“He couldn’t have picked a comfortable morning to come back on?” Raulin asked, rubbing his hands together.

“I think it’s nice out,” Tel said.

“You would.”

“I’ve heard that the cold of the mornings around here burn off quickly and it’ll be unbearable in a few hours,” Al offered.

“Where did you hear that, Wizard?” When he said nothing, Raulin asked, “Mian?”

“She lives here. She’d know.”

Raulin turned and met Anla’s eyes, who gave him a knowing smile. “I think she’s lovely, Al,” she said. “Do you plan on seeing her tonight?”

“We have tentative plans to meet for dinner.”

And with that word, “tentative”, the mirth of the morning vanished.

There was nothing to do but wait and see what Cove would do. The object at this point wasn’t to apprehend him, since it was almost certain that he’d run and maybe take a hostage. What they needed to do was to crowd him to a strategic location. If possible, the western woods were ideal; the other three directions had too much swampland

“I see him,” Al said. A figure a pinkie’s width at arm’s length stepped outside of the house and inspected the garden. “Ashrisk to, Tel?”

“I have his place in my mind, Alpine.” He stretched, the feeling of leather armor unusual. The “plates” had been stitched together with wider gaps to accommodate his height, but it was still stiff and chaffing, even with several layers of padding underneath.

“Knives sharp, Raulin?”

“I definitely can’t hit him at this distance, but I’m ready, Wizard.” He fingered the place inside his arong-miil where his throwing knives were kept. He’d spent several hours of the previous day practicing, though a landed shot would be more luck than skill.

“Anla?”

“Ready.” Besides her chain mail and knives, she had a staff strapped to her back. She knew only the basics, the wide swings Raulin had shown her to keep someone far from her and a few attacks. She’d worked on it last night ’til her wrists ached and her eyes drooped.

A few minutes passed. Cove was hunkered down, looking at the fresh blossoms of a larkspur. He ran his finger softly over the bright blue petals before inhaling the scent. He was there one moment, then gone in the next.

“He’s on the move,” Al said, leading the group onto the street from the place they’d been watching him from. “Tel?”

“He’s gone farther down the street, towards the woods.”

Al tsked. “Eh, we don’t want him in the north. Let me know when he’s stopped.”

“He already has. He’s just on the edge, behind the widest tree.”

“All right. I’ll take the lead. You three spread out and hide. I’ll play the Wanderer.”

He took off down the road, turning back quickly to see the three of them already cloaked in Tel’s camouflage. Al appeared to be the least armored of the four of them (since he thought it would come to this), though he was actually fairly well protected. A loose tunic and trousers covered the cords of braided leather that had been wrapped around him in a shiftable suit that allowed him as much mobility as possible while still being light. It was poor protection against stab wounds, but Cove was unlikely to have a weapon, anyway. This was more for kicks and powerful blows.

Al concentrated on the sounds around him, of the leather stretching and creaking against itself and the padding below it, of the birds singing, of the trees sighing in the breeze, of the man catching his breath behind the tree he was approaching. When he was in position, he pretended to fix one of the straps on his pack and turned to see Cove watching him.

What’s he doing? Raulin asked himself as he watched Al chat leisurely with Cove. Anla knew. She could hear the entire conversation. Al was wading him into familiarity in hopes of getting him to surrender, starting with the surprise at seeing him, then talking about school, what was going on in his life. Then, finally…

“Have you heard anything about those killings in the area?”

“Unfortunate,” Cove mumbled.

“Know anything about them?”

There was a pause before he asked, “What are you asking me?”

“It’s a wizard that’s doing them, a hard wizard that lives in Kinuestra.”

His eyes widened and he tensed. “It’s you! They sent you after me!”

“Cove, please. We don’t have to do this. Give yourself up and no one else will get hurt.”

He ran past Al so fast that he clipped his shoulder with enough force that Al winced and took a deep, pained breath. “Don’t let him go to the west!” he yelled through gritted teeth, a ruse that worked when Cove banked around, catapulted over a seven-foot fence, and hightailed it for those very woods.

