Where had the arrow that killed Melin come from? She needed to get away from here. She pulled herself to her feet using a tree and stumbled back toward the battle. Magic was like a drug. She could already feel a light pang of withdrawal creeping through her veins.

Something cracked to her left. Senara flung herself against a tree, fighting to slow her breathing. An enemy. No question about that. Was it the archer? There wasn’t much to hide behind this time of year, the trees mostly bare, the bushes dead. Hopefully it was the one who had taken Melin down and there weren’t more lurking in the shadows.

Senara moved slowly around the tree, checking the ground each step before putting her foot down, avoiding patches of snow where she would leave prints and anything that would make a noise. She gripped her side tightly. Whatever injuries the sergeant had inflicted last night were being exacerbated by all the intensity of today, especially now when she was cut off from her magic. Hopefully she hadn’t broken a rib. Or anything worse.

She needed to get back to the site of the skirmish. Had to find the others, to be assigned a new handler. The fighting had to be over by now. And the Orcus had to have won, even so outnumbered. They always did. She stumbled a little, then eased herself down into a knot of roots. Rest. Only for a moment.

Something cracked, sending her heart nearly through her injured chest, the extra beats pulsing down to her injured side. No animal would be caught this close to so much death unless it was a predator of some type. Unlikely, but that meant it was another type of predator. What had the swordsman meant when he said they were to try to take some of them alive? No Orcus would ever allow themselves to be taken captive.

There. A flash of light off metal. Cursed bracelet was going to get her killed. Senara didn’t even have a throwing knife, let alone a bow. One on one combat with a skilled opponent could be difficult under normal circumstances even when she was in full health. One on one combat right now would be a death sentence.

Creeping around the tree, she tried to get a better look at her stalker. Obviously he didn’t know where she’d gone, or he would have come at her by now. The fact that she was wanted alive was slightly reassuring. He hadn’t put her down beside Melin when he would have had no trouble doing so. The reason they wanted her alive… unknown, so not something to think about at the moment.

Nothing was in her path. That was in view, anyway. She moved forward, slipping from one tree to the next, pausing often to listen.

Finally, she reached the point where she had followed Melin into the woods such a short time ago. She stooped down, making herself as small as possible as she skirted the edge of the treeline, squinting against the white of the snow.

Nothing moved.

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Senara sprinted as best she could to a boulder along the road. No sound from the other side. She peeked around the edge. There was Wanha, dead on the ground. She bit her lip to keep from cursing out loud. Wanha? Dead? The woman had seemed indestructible until this moment. In all the battles they’d fought together, she’d never seen her even in great danger before today. How had this happened?

Something moved further up the road and she darted back behind the rock. Soldiers, going through the dead bodies. Was Turner among them?

There was one man on a horse. She hadn’t gotten a look at him before she’d hidden. No matter. He was moving in the other direction. A tiny thrill of excitement went through her, the first in years that wasn’t caused by a fight of some kind. Her handler was dead. The rest of her Corp were dead. This was it. Her chance to leave all of it behind her. Senara held up her hand, the slight bulge on her upper arm only visible because she knew what was there. To leave would be to give up magic, forever. Unless there was a way to remove this blighted bracelet. No Orcus had ever been able to do it before. It was only a matter of days before the last escapee had come crawling back, needing the flow of magic. No matter. It would not be the same for her. She would control the urges or she would die trying.

She backed away from the giant stone toward the trees. Most of the way there, a shout rang out from the woods, and an arrow fell directly in front of her, sending her sliding to a stop. The archer! She looked down the road. Soldiers were leaving their search of the corpses and running her way.

Back to the woods? No, there was no way of knowing how many men her archer friend had with him. She sprinted down the road in the direction they had traveled from this morning, back toward Arnath. Though she was injured, she still had the advantage over the men all covered in the heavy armor meant to withstand a fight with an Orcus.

A bend in the road and then she was running back through a small pass. Rock face on one side, a sheer fall on the other. Only a few steps in, the sound of hooves ricocheted off of the rock. No, no, no! He was supposed to have gone the other way!

She ran harder, pushing herself far beyond what she would have thought herself capable of. It wasn’t enough. The rider was on her in a moment. He kicked out a leg, knocking her from her feet without leaving the saddle. She didn’t have time to catch herself as she fell, slamming her face into the frozen ground. He brought his giant grey horse around. It snorted, sending a puff of steam into the cold air, obviously enjoying the chase.

The man dropped to the ground and came to stand over her. Senara waited, hunched over her sword, facedown. Perhaps he would think her unconscious. She held her breath, counting his footsteps. Two more and he would be close enough. One. She swung her sword out from where she’d been hiding it, attempting to strike his legs. He leapt over it and kicked it out of her hand.

“Now, now, is that any way to treat your commanding officer?”

This was her first real look at his face. The sergeant who had beaten her the night before, now wearing the black and sky blue of the enemy. She closed her eyes and dropped her forehead to the ground for a moment. No wonder he had bashed her around the night before with no provocation.

“Traitor.” Senara looked up from the ground and spat in his direction.

“To your people, yes.” He smiled. “To mine I’ll be a hero. We’ll finally have one of the legendary Orcus to study, to wield. Even outnumbered fifty to one your people managed to nearly level the field before they were slaughtered. You were the only one we managed to take alive. I will see you bound to me, last of the Orcus.”