Droplets of water began pattering on Orrik’s face. Within seconds, the rain startled him awake. The lynx snorted as the raindrops tickled his nose and squinted upward. He was on his back, a darkened canopy above him. The rain was filtered through the tightknit boughs stretching over the clearing. His hazy thoughts tried to correct him. It was not a clearing, but a road.

  The attack!

  Orrik jolted upright to devastation. After sending off the client’s cargo with the others, Lord Taverand’s feathermage detonated some sort of magical explosion. Everything was knocked back from the blast zone, wagons overturned and splintered, soldier beasts flung to the edges of the road, some draped on the nearest tree branches like drying laundry. No sign of the strange ashen creatures that had assaulted them. Orrik eyed the scattering of strange coal splotches around the decimated wagon train with suspicion.

  Around him, Lord Taverand’s soldiers began to stir. Orrik scanned the area for familiar faces, noting an inordinate amount of tranquil and uninjured wagon equines, all glowing a soft white. His eyes darted until he found a mourning dove squatting close to a conscious but prone weasel, her tiny feathermage paws glowing as she administered a healing spell. Gloria had a soft spot for equines. The knot in Orrik’s heart loosened a bit.

  A large lump near the detonation area squealed and righted itself into Tirig Boar, Lord Taverand’s Guard Captain. Orrik and Tirig went all the way back to their squire years. The boar knight was tougher than steel and being able to survive mage-made explosions was in his wheelhouse.

  The screeching sound of wrenching metal assaulted Orrik’s tender ears to his left. It was followed by a torrent of colorful language, signaling Chicrose had also survived.

  “Confounded featherhead blastin’ every damn thing to kingdom come! Not a straight axle among the damned lot!” complained the small vole tinker. He kicked a broken wagon wheel with his heel. “Me fuckin’ tools’re in powder-fer-brain’s wagon!”

  The knot in Orrik’s heart eased a bit more. Without powerful magic in his arsenal, the vole was the most vulnerable of Orrik’s troop. Although Chicrose equipped their outfit, he did not often venture into the field.

  Grasswhistle, Jessup, and Martu could not be accounted for. Were his Redsnouts okay? He trusted them to see the job through, but hoped he and Lord Taverand’s soldiers had bought enough time for them to clear the Dark Forest.

  Orrik took stock of his injuries. He was largely unharmed, save for the damage to his prosthetic left arm and the full body ache from the reverberation of force set off by the Taverand feathermage. The latter, he could do nothing about until he got a good night’s rest. The former would require extensive repair, but considering he would not sleep until the job was done, it might be seen to first.

  He inspected his left forearm. The puncture marks where he defended himself from an assailant’s jaws were leaking blue ethereal fog: refined condensed mana. The creature had been able to pierce mana-steel. He opened and closed the artificial paw, flexing his flesh bicep. The spell connecting the machinery to his nervous system sparked orange and green around the mechanical joints and the connection point to his upper arm. Not good.

  “Damn glad to see the beaut’s still attached,” came Chicrose’s piping voice, loud in the lynx’s ears. His weather inappropriate sleeveless, dark gray tunic was drenched, and his legs to the hems of his colorful, striped vole-clan shorts were coated in a light layer of mud that was washing away as the rain continued.

  Orrik started as the tinker invaded his personal space, inspecting the mana-tech prosthetic. A collaboration between Chicrose, Gloria, and Jessup, it was a one-of-a kind manaturgical wonder. Orrik felt forever blessed that his Redsnouts banded together to give back the mobility that was lost when Orrik was still a knight in service.

  “I doubt field repairs are an option,” ventured Orrik. He forced himself to remain still. Every fiber of him wanted to shake the rain from his tufted ears and cheeks.

  Chicrose’s spindly paws danced across the metal framing of the prosthetic, careful to avoid the flowing mana. He was silent in his examination save for a grinding sound when he gnashed his incisors together, his contemplation tic. He was unbothered by the precipitation, even as his goggles and whiskers dripped.

