"LIST!" Valerie screamed her sister's name as she vanished, feeling a piece of her heart go over the cliff's edge with her.

Her internal pain became external, as the halberd wielding elite stabbed forward with his weapon, clipping her in the shoulder and seeing burning pain exploding all along her arm. She staggered back, loosing a desperate bolt that pinged off the elite's helmet, but rattled him enough to let her get away.

Alone, Arden traded blows with Agnizzar, each exchange producing flashes of red and gold light as the two unleashed their power on one another. Each time, Arden landed a strong hit. But Agnizzar's hits were stronger, and his elite's armor was proving sturdier than what Arden could summon. The priest was flagging. List and Kaleb were gone. Xigbar had disappeared.

Valerie reached inside herself, searching for the power she'd called on before. If ever there was a time that she needed it, it was now.

Nothing came. Nothing, and the elite with the halberd was recovering from the headshot. Desperate, Valerie unloaded a trio of bolts into him, firing as fast as she could. The first stuck in the elite's breastplate. The second was deflected with a spin of the halberd. The third missed.

She was still reloading when the elite got close enough to stab, and she scrambled to dodge just as she heard a loud hiss from the ground at her feet.

Instinct hardwired into her by generations of evolution snapped her focus downward, where she saw a blue and silver snake lash out with fangs bared. Encased as he was in solid armor, the elite was perfectly safe from the snake. But he was slave to the same hardwired instincts as Valerie, and at the sight of a venomous reptile trying to bite his ankles, he flinched.

Xigbar came in a blur, one knife slashing the elite's wrist, the other burying into the seam where the helmet met the neck. With a gurgle, the elite tried to fight back, but Xigbar was inside his guard, and easily ducked the clumsy attempt to bash his face with the shaft of the halberd. Another flash of steel, and Xigbar had poked another hole in the elite's neck.

Now the elite dropped his halberd, trying to keep pressure on his wounds. Xigbar flashed a fanged smile just before Valerie put a bolt in the back of his neck, and the elite dropped.

"You're welcome," Xigbar said.

"Arden!" Valerie had meant to sound authoritative, a battlefield commander issuing a snap order. It came out like a plea so desperate she must have torn her soul shouting it.

Xigbar's smile vanished. Valerie wasn't sure if he was going to listen to her, or protest, but she didn't get the chance to find out. A shattering sound drowned out everything else, accompanied by a brilliant flash of light, and they both watched as Arden's body tumbled through the air like a ragdoll, trailing blood as it flew.

The priest of Saint Hedwig landed in a crumpled heap, his hat fluttering to the ground next to him, his cane clattering flung into the dark of the woods. His white shirt was marred by a spread stain of bright red.

He didn't get back up.

Agnizzar hefted his massive axe onto his shoulder, its edge still wet with Arden's blood. His tail lashed fitfully behind him as his helmeted gaze zeroed in on Valerie and Xigbar.

"Blondie, we need to go," Xigbar said.

Valerie ignored him. She ignored everything except for the hulking, armored titan in front of her. In between the two of them, Arden lay motionless, bleeding to death. Kaleb and her sister, if they were still alive, were somewhere at the bottom of a cliff. If she left, they were all dead.

If she fought Agnizzar, she would die.

She reached inside herself for the black fire, and this time, she didn't take no for an answer. Drawing her awareness deep within herself, she tore the power out of her. It was only an exertion of will, and yet it rended her from the inside out. Instantly, she was filled with a cavernous longing, an empty chasm of need. Her mouth dried, and her knees wobbled.

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She felt impossibly, desperately thirsty in a way she thought might never be satisfied, and she nearly collapsed where she stood, but when she reloaded her wristbow, the bolt ignited with smoke black flames.

An arrow flew, striking Agnizzar dead in the chest before exploding in a massive cloud of thick, white smoke. The smoke crackled and fizzed as a swarm of smaller incendiaries inside it ignited in a storm of light and noise that swallowed the Axe of the Chosen whole.

That hadn't been Valerie's shot.

