Kai waited just out of sight of the two approaching Sorcerers, Cullan by his side, while Tim, Tom, Blane and the two dogs waited on the opposite side.

Kai wasn’t quite sure what to make of their new ally. He seemed powerful, but having some random person who’d been passed out in the inn join them wasn’t his favourite thing ever.

Still, if he helped them deal with all this, Kai had no issues with him, and considering that the big man had one of the largest two-handed swords Kai had ever seen, as well as what looked like a set of custom scale-mail, he looked like a force to be reckoned with.

The approaching force had stopped close enough that they couldn’t see into the village proper, which meant that once this first group came into the village square, they would be out of sight of their comrades.

“Damn it, where is everyone? What have those fools done now,” an irritated voice rang out as the first of the Sorcerers walked out into the square, her hand on the hilt of the sabre at her waist.

“Relax, Jan. I’m sure they’ve got them holed up somewhere while they wait for us. I mean, you don’t honestly expect a bunch of villagers to have driven them off?” The second Sorcerer came into view as he chuckled to himself while twirling a wand in one hand.

“Damn it, Gren, take things…” The first Sorcerer, Jan, whirled on her companion, but the words died in her throat as she saw Kai and Cullan, who were already bursting out from concealment.

Jan barely managed to drag her sabre out of its sheath in time to intercept Kai’s first strike, knocking his spear off course enough to hit her shoulder rather than her chest.

Dropping one hand from his spear, Kai hit the other Sorcerer with a close-range blast of wind, sending her staggering backwards.

“Jan!” Gren’s panicked cry came from their right as the other Sorcerer backpedalled from Cullan, firing his wand but cursing barely more than a wisp appearing from it.

Beyond the other Sorcer, Kai could see the five retainers were being cut down by the rest of their group.

Between Tom’s strength, Tim’s skill and Blane’s unnerving coordination with his new companions, the five retainers didn’t have a chance.

“Rot take you,” Jan spat, running her hand over the length of her sabre and coating it in a layer of thick dark-brown energy.

“Better check again,” Kai said, nodding to the sword, which was rapidly losing its coating as the energy powering it was steadily drained away.

Jan’s eyes went wide as she saw the fading coating on her sabre, but she recovered in time to dodge Kai’s attack. Her riposte cut through the space that Kai had been in a moment before as she tried to push him back.

Flowing around her attack with ease, Kai launched a blistering assault of precise stabs, keeping the momentum firmly on his side as he steadily raised the pressure and ignited his spearhead.

The flames on Kai’s spear sizzled as blood sprayed across them both, breaking Jan’s attention long enough for Kai to sweep the leaf-bladed tip of his spear across her throat.

Jan stumbled backwards, dropping her sabre as she clutched at her ruined neck, but any attempt at staunching the wound failed as Kai drove the spike on the rear of his spear into her chest, piercing her heart.

Withdrawing his weapon and pulsing Essence through it to burn the blood free, Kai looked over to see that Gren had been bisected from shoulder to hip and that the five retainers were also dealt with.

“Well, that got the blood pumping, didn’t it,” Cullan said, his green eyes almost glowing as he grinned almost manically at Kai.

Between the red hair, green eyes and general stature, Cullan was the spitting image of Elliot, and both Verdan and Kai were confident that Cullan was the brother that Elliot had told them about.

The problem was that Elliot had warned them about interacting with his brother, that he was unpredictable at best when the pair’s sister wasn’t around to ride herd on him.

Considering that there wasn’t a second seven-foot-tall redhead with muscles bigger than Kai’s head knocking around, Kai had persuaded Verdan to keep things quiet about what they knew.

Once they’d won, they could have a conversation with Cullan, but for now, Kai had instructed everyone to keep quiet.

“There will be more coming, don’t let early success go to your head,” Kai said, giving Cullan a disapproving look that slid off the other man like water off a duck’s back.

Privately, Kai agreed with the big man. It had been a quick but satisfying victory for them, enough to set the tone moving forward. Verdan’s ward had been most satisfying as well.

The Wizard had made three, one to fight against poison, rot and acid Essence, the second to fight against fire Essence and the third to help destroy this force in its entirety.

Now that the first was active, it would have a limited lifespan against the enemy Sorcerers, but in the time it was active, they would have a strong advantage.

Unfortunately, once the second ward was active, Kai’s own Essence would be affected. At that point, unless Kai wanted to waste Verdan’s spell fighting his own magics, he would have to avoid using his fire Essence.

“I’ll check for further movement,” Tim said, moving into one of the nearby buildings that had a window high enough to see over the other buildings.

“Good, let’s get these bodies moved in the meantime, try and keep out of the blood pools as well,” Kai said, grabbing the closest one and starting to drag it to the building they’d chosen.

That much blood on the ground but no sign of the bodies would hopefully get into the heads of the next group sent.

With two sets of Sorcerer’s missing now, the next group sent in would be far more substantial. Well, unless the leader of the other group was a complete idiot, that is.

Sadly, anyone in charge of a force this large, with this many Sorcerers especially, would be fairly high ranking within the sect, which implied a level of competency.

With not much else to do once the bodies were moved, they moved to join Tim, Kai and Tom settling in to meditate and recover as much of the expended Essence as they could.

-**-

Kai felt as though he’d barely sat down to focus on his Essence when Blane was shaking his shoulder. “Kai, there’s someone nearby.”

“Where?” Kai grabbed his spear and got to his feet as Tim spread the word to his brother.

“I can’t see anything,” Cullan said, stepping into sight at the top of the stairs.

“The fraktiri can sense them, and their senses are even better than mine now,” Blane said, nodding to the two dogs that he’d adopted.

Both of the mongrels looked like different dogs from when Kai had seen them. Their fur was sleeker, they’d filled out a little, and there was an intelligence to their eyes that was frankly concerning.

More importantly, however, both of the dogs were standing perfectly still and were giving out an almost inaudible rumble as they stared out the door.

Edging up to the door and leaning forward to look outside, Kai was able to see the hint of red on the top of a nearby building before he jerked back, arrow-shaped flames flashing past him to scorch the floor.

“Abyss take it, they must have had someone circle around. Are they moving, Cullan?”

“Not yet,” Cullan called back, clearly disappointed.

Kai was about to order Blane to sneak out a window while Kai kept the archer distracted when a heavy thud from outside.

Glancing back out, Kai saw the red-robed archer had fallen to the ground, a long arrow jutting from just above their collarbone. Stepping outside, Kai gave a wave of thanks to the distant Zhalia.

Having a cleric blessed by the god of hunting providing overwatch definitely brought some benefits.

“Yep, that did it. Here they come!” Cullan came bounding down the stairs with his sword in hand, grinning madly as his scale mail clattered loudly.

“Alright, remember the plan. We pull back steadily as they come in. We want them to commit as much as possible before we pull out. Understood?” Kai caught Cullan’s eyes with his own, trying in vain to break through the other man’s battle fervour.

“I know, I know,” Cullan said, rolling his eyes as he stepped past Kai and started towards the secondary ambush point. “You’re as bad as Branwen.”

Sharing a tired look with Blane, Kai hurried everyone out of the building and over toward the secondary point.