Trenan braced his shield tight against his flank as he drew back his hammer. Unheeding the danger, the rift-kin, a ‘frost-ghoul’ as the slayers had taken to calling them, lunged forward, claws and teeth of ice coming for him. At the last moment, he stepped in, stuffing the attack with his shield and knocking the monster off balance.

The claws scratched at him, but without weight and power behind them, all they could do was scratch his armour. As soon as space opened up, he tightened his grip on the hammer and swung it upward, controlling the motion and rotating his body, bringing the weapon up vertically to smash into the kin’s jaw.

Formed of ice, the head exploded, which forced Trenan to lower his head. The last thing he wanted was shards of ice in his eyes. Someone had already met that fate after enthusiastically smashing a frost ghoul while leaning too far forward. Thankfully, the rim of his helmet protected him from that terrible fate and he kicked the now limp body of the creature away as he turned to assess the field.

“How are we looking, team?” he called.

“Miserable.”

“Cold.”

“My ass hurts.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered before he hardened his tone. “We are in the field, you slack-jawed dickheads. I swear if one of you gets killed mouthing off in the broken lands, not only will I paint ‘I told you so’ on your casket, I will piss and shit on the grave.”

“All right, Trenan, stop swinging your dick around. We get it,” Brigette said wearily. “We are clear of kin as far as I can tell.”

“Clear over here as well, Trenan,” Arthur said.

“I swear my cheeks are about to freeze off. Also clear,” Chol called.

The Hammerman sighed and allowed himself a brief moment to indulge in self pity. Believing promises made upon graduating the academies was a foolish act, and now he’d come to regret it. They’d be professional, they’d said. One hundred percent serious on the job, they’d promised. Absolute horse shit.

“We aren’t far from the rift here, so stay alert,” he warned them. “Only the gods know what might come through at any given moment, so be ready to run.”

Brigette rolled her eyes, then held her hands up when he turned to glare at her.

“I get it,” she said, “it's just, we haven’t seen anything except boars and frost ghouls come through for weeks. It’s hard to maintain the tension.”

With her dirty blonde hair pulled back in a tight braid and the freckles on her face, one could almost picture Brigette as a smiling village girl, if you managed to overlook the two-handed bastard sword slung across her back and the broad shoulders and thick arms she sported. Talented, no doubt, but too lax.

“Brigette, we are less than a month into our careers as slayers, and already, you can’t maintain the tension? How eager are you to die?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she waved him off, still grinning.

Never team up with your friends, he lamented to himself, not for the hundredth time. It never works out well.

“Sixty percent of slayer teams lose a member before they reach silver rank. I do not want to be a part of that statistic,” he said flatly.

“We know,” Chol said as she walked up to stand beside him. “And that’s why we wanted to join your team in the first place.”

“You want to be on this team? Fuck, could’ve fooled me,” he grumbled.

The dark skinned woman grinned, flashing her flawless teeth at him. “I know myself. Without someone like you kicking my poor, frozen backside, I wouldn’t last, and neither would my Arthur.”

“We aren’t married yet, Chol. I don’t know if you need to say my Arthur.”

“You said yet. That is enough.”

The mage ran a hand through his curly, dark hair as he gazed at his… apparently fiance.

“Are all people in the Southern Province so forward?” he wondered. “Or is it just you?”

“A bit of both,” she said.

“Would you two stop flirting and focus on the damn job?” Trenan spat. The more the others dicked around, the more he felt like a claw was sliding around his throat. “We’ve got another two kilometres to cover before we reach the rift. As the only team on the mountain today, we need to watch our fucking backsides. Clear what we can, observe the rest, don’t die. Got it?”

Brigette snapped out a brisk salute.

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“Got it!” she barked.

No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible for that woman to look serious.

“Go fuck yourself, Brigette. Let’s move.”

Trenan took the point position, his shield up and eyes darting as he surveyed the slope ahead. He trusted his team would fall into formation behind him, they usually did. Too many slayers said they’d smarten up and take things more seriously once they reached silver. Those were probably the ones who didn’t survive that long.

Twice more, they encountered rift-kin on the approach, and with a combination of Brigette’s heavy hitting, Trenan’s defensive work, Chol’s nature magick and Arthur's battle-mage skills, they made quick work of the kin. The rift at Cragwhistle was only recently formed, not allowing many monsters through, and generally only small ones at that. Some of the teams had encountered bigger monsters, giant hairy beasts with tusks, apparently, but only close to the sight of the rift itself. A perfect training ground for a new team like the Hooligans.

“Five hundred metres,” he called over his shoulder, trying to maintain his focus at its peak. If the team was going to find something they couldn’t handle, it would be here.

