Dawn was marching along with the Rangers on the ledge bordering the big lake. They were on their way back to the Kharlin village after their successful battle against the spiderlings.

The lynx cubs were a warm presence against her back, sleeping peacefully in their improvised hammock. At first they had strolled along with the group eagerly, but they had tired quickly. Much to Dawn’s relief, as she had been obligated to keep an eagle eye on the two of them constantly. It was incredible how much mischief they were able to do in seconds if they were not watched all the time. An involuntary bath in the lake being the least of it. Only this morning Dawn had found the shirt she had worn yesterday in tatters on waking, the cubs using it as a convenient toy in their tug of war. Then, before they had set out, while Dawn had packed her tent and bedroll Chaos had been digging joyfully in the loamy ground and unearthed several bleached bones, one of them quite obviously a human skull. Which he had promptly used to play with together with Echo. For once the Kharlins had not been amused by their antics.

Dawn was certain no amount of perception on her part would be enough to keep these two safe from themselves.

Ankou was invisible once again. No doubt scouting the surroundings and maybe hunting some snack for himself along the way.

She herself was chatting with Nathan, who had many questions about her experiences with the Kharlins and the demons.

Yesterday evening Grinna and her had had a very awkward talk with Nathan regarding the fate of Aaron and his house guards. Upon hearing that the man had kidnapped Dawn and had later on fallen victim to the demons, Nathan’s brows had risen and his face had tightened.

He had chewed on their information for a long while in silence, then said thoughtfully.

“Actually it explains some things I always wondered about. Reis Mallem has a lot of political influence in the Samrakat and no matter who opposed him in the past, he very often managed to get his own way in affairs that were close to his heart. Which is surprising in its own way. Though he is a Reis, his fiefdom is a small one and situated in the outskirts. He has his main seat in Atelang, which is only a small city on the borders to the wilderness after all.

It’s no wonder if his second son is an Infigor. He himself may have a path along these lines as well. He is known to be a very charming man. Married the daughter of a far more influential and wealthy family. It was a minor sensation when Malika from house Ralenti chose to marry him. She was only the niece of the Kur, but it was widely known that she could have made a far more advantageous match. It was heralded as a great romance at the time, though I always wondered how he managed to convince her family to look favourably on his suit. But he played a very subtle game, so far I heard not even a whisper of a rumour about him and his family. They are known as hardworking and down to earth. Not one of the most wealthy families in the nobility, but very well connected all the same.”

He had sat and stroked the scar on his cheek absently.

“But if Aaron and all his men have fallen victim to the demons, there will be a hue and cry in Atelang. I for my part have only found a track that ends in a gorge with some traces of a fight and Dawn is the only witness to what happened there. I fear it would not be very healthy for her to come forward with her tale. The story of an unknown young runaway girl about having been kidnapped by the son of an influential noble family, who afterwards vanishes without a trace in the wilderness wouldn’t be looked on with favour, to say the least.”

Dawn had felt an unwilling frisson of fear at his words.

“As fas as I’m concerned, I don’t want to be in the vicinity of his father or any other members of his family if I can avoid it.” She had said uneasily.

“It doesn’t matter if anyone else would believe me or not. If he has similar talents to Aaron I want to avoid him at all costs.”

Nathan had looked at her with quiet compassion.

“I can certainly understand that, but it doesn’t make my life any easier. I’m tasked with finding Aaron. I can’t return to Madden without something tangible. If I can’t bring back the man alive, his body or at least the body of one of his men would be best.”

Grinna had shaken her head and snorted.

“I can’t see how we would be able to manage that. Unless you are willing to take on the demon queen and her minions in her lair. Which might be a little unwise, with only the three of us here.” Her voice was brimming with irony at her last words.

Nathan had sighed and replied,

“Let me chew it over for a little while. I certainly have no intention to make this mission a suicidal one. But surely we decreased the number of her minions by quite a few during that last fight, didn’t we?”

Dawn spoke up.

“Yes we did. But those enemies were mostly spiderlings. I don’t exactly know how much of the grown demons are left. But the spiderlings must be nearly extinct after we had several fights with them.”

Teren who had sat quietly at the fire all this time had said.

“Let’s take some time to think over our options and call it a night here. Tomorrow we will return with the Kharlins to their village. We can decide what to do about Aaron and the Reis afterwards.”

And that had been that.

She had taken the quiet time in her tent that evening to look at her status and to figure out where to put her free stat points from the level up. That had been a very difficult decision. She really wanted to raise her intelligence and wisdom, as in every fight she had been in until now she always had insufficient mana for her lightning spell and her healing.

On the other hand, after her experience with Aaron and the Dreamkiller she knew that raising her willpower was an absolute necessity. Grudgingly, she split her stat points between willpower and intelligence and looked at her new status with satisfaction.

The spiderlings had given her a lot of experience today. Apparently she had put paid to quite a few of them with her lightning. She was not that far away from another level up already. If only Call The Lightning would finally level up as well. Surely she had used it enough by now?

