High above the canopy, a familiar speck of vibrant pink and yellow wheeled against the endless blue sky. Bomber. For the last hour, the Giant Moth had been a patient, circling sentinel.

  Its flight path changed. The lazy circles tightened into a sharp, deliberate figure-eight, the established signal painted against the sky.

  A single, isolated target.

  The signal was so unusual that a knot of unease tightened in Trenn’s gut. Beside him, Mara’s body went rigid.

  Trenn closed his eyes and pushed with the new muscle in his mind, his senses stretching out like an invisible net through the trees. Leaves rustled, the insects were buzzing, and then, footsteps. They were furtive. Hurried.

  It was a Goblin, but it moved like no Goblin he had seen before. It darted from the shadow of one copper-barked tree to the next, a frantic, skittish creature that was terrified of the sun-dappled ground.

  It was constantly looking over its shoulder, but not towards their position; it was looking back the way it had come, as if fearing pursuit from its own kind.

  The Goblin reached the center of the clearing and stopped, its chest heaving. A long, tense moment stretched in the silent clearing.

  The decision was made without a word being spoken. From the deep shadows to the Goblin’s left, a shape detached itself from the undergrowth. Mara slipped from the shadows.

  She didn’t bare her claws, but her entire posture was a promise of swift, brutal violence. She stopped a dozen feet from the Goblin, her amber eyes narrowed to predatory slits.

  Trenn pushed himself to his feet and moved to stand at her side, with Skate under his arm.

  The Goblin flinched, shuffling a few steps backward. Its terrified gaze darted from the white-furred Guardian to Trenn, and stayed there.

  It opened its mouth, and a torrent of sound spilled out. To Mara, it was a series of guttural, rasping sounds.

  But to Trenn, the words were crystal clear.

  "I am Grol! Chieftain of the Dim-Asher!" the Goblin stammered, its voice tight with terror. "You... you have poisoned the alliance! The clans bleed! Red-Gnawers slit Bone-Eater throats in the dark!"

  It took a ragged breath, its beady eyes wide with a desperate, conspiratorial fervor. "The Hobgoblin... It kills us! It wants a kingdom, an army! We want the old ways back! Proper goblin ways! Raiding, squabbling... Eating meat, not dumb roots!"

  It leaned forward, a crooked, yellow-toothed grin splitting its face. "You are the sharp stone that can cut the knot. You kill him, and the rest falls apart. I take my place. Things go back to normal."

  It looked from Trenn to Mara and back again, its gaze settling on Trenn as it delivered its final, treacherous offer.

  "I will deliver his head to your blade. You have to be sharp enough to cut it off."

  Having delivered its treacherous offer, a ringing silence fell over the clearing. Mara hadn't moved a muscle, her face an unreadable mask of cold, predatory calm. Her amber eyes flicked from the terrified Goblin to Trenn.

  Trenn met her gaze, his voice a low, steady report. "It says it’s a chieftain. It wants to arrange a… personal meeting between the Hobgoblin and us."

  A low, contemptuous sound, like the scrape of stone on stone, rumbled in Mara's chest. "And I suppose the filth has a plan?" she asked, her words dripping with a cynicism so profound it was a physical force.

  Trenn turned back to Grol, softening Mara’s acidic tone into a simple, direct question. "She needs to know how."

  Seeing he hadn't been killed on the spot, a flicker of confidence entered Grol’s beady eyes. He leaned forward conspiratorially, his voice dropping as he laid out the specifics of his treason.

  Trenn listened, his expression hardening with focus as he translated the treacherous opportunity for Mara. "The Warlord is moving between the clan camps tonight," he relayed, his gaze locked with hers. "It's trying to enforce loyalty."

  He paused, delivering the most crucial piece of the puzzle. "The honor guard escorting him... they're Grol's goblins. Loyal to Grol first," he paused.

  "Grol says when they see us," Trenn continued, his voice barely a whisper, "its guards have been ordered to break formation. To scream and run away," he looked at Mara in the eyes.

  "They will leave the Warlord alone for us. It says that if we kill him, the alliance dies with him. Grol gets what he wants, and we get what we want."

  Having delivered his proposal, the Goblin spat a final string of words—a location, a time—and without waiting for an answer, he turned and scurried back into the dense undergrowth.

  He moved with the frantic, silent speed of a rat disappearing into the shadows, leaving Trenn and Mara alone in the quiet clearing.

  For a long moment, the only sound was the gentle rustle of leaves in the canopy high above. Mara hadn't moved. She was a statue carved from white fur and fury, her amber eyes fixed on the spot where the traitor had vanished.

