“And your turn Sam,” Pryce said, sliding the Divine Intervention box to the paladin. Sam pushed aside his bowl of oats and reached in eagerly.

  He loved this nightly ritual of playing a parlor game over dinner. Sam had spent the past three days in a uniquely calming routine. Waking up to study and meditate with Father Pryce, then out into the garden to help Gretta tend to the plants. In hindsight, it should not have surprised him that Gretta was an envoy from Talnorel herself to help keep the Halcyon Band safe, and her garden was part of that system.

  After the yardwork, it was back indoors to help clean and prepare dinner. Then came game time.

  Sam plucked a coin from the box. A house with feet, its front door wide open with treasures tumbling from it. “Corinne, the Hag,” he said confidently.

  “Smart kid!” Gretta said with a smile.

  “So Corinne arrived at Trufflim’s domain to see Ymir there instead. She was not surprised however. With narrowing eyes, Corinne looked at the Father of Winter and said ‘I know you seek the Heart of Gessel!’”

  “He knows his gods, but he can’t tell a story worth a damn,” Pryce said, laughing. “Never turn the story into a treasure hunt, Samson!” he reprimanded as Sam scowled.

  “Maybe I just want the game to go all night?”

  “You know I can not keep that up, dear,” Gretta said as she reached for her coin. She pulled one from the box, and paused.

  “This one got you stumped?” Pryce teased.

  “Hush.”

  Pryce and Sam looked at each other while Gretta looked out at the chapel’s front entrance. Her eyes darted slightly, pupils shifting. She was dancing with the edge of the Verdant.

  “There’s someone here,” she said. “But they are trying to stay hidden. The trees can not see their auras.”

  “Druids?” Pryce asked.

  “No other explanation.” Gretta set her coin on the table and moved to grab her coat. “Let me go and see.” The elderly druid stepped outside, pulling the heavy door shut behind her. Sam coyly peaked at the coin she laid down.

  “Who is it?” Pryce asked him.

  Sam thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. Two gems and a crown? Never seen that one.”

  The sound of something crashing outside had Sam and Pryce on their feet just then.

  Benji shook the vial again and again. The seeds inside continued to rattle long after he had stopped agitating them. “Something has them all worked up.”

  “Probably all that green up around the chapel,” Sarah offered, nodding to Gretta’s garden. The two were hidden behind one of the crumbling building foundations off to the side.

  “It’s a druid sentry,” Kaitlyn whispered. “Think about Gideon’s forest. The only reason that all is still green is because someone is keeping it that way.”

  “So burn it,” Matthew hissed.

  Kaitlyn ignored the command. “I wonder what the seeds are saying to the plants up there.”

  “Let us out?” Benji suggested.

  “We plan on it little guys,” Sarah said to the vial.

  “Guys, someone’s over there,” Kait hissed. Gretta had stepped outside and was beginning to scan the town’s snow frosted ruins.

  The group watched her carefully as she took a deep breath, and lowered into a seated position.

  “What is she doing, Kaitlyn?” Matthew asked.

  “Communicating, it seems.”

  “Stop her. She will know we’re here.”

  “If her trees can see us, then she already knows, Matthew. Give her a sec-”

  “Um, Kaitlyn?” Benji had stopped whispering. He held the vial at arms length as the four seeds inside all rushed to the top. The large man held his other palm over the cork stopper to keep them prisoner, but they were becoming restless. The four began moving as a single unit, ramming against the insides of the vial.

  “Don’t drop it! That’s our lockpick!” Sarah shouted.

  The stealth offered by the four seeds was ruined by the commotion, and Gretta located them with ease. The intricate network of roots below the town she had cultivated for years finally came of use.

  “Dammit!” Matthew screamed as thick, whiplike roots burst through the stone and ice they stood on and grabbed his ankles. “Kill her, Kaitlyn!”

  The roots attempted to grab Kaitlyn as well, but the shaman laid an open palm against the earth. There was a deep rumble and a slight tremor, and the roots that had emerged reeled back like injured fingers.

  “Crushed them,” Kaitlyn said definitively. “That should hold that off. Now for the druid herself, though.” Taking a deep breath, she whipped around the small stack of bricks to hide and catch her breath.

  Her casting had been less reliable lately as she had begun to show her pregnancy and her body’s mana was shifting. Just this one last night of troubles and she would be able to raise her child in peace.

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  The druid was sitting defiantly in front of the chapel’s front door.

  Quick. Hard. But just enough to knock her out.

  Kaitlyn kept these thoughts right in the front of her mind as she reached down. Roots were already preparing to emerge from the earth. Twisting her hand in a scooping motion, Kait urged a wad of earth from the ground. There was a strange pressure in the air as it condensed to something not unlike stone. Then the shaman gestured toward Gretta. The loam flew, following her command. It struck the druid in the chest, and set her back toward the door. Some of the door’s decorative wooden paneling crashed on to her.

  The rest of the Crew dashed out from hiding as the roots momentarily retreated in confusion.

  “Burn the damn trees, Kaitlyn!” Matthew shouted. “Won’t they want revenge on what you just did?”

  That stung. She did not want to hurt that old woman.

  “He has a point, Kait,” Benji said, still straining to keep the seeds contained. “You gotta do something!”

  Kait thought for a moment. It was sad. Painful even. But it would get this over faster. She thought about how much she hated Matthew for making her do this. She channeled the anger into a ball of fire, and slung it into the greenery.

