Lara and Mabb set out before sunrise. With them were Nari and Komaki, and they had hours to go before they’d reach the white obelisk and the camp surrounding it, and they spent much of that time talking off and on. Between the ever present haze, Lara passively improving their Stealth, and Komaki being a Vanguard with his Perception already in the 50s, they were unlikely to be on the wrong end of any surprise attack. And considering what would happen later in the day, none of them were particularly keen on walking in thoughtful silence.

  For a foursome, they had a pretty solid Party, as the Party roster could attest to.

  Mabb knew both of the new additions well enough to be somewhat friendly, but Lara only knew Nari. They both favored nets and swords, so whenever they both happened to be at the training yard at the same time they’d talk shop and pair up for training. The two women weren’t friends, though—it was entirely a practical arrangement. The dark, pretty Swordswoman was always a little shy and awkward around Lara, and it wasn’t because she was interested. Lara could be dense at times, but she knew what interest looked like. Rather, Lara wondered if the problem was that she’d subjected Nari to some drunken flirting at some point, and the Swordswoman either hadn’t appreciated it, or had and didn’t know what to do with that. At this point Lara was embarrassed to ask, and Nari was too reserved to ever bring it up herself.

  As for Komaki, Lara only knew him as one of the few combat Classers in the Splinter. He and Nari seemed to be close friends, and as friends they were one of those pairs that seemed to complement each other. Komaki was big, tall, and loved to talk, while Nari was slight and happy to listen, only contributing when she had something to add—or to call her friend out on something that she knew to be less than true. Nari fought close in with sword and net and wasn’t afraid to get closer than that, judging by the spikes on her gauntlets; Komaki carried a short bow, but favored something he called a moon staff—a staff as long as he was tall with a crescent blade on each end: concave side up on one end, convex on the other.

  “Works beautifully on the rodents,” he insisted. “See how wide it is? I can thrust or slash, and I can’t miss! Cuts ‘em up like anything!”

  “Cuts them like my nets,” Nari added wryly.

  Komaki took it in stride. “Yes, true, I have been known to replace a net or two, but you can’t deny it’s effective. And anyway, who’s counting?”

  “I am. Eleven so far.”

  “Pssht, that can’t be right! Eleven? Crazy. You’re imagining things. Eleven.” Komaki wound down a little and asked, more seriously, “Really? Eleven?”

  “Eleven,” Nari confirmed.

  “Well, damn. Staff’s really effective, though!”

  “It is.”

  “So, you’ve both got experience fighting sapients?” Lara asked, not wanting to give Komaki a chance to move on to a new topic.

  “Oh yeah. Not a whole lot, but some. Bandits, you know? And I’ve killed and not changed to a non-combat Class; figure that’s the most important part.”

  Nari just nodded solemnly.

  “How’d that happen?”

  Komaki shrugged. “Caravan guard. Animals, monsters, demons, bandits; you see ‘em all if you work the routes long enough. Not just in the heat of it, either. I came up as a Scout, and I’ve put an arrow or two in some bastards who deserved it.”

  “And you?” Lara asked, turning her face toward Nari.

  “Mercenary work,” the Swordswoman replied. “About a year. Also bandits.”

  “Any experience fighting mages?”

  “Had a road blocked by an Earth-mage once,” Komaki replied before Nari could say anything. “Guy wasn’t a combat mage, though. Just some guy, really. Hell, it was more a rescue than a capture when we grabbed him afterward. Wouldn’t be surprised if the guards we dropped him off with just let him go.”

  “I’ve killed a mage,” Nari said once Komaki paused. “Fire. It was… rough.”

  The Swordswoman’s left hand flexed seemingly unconsciously, and it drew Lara’s attention to the faint, irregular scars there, a shade darker than the woman’s mahogany skin. They continued up her wrist, vanishing under the long sleeve of her thick leather jacket. Lara had seen them before, but had never asked how Nari got them.

  Come to think of it, Lara had never seen the woman with her arms bare. Lara imagined the scarring must be extensive for Nari to hide her arms the way she did. Hells, even at the baths, Nari always got a private room. The few words Nari had spoken explained her habits eloquently.