He risked a glance back over his shoulder and was pleased to see the three fucksticks were focused for once, their expressions firm and eyes wary. It was a sight he so rarely got to see that he almost did a double take before he caught himself. If the team was doing their job properly, then he would have to be twice as dedicated. He refused to have them show him up.

However, the rift was curiously inactive. As they drew closer, the lack of kin activity became increasingly unusual. Where were the packs of ice boars, or frost ghouls? Generally, there was always a decent number of them, either milling around the rift or forming into groups to charge down the mountain.

Concerned, he signalled to the team to be on high alert. The lack of monster activity only heightened his caution and he didn’t want the others to loosen up.

When he finally saw something, it was almost a relief, then he realised what he was looking at.

Was that… undead?

Sure enough, from behind a rock marched a skeleton, eyes glowing with a dark purple light, bare teeth grinning in the dim light. For a long moment, he froze in place, unsure how to react, then the creature snapped its head around toward him, regarding the slayer with eerie silence.

“Uhhh, Trenan. Has anyone mentioned undead coming through the rift?” Brigette asked from behind him, her voice unusually hushed.

“N-no,” he said. “Something is very wrong here.”

If it was only a single skeleton…

Before he could even finish framing the thought, another appeared, then another, then another. In a few seconds, the number of undead had leapt to over a dozen as they streamed down the mountain, moving lightly over the terrain towards them.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Trenan bellowed as he turned to run.

The others were already moving, but before they got more than a few steps, darkness overtook them, a billowing fog that blocked sight and burned their skin. Trenan didn’t allow it to slow him down, he stumbled, tripped, fell, but continued to move as quickly as he could.

He heard the skeleton coming, its bones clacking against the rock as it raced up behind him. When he was certain he wouldn’t be able to outpace it, the Hammerman firmed his grip, braced his shield and turned, trying to sense his opponent through the fog.

“Arthur? Chol? Light!” he snapped.

His footing was sure, his posture correct, as good a place to fight as any.

“I can’t find Arthur!” Chol called back, panic in her voice.

“Try to focus and give us some light, dammit!” Trenan barked back.

A second later, a dull glow sputtered into existence, suppressed by the dark cloud. From the gloom, a skeleton rushed forward and he barely raised his shield in time before the sword of bone struck down. The blow held surprising power, but the Hammerman was skilled with his shield, and much stronger. He slanted the face, allowing the sword to slide off it, and prepared to swing his hammer before the undead could recover, but another one was already there. Another wide swing, caught on the shield, then another, keeping him on the defensive.

“Brigette? Where the hell are you?!”

He hadn’t heard from the swordswoman and that worried him. She was usually the loudest in a fight, whooping and hollering as she swung her weapon with deadly grace.

“She’s indisposed,” came an unexpected reply. A human’s voice, a man. Who?

In a blink, the burning fog rushed to the ground and began to dissipate, leaving Trenan blinking and uncertain. He brandished his shield and hammer as he tried to take in the situation, eyes darting wildly.

He was surrounded. There were dozens and dozens of skeletons now, with more coming down the mountain. There must have been hundreds of them.

There was also a man. Young, not much older than Trenan and his team, light build, dark hair and burning eyes. There were at least ten skeletons between the two of them. Should he try it?

“I wouldn’t bother,” that voice was so cold. “You wouldn’t reach me. Besides, it would be a shame to break up such a new team.”

Brigette and Arthur, both motionless, eyes staring, were carried forward by a group of skeletons each before being stood on either side of this strange mage.

“What have you done to them?” Trenan growled, trying to suppress his rising fear.

“Temporarily dominated their minds,” came the matter of fact reply. Those eyes still stared at Trenan, as if trying to bore a hole through him. “Now put down your weapons. You and the mage.”

Chol allowed her staff to drop from her hands, her gaze locked onto Arthur. Trenan was reluctant, but lowered himself to place his shield and hammer nearby on the ground. He rose, his hands in the air.

“What you’re doing is illegal,” he tried to keep his voice steady, and almost succeeded. “You cannot interfere with slayers in the performance of their duty.”

The man gave him an incredulous look and Trenan realised how ridiculous he sounded. This mage was clearly beyond caring what was legal and illegal, pointing it out was useless.

“I will tell you what is going to happen. I will take the weapons from the four of you, then we will travel to Cragwhistle together. You will be held outside of the town while I contact a few people inside, then I will release you to them. Understood?”

Trenan was shocked.

“You’re going to let us go?” he said.

Chol looked hopeful, latching onto the chance she might get her partner back.

“Of course. There’s a rebellion on, after all. Young slayers like yourselves might just prove yourselves to be useful. Now let’s go.”