The distance between the fence and the edge of the western forest was close to a quarter of a mile, a distance Cove covered in about thirty seconds. It would have been a problem had Al not been on him, having ripped his ax from its holder to stop it from banging against his leg.

“Hope he doesn’t expect me to run that fast,” Raulin said as the three of them ran to catch up.

“Not you but maybe me,” Anla said, grinning.

The western woods were thick for about a mile and Al lost Cove as soon as he hit the line. He caught his breath and began to slow his breathing in hopes of hearing Cove somewhere. Al surveyed the area and almost jumped when he saw someone duck in behind him.

“Linden,” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“Changed my mind. Cliff can handle it for one day and you need my help.”

Wordlessly he took off his pack, pulled out ten gold, and handed the payment to the wide-eyed young wizard. “He’s in here, but I lost him. Where would you go, if you were a paw-paw?”

“Uh…thank you! Are you sure? That’s enough gold to last me for the rest of the year.”

“I’ve been where you are. Now, tracking…”

“Yes! So, there are a few trails that run through here.” He began walking and Al followed him. After five minutes, they heard the other three behind them, wheezing to catch their breaths. “There,” Linden said, pointing at the third trail off the main they’d passed. “Broken ferns and light, human footprints. Fresh.”

It took Al a moment to see that. “Good. Tel, in that general direction, are there any bipedal creatures?”

Tel closed his eyes. “He can sense animals?” Linden whispered.

“He can sense the movement of larger things.”

“Is he looking for a job?”

“There is a man, shifting back and forth behind a tree,” Tel said, opening his eyes. “He is some distance away.”

“How far?” Al asked.

“Um, eight.”

“Eight what?” He shook his head. “Never mind. If we take this trail we’ll get to him. We need to crowd him, though.”

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“Corner him?” Linden asked.

“Yes. Is there a thicket or body of water that would stop him?”

“Not that I know of. But there’s a horseshoe cliff we use frequently to trap, about that way by a half-mile,” Linden said, pointing ninety degrees away from where Cove was hunkered.

“That’ll do. Anla, zukru, Raulin sakrif tas, bafnik talan, Tel ushkrisk untril asilat.”

The three stuck close together, almost invisible in the brush with Telbarisk’s spell. “What are they doing?” Linden asked.

“You’ll see,” Al responded, stretching and pointing himself in the direction of the cliff. “We’ll be running in a few minutes.”

The brush nearby thickened, vines twisting to create a physical barrier. He saw Anla nearby, her hands in front of her mouth for a few moments before she put them down and moved on.

“Stay near the vines,” he told Linden. He pulled a balaclava of thick canvas down over his head.

“I found him!” he heard Raulin yell, spoiling the serenity of the forest. Al crouched into a runner’s position. A shrieking scream filled the air, followed by a swear from Cove. He zipped past them and Al took off right before a confused Linden startled into a run.

Branches and leaves whipped past Al’s covered face as he kept Cove in his sight. He bounded off of boulders and felled trees, gaining on him, but always just out of reach.

Cove continued to allow himself to be corridored between the thick brush and the ear-blistering screaming spell Anla had hung in certain places. He turned back to see Linden and Al dogging him occasionally, but always kept on.

Finally, he spat himself into an opening almost completely surrounded by sheer rock. He stopped, turning himself around, looking for a purchase or escape and finding none. Al and Linden blocked the exit. “Brish kena leyask” he said loudly and moved forward, sinking his ax into the ground.

The two circled each other as they caught their breaths. “Surrender, Cove. You don’t have to kill any more.”

“I have to!” he said, his face hideous from multiple, bloody gashes. His eyes were wild. “You don’t know what this is like. I fear constantly. It only stops when I can make them afraid. They take the fear and I am whole again.”

“You’re broken. You can’t stop the Unease and it’s forcing you to push it onto others. You’re killing innocent people just to keep your doomed life.”

“Doomed?”

