Not counting the time he'd spent as a statue, Xigbar had been in Xykesh for a little over a year. After all that time—weeks in the gutter, stint with the Pavers, a backstab he was still bitter over, a brush with a death wizard, two prisonbreaks, and an extended period on the run with a bunch of strangers—he was right back where he'd started: hiding in a bush on the side of the road, waiting for somebody to drive up so he could ambush them and take their stuff.

The only difference was now, he was stealing for a cause, which he didn't particularly consider an improvement.

Truly, he was the Court's favorite jester.

The others were all spread out to be able to box the enemy in and hit them hard, but Valerie was crouched next to him in the bush. He flashed her a cocky grin to try to convince the both of them he wasn't worried about this. He couldn't tell if it worked.

An oversized carriage pulled by two four legged reptiles the size of draft horses slowly trudged up the road. It was the size of a small house, and on its roof alone there were two elites with crossbows and half a dozen urks backing them up. That wasn't counting the urk driver, the elite captain riding beside it, or whatever forces they would have inside the carriage.

Xigbar guessed one, maybe two more elites inside the carriage riding with the petrified prisoners. Those were workable odds. Maybe even favorable.

Valerie didn't smile back at him, but she did lock and load her wristbow as the carriage drew in closer. Closer.

Closer.

Valerie whistled.

She loosed a bolt into the driver's neck at the same time that a beam of golden light swept the carriage roof from behind, taking out all but two of the urks and knocking one of the elites off and to the ground. At the same time, List and Kaleb rushed the carriage from either side.

The elites reacted quickly. The captain at the head of the carriage kicked something in the harness connecting the drakes to the vehicle, and the restraints released. At the same time, the fallen crossbowman rolled to his feet to draw a bead on Kaleb, while the one still on the roof whirled around to snap their aim onto Arden behind them.

The dragon insignia in the captain's armor flashed silver, and in a voice that rang with authority not his own, he shouted, "STOP!"

The King's Authority rang out, and found no purchase. The captain hesitated in surprise, and that gap in his response gave them all the time they needed to close in.

List dove to the side of one charging drake, and lashed out with her new whip at the same time. Empowered with chaotic energy, her old whip could have opened a gash in monster's neck and had it bleeding out in seconds.

The new whip, heavier, and already bladed to slice flesh, hacked the head of the drake clean off.

Valerie brought the other drake with two bolts. The first took it in the eye, and the second went straight through its temple. She was focused on covering List's approach, leaving Kaleb and Arden to fend for themselves as the elite archer loosed crossbolts at them.

They were fine. The enemy bolts ignited into white hot streaks as they flew with the power to punch through solid stone, but Kaleb caught them on his shield, while the ones targeting Arden pinged off a barrier of golden light. Kaleb's shield briefly shimmered red at the point of impact, and Arden's barrier showed only tiny cracks that disappeared almost immediately.

The remaining urks leapt off the carriage and charged. Valerie dropped one, List the other. In only a breath, it was down to three elites versus the five of them, and Valerie was already lining up a shot on the captain as List met him with her halberd.

Xigbar appeared as if from nowhere behind the elite shooting Kaleb. None of his initial flurry of stabs quite found a gap in the elite's armor, but by the time the soldier could turn around, Xigbar had vanished from his field of view.

As a snake, Xigbar slithered between the elites legs, transformed back, and got in a slash to the back of the soldier's knee. They kicked, and he tumbled back, but by then Kaleb had closed the gap himself.

Arden traded shots against the one still on the carriage roof from behind the safety of a conjured shield, striding forward slowly and confidently. He bashed the elite in the face with a shield, then grabbed the enemy's wrist when he abandoned his crossbow and tried to stab with a shortsword. Xigbar capitalized on the immobilized arm to drive a stab underneath the elite's pauldron and twisting.

It was all going perfectly. They had the elites off balance, outnumbered, and divided. They fought in perfect sync.

And then the carriage's rear doors burst open.

Instead of more urks or elites, a hulking figure barreled forward, rocking the carriage as it leapt out. At first glance, it looked like a werewolf. It was eight feet tall, vaguely human in shape, covered in fur and sporting a wolf's head. But whereas Slaughter and Darshan had been slightly off-proportioned, with long limbs and too-broad shoulders, this creature was even more distorted.

Its muscles were unevenly swollen, and its skin split in places from the struggle to contain them. It fur was matted and patchy, and its eyes were glossed over, pure white orbs. Dark fog drifted from its mouth, and when it threw back its head to roar, it spread all three of its arms. It had a third, significantly smaller arm growing below its left, blood red and hairless instead of the black fur of the rest of its body, and it had hooked talons on each of that limb's four fingers.

Another elite came out of the carriage after it, but that elite was running away from the monster, and shouting for the others to get clear.

"The collar broke!" the elite shouted. "The collar—"

That was as far as he got before the monster's arm swatted him aside, launching him dozens of feet away. Its head thrashed around, taking in its surroundings.

