"Kayla, Evie!" Pale called as she rushed back over to the caravan. Every movement caused waves of pain to radiate out from her shoulder as the knife shifted inside her, scraping across her bone. Pale grit her teeth as she ran, forcing herself to hold back from crying out in pain.

Her wound would need to be treated, but that would come after she confirmed the safety of her allies, and no sooner.

Pale sprinted through the caravan, her shotgun held in one hand and cradled underneath her arm. With her off-hand incapacitated, she'd only have the one shot in her long gun before being forced to discard it in favor of her sidearm, but if she ran into any more bandits, she'd be sure to make that one shot count.

All around her, wagons burned and people cried out in agony. Bodies, both bandit and elf, littered the ground, their lifeblood spilling out onto the grass and dirt below. Flames curled up into the night, spewing acrid black smoke across the plains and illuminating the carnage below. Pale couldn't help but glower as she passed by several elves who had been all but carved limb from limb.

She held little love for these people, but they had been her allies, and they hadn't deserved to die so horribly. The only solace was that the bandits appeared to have been slaughtered to the man; she hadn't seen any of them get away, at least, and there were enough of their dead scattered around to make her believe that none of them had survived their attack.

"Pale?! Pale!"

At the sound of Kayla's frantic voice, Pale whipped around, her eyes widening.

"Over here!" she called. "Are you hurt?"

Her question was met by the sound of two pairs of hurried footsteps rushing over to her Kayla and Evie came running up to her through the darkness, and for the first time, Pale allowed herself to relax, lowering her weapon before ultimately switching the safety on and gently laying it on the ground below. As she did so, the knife in her shoulder shifted once more, causing her to wince and let out a pained grunt before sinking to her knees, clutching at it.

"Pale!" Kayla shouted, rushing to her side along with Evie. "You're hurt! How bad is-"

"I'll be fine," Pale insisted through gritted teeth. "Just need to get this knife out of my shoulder…"

"What do you mean, just get it out?! We need to get you to a healer, and-"

"Relax," Evie urged. "I know enough healing magic to fix up something like this, no problem." She gave Pale a sideways glance. "You are right about one thing, though – that knife is going to have to come out before we can do anything about fixing the wound itself."

"Do it," Pale urged.

"You sure? It will hurt-"

"I'm sure. Get me fixed up."

Evie shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Evie motioned for Kayla to fall in alongside her. Kayla swallowed nervously, her wolf ears drooping as the two of them closed in on Pale, who merely bunched up some of her undershirt and stuffed it in her mouth. Evie took hold of the hilt of the knife, then looked to Pale for confirmation; she nodded, and Evie yanked. Despite her best efforts, Pale still had to suppress a scream of agony as the blade was pulled from her shoulder.

Still, it was thankfully over in just a few seconds. Evie held up the knife, showing the crimson-slicked blade to Pale, before tossing it away. Naturally, the blood had started to pour out of her once the knife had been removed, but Evie was quick to clamp a hand over it, then look over to Pale once more.

"You'll feel some slight discomfort," she warned.

Pale nodded, but despite this indication, nothing could have prepared her for the sudden sensation of her flesh beginning to stitch itself together. She nearly jumped when she felt the blood flow begin to taper off, followed by the wound starting to clot and then close, all in a matter of seconds. By the end of it, the deep stab wound was gone, replaced with little more than a rough patch of scar tissue. Pale couldn't help but poke and prod at it a bit, bewildered as she was, but after just a few seconds of investigating it, she knew what the truth was.

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Magic was clearly a very real thing in this world, but the true extent of it was still a mystery to her. One thing was for certain, however – it was very powerful, and she could not afford to underestimate it if she wanted this avatar to stay alive.

Pale looked over to Evie, then offered her a nod. "Thanks."

Evie waved her off. "Least I could do. Now, I'm gonna need you two to come with me and help me take care of the rest of the caravan."

"That wouldn't be a problem at all," Kayla insisted. "Right, Pale?"

Pale didn't hesitate to shake her head. "Lead the way," she said.

--

It took them the rest of the night to not only treat the remaining survivors of the attack, but also take inventory of all the losses the caravan had incurred. The true extent of the damage wasn't revealed until the sun had started to rise, but by then, there was no mistaking the kind of carnage the bandits had wrought.

Pale counted six burned-out wagons, their goods gone up in flames along with them. Thirteen elves had also fallen, out of a caravan of around forty. The thought made her brow furrow; she had no idea what Evie's accounting books looked like, but even despite that, Pale knew that these weren't the kinds of losses any traveling merchant could sustain. No operation survived losing that much material and manpower, at least not for very long.

And so, she wasn't surprised when Evie approached her and Kayla, later that morning, a crestfallen expression on her face.

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we're turning the caravan around for now," she told them.

"You are?" Kayla asked. She bit her lip. "…Truthfully, I'm not surprised… I mean, after what those barbarians did… I don't think anyone would blame you for heading back."

