“Late?” Cam stammered, not understanding. Was he supposed to have died sooner?

“Three days late,” the woman in bronze plate mail grumbled, clearly quite irritated with him. Cam’s eyes drifted to the massive silver sword strapped across her back as she approached him in the middle of the grass field. “I’ve been camped here wasting my time.”

“S-I’m sorry. I can’t control when I die,” he said, truly apologetic. He figured making a bad first impression in heaven wasn’t a good start.

“Die?” She raised an eyebrow. “What are you on about? War council meets tomorrow afternoon. The Assembly told us the temp would be here three days ago to prepare. On a trial basis of course. Just until the end of this cursed hag conflict. Although, showing up late certainly isn’t the best way to convince Lord Razola to give you the full-time job.”

“I’m sorry,” Cam said again. His head was racing and he was processing what she said as if his mind was working through thick mud. “Full-time job?”

The woman sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb. “I know people say the Assembly has had a hard time recruiting Aldimia’s brightest,” she mumbled. “Did you hit your head on the journey? You, wizard, are the temporary mage assigned to Lord Razola’s court, as contracted through the Assembly of the Magi. To do that, you’ll need to— you know— show up at court. Preferably, on time.” She turned and began to walk back the way she came. “Come on.”

Cam stood, staring dumbly after her. Wizards and mages? Court? Did she say ‘hag conflict’?

She turned back toward him and frowned. “Can you walk?”

He didn’t see much choice, glancing at her sword. He had a feeling if he said no, this woman would either kill him or pick him up and carry him with her. He shouldered his backpack, making sure to grab the leather-bound journal.

“Yes.” It was all he could muster. He felt lightheaded like he might faint. Surely this was in his head and he was passed out, probably dead, back in at the Watchman’s Keep. Maybe his friends would bring him to if he wasn’t dead.

“Good,” the woman replied. “Then I suggest you demonstrate that you can.” She turned back and kept walking.

Cam followed across the meadow to the tree line. A large gray horse was saddled and waiting on a dirt path. The horse’s shoulders were above Cam’s head, larger than any horse he had ever seen. As he finally caught up to her, he realized the woman was much younger than he had first thought. She was in her late twenties, close to his age.

“I assume you’ll fly, Pendergast?” she said, beginning to tighten the straps on her saddle bags.

Cam froze.

“What did you call me?” He blurted out the question without thinking. Did this warrior woman just call him by his character’s name?

She turned and looked at him. Her face was even more skeptical and she glanced him up and down.

“Pendergast. Your name is Eldren Pendergast?” It was more of a question than a statement.

“Err— yes,” he lied. “Eldren Pendergast is my name.” He intended it to be a statement but his inflection sounded uncertain.

“You’re a strange wizard,” she said, turning back to her horse. “I mean. All wizards are strange. Half the time speaking in cryptic sayings and brewing mostly useless potions. But Lord Razola insists they are important to our cause. Not that Ardos ever helped much in the war against the Coven. The old fool got himself poisoned. Anyway, like I asked, Pendergast. Do you prefer to fly with your spells?”

Cam — Eldren? He should probably embrace his game name for now, until he figured things out. He’d have to act and not slip up. The problem with acting, though, was that he most certainly could not fly. His character could in their game but his character also knew spells and magic words and had trained for a decade at the magical Tolemic Academy. Here, he was still wearing his Nikes and an old red hoodie from college.

Cam would have been petrified and told the truth. Eldren, however, was more daring. He forced himself to adopt his tabletop personality.

“I have a few questions, first,” he said. It still sounded more timid than he would have liked. He had been going for defiantly demanding.

“Questions?” The woman turned back to him, an eyebrow raised.

“Eh-yes. Questions,” he replied, this time a little more surely.

“The contract seemed pretty clear to me,” she shrugged. “But sure. Ask away. Hurry, though. We need to get moving if we want to make Nottengrad before sunset and get through the marshes.”

