As the news spread that the demons were out there, the mood in the camp grew tense. Captain Emata assigned guard duties to every combat-capable person available, which was everyone except Angjou, Surin, Olias and Regin. No one questioned how exactly she'd ended up in charge. A week earlier, the assertive young officer had shouted down a high priest of Noruk and somehow gained what passed for respect from the man. No one wanted to try her. Bernt supposed it was just as well to finally have someone who knew what they were doing organizing things.

  Nirlig ended up on first watch alongside Torvald, Kanan and another adventurer named Tarik. The others took positions just inside Bernt’s ring of banefire, but Nirlig climbed up onto the wagon to get a better vantage over the entire area. Having a goblin up there would, by itself, be worth more in terms of early warning than everyone else combined. Though, now that he considered it...

  “I can take a shift up there, too.” Bernt said, pointing at the wagon as Emata tried to assign him to the third watch. “I can see in the dark.”

  He’d only used his infused belt for the strength that it could give him, and only sparingly at that. That was good, since Grixit had warned him that overusing it might have side effects – but it had another use. Unlike his other equipment, the belt hadn’t been blessed by a natural spirit – instead, it contained the soul of the mountain lion who the skin had originally belonged to. Using it allowed it access to his senses, while granting Bernt some of its strength. According to Josie, it was a more primitive version of the kind of equipment the Berserker's Guild used.

  Emata gave him an appraising look but then nodded tiredly, not bothering to ask. “Alright, that’s good. You’ll still be third watch, but up on the wagon. We’ll let the old goblin shaman sleep. With you and the rangers, we’ll have someone who can attack at range on the wagon most of the night.”

  ***

  By the time Ksuwa, the older of the two goblin rangers, came to get him for his watch, Bernt was already sitting up. It was a clear night, and freezing cold. He’d woken up shivering, and was already warming himself on a torch spell.

  “There was a bit of movement over toward the trees,” the goblin reported. “But nothing interesting so far. The horses are getting kind of far away, but they’re out in the open. Keep an eye out.”

  The pyromancer nodded. Seeing that the goblin was warming her hands on the torch spell, he left it burning, activated his belt and climbed up into the wagon. He shot over the side and crashed awkwardly onto his side on the hard wood, having underestimated his strength as he pulled himself up. He groaned quietly and righted himself. Right. The belt did more than one thing.

  Still, he couldn't help but marvel at the improvement to his vision as he took in his surroundings. It wasn’t as though night had turned to day – the colors were mostly washed out – but he could see far and incredibly clearly.

  As Ksuwa had said, there was nothing happening. A few of the other guards were changing watch, and he could see Hannis taking position at the narrow gap that served as the only entrance to their defenses. It was even colder up here than it had been below, with the wind cutting right through his clothes.

  Bernt shivered and stuck his hands into his sleeves, considering. His torch spell wouldn't do much here – the heat would just blow away. It was also bright. A big enough fire would probably get the job done, wind or not, but it was going to paint him as a target for a league in every direction.

  Why wasn't there a spell to just warm his clothes directly? Bernt scowled. He knew why, of course. The problem with pyromancy was that you couldn't just make something warm – fire was hot. Stupid, freezing wind. Bernt turned, trying to keep his back to the breeze, before remembering that he couldn't just look downwind all night.

  Oh. Oh!

  Struck by a sudden realization, Bernt withdrew his left hand from his sleeve and began sketching runes in broad, circular motions, trying to recall exactly how the spell went. He needed to modify the shape, but that was something he’d had extensive practice with in the past few months.

  The Mages’ Academy taught five standard shield spells and Bernt had shown real talent with two of them – he’d just never really taken to the second. He had been more dazzled by the prospect of shooting fire from his hands, which, to be fair, he still enjoyed. Now, though, it was time he revisited his aeromancy.

  The spell took a little long to put together – he had to find and remove the influence of his burning rain investiture on the spellform – but it felt comfortable in a way that even the stone shaping spell he’d spent the last two months practicing still didn’t. The wind barrier spun into existence over and around him in an invisible dome that extended from just over his head around the wagon and nearly down to the ground. The freezing wind cut off to almost nothing, leaving just the barest draft pulling air out from below the bed of the wagon.

  It wasn’t a personal heating spell, but it was enough. He’d have to focus to maintain it and feed it mana, but since he was just sitting here, he might as well practice.

  Bernt kept it up for nearly an hour, recasting the shield in a few different variations in hopes of improving its efficiency as he watched the horizon. There wasn’t much to see but empty fields and their hobbled horses on one side and trees on the other, just across the road. The demons Xul’evareg had mentioned would be hiding in there, he was sure – there was nowhere else they could be. But it was completely quiet.

  What if they were just sitting there, staring right back at him from the woods? What could they be doing? As he sat there, staring, he caught a glint of something in the bushes. Were those eyes? He stood up and peered into the trees, trying to catch another glimpse.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  A branch cracked, followed by a loud rustling sound. Where was it coming from? One of the guards called out something – they’d heard it, too. Something moved over to the right, but by the time Bernt found the spot, there was nothing left to see.

  Bernt let the wind barrier dissipate and prepared a banefire spell. Where were they?

  Quiet returned. No attack came. Bernt sat back down, his back aching with tension. It would almost be easier if they just attacked.

  Another minute later, the cold got to him and he recast his wind barrier.