  "No," she snarled, whirling to face Trenn, her voice a low, vicious growl that was pure, undiluted contempt. "Absolutely not."

  She began to pace, her movements tight and predatory, a caged wolf radiating frustrated rage.

  "It is a trap. It is the most obvious trap I have ever seen. It is leading us into a narrow pass where his entire clan will surround us." Her gaze was sharp as flaked obsidian.

  "A Goblin would sell his own mother for a shiny rock. Did you truly believe a word that filth said?"

  "I think you’re wrong," he said, his voice quiet but firm, causing Mara to stop her pacing and stare at him in disbelief. "When he was talking... I felt something."

  He struggled for a moment, trying to put a name to a sensation he had never consciously experienced before. "The hum," he finally managed, his eyes unfocused as he tried to recapture the feeling. “I could feel it. A faint echo of my own power, inside of him."

  "Your charm?" Mara scoffed. "You think you charmed that Goblin into telling the truth?"

  "No," Trenn insisted, shaking his head, the pieces clicking into place in his mind with a sudden, startling clarity. "It wasn't my charm affecting him... it was more like... a resonance. A feedback loop." He met her disbelieving gaze.

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  "My divination spell. It was translating its intent. The Goblin’s telling the truth."

  She stared at him, her amber eyes searching his face. Finally, with a frustrated growl, she gave a single, sharp nod.

  "Fine," she hissed, her voice a low, dangerous promise. "We trust your instinct. We walk into the pass." She took a step closer, her face inches from his.

  "But if this 'hum' of yours is wrong," she whispered, the words a quiet vow, "we both die."

  A simple bridge, little more than three rough-hewn logs lashed together with thick vines, spanned the narrowest point of the stream.

  Hidden in the deep, inky shadows of a massive copper-barked tree, Trenn held his breath. At his feet, Skate was doing its best impression of a big round stone. A dozen yards away, tucked into a thicket of ferns on the opposite side of the stream, Mara was invisible.

  He couldn't see her, but he could feel her presence—a silent, coiled spring of lethal intent.

  The heavy silence stretched. The weight of his decision, of staking both their lives on the strange, intuitive hum of his own magic, pressed down on him.

  The waiting was the worst part. Every rustle of a leaf, every snap of a distant twig, was a potential signal.

  First, there was the sound: a disciplined, percussive tramp of boots on packed earth.

  A formation of Goblins emerged from the treeline, marching with purpose.

  At their center stood the Hobgoblin Warlord. It was a walking arsenal, equipped with the previous dead Hobgoblin’s weapons and armor. It was wearing the imposing leather and hide armor, the enchanted long club, the bow, and Trenn’s old kris knife.

  At its neck, the black amulet drank the moonlight, a spot of absolute darkness in the spectral clearing.

  It was halfway across the narrow log bridge when Trenn moved.

  He didn't charge or shout. He stepped out from the deep shadow of the copper-barked tree and planted himself at the end of the bridge, a lone, silent figure blocking the path.

  The column halted. The rhythmic marching stopped, replaced by a tense, rustling silence. A dozen pairs of beady, hate-filled eyes fixed on him. The Warlord’s head tilted, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing its wide, flat face. A sneer of pure, contemptuous amusement immediately replaced it. It let out a high, grating laugh that echoed in the quiet clearing.

  "They say you speak Goblin-tongue, Smooth-Skin," it rasped, its voice dripping with mockery as it took another confident step onto the bridge. "A clever trick. But you are alone. Where is your white-furred friend?"

  As the Warlord spoke, a wave of nervous energy passed through the goblin ranks. They began to shuffle, their disciplined formation wavering. A voice from the back of the column shrieked with authority. It was Grol.

  "I saw her!" it screamed, its arm shooting out to point wildly into the forest, back the way they had come. "The white demon! She's over there! With me, Dim-Asher warriors!"

  Grol turned and fled. The disciplined column shattered. More than a dozen Goblins let out warcries and followed him without hesitation, a stampeding herd crashing back into the woods.

  The Warlord whirled around, its face masked with stunned disbelief. It opened its mouth to roar a command, but it was too late. The forest had swallowed its army. But the surprise on its face lasted a second. A profound disgust quickly replaced it. It didn't see treason. It showed incompetence.

  It turned back to face Trenn, its momentary shock already hardening into a focused rage. Half of its army was gone, but its confidence remained. It stood on the bridge, surrounded by its eight remaining guards—the elite, the loyal, the ones who had not broken.

  The Warlord didn’t waste time on threats. In a single, fluid motion, it unslung the shortbow from its back, an arrow already nocked. The bowstring creaked as it drew it to its cheek, the obsidian arrowhead glinting in the dual-moonglow.