Those words didn’t mean anything to Eldren but he had the chance to get a few answers and seized it.

“First, who are you?” Cam’s timid voice escaped from his lips again.

“Ah,” the woman replied, now finished with her preparations and swinging herself up onto the saddle in one fluid motion. Her gracefulness in full bronze plate was impressive. “I shouldn’t have been so rude. I am General Espella, Enshrined Knight of the Order of the Griffin and Chief Warlord of Lord Razola’s armies and militias.” From atop her horse, she nodded her head low, to imply a bow.

Eldren had to play it cool now. He presumed that, if he was under some contract to serve Lord Razola, he should possess some inkling of who that was. This is completely ridiculous, he thought. I am dead and I’m role-playing as my game character.

A thought dawned on him. In role-playing games, stats determine how situations play out. For example, if you tried to lie your way into a royal treasure vault your character would need to be extremely charismatic and charming to improve the odds that the lies would be believed. Did this world he was dreaming up work the same way? Were there rules? Did he have stats? If so, lying to this woman seemed like a surefire way to get beheaded by a great sword. She seemed like someone who would have extremely high stats and a low tolerance for being lied to. But— then again — wasn’t he already dead? Could he die again? He decided not to risk finding out right now.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’m sorry,” Eldren said. “I’m brand new.”

“Obviously,” she replied. “And temporary.” He ignored the barb.

“What will be expected of me in my new role?” he asked. He figured he couldn’t go wrong continuing to ask questions, so long as he pretended to have a rough idea of who these people were and didn’t ask anything that revealed the full extent of his ignorance.

“Well, like I said, you’re a temporary mage. So, in the best-case scenario, not much,” she said. For a warrior, General Espella had a unique elegance and stoic gracefulness even when she was belittling him.

He felt relieved by her answer, even if it was teasing. Could he pull this off without having to disclose that he didn’t know any magic? If he could get to safety he would have time to figure out if and how he could get home. Or, maybe by that time, his friends would splash some water on his face back in the game store.

“But, of course, if things go south in the war against the Coven you’ll have to come to the front line and help.” His heart sank. That definitely sounded like he would need to be able to do magic.

“What is the update on the war with the Coven?” he asked, trying to pry more information.

“Ah, yes. Let me discuss our intelligence with you, a man I just met, here in the Wyldwood for all the spies of the enemy to hear,” she said. “As I said, the war council meets tomorrow afternoon. Which, again, means we need to return to Nottengrad quickly. You don’t want to be in the marshes after dark. Again, will you fly Pendergast?”

“Please, call me Eldren,” he replied. She nodded and repeated her question. “Will you fly, Eldren?”

“I think I’d like to take stock of things from the ground as we pass through,” he said, hoping he sounded official and smart. She nodded. He couldn’t get any other read on her reaction.

“Unconventional,” she mused. “But tactical. I only have Risha, here, though.” She patted the neck of her giant mare. “Do you ride?”

“Not well,” he admitted. She rolled her eyes and muttered something about wizards before leaning over the side of the horse and extending a hand. “Feet in the stirrup — there you go,” she said. He put his foot up and grabbed her hand and felt her pull him up with immense strength, despite her deceptively thin appearance even with the armor. “Wizards always have impractical boots.”

He glanced at his sneakers. “Ah, uh — newest style,” he said, settling into the saddle. He had hoped to ride in front of her for extra protection against falling off but she had pulled him up behind her.

“Hold on.” She snapped the reins and the mare shot forward at a speed that Eldren would have thought almost impossible. They dashed through the forest, weaving expertly between trees and hurdling fallen logs and boulders lodged halfway into the dirt. Eldren found himself struggling to heed Espella’s warning and his hands dug into her sides as he clung for dear life.

I’m going to die a second time, he thought.

