They continued through the city at a quick pace, the soft light from Verdan’s spell their only illumination.

The atmosphere was tense when they reached one of the nicer parts of the city, and a sleek brown wolf padded out from a pool of shadows, shifting before their eyes into Zhalia.

Interestingly, Zhalia was able to keep her clothes and longbow as part of the transition. Verdan remembered Tim saying that Sylvie had been naked when she transformed back, which potentially said unpleasant things about her time as a captive of the Darjee.

“They’re in the house with the blue roof, third along on the right,” Zhalia said, keeping her voice quiet as she beckoned them closer. “The others are watching the entrances to make sure they don’t run for it. I don’t think we’ve been spotted, though.”

“Good, we need to go in fast and hard, but I don’t want any innocents being injured, understood?” Verdan waited for them all to nod before turning to Zhalia. “Show me which one and then keep watch from outside, make sure no one gets away.”

“Understood. May the Lord of the Hunt guide your hand,” Zhalia said, her bow taking on a momentary golden hue as Verdan felt the blessing settle into place.

“Alright, let’s do this. Tom, you’re our door knocker, but don’t channel any Essence until we’re breaking in, take prisoners or incapacitate where you can as well, understood?”

“Got it, Boss,” Tom said, drawing his mace from the loop on his belt and making a few test swings.

Motioning to Zhalia to lead the way, Verdan dismissed his light and kept a firm grip on his Aether as they came around the corner, and she pointed out the blue-roofed building in question.

They moved quietly into position around the entrance, Delia and Blane joining them in their human form as they approached.

“Go,” Verdan said, simultaneously casting a bright light onto Tom’s shield and another to hover above them, illuminating everything as the stone Sorcerer created his armour from their surroundings and bull-rushed through the door.

The door splintered open under the impact of Tom’s stone-clad form, the bright light on his shield illuminating the interior and causing a few shouts of surprise from further inside.

Tom didn’t stop as he barrelled into the house, grabbing the first person to emerge and slamming them into a wall hard enough to dent it and knock the unfortunate man out.

The front door led into a hallway with several exits and a set of stairs, allowing Verdan’s group to spread out in multiple directions, with Verdan heading upstairs alongside Blane.

Verdan had a few concerns about the Pack having brought them to the right place, but they were quickly quashed as their attack on the house ran into stiff resistance a few moments after it began.

Verdan could already hear the sounds of fighting from downstairs, along with raised voices and curses. He couldn’t pay it any more attention, however, as the fake guard with the wounded arm stumbled into the upstairs landing and blanched when he saw Verdan.

“Rew drae,” Verdan snarled, sending a spray of ice darts into the man before he could react. For all that he’d said to take prisoners, Verdan was taking no chances.

As Verdan’s target fell to the floor, he revealed the room beyond, which seemed to be a makeshift aid station. More importantly, however, was the man sat at the far end, a guard’s jacket on the table next to him as a scared-looking woman tended to his wounds.

“Trent, they’re here!” The Sorcerer bellowed in fear, shoving the woman aside as he conjured a shield with one hand and threw an orb of destructive force with the other.

“Aer torr!” Verdan threw a curving slash of compressed air at the Sorcerer, its edge enhanced with cutting Aether that sliced through the incoming orb with ease.

Tom’s display with his mace had shown Verdan that the weakness of these orbs was their stability, and he was keen to demonstrate to these Sorcerers why a trained Wizard was a truly dangerous foe.

The Sorcerer gaped in shock at the ease with which Verdan’s spell had cut through his attack and strengthened his shield, extending it to cover all around him to protect from another force spell.

Verdan’s spell hit the shield and seemingly sliced effortlessly through, continuing on to remove the man’s arm at the elbow, an apt tribute to Barb’s loss.

“What? How?” The Sorcerer stared at his missing arm, pale-faced and clearly in shock.

“Your shield tries to break down anything that passes through it but doesn’t actually try to stop it,” Verdan’s voice was filled with tightly controlled anger as he threw another air blade, this time cutting through the man’s right leg and sending him falling back into his chair. “It will naturally resist other magical attacks, but its lack of a true protective concept means that it gives almost no defence against one designed to cut.”

The Sorcerer was screaming in pain and shouting something, but Verdan ignored him, creating a shield to block the few orbs the man was able to conjure.

“Verdan, on your left!” Blane shouted from somewhere behind him, Verdan throwing himself backwards automatically as a knife flew past him, cutting through the wall of thunder Essence and embedding itself in the crippled Sorcerer's forehead with disturbing ease.

Looking over his shoulder, Verdan saw the decay Sorcerer had joined the fight and was already duelling with Blane. Both men were moving with speed Verdan could only envy but were stuck in a strange deadlock.

Blane had the longer weapons and was slightly faster, but the Sorcerer could no doubt cut through Blane’s swords if he parried, and a single hit from those Essence-charged knives might well be deadly.

Blane’s answer to this was a series of high-speed attacks that focused on the other man’s extremities, forcing him to dodge and move rather than parry.

Left alone, Verdan would put his money on Blane, but he saw no reason to do so.

“Gwth,” Verdan sent a blast of force at the Sorcerer when Blane was well out of the way, but the man caught it on a knife, the decay Essence chewing through most of Verdan’s Aether. What was left knocked him back slightly, but not enough to give Blane an opening.

This would require a more elaborate solution unless Verdan wanted to use brute force, which would be expensive.

“Grym disir,” Verdan called out, conjuring a blindingly bright light behind Blane’s head for a brief moment, blinding the Sorcerer and hopefully scorching his eyes.

The Sorcerer stumbled backwards, waving his knives in front of him blindly as he blinked furiously, partially blinded by the spell. It was a good attempt, but Blane went low, cutting along the man’s thigh with one blade before putting the other in his chest as his guard dropped.

“That was a dangerous Sorcerer; thank you for the assist,” Blane said, eyeing the dying man warily as he slumped down the wall, knives falling out of limp hands.

“Glad to help. Thank you for your warning,” Verdan said, knowing that one of those knives in his back would have been intensely unpleasant.

“I’ll clear the rest of the floor, just in case,” Blane said, pulling his blade from the dead Sorcerer and starting to search the other rooms.

The sound of fighting downstairs had come to an end, so Verdan turned his attention to the woman cowering in the corner of the room with wide eyes. “Do you live here?”

“No, Lord Sorcerer, please don’t hurt me,” the woman said, trying to move further away from Verdan and shivering as she glanced at the dead Sorcerer in the chair.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Please, tell me who you are and what you’re doing here,” Verdan said, crouching down to put himself on her level and keeping his tone friendly.

“My name is Malda. I work as a cleaner, and I was hired to stay here for a few weeks and keep things in order.”

“Who hired you?”

“Sorcerer Trent did,” Malda said, pointing to the decay Sorcerer who lay outside.

“I see. Please, stay here for the moment,” Verdan said, keeping half an eye on her as he headed back to the stairs. Blane was waiting for him alongside Delia, both with satisfied expressions.

“Is everyone okay?” Verdan asked, hoping that they hadn’t taken many injuries.

“Yes, nothing worse than a few bruises. Both Sorcerers were up here with you,” Delia said with a slight shrug.

“Good, and the enemy?”

“Four dead, three captured, and one civilian, it seems,” Delia reported, glancing past Verdan into the room at the end of the landing. “Is she alright?”

“Maybe, we’ll turn her over to the guard when they get here and see what they say. For now, let’s secure the building and wait for them to arrive,” Verdan said, his heart sinking as he realised that they were past the easy part.

Now came the paperwork.