"It's not just that," Pale cut in. "The monetary losses here must have been staggering. It's not the kind of thing that can just be recovered from." She looked over to Evie. "I take it you had a choice between seeing it through and turning things around?"

"No offense to you two, but it wasn't a hard choice," Evie answered. "Would've been a lot harder if I hadn't lost so many people, but now… now, we've got a lot of families to inform and bodies to bury. I'm sorry, but this is as far as we go, at least for now. We'll link up with you as soon as we're able, we owe you that much, but at the moment, this is where we part ways."

Pale pursed her lips. That was unfortunate, but she could at least understand where Evie was coming from.

"We'll figure something out," Pale assured her.

Evie nodded and went to turn and walk away, but at the last minute, Pale recalled something from the night before. She called out to Evie, getting her to stop and turn back; as she did so, Pale pulled the letter she'd taken from the barbarian, then offered it to her.

"Does this explain anything?"

Evie eyed the letter in disbelief. "Where'd you get this?"

"From the dead bandit leader. You want to know who did this and why, right? That might have your answers there."

Evie accepted the paper, then tore it open and began to read through it. It only took a few lines before her expression darkened and she lowered the page, gritting her teeth in anger.

"What is it?" Kayla asked.

"It's a letter of marque," Evie answered. "Someone put a kill order on our caravan."

"What? Why would they do that?"

"Does it say who it was?" Pale asked, leaning in.

Evie shook her head. "Nothing about who sent the order. It just says that my caravan is to be destroyed and everyone in it slaughtered or enslaved, as well as a price for doing so." Her expression darkened further. "Three-hundred gold… they were paying those people three hundred gold for the lives of forty people. Not even ten per person…"

"So, someone put a hit out on your caravan and everyone in it," Pale surmised. "Any idea who it might be, even if the letter doesn't indicate it?"

Evie shook her head. "No… I didn't think we had any enemies like this. This is the first indication I've ever seen that someone hates us." She let out a tired, irritated sigh. "Look, I'd like to discuss this further, but I need to be going. We've got a long ride back to Woodbriar ahead of us, not to mention plenty of letters home to send, and honestly, I'm in no mood to even be considering doing something about it. Just… if you two do find something, either let me know or just kill the bastard who signed that letter, and I'll see to it that you're both handsomely rewarded. Deal?"

"Deal," Pale said without a moment's hesitation. "Safe travels."

"Same to you. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon."

With that, Evie waved goodbye, and her and the rest of her caravan turned and began to move away from the two of them.

Pale and Kayla watched them steadily disappear over the horizon, and the instant they were gone, began moving in the opposite direction, farther north.

--

They walked for most of the day before finally deciding to retire for the night. There was little more than an empty field around them, but Pale didn't mind – given the fact that their previous incursions into areas with forests had led to ambushes, she was in no hurry to get out of the elements, especially not when the skies were clear.

It was beginning to get cold, however – frost had started to cover the ground as night had fallen, and Kayla was shivering slightly as she laid in her sleeping roll. Pale, for her part, simply grit her teeth and bore it, though she made a mental note to call down a drop pod with some heavier clothing for the two of them the moment morning came. She was tempted to do it at night, if only to make sleeping outside more bearable, but that was a bad idea – the drop pod coming down would be visible for miles, and this deep into enemy territory, the last thing she wanted was to plant a beacon pointing directly to her.

Pale's thoughts were interrupted by Kayla suddenly stirring slightly before falling still. Seeing it, Pale couldn't help but furrow a brow.

"I know you're awake."

For a moment, Kayla said nothing, but then let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah… sorry; I know I need to get my rest."

"Indeed," Pale cut in. "But something is bothering you. Care to elaborate?"

Kayla bit her lip. "It's just… that letter got me thinking… did the bandits who attacked my town have a similar order?"

Pale blinked, surprised. Truthfully, that thought had passed her mind already, but to hear it from Kayla was unexpected. Kayla was far from stupid, but she was young and inexperienced. For her to put the pieces together like that so quickly and by herself was interesting, to say the least.

"It's a possibility,' Pale said. "I wouldn't be surprised if it were completely true. Think about it – they bypassed several bigger towns to come straight for yours, and seemed uninterested in anything aside from killing, enslaving, and looting."

"So you agree?"

"I think it's a distinct possibility, but we'll need something more concrete before taking that and running with it. Ideally, we'll hear it from a high-ranking bandit themselves, when we manage to take one alive." Pale cast a glance up at the moon. "Get some rest, Kayla. You'll need it for tomorrow."

Kayla looked like she wanted to argue, but didn't, instead lying down and closing her eyes. She was out in a matter of minutes, though once again, Pale could tell from the twitches and whimpers in her sleep that she was still being plagued by nightmares.

Eventually, Pale turned away, instead focusing on the moon once more, her mind racing at the thought of the letter.