Another crack. This time it echoes across the far tree line. Jolting my head back up, I see Lin and Torrent stand, immediately alert. Lorna shifts, and her eyes slowly open.

“Think it’s lightning?” Torrent asks Lin, who’s pulling his crossbow into place.

“Never heard any lightning like that. Wake the others.”

It’s the dead of night. My breaths are now labored and not from my efforts to retrieve the blanket. Waking the others means they’re worried. Which means I should worry.

Torrent quickly begins to shake his comrades from their slumber. I grunt and try to make as much noise as possible by shifting my body on the ground. What if there’s danger? Am I to lie here with no means to defend myself?

Lorna yawns, lifts herself, then drapes a lazy arm over one knee. “What’s that?” she asks, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. “Sounds like the sky’s splitting. See anything?” she asks Lin, who’s circling with his bow aimed.

“No. Nothing. Nothing from Braze either…”

“Get up!” A shout rings in the distance. “Everyone up! We need to move now!”

I crane my neck and see Braizen galloping towards us across the clearing and away from the dark tree line. Frenzy breaks loose as the bandits curse, grab saddlebags and satchels, and brandish their weapons. I scream, but no one can hear me through this cloth or over their whines. I lash out like a living scourge in a futile attempt to be noticed.

Now others emerge from the woods, whipping their steeds as if they can’t run fast enough from whatever lies behind them. My breath hitches as a rolling black mist breaks out from the trees. Are Braizen and his bandits outrunning a fire? Panic sweeps through me as I see the two riders nearest the trees swallowed by the vapor and hear their screams cut short. A sick dread grows alongside my panic as another rider is taken, and then another. In the strange glow from the tree line, I see that it’s a sentient shadow, a mist that seeks to devour.

Lin unleashes an arrow. It glides into the mist, and we watch it shred. “Oh, that’s not good,” he says.

Torrent races past him straight towards the onyx cloud and braces himself before bellowing a barbaric cry.

Now almost in the camp, Braizen waves his hands above his head, shouting. “No, go back! Retreat! Torrent! We can’t fight it!”

Tears stream down my cheeks as the horror unfolds. The dark mist engulfs another rider, and I know this will also be my fate. I can’t move. I can’t run. I can’t even speak a prayer aloud to the Lady and the Guard.

I’ll die in this obsidian murk, a captive of these Baellilean crooks, and I’ll die unheard.

Chapter Five

Braizen

Present Day

I splash my face with cold water from the small stream that flows in an intricate web between the tangled nettles and briars. We’ve patrolled for more than an hour now, and I know some of my band are already tired.