A spark fell onto the tinder. As fire caught the wood stacked above, Deventh set aside his flint and steel and stepped back to take count of everyone. Six, including himself – Lydie hadn’t returned yet, but Tatsidi’s annoyance was as telling as it was palpable. Anna and Jessa were rationing out apples, bread, and dried meat across the expected days of travel and portioning a fair amount for each meal that evening. It seemed everyone present was settled in and unwinding well from their long, yet thankfully uneventful, first day of their journey. Once the food was sorted and stowed, Anna stood and brushed herself off.

“That should do it. We ought to make it to the city tomorrow, but if we don’t, we’ll still have plenty to eat for another night.” She swiveled her head as if searching for something. “Where’s—”

A distant shout rived the peaceful atmosphere. Deventh watched Julien reach over to grip the hilt of his sword, his own reflex, too, leading his hand to his dagger. Tatsidi’s fur stood on end, pupils dilating and contracting as his head turned toward the trees. Fumbling through her backpack, Anna spat a slew of curses at her own choice to remove her rings for the night.

“Bo-dasa’s mane,” Tatsidi growled, as irritated as he was worried. “Do not bother with your weapons – I will go to her rescue.”

“I will go by your side,” insisted Julien. “The burden of her safety oughtn’t be yours alone.”

“But it is mine alone. Leave me to it.”

“Still your sentimentalities,” said Deventh, “You heard the guard captain earlier. Uradrak are about.”

“Yes, so let’s waste no more time bickering,” said Anna, holding her arm in position for her shield as she twisted the ring on her middle finger. “Jessa, Ardmy, I trust you both to watch over the camp while we’re gone.” A frown parted Jessa’s lips, and her hands fell into her lap holding a skewer and a chunk of apple. Her wide and worried eyes flashed a glance at Deventh, but they soon found their way to an unbothered, confident Ardmy as he stepped up to the task.

“Everything will be ready by the time you all come back,” said Ardmy, his chin slightly tilted toward the worried Nelthrin. This assuaged some of her doubt about whether they would, indeed, come back – yet still, as they moved out, she kept stealing glances at Deventh. Having noticed her preoccupation, Ardmy sat beside her at the fire. Between them, linen cloths were arranged with a pile of skewers, chunks of dried beef, cubes of semi-hard Sheannoran cheese, and slices of russet apples. He picked up one of the skewers and, with a stiff-lipped smile to reassure Jessa, he helped her to prepare their evening meal.

Tatsidi rushed on all fours, bounding over fallen leaves and branches. He took care to pace himself and keep the other three would-be rescuers within a comfortable range, leading them rather than bolting ahead. All the while, his keen nocturnal vision kept him alert to the sights and obstacles of the forest – thorny briar tendrils, freshly woven spiderwebs, mounds marking the burrows of animals best left undisturbed. He soon picked up on a unique vibration and stopped, nose and whiskers twitching as he oriented himself. He felt the others stop behind him as well.

“She is nearby,” he said, “And she is not alone.”

He wasted no time starting deeper into the woods, chasing the vibrations. A light flashed in the distance. A high-pitched frequency pierced Tatsidi’s ears, causing them to fold down to protect his hearing. The others, wondering why he’d suddenly stopped again, soon found out – when the sound plunged to a ground-shaking roar. They all quickened their pace, the flashes of light appearing more frequently and accompanied by Lydie’s strained shouts and the odor of smoke as they came nearer to the source of the unrest.

The underbrush was sparse there, and substantial patches of ground were freshly singed. Lydie shouted from atop a boulder, preoccupied with the uradrak as it tried to grab hold with its claws and climb up the side.

“I’ve got it under fookin’ control,” she said, managing to conjure a somewhat unstable fireball in the palm of her hand. “Don’t piss it o—”

Anna ignored her and charged in shield-first, licks of flame on the charred ground glinting off her full suit of golden armor. As she arrived within range of the beast, she went in for a swing with her mace between the horns on its head. But its armored skull proved resilient, and while stunned, the creature suffered only a small dent in its scales. The force of her own swing bounced back at her, nearly causing her to lose grip on her mace. Staggering back, Anna kept her shield raised as another fireball hurtled toward her. She managed to hop out of the way before it scorched her boots.

“Sorry, hen!” shouted Lydie. The bear-drake huffed, shaking the daze from its head, and turned around with heavy steps to face Anna. The Helbrund stood her ground, holding her shield fast and mace outward. Julien hurried to her aid, sword in one hand and a pure arcane charge in the other. While Anna had the creature’s attention, he hurled the ball of energy at its side. He tried to move in for a swing with his sword but leaned back as a clawed paw swept in for his face.

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As Anna’s shield and mace vied for the beast’s attention, Tatsidi snaked through the shadows, intent on approaching from behind. He had only his dagger, and as he drew closer to the boulder where Lydie had taken refuge, he realized that she was no longer in possession of his bow. He paused in his tracks, growled to himself – but soon came to his senses. Proceeding to his intended position, he fought back an urge to curse.

