The first guard screamed, clawing at his eyes and throat. The whole group of guards began choking and gasping as the noxious smoke billowed over them.

“Go!” Bri shouted, shoving Lina out of her stupor.

Another horde of masked attackers appeared through the mist, bolting after them, seemingly unaffected by the smoke.

Bri moved to unsheathe her dagger again and Carys snapped, “Wait until we’ve cleared the smoke.” She raced liked a bolting deer through the deep leaves. “If that shit touches us, it won’t matter how many of them we take down with us.”

They dipped over the crest of the hill, down into the valley and up the other side. The undulating landscape made it difficult to set any distance between them and those looming purple clouds.

“Over the river!” Lina shouted, and they darted toward a rotten log wedged across a roaring river.

The water rushed under the beam in white-tipped rapids. Lina leapt onto it, holding her arms out to balance. She made it across in three bounds and Bri and Carys quickly followed. When Carys reached the other side, Lina unhooked her axe fast as a striking asp and brought it down in one powerful strike, cleaving the log in two. Bri’s mouth dropped open at the power and fury in that one move as the split log flew away on the roaring current.

Three masked figures ran downhill toward them, plunging into the cold mountain river. The first one’s feet swept out from under them; a scream faded into the distance as the raging river carried them downstream. The other two moved at a snail’s pace, inching forward to keep their footing but not stopping.

“Keep going until we’re out of shooting range,” Carys called, pulling on the back of Bri’s tunic.

Bri narrowed her eyes at the thinning smoke in the distance. How many more poisonous explosives did these attackers have? She turned, hustling up the far bank. The three of them wheezed as the weight of their weapons and the near vertical incline of the hillside slowed their speed. Bri’s thighs burned as she urged them onward.

More pops echoed in the distance, the poison smoke filtering above the trees and raining down on the masked figures crossing the river. They didn’t choke or scream as the smoke swirled around their bodies; they continued to push forward across the river. Bri crested the next hill, and down toward the other side, seeing a twin river rushing from up ahead. The spring rains had flooded the banks of the two rivers on either side of them, trapping them on the hill between.

“Shit.” Carys unsheathed her sword. “We’ll have to fight them off here.”

“And the smoke?” Bri hissed.

“And pray they’ve used up all their poisons already.”