While we waited for Lenore to return from her scouting flight towards Yari, I wanted to hear more about this group that was hunting for Sigmir, so I asked Adra to describe them.

"As I said, there were four of them. One was a dwarf, that I am sure of. He was wearing a chain-mail coat, a shield and a hammer. Oh, and he was wearing a golden tabard with a black hammer symbol on it. Another looked similar to an orc but not quite. I'm not sure what he was, his tusks were not quite as large as I've seen before. He had a huge axe and was wearing leather armour with bits and pieces of metal. The third was a leopard beastman in leather armour and for some reason he had a plethora of daggers on his waist. The last was a sylvan, I was unable to see what exactly and he had a staff with him. From his smell, I'd say he is a Lucare but I'm not sure. From the way he was moving I don't think he had armour on, just a cloak.”

My mind assigned classical roles to their party, the guy in chainmail sounded like a tank, the orc like some kind of fighter or barbarian, anyway, a melee attacker that could take a beating, similar to Sigmir. The leopard was some kind of scout or rogue-type and the last was either a healer or a caster. Not quite balanced to my mind but it sounded like a very functional party, they probably had planned it that way. Now, only one question remained: Could we take them?

Impossible to know, really. It came down to levels and, more important, tactics. I believed that we could manage to take out one of them, either the sylvan or the leopard, if we struck him from ambush unless their level was ridiculously overpowered.

Ideas of ambush-scenarios flitted through my mind when I realised something, we might not even have to fight them. The wilderness was vast and wide, if I wanted to track someone down, I had no idea how to even start. How would they find us to fight us?

A while after I came out of my mental planning, Lenore returned. She landed on my shoulder and returned to her Hallow without saying a peep. In my minds-eye, it was as if I was seeing a film but more so, I didn't just see, I was feeling what she was feeling.

I, or rather she flew towards Yari, feeling the cold wind beneath my wings, giving me a shiver. It didn't take long, maybe half an hour by air, to get to Yari and see the open gates. A group that looked like the one after us was walking towards the gates, apparently just leaving the town. Lenore circled a bit, looking down on them from above. After they left toward the forest-line, she landed in the forest on a high branch to observe them further. The cloaked sylvan took something out, it looked like a strange trinket, maybe an old compass or pocket watch but fashioned from bone or something similar. After a few moments, he oriented himself and talked to the others but Lenore was too far away to understand them. From their gestures, I'd say they just got a heading or something similar. Lenore watched them for a little longer as the sylvan and the dwarf used some magic before they all took off at a decent pace.

We might be able to run, but I didn't like the idea of a team of hunters that close behind us. I have had elaborate ideas of ambushes but at the end of the day, the KISS-acronym reigned supreme. Keep it simple, stupid.

After I opened my eyes again, I realised that the memory had only taken about a minute, even if it felt a lot longer. I briefly explained the situation to the others and Adra recognized the tool they used as some kind of dowsing tool, used to periodically divine the direction to the linked target. Sadly, she didn't know how the link was established but believed that my concealment magic would be able to block it.

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

I told them that I preferred to ambush them before they could attack us, using concealment and ranged-attacks to take out the sylvan before retreating under the cover of summoned mist. Depending on their reaction and levels, we could either use the time they had no tracker to get away or we could strike again. For that to work, they both needed ranged attacks.

Sigmir asked me to make her an ice-axe, balanced for throwing, and Adra looked at me for a moment before telling me that she could use a bow. By Lenore's and Adra's estimation, it would take them about two hours from Yari to get here, so we had at least an hour to get ready.

Adra took another branch and slowly shaped it into a longbow, using her hair as a bowstring. I sat and created a nice, simple throwing-axe out of Hard Ice and engraved a runic formation of Shatter-runes into the blade so Ylva or I could detonate it with Ice Magic for extra damage when Sigmir managed to score a good hit. I handed it to her so she could try it out before things got serious and made two more so she had extra if necessary.

As soon as Adra had her bow completed - not entirely to her satisfaction, if the scowl on her face was any indication - we sent Lenore out to scout again. Minutes later, I heard back from her - the hunters were almost upon us. They used an animal trail to advance through the forest and there was a large clearing ahead of them. We had to make haste to get there before them so we could hide and strike them in the back. I placed concealment magic on all of us, Adra did something similar, she called the spell “Forest Prowler” and it tied to the concept of natural predators hunting in the forest, increasing our speed and concealing us within the forest.

When we got to the clearing, I hid two of my icicles with mist-engraving, just at the end of my range, hidden in the snow of the clearing. Lenore kept an eye in the sky on our prey to make sure that they were unaware of our preparations. My Ice Magic made sure that there was no trace of our passing in the snow around us and as soon as we had our position, Adra placed more spells around us, reinforcing our concealment even more.

I had heard somewhere that battle was ninety percent waiting, ten percent sheer terror. For now, we had to wait and hope that the terror was not for us this day. Soon, the view of my left eye changed and I was looking with Lenore at our prey, watching them draw near the clearing, fooling around with each other, looking carefree and happy. They entered the clearing, looking none the wiser and as soon as they were past our position, I carefully started a seven-rune ice-spear, focused on simple penetration and explosive damage. At the same time, Sigmir drew back her arm and Adra drew back her bow. They watched my formation take form and the moment it flashed, they let their attacks fly.

While our attacks were in the air, I used Observe to take stock of our enemies.

The dwarf was level 45, the orc was actually a half-orc and level 43, the leopard was level 47 and the sylvan... was chunky salsa. No other way to explain it. I had observed them in order and before I got to the sylvan, our attacks had already struck. First, Adra's arrow had struck his neck, with the arrow-head coming out of his throat. That alone would probably be a fatal wound. Next, my Ice-Spear had struck his chest, penetrating fully through it and shattering in an explosion of razor sharp shards a moment later, ripping his chest apart. Before the spear shattered, Sigmir's axe had split his head and Ylva had detonated it, destroying the remains of his head in a shower of gore.

His companions whirled around, only to get showered in red gore and realize that the largest remaining part of their friend was his lower body.

Rest in pieces...

Just as the dwarf was shouting something and they were clad in golden light, I used the mist crystals to flood the clearing with mist and we made our get-away. No point in fighting a battle that we might not win, if we can just retreat and set another ambush. As the mist enveloped the three glowing Travellers, Lenore kept an eye on the clearing from the sky, allowing us to gain information on their reaction without risking anything.