“[Verdant Hunters]! The west street! Target the cavalry! Break their charge!”

At the Fae’s command, a barrage of preternaturally fast arrows curved through the air toward the oncoming line of… He didn’t know what they were. In shape, the nearest equivalent would be the month-old corpse of a horse he’d stumbled upon as a child, but that comparison did the corpse a disservice.

These creatures were… unnatural. Their torsos were unsettlingly long, and their underbellies were lined with teeth. Their flesh — like the flesh of every enemy monster — appeared ground up and resculpted by the hands of a Human who thought themself above the pursuit of art.

The volley of arrows impacted the horse-shaped monsters thirty strides away from his Human allies’ spear wall. Each arrowhead sunk into flesh and exploded into shards mere fractions of a second after impact, embedding poisoned wood shrapnel deep into the monsters’ limbs.

This alone would have been devastating, but the attack wasn’t over. The embedded wood shards — still alive — flashed with green light and grew, lancing and twisting through the monsters’ flesh to become a mat of interconnected, immobilizing roots. The monsters’ charge faltered as a full half of them — their entire front line included — lost control of their limbs and fell to the ground. They crashed into each other, and the whirring teeth of their underbellies took no time in transforming the pileup into a windstorm of gore.

Carried by their momentum, the flailing mass of monsters slammed into the Humans’ spear wall, but the [Verdant Hunters]’ volley had diminished the force of the charge enough that the impact only managed to knock a few soldiers onto their asses.

The flank’s commanding officer was shouting orders from behind the third rank. He turned to address his soldiers positioned on the left of the formation, and it was at that moment that one of the trailing horseflesh monsters not caught in the pileup leapt over the battle line, launching itself straight for the commander.

One of the Human soldiers shouted a warning and the commander turned to look, but everything was moving too fast. He wouldn’t be able to dodge in time. The monster stretched wide its body-length maw, ready to consume the commander in an instant.

An arrow cut through the air between them and exploded with a small repulsive force — not enough to harm, but just enough to move.

The Human was thrown to the ground, and the monster was shoved higher into the air. It landed on its back, stunned, and the Humans in the backlines swarmed it before it could put up a fight.

The Human commander turned to look for whichever archer had just saved his life, but the Fae who’d loosed the arrow — the same Fae who’d given the firing order that’d broken the monsters’ charge — was already turning his eyes elsewhere.

“[Dancing Blades]! Reinforce the South! [Ghost Walkers]! Another cannon is coming from the East, crawling along the left wall! [Snow Speakers]! Spread out and target the vermin! [Verdant Hunters]! Target the blood-wielding giants!”

His true name was Ethsu’ul Byahgru’mbil, but he was known only as ‘Scout Master’ to all but his parents and closest confidants. He gave his people orders, and they obeyed — not because of some artificial hierarchy, but because his people knew that in this instance, he was the best equipped to lead.

It was thanks to his efforts that the lines held for now, but the situation grew more tenuous by the minute.

This was why he hated ‘holding positions.’ Though he begrudgingly admitted that there was some value to the practice, doing so himself still felt too ‘Human.’ He was of the opinion that eleven times out of twelve, any perceived need to guard some particular patch of stone was an illusion born from a lacking imagination. Unfortunately, he now found himself in that final twelfth. This position needed holding, and his Human allies — the [Nameless Revolt] — couldn’t do it on their own.

The mission had been going well up until the enemy’s transformation. The group of Humans he was with now had been tasked with disrupting a ritual node a Fae Elder had sensed, and Scout Master and his huntmates were in turn tasked with making sure the Humans didn’t die too quickly.

With the Humans in the streets and the Fae in the shadows, they’d taken this ‘jail’ building — a disgusting place the Humans built to cage up their own kin — easily enough, but they were horrified to find the cells within filled-to-bursting with women and children.