Deventh stayed low in a small patch of brush, racking his mind for the best approach. While Anna and Julien were doing well enough with keeping the bear-drake distracted, the right poison or restraint would expedite the rescue. He plucked a bolt from his pouch and selected a poison he assumed strong enough to fell an uradrak – one he used sparingly and took great care to avoid opening unless necessary. It was a heavy neurotoxin, sourced from the venom of the violet death adder, a Drondaris elapid.

He loaded the poisoned bolt and lifted his crossbow to aim. A decent shot would prove difficult with the bear-drake’s erratic movements – throwing its own weight everywhither, twisting and swinging its head at Anna and Julien, paws lifting and slamming back onto the ground. He had to take care, too, for the shot not to even graze a hair on an arm of his companions – the toxin, distilled under Zéah’s method, could be fatal even on contact with chafed skin.

Once Deventh confirmed everyone was out of his path, he took aim, curling a finger to the trigger. But he caught a glimpse of the creature’s slit pupil as a glint of orange shot across it. One of Lydie’s fireballs blazed toward him – he ducked lower than was comfortable to avoid it, losing his aim in the process. The shot discharged from his crossbow and burrowed into the dirt.

He turned to face the fireball’s point of impact. A patch of grass and dried leaves shriveled and crackled, pungent black smoke rising from them. Clearing his throat of the stinging fumes, Deventh began to dig the bolt out of the ground.

Lifting its front legs off the ground, the bear-drake left its neck vulnerable. Julien seized the opportunity to move in for a slash with his blade. But he was too slow – claws caught onto his arm when the beast came back down. They tore his sleeve, drawing blood.

“Julien!” shouted Anna, “Get behind me! You’re only distracting it from my shield!”

Julien shook his head. He had another idea. Instead of continuing to hurl spheres of energy at the beast, he conjured one around himself. A shield, one he hoped might contend with Anna’s until one of them found the right opening. But the slashes in his arm were deep – some of his magic energy trickled out with his blood, and he had to channel more to compensate. Holding his breath tight, he prepared himself to strike.

Having carefully tapped the loose dirt from the bolt, Deventh loaded it back into his crossbow. Again, he took aim, a precise return to the position that offered him a clear shot before – everything from the height of his forearm to the degree of angle from which the wind stroked his nose.

He pressed the trigger. Nothing.

“Thoum vrok,” he muttered.

The protective aura surrounding Julien started to flicker, phasing in and out. Jolts of pain interrupted his channeling. The more he focused, the more his energy gushed out of his wounds, the more he had to compensate. Having lost none of its momentum, the uradrak kept lashing out with its massive claws and chomping at them with teeth that could crunch bone with ease. Noticing the decline of Julien’s condition, Anna positioned herself between him and the uradrak. She swept in with her mace, slamming into its lower flank.

The creature roared, ribs cracking and barbs piercing its skin. Anna heaved herself back as it lowered its head. It did not, however, afford her the moment she needed to catch her balance before butting its curved horns into her shield, tossing her off her feet. She landed flat on her back. Every vertebra popped, but her shoulder took the brunt of the impact – and what she assumed would later be pain.

I am truly not getting any younger, she thought, limbs stretched up into the air, rocking, attempting to right herself like a hapless turtle. While she was down, Julien offered himself as the beast’s target – prodding, poking, disengaging. He repeated this pattern, missing not a single inch of movement in calculating a chance for a meaningful strike.

Julien felt his body slowing down, each second a new brick stacked upon his shoulders. Aside from some flesh wounds and whatever small fracture may have ensued from Anna’s mace, the beast was hardly weakened at all. In his unwavering focus, Julien had thought nothing of what the others aside from Anna were doing – and in that moment he gave his curiosity the leeway to check. Lydie was still crouched on her boulder perch, twisting her lips into curses, gritting her teeth, trying and failing to conjure more than a fizzling, sulfurous spark. Deventh, concealed in the bushes, fussing over something. Tatsidi, nowhere.

That moment of lenience was enough for the uradrak to seize another magnitude of advantage. It bore down, leaving him no choice but to fall back, and pinned him to the ground under the threat of its fearsome teeth and claws. His hand curled around a phantom hilt; his sword had slipped from his grip. Where it landed did not matter, not now.

The last thing he could think to do was release his shield, to send magic gushing through his veins, grating, searing the vessel walls. Another ball of pure energy gathered in his hand, growing slowly and with no modest toll of pain. But it grew nonetheless.

The monster, too, knew this power, wielded it, taunted him with a flash of fierce knowledge, suggestions even of sentience in its slit-pupiled, amber eyes. It opened its mouth and swallowed every meager morsel of energy that Julien painstakingly spent his entire reserve to scrape up. All in an instant. All he had left to save himself, to save the others, reduced to a snack. If even that wasn’t too generous an equivalency.

Would it be so bad, he mused, if after everything, this was it? The dread and rot of imprisonment, the absurdity and humiliation of becoming a man-pig, the loss of the very last person who cherished him – perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad for this, of all monsters, to be the one to close the final curtain. His heavy eyelids concurred, falling over his blurred vision as it filled with a feathering white light.