The morning sun cast long, accusatory fingers of light through the holes in the watchtower’s roof, illuminating the carnage of the previous night.

  The air inside the upper chamber was cold. It smelled of stale magic, congealed blood, and a faint, lingering scent of lavender and ozone—the olfactory remnants of Elmsworth’s "fog of war."

  I stood over the cultist’s stone map-table, rubbing grit from my eyes. I was trying to piece together a coherent strategy for the quarry marked on the map, but my thoughts were constantly derailed by the sound of a loud, rhythmic CRUNCH coming from the far wall.

  CRUNCH. Crackle. Thud.

  I turned slowly.

  Faelar, covered in a fine layer of grey stone dust that made him look like a statue come to life, was systematically demolishing a section of the load-bearing wall with the butt end of his axe, Bessie.

  He was humming a cheerful tune.

  “Faelar,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “What are you doing?”

  He stopped, turning to beam at me. His beard was flecked with mortar, and he looked happier than I had ever seen him.

  “Ah, morning, lad!” he boomed. “Just making some improvements! This whole section had a terrible load-bearing posture. All hunched over. A disgrace to proper stonework. I’m opening up the floor plan! It’ll improve the defensive sightlines!”

  “You are destroying the structural integrity of our shelter,” I pointed out.

  “Shelter?” Faelar snorted. “This is a tomb for cultists. And besides, the lighting was terrible. Now? Much more airy.”

  With another grunt, he smashed a large chunk of rock loose. It rolled across the floor with a heavy rumble and came to rest inches from the feet of the huddled group of rescued villagers.

  The trapper and the two boys flinched as one, pressing themselves back against the iron bars of the cage we had unlocked but which they seemed afraid to leave.

  Willow, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor offering them a piece of dried meat, gave Faelar a disapproving look. The vines she had summoned the night before were now withered and brown, but as she frowned, a small green shoot poked angrily out of the stone floor near Faelar’s boot.

  “You’re frightening our new friends, Faelar,” she scolded gently. “They’ve had a very stressful night.”

  “Bah! A bit of renovation never hurt anyone!” he boomed, oblivious to the threatening plant life near his ankle.

  From a corner of the room, Liam let out a long, weary sigh.

  He was sitting on a velvet cloak he had stripped from the dead lieutenant. Arranged neatly before him was his ‘loot’ from the previous night. He was organizing it with the obsessive focus of a quartermaster.

  “Final inventory,” he announced to no one in particular, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  He picked up a dagger with a twisted, serrated blade. “Item one: A sacrificial dagger. Balance is terrible. Probably cursed. Makes a faint screaming sound when you hold it. Into the ‘sell to a gullible merchant’ pile.”

  He tossed it onto a small heap.

  “Item two: A pouch of what I believe is powdered toenails,” he continued, sniffing a small leather bag. “Though I’m holding out hope it’s some sort of exotic spice. I’m not tasting it to find out.”

  He picked up a boot. Just one.

  “Item three: Three mismatched boots. All for the left foot. Tragically useless, unless I meet a one-legged centipede.”

  Finally, he held up a black, fist-sized rock carved into the shape of a grinning skull.

  “And this rather fetching, if blood-stained, obsidian skull,” Liam mused, turning it over in the light. “Utterly useless as a weapon. No magical aura. But I imagine it will make a formidable paperweight. Or a gift for a very depressing child.”

  “Is that all?” I asked, eager to leave.

  “There’s also a ring,” Liam said, slipping a silver band onto his finger. “But I’m keeping that. It matches my eyes.”

  Meanwhile, Elmsworth had cornered one of the rescued boys, a terrified lad of about sixteen named Thom. The boy was pressed against the wall, eyes wide, as the wizard pointed animatedly at the scorch marks on the floor where the lieutenant’s ward had been.

  “You see, the fundamental flaw in his spellcasting was a glaring lack of respect for thaumaturgical grammar!” Elmsworth lectured, waving a piece of toast he had found somewhere.

  The boy nodded frantically, clearly having no idea what was happening.

  “His primary warding circle used a conjunctive rune where a subjunctive was clearly called for!” Elmsworth ranted, crumbs flying from the toast. “It’s the sort of sloppy work that gets an apprentice flayed in a proper academy! It’s an outrage! If he weren't already dead, I would kill him myself just for the syntax errors!”

  “Elmsworth, leave the boy alone,” I sighed. “Where is Nugget?”

  “Nesting,” Elmsworth said, gesturing vaguely.

  I looked.

  Nugget, who was now a cheerful, sunshine-yellow color, was happily arranging bits of straw and cloth inside the disemboweled torso of the dead lieutenant. She seemed to find the man’s ribcage to be an ideal, protected structure for a nest.

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  She clucked contentedly, pecking at a loose rib.

  Willow, following my gaze, made a small, horrified sound and rushed over.

