Having loud, buzzing, biting things fly at your face is terrifying already. Having them be the size of people and capable of wielding swords just felt unfair.

“Cat, into the shadows.” I spoke urgently, and swept into action without hesitation. I felt the dhampir’s presence slip away behind me, along with a surge of gratitude she’d understood.

Once again, the haft of uncarved wood in my hand crackled as it changed. The weapon hadn’t been the same ever since I’d used its Art to bind Jon Orley months before. It had become more awake since, more alive, and I could alter its length in subtle or dramatic ways at an unspoken command.

Not for free, though. Small barbs of wood punctured my palm, eagerly drinking my blood. I clenched my jaw against the pain and took the weapon in both hands. In moments it became closer to a the length of a polaxe. I swung it in a wide arc, bringing my arms up and around my head. The crescent-moon blade whistled through the air, an eerily musical note, trailing aureflame in its wake.

I killed three irks on that first swing, just before their serrated mandibles and wicked-sharp blades would have cut me to ribbons. Their bodies collapsed in heaps to the ground, smoldering with angry amber fire. The rest darted back, emitting an angry chorus of chittering cries.

I twirled the halberd, letting the irks see my speed before they got any brave ideas. “You approach,” I said, a flicker of aureflame escaping my lips, “you die.”

They responded by producing short, evil looking little bows.

Shit.

Moving on instinct, I dashed forward. If I stood still and held my ground they’d pepper me with arrows until I was a twitching heap on the ground. I went on the attack instead, lunging forward.

My magic can be very powerful if I manage to bring it to bear, but nearly all of my abilities require an amount of gravitas. It’s part of the role the Table had been meant to fill. I can crack castle gates with a smite, sweep through enemies like wheat, imbue my attacks with golden flame or send a charging behemoth flying back with a mighty slap of will. However, all of these require at least a few seconds of preparation as I reshape my aura and display my intent. There is no deception in Alder magic.

Rarely will an enemy not see what I’m doing before I do it, granting them a chance to stop it.

In situations like this, where speed and reflex matter, I’m left with my own martial skills. Good thing, then, that those have always been keen. I was the First Sword of Harotes before I was ever an Alder Knight, and I was Rosanna’s Headsman before I was Seydis’s.

I went forward like a scarlet wind, my enchanted cloak rippling liquid so I became a red wraith in the night. A shower of arrows flew from the trees as the irks fired a volley. One broke off my hauberk, another scraped my neck, and I cut two out of the air with a swing of Faen Orgis. The rest missed, doing little more than ripping through the whirling folds of my cloak..

I drove my weapon forward as I came into the midst of them. A long bur of wood had formed a sharp point above Faen Orgis’s blade when it had taken its longer form, very much like the spear-tip of a true halberd. I rammed it into the body of one of the irks, and got a good glimpse of the creature beneath the ragged garments.

It had a chitinous gray-green body vaguely like a human’s, though thin and segmented, with four arms and two back-bent legs. It was covered in small, hard points, some kind of armored shell, and gave off a sickly-sweet musk. The blood that gushed over my weapon was viscous and green.

I lifted the struggling irk up, then hurled it to one side. It slammed into one of its comrades mid-flight, sending them both crashing to the ground. I felt a sharp punch in my back. Turning in a vicious swing, I split one of the wild faeries in two.

There were more. They filled the woods, buzzing and clacking, hissing angry words in their own tongue. They’d overwhelm me with numbers before I could cut them all down, or pepper me with arrows from the trees. Two shot at me from the boughs above. I caught a dart on my vambrace, letting it skid off in a scatter of sparks.

With a furious shout, I lifted Faen Orgis high into the air. I gathered power, the blinding light blooming on my weapon's blade making all the wyldefae flinch. Then, spinning the axe into a lower stance, I swung into the trunk of the tree like any lumberjack. A thin golden line ate its way up the trunk like a lightning bolt. An ominous groan filled the woods, and then the tree split near its base. It began to topple, forcing the irks in the branches to flit in every direction.

Sucking in a deep breath, I turned to face the rest. I nearly lost an eye as an irk with a barbed spear hurled itself at me, chittering in rage. I flinched out of the way, so it cut my ear instead, then grabbed the spear and yanked. I head-butted the faerie, crunching its chitinous skull. It collapsed in a limp heap. A moment later, a trickle of blood began to make its slow way down my forehead.

