The mage punches out his palm through the runes burning in the air at me. White darts, painfully bright, shoot out from his fingertips.

They snake outward and veer toward me, spinning in the air. They sputter and crackle as they fly, taking on the hues of the aurora above.

The darts are slower than an arrow, so I have time to panic. They punch holes into solid stone and teratome armor. I've seen what happens to people that are hit by them. They snake at me, four of them, flying in close to each other.

Everything else slows down, fades away. The white wedges of light are all I see. I can smell the ozone and hear the crackle. I wait.

The darts are close, moving breathtakingly fast now. I throw myself down and forward, diving at and under them. The darts trail over me, veering to the side and down, correcting their flight to hit me.

They don't. The darts splash into the water, hit a small tree, career off into the sky, drawing a huge arc before sputtering out somewhere inside the blazing auroras. Water bubbles, the top of the tree goes spinning, blown clean off. I'm lying on my back. The lights above undulate, pulsing slowly.

The world snaps back into focus as I realize I made it. The Kertharian mage's screaming cuts through the thrum of blood in my ears. I roll to the side, splashing in the water, push off with my legs to get back up. The bow is still in my hand, the arrows on my hip.

The mage has drifted closer to the ground. Before him is a complex thicket of runes, one on top of another. It reminds me of what Mandollel drew before he blasted the teratome slugs, all that time ago.

Still in motion, I reach for an arrow, but my boot snags on a root, and I stumble. My knee hits the ground, and my face hits the water, sinking below its surface for a moment. I whip my head up, shaking water from my eyes.

The mage swipes his hands to the sides, a final flourish to complete the runes. They solidify into a single matrix of symbols, intricate and thick on the air. Something flies toward his head from below.

A dagger spins sideways in the air, its path a curve. It misses the mage's head, but whips around it, snapping back and around again. The shout is cut off, as the mage makes a choking sound, eyes bulging out.

The rope trails from the mage's neck to Finna's hands. She braces and pulls sharply, yanking the mage down and away by his neck. The symbols are left hanging in the air as the mage is pulled away from them, grasping at the cord around his neck, the dagger dangling on his chest. His legs kick in the air.

I nock an arrow and shoot.

"That's two arrows you won't be getting back," Finna says, watching the corpses of the mages hover in the air, slowly rotating and floating upward.

She dragged the mage down to untangle her dagger, then gave him a push, sending him away.

It's not that I really would have wanted to pull the arrow out, but she could have asked. "We need to go. More might come."

"Yeah," she says. Her face is pale and her breathing hard, but we can't stay to rest or eat or dry ourselves. The sun is above the horizon, and yet the four auroras burn even brighter on the sky. They form a rectangle, power circling along the white beams of light connecting them. The light is bright enough to cast extra shadows under our feet.

Water gleams and reflects the light as we run. Finna runs with one eye pressed shut, grimacing as the light flashes on her face. My head also throbs and aches, but at least we're alive. I haven't had time to worry about Rworg and Mandollel, but if we managed to survive, they should be fine too. The final location was in a forest with more cover. I don't really know how Mandollel compares to the Kertharian mages, but he did finish the explosion faster than the garrotted young mage now floating into the sky. He will be fine.

They'll be waiting for us at the location where we'll set the device. We'll do that, saunter back into Velonea, and that's that. Job done, mission accomplished.

I slow down to a walk and dig out a parcel of the snake meat from my bag. It's not warm anymore, but at least it didn't get soaked in the fight. The bag I was given in Tenorsbridge really is great. I unwrap the meat and offer it to Finna. She grabs it from my hand and pushes a fistful into her mouth straight away.

"It's cold," she mumbles from around her chewing.

I don't say anything.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She swallows and chuckles. "Still pretty good."

We continue running.

The swamp changes to plains, At noon, we take a break under a large bush, squeezing under it to hide from anyone flying or riding past. The plains change to a forest. Noon to evening. It gets darker only because we're further away from the aurora. The bands connecting auroras shine down on the terrain. In the warm golds of the sunset, the light is cold and bright, sweeping the yellow plains and the green treetops of the forest.

Below the canopy, the light shines through the leaves and trunks of the evergreens. There's a perpetual hint of ozone in the air. A hawk glides around in lopsided circles above the trees. I watch it confused and almost run over a white gull. It wobbles around on the path, flapping its wings lazily.

"Don't those live near water?" Finna asks, looking back at the bird. "Is it drunk?"

The gull screeches. It sounds offended.

I slow down to consider which path to take, as it splits into two directions. "Birds always know where to go, but maybe the mana from the stakes confuses them?"

"Just don't let it confuse you. To the left," Finna says.