"What the fuck is that?!" List shouted.

The elite captain used her distraction to shove her back for a moment with his own sword, and his dragon emblem blazed silver again.

"Dreadwolf!" he shouted, and the monster from the carriage froze. It whirled to face straight at the captain, who pointed in the general direction of the outsiders. "Kill!"

Kaleb was the closest one to the dreadwolf, and it launched itself at him. He braced with his shield as its claws flashed. The shield held, and so did his footing. But that was only the first blow.

The dreadwolf tore at Kaleb with claw and fang, and with each swipe and snap, Kaleb was pushed further back. His shield never stopped flashing red as its enchantments worked to disperse the force, until its entire face had become bright scarlet.

Finally, one of its claws got under Kaleb's guard, and he was shoved to the ground. The dreadwolf's third arm flashed out, slicing through Kaleb's shirt and jacket, and leaving red lines down his chest. If anyone of the others had taken those claws, they would have been torn open from collarbone to pelvis.

Arden fired a beam of divine power with both hands, blasting the monster off of Kaleb, but that left him exposed to the elite sniper on the carriage. Valerie shifted focus to cover him, but that left List dueling the elite captain on her own.

Everything threatened to fall to chaos as the dreadwolf rampaged and the elites used the chaos to their advantage. But in the brief moment before their well laid ambush collapsed into a frantic melee, Xigbar managed to finish off the elite marksman he and Kaleb had been fighting, freeing him up, and their training let Valerie see their next steps.

Their standard operating procedure was for Arden to engage the biggest threat, and that was obviously the dreadwolf. The priest wouldn't need reminding of that, but he would assume that the others would also know their roles already, and act without consulting them.

The captain wasn't as dangerous as the dreadwolf, but he was dangerous, and more than List could take on her own. They would all know the best move would be to split up and support each other, but they'd only had two weeks of real training together, and some old habits died hard.

Kaleb would rush to the aid of the closest ally he could see, Valerie knew. But he was closest to Arden. Valerie was already trading shots with the carriage marksman, so if Xigbar saw Kaleb support Arden, he'd go to List. And that was all wrong.

"Xigbar, carriage! Kaleb, List!" she shouted, and sprinted straight for the dreadwolf

Arden's power let him stand up to punishment and keep an enemy's attention, making him a bulwark but Kaleb could do the same with his own skill and durability. By contrast, she, Xigbar, and List were all much more suited to striking at the enemy than resisting attacks.

A balanced formation would call for one bulwark and one striker on each of the major threats, while their remaining striker eliminated the marksman. List and Arden would both be too committed to their respective fights to move, which meant the only real choice to be made was whether to send herself or Xigbar to back up Arden, and she was the one with the silvered weapon. Whether the dreadwolf was a demon or a werewolf, she'd be more effective than Xigbar.

Everyone obeyed Valerie's commands without hesitation.

Kaleb rolled to his feet and bull rushed the captain, forcing him to stop attacking List or else be run over. He shoved back into Kaleb's charge, and the sound of their collision rang like a gong as shield met pauldron. List and Kaleb quickly settled into a rhythm of fighting alongside each other, and in only a few exchanges, List took the captain's legs off at the knees.

Xigbar ran for the carriage, and with the practiced grace of a thief on a second-story job, vaulted, jumped, and swung up onto the roof to meet the marksman. He dodged the elite's first point blank shot, and didn't give him the chance for a second.

Arden met the dreadwolf sporting an entire suit of summoned divine armor and the image of a mace superimposed over his cane, but as Valerie ran up behind him, he banished both, switching to only a massive shield of light. He looked in her direction while the dreadwolf raked its claws down the shield, and spoke a prayer for strength.

But not for him.

Valerie's steps quickened to a superhuman pace, and she tore up the ground as she ran on empowered legs. The dreadwolf saw her and swung, but it had been distracted by Arden too long, and it was too slow. By the time its claws crashed down, she was already on the other side of it, slashing open its leg with her silvered sword. Black blood gushed from the wound, and it fizzled off the edge of the silver white blade.

She got in another slash across its chest before having to retreat from its attacks, but Arden slammed his cane down, and golden chains rolled out from it, wrapping first around the dreadwolf's three arms before anchoring themselves into the ground. The chains went immediately taut, and Arden grunt with the effort of keeping them together, but he held on.

And, still empowered by Arden's strength prayer, Valerie leapt onto the monster's exposed chest, and drove her blade up through the bottom of his jaws until it came out of the top of its head. The beast went rigid, and then collapsed as Valerie leapt off it.

She panted hard, feeling a full body ache overtake her as all of Arden's prayers faded away. She turned around. Behind her, Xigbar was kicking the dead body of the marksman off the roof of the carriage, and List was inspecting Kaleb's chest wounds while he insisted that he was fine.

"Alright," Xigbar admitted. "I guess that could have gone worse."