It was a race, but it wasn’t a sprint. In hindsight Ratface should have worked that out by how careful they were with the horse’s doping.

The first day was the most hectic. The quick monsters had been thrown at them in swarms of whatever could reach them first. It had slowed them down, but not been particularly effective otherwise. Ratface wondered if their nameless pursuer had been panicking when they sent them.

The first night was when they started to get more cunning. No matter how many potions they pumped into the horse it still needed a few hours rest. The rest of them took the same opportunity.

“Two hours,” Abigail said. She was rubbing the horse down and checking on its joints. Ratface didn’t know anything about horses and only a little about health potions. She imagined even with the extra food it had been giving the potion must be wearing on its insides. The horse looked tired. It must have been exhausted if Ratface for Ratface to notice.

Ratface sympathised. She wasn’t used to fighting all day and she felt dead on her feet. She found herself grateful for all the running training Abigail had got her to do or she might not have made it to the night. She collapsed next to the wagon and curled up to sleep.

She was out quickly, and it was only an inbuilt paranoia that woke her up in time. A faint hissing noise was coming from ahead of her. A snake raised to strike the horse. Ratface dived forward and yanked it back by the tail, its mouth clicked shut just before the horses ankle. She kept pulling it back and the thing turned towards her. It snapped at her, but she dived out of the way. Somehow, she’d still kept hold of the things tail and she spun around until it wasn’t able to turn towards her. After a moment she threw the thing into the forest.

A few of their group looked up at the commotion. Their faces were groggy after just being woken up. Abigail had been the only one awake. The snake had snuck up in her blind spot. She watched it fly into the forest with concern.

Ratface wasn’t surprised the woman had missed the thing. It had blended into the grass, and it was only luck that had let Ratface notice it. She wasn’t even sure it was a monster. It looked like it was just a normal snake.

A normal snake would be enough though. A thought that Abigail seemed to share as she got them moving again. It was much slower so the horse could at least get some rest, but it was some time before they stopped again for a quick nap. Abigail got them all to sleep around the horse this time. She still stayed up and kept watch.

They picked up the pace once the sun came out again. The two magic users were bundled up for a nap which left the rest of the jogging next to the wagon. Ratface wished she could be having a nap too, but she understood the logic. A mage needed their rest to be able to deal with the mental strain of casting and they were a lot more useful against the swarms than she was.

The extra rest was made up for later. A pack of those deer things was charging the wagon, and it was all Abigail could do to keep them away. They moved like they were a cavalry instead of monsters. Abigail bloodies them each time that got close, but they darted away before she could do serious damage. The deer were slowing them down and Ratface knew Abigail couldn’t retaliate without risking the wagon.

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Ratface jumped onto the wagon and shook Tiffany awake. The girl looked at her in a moment of confusion before snapping up and looking around.

“You should’ve woken Isabelle up. I can’t kill these things,” Tiffany said. Ratface shook her head and pointed to their legs. She was taking a leaf out of the snake’s book from last night.

“Grab their ankles, you don’t have to get all of them.”

The other girl nodded and then focused on the deer. Her staff began to glow green as she got ready to cast.

The deer charged and Tiffany let her spell out. There weren’t any vines in the area, so roots shot out of the ground and wrapped around the deer’s legs.

There was a series of horrible snapping noises as the creatures tried to run forward and found they couldn’t. Most of them collapsed to the ground in pain as their leg gave out. one managed to dodged it all. That one completed its charge only to find Abigail waiting for it. She slammed into the creature before it could get too close. The deer had one moment to look back at the rest of its herd before it was cut down.

Albert went to finish off the rest of the deer, but Ratface stopped him.

“Keep going,” she told him. The deer were either out of the picture or whatever was following them had to stop to heal them. No matter what option it was, they gained time that finishing the job would only lose them.

They kept going and Tiffany settled back to go to sleep.

Tiffany was a powerful caster, but she wasn’t used to fighting yet and needed direction to be effective. Isabelle in comparison didn’t need anyone’s help to use her magic. When the woman was awake their travel was noticeably easier, and they would go long stretches without running into anything.

The reason was simple, Isabelle was an illusionist.

Ratface had thought illusions were a useless sort of magic. Great for when you were in a town, sure, but not great in a combat situation.

Isabelle spent the rest of the afternoon correcting her of that assumption.

At first, she just kept the creatures away from them. They would follow the false wagon’s she sent off or close their ambush on a fake one of their party that Isabelle had sent running too far ahead.

It was when they were finally forced into combat that Ratface was faced with the fact that Isabelle might be more dangerous than Abigail.

Ratface knew sight was important to a fight, there was a reason why goblins liked to attack at night. Still, she had never been in a fight and had no access to magic. Her approach to using sight in a fight was pretty much deny as much of it from the enemy as you could. She hadn’t stopped to consider what it would be like to manipulate it like Isabelle could.

Some of it was stuff that Ratface could understand, a deer would charge her then suddenly dart away as a wolf charged at it. There’d be multiple images of them for the monsters to attack and leave themselves open as a result.

It was the subtle illusions that really impressed Ratface. So small and yet so deadly.

Abigail's sword appearing just a bit shorter was the end for one monster as it darted just out of what it thought the swords reach was only to be cut down. She watched one deer crash into the ground as the flat grass ahead of it it revealed itself to be filled an illusion over a path filled with roots and holes.

An illusion layered over Ratface struck high while the actual Ratface attacked low. It looked so natural that if Ratface hadn’t been the one attacking she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

Thousands of little things that caused the monsters to make a little mistake and a little mistake was all it took.

Ratface watched the work in awe. Not only did it help them, but not once did Isabelle make an illusion that hampered their own movements. The woman was in complete control of the battlefield in a way that spoke of an underlying knowledge of not only illusions, but countless other topics that let her use the illusions to their deadly potential. Ratface had never wished for magic so strongly as she did in that moment.

Another day passed and they kept making progress. The monsters were cunning, but the sheer competence of their group meant they were pulling ahead. Ratface began to think they were going to make it. A thought the world immediately punished her for.

They survived the next swarm. The horse and wagon didn’t.