Yelora

It was a bloodbath. The creatures the Alchemist had conjured peeled the Imperial soldiers off her like orange skins, mauling them before tossing them aside. The screams and new, strange hissing sounds reverberated inside her head as Yelora recoiled and hid her face in her shoulder. But the monsters weren’t coming after her. They seemed to know who their enemy was.

Good thing she’d decided to ally with the Wizards.

Weaving through the carnage, she scooted to where Kashur lay sprawled on the floor, his arm bent at an odd angle. With her hands bound behind her, she managed to grab the dagger lying beside him and sawed blindly through her rope bonds and then his.

“Kashur,” she shook him gingerly, being extra careful with his broken shoulder. His eyes blinked open. He seemed on the brink of consciousness. “We need to get out of here!”

She helped him to his feet, tugging him out of the way of a staggering Dwarf with a wretched-looking creature attached to his head. A disgusting looking thing, like a Goblin.

Goblin, yes, that was the word for these things. They looked like Ronith’s creature, but were different—stronger, more bloodthirsty, with purple eyes.

“Come on.” She guided Kashur along the wall of the room. But there were so many bodies on the floor of the small space and more piling up, blocking the doorway. She kicked a Dwarf body aside, flinching before tugging Kashur out of the way of another brawling duo. She turned to see an Imperial soldier’s crossbow pointed straight at her, but a throaty spell issued from Kashur’s mouth, and the arrow stopped an inch in front of her face. Kashur batted it away with his good hand.

A time lapse spell! She caught the Summoner’s pain-filled gaze and smiled. “Well timed,” she said. “Now let’s find Gorlo.”

Sound bent and swam around them as Yelora searched the battleground for the tail of the creature’s leash, taking the time to reload her crown with any crystals she discovered. Finally, she found it, abandoning Kashur long enough to dig the little monster, still unconscious, out from beneath a pile of bodies. The battle raged so thickly around them that even the time lapse spell didn’t stop them from getting jostled and hit from time to time. Yelora barely dodged a swinging battleaxe as she bent to whisper a spell to awaken the creature so they wouldn’t have to drag or carry it. She caught sight of Ronith’s red robes in the melee. It looked as if the Dark Elf were watching her in slow motion. Or Blood Mage, as it were. She turned her back on her.

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Ronith had made her choice. Let her live with the consequences.

“Portal us to the crash site!” Yelora cried, pushing Kashur up a ladder from below as he hop-climbed one-handed, his damaged arm held tight against his chest. “Enemy forces are there organizing an assault!” Her own leg ached where Gorlo had bitten her.

Kashur leaned on the edge of the next deck, throwing a fireball to clear their way. “If I do it here, they’ll just follow us through. We have to find a quiet place.”

He was right, she couldn’t open a doorway directly into her stronghold. But the Dwarf piloting the golem had said they’d discovered the crash site, and that Ronith had helped them. Had she taught them how to see past the shade spells? That made her a traitor.

A double traitor.

Fury seethed in Yelora’s chest, and she used it to fuel each attack as she and Kashur battled their way amidships to the ladder that would take them to the roof of the barge, where they might be able to find a safe space to activate the portal. Gorlo, terrified, stuck close to Yelora’s heels.

The roof of the barge was thankfully empty, the smattering of stars in the black sky a wry backdrop to the bloody and pain-filled sounds of battle echoing beneath their feet. Kashur dug the compact out of his cloak pocket and activated it. The bright blue light felt like an assault on Yelora’s senses.

“Have you set the destination?” she asked.

“I’m working on it. Need to concentrate.” He was sweating and swaying on his feet. Probably from the pain of his arm. Yelora thought she saw sharp bone fragments pushing against his clothing.

She whispered a spell, her hand dancing around his shoulder. It would help with the pain somewhat. “Once we’re there, we’ll get you healed.” She put an arm around him.

He leaned into her briefly, eyes pressed closed. “Okay, let’s go.”

Yelora pulled Gorlo’s leash tightly beside her and steered Kashur into the blue, but just as they stepped through, the oval swallowed itself up and disappeared, the deactivated compact clattering to the barge’s metal deck.

What?

Yelora whirled to find Ronith, pointing a magic dampener at them.