Inspecting my surroundings, I saw the carnage I’d already wrought. Even so, more of the eerie creatures gathered, undeterred by their losses. I bared my teeth at them, letting amber fire play along my weapon.

One lifted a bow to take aim at me, then stumbled forward. Green ichor flowed down its neck from a wound at the base of its skull. I saw the flash of a dark silver blade, and pale cheshire teeth in the night. Catrin stalked the shadows, a shark in bloody water.

I was not alone. That helped calm my racing heart, and I brandished my axe in challenge.

“The hemophage is still here,” a hissing voice said. “Kill her.”

I turned, and saw the largest of the irks step forward. It was the one in the pointed cowl, its cloak long enough to trail across the ground. It rose up, seeming to grow taller as it did, until it stood more than six feet high — much larger than any of the other diminutive eld. Its cloak slipped off its shoulders, revealing a chitinous hide grown into something very like thin, elegant armor. It had a horned head, with something halfway between a beak and a long, elegant nose jutting down over its thin mouth. It bared sharp teeth framed by two pinching mandibles at me.

Then it drew two blades, both carved from shining bone.

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I stood to my full height as well, meeting his challenge. “You’re assassins,” I said. “Who sent you?”

“You may inquire among the dead,” the irk warrior said. “When I send you to join them.”

Dragonfly wings erupted from the irk’s back, buzzing with thunderous noise. I tensed, expecting him to advance, but he just stood there.

Then the rest of his kin produced their own wings and began to emit that same thunderous cacophony. The frozen boughs of the trees vibrated with the sound, adding to the chorus. I grit my teeth, took a step forward, then, felt the world spin. I almost fell, barely managing to brace a leg beneath me.

The sound was tremendous. I couldn’t think, could barely see — my vision hazed, and I felt a warmth begin to speed down both sides of my neck. My ears were bleeding.

Magic? Or just sheer sound? I couldn’t focus my senses to locate any trace of hostile will in the thunderous assault. Since these were a kind of elf, though, I felt safe assuming as much. Letting out a growl of anger and defiance, I took a step toward the irk leader. Then another, and a third.

On the fourth step I faltered. It was too much. The noise, the pressure in the air, the strange liquid feeling in my skull. My legs felt like water.

Then, abruptly, the sound lessened. I blinked, glancing to one side. One of the irks had collapsed in a heap, its own wings no longer part of the chorus. A moment later, another dropped.

Cat drifted through the shadows, killing. She had my back.

I could win this. I focused again on the irk leader and rose as the potency of the droning attack abated, gripping my axe.

He clacked his mandibles once, glaring at me with glassy green eyes, then launched himself at me without warning. I reacted barely in time to avoid dying in that first exchange. He moved with incredible speed, almost fulgurous, spinning into a barrage of attacks.

I deflected the first lunge, dodged the second round, then had a third sweep scrape along my chest. My armor saved me from having my ribs flayed open, but the grinding impact knocked me back.

It had all happened in mere seconds.

I swung out with my own weapon, but the irk leader jumped back out of range. He used his wings to lifted him up, so he seemed to glide away from me as much as leap. Then, still in midair, a second pair of segmented arms extended out from within his cloak. They held a recurve bow and a fletched arrow, both carved from thorny black wood.

I hate fighting faeries. They never play fair.

He shot at me three times in a single flurry of movement. I reacted on pure reflex, sweeping my halberd in a horizontal arc directly in front of me. An amber flame rippled through the night, tracing that cut and sweeping outward in a briefly lived fan.

I cut all three barbed arrows out of the air. The aureflame I unleashed with my swing — most of the power I’d been gathering throughout the skirmish — continued onward, crawling over the ground in a rippling golden wave. I’d used this same technique in my fight against Oradyn Irn Bale, to little effect.

The irk assassin was not Irn Bale. Too slow to react to my retaliation, he landed on the ground a distance away, then tried to leap again as he saw the advancing wave.

Too slow. The amber fire engulfed him, igniting him instantly. With a wheezing, croaking scream, he collapsed in a smoldering heap.

I let out a frosting breath tinted very lightly with aura, then turned to the rest. I was sweating despite the cold, and short on breath, but I still had plenty of strength left. “I didn’t want this fight,” I told them.

I felt their hate beating through the woods like heat off stone, and knew they wouldn’t flee. I prepared to meet them.

Just before they leapt to swarm me again, a shadow rose in the night. I saw it before they did. Part of me almost irrationally called out a warning.