  Captain Tirig was on his feet, lumbering like he hurt everywhere. Based on the scattering pattern of the damage, the boar had been one of the closest to the spellcaster when the explosion happened. Any other beast would be dead. Fewer soldiers were able-bodied enough to be independently mobile. Most were paired, supporting each other as they searched the still bodies. Orrik eyed a wagon axel, wheels still attached, hanging from the cleft of a low hanging tree branch and wondered what portion of the casualties were from fatal impacts of debris.

  Orrik’s arm had begun to fall asleep when Chicrose finished. “Not with my kit in the gear wagon,” the vole replied, as if seconds instead of minutes had passed since Orrik spoke, and shook his head. “Glory might be able to seal the leaks until we can get a look at it.” He rocked back on the pads of his foot-paws, tilting his head back to bray, “GLOORY!”

  Orrik gritted his teeth and his ears flattened against the high-pitched shout. Even though Chicrose’s voice was considered low for a meadow vole, it still chittered and screeched at high volumes.

  “Here, here,” said the serene dove, approaching at a sedate waddle, the hem of her brown half-cloak and simple, gray habit caught under a wing. Her tailfeathers caused the back end of her clothes to swish to and fro. A hazy aura bathed her in a soft glow.

  When the feathermage arrived, her glow expanded to accommodate them. The rain ceased and the air warmed. Orrik glanced up, knowing he would see the raindrops domed over them, hitting the magic barrier. Gloria’s specialty was barrier spells.

  “Boss’s arm’s leakin’,” explained the tinker. He shook himself, spraying the lynx and dove. “Can you make a patch of magic or somethin’ so the rest of boss cat’s limbs don’ melt off?”

  It was unnerving to hear though Orrik was almost certain refined condensed mana would not erode living material, as the wispy substance would dissipate into natural mana flows before settling on his person long enough to cause disintegration.

  Gloria made a scolding cluck at Chicrose before clearing all doubt. “Mmm, I might,” she said and waved a small magic paw, drying their clothes in an instant. She cocked her head to the side and leaned too close to the puncture marks for Orrik’s liking. Even mages ought to be careful with uncontained mana.

  Chicrose wrung out his tail, grumbling, “If that crazy tree-chomper made it, we’ll need a new reactor casing.”

  Without taking her eyes from her patient, Gloria replied, “I hope everyone is okay, too.” She placed her paws over the mana-steel forearm, as if she were warming herself before a fire. Small spheres of white light materialized at the ends of each trimmed nail. The lights shifted to blue, matching the mana leaking from the arm.

  “Steady,” went Chicrose before he began to grind his incisors. This time, Orrik did pull back his ears at the needling sound.

  The blue spread to Gloria’s entire paws. When she was sure they were coated, she placed them direct on Orrik’s arm. The air distorted around her paws and Orrik felt tingles as if the arm were still flesh. When the dove pulled back, nothing seemed different. The condensed refined mana had ceased pouring out of the punctures that still remained.

  “The flow is only contained in a barrier as a temporary measure,” Gloria explained. “I believe it will be eroded faster than normal by the internal mana current.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Tirig lumbered to them, hesitating before the barrier. Orrik acknowledged the boar and waved him closer. Gloria’s barrier expanded to include the guard captain.

  “Better find ole Sassy Grassy and the rest,” Chicrose was saying. He fell silent in the much larger captain’s presence and positioned himself behind Orrik.

  Gloria also stepped back a few paces.

  Orrik rose to his feet, grateful when Gloria waved the mud off his clothes, and leveled his old friend with a glare. “There will be a renegotiation of payment once I confirm my Redsnouts are alive,” he said, stern with a touch of growl.

  The boar inclined his head without protest. His report was grave. “Seven dead, nine missing. Most injured. That doesn’t include those that split off with Miss Taverand.”

  Orrik nodded. “We must gather the injured and attempt to rejoin the main group with due haste.”

  Tirig’s sigh was heavy. He shifted on his feet, favoring his right leg, and lowered his voice to say, “The injured will slow us down. Be prepared for action. We also cannot leave the dead here.”