  Sam, now armored, was running for the door.

  “I’m going to the Halcyon Band, Samson. Get to Gretta and make sure they don’t get in!” Pryce was shouting as he dove into the northern apse. At the end of his commands he disappeared down a poorly lit flight of stairs.

  “Yes, Father!” Sam ran toward the door, but was suddenly knocked off of his feet by a gust of wind. In a flash, he covered himself with a defensive aura, but still he clattered down the sanctuary, pews splintering under the force of his fall and the gale.

  A woman stood at the door, her belly slightly swollen. A mountain of a man stood just behind her with Gretta in his arms. Another woman, her muscles bulging beneath her simple clothes, and a man, greasy and cruel looking, were dashing into the chapel already.

  Sam saw them running and propped himself up just enough. Let it be your Will that they are stopped by my shield’s true flight! Sam heaved his shield toward the couple as they ran. The metal disc flashed white as it soared, burrowing itself in the brick wall just in front of Matthew’s face.

  Matt fell backward in shock. “Kait! You’re the heavy!” he shrieked. “Do something about him!”

  “Get your jewelry, I’ll fight this brat,” the woman from the center said to Sam as she began to walk over, slowly.

  “You’re the heavy?” Sam asked Kaitlyn, pulling himself to his feet. He turned to look at Matthew. “You stay there, sir!”

  “You are in no position to make demands, boy,” Kaitlyn said roughly. She made a sweeping motion with her hand, and the bricks beneath Sam turned to sand, and then rushed like a wave beneath him. He was back on the floor before he knew it. Kait looked at Matt and Sarah. “Run, idiots! Before those seeds bust out!”

  The white light left the shield and it clattered to the floor as Sarah rushed ahead. She held a large map of the chapel in hand, Jack’s leather pack over her shoulder as they ran toward the stairs Father Pryce had previously dove down.

  I need my shield back, Sam prayed. Suddenly, somehow, it was beside him, still rocking from the force of its fall. Sam felt the force of that spell on his mind for a moment. He should have been more clear that the shield just needed to fly back. He picked himself up again and decided to try again with the fighting words.

  “So, you’re the heavy? Why not the… heavy guy?” Sam pointed to Benji with his warhammer, who was laying Gretta on one of the pews.

  “Benji doesn’t fight.” Kaitlyn stared Sam down. “I usually don’t either, but today is a special occasion.” Kaitlyn mused for a moment on the depth of that understatement. But as she said, the sooner this got done, the sooner she could move on with her life.

  Sam studied the woman for a moment. “Ma’am, are you pregnant?”

  Kait roared and bricks suddenly took flight all around Sam. “I would ask you to go easy on me but I do not think I will have to worry much!” Kait clapped her hands and the bricks came rushing in toward her enemy.

  There was a hollow clacking as the bricks collided with Sam’s last minute barrier spell. They burst into dust a hand’s width from the surface of his armor, with every strike momentarily revealing a golden bubble around the paladin. “What do the Wrath Liches offer a mother-to-be?” he asked, his voice echoing strangely within the shield.

  “Wrath Liches?” Kaitlyn smiled. “No, you’re being beaten by common thieves.” She knelt down and pushed her hand to the ground again. That same dull thud and tremble. But then she remembered, Matthew and Sarah may be below her. She twisted her hand instead, and the sand beneath Sam shifted again.

  This time, Sam was faster. He dove through the barrier and onto solid ground, lifting his hammer. This woman needs to be restrained. He prayed, running and swinging the hammer at the same time.

  Kaitlyn became distracted by the glinting gold of the armor scar on Sam’s chest and was unprepared when his distant swing resulted in an arc of golden light that bound her hands. It took every bit of her leg muscles to keep from losing her balance with the force of the arc, but once she was confident, she channeled the wind.

  Sam kept running, though he noticed the shards of the pews clacking across the floor toward the altar. He looked up from them to see Kait’s hair whipping in his direction. Benji, too, was huddling over Gretta to protect her from this new gust.

  No, Sam thought. I can beat this wind. I have to beat this wind. This is my duty. This is my obligation. I will not fail another order. As Sam continued to charge, he lifted his shield. Golden light began to spill over it like liquid as he held it into the wind.

  He was not advancing as fast as he had been running, but he was moving forward. An impossibility if it were not for the astounding strength of the magic he was channeling. He lowered the shield momentarily to see Kait, looking pale, putting more and more power into the gust.

  A window broke as another pew came loose. But Sam kept marching.

  I will not stop this advance. She has to give up. She has to stop. Sam was beginning to feel the spiritual fatigue of his spells. This had been the most magic intensive fight he had ever been in, though the dependence on spells was his own fault.

  He would not be able to keep it up.

  Nor would he need to. He did not, through the golden light, see Kaitlyn urge another brick from the floor. Nor did he see her, despite her bound hands, send it sailing in his direction. He just barely saw the brick arc perfectly on the wind over the top of the shield.

  Though it did not strike him hard, it stunned him for just long enough to be whipped from the floor by the gust and sent careening backward across the sanctuary once again. He slid up against the altar, breathless.

  At the other end of the chapel, Kaitlyn, too, was barely holding herself together. It had been ages since she had drawn on this much power in such a short amount of time. Her vision was becoming sporadic. Hopefully this little paladin did not have much more fight in him.