Status screen Name Dawn Trakam Path Nature's shadow Level 12 Exp 2935/3100 HP 120/120 HP Regen 1.2 HP/Min MP 190/190 MP Regen 13 MP/Min SP 120/120 SP Regen 12 SP/Min Stats Strength 11 Willpower 12 Vitality 12 Perception 21 Endurance 12 Intelligence 19 Agility 21 Wisdom 13 Dexterity 10 Charisma 7 Class Skills Nurture Level 10 Specialization Poison's bane Shadow Play Level 9 Dark Sight Level 9 Alchemy Level 4 Call The Lightning Level 2 General skills Cleaning Level 2 Analyze Level 2 Sewing Level 3 Hunting Level 1 Climbing Level 3 Trapping Level 1 Knife fighting Level 3 Cooking Level 4 Sword fighting Level 6 Swimming Level 3 Bow fighting Level 3 Runic magic Level 3 Mental resistance Level 6 Fishing Level 1 Poison resistance Level 5 Stone shaping Level 2 Control Level 2 Fire resistance Level 3

And so Dawn was looking at another long hike today. The heat wave was unbroken and already sweat was trickling down her forehead.

Sighing inwardly, Dawn let her gaze roam. The dark blue surface of the lake was perfectly still, mirroring the blue sky above and the black cliff face on the side. On the path before her the Kharlin hunters were spread out in little groups. When she glanced at the cliff face on the right side of the path some distance in front of the group, it suddenly snagged her gaze. Something felt off. She concentrated her sight on the area. There, it seemed as if the whole cliff face moved slowly.

Uncertain, Dawn asked Grinna:

“There’s something not quite right with the rock in front of the group. Look up at the right side.” She pointed at the area.

Grinna looked at it inquiringly, but said. “I’m not sure if there’s something.”

The more Dawn looked, the more certain she became that there was something unnatural going on at the granite wall. Maybe she was simply seeing ghosts and would make a fool out of herself, but no matter she had to speak up.

Steeling herself, she called out loudly to Dermo.

“Dermo, stop! There’s something not quite right with the cliff in front of us.”

The leader of the hunting group turned to her and frowned at her exclamation, but then nodded and whistled sharply, the piercing tones adding up to a particular sequence. Instantly, all forward motion stopped.

The front runners of the group had already almost reached the outcropping with the suspicious area.

Dawn was half running forwards accompanied by the Rangers, intent on taking a closer look, when apparently a whole part of the cliff face came sliding down.

Strangely, the movement wasn’t accompanied by any noise, which was unusual for a rock slide. As the stone flowed downwards, it started to break up in parts and now Dawn was able to make out a myriad of small red eyes in the dark grey mass.

Next to her, Nathan started to curse.

“By the forsaken! Cliffcrabs! And a whole carpet of them to boot.” He exclaimed grimly.

Grinna spoke up.

“Dawn you need to stay back,” she said, then called out loudly to the group. “Stay back! The claws of these beasts are coated with a dangerous venom. It slowly petrifies anyone who gets pierced by their claws. Don’t try to fight them in close quarters.

Dawn stared at the beasts with unabashed horror. They closed the distance to the group slowly but inevitably.

“How are we supposed to fight them? “ She exclaimed. “There are so many!”

“They are not that strong individually,” Grinna explained calmly, then called out once more.

“Retreat, everyone. Keep your distance.”

Then she looked at Dawn.

“Try your big spell. Let’s see what happens.”

Dawn shook her head.

“I need to get closer for that,” she said dismally, then set herself in motion.

The Kharlins in the meanwhile had started to fire their arrows at the approaching horde. But these turned out to be mostly useless, simply bouncing off the shell of the crabs to the audible dismay of the hunters.

Dawn closed the distance to the approaching beasts by half, then activated her lightning spell.

It came down blindingly white amid the carpet of crabs and burned a hole into the mass of enemies. When she could see clearly again, she saw it had taken out dozens of the small monsters. Nevertheless it was only a drop in the ocean.

The rest of the beasts flowed inexorably onwards.

Nathan had come to a halt by her side and was activating what seemed to be a spell of his own. Frost covered the bodies of the first crabs and continued onto the whole forward front of the beasts. The cold visibly slowed them down.

“That alone will not kill them,” Nathan explained. “Only slow them down for a bit. But if you combine it with a fire spell afterwards, there will be a lot of cooked crab.”

Accordingly, he activated another spell and she could see the frost vanishing from the shell of the crabs. One moment later steam started to rise from their bodies, a few cracks of exploding shells could be heard here and there. Oddly, the enemies stayed ominously silent all the time, A whole slew of the beasts fell down lifelessly soon afterwards.

Still, the horde behind them moved forwards.

“Retreat further, everyone.” Grinna called out once again. “We need to whittle them down slowly. Keep your distance if you don’t want to be turned to stone.”

Dawn retreated obediently, together with the Kharlins and the rangers. It suddenly hit her that she had seen neither hide nor hair of Ankou for a long while now.

Had the crabs already killed him?

Keeping the enemies in her sight, she tried to concentrate on her feeling of him. There he was in the background of her mind. He seemed pretty calm altogether. Hadn’t he realized that there were enemies around? She tried to send out a warning to him, together with an image of the crabs.

[Enemies. Look out. Keep your distance.]

Her alert seemed to get through to him, and apart from a growing sense of anxiety was met with consternation, even indignation. In spite of the serious situation she found herself in Dawn had to grin.

Apparently, for once her friend had completely missed the enemies in his scouting foray.