They’d initially planned to retreat and move on to another objective after disrupting the ritual node — a set of crystals that now lay dashed across the ground — but they could not safely retreat with so many civilians in tow. It’d been a difficult decision, but Scout Master and the Humans’ leaders all agreed it was best to hold their position until Percival could destroy the ritual’s heart. They’d even managed to do so with minimal losses — at least up until a few minutes ago.

The images were still fresh in Scout Master’s mind. The blood, the flesh, the agony — all of it violently unmade and reformed into the monsters they now faced.

Too many of his soldiers died in those first moments after the enemy’s transformation — their limbs pierced by arrows of bone, their veins exsanguinated through their eyes, their still-screaming selves consumed by roiling masses of flesh.

There was no way Scout Master could have foreseen any of it happening, but the battlefield was no place for excuses. He played a part in making the call to defend this place, and now he had to deal with the repercussions.

“Percival, for Love of the Sky, please hurry,” he whispered beneath his breath.

From his perch atop the jail’s flat roof, he loosed an arrow. It burst into the side of a blood-wielding giant, doing little damage but staggering it just enough for a group of soldiers to land the killing blow. He loosed another, distracting a wall-climbing cannon long enough for the [Ghost Walkers] to engage. He loosed a third, and a section of wall collapsed and crushed a score of those bone-firing atrocities the enemy passed off as archers.

He was Scout Master. His strength lay not in magic, nor in overwhelming might of arms. His strength lay in his sight. He saw where every soldier was needed most, and so he barked orders to direct them, his voice empowered to be heard above the din. He saw which clashes teetered on the edge of disaster, and so he fired arrow after arrow to tip the scales.

He saw the shifting tides of battle, and so he knew they were going to lose.

The jail was too small for both his people and his Human allies to cram into, forcing them to defend the open streets. Gold-wreathed monsters came at them from every direction, and though Scout Master was able to ensure ten enemies fell for every one of their own, the enemy’s numbers were endless, and his own were not.

Hurried steps approached from behind, but he didn’t turn to look.

“Scout Master!” came his subordinate’s voice as they ran through the doorway leading to the roof. “The civilians all collapsed!”

“What? Was there another set of crystals hidden somewhere?” Scout Master asked, still not turning around. He continued his work of firing arrows and surveying the field as he spoke. “[Ghost Walkers]! Two cannons approaching from the South!”

“It started when the enemy transformed,” the younger Fae went on, speaking as quickly as she could. “The women and children went suddenly vacant. We couldn’t sense any magic or poison acting on them, but just now they all fell to the floor.”

Scout Master opened his mouth to ask another question, but then he stopped. He felt something shift in the air.

All at once, the [Hollow King]’s monsters went silent. Like the wind disappearing on a blustery day, the sudden stillness left the jail’s defenders off-balance and hesitating.

Then, just as swiftly as it had begun, the silence disappeared. Screams, blood, rubble, and gold flew in every direction. A chorus of shrieks — women’s and children’s — resounded from within the jail.

The monsters went mad. Their ferocity redoubled. Their golden auras condensed and shattered into jagged shards, half cutting into the air and half into their flesh. Any semblance of order within their ranks was lost as they tore into whatever lay near them, be it stone, Human, Fae, or each other.

“Stand strong!” barked Scout Master in Solarian, but his voice — even empowered as it was — was drowned out by the chaos. “Keep your—!”

BOOM!

With uncanny synchronicity, half a dozen explosions went off within Scout Master’s line of sight, but his ears told him many more occurred in places he could not see. He swiveled his head and watched as bursting from cellar doors, sewer grates, and the cobbles right beneath a horseflesh monster’s hooves came forth an army of—

“Daemons?!?”

Daemonic soldiers spewed out onto the streets, surging like a storm. Steel flashed, boots thundered against stone, and a thousand voices howled their cries of war. In their wake, they left only blood and shards of shattered gold.

Scout Master’s only saving grace was that no Daemons had appeared near his troop’s defensive lines. For now they contented themselves with slaying the [Hollow King]’s monsters, but that was no guarantee that they would not close in and strike when the opportunity presented itself.

