The heat singed his hair and scorched his skin as a wall of blue flames filled his vision.

“Get back!” Shouted Saya as she used her telekinesis to push the flames away.

Thomas was there too, holding his hand out and deflecting the flames with his powers.

In a second the flames were gone, returning the forest to darkness. Parts of their wagon had been set alight, throwing up clouds of embers, billowing in the wind.

Glistening steel swung at them as their assailants surged forwards.

With only a dagger to defend himself, Idris was at an overwhelming disadvantage against his assailants' curved swords. He ducked and weaved, parried and deflected, sparks flying as metal ground against each other.

Nina was struggling a little too. Despite wielding two daggers, she had to use her telepathy to its full potential to dodge and deflect each strike before they came.

“You two, back up!” Thomas shouted to Nina and Idris as he swung his sword. “Alert the others!”

“Understood!”

Idris grabbed Nina’s collar from behind, ready to pull her back, but a glint of metal caught the corner of his eye.

Instinctively he ducked, feeling a little gust of wind as the blade whistled past just above his head.

“Stay away!” Saya screamed at the cloaked man, the bottom of her spear slamming into his side.

The man managed to put his sword between his body and the spear, but the force behind Saya's strike simply ripped the sword out of his hands.

Almost unaffected by the hit, Saya’s spear continued in a circle, the bladed end swinging down before the man could react, piercing straight through his chest.

With a grunt she kicked him away, the power of her telekinesis sending him flying into the trees, landing hard on the ground, not to get up again.

Saya turned to see Idris staring wide-eyed at her, and smiled with blushed cheeks.

“That was pretty cool, right?” She asked.

“Yeah…”

Just then another man came at Saya, his sword raised, ready to slash down.

“Watch out!” Idris shouted, casting a shadow over the man’s eyes.

Blinded by the shadow, the man’s swing missed Saya, who had moved just in time to dodge the blade by a hair’s width. With all his might he whipped his dagger at the man, the small blade tumbling end over end before burying into their assailant’s neck.

The man froze, gurgling and scratching at his neck, blood spurting from his mouth. Saya stepped up, impaled the man through the heart, before lifting him up with the end of her spear and throwing him away like a piece of clothing.

“Woah…” Nina whispered. “I see why they admire her now…”

“Nina!” Idris called out to her. “I need a dagger.”

“Catch,” replied Nina as she tossed one of her daggers to him.

Idris snatched her dagger out of the air, a little shorter and broader than his own, and got back to his feet. He took a moment to look around at the fighting and figure out the best action.

Thomas was battling with two men, holding his ground steadily, his sword flashing through the air. Saya was rushing over to help, her spear pointed in front of her.

“Idris, Nina!” Bruno called out from behind as he ran over with Kana. “We’re here to help!”

“Bruno! Everyone alright?” Idris asked.

“Yeah!”

Together they ran towards Thomas and Saya, but it seemed the two didn’t need any help.

Only one assailant was left standing, and a quick slash to the knee from Thomas’ sword sent him to the ground too.

Thomas placed a foot on the man’s chest to keep him down, then reached down and tore the mask away from his face.

“Who are you?” Thomas roared.

“I’m nobody!” the man shrieked.

“Answer me!”

The man only sneered.

Seeing the man’s arrogance, Saya sighed, lifted up her spear, then impaled the man through the stomach, affixing him to the ground.

“Now then, who do you work for?” Saya asked him in an icy tone as the man screamed in pain, enough to make Idris shiver a little.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Nobody!” The man shrieked back.

“You’re lying!”

The man chuckled. “You won’t get anything out of me.”

“Nina,” said Saya.

“Here!” Nina replied, walking up to the man.

She knelt down next to him, and clawed his eyes open with both of her hands. Maintaining eye contact aids in her mind reading.

The man felt the magic, and tried his best to fight it away with his own. But the combined power of Saya and Nina’s telepathy is simply too much, and he could only thrash helplessly as every one of his thoughts were laid bare.

But the more Nina read, the paler she went.

“Nina?” Asked Thomas. “What’s wrong.”

“They…” She said as she got to her feet. “They know about us…”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve followed us since Bluewater… They were watching us the whole time…”

Thomas cursed under his breath, lifting his foot off of the man and stepping away.

The man chuckled again. “I thought the assassins of Rose would be a little more difficult.”

“Shut up!” Screamed Saya.

