The roar sounded close--impossibly close--and my panicked thoughts jumped immediately to ‘dire puma.’ My throat clenched and my pulse pounded. I dropped my sewing and started to stand when Oksar tapped his chest--his black bead--and the roar fell silent.

Oh! Oh, that wasn’t a roar, it was a ward alarm. It was his black bead warning him about an incoming danger.

I felt a moment of relief before I realized that the ward which had considered an adult thornspider a negligible threat, barely worth whispering about, had positively blared. Which meant that whatever was breaking through the perimeter was beyond terrifying.

“Bushes,” Oksar hissed at me. “Hide! Now.”

He sounded so urgent, so panicked, that I obeyed without thought. I ran four step then dove at a clump of bushes and crawled in among the roots and twigs. After I wriggled deep enough, I turned my head and froze, watching the campsite.

To my surprise, after an initial burst around the campsite, almost like he was tidying, Oksar stayed stock still. He stood in place, completely unarmed. He didn’t reach for his spear. He simply remained motionless in front of the fire, gazing into the trees, his empty hands by his side.

I watched and worried and tried to slow my breathing.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened for long enough that I thought was going to happen, and then two people stepped into sight.

One was a yellow infenti woman with short black hair and a single horn growing from the left side of her forehead. She was wearing what looked like chainmail, except it didn’t make any sound, and a thin sword dangled at her hip.

The other person must’ve been a crachen. Its right arm was a jagged, powerful-looking pincer and its head was a chitin disk with a deep recess along the perimeter where I guessed it had sense organs. A cloak wrapped its speckled green carapace, but other than that it looked naked. It was short, too. Only came up to the woman’s chin, and she looked about five foot six. But the crachen was wide, with the rough proportions of a mailbox.

INTUIT: Infenti, Level 16

INTUIT: Crachen, Level 19

Holy shit. Those levels were just ... holy shit.

“Greeting, gifted,” Oksar said, and bowed low.

The new arrivals didn’t respond to him. Instead, they wandered across the campsite like they owned the place, looking at his dishes and packs. The infenti peered at the bloody apron he used for butchering and inspected his spear while the crachen checked inside the lean-to. After a long, terrifying, silent minute, the two of them sat on a log at the fire while Oksar stayed in place, almost like he was standing at attention.

“Fetch me wine, woodsman,” the infenti woman said. “And some for my partner, unless he wants something else.”

“Brine,” the crachen said, his voice like a loud whisper.

Oksar exhaled. “I ... don’t have any brine. Apologies.”

“Then wine will do.”

“As you wish,” Oksar said.

Without glancing at my hiding spot, he filled two battered mugs with wine and presented them to the strangers like a footman at the earl’s table. The crachen lifted his mug to his disk-head and drank. I couldn’t see how exactly, but I had the impression of mouthparts working inside his shell.

“Several days ago,” the yellow woman said, “we detected a summons, from all the way over in the Port.”

Oksar kept his polite gaze upon her.

“That’s one powerful summons,” she continued, after a moment. “And it was centered on this area. Not just the forest, but this corner of the forest. What do you know of it?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid, gifted,” Oksar murmured.

“Is that so?” the crachen demanded.

“Yes, sir,” Oksar said.

“Mm.” The woman tossed the contents of her mug into the fire. When the wine splashed the burning logs, the flames hissed and ebbed. “Complete ignorance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“My cup is empty,” she told him. “Refill it.”

He refilled it without a word.

“Our mission here, my young woodman, on this island, is on the cusp of success.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Oksar told her.

“Are you?” the crachen asked. “Do you even know what our mission is?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“To join Waldhill to Six Coves?”

“And which side are you on?” the infenti asked. “You’re a local, huh? A waldo?”

“I’m a simple trapper,” Oksar said. “I stay away from politics.”

The woman smiled coldly. “Why do you suppose our viceroy sent two gemmed warriors into the forest after an echo of a summoning?”

My eyes narrowed. So those were gemmed. Maybe that explained the high levels. Maybe it also explained why he called them ‘gifted’: because they’d been gifted with gems. Maybe that’s why they scared the life out of him, too.

“I don’t know, gifted.” Oksar attempted a smile. “I, uh, I’ll admit I was wondering that myself.”

“The balance of power currently favors us,” the infenti woman told him, not returning the smile. “Overwhelmingly. We are a few short weeks from absolute victory. So we will not allow that balance to change. Or to be changed by, say, a powerful summoning.”

“So we’ll ask you again,” the crachen said, standing from the log. “What do you know of a summoning?”

“Nothing, gifte--“

The crachen moved faster than a thornspider. I didn’t even see the slap, but Oksar’s head jerked to the side and he gasped in pain. I went rigid under the bush, yet didn’t make a sound. If they found me, I was dead. We were both dead. I knew that with complete confidence, even if I didn’t know how I knew.

“Your shoes weren’t made on this island,” the infenti idly observed, still sitting on the log. “Or on any other that I’ve ever heard of.”

“Yes, I know. I mean, I--“

“What’s that on your shirt?” she asked.

“I found them,” Oksar told her, his voice unsteady. “I found all these clothes. The shirts, the shoes. Look at the holes, gifted! Stab holes. The owner must’ve died. I found them and figured I’d sell them, so I--“

The crachen hit him again. “You’re wearing summoned clothes, waldo. Do you honestly think we’ll believe you just stumbled upon them? Do you honestly think we’ll simply believe that you don’t threaten our victory?”