“Wind Seer, check on the civilians,” Scout Master commanded the Fae at his back, his eyes still darting every which way as he tried to grasp the situation. “[Aurorae Sylvas]! Stay behind the lines! Full defense!”

Scout Master had studied many a storm in his days, but these Daemons were a storm unlike any he’d seen. Every one of them — from the humblest infantry to the greatest golem forged of abyss-black steel — blew through the battle like a rogue gale, arrogant and heedless of whatever winds blew at their side.

It made no sense. Their actions were wild, selfish, and undisciplined — yet somehow, it was working.

Beyond all logic, beyond all reason, beyond all doubt, it was working. As if by pure coincidence, every soldier was always where they needed to be; their own strikes unerring while the strikes leveled against them seldom found their mark.

He couldn’t make sense of it. He needed to make sense of it.

Unbidden, a memory came to the fore of his mind, and he remembered the words of his Teacher, the woman who had been Scout Master before him.

“Eth, look to the snow,” she’d said, the two of them alone in a blizzard. He shivered, but she stood firm. Her hair was loose, whipping about in every direction like the many scars on her skin. “From the snow, see the wind. From the wind, see the storm.”

His only problem now? He was lost in the snow.

No matter how hard he studied the individual Daemonic soldiers, Scout Master could not glean an ounce of insight into their regiments’ movements, much less the army as whole. He could not identify any patterns in their storm, and that incomprehension, that uncertainty, became an arrow of fear fired straight through his heart.

He took an involuntary step back, a phantom chill spreading up his shoulders that disappeared as soon as he went to brush it away.

Even the [Hollow King]’s monsters were more predictable than the Daemons. Each individual monster’s actions were equally if not more chaotic than the Daemons’, but they were as a whole ruled by a pattern of instinct. Even now, the stronger abominations were asserting their dominion over the weaker, creating small warbands whose actions could be anticipated even if the actions of the monsters comprising them could not.

Luckily, the monstrous warbands seemed equally inclined to attack each other or the Daemons as they were Scout Master’s coalition. This meant that the pressure directed at Scout Master and his allies had lessened compared to before, but this relief could not last. The Daemons were for now content to battle only the monsters, but when the final abominations were slain, his people would be next. If he could not understand their tactics by the time they arrived, his guidance would be useless, and his people would fall.

“Lights above, guide my eyes,” he pleaded, mostly alone on the roof. “Help me understand.”

Sparing only half an eye for the [Hollow King]’s monsters, he focused on the Daemons.

“See the Storm,” he told himself.

His eyes scoured the battlefield, but the harder he looked, the less he could see. His breathing grew heavy.

“See the Storm,” he repeated.

Several times he tricked himself into believing he was beginning to understand, but his flashes of inspiration guttered out faster than they could form.

“See the Storm!”

Had this been a feast tale, now would be the time for Fire Tongue or another of The Fourths to suddenly find a way forward — to learn something new or perform some miraculous feat of bravery. Sadly this was no story, and Scout Master was far from a [Hero].

He had no idea how long he’d been stuck there — frozen with indecision, searching for answers that might not exist — when a sense of danger tickled at the back of his head.

He whipped his eyes to the east. There, not even two hundred meters away from the defensive perimeter, was one of those horrible spike-and-tentacle limbed cannons skulking beneath the eve of a clocktower’s peaked roof. Within its maw was the telltale black-and-broken-gold glow of a charging shot ready to loose.

“East flank! Scatter! Scatter NOW!” he yelled in Solarian, but he knew he was too late. The threat was too great, and it had gotten too close. How could he have missed it?

A blast of light, bright as the sun and dark as blood, shot straight toward the defensive line. Some of the defenders had heard him and were beginning to move out of the way, but most were too stuck-in with the beasts before them.

They were all going to die. All of them. The east flank would collapse, and it would all be his fault for not seeing the threat.

My eyes have failed me.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it wasn’t true. It was not his eyes that had failed him.

I have failed my eyes.

BOOM!

The eastern front was engulfed in a burst of blinding light. Scout Master was formulating orders to repair the broken line, but when the light cleared, what he saw struck him dumb.

His troops were all alive. All of them. Some had fallen backwards, and all were either rubbing at their eyes or blinking rapidly, but they were each and every one still alive.

Before them floated a circular mirror no more than a meter in diameter, and before that mirror smoldered an impact crater strewn with monsters-turned-puddles of molten gold. Its purpose fulfilled, the mirror cracked and shattered harmlessly into a million motes of purple light.

“A show of goodwill,” came a chorus of voices at his side, all speaking Auroran.

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Scout Master hadn’t consciously known there was anyone next to him, but he turned and was surprised to find himself unsurprised at the presence standing there beside him.

My eyes have seen them there for a while, he realized, but my mind did not think them important enough to notice.

They — she, he, or other, he could not tell — were unmistakably a Daemon. They had four legs, six arms, and a ring of eyes pointed in every direction. Many mouths were strewn about their form in some pattern he could not comprehend. Each mouth moved as if speaking or chanting, but he could only hear the words coming from the trio of mouths nearest the eye trained on him.

“I’ve dispatched my [Wyvern Riders] to destroy the [Sinew-Limbed Cannoneers], so you needn’t fear any more such attacks.”

Scout Master turned his head, and indeed, the cannon monster was already falling to the ground, rent in twain and burning with green fire. He hadn’t seen what’d killed it.

“You are Eurymedon, [Daemon of Eyes] and [Vassal] to [Daemon Autarch] Melpomene of the [Despoiled Legion],” Scout Master said aloud, several pieces clicking into place. A creeping sense of doom crawled up his neck. Too scared to again look the Daemon in the eye, he instead watched as the flaming halves of the cannon crashed down into a mob of brawling flesh vermin on the street below.

“Your people and mine have no quarrel,” he went on after he found his voice. “Please, let us see tomorrow, and I promise the [Aurorae Sylvas] will give you no trouble.”

“Oh?” asked the Daemon. “And what of the Humans fighting beside you?”

Something about their overlapping voices reverberated in Scout Master’s bones, and he felt lightheaded.

“They are our allies,” he said, fighting through the sudden bout of dizziness. “You have no need to do them harm. In secret, they’ve made plans to broker a peace with you come spring.”

“They told you this secret?”

“I am Scout Master,” he said without thinking. “It is my life’s purpose to see what lies ahead.”

“You did not answer my question.”

“And you have no need for my answer.”

Why he gave voice to that bold reply, Scout Master did not know. His first thought had erupted from his mouth unfiltered, and there’d been nothing he could do to stop it.

Luckily, the Daemon appeared amused by his insolence. He heard them chuckle, but he couldn’t muster the will to turn back around and face them. “Interesting,” came their voices. “I acknowledge your efforts, but your vision is too narrow. Why don’t you turn around?”

He hesitated. “I—”

Plack!

Something slammed into the back of Scout Master’s head, and he fell forward off the roof. He flailed, but soon realized he was no longer falling. With one arm, the Daemon Eurymedon held the collar of his rammoth leather vest, and with another they held a malformed creature of wings, claws, and eyes — in all likelihood, the creature that had taken him by surprise. The thing squealed like a banshee, but with a squeeze of Eurymedon’s hand, it exploded into a spray of black ichor, golden shards, and purple light. Not a drop of the spray landed on either Scout Master nor the [Daemon of Eyes], and the shards of gold landed on the stone roof with barely a sound.

Scout Master was being held parallel to the ground, his feet pressed against the eve of the jail’s roof, and his back to open air. His heart skipped a beat as he looked into the Daemon’s eye still trained on him. All they needed to do was let go, and he would fall.

“If your life’s purpose is to see, then you must look for more than just ‘what lies ahead.’”

They yanked him violently back onto his feet, and Scout Master found his eyes only a handsbreath from the Daemon’s. He was short for a Fae — not even two meters tall — so he had to tilt his chin up to meet their gaze.

“You look too much, and you see not enough, Scout Master,” the Daemon rebuked him, words just above a whisper. Something in the timbre of their voices sent another vibration down his neck, this one more strange than chilling.

It wasn’t until two long breaths passed that the Daemon finally let go of his collar, creating space. “But you have given me useful information,” they went on, “and I respect the role you have decided to fill on the battlefield. From one controller to another, allow me to give you a gift before we part ways.”

One of their hands ignited with purple flame, and they reared back as if preparing to slap him.

Wait, they weren’t actually going to slap him, were they?

They paused with their arm cocked back, and just as Scout Master predicted, they did not slap him. An odd look briefly flashed through their eye regarding him, and then the Daemon spoke.

“I have just received an order,” they said. “When you have recovered from my gift, I would appreciate it if you tell your soldiers to grab as many valuables as they can, and make your way to Kingsblood Square.”

Scout Master was confused. “Why would I need to recover from—?”

SMACK!

Eurymedon slapped him across the face so violently that his hair came loose. He was sent reeling. His eyes went watery, blurring his vision.

“To see requires more than eyes,” came the Daemon’s voices from every direction at once. “It oft’ requires no eyes at all.”

Scout Master regained his balance as the Daemon finished speaking, amazed that he hadn’t fallen off the roof. He could barely see a thing, but he knew the Daemon had left. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked rapidly, but his vision remained blurry.

His first impulse was to panic, but he was Scout Master. He’d survived harsher trials in the past. Being unable to see frightened him on a visceral level, but he forced himself to keep a level head.

The Daemon described this as a gift. Why?

He ignored the temptation to strain his eyes back into focus, and he allowed the Daemon’s words to come back to him.

You look too much, and you see not enough.

What could they have meant by that?

He was alone on the roof — truly alone this time. He looked first to his army’s defensive lines, and though he couldn’t make out every detail, he could tell they were holding firm. Then he looked out toward the chaotic streets where the [Despoiled Legion] were fighting the [Hollow King]’s monsters, but at that distance he could make out little more than waves of flesh breaking against dark islands of steel.

He again felt the urge to force his vision into focus, but he resisted. “The arrow rides the wind,” he muttered to himself, repeating another of his Teacher’s lessons.

Deliberately, he stopped trying to see, and he allowed his eyes to further unfocus. He stopped trying so hard to understand, and it was only then that suddenly… suddenly he understood.

It were as if up until that moment he’d been staring point-blank at randomly tangled strands of color, and only now that he’d stepped away could he recognize the tapestry they wove.

No, perhaps a tapestry wasn’t the right metaphor — too rigid, too set in its patterns. Perhaps a song? No, too comprehensible. A dance? Close, but not quite.

Ultimately, Scout Master decided his very first impression — the one he’d had when the Daemons first appeared — to be the most apt. Like a tapestry, they were a matrix of wind woven tight. Like a song, they flowed. Like a dance, they wrought their presence upon the world.

And like an Ancestral Sky, they were a Storm.

Gradually, Eurymedon’s magic faded, and Scout Master’s vision grew sharper.

It was difficult to notice through the blinding haze of their bravado, but the Daemons as a whole advanced slowly and solidly, sliding back to reorganize and gain leverage just as often as they surged forward.

On one front, they were thunder and lighting, and on another they were a reaping chill rolling through the dark. Then all at once, their dispositions swapped, and the monsters between them fell like chaff before the blade.

Elsewhere it happened again, but this time in a different shape Scout Master wouldn’t have recognized as being similar to the first had he been looking for an exact match. Then at a different interval and in a different place, it happened again, and then again after that.