“Soon you’ll know fear,” the man continued, blood welling up in his mouth. “Soon you’ll come to fear us…”

Before he could go further, Saya lifted her spear and brought it down upon his neck, cleaving straight through like a hot knife through butter.

Blood sprayed as the head rolled a little distance before coming to a stop, the man’s lifeless eyes locked in a jeering sneer.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Idris turned with his dagger ready, only to relax once he realized it was Otto and Raina running over.

“Everyone alright?” Otto asked. "We were attacked up front too, but we fought them off."

“Yeah,” Thomas replied.

“What’s wrong?”

Thomas looked up at Otto, then at the bodies on the ground, then the flickering embers on the wagon. “We’re still a step behind.”

*****

It took them a good while to put out the embers and bury the bodies, and by the time they were ready to set off again, the sky was just beginning to turn pink.

Otto’s wagon had taken slight damage, mostly from the blasts of fire from their assailants, though nothing which would hamper their progress.

Several of their assailants had targeted the lead carriage, but were easily taken down by Bruno and Kana. All in all, they had been ambushed by a total of seven people, all of whom were dressed in the same black cloak.

These were no bandits, these were trained warriors, assassins even. Their magic is powerful, and their fighting is proficient.

They’ve been following them since they arrived at Bluewater, watching their every move. Their enemies know all about their plans, and they seem hopelessly behind.

“What do we make of this…” asked Bruno as they all sat inside Otto’s wagon, waiting for sunrise to continue on their journey.

“Well, if they’ve been following us since Bluewater, they must be the same group who ambushed us during our contract,” Thomas reasoned. “But not them specifically, none of them are telepaths… Nina, were you able to figure out who they work for?”

“No…” said Nina, shaking her head. “His mind was a jumbled mess.”

“Crazy people are often like that…” Thomas sighed. “So then, unknown uniforms, no insignia of any kind, only light weaponry and minimal supplies… They wouldn’t have been able to follow us for much further.”

“So they won’t know where we’re going?” Asked Saya, cleaning her spear with a piece of cloth.

“No,” answered Bruno. “If they’ve been watching us since the start, they probably know where we are going. Plus, anyone going this way is probably heading to Kingston.”

“I have some ideas…” Kana spoke up with her hand raised.

“Yes?”

“Their swords and other equipment are similar in fashion to those of the Sun Empire,” explained Kana. “Though it is not of Phoenix make, nor are they associated to any other assassin clan, so we’re clear on that front. As far as I can tell, the link to the Sun Empire may just be a coincidence, since surplus weapons from the east are very common.”

“That’s true,” Otto added. “Sun Empire weapons are up for sale almost everywhere. Their fighting techniques seem very generic, and not from any of the elite assassin clans. These men lack self control and good planning, though they might be working with those who ambushed you during the previous contract, they are definitely not the same people.”

Thomas nodded. “I see…”

“Where do we go now?” Idris asked.

“We continue. We find our answers in Kingston, and we go on from there. Our next contract is in Kingston too, if our enemies strike again, we must be ready,” answered Thomas, getting to his feet. “I’ll drive the lead wagon next, we’ll be setting off shortly.”

Soon they were rumbling down the trade routes again, the forest now bright in the rising sun. Last night’s encounter has left them a little behind in progress, and they might not arrive in Kingston for another day.

But as Idris lay in against the wall of the wagon, his pack as his pillow, he was being bothered more and more by misaligned events in his head.

Something just didn’t make sense.

He had been thinking about it all the way back in Bluewater, and it still doesn’t make sense.

“Bruno…” Idris muttered.

“Yes?” Bruno replied from his cot on the floor.

“I don’t get how they figured out how we’d be in Bluewater first.”

“I thought we talked about this?”

“No no, think about it. Our enemies apparently arrived on the sixth of March. We set off for Bluewater on the morning of the sixth, and we didn’t get there until the evening of the seventh. But Kana’s group was there on the fifth. That means they had at most a day to identify us, track our progress, and determine that we’d be going to Bluewater first.”

“Maybe they got lucky.”

“I doubt such a convoluted operation would rest on being lucky,” Idris thought for a moment. “They knew we’d be going to Bluewater. They didn’t need to track our progress. I don’t think they even realized we were there.”

Bruno sat up from his cot. “You don’t mean…”

“Someone must have told them. No one outside Rose knows about our plans. It must have been one of us…”

“A traitor?”

“A traitor…”