“I don’t! I wouldn’t even if I could, which I can’t. Believe me, please, I stay out of ...”

Oksar trailed off when fireflies appeared around the infenti woman. I gazed in surprise--and a bit of awe. A cloud of fireflies, hundreds of them, zigzagged through the dark forest air like fairy lights. Each firefly cast a pretty yellow glow that matched the woman’s skin, and all together they looked completely magical.

“Who summoned you?” the crachen asked Oksar.

“Nobody, gemmed. I’m local, as you said. I found the clothing and--”

“Then what did you summon?” the crachen asked.

“Nothing! Nothing. I swear.”

The fireflies spun and danced in the air, like a ballet with a thousand tiny, glowing fairies. “Tell us what was summoned,” the crachen said, clacking his pincer, “or we can only presume that you were.”

“I’m just a trapper! I’m just a family man, trying to provide for his family. I stay out of politics. I ... fine, yes, I summoned the clothing. I ran mana through a black bead I found in the forest, and the next thing I knew ...” He patted Milbert on his chest. “Weird clothing appeared. I was planning to sell it, but tides take me, I’m happy to hand it over. All I ask is to be left alone.”

For a long moment, nobody spoke as the fireflies spun and glowed.

Then the crachen said, “That sounds good to me. How about you, Foh?”

“Sure thing,” the woman said. “Some average waldo summoned otherworldly fabrics, so what? The viceroy only sent us here out of an abundance of caution.”

“Exactly,” the crachen said. “An abundance of caution. He doesn’t want anything, no matter how minor, derailing our victory, that’s all.”

“You want to be left alone?” the woman asked Oksar. “We’ll leave you alone.”

Under the bush, I silently exhaled in relief.

But in the clearing, the fireflies glowed brighter, then landed on Oksar. He raised one hand to look at the glowing specks on his palm, and I made a note to tell him about Avatar after these asshole gemmed warriors left. Because standing in that dim forest, with fairy lights gleaming against his blue skin, he looked ethereal and beautiful and almost mythic.

Of course, I’d tell him about Smurfs, too, just to tease--

* * *

The fireflies brightened.

They became incandescent.

Then they turned to flame, each one a tiny blowtorch, and started to burn through leather and skin.

Oksar screamed. He dropped to his knees. He screamed and writhed as scorchmarks covered his beautiful blue skin he then fell still: charred and dead beside the tent.

* * *

My heart thundered as the fireflies kept burning his corpse. My blood pounded with a rage I’d never felt before. Strong enough to almost eclipse my fear. Almost. I didn’t move, but I branded the gemmeds’ features into my mind. I would not forget them. One day, I‘d unlock the ‘potential’ that Oksar had talked about. One day I’d make them pay.

The vow settled into my bones as I lay on my belly, cringing beneath that bush.

I would make them pay.

“Well, that’s solved,” the crachen announced, when Oksar’s body stopped burning. “Consider him abundantly, cautiously, turned to ash.”

The infent gestured, and the fireflies vanished. “Pity we lost the clothes, though. They must’ve been worth something.”

“You know the viceroy wouldn’t want random shit floating around Waldhill, not right now.”

“Yeah.” The infenti knelt and plucked a now-gray bead from the mound of ash. “Damn. He had a ward-bead. If I’d seen this, we could’ve made a profit without keeping the clothes.”

“We still can,” the crachen told her. “This guy was either a trapper or pretending to be one. He’ll have beads.”

So they searched the campsite. They tossed Oksar’s stuff. Half landed on the fire, making the flames blaze higher. Animals hooted and screamed in the darkness, but the gemmed didn’t care. Even without the ward, they weren’t scared of anything in this forest. They laughed when they found a cache of golden beads and crowed when they uncovered a keg of some kind of liquor.

They used each other’s names: Tiral-ur and Foh. I committed those to memory, too.

After a time, Tiral-ur, the crachen, started searching farther from the lean-to.

Closer to me.

I watched with little spikes of terror as he neared my bush. Twigs cracked beneath his carapaced feet. He came so close that I saw his eyes. Two of them, weirdly mobile in the horizontal split between the horseshoe-crab top of his head and his armored neck below. His eyes moved three inches in one direction, five inches in the other. He took a step closer, and one eye stretched from the safety of his shell and peered upward on some kind of eyestalk.

He took another step closer to my bush. He was four feet away. If he looked down, he couldn’t miss me. And his eyestalk started stretching downward.

“Hey, Foh,” he called, peering carefully into the shadows that didn’t quite conceal me.

My mind groped desperately for ...

Something.

Some plan.

Some disguise.

Some transformation.

It was right there, so close, just out of reach ... until I grabbed it.

Then everything changed.

Well, not everything: me.

I changed. I turned weightless, and found myself floating there, unafraid and untouchable on waves of my own self. I didn’t feel the ground anymore, I didn’t feel the bush. I didn’t feel my breath. I didn’t feel my pulse or my cramping calf.

I didn’t see my hands. I couldn’t see my arms. Holy shit. My arms were gone. I’d turned invisible!

Wait, no. No ...

I’d turned to smoke.

REWARD: 6 points for gem activation.