They traveled at this breakneck pace for quite some time. The sun progressed through the sky and still, the mare and her rider did not relent. As time passed, the scenery shifted dramatically, and not for the better. The bright vivid colors of the Wyldwood were replaced by the drab brown of cracked, dry earth and the ashen grays of dead trees and brush. A chill wind kicked up and soon the sky had become hazy and overcast and the sun was visible as a bright orb behind the gray clouds.

The pair rode through the now-bleak countryside slowing their pace. They followed a main road and Espella noted paths that split from the road by explaining which villages they led to. Ivankovo. Dubrovka. Yarko Village. Cam’s persona surfaced for a moment in Eldren’s head and he thought that his Eastern European history classes must be influencing his imagination in death. Still, each time he nodded as if her explanation was useful to him. It seemed odd that they didn’t encounter anyone else on the road.

“Not many folks travel the roads these days,” Espella said as if she had read his expression. “Far too dangerous this far east with witch-kind and their spawn about. Only the most desperate merchants, and less frequently than normal. Sometimes that damned circus.” He nodded silently, not sure what to say.

After a few more hours, their pace slowed further as the road started to turn to mud and the clouds above grew darker threatening ominously to storm on them at any moment as the chill wind picked up in heavy gusts. Espella steered them around mud pits that she told him would swallow the horse whole and warned him not to drink any water from the fetid pools of brackish, black water, slick with green algae that lined the road. As if he would ever consider it.

The sun had long been gone behind the clouds but—based on the deepening gloom—he guessed that sunset was not far off. He could feel Espella’s posture straighten, her muscles were constantly tensed, and her eyes darted back and forth across the road, ever alert.

“We are being followed,” she said after a while, a bit too casually for his liking.

“Followed?” he exclaimed.

“Quiet!” she hissed. “Don’t change anything and don’t draw attention.”

“Sorry,” he whispered back, doing his best to avoid the immediate urge to whip his head around and begin looking for whatever was stalking them. “By what?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“But if you had to guess,” he pressed.

“We can rule out swamp sirens,” she said thoughtfully. “They’d announce their presence with a song that neither of us could resist. We’d have plunged off the road into the pools and walked into their trap.” That thought didn’t comfort Eldren.

“So it’s — it’s something else?”

“Could be a mist stalker. Or a prowler. Full-grown werewolves don’t come this far north of Yarko, but maybe a welp wandered up. We had better hope it’s not a witch-kind or one of their thralls — a person they’ve enchanted and rotted from within and enhanced with claws and teeth. They are undying to most weapons and require powerful magic to kill.” She glanced back at him and something about her look told Eldren that she very much doubted he had such powerful magic. Still, he could hear the worry in her voice.

“How will we fight it?” he asked.

“We won’t,” she said darkly. “We are not in a position to engage whatever it is that is following us. It would slaughter us both and also delay us further. We are near the bridge to Nottengrad proper. One useful thing that Ardos did do is ward the bridge. It should allow us time to outrace our stalker and make the keep.”

Eldren couldn’t tell if his legs were numb from hours on horseback, from the cold, or from the adrenaline rush of sheer terror. He had no choice but to trust Espella. Hadn’t she said she was a general? Surely, she was field-experienced?

They rode on through the darkening swampland. As dusk deepened, Eldren wondered how Espella could see where she was navigating the horse. Maybe the lurking predator wouldn’t matter and they’d fall into a sinkhole and drown quietly. Cam tried to suppress his constant anxiety.

Embrace the adventure, he tried to convince himself.

“Ah,” she said. “We’ve made it.” He could hear the relief in Espella’s voice. “Around this turn in the road, the bridge will span the Nettle River. Once we are across we sh—” She trailed off suddenly.

“Once we are across what?” he asked. Espella did not reply, her gaze fixed solemnly ahead. Eldren leaned around her to look, too.

They had rounded the bend in the road. He could hear the rushing water of the river and, just barely, make out the river bank ahead of them where she had said the defended bridge would be.

The bridge was there. Or, at least half of it was. It had been cut. They were stranded in the marshland as the sun sank over the horizon and something was hunting them in the darkness.