  Lara didn’t agree with her embarrassment. Scars, even bad ones, could be beautiful. Like a painting of what you’d endured. But Nari’s feelings on the matter were her own.

  “And you?” Nari asked, covering her scarred hand with the other. Looking up, Lara saw a dark flush on the woman’s face. Well, shit. She’d been caught staring. To cover for her own embarrassment, Lara began to talk.

  “I’ve been in a couple of scrapes before. Some deadly, even before… all this. Most of my experience is dueling practice, though. My family, they’re… the family I was born into, I should say. They’re conservative. Saphahr conservative.”

  “You’re a mage?” Komaki asked, seeming entirely amazed by this revelation. “A Saphahr mage? But you’re… you know!”

  “Not a mage Class. I know,” Lara replied. Then she flicked her hand at the water as she performed a very quick and low-power repulsion Shaping, sending ripples running through the muck. “My parents were not best pleased with me Resetting.”

  “Shiiit,” the Vanguard said as he understood. “You don’t have a family name!”

  Mabb’s giant hand came down on the other man’s shoulder—not hard, but firmly enough to only just not be a threat. “That is quite enough on that subject,” the farl rumbled.

  “No, it’s alright,” Lara said, sighing softly. “They disowned me ages ago. The name only disappeared a few weeks back, though. Makes it official, I guess. But I don’t regret it. I’ve got a lot of regrets, but leaving that life behind isn’t one of them.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “Anyway. Other than dueling, I’ve only fought one mage. I was lucky enough to come out unharmed… though he swears he never intended to hurt me, so gods only know.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “And you, big man?” Komaki hadn’t reacted to the hand on his shoulder except to do as Mabb asked. Now he turned a friendly look upward—Komaki was tall, but Mabb had almost a foot on him. “I think everyone’s heard about the betrayal and your march on the temple. And I thought you were just the most successful Herbalist I’d ever met!”

  “Same as you,” Mabb said, giving the other man’s shoulder a pat as he removed his hand. “I was a caravan guard for many good years,” he said wistfully. “Then I turned to Delving. A bit of mercenary work, too. Saw pretty much everything there is to see, and fought almost everything there is to fight, including mages. It’s a life I had hoped to leave behind me, but fate had other plans.”

  “So you’re not just a Herbalist with some weapons Skills, then?”

  “Look at his axes,” Nari said, gesturing to the two somewhat mismatched cleaver-like weapons Mabb now carried. “Not for harvesting.”

  “No, my friends,” Mabb agreed. “Not for harvesting plants, at any rate. Though I suppose, as we four will soon be relying on each other for our very survival, I should tell you. I am a Level 30 Raging Storm. I am, in practice, a Berserker with full control, and as long as I keep moving and fighting, I’m just about unstoppable. I intend to go directly for whoever their leaders are, or for whoever seems most lethal. You three should be able to make good use of the chaos that is likely to ensue.”

  “That sounds like you’d be taking quite a bit more of a risk than necessary, don’t you think?” Komaki objected. “You’ll get surrounded pretty quickly, won’t you?”

  “I expect I will,” Mabb agreed. “But it will also cause the maximum disruption, and that is what we need in order to make this as inexpensive a victory as possible for our side. And do not fear. I can weather far worse injuries than you can possibly imagine, and should I fall… I have lived a longer life than I ever expected to, my friends. I do not wish to die. I will fight to my limit and beyond to prevent such a thing. I wish to see what comes of all this, and to help steer events in the right direction if I am needed.” Then he smiled down at Lara, and the warmth of it was as though the sun had come out. “And I wish to see my little sister leave this place, and find happiness. But should I fall, I will do so with no regrets, knowing that I die for a good cause.”

  “Hear, hear,” Lara whispered somberly, leaning into her huge friend.

  “I don’t want to die,” Nari said quietly as the solemn silence stretched. “I’ve always accepted the risk, but I have too much to do. My older siblings are scattered. My younger siblings starve. I want to see them all again, with hope in their eyes. But we need to win to live. This seems the most likely way.”