"Outsiders!" a thrumming dragonblood voice called out to them, and Valerie and Xigbar whirled to spot a tall, slender figure in a hood and mask leather mask. They wielded an old hunting bow, already knocking another arrow with an absurdly large head. "Grab your priest and run!"

The figure loosed the arrow, creating another cloud of pyrotechnics on top of the first. Agnizzar roared in frustration, and his silhouette surged forward, but he was still blinded.

Valerie grabbed Xigbar's arm hard enough to leave bruises and sprinted for Arden's still unmoving form. They each took an arm over their shoulders as their rescuer loosed a third arrow. It flew over their heads, striking the ground just as Agnizzar emerged from the previous smokescreen.

They ran.

"This way!" their rescuer shouted, leading them deeper into the forest. To the forest itself, they shouted, "Cover our tracks!"

A thickly accented voice Valerie thought she recognized called back from the trees. "Consider them covered!"

An explosion rocked the forest, close enough that Valerie could see the bloom of the fireball as trees toppled in the distance. Several more followed, each one going up in a spectacular inferno that felled trees and ignited brush. In minutes, the forest was ablaze.

And the outsiders were gone.

----------------------------------------

At Valerie's repeated pleading, they stopped as soon as they were clear of the path of the forest fire they'd started. They could still see the orange glow of it in the night, but Arden needed medical attention, and their rescuer seemed to know this, because they didn't protest the stop.

Valerie had some bandages on her person, but as she pulled back Arden's shirt to assess the damage, she felt wholly underprepared. A mean slash had been opened across his abdomen, and there was discoloration and swelling in several places all over his body.

Between the injuries and the deathly pallor to his skin, he looked like a corpse already. The only sign he wasn't was the iron grip he maintained on the brim of his hat, which he had limply grabbed as Valerie and Xigbar had hauled him away.

"Please, Dr. Siren," Valerie begged as she unrolled her bandages. "Stay awake. Stay with me."

Arden made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and his fingers twitched toward her. It was all he could manage. No praying himself better. This was on her.

"Xigbar, get a knife and cut off your sleeves. Mine too. I need more bandages," she ordered as she worked.

"Let me help."

Valerie's attention was finally taken off Arden as their rescuer knelt down next to her with more bandages, and a bottle of something Valerie dared to hope could be used to heal, or at least clean Arden's wounds. Valerie let out a shaky breath as a fraction of the weight she felt lifted off of her shoulders.

Together, Valerie and the stranger worked, staunching Arden's wounds and doing what they could to stem the bleeding. The bottle turned out to be a tonic that could clean Arden's wound, and help a bit with his pain if he drank it. It smelled a lot like strong alcohol, because that's what it was.

Valerie was immensely grateful.

It was only after Arden was bandaged, and the stranger recruited Xigbar into helping them find some materials they could use to make a stretcher, did it occur to Valerie that this person was a stranger, and maybe she should have hesitated before trusting them even partly with Arden's life.

Maybe List was right. Maybe she was too quick to trust.

But this stranger had intervened to save their lives, and beyond that, there was an ease to their interactions that made them feel safe, and Valerie found she was more than comfortable trusting them.

When the stranger and Xigbar came back, they had sticks they could combine with Valerie's coat to make a stretcher—and a third person.

Jose de Gazara de Kopesh had a grim smile on his face, along with a generous amount of soot, and he smelled like smoke. He walked with his hands in his pockets, and his overly long pipe in his teeth, but unlit.

"Well, that was a little close, but I think we can lose our friend before the fire clears. Assuming we are ready to move?"

"Jose?" Valerie asked.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Xigbar added.

"I did say that the resistance would be interested in meeting with you, did I not?" Jose asked. With a flourish, he presented their hooded rescuer to them. "New friends, may I re-introduce the Dragon of the Outlands herself."

Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Re-introduce?"

With a grunt, the stranger pulled off their hood and mask, revealing an all-too familiar pattern of scales and bright green eyes.

"Hey Valerie," Kiva Septis greeted. "Long time, no see."