  Orrik was suspicious of the last sentence at once. “How do you expect we bring the dead then? On your back?”

  “If needs must,” Tirig retorted, a spark of his usual bluster coming back into his small eyes.

  “Our wagon is unharmed,” offered Gloria. She was quick to add, “And several ponies.”

  “One wagon will not contain our injured,” said Tirig.

  Orrik surveyed the area with some difficulty. Night was falling early in the darkened woods. He snapped a paw. “Chicrose, try to cobble together another wagon or two. Gloria, stay with him and keep the rain off so he can work.” When she opened her beak to protest, Orrik interrupted with, “We must leave the forest before nightfall. That will save more people now.”

  She closed her beak and bobbed compliance. He dismissed them with a nod. Chicrose set off, leaving the barrier at once. Gloria passed a feather to Orrik before following after the vole. Her barrier shrank as she departed, leaving Orrik and only Tirig’s head and right shoulder inside. Orrik spared a smile for the glowing feather in his paw and tucked it into his cloak. It was easy to be grateful for her small kindnesses.

  Once his subordinates were out of earshot, Orrik returned to the matter of Tirig’s insistence that they bring the dead with them. “Will the fallen become those creatures?” He knelt and retrieved his sword from the mud.

  “Worse,” Tirig answered with tired eyes, his shoulder slumping. “Coal-blight wraiths prefer corpses. Attacking the living is merely a means to that end. Tis why we must bring the injured. The wraiths will come back once I move on with this.” He pulled a chain from underneath his armor. A small, glassy bauble dangled from a black setting. “Under normal circumstances, this would have repelled them for the duration of our trip.”

  Back when they were still in service, Tirig had a reputation for chivalry, bombastically so, but he never lost his sense of priorities for the living. It relieved Orrik to know that his friend’s values held true.

  Orrik wiped his blade on the lower portion of his traveling cloak before sheathing it at his hip. “Does the reason we were attacked have something to do with Lord Taverand’s granddaughter?”

  “Aye,” the boar grunted and turned out of Orrik’s barrier.

  Orrik followed the captain through the wreckage. Although Tirig stopped to exchange a word here and there with his troops, he seemed distracted. It was not until he hunched before a wagon to examine the craftsman’s accents that Orrik realized the boar was searching.

  “What else are you looking for?” the lynx inquired.

  Tirig began rooting around the upturned wagon, replying, “Ah. I need a good chopper for ole Kensidore. It gets in the way for riding so I had the lads load it in the supply train.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  The captain sat up and looked about to make sure the soldiers were out of earshot. He gestured his big head to get Orrik to come closer.

  This can’t be good, thought Orrik as he approached.

  In a low voice, Tirig said, “Kensidore stayed behind because he was wounded by one of the wraiths. We’ll have to deal with him before we leave.”

  Orrik’s head snapped around to view the detonation zone some yards away. “He’s not dead?!”

  “SSHH!”

  “Sorry,” Orrik whispered, lowering himself on his haunches next to Tirig. “He’s not dead?”

  “He is or almost is, but he won’t be soon,” was the captain’s ominous retort. “Act normal.” He stood, bringing a large wrapped parcel out of the collapsed wagon. The paper became sodden as soon as it was ripped away, revealing it had been spelled against the elements while wrapped.

  Orrik stepped back as Tirig hefted a splendid double-bit battleaxe, whistling. “I was wondering if you would manage a giant chopper on this one.”

  “Every time.” Tirig smiled, making a few twirls with the weapon. He gave great berth to the dual blades, a lesson learned painfully when he chopped a quarter of his left ear off some time after being newly knighted. Orrik was there for that spectacular display of self-mutilation at the Queen’s Tourney a lifetime ago.

  The two faced the center area where the magic bomb exploded. Orrik doubted the soldiers were conscious of their avoidance of the area. None of them had gone to check the feathermage’s condition.