  Twenty seemingly eternal minutes later, color began to bleed onto the horizon and the camp began to stir. Someone lit the cookfire and Bernt breathed a sigh, releasing some of the nervous tension that had begun to creep up into his neck. They’d be getting underway soon.

  Stiffly, he climbed down from the wagon and deactivated his belt. Grixit had been right to warn him about it – he really did have a sudden craving for meat.

  Ignoring his grumbling stomach, Bernt dispelled the wall of banefire. Small groups of two or three stepped outside the defenses to relieve themselves. They’d dug a shallow latrine inside the night before, but it turned out not everyone had been willing to use it.

  Breakfast was a hurried affair. They needed to get moving, and nobody wanted to stay here. While Bernt and Uriah worked on tea, the goblin rangers went to gather the horses. Olias, Leirin and Angjou, who were getting along surprisingly well, shared a small bottle of brandy under Hannis’ disapproving glare.

  Estrid began to take down part of her clingweed defenses – they needed a much bigger gap to get the wagons out. In the space of about a minute, the odd plants grew taller and the stems became woody before dying and drying out. When it was done, the druid stepped forward and dug around in the mess, breaking off several small seed pods near the stems and putting them in her pouch.

  Bernt tried to think of a way to safely burn a swathe through, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The druid simply walked through, crushing the now fragile material without effort and kicking to make the path wider. Grinning, Bernt joined in. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that you didn’t need magic for everything.

  “Hey, is Kanan back here?” someone called. It was Tarik, the adventurer who’d had his insides rearranged by a demon in the first attack. He was looking around urgently, craning his neck.

  “Nobody came through here,” Bernt answered. “What’s going on?”

  “Went out to take a piss. Captain said groups of two and stay in sight, so I went with him. But he says he can’t piss with somebody watching, see? Told me to wait on the road for a minute…”

  “Shit,” Bernt cursed. He looked around. Several adventurers, as well as Captain Emata were already running over to see who had called out.

  Bernt managed to find Torvald, Elyn and Uriah by the time Tarik had repeated his story to the Captain. Nirlig had found his own way to the group, and they pushed out toward the trees in force.

  “Kanan?” Someone called pointlessly – probably Tarik.

  “Where did you last see him?” Emata asked.

  The burly man pointed and they moved in the indicated direction, pushing into the bushes. At a signal from the captain they spread out, keeping their eyes peeled for signs of an ambush. Bernt drew his wand in his left hand and activated his thornskin amulet. He didn’t want to wear the thing out, but they were practically blind down here in the undergrowth. A protective amulet wasn’t going to matter in a week if he got his throat torn out in the next five minutes.

  Someone gave a shout to Bernt’s left. Recognizing Nirlig's voice, he oriented toward the sound and pushed through the dense foliage.

  They converged on the goblin to find him standing over Kanan, who was lying facedown on the ground, his pants down around his ankles. He was dead.

  Tarik shouted and cursed at the sight, only stopping when Emata put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. She nudged the body with a foot and then turned it over. He looked uninjured, as if he’d just stopped breathing.

  “Well, shit.”

  ***

  Zijeregh walked down the road, enjoying the odd feeling of gravel crunching under her boots. She had never had a mortal body before. It was strange. She could feel the mortal’s consciousness just under the surface, struggling. She’d been concerned, at first, that the foolish warlock would somehow manage to interfere with her control or her abilities, but her fears had proven to be unfounded. While he was an annoyance, Drudnik was entirely impotent. She’d felt his revulsion at the pleasure she took in the stupid human’s death, and his terror when she drew in her victim’s soul and consumed his will.

  He’d realized only then that something had gone terribly, irrevocably wrong.

  Her true body was much better than this diminutive shell, but the incompetence of her now-dead servant, Tallash, had given her little choice. A mortal body in itself didn't really offer any advantages, except perhaps to incorporeal demons such as shades. No, the true value of upgrading to a possession pact lay in the fine print. Duergar, like many foolish mortals, preferred to reuse existing pacts without proper review – especially those of more senior warlocks whom they respected.

  In this case, that warlock was King Grundrik, arguably the greatest summoner in the Duergar Empire. Unfortunately for him, greatness did not always go hand-in-hand with prudence.

  Most basic Duergar pacts required pacted demons always to obey and serve in the best interest of their summoner. Disdaining such diminutive language, however, King Grundrik had bound Nuros to serve not his summoner, but “his master and true king.”

  Nuros only had one master, one king, and his name was Varamemnon.

  To any demon, it was a glaring loophole – one that the demons in Nuros’ hierarchy were careful not to exploit too brazenly, when given the opportunity. Zijeregh, too, would be circumspect. The Duergar wanted her to destroy this group of mortals, and she would. But she couldn’t simply send her two remaining servants and their pathetic thralls to deal with them. She already looked weak with Tallash’s failure, not to mention his inexplicable destruction. If her thralls were defeated again, it would reflect even more poorly on her.

  The connection between the imp – the one Nuros wanted – and Tallash’s thralls had been a happy coincidence. After a century of service, the eye of her master was finally upon her. But his attention was a risk, as well. Tallash had failed her, which meant that she had failed Nuros. If the fiend were not already dead, she would have destroyed the idiot herself.

  Now, she was in a dangerous position. She needed to set an example – to make a statement, both to her master and to her rivals. If she failed, she would be destroyed.