“I thought it was going to be a few hours for the first convoy,” Myrrir grumbled. “Not three days.”

He leaned back on the wall of the wagon behind him. It rocked back and forth gently, and the barrels inside it wobbled and clattered. The roads out here weren’t flat at the best of times, but right now, they were winding along a hilly pass in the foothills. Roots stuck up from the ground, not to mention all the rocks and boulders in the shadow of the mountains.

It was midday and overcast, as every day had been since he’d arrived, but today, a fog had settled across the trail. He could barely see the five wagons ahead and the five wagons behind.

“It’s a wagon convoy, not a Streamrunner,” Tye said. “Have patience.” He sat beside the middle wagon’s coachman, a bluecoat, and had been conversing casually with the man.

Myrrir crossed his arms across his chest. “I’ve got plenty of patience.”

With a chuckle, Tye turned forwards. He said nothing more.

“If the rebels were going to attack,” Myrrir continued, running his hand down the pommel of his sword, “now would be the perfect time.”

The trees clung tight to the edge of the trail, and their branches hung overtop the trail, forming a net above them. It was a tunnel with no way out, not even up.

He tilted his head back and rested it on the outer edge of the wagon cart. Nothing to do but wait. If there was anything that could pose a threat to him coming, he’d feel a tingle in the back of his neck.

“Maybe your presence did scare them off, merc,” the bluecoat said, in the same tone they all spoke with. He must have been a pretty fresh one, though, because his voice hadn’t gotten gravelly and scratchy yet.

“Maybe,” Myrrir muttered. “Doubt it.”

He didn’t know much about the Moro-ka warriors, but they didn’t seem like the type to accept defeat, even if they knew they couldn’t win.

A few minutes passed before Myrrir noticed anything. It started as a few distant murmurs—voices he couldn’t make out—and ended with a warble. Normally, that wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary. The bluecoats talked to each other enough. But these voices came from off the trail.

Big surprise there. An attack was coming.

With an exasperated huff, Myrrir stood up. “They’re here.” He drew his sword from its sheath and pointed it out at the forest.

“You…hear something?” the bluecoat coachman asked.

“I hear lots of things,” Myrrir replied matter-of-factly. “But yes. There are men out there, approaching from the west. They’ll be on us in five minutes, or so.” He reminded himself that the bluecoats didn’t have his enhanced natural senses, let alone spiritual sense. “Stop the convoy and get yourselves ready.”

The bluecoat pulled back on the reins of the horses and yelled, “All stop! Make ready! They’re coming!”

The wagons all creaked to a halt. A faint breeze blew along the path, whisking a few wisps of fog away, and Myrrir picked out a bluecoat captain running towards them from the front of the line. He had golden epaulets and a bicorn hat instead of a tricorn.

The captains, as he understood it, were those who had excelled in their basic post-creation training, and who were deemed skilled enough to lead small groups on unimportant missions.

They were still expendable, of course. Myrrir and Tye were the only non-bluecoats on this mission.

The captain stopped in front of Myrrir and Tye’s wagon. “What is it?” he demanded.

“The mercs hear something, captain,” the coachman stated. “Men in the woods. It has to be the rebels.”

“Which direction?”

“West,” Myrrir provided.

The captain’s face was unreadable; he wore a mask like the rest of them. But after a few seconds, he dipped his head, then shouted, “Everyone off! I want a battle line two men deep and as wide as we can get it! Now!”

The bluecoats all leapt off the wagons. There were maybe thirty of them in total (Myrrir hadn’t bothered to count) and they formed a line at the edge of the path, just as their captain demanded. The first row knelt and the second remained standing. All of the bluecoats’ hands were trembling.

The captain ran behind them on foot, nudging some of them into position and pushing others back a little.

Then a horn sounded from deep within the woods. It was woody and high-pitched, and it echoed off the trees for a few seconds, so it couldn’t have been close yet. But now, Myrrir picked out the rhythmic clomping of horse hooves.

“They’re mounted,” he said, jumping off the back of the wagon. “At least, some of them.”

A few of the bluecoats looked back at him and cocked their heads skeptically.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“He has very strong senses,” Tye added. “You should listen to him.”

A few of the bluecoats murmured between themselves, but Myrrir caught them. They were asking “Who is he?” mostly, but a few of them were worried whether he would protect them.

This time, Myrrir let out a sigh of acceptance. “Time to do what I was paid—”

Tye gripped his shoulder. “Be careful. The Moro-ka are not to be taken lightly, and they might have God-heirs.”

Myrrir raised his eyebrows. “How?”

“A God comes to inspect a distant planet, or perhaps for a vacation, and has an affair—has children. A story as old as stories themselves. A God-heir could be veiling themselves.”

Myrrir nodded if only to reassure the old man, then stepped forward, slipping through the ranks of bluecoats. Once he was in front of them, he whirled his sword up to a ready position—the blade’s tip hovered just above his outstretched, non-sword hand. For good measure, he flicked the cap off his powder flask.

“Load!” the captain yelled.

