Faye let the two men figure out what they wanted to do with the caravan as she waited with the horses for a few moments. The horses towered over her, but other than their size, they were the most ordinary animals she had seen in this world. She wondered why they, of all things, seemed normal when everything else was not.

They ate the grass on the rise of earth and placidly chewed, occasionally looking up and checking their surroundings.

It was pleasant to be out in nature with the animals, it was never something she had done before coming here, of course. She knew that people kept horses, but it was not something that was done where Faye had been from. She was a classic townie, though she had been camping enough times that she was not a complete stranger to the outdoors. Of course, now that she had spent months in this world, Faye felt that she was getting to be an old hand at sleeping outdoors.

Not for the first time, Faye found her hand going to the pouch strapped carefully inside her gambeson. She did not need to do much, but a small amount of pressure told her the stone was still there, safe. It was the one reason they were not charging forward at full speed. As soon as they reached the Guild, they could gather resources and return immediately.

Of course, they were still days away from the city.

Faye absently stroked the mane of one of the horses as she looked east, toward Nóremest. She felt the animals tense as it moved, muscles bunching up and relaxing in short, terse movements.

“What’s the matter?” she murmured, stroking the horse’s side.

A quiet nicker.

She rounded the horse’s head, drifting a hand across its flank as she went. Neither horse was eating, now. They were gazing to the south. There, the land continued on, rounding the higher lands to the west and broadening the further south they went. The sun was low in the sky, and it glared across the thin ribbons of water, glinting across the many rivulets that pocked the land.

There was nothing out there.

“I can’t see anything, big guy.”

She activated [Mana Sense]. But, other than the ambient mana in the area, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Looks clear,” she said, and tapped a hand on the horse’s neck.

Leaving the horses to their grasses, Faye stepped back over to the caravan and the two men. They were talking over their ideas. Gavan looked up at her approach.

“Horses are spooked,” she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. “Couldn’t see anything, though.”

The caravan driver snorted and shook his head. “They are always doing that. They’re a pain.”

Faye frowned. “Thought they were of the best stock?”

“Just means they’re more headstrong,” the man said. “But, this is my first time out with them so they could just be acting up because they don’t trust me.”

Gavan leaned close to Faye’s shoulder and whispered, “Doesn’t seem relevant, but he does not seem like the best coachman…”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“Let’s keep an eye out, then,” Gavan continued, louder. “We have to continue toward the city. Will you be okay from here?”

The man looked at the caravan, its mud-caked wheels and siding. “I cannot be sure,” he said, “until I get moving. It could be there’s something cracked, and it will fall apart a few miles down the road. I don’t suppose I could ask you to accompany me?”

Faye’s [Mana Sense] flared, almost on its own. At first, she had no idea what she was seeing, but it soon became apparent that there was a lot more mana being thrown into the air around the caravan than a moment before.

As [Mana Sense] showed Faye just that small hint, something else kicked in and with a sudden cracking sensation between her eyes — which made her flinch — the things she was hearing and seeing changed.

The horses were no longer quietly standing behind them, but were braying and panicking. She spun to see, and there were two or three people grabbing hold of their reins and attempting to pull them back under control.

The coachman said something else, but instead of the voice he had been using, it came out oddly. Distorted, somehow.

Faye spun again to look at him. At it.

The creature was humanoid, but its features were wrong, disjointed and misshapen so that the hair on Faye’s neck stood on end. Its eyes were larger than normal, and pure black.

Its head turned to regard Faye. Its voice still emanated from its mouth, but she was not taking in the words. She was entranced by its eyes. As she watched, the creature blinked. A third eyelid slid across its eye a millisecond before the main eyelids closed, the membrane a stark red that contrasted sharply with the black of the eye.

Faye stepped closer to Gavan, grabbing his arm.

“Faye?” he asked, looking at her in confusion.

“That’s not a human,” she replied.

The creature let out a strange, guttural laugh that sounded as if it were choking.

“What?” it said.

It doesn’t know I can see it… she thought, but a moment later, the creature charged forward with its arms outstretched. Instead of hands, it reached out with the sharp points of claws.

She had no time to draw her sword. Instead, she lifted her hand and brought forth enough mana to ignite a couple of [Fire Darts]. As she prepared them, however, she also activated [Cleansing Flame].

The darts’ flames, ignited from Faye’s power in the palm of her hand, changed immediately to a bright white light. Each dart a miniature sun, they slammed forward into the onrushing creature.

Gavan let out a shout and stepped backward.

The darts impacted the creature and seemed to explode into flashes of light. Each pop of a [Fire Dart] leaving an afterimage in Faye’s vision.

The ding of a notification sounded.

Congratulations! You have defeated a level 16 [Changeling].

Experience earned.

“They’re changelings!” she said.

“What do you mean they?” Gavan countered. He looked around, confused.

Faye gritted her teeth and turned to take in the figures surrounding them. There was at least a dozen, each one standing strangely still, their figures a variety of shapes and sizes. The only thing that was the same for each were the pitch-black eyes.

That was not the worst part.

The one that had been pretending to be the caravan driver stirred, and then a moment later stood up again. Its eyes were narrowed as it stared at Faye.

“Okay, wha…” Gavan breathed.

“That was not pleasant,” the changeling said.

Gavan held up his hand, the mana there forming an [Ice Shard], but the changeling put up its hands.

“Wait, wait!”

Gavan did not give it chance to say anything else. He slammed the shard forward, piercing the things’ face.

The other changelings responded to that, their hissing cries loud in Faye’s ears. She drew her sword and took a defensive stance.