  Komaki took a dramatic breath, ballooning his cheeks as he slowly blew it out before agreeing. “Yeah, probably. The line’s been unsteady against the ferals. Gods only know what’ll happen after a couple of firebolts and some death magic. Hell, I don’t know how I’ll react if I get some fire and lightning sent my way. I mean, arrows and quarrels are nasty, but all they do is stick in you. Getting lit on fire, though?” He shuddered theatrically. “No thank you!”

  “Indeed,” Nari whispered, her left hand twitching faintly.

  On that cheerful note, they fell into their longest silence all morning.

  The weather was as mad as it ever was these past weeks, with temperatures fluctuating wildly from moment to moment. As the hours ate up the miles, the only change from when they’d started was that as they marched, the periods of calm between the rain and sleet and hail would sometimes be graced by sunshine cutting through the treetops. More often, though, there was just the haze.

  All around them the swamp was alive with buzzing insects and the occasional splash of some frog or rodent audible over the rain or hail. Now and then a bubble would break the surface, releasing some of the foulest smells Lara had ever known but which she’d gotten tragically used to in her years in the Splinter. Except for some particularly stubborn bugs, Lara couldn’t confidently say where any of them were. She doubted even Komaki could see them, but he insisted that they had nothing to worry about. He had some Enhancement that let him accurately locate things by sound, apparently. And it came in handy when they found their first sign of opposition, some five miles from the white obelisk.

  The few scouting teams they’d been able to assemble had seen sentries posted as far as seven miles from the enemy camp, so ten miles out the Party of four had cut all talk to a minimum. Even Komaki, to Lara’s relief, became laudably professional once the time came. They all had at least a few Skill Levels in Stealth, and between the mist and Lara’s Ability, Stalker, any watcher would have needed to be both incredibly alert and perceptive to detect them. As it turned out, those watchers failed on either or both points.

  It began with Komaki raising his closed hand, signaling a stop. “Heard something,” he whispered, pointing into the mist as they huddled. “Soft cough. Not an animal. This way.”

  They’d already discussed what to do if they met any sentries. The preferred outcome was that they pass undetected; killing any sentries had been suggested, but Nari had pointed out that they had to assume that any sentries would be in Parties with people back at the camp, and their deaths would be noticed. Mabb had then suggested subduing and restraining them, but ultimately, the risk of them raising some kind of alarm and sending more distant sentries running wasn’t worth it. So instead they passed in silence, leaving the cultists none the wiser and the watchers for the main group’s vanguard.

  When they stumbled onto one such watcher it was impossible to say who was most surprised. They were following a patch of raised land that was only soggy instead of under a foot or more of stagnant water, when suddenly, there he was. They passed a tree, Komaki and Lara both none the wiser, and suddenly there was a man on the other side, with ruddy skin, shoulder-length greasy hair, a worn cloak pulled tight against the shifting weather, and a look of absolute shock on his face.

  The man opened his mouth, possibly to scream, and Lara did what came to her reflexively: she blasted him into the tree he stood in front of. The Shaping was so ingrained in her that she’d begun doing it the moment she saw him; releasing it was just a matter of pointing. The cone of force struck the man mid-chest, shooting him backward a foot to slam into the tree so hard that the whole trunk shuddered, and only as he crumpled to the ground did she Inspect him. [Human Cultist (14)] his label said, and she felt a strange relief in knowing for certain that he hadn’t just been some guy, however low the chance of that had been, and that she hadn’t killed him. No matter who he was, she didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t want to kill anyone she didn’t absolutely have to, and seeing that she could still Inspect him—

  The Cultist began struggling to his feet, his hand going to a dagger at his belt, and Nari decapitated him in a single stroke. A gush of blood fountained out of the stump of his neck as his body collapsed, and Lara’s eyes numbly tracked how far it went. Several feet, at least. She’d had no idea it could go that fair. Then she dragged herself back to the situation at hand, and Komaki said what was on everyone’s mind: “Well, shit. Guess they’ll know now.”