All of the bluecoats lifted their muskets off their shoulders, then pulled paper cartridges out of their haversacks and began the loading process. Their muskets clattered, their ram-rods clanked, and their frizzens snapped, and Myrrir couldn’t hear anything else for a few short seconds.

“Fix bayonets!” the captain shouted.

Another clatter. They all attached short bayonet blades to the tips of their muskets.

“Present arms!”

The bluecoats pointed their muskets out to the woods. Those directly behind Myrrir were kind enough to shift the barrels of the musket slightly to the side.

“Wait until you can see them!” Myrrir yelled. “The trees are thick, and if you wait too long, half your shots will go off into the woods instead of at the riders!” Whether they listened to him was up to them, but he hoped they’d defer.

He turned around and looked at Tye one last time. He told the man, “Keep your head down and stay out of sight. Don’t get yourself killed on my account.”

Tye nodded dutifully, then dipped out of sight behind the barrels in the wagon.

The forest ahead shook and shuddered, and the ground vibrated. The hoofbeats were loud enough that a mortal man could hear them.

Shadows broke through the fog. Mounted riders navigated between the trees, their horse’s hooves kicking up clouds of dirt. They shouted guttural noises, like a throat-singer but loader, and they lowered spears.

“Fire!” the bluecoat captain yelled.

All at once, the bluecoats let off their barrage. A single cloud of smoke erupted from all the muskets, and a trill of booms rattled through the forest. Musket balls whizzed off into the distance, shredding trees and kicking up puffs of mud.

And occasionally hitting something.

The front lines of horses reared up, whinnying and crying. They tossed their riders off and collapsed. A few of the riders even took hits. They flew off the backs of their horses and tumbled to the ground.

The rest of the riders kept charging. Myrrir squinted, testing his eyes against the fog. The riders wore scale lamellar armour, dull and brown in the fog. Their helmets all had horsetails, and most of them wore a fur cloak of some sort, which streamed behind them as they charged.

Myrrir dropped his left hand to his powder flask and accumulated a host of beads beneath his hand. Once he had enough, he flung his hand outwards, shooting out three tendrils of gunpowder at the three closest riders. He Moulded the tips of the tendrils into spears and drove it through the horses’ heads before also impaling the riders. The three collapsed, and he called his gunpowder back to him.

The rest of the riders converged. Myrrir slipped between a pair, hacking off a horse’s leg before smashing through the rider with his blade. He mustered a Bracing technique over the majority of his body, enhancing his strength further. With each hit, he killed a rebel horseman. A few of them carried muskets, but he held up his hand and extended tendrils of Arcara—the weapons all backfired on their wielders.

Once the first wave had been annihilated, he dragged himself back to the line of bluecoats. His channels ached, and his core was unstable, like a spinning top about to flop over. The bluecoats all stared at him. He looked away.

A few horses had made it past his rampage and charged into the bluecoats, though, and the line had thinned. The remaining bluecoats all reloaded their muskets, ready to fire another volley. The moment they finished, Myrrir noticed a buzz in the back of his neck.

It wasn’t faint. Someone had just ripped a veil off. He shut his eyes and extended what little spiritual awareness he had. It was a Captain, just like him. He couldn’t pinpoint where.

His eyes widened. “Hold the line,” he commanded the bluecoats. “Do not stand, do not turn. Their horses won’t purposely impale themselves.”

The second wave was much larger. Myrrir attacked, but this time, he kept his tendrils of gunpowder closer to himself—when the God-heir challenged him, he’d need it to stay alive. Bluecoats shouted and screamed behind him, and he didn’t dare look back to see what had happened to their formation.

Still, he whirled from horseman to horseman, cutting down riders and destroying their mounts. He waited for the God-heir patiently. The longer it was, the deeper the sinking feeling grew and the more oppressive the tingle in the back of his neck became.

Then, behind him, his senses flared up in warning. He whirled about, holding his sword straight ahead, and reaching out with tendrils of gunpowder. A single man approached on foot, clad in the exact same armour as his companions.

Except he held a Jai, just like Myrrir.

The blade was chiseled ruby, and three brass hung out the back of the blade. Its hilt was shaped the exact same.

The Moro-ka unleashed a wave of blue light. A sphere crackled out around him, annihilating the strands of gunpowder. Bolts of lightning seared through the black beads, annihilating them in a single burst.

A lightning Path.

Myrrir raised his sword, ready to meet the Moro-ka head on. The man batted Myrrir’s sword down into the ground and struck him in the chest with an open palm, and before Myrrir could finish another Arcara cycle, he was on his back. The God-heir slashed across his stomach, then drove the tip of his sword into Myrrir’s shoulder. Myrrir shouted, then swung himself to the side to dodge a killing blow.

The God-heir loomed over him, lightning crackling along his arms and around the blade of his sword.

Myrrir tried to muster another bracing technique—anything to get him out of this mess—but his spirit failed him. His channels were too charred. His core collapsed in on itself, sending bolts of pain throughout his entire body, and his Arcara channels thinned.

This was it, then. He shut his eyes. Father would be so disappointed.

But the God-heir only sneered, “Broken. Pathetic. I was expecting something more.”

There was a faint, blunt pain on the back of his head, and he collapsed. Everything went dark.