  “Oh, Nugget, no!” she cried, waving her hands. “That is not suitable nesting material! That is a person! Well, it was a person! It’s very unsanitary!”

  Another section of the wall collapsed under Faelar’s enthusiastic assault with a deafening crash.

  I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath.

  “That’s it,” I said, my voice tight. “We’re done here. Everyone, pack up. We’re leaving. Now.”

  The journey back to Oakhaven was, if anything, more traumatic for our rescued companions than the battle itself.

  They walked in a tight, nervous huddle in the center of the formation. Their eyes darted about the woods as if expecting a demon to leap from behind every tree.

  Their fear was not helped by the fact that their primary escort was Faelar Stonefist. The dwarf had decided the best way to boost their morale was with a heroic, graphic, blow-by-blow recounting of their rescue.

  “So there we were,” Faelar roared, clapping the trapper on the back so hard the man stumbled into a bush. “Pinned down! That robed git with the glowy stick was throwing lightning everywhere! Zap! Boom! I looked at Kaelen, Kaelen looked at me! We both knew what had to be done!”

  He paused for dramatic effect. The villagers stared at him, their faces pale, terrified of the loud, bloody dwarf.

  “So I charged!” Faelar shouted, swinging his arms. “Ran right up this giant, angry plant-ramp—Willow’s idea, that one, clever lass—and that wizard-fella was so surprised he didn’t even see Bessie comin’! Swung her in a great, big arc, right across his middle!”

  Faelar made a squelching noise with his cheek.

  “Made a sound like a wet boot pullin’ out of thick mud! Schlock! Cut him clean in half! His guts hit the wall before his knees hit the floor! Ha!”

  One of the boys made a faint gagging noise and turned green.

  “Oh, Faelar, perhaps they don’t need to hear all the… juicy parts,” Willow said gently, steering the boy away from the dwarf. “Why don’t you tell us about your homes? I hear the valley is very beautiful when it’s not being terrorized by cultists.”

  Elmsworth, trying to be helpful in his own unique way, chimed in. He leaned in close to the trapper, inspecting the man’s eyes with a magnifying glass.

  “Don’t you worry about any lingering demonic energies,” Elmsworth said cheerfully. “While prolonged exposure can lead to minor spiritual mutations, they are rarely fatal.”

  The trapper blinked. “Mutations?”

  “Oh, nothing serious,” Elmsworth assured him. “Any tentacles, extra eyes, or sudden cravings for raw brimstone should fade on their own within a fortnight. If they don’t, just let me know. I have a salve for that. It burns quite a bit and smells like rotten eggs, but it dissolves the tentacles right off.”

  The trapper looked like he was about to be sick.

  I walked at the head of the column, just behind Liam, who was scouting the path.

  He dropped back to walk beside me, shaking his head. He looked exhausted.

  “You know,” he murmured, his voice a low, cynical drawl, “I’m starting to think the cultists were the lucky ones. At least their suffering is over. Listening to Faelar recount the battle is worse than the battle itself.”

  “Just get us back to the village, Liam,” I sighed. “I need a drink. A real one.”

  “As you command, Commander,” he said. “Though I suggest we keep the welcome party to a minimum. I fear Faelar’s victory speech might cause a mass panic. Or a migration.”

  We broke through the treeline an hour later. Oakhaven lay below us, as quiet and shuttered as we had left it. The fear still hung over the valley like a shroud.

  But as we walked into the main square, the silence broke.

  A door creaked open. A woman peeked out, her face drawn with fear. She looked at the group, her eyes scanning the huddled survivors.

  Her eyes widened. A name escaped her lips—a choked, disbelieving whisper.

  “Tom?”

  One of the rescued boys looked up. His face, streaked with grime and dried blood, broke into a tearful grin.

  “Ma!”

  Suddenly, the village was alive. Bars were lifted. Doors were thrown open. People spilled into the square, running, crying, shouting.

  The tearful reunion was a chaotic, beautiful thing. It was a wave of pure relief washing through the terrified community. Mothers clutched sons. Wives held husbands.

  For the first time, the villagers looked at us—at the bloody, dust-covered, and utterly bizarre collection of misfits—not with fear, but with a fragile, dawning hope.

  Gunnar came out of his smithy. His hammer was in his hand, but he held it loosely, like a tool again, not a weapon. His grim face softened as he saw the trapper embraced by his family. He looked at me and nodded. A warrior’s respect.

  From the doorway of the inn, Brenna watched the scene. She leaned against the frame, wiping her hands on a rag. Her eyes scanned the crowd, ignoring the tears and the hugs, until she found Liam.

  He stood slightly apart from the celebration, watching with his usual detached air, cleaning a speck of dust from his sleeve.

  Their gazes met across the square.

  She didn’t smile. She didn’t wