dose of green belladonna sand when her trembling fingers resulted in a failure of her first healing spell. The second spell worked. Whatever the disgusting ichor was that the severed Abhorrent parts left behind, it didn’t seem to have caused infection or sickness.

Gandash wrapped his arms around Bel, and she returned the embrace.

“Now’s not the time for that sort of thing,” Captain Ishki said from a few feet away. “Refill your component pouches and be ready.” Raising her voice, she gave out new orders.

The camp was reorganized. The fires were moved to different locations. Additional fires, much larger than those in the camp, were started at the base of the hill, in the four cardinal directions. More sentries were assigned, ten in total, with four of them focused on the direction the Abhorrent had originally come from, and the others facing the other directions.

Spent arrows were retrieved. Spare arrows were brought out. All light infantry, the archers essentially, took time to apply golden henbane to as many arrows as possible. Unfortunately, they had been on an inspection tour, and didn’t have a large stock of henbane or many of the other assets that could have been useful.

They did have tools with which to build entrenchments. Shovels, picks, pry bars. But to create anything that would help defend against a monstrous Abhorrent would have taken far too long, so Captain Ishki said not to bother.

She gave a speech to inspire the soldiers, and also provided detailed orders about how to defend the camp.

Everyone was on edge for about two hours after the attack. They sat with weapons in hand, anxiously tapping knees, humming random tunes, or staring out into the deepening darkness.

The remains of Ap and Goran were retrieved. Sergeant Aniskipel packed them into bags and had them put on the cart.

Master Ligish demanded to be set free.

“No,” was Captain Ishki’s simple answer.

“It’s murder,” Ligish said. “If that thing comes back, me and my people will be slaughtered, with no way to defend ourselves.”

Ishki pursed her lips and walked away from him.

Another hour passed with no further developments. At that point, the captain came over to the mages.

“You three need to get some rest,” she said. “Bed down in the middle of the camp, and I’ll have some men watch over you. Be ready if that thing comes back. Especially you, Seer Bel. I don’t want to lose anyone else on this mission.”

Xerxes was exhausted but couldn’t fall asleep. It seemed Gandash and Bel were in the same boat. They lay there on their bedrolls, staring up into the darkness.

After a while, Xerxes closed his eyes and tried to think of calming things. It was impossible. This mission had turned from a dream into a nightmare that only seemed to get worse and worse with every day that passed. How was it possible that they were facing an Abhorrent? It had been millennia since they were something to worry about. Now there was one out in the night, staring at them and planning how to rip them to shreds.

But how? Xerxes knew what the official history classes taught. The supposed Pontifarch had disabled all the Gateways leading to the Nightmare Cove, so it shouldn’t have been possible for them to go anywhere else in the starsea.

More important than the how was the why. Why was this thing chasing them? Did they have something it wanted? Or was it just a bloodthirsty beast who tried to kill anything it saw?

Xerxes’ eyes opened, and he jerked up into a sitting position.

Gandash noticed, looking over with eyes so wide they looked like they might pop out of his skull. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

Bel sat up and put her hand on her component pouch.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Xerxes replied quietly. “It’s just… that thing came out of a meteorite that fell from the sky. So… what about all those other meteors we saw? Did all of them have Abhorrent in them?”

The thought chilled him to the bone, and when he turned to look at his friends, he saw that they look no less haunted.

Xerxes cleared his throat. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said anything. It just… just occurred to me.”

He lay back down.

Now his thoughts wandered even more. He thought about his family back in the capital. He thought about Gandash’s family. Of their friends. Their teachers in the Academy. The other mages who called the capital home.

Which direction had the meteors been falling? Could any have fallen in the capital itself? Or nearby?

At a certain point, he fell asleep. One moment, he was obsessing about an army of monsters invading the capital, the next he was in a deep slumber.

He started dreaming. He, Bel, and Gandash were attending class in the capital when suddenly the building caught on fire. They ran out to find meteors smashing into the city around them. Everything was burning. He heard screams. The screams grew louder. Louder still.

His eyes snapped open.

The screams were real.

The Abhorrent was back.