  A pale flash was all the warning Trenn got. He threw himself sideways into the dirt. A sharp breath of displaced air cut past his ear a heartbeat before a heavy THUMP drove deep into the tree behind him.

  From the silent shadows, a ghost of white fur materialized.

  One moment, the Goblin guards were scanning the trees, and the next, Mara was between them.

  Her claws, already extended, were firmly lodged in the brains of the guards on her left and right. They twitched while blood ran down their faces like tears. Mara’s claws retracted, and they fell to the ground.

  Simultaneously, Trenn drop-kicked Skate

  THWUMP.

  The grey sphere cannonballed forward and slammed into the chest of a guard before rebounding off the side of another. There was a sickening CRACK of breaking ribs and a skull. The dead creatures were thrown backwards as Skate returned to Trenn with a controlled curve.

  The Warlord stood frozen on the bridge, his second arrow half-drawn. His disbelieving eyes darted from the two corpses at Mara’s feet to the two broken heaps Trenn had created.

  Four of his elite guards were down.

  The Warlord’s shock lasted for a heartbeat before it curdled into a black, murderous rage. Its last four guards did not hesitate. Ignoring Trenn, they turned as one and charged Mara.

  They were a coordinated unit. One swung his heavy cudgel low, a vicious, sweeping strike aimed at her legs. The other lunged high with his spear, the fire-hardened tip driving for her face.

  Mara, caught between them, was forced onto the defensive. She twisted, the spear tip scraping harmlessly across the cured leather pauldron on her shoulder with a loud SKRRRT, but she couldn't avoid the club entirely. It connected with her thigh with a dull, sickening thud that made her grunt in pain and stumble back a step.

  The advantage of reach was theirs.

  She became a blur of deflection and evasion, her claws flashing in the moonlight as she searched for an opening. Still, they pressed their assault, forcing her back, step by agonizing step, away from the bridge and toward the dark, entangling foliage.

  The Hobgoblin began to loose arrows with a terrifying speed, a steady rhythm of draw and release.

  Trenn met the assault, shoving Skate forward like a shield. The first arrow struck dead center and bounced away. The second, he caught at an angle. It ricocheted off Skate's hardened surface with a sharp SKRRANG.

  The Warlord let out a guttural roar of frustration.

  With a snarl of disgust, he tossed the weapon aside, and his hand went to the heavy, rectangular club on his back. The Warlord charged across the bridge, the heavy, carved club held high.

  Trenn instinctively met the charge, shoving Skate forward in a desperate, two-handed block.

  This time, there was no satisfying rebound. There was no soft absorption of force.

  The Hobgoblin Warlord batted Skate with a heavy sideways hit, knocking it out of Trenn’s hands. Skate was blasted sideways off the bridge.

  It skipped once on the black, moonlit surface of the water, a flat sound like a thrown stone, and vanished, swallowed by the dark current.

  A void opened in Trenn's stomach. He was disarmed. His friend was gone. Can Skate survive underwater?

  The Warlord didn't give him time to process the loss. A triumphant, guttural roar tore from its throat as it raised the club for the final, brutal, skull-crushing blow.

  But before the heavy weapon began its downward arc, the black amulet at the Warlord’s neck hummed. A silent warning, whispered in the Hobgoblin’s ear.

  The Warlord's head snapped up, his beady eyes catching a flicker of movement from above.

  It re-angled the heavy club mid-swing, shifting his target from Trenn’s head to the open air. A silent streak of pink and yellow was diving from the darkness. Bomber.

  The club connected with the Giant Moth with a sickening THUMP, like a baseball bat hitting a heavy, sodden bag.

  It was swatted from the air.

  Bomber tumbled to the ground at the foot of the bridge, a broken marionette of limp legs and crumpled wings. A low, pained chittering escaped it. One wing was bent at an impossible, sickening angle.

  It was broken, its fluffy paws twitching as it lay on its side.

  The world went silent. The roar of the stream, the distant sounds of Mara’s fight, the pounding in his own ears—it all vanished, replaced by a single, deafening wave of pure, undiluted rage.

  "NO!"

  As the warlord recovered from his momentum, Trenn’s body moved on pure, suicidal instinct. His hand shot out, his fingers hooking around the hilt of the kris knife tucked in the Warlord's own belt. He ripped it free and lunged forward, driving the serrated tooth-blade in a desperate stab aimed for the creature's gut.

  SKRRRT!

  The blade scraped uselessly against the layers of cured leather armor. The sound was a high, grinding shriek of failed vengeance. The Warlord looked down at the knife held weakly against its armor, its lips peeling back in a slow, triumphant, hateful grin.

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