“You’re already down to five day intervals. What happens when you fill with the Unease in hours? Will you leave an entire town dead so that you can breath easy for a few minutes? Who’s next? Will you kill your family so that you won’t fear anymore?”

He said nothing but Al could tell it certainly made him think. Al took this lapse in concentration to jump a foot and a half high and land a kick on Cove’s rib cage. The blow would have cracked most men’s ribs. If it had hurt the mad wizard, he was too far in the Unease to feel any pain. He returned the kick with a punch across the face that was softened only by Al’s reflex to go with the force. He still felt the heat and pain blossoming at a distance. But just as he had been taught with his ax, he turned the twisting motion into a kick he hooked around Cove’s knees and swept his legs out. Cove landed on his back, gasping for breath that had been knocked out from him.

Al straddled his chest and took one of the small knives strapped to his hip, jamming the point under his chin. “Two choices: I can kill you now, swiftly, or I can give you to the police, where you’ll die of the Unease or be hanged for your crimes. Your choice. I know I’d…”

He gasped as Cove’s hands wrapped around his ankles and the Unease flooded him. He should have jammed the knife into his brain, but the sudden overwhelming feeling of primal fear took over. He jumped to stand, shaking off his hands and swore as Cove took off running to the exit. Hopefully he had given Telbarisk enough time.

“Linden, get out of his way!” Al yelled and the startled wizard jumped to the side. Cove ignored him and continued running at top speed out of the trap and into a line of keshwa thread Tel and Anla had placed across two trees. The spider’s silk was so strong that it didn’t snap, even though it was thin. It cut a nasty line across Cove’s waist as he flipped forward into a pit ten feet deep.

“Nice,” Al said to Tel, looking down at Cove.

“Get me out, Alpine, or I will find your loved ones and I will make them suffer.”

Al blinked, realizing that Cove was assuming those were people he left behind in Whitney where he had been stationed. And while he still missed Marnie, he no longer considered Aggie and Burdet his loved ones. That title had shifted to three, maybe four others. “My offer still stands, Cove.”

He gave a long, painful sigh. “Could you…could you let me do it, then? Just hand me a knife and I’ll slit my throat. My blood will be on my own hands and I won’t bring any more shame to my wife and kids.”

Al didn’t trust him, not a crazed, rogue hard wizard who would do what he could to survive. But, he had given Al some of his built-up magic, which meant he was lucid now, normal. He remembered the snippets of Remard, now Cove, from school. He would be like that man, not a beast angry at being caught, but a man who had helped him pick up dropped books in the hallway, not waiting around for a thanks afterward. Al put his ax down and pulled his knife out again, then sunk it into the ground near him.

“A moment of privacy, to pray?” he asked. Al begrudgingly moved away from the opening.

There was no particular deity assigned to magic. Some thought it was Kabidon, who blessed the priests, who also ruled over that domain. Others who believed that magic was a natural part of the world, those who would agree with Tel’s feeling on his own kil, worshiped Zayine in thanks for her bounty.

Cove was of a different mind. “O Blessed Iondika, I have failed you. I was given skill and cunning to use the magic you bestowed upon me and I have used it for selfish means. I was meant to bring a better life to my fellow men and instead I took it from them…” He trailed off in murmurs that not even Al could hear with the Unease.

Anla and Raulin finally caught up to the other three. “He’s down there?” Raulin asked.

“I’ve given him a few moments to do the dignified thing.”

“What? What do you mean ‘dignified thing’?”

“He’s offered to take his own life and I gave him some privacy.”

“You gave him your knife, didn’t you?” he asked. He turned just as Cove crawled out of the hole, the blade covered in dirt from using it as a hold. Raulin swore and threw one of his knives, nicking Cove’s shoulder, but not stopping him. He snapped out his fighting knives and stood between the wizard and the group. “Go, I’ll hold him off.”

Al stayed, but gave instructions to the other three. Raulin and Cove circled each other, sizing each other up. Raulin, though somewhat exhausted from running, was advantaged with an extra knife and over a decade and a half of practice. Cove was a mess, dirty, bloodied, tired, burned and cut from the thread. Still, he was a hard wizard and sometimes a few lucky, fast swipes were all it took.