  “Sorry,” Nari whispered. She looked shocked at what she’d done, her sword hanging limp at her side, its tip in the waterlogged ground.

  “You did nothing wrong, friend,” Mabb rumbled. “We cannot know what he might have done.”

  “Yeah, you really didn’t. This is my bad,” Komaki said. “I should’ve seen him. Question now is, do we stay? What if he’s got friends who know where he is and come look for him?”

  “They know he’s dead either way,” Lara said. “Our best bet is to just put him in the water, then move on and hope we don’t run into anyone else.”

  They moved quickly after that. They couldn’t know for sure that the dead sentry had a Party member back at the obelisk; if they were lucky, he didn’t. And if they were lucky, they needed to beat any runners back to the white obelisk to capitalize on that luck. So they moved as fast as they dared at their collective level of Stealth—which, even with Mabb being the limiting factor, was quite high. Stealth had never been a priority for the big man, he’d told Lara over the weeks since she finally learned about his past as a guard and a Delver. He’d more commonly been used as bait. But, as he was fond of telling her, live long enough and have enough experiences, and you could get most Skills up to a respectable Level.

  Mabb was right. He usually was. Lara had considered her own Skill Level of 2 in Jewelery the first time he’d said that; all she’d done was to help with a few things here and there while Tendy was trying to get the Skill Levels to qualify for Jeweler’s Apprentice. Nothing serious, but Lara had still made two Skill Levels in the time they were together. Hell, she had a 3 in Herbalism at this point, and she had no interest at all in herbs. Compared to that, Levelling your Stealth now and then was practically guaranteed.

  So they travelled fast. They didn’t run, because that would disturb both water and waterlogged ground too much and make too much noise, but they marched at a pace that ate up the miles. Komaki led them around a few more sentries with no more surprises, and soon he indicated that they were close enough that they needed to start circling.

  Lara had had her concerns about the talkative Vanguard, but as she sat in a tree an hour later, watching a hillock rise from the mist with the white obelisk standing tall above the trees, she couldn’t help but be impressed. Komaki had led them where they needed to go, with only one little hiccup along the way.

  The camp surrounding the obelisk was large. There were what looked like holding pens, though if there was anyone or anything inside, she couldn’t say. And there was one woman who seemed to be the obvious leader: tall, though not elf or even farl tall, in green and gold robes that flashed brilliantly whenever the sun chose to grace them with a few seconds of light in between the thick clouds and rapidly varying forms of precipitation. She was too far away to Inspect, but between her rich dress, the way she held herself, and the way people constantly approached her tent, she must be a, if not the, leader of this group. The interrogated Summoner had known her leader only as the priestess, but had described her as a powerful mage high in the Sentinel’s favor. Well, this woman had the mage part down, and she acted like she owned the place. She’d be their primary target.

  She was also obviously a Water-mage. The fact that she was dry where everyone else was soggy attested to that.

  Around the obelisk were large bonfires, likely to provide a ready source of Fire-aligned mana, and there was an unmistakable current of Death-mana toward it from all around. Even if Lara hadn’t known the purpose of the obelisk, no mage could have mistaken it for anything except what it was: the focus of some grand ritual. One that she knew was intended to tear the Splinter apart. It had to be destroyed, or they had to commandeer whatever way the cultists had to escape.

  It wouldn’t be easy. The camp was ready for an attack. They looked to have far more mages than Lara was comfortable with, and more than that, they had demons. Swarms of possessed rodents huddled in eerie stillness all over the camp, and here and there sapient revenants stood or shuffled about, bound by some foul Death Shaping. The absence of visible ferals was disturbing, since Komaki insisted that there had been plenty of them in the area when he was last here, but they’d just have to take it as a blessing and hope that there wouldn’t be any unpleasant surprises.

  No, taking the white obelisk wouldn’t be easy. But if they wanted any chance of survival, it needed to be done. And Lara would be damned if she died in this miserable Splinter.

  and read 8 chapters ahead of both Splinter Angel and Draka! You also get to read anything else I’m trying out — which is how Splinter Angel got started.

  Join us if you want to chat with other readers, or just hang out!