The forests are empty. The location for the device was chosen to be as far away as possible from anything relevant, while being close enough for us to reach easily. In the west, we can see pillars of smoke rising to the sky, but they are scattered, only here and there. Not all of Velonea is burning, at least not yet. And it won't.

I'm starting to realize we're going to make it. There's nothing the Kertharians can do to track us. Not me and Finna. The trip home we can take slowly. There are bound to be Kertharian stragglers wandering around, but they will get handled one way or another, soon enough. Maybe they will start freezing them too. I hope they do.

We take a break in a tree. It's a rare large oak, dropped into the forest full of evergreens. I pat its bark. The branches are wide, and the leaves grow thick. Even if someone happened by, they wouldn't be able to spot us.

I let a piece of hard tack soften in my mouth. No hurry now. A jay sits next to us in the tree. They are brave and curious, so it's not that uncommon, but I'm pretty certain there shouldn't be any around these parts.

Finna bites down and manages to crack her piece of tack. Or her teeth. She points at the bird. "Can we eat it?"

The jay hops a couple of steps away from us. I shake my head to respond to Finna. I don't know why, but no one eats corvids. Maybe they just feel too intelligent for that. I hope they won't get frozen with the Kertharians.

I hear steps. Dirt scrunches under a boot, a branch rustles as it's pushed. Finna freezes, the piece of hard tack peeking out and still in her mouth.

One set of heavy steps. Finna's fingers play on the hilt of her dagger, and I start to move mine to grab my bow. Our eyes meet, and the realization hits at the same time. Finna rolls her eyes.

"Are you sure they are here, elf? I see no one," Rworg's voice sounds from the forest.

"Up in the tree," Mandollel says. He leans on a tree of his own on the opposite side of the path, looking like he has been there for a while.

Rworg pushes out from the forest, branches snapping and bending before him. He steps on the path, and a bent branch slaps Mandollel on the forehead. "Finna, Folke!" he shouts, spreading his arms.

He's looking a bit in the wrong direction, though. "Up here," I shout at him, and drop to hang from the branch. I let go to drop to the ground, but he lunges and catches me from the air.

"You are well!" he shouts.

Finna drops down behind me. "You didn't even stop to check. Maybe he has a bunch of cracked ribs."

"Now I do," I croak, making my voice strained. His arms are wrapped around me, my whole weight resting on them.

Rworg barks a laugh and drops me on the ground. He goes after Finna, who turns and runs away.

"I'm happy as well to see you again," Mandollel says. His gaze follows Rworg and Finna as they circle around a tree. "I wish I had the energy of you young people. Well, nevertheless, everything went according to plan, I gather?"

"Yeah, some mages came, and we had to fight them, but otherwise we got here without seeing anyone. The Kertharians must be elsewhere."

"I pray most of them are still preparing on the Kertharian side. I believe Velonea still has time, but I'd prefer to finish our mission as soon as possible. Furthermore, even if Rworg made it preposterously aggravating, I did manage to learn from him about how Tenorsbridge got the artifact. You have no need to carry on with the charade."

I smile as I listen, lost in the way he talks. Having only Finna to talk to was starting to take its toll. "Verily," I say.

"What?" Mandollel says, then rolls his eyes. "Enough of this. Let's start heading back."

I chuckle and turn to watch as Rworg stands under a tree, waving a boot up at Finna. She's standing on a branch, missing the boot, cursing down at him. "Let's go. Mandollel is homesick," I shout at them.

I think we were all equally tense, worried about each other. Now that the first tension has been worked out, I'm dead tired. My jaw relaxes for the first time in days, and my legs feel like slabs of meat that I have to swing around with my hips to keep walking. For once, we're taking it slow so we can talk.

"We had to take care of a couple of mages as well," Mandollel says. He's been telling their part of the story. Mostly, it has been as uneventful as ours. "I silenced the other before he knew we were there, and Rworg handled the other."

"How?" Finna asks. "The ones we got all flew."

"That one did as well. Rworg threw his sword at her. I think everyone was equally surprised that it actually worked."

"It is not a weapon meant to be thrown," Rworg says.

Mandollel runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "Why do you sound so proud saying that, and why did you then... well. The relevant part is that it did work. But I'm impressed you managed to handle two flying mages. A skilled archer and the element of surprise is a powerful combination."

"I was there too," Finna says.

"Yes, the trick with the dagger was extremely clever." Mandollel reaches out to tousle Finna's hair.

"Guess I deserved that," she says. The braids are coming loose, and her hair is returning to the dark and wild mane it started out as.

Mandollel picks out a twig from her hair and flicks it into the forest. "What I was trying to say was, good job, the both of you. I just hope we don't run into any more Kertharians before we are done."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.