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    With Thys by her side and the wind at her back, crossing the army of monsters proved easy. Many tried to reach for them with brute force or by magical means, but none were quick enough to catch them.


    “What about the ritual?” Thys asked as he appeared beside her on a hill near where Sarien fought against the hand previously. Then, Wyndemir’s arm stretched deep into Maydian. Why it couldn’t anymore, she didn’t have a clue, but she was grateful for it.


    Lana stopped to ensure that they were not being followed. “It will have to wait.”


    “If the ritual overpowers the travelers, everything will be lost,” Thys argued.


    “If the wall breaks, Fyrie will fall. What is the point of it all, then?”


    “There are more places in this world, and other worlds, than one capital city.”


    “Fair enough,” she allowed. “Let’s just get this over with quickly. You didn’t drop the satchels, did you?”


    He raised an eyebrow at her and held out the small bags. They were tied closed with thick pieces of cord. A fuse stuck out of each one.


    “This is so stupid. Should have just brought Tre with us so he could burn them all to cinders instead.”


    “And how would we have brought him with us?”


    “Couldn’t you just have?” She cradled her arms as if carrying a baby.


    Thys burst out laughing, then suddenly stopped, frowning. “You think that’d work?”


    “No. Right?” Lana asked. “It couldn’t,” she decided. “Could it?”


    He held out his hand, and she hesitantly took it. The world warped around her and Lana found herself standing north of the hill in a cluster of low trees.


    Thys’s eyes widened. “It worked. Took a lot more out of me, but it actually worked.”


    Lana scowled at him. “You’re not carrying me like a baby.”


    He winked at her, then turned to walk north. They circled and entered the forest to emerge east of the where the enemy’s siege equipment stood. The machines kept up their relentless assault on Fyrie.


    Lana and Thys knelt behind dense bushes and surveyed the scene.


    “Not very well guarded,” Lana whispered.


    Thys shook his head without looking away from the catapults and ballista.


    Lana didn’t have the first clue as to where they’d found this equipment in the first place. Stories of old told of these massive building-like constructions used to topple cities, but as far as she knew, no one actually built a new one, or even knew how to, in forever. Peculiar. She was no expert, but they looked foreign to her. Like the angles were wrong, and the material used made her think of stone, rather than wood, due to the grayish color.


    Firing each of these, and there were thirteen of them that she counted, looked like a massive undertaking, with just one having twenty to thirty people milling around it like ants just to get everything ready. Lana saw no monsters anywhere near, no guards at all, actually. Two cushioned chairs were placed with their backs to the forest. Both of them were occupied, but all she could make out was their flowing robes whipping in the wind around the tall backs of the chairs. One white robe and one black. These two were obviously in charge of the operation, but they gave no orders.


    A team of who she figured were engineers worked around a table with maps, pen and paper, and strange tools she couldn’t make heads or tails of.


    Thys pointed to the robed figures and then the engineers. “We’ll have to take out those two, at least. Perhaps the ones over there, too.”


    “I agree. Which one do you want?”


    He gestured to the one on the left, and Lana nodded. “I’ll go for the black one then. Be careful. I’ve never seen robes like those before.”


    Thys held up three fingers and counted down. When he lowered the last finger, Lana jumped out from behind the brush and leapt high in the air. The wind caught her, and she flew in an arc toward the figure in black.


    In the same moment as she threw one of her glittering white daggers, Thys materialized beside the figure in white and jabbed with his short sword. Two dull thuds sounded as Lana and Thys both struck the immobile forms. Stunned, Lana drew back the black robe to find a wooden dummy.


    Pain exploded in Lana’s back. Before she knew what’d happened, her face was pressed into the dirt. Her body twitched uncontrollably.


    “Oh, how predictable,” a high, nasal voice said.


    A flash of black cloth swept past and Lana rolled away to narrowly evade the heel of a boot coming down on her head. Two white daggers flashed into her hands as she dodged. She threw both at her attacker.


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    From such a short distance, she should have struck true, but darkness spread before the man’s outstretched palm. It consumed the light in her daggers and they disappeared with a wink.


    “Better,” the man mused, “but not good enough.”


    Pale skin and long, greasy hair gave the man a pallid appearance despite his regal bearing and the arrogant twist of his mouth. His unusually large nose twitched as he moved his hand to the side, the darkness following.


    “Who are you?” she asked.


    “Who taught you how to make daggers like that?” the man countered.


    Increasingly quick clangs of metal striking metal rang out behind Lana, but she dared not look. Thys was on his own.


    “I asked you first.”


    The man was amused by her belligerence. “You may call me Mon, little one. Not that you have much time left in which to utter the sounds that make up my name, short as it may be. Now, who taught you?”


    “This?” she asked, hurtling another dagger at his face. The moment the dagger left her hand, Lana used a gust to push herself out of the way.


    Mon sucked the dagger into his darkness and reached out with his free hand, letting loose a bright spark that resembled thin traces of lightning. The air crackled, but he missed.


    Lana reached for one of her metal daggers and flipped away from the mage. Mon let out a sound of frustration as Lana landed behind him, throwing her dagger. His darkness pulsed, eating her weapon.