How were they doing this? To find out, Scout Master decided to look closer…

And from the Storm, he saw the Wind.

He focused onto a single regiment of infantry. The soldiers were each moving as they wished — ostensibly at random, just as he’d come to expect — as they tangled with a mixed horde of enemy monsters. There was no distinct line of battle, no ranks, no indication that the battle was anything other than a senseless melee filled with far too many flips and flourishes to prove effective — and yet again, Scout Master bore witness as the Daemons remained nearly untouched as the monsters fell in droves.

This time, however, rather than panic and scramble for an explanation, Scout Master held his gaze steady. Patiently, he waited, allowing the answer the space it needed to make itself known.

It didn’t come to him all at once. He caught only glimpses as it flitted by. Like tracking a fox on the hunt, he spied it only in those fleeting moments when it leapt up from the snow to pounce upon its own prey.

After some time had passed, Scout Master had an inkling of the answer’s true form, and indeed, it was fox-like — playful, cunning, and vicious in equal measure — but that wasn’t the whole picture. It was time for him to look even closer…

And from the Wind, he saw the Snow.

He focused on but two of the Daemonic soldiers within the fray. They were identically equipped with darksteel plate and more weapons than should be reasonable, but one favored their pair of blades, and the other their spear.

At first, Scout Master noticed nothing new. He saw only what he’d come to expect. Both soldiers fought as if in a world all their own. They spun and leapt and kicked and swept and performed a dozen other ridiculous feats that should’ve gotten them killed, but again, it all just worked.

And that was when he saw it.

It was a small thing, easily missed, but he knew what to look for when the fox leapt from the snow.

The two soldiers crossed paths, each moving at their own tempo, each with a monster at their back. They could not have seen each other coming, for it was only at that moment that they’d both turned to have the other in their field of view — and yet neither seemed surprised to find the other there.

They flashed each other the grin of comrades-in-arms, and for but a breath, their steps fell in time. The swords flew high over the spear sliding low, and when three steps had passed, they’d each slain the other’s foe.

And then the moment was over. The two continued on their separate ways, each moving at their own pace, strides unbroken, fighting in worlds all their own.

But it had been in that moment — that one, singular moment — that Scout Master discovered the answer to how it was all possible.

Rhythm, he realized. It’s in their rhythms.

He wasn’t thinking of something so rigid as literal rhythms, of course, but rhythms of war. Such rhythms were by their very nature fickle, yet the two Daemon’s had coordinated theirs seamlessly, falling in step with each other the precise moment they needed to without any forewarning.

He remembered again the soldiers’ shared smile — the smirk of veterans who trusted each other without reservation — and he couldn’t help but wonder when was the last time he’d shared that look with another himself.

Now that Scout Master had noticed the pattern once, he saw it everywhere. Over and over again, wherever and whenever two soldiers crossed paths, they fell in time together all without needing to alter their own natural flow.

Effortlessly, without even realizing he’d done it, Scout Master shifted his focus back to encompass the entire regiment. From there, he had another epiphany that led him to see the entire army, and from there he had another. From Snow to Wind and Wind to Storm, then down to Snow and back again, he understood more and more of what he saw with every shift — and the more he understood, the more he realized he had left to understand.

Patterns and patterns of patterns and patterns of patterns within patterns themselves… It wasn’t long before he found a name for the clarion song the Daemon’s wrought with every clash of arms, every shout from their lungs, every beat of their boots upon the ground.

Trickery.

Every aspect of their fighting was designed to mislead. They projected strength where they were lacking and they revealed weaknesses where none existed. Each soldier affected an individualistic attitude while maintaining a covert synchronicity with the whole. Their tempos were so precisely syncopated they appeared like noise.

It was no wonder Scout Master had taken so long to make sense of anything they did. They were so steeped in guile that merely looking at them wouldn’t reveal a thing.

