Martha was not a short and dainty woman. She was a minotaur, with all that entailed. Which is to say that when she ran, she crashed loudly through the forest, alerting the group she was approaching well before she was in view.

  The three scrying mirrors captured in crystal clarity the moment her targets noticed something was bearing down on them. Their faces turned grave as they pulled out their weapons.

  When Martha finally came within sight of them, she stopped. A wide grin split her face. Then she pointed at them and shouted something.

  Kiri shook her head. “She called them bandits and promised to crush them.”

  The minotaur was evidently determined to deliver on that promise. She had stopped just far enough away from the soldiers to give herself a good running start. Her bulk and the natural speed of her species launched her forward, and she leaned into it completely.

  To their credit, the soldiers didn’t falter. They panicked a little, but then they closed ranks, shields up and swords drawn.

  When Martha crashed into them, she still managed to send the front line crashing back into their fellows, her mouth open in what was either a war cry or uproarious laughter. Perhaps both, from her expression.

  A few managed to swing at her as she charged into the middle of their formation. Yet with the shock of what she’d done, along with her thick hide and leather armor, all the attacks failed to draw blood.

  Martha, meanwhile, raised her left hoof and brought it down on the head of one of the fallen soldiers. Said soldier’s head exploded like an overripe fruit, showering his fellows in blood and worse. Immediately, Martha reached out and used the claws of her gauntlets to shred right through another soldier’s neck.

  Despite these satisfying scenes, though, I sighed.

  “She is going to get herself killed. Why in the world is she doing this?”

  “I was worried she might,” Alys rumbled as another two soldiers died to Martha’s brutality. “She… probably felt useless.”

  I frowned. “Useless?”

  “She didn’t get to do much when the town was attacked.” Alys shrugged. “She accepted learning how to use poison, something she’d typically be against, just to fight off monsters better. But then she arrived at the tail end, when we’d pretty much killed the eel thing already. She knew she was just finishing the beast off.”

  I didn’t reply, because what I had suspected would happen had started playing out in the mirrors.

  With a chance to rally, the soldiers were surrounding the minotaur far more confidently. She managed to kill another three, but now the corpses were just getting in her way while the soldiers began putting their training to use.

  Strikes lashed out, enhanced by mana or perhaps enchantments. They didn’t do too much damage, thanks to the minotaur’s prowess with self-enhancement, but they drew blood nonetheless. Every time she snapped in someone’s direction, they blocked her off, using the press of bodies to stop her from building enough momentum to break out. At the same time, those at her back surged forward, their weapons seeking purchase.

  She was making the soldiers pay. She even managed to snag one’s shield and pull him out of formation, where she promptly savaged his face with her clawed gauntlet and left him to choke on his own blood on the ground. But I knew she would eventually falter.

  If they were less trained or had worse equipment, I would bet on our minotaur. As it was, I could track the speed at which they were draining her mana. Their weapons were leaving noticeably larger gashes upon her body.

  “Should I head out? Or… you might be faster,” I reluctantly admitted, glancing at Alys. I couldn’t really compete with flight, but I didn’t like the idea of letting her go alone, even if I logically knew she’d be just fine. After all, flying over a group of soldiers and sending fire raining down on them from the sky was a very solid combat strategy.

  To my shock, my dragoness shook her head.

  “No, not yet. Keep watching.”

  I arched my brow at her, but I did take a moment to glance at our two other frontline agents. Penelope was still waiting and looking a bit bored. Nasha was being careful and stealthy, and therefore hadn’t reached her target yet.

  I looked back at Martha to find the situation hadn’t improved. Yet, even then, Alys didn’t seem to be panicking over the minotaur. If not for the twitching of her tail, I would think my dragoness wasn’t worried at all.

  I couldn’t understand her faith. Her comment concerning Martha’s dislike of poison made me guess that the minotaur wouldn’t choose to use the pouch I’d given her, and I felt that was her best chance of escaping the encirclement.

  At least I didn’t have to wait for long.

  Martha roared something at the invading soldiers before her entire body tensed. I could see the shroud of mana that suddenly condensed around her, letting her launch herself right through three soldiers and reduce them to bloody chunks. The minotaur staggered once she was out of the encirclement, but she recovered quickly and started to run right back the way she had come.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The soldiers eagerly gathered themselves and gave chase, their expression equal parts bloodthirsty and gleeful. They had a fleeing foe to avenge themselves on now, and they were unlikely to stray from the path she was leading them down.

  Interestingly, the moment she was far enough away from them, I noticed Martha’s wounds slowly begin to knit closed. Some of the exhaustion also lifted off her shoulders, almost like magic. She began running much more steadily, though she never got out of their sight.

  “She was baiting them,” I breathed, somewhat impressed. “Was that whole assault mere theatre? Was she planning to do this from the start?”

  “Partly, I’d bet.” Alys looked amused now. She couldn’t quite hide her lingering worry from me, but she seemed mostly convinced that the minotaur would be fine. “Part of it was her wanting to claim her pound of invader flesh.”