  An uncanny chill went through Orrik, raising every hair from nape to short tail. His paw went to his sword hilt and he searched for Gloria. The mourning dove was perched at the front of a hodge-podge wagon, supervising the settling of injured. A shiver ran up her tailfeathers and she shook herself, clutching her traveling cloak around her. When she looked over her shoulder at the detonation zone, Orrik knew he was sensing whatever unholy magic Tirig wanted to stop. Even though he was no longer a knight, Orrik still felt the call of the greater good.

  Tirig walked in no particular hurry to the center. Orrik forced his sword arm away from his weapon and walked next to the boar, taking his cue to halt when the captain stopped before a charred form. The air was hazy around the body, but there was no smell. And the rain did not fall on Tirig.

  Orrik peered up through the dry haven of the barrier and realized no rain was falling on the barrier either. That could not be good.

  He turned back to the body. There was a suspicious glow in the eye spaces. A tiny plume of smoke eked out of the long, parted beak. Rather than look burned on the outside, it appeared the feathermage was burning from the inside.

  “The sage always had a soft spot for the Miss,” said Tirig with a sigh. He slung the axe haft across his good shoulder. “He was running seven full decoys.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Orrik said. His respect for the feathermage’s sacrifice grew.

  The plan for the escort job consisted of the main train and three additional decoy spells. Instead of enchanting body and wagon doubles to match, Lord Taverand’s feathermage was to generate full decoys with only his magic and mental control. Orrik had a limited understanding of mage capabilities through Gloria, but he was versed enough to know that being able to replicate and operate such a detailed spell seven times from a distance was the mark of a true sage.

  “I’d never brag up the featherbrain. He had a nine-generation heartfeather,” Tirig said scratching his chin. “I suppose he got it to little Mel before the split.” He bounced his weapon off his shoulder, the muscles in his meaty arm bulging to grip the weapon with one paw. The axe was strictly a two-pawed weapon for most beasts.

  Orrik drew his sword to match with his right paw. “How can you tell?”

  The closest part of the feathermage’s body to the pair, the talons at the end of the body’s reed-thin legs, twitched. The bill began to work close and open.

  “That’s an easy one,” said Tirig, as he began to scoot around the body, holding his battle stance. He had a telltale levity to his tone that preceded combat. “Because then he would be turning into a lich and those have black fire.”

  The boar went to strike at the body’s neck, but the head snaked it out of the way with unnatural limberness. The limbs began scrabbling for purchase in the mud. Orrik switched the grip on this sword and stabbed downward through the center of the body.

  “Hurry!” the lynx cried as the body continued to struggle without reaction to the impalement.

  Tirig pulled the axe free from the ground with both arms, grunting against the pain of having to use his injured limb. He stomped on the writhing beak to steady his aim and chopped downward in a single motion. Severing the neck discharged a puff of ash. The body went limp and the eye spaces extinguished.

  “Do they all do this?” Orrik asked, standing straight and wiping his brow.

  “Naw,” replied Tirig with a heavy sigh. “Had a little magic left after all. ‘Twould’ve been veeery bad to’ve left him behind.”

  The boar lifted his foot-paw, the bottom covered in ash. Orrik went to retrieve his sword and noticed significantly less body than before the beheading. The corpse was decomposing down to ashes at a remarkable rate. Removing the blade caused the center to collapse on itself with a puff.

  “Oi, you alright, Captain?!” cried a small weasel soldier with a truncheon looped on both sides of her belt. She was trying to wrangle two surviving wagon ponies that must have panicked when they sensed the body going revenant.

  “You makin’ another mess, Cap?!” shouted Chicrose, perched on the front seat of a functioning wagon to supervise two burly minks hefting a mended axle to another wagon awaiting repair.

  The mercenary and guard captains stared at each other, paws on their weapons.

  Orrik broke his stance first and sheathed his blade. “I expect you to tell us what is really going on so we can properly adjust the price. I can already say, we charge extra for magic creatures.”

  Tirig chuckled, stabbing his battleax into the ground as raindrops began to strike his head. “Now, I know you’re still a knight. Real mercs would’ve stolen the equines and run off.”

  They turned to face their troops, bumping forearms like old times. Orrik wondered how many of their cherished comrades would be lost this time. Exactly like old times.