The [Aurorae Sylvas] were a people of Chaos. They lived and fought like the Ancestral Sky for which they were named. They existed in tight harmony with each other, with their mountains, and with their sky, but every Fae was ultimately their own strand of light, free to wander whatsoever their heart led them.

The Solarians were a people of Law. On the battlefield, The Courts and The Revolt both relied on highly regimented formations for their troops, and only their leaders and elites were allowed the freedom to move about as they themselves saw fit — and away from the battlefield, the dynamic was much the same. Wheresoever they settled, they imposed their Law upon the land with timber, stone, and mortar.

The [Despoiled Legion], however, were something else entirely. They were a Law so firm it could don the guise of Chaos without harm.

Scout Master watched, utterly transfixed, as the soldiers of the [Despoiled Legion] performed marvel after marvel upon the field. It was beautiful and absurd in equal measure. He could’ve gazed upon it every day for a year and still be left wanting more.

A tear rolled down his cheek. His lips were parted as if to breathe it all in. His hair, free from its braid, whipped about him in every direction.

Slowly, his thoughts wandered to the one who’d allowed him to see such a sight, and his free hand unconsciously wandered up to touch the cheek where they’d slapped him. He thought of their many eyes, for a moment so close to his own, and he felt his face flush.

Scout Master was a passionate man — he’d never have become Scout Master if he weren’t — so he already knew the name for what he felt bubbling up within his chest, and he knew the name of the one who’d caused it.

“Eurymedon…” he whispered.

He heard footsteps approaching from behind, and for a moment tricked himself into believing he’d summoned the Daemon by speaking their name.

“Scout Master!” came his subordinate’s voice, dispelling the illusion. She ducked through the human-sized door that lead to the roof and rushed to his side. “Whatever spell struck the civilians is gone. There’s some vomit and confusion, but they appear to be stable and recovering their wits.”

Nodding his head, Scout Master surveyed the battlefield one last time before issuing any orders, but he already knew what he would see. The tide had turned, and it would soon be time to move on.

“[Aurorae Sylvas]!” he shouted, addressing his own soldiers in Solarian so that his Human allies could listen in. “The threat here is nearly settled! The tired and injured, stay behind to guard this place. Everyone else, grab as many treasures as you can comfortably carry, and prepare to head toward Kingsblood Square! Wind Seer will remain here to guide those who stay,” he said, nodding to his subordinate at his back.

“Commanders of the [Nameless Revolt],” he said in a more relaxed voice, though he made sure to speak in a tone he knew would carry, “I have no right to issue you orders, but I recommend you do the same.”

His own people began moving to fulfill his orders without hesitation, but the Humans did not.

“The threat? Settled? Are you mad?” came the complaint Scout Master expected to hear. He shifted his gaze to look directly at the man who’d spoken, and the leader of the Humans’ northern line gazed back. “There’s Demons all around us, closing in as we speak!” the man yelled, still using that fear-disguised-by-anger tone of voice Humans so often used.

As I suspected, Scout Master thought to himself, it seems none of the Humans here are ‘in-the-know.’

“Be assured,” he said aloud, “the [Despoiled Legion] is here as an ally. If they wanted us dead, they could have stayed hidden for another ten minutes and let the monsters deal with us.”

Something in his periphery grabbed his attention, and he glanced over. Two blocks away, Scout Master watched as a score of Daemon cavalry he recognized as [Drake Berserkers] tore through a small horde of monsters being led by one of the blood-wielding giants, but one of the [Drake Berserkers] was conspicuously out of position. Scout Master couldn’t articulate exactly how he knew, but he suddenly knew the vague shape of what would happen next.

“You can’t trust Demons!” the Human leader rebutted, addressing the soldiers at his side as much as he addressed Scout Master. “Have you heard none of the stories? You show your back to them, and they’ll—!”

“Turn around. Something’s coming.”

The man glared at Scout Master. He didn’t turn around, evidently unappreciative of being interrupted, and wary of a trap. “What are you—?”