A heavy cleaver of a blade drove through one of the irks from behind. The creature struggled with all six limbs, its wings buzzing, its mandibles clicking furiously. A disturbingly human cry emerged from its half-hidden mouth.

Karog growled, then slammed the faerie back down. He planted a leathery boot on its skull, crushing it flat in a spray of gore, then ripped his blade free. His red-rimmed eyes lifted to the rest.

A prolonged moment of silence hung in the moonlight. A single pair of mandibles clacked once.

Then they began to flee.

Figures. He'd only gotten one of them.

Still, I didn’t take my eyes off Karog as he rose to his full and ominous height to face me. He waited until the buzzing sound of retreating irks had faded into the night, then his lips peeled back from his predator’s teeth in a ripping snarl.

“I,” he growled, “am going to kill you.”

But before he charged me, his eyes suddenly went out of focus. He tilted his head to one side, then shot out his free right hand. His hand sunk into the deep shadows between two trees, as though they were made of water. When he pulled it back out again, he held Cat in his grip. She struggled, kicking her bare feet, her face twisted with rage. His hand was big enough to grasp her entire chest like a doll.

The dhampir managed to get one arm free and lift it. Her dagger gleamed in the moonlight. Karog huffed, then squeezed. Cat let out an anguished cry, and her hand went limp. The dagger fell to the grass.

“Let her go!” I shouted, stepping forward.

“Step forward,” Karog said in a calm voice, “and I will break her.”

I did stop, knowing he’d follow through on his threat. He pressed one enormous thumb to Cat’s chin, turning her neck at a painful angle. One motion, and he could snap her neck, or crush her ribs. He’d be strong enough to, I had no doubt.

I held up a hand. “I won’t get any closer. Just let her go.”

Karog snorted. “So she can entrance me again? So you can use your elven sorcery? I think not.”

I glared at him, my jaw going tight. “Then what do you suggest?”

The ogre didn’t reply at once. His red-and-yellow eyes drifted across the forest, taking in the burnt, dismembered corpses of the dead irks.

Finally, returning his attention to me Karog said, “You were not sent to assassinate me?”

I frowned at him. “No.”

He bared his yellow teeth again. “But you did try to capture me. Who sent you? Was it Lillian? Ilbog?”

“No one sent us,” I said. “After you ambushed me in the inn, I wasn’t going to let you slip away. I had questions.” I pointed my axe at him, letting all the anger I’d let simmer since Caelfall slip out in my voice. “You and your friends slaughtered over a hundred innocents for your mad schemes. You will pay for it, after you tell me where the others are.”

Karog let loose a wolf’s snarl. “I will tell you nothing.”

Cat struggled in his grasp again, trying to say something. He squeezed again, and she let out a hiss of pain. I swear, I heard her ribs creak.

“If you hurt her,” I told him, “I will unmake you.”

I wanted to try Commanding him, but if he shook the compulsion off he’d end up killing Cat right there. I felt too unsteady to muster the focus I needed, in any case.

“Do you love her?” Karog asked me, no trace of emotion in his voice. “Or has she simply taken your wits?” He lifted Cat to his face and sniffed. “Strange. I do not smell you on her, paladin. If you want something, you should claim it. Otherwise, it might be taken from you. Like so.”

He brought up his brutish sword, and I realized he was about to ram it into her stomach.

“Wait!”

I hadn’t realized, until that moment, how scared I actually was of losing what little I still had left. I didn’t know if I loved Cat — didn’t know if I’d ever be able to love like that again — but she’d placed her life in my hands more than once. She had honor, in her way.

That mattered. I would defend that.

At the tearing sound of my voice, Karog paused. He turned his glower back on me. “Tell me who sent you,” he repeated.

“No one sent me!” I bared my teeth, mimicking his own expression. “We wanted revenge, alright? Revenge for Caelfall. I’m not here under orders from the Choir, the Accord, the elves, anyone.” I took a deep breath. “I’m here for myself.”

He studied me a long moment. All the while, my heart pounded in my chest. Cat’s struggles had grown weaker.

“I believe you,” Karog finally said. “Then I must disappoint you, paladin. I do not know where the others are.” He lifted his chin, hate and resentment boiling out of his every word. “My alliance with the Council of Cael was terminated. These assassins…” He gestured with his blade to the dead irks, “Belonged to them.”