Raulin managed to land a few cuts he hoped would at least slow him down eventually, but a flurried attack from had taken all his concentration. Normally he had to worry about the weapon, but in this case he had to also make sure that Cove didn’t get close to him, either. And during those swipes, holding off a man with poison touch, he’d forgotten about the hole and fell back into it, almost grabbing the edge, but coming away with a clump of grass and air.

“Raulin?”

“I’m okay, Wizard,” he heard from the bottom of the hole.

Al turned immediately to Cove, who was catching his breath. He didn’t leave a moment for any sort of dueling decorum. He took Raulin’s lesson on from the ferry to heart and began swinging his ax in a whirlwind, the brown and silver blurring in lines at the speed. He got close, so tantalizingly close to hitting Cove several times, before he took stock of his odds and ran.

Al pursued. Cove jumped up on a tree branch and began hopping deftly from tree to tree. Al’s ax went thnk thnk thnk as he propelled himself up the thirty feet of trunk in just a few heartbeats, using his weapon as a means of propulsion. He was out on the thickest branch at that height, running and balancing. Just as the branch was about to break from his weight, he jumped and sunk his ax sideways into the next tree, pulling it out and moving on to the next branch.

He’s keeping off the ground because he knows we set traps, Al thought. He’ll hop over the barriers and fly back to town.

Al was partially right. While Cove’s intention was eventually to escape, his magic was too high. He had been pulling in far more than he normally did to combat his situation. He had to get rid of it and there was a preferred target nearby.

By the time Al caught up to Cove, he was on the ground. He had cornered Anla and was encroaching on her space. “Do you know how to use that staff?” he asked with amusement, skulking towards her.

Crack! “Yes,” she said, poised again for another blow. Al landed and saw Cove stagger away, holding his head before charging her. Even at his heightened speed, Al wouldn’t reach her in time. “Anla, kiwez!”

She opened her mouth to ensorcel him, but Linden came out from a thicket and pummeled into Cove, tackling him to the ground. Al swore, knowing exactly what was about to happen. Linden screamed as Cove latched on to his wrists.

Cove had sat up as he regained his sense of normalcy. Al ran and tackled him, then wrapped his arm around Cove’s neck to try to pull him off Linden. He continued to scream, arching his back, doing his best to pull away from Cove. Al pushed his leg against Linden’s torso to no avail. Cove struggled to get Al off him as Al switched tactics and wrapped himself tightly around the rogue wizard, his legs snaking around Cove’s, his other arm across his neck to cut off his air. Cove dropped Linden’s wrists to claw at Al’s arm Instead of trying to shake Al off, he started slamming Al into the ground. It only worked because Al’s head hit against a rock jutting out of the dirt, causing him to slacken for just long enough to disentangle himself from Al.

Cove stood and turned to face Anla. She was ready, knives in her hands. She wouldn’t be easy like the others. She knew how to fight tooth and claw. He stepped towards her and felt a sharp stinging in his neck, like someone had thrown a rock. His hand came away bloody. He turned quickly to see Raulin standing thirty feet away, another knife between his fingers.

Suddenly there was a warm and soft hand on his neck as he heard a woman’s voice. “Ccovee,” Anla said and all the tension in him drained. “Sstopp.”

It was as if everything that made him exist snapped at once. His legs crumpled, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his body crashed into the earth. Anla looked down sadly, sighed, and looked up as Raulin pulled her into an embrace.

They turned and watched Al crawl to Linden, who still yelled between clenched teeth, his body wrenching and seizing in fear. Al clasped his hand. “Give it to me.”

“Can’t!” he yelled.

“You can. Let me take it.”

“I. Can’t.” He groaned, his eyes flailing around wildly at unseen monsters.

Al closed his eyes and Linden gasped. His arching waned and finally ceased as he panted, looking up in the sky. He sat up and looked at Al, who had started to shake, with a look of awed fear.

Al turned to his three friends and said, “Tie me to the tree.”