  I could understand that. My fingers spasmed just remembering what Kiri had shared with us about the soldiers’ orders, and that was on top of my still-burning rage at the audacity of the Hergeiros family to threaten the people I cared about.

  “Nasha is about to make contact, too,” Kiri calmly pointed out, drawing our attention to a different set of screens.

  Whereas Martha seemed committed to aggression, Nasha had clearly listened to our instructions. She had rushed to her targets stealthily, and then had stopped far enough away that she could catch their attention by casually making noise while pretending to forage.

  To their credit, the three elves (because of course all the officers were elves) spotted her the instant she started putting on the act. They turned in her direction, affecting stealth themselves, though it seemed like a casual attempt at best. Nasha ‘startled’ when she ‘suddenly noticed them’, and a brief dialogue broke out.

  “They asked for directions, and now they are asking what Nasha is doing. It seems like they are trying to present themselves as former sellswords wanting to settle down at Swiftband. She pressed them on being bandits. I think she’s about to —”

  Kiri’s teeth clacked shut as Nasha threw herself into a sprint which I knew was slow for her. Then the elf leader’s hand, which had been resting casually on the pommel of his sword, lashed out.

  The only thing that saved the beagle was a likely instinctive burst of speed. She just barely leapt out of the path of a sword phantom that carved through the trees behind her.

  There was a brief moment of surprise on both sides, and then violence erupted.

  Nasha was no longer playing around. She was doing her best to get away, but the elves were keeping up. Barely, and only by forcing the beagle to throw herself around in an effort to avoid the sword phantoms they produced every time they swung their weapons. Yet the three of them were managing.

  My shock was considerable. If they had power like that, then Martha should have been far less successful facing down the officer attached to her group.

  My eyes strayed over to the mirrors depicting that chase, only to blink when I failed to spot the elf officer in question. I tore through my memories, then had to fight down a startled laugh.

  The very first person Martha had gored was, in fact, the biggest threat to her.

  The brief levity fled me entirely when I looked back at Nasha’s scrying mirrors. One of the sword phantoms managed to clip her arm, drawing forth a spray of blood that got quickly devoured by the rain.

  Nasha didn’t hesitate any longer. Her hand clutched at the pouch I’d given her and then whipped backwards, sending the pouch flying straight at the leader’s face. Whether it was instinct or something else, the elf met the pouch with his sword.

  Incidentally, that was the worst thing he could have done.

  The pouch erupted like it had been containing titanic pressure within its leather confines. Extremely fine powder flew everywhere, coating the elves immediately and spreading on the ground around them. Their plight was only made worse by the rain. The moment the powder was exposed to water, it began to bubble as it heated into a paste.

  I could swear I heard faint screams all the way from where the battle was occurring. Even without sound, the expressions of agony on the elven faces I saw in Nasha’s mirror certainly told the story.

  All thoughts of chasing Nasha had fled the trio as they writhed on the ground. The powder-turned-paste burned itself through their armor and clothing, seeping into their skin as it visibly swelled, bubbling all the while.

  Nasha’s eyes were wide with fear as she backed away from the spreading poison paste. I could see that she now understood my warnings that she would want to be nowhere near the scene after being forced to use the pouch.

  If Martha had used hers while in the midst of her foes, I would have had to fetch her very quickly. At least the antidote I’d fed her would have kept her from feeling the agony my poison was inflicting on the trio of elves.

  Speaking of the elves, the paste that covered their bodies had swelled enough to swallow them entirely by that point. The special properties alchemically imbued into the paste would keep them alive, despite their loss of access to oxygen. Simultaneously, it would also torment them beyond what they were ever likely to experience again.

  I hadn’t been feeling particularly merciful when I dug that particular powder mixture out of storage and altered it a little to suit our needs. It was one of the poisons I’d brought with me from home. I wasn’t sure whether to feel annoyed or glad that I couldn’t make more of it on demand. It required some rather rare herbs, many of which could only be found in my family’s gardens.

  “Will they survive that?” Alys asked conversationally, a quiet satisfaction etched on her expression as she looked at the relevant scrying mirrors.

  “Of course. I gave those pouches to everyone, and we needed the leaders alive.” I chuckled darkly. “I wouldn’t risk their lives like that.”

  Their bodies would be just fine. Their vocal cords might need healing, and their muscles might feel like they’d been wrung out and then shredded. I wasn’t entirely sure what the trauma would do to their minds. But they would be alive, and mostly functional.

  I hadn’t wanted to open with such poison, because there were risks that the anguish would reduce them to little more than shells, but… I couldn’t really bring myself to care. I could find a way to make them ‘normal’ enough for our ruse.

  And they had almost killed our beagle!

  As Nasha stared at the disturbing scene from a safe distance and Martha ran from her pursuers, Penelope’s scrying mirrors stood out in sheer contrast. Her group of soldiers were on a direct course towards her and were taking their sweet time, so the lynx was currently sitting on a tree branch, swinging her legs like a child.

  I sighed. Was it wrong of me to think it ironic that the only one who seemed poised to follow the plan perfectly was a half-feral mutated beastfolk?

  Even if it was, I couldn’t rid myself of the sense of exasperated amusement.