    “I’m going to need that back,” she said, landing after the exchange of attacks. “Your power. Is it like Sarien’s?”


    Mon raised a brow at the mention of Sarien’s name. “Oh, so you know the boy? Interesting. Did he teach you?”


    Thys let out a loud groan. While in the air, she’d seen him fight against what Lana thought was a blur at first. But that wasn’t it. No, his opponent wore a white robe and kept disappearing into thin air, only to appear and strike at Thys from all sorts of odd angles, and even from the air. She, because Lana thought it was a woman, could blink! Thys, in turn, did the same. They were locked in deadly combat. Unfortunately, from what Lana could tell, Thys wasn’t faring much better than she herself.


    “Pay attention!” Mon barked, and pain surged up Lana’s hand and arm, forcing her to drop the dagger she was holding. It winked out of existence.


    Lana screamed and threw herself to the side in an attempt to escape the pain. Her hand opened and closed against her will, every muscle tense and near rupture. She clenched back against the pain.


    “It is so seldom that someone attempts to fight against a Slayer. Please don’t tell me this is all you have to offer. Your two flows are more than I would have expected in this backwards little world of yours, but your performance leaves much to be desired, girl.”


    Another jolt of lightning struck Lana’s shoulder, and she seized, her limbs falling numb. The man’s power was tremendous and similar to Sarien’s, though they also differed. She didn’t understand the difference, but it did not matter. She feared the man’s dark power, knowing what Sarien’s own dark flame could do. Compared to that, the surging lightning was but a scratch.


    She spoke through her teeth. “This girl is only just beginning.”


    Despite the immense pain, Lana managed to scrape together enough concentration to form a thin barrier between herself and her black-robed attacker. It was nothing fancy, just a thin rectangle of white, but it did the trick. She collapsed to the ground and struggled to her feet with enough speed to avoid the next blast of lightning.


    Lana stumbled away. To her horror, Mon anticipated her escape. Reaching into the dredges of her will, Lana conjured a box of white light between herself and the darkness and pushed off it while hurtling a gale of wind at herself. Even with the terrible positioning and angle of her body mid-stumble, she just narrowly avoided touching the darkness in her desperate leap over it. As the ground quickly approached, she formed a spear and thrust desperately at Mon. It was a weak attack, and it was all she could manage in her current state, but it struck true.


    The edge of her conjured spear dug deep into the side of Mon’s left shin. He screamed as his knee buckled, both his darkness and strange lightning winking out.


    “Wait!” Mon screamed, his hand flailing out.


    She threw a dagger through his hand.


    Then another into his neck, stopping his plea.


    Panting, she got to her feet. The Slayer before her did not stir. Lana took a hesitant step toward Mon, then another. She reached her dagger.


    “Do you need any he?—”


    Lana plunged her metal dagger into Mon’s heart.


    “—help,” Goslin finished.


    She blinked the sweat from her eyes. “What are you wearing?”


    Goslin stood before her in nothing but rags tied together with rope. Every inch of him, from head to the mismatched boots on his feet, was covered in blood.


    Goslin’s face reddened. “Lost my clothes.”


    Lana spotted Thys still fighting the woman in white. It was difficult to discern who was winning when one opponent or the other kept disappearing. She knew she should help Thys, but she’d only get in his way. She turned her attention back to Goslin. In the near distance, she noticed that those assigned to operate the siege weapons had fled.


    “Why are you here?” she asked.


    “Found myself outside the wall with no way back in,” Goslin stopped, frowned, then pointed at Thys. “Shouldn’t we do something?”


    “Like what?” Lana asked.


    Goslin waved both his shield and sword in the air and shouted, “Hey!”


    The white blur paused for the briefest of moments, then the figure in white materialized behind Goslin. Thys blinked beside her and drove his knife into her neck.


    She grabbed at her wound, spluttering wordlessly, before collapsing. Her white robe turned dark red with blood. It didn’t take long for her to die.


    Goslin coughed. Lana turned her head back to see a dagger sticking out from his back.


    “Goslin!”


    “It’s fine,” he said, wincing. “Missed my heart.” He collapsed to the ground, unconscious, beside the white mage.


    “Please tell me you have enough strength to bring him back to the healers,” Lana said to Thys, rushing over to Goslin.


    Thys’s face was red from exertion, and he gasped, “Sure.”


    “Are you sure?”


    “I said I could do it. Just let me catch my breath.”


    Blood was pooling around the dagger in Goslin’s back.


    “Should we pull it out?” she asked, wrapping her hands around the handle.


    “No!” he shouted, stopping her. “Leave it. Otherwise, he’ll bleed out.”


    Lana released the dagger. “His breathing isn’t right. You must hurry. I’ll deal with these machines, then come see you at the healers.”


    Thys lifted Goslin with great effort, then shouldered his dead weight. He blinked away.


    Lana saw them reappear far off in the distance, then they were gone again. Goslin would be fine, she was sure of it. She’d go back and see him as soon as she’d dealt with the machines.