“Can you see them, yet?” she asked.

“Nothing else here,” Gavan said, casting about with his head. “Nothing in the mana, either.”

“There is some kind of illusion at play… you could throw a spell out in any direction and hit one.”

The changelings seemed to want to press closer, but just as Gavan held up a hand to launch another spell, they drew back.

“Wait…” Faye breathed out.

Gavan paused, his arm still held up.

The caravan driver slowly got back to its feet. Faye and Gavan stared as the being turned to face them, the [Ice Shard] having twisted it about as it fell.

“We. Are. Not. Your. Enemies!” the changeling shouted. Each word came out distorted by the shard in its face. “But our patience wears thin. Attack us again, humans, and we promise it shall be the last thing you do!”

“What’s going on here?” Gavan said. “What are you?”

The shard of ice slowly pushed its way free of the changeling’s face. As it came out, blood and gore came with it, which turned Faye’s stomach a little. She thought she saw a tooth come away, as well.

“We are changeling.”

“We?” Gavan said. “There are more of you?”

The changeling before them waved a hand, and a moment later the haze of mana that surrounded them dissipated slightly. Gavan flinched, uttering a small curse.

“Didn’t believe me?” she muttered.

“Sorry, no,” Gavan replied.

A few of the changelings in the background shifted and moved position. Now that Gavan and Faye had stopped slinging spells, they seemed content to let the centre creature parley.

“So?” Faye asked. “What’s happening here, why were you impersonating that driver?”

The changeling’s posture went from rigid to that of the driver immediately, and the voice changed subtly, too.

“I’ve been a driver many times, many times…” the creature said, but it looked over Faye’s shoulder with a scowl, “but it seems that my esteemed employer’s latest purchases were not keen on me being their handler.”

Faye turned to look at the horses, who had managed to exhaust the changelings that were trying to subdue them. They had moved away from the group, but they stood together, watching the changelings with ears pricked forward.

“They’re smart animals,” Faye said.

“Mmm, yes,” the changeling replied, back to its neutral self. Its mannerisms were gone, replaced by an immobile face and body. “We were attempting to leave the city; things have progressed to the point that we were no longer safe.”

That sounded alarming, and Gavan immediately picked up on the phrase. “What do you mean? What’s happened in the city?”

“You do not know? Then perhaps you were telling the truth. We apologise for the deception. There has been a rise of aggression amongst your kind, recently. Unfortunately, there were some additional security measures we had not been aware of added to… it does not matter. We were forced to leave.”

Faye did not believe it was truly sorry for the deception at all. Especially if it was a changeling, but she supposed that was not important.

“Who is fighting?” she asked, instead.

“The Guilds.”

“What?” Gavan said, stunned. “The Guilds are at war?”

The changeling nodded, a starkly odd movement from a being who was not moving at all, otherwise. “Yes. We suspect that this has been in the making for a long time. We found out that—”

Before the changeling could finish its sentence, an arrow sprouted from one of its eyes as if it had appeared out of thin air. A split second later, the sound of its passing caught up, sounding like an angry wasp slamming into a tree trunk. The thunk of impact knocked the changeling back onto its arse, and Faye instinctively ducked, despite the fact that if another one of those arrows came for her, she would be dead before she knew it.

Not even her enhanced senses had caught that one coming in.

“Attack!” called out the changelings to their back.

Faye turned on her heels, still crouched. There were shapes coming toward them, hiding behind tufts of grasses in the reeds and small waterways that dotted the land. Two men were approaching from the road itself, each one kitted in full armour.

She was unsure what she and Gavan were supposed to do. She looked around, it seemed that the arrows were only going for the changelings, which relieved her at first, but then she realised that they had not been hostile to them…

“Gavan! What should we do? Will they attack us?”

In response, Gavan threw up his hands to the sides, and [Ice Wall]s grew up around them in a protective sheath. Arrows from two different directions slammed into the ice.

“Yes,” he said, with a sigh. “If the Guilds really are at war…”

“As troubling as that is,” Faye said, “we need to survive this first.”

No more arrows impacted the walls. Gavan gave the walls worried glances. “That’s not great.”

“Why?”

“Most of the time, you want your opponents attacking the walls. It wastes their energy. These ones aren’t doing that.”

“They’re smart, then,” Faye said.

“Exactly.”

A moment later, another arrow hit, but this one seemed to be special. It hit the wall but did not stop moving like the others. It stayed in place, spinning rapidly. The high-speed rotation turned it into a drill, a whine assaulting their ears as it burrowed deeper.

“Or they start using skills designed to break through,” Gavan muttered. “This is bad. Really bad.” His breaths were starting to come faster. “Shit, what do we do?”

“That’s my line,” Faye said, grabbing his shoulders. “Don’t go losing it now, mister.”

“They’re strong, Faye,” Gavan said, “a skill like that? It’s no common ability.”

The whine deepened as the arrow slowed its crazy spinning motion. The arrowhead had made it a good portion of the way through the ice, but it would still have needed to do the same again to get through.

“They’re not that strong,” she said, pointing at the failed penetration of the arrow. “They did not get through.”

“Only a matter of time. Archers. They’re precise. Take us out the moment the walls fall.”

“Then we don’t sit here like ducks waiting to be shot, then,” Faye said. “Let’s get out, get moving. Get out of the line of fire. We blast anything in front of us, we stay low, and we get out of sight.”

“That’s an awful plan.”

Faye nodded. “And it is the only one we’ve got. So, buck up. Let’s go.”