Kyzo and Bruce climbed over the palisade and into the town. The moon glowed dimly through the navy blue clouds. It gave very little light for Kyzo and Bruce to scout out the town, but if the night was foggy to them, it was equally foggy to their enemies.

Kyzo dove behind a shop and snuck a glance from behind the corner. Patrolling soldiers and mages crowded the streets. It was not the unoccupied village that Kyzo hoped for. Bruce slid behind the elven boy and tugged his arm.

“Look over yonder, Kyzo,” said Bruce. “Siege equipment,”

Bruce was right, Kyzo counted four catapults and eleven ballistas. The Estinians were well prepared for a clash with Wiccer’s army.

“Let’s get out of here and report back to the captains what we found.”

Back at the camp, Kyzo relayed what they found to Elucard and Mave. Elucard nodded with each detail and rubbed his chin in thought. While the alliance forces were adequate enough to take and hold this town, Elucard needed to minimize casualties wherever he could. Every man would be needed at the battle for Aric City. If the siege equipment here could be destroyed, then Wiccer and his regulars could hopefully move in for an easy capture. But how?

“With the amount of soldiers, mages, and siege equipment, we will be hard pressed to attack this town alone, Elucard,” said Mave. “Any thoughts?”

“Just one.” Elucard turned to Elisa. “Word on the wind says you are the toxic type. Are you up for poisoning a town?”

“The wind speaks true, Captain,” she said with a smile. “If there’s a granary I could ruin their food. If there’s a well, I can poison their water supply. Dahlemar’s shredded wings, give me enough time and I’ll make sure they’ll grow ill drinking their ale.”

Elucard smirked. “Good, now what should we do about the catapults and ballistas?” He pointed to Quinn. “You blew open the door, got enough explosives to deal with our problem?”

Quinn gestured to his grenades fastened to his bandolier and his rows of dynamite tucked in his belt. “Shock and awe is my speciality. I can blow up the whole damn world if you want me to.”

The harekins laughed in amusement.

“Okay, okay. I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” Elucard gave Quinn’s pitch a nervous chuckle. “Alright, Elisa, you and Quinn sneak into the town and do your dirty deeds. We will hang back in the thicket. Timber and Corso, I want you two prepared to cover their escape if they need it.”

Quinn tightened a second belt of demolition supplies to his waist and gave Mave a long hug. “Don’t worry about me, sis, I won’t let the SMO down.”

“Have fun, Quinn; show them some good old fire and brimstone,” said Mave. She tugged one of Quinn’s ears playfully and kicked him in the rear as he walked away.

Elisa shouldered her satchel that held her poison kit. Elucard pulled her to the side and whispered low enough that only she could pick up the words.

“Keep one eye on your task and one eye out on Quinn. The SMO may be rabbits, but they aren’t Black Rabbits. They weren’t trained since childhood in the arts of subtlety and assassination.”

Elisa slid her sight to Mave and Quinn. “You don’t trust Mave’s crew, huh?”

“They are good in the air, but lack grace on the ground. They are going to get one of us killed if we don’t hold their hands.”

Elisa nodded. “I’ll watch Quinn’s back, but Elucard, you need to learn to trust someone that wasn’t trained by a Black Rabbit,” she said. She jabbed her captain’s chest with her index finger. “If you don’t, you’ll die a paranoid fool.”

Elucard narrowed his eyes as Elisa waved her goodbyes to her squad and jogged to catch up to Quinn.

Godspeed, Elisa. Hopefully your trust in Quinn doesn’t get you both killed.

***

Elisa slipped through the night, moving along houses and down alleyways, assuming that an enemy was around every corner. For her first stop, she made her way to the granary. The door was tightly secured with a padlock, but picking locks was child’s play. She rummaged through her various pouches tied to her belt until she found her choice equipment that consisted of a thin set of lockpicks.

Elisa looked over her shoulder. The granary was located at the far end of the town and with the cloudy night, she was well hidden in the shadows.

Using her hook and rake tools, she focused her attention back on the padlock. She smirked, twisting and shifting her lockpicks in the padlock. Her grin faded into a serious face as the locks proved more difficult to open than initially predicted.

One click.

Two clicks.

Three clicks.

Elisa licked her lips and held her breath.

Open!

Inside the granary, sacks of oat, wheat, and barley were piled up in a corner, while barrels of rice stood along the walls. All in all this would be a long night of work to make sure all the food was tainted with her poison, and time was not what she had on her side.

Elisa sighed and pulled out a small knife and began slicing open the sacks of grain and then pouring each one of the ground. After that was done, she tipped over each barrel of rice until all the food lay on the floor.

She covered her mouth with a respirator and took out a beaker with a slender neck. Inside, a dark green liquid bubbled. She shook the concoction vigorously until the bubbles popped and foamed, boiling over and pushing into the cork that kept the poison contained.

Elisa pulled the cork and quickly placed the glass bottle at the center of the room. She watched briefly as a vile gas filled the room, then exited and closed the door behind her.

Next on her list to sabotage the enemy’s food and water supply was the well found in the town square. However, with the large presence of soldiers, Elisa’s chances of completing her task were slim to none without a distraction.

Climbing on a stack of crates and scrambling onto the roof of the general store, Elisa leaped from building to building until she reached her destination. As predicted, soldiers walked the streets, gossiped outside the tavern, and some rested around the well. Even the best trained Rabbit would find this task near impossible.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elisa saw Quinn. In his hand he held a small case of powder which he poured on the ground as gingerly as a chef salting a dish. It led back to the siege equipment. Once he finished, he struck a match and tossed it on the trail of dragon powder. The fuse ran its course in a flash before blasting into a brilliant explosion through the night.

This was her chance. Droves of soldiers scrambled and yelled as they rushed to the scene. Elisa jumped off the roof and rushed to the well. Popping open a bottle, she dumped the contents of a deep purple liquid into the water below. She wouldn’t be sure if this vial would be enough to poison the water supply. The well might have contained enough liquid to dilute the poison she poured in. She reached for another vial but hesitated.

‘Keep one eye on your task and one eye out on Quinn.’ Elucard’s order echoed in the back of her mind. She pulled out the vial but once again Elucard’s voice disturbed her. ‘The SMO may be rabbits, but they aren’t Black Rabbits. They weren’t trained since childhood in the arts of subtlety and assassination.”

“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath. She put the vial away and darted into an alleyway. She clambered up a waterspout and back onto a roof to get a better vantage point of the town. Leaping and crawling to the top of the inn, she saw what she feared the most. Quinn knelt before three guards and his arms were shackled behind his back. Her mission to sabotage the town now turned into a rescue operation.