The [Drake Berserkers] in the distance destroyed the small horde with little trouble, but in the process the enemy giant managed to slam its fist right into a drake’s shoulder, sending the beast and rider alike hurtling straight toward the Human leader. Scout Master signaled his fellow Fae not to intervene.

“Captain!” shouted a soldier. “Dodge!”

“What? Ah!”

The Human dove out of the way, and the [Drake Berserker] landed on its feet right where the man had been standing a moment earlier. The beast skidded to a stop in a low stance, already poised to strike at whatever threat appeared before it next.

It was a fierce thing of scales, darksteel, and fire. It must have been over twenty hands tall at the shoulder, and its vestigial wings — too small to grant its massive frame flight, but nonetheless rippling with muscle — only added to its imposing silhouette. It glowed with a smoldering light brightest in its eyes, maw, and between its scales, and every inch of its form not covered in plate exuded a thick, choking miasma.

Upon its back sat its rider, a fully armored Daemon showing not an inch of skin. The most notable thing about the rider was the floating band of ice-white condensation trailing their helmet. It billowed behind them on an invisible breeze, fluttering like a banner, or perhaps a wave of hair.

The drake bared its teeth and seemed about to pounce on the prone Human captain before it, but the Daemon on its back said something in a language Scout Master could not understand, and the creature’s attitude flipped on its head. Its inner fire dimmed to an ember, and the fierce look on its face was instantly replaced by one of innocent curiosity that Scout Master couldn’t help but find cute.

Several Humans tried to surround it with spears, but the drake ignored them in favor of surging forward and rapidly flicking out its ribboned tongue to plant a bevy of kisses on the startled Human captain. Then, with another word from its rider, the drake reignited its inner fire, beat its wings, and leapt over the soldiers’ lines in a single bound, rocketing up to the side of a building and leaping from there straight back into the battle it’d been expelled from less than a dozen seconds ago.

The Human captain was shaken, to put it lightly. He was unmolested save for the hot saliva on his face, but it took two of his subordinates to help him back up to his feet.

“Orders, sir?” asked the soldier on his left.

The captain looked first to Scout Master, and then he looked to where the score of [Drake Berserkers] were now tearing through rank upon of rank of bone archers and undulating piles of flesh.

Scout Master caught a whiff of fresh piss coming from the captain’s direction, but he thought it best not to mention the fact.

“Do as the Fae said!” the captain shouted. “Leave the monsters to the Demons! If you’re tired, garrison the jail! The rest of you, grab as much loot as you can carry and follow me!”

Scout Master continued to supervise the battlefield as the Humans began their preparations to move out, and he couldn’t help but think about how serendipitous it had been for that [Drake Berserker] to appear exactly when, where, and how it did. Certainly, Scout Master could have persuaded the Humans on his own given more time, but every minute upon the battlefield was precious.

How lucky, he thought, entirely unconvinced it had been mere luck.

On a hunch, he allowed his gaze to wander, relaxing his eyes so that they might stumble upon someone impossible to find were he searching for them deliberately.

He looked north, and for a moment he almost convinced himself he could see them there, that enigmatic conductor of the Daemons’ confounding dance.

Scout Master took pride in his leadership, his ability to unite his people toward a common goal while accounting for every individual’s needs and desires. He took pride in his archery, his ability to place an arrow exactly where it needed to be. Above all, he took pride in his sight, his ability to see, to predict, to understand.

Measured against the [Daemon of Eyes], all his pride amounted to nothing. Their leadership was unassailable. Their every word was an arrow with thrice the impact of any he could fire. Their sight made him feel as if he’d lived his life with eyes half-shut.

“Eurymedon,” he said, more firmly than before.

He gazed directly at that something in the distance that he could not fully notice, and he had the distinct feeling that that something was gazing back.

He clenched his left hand tighter around the grip of his bow. His hair waved gently in the breeze.

“By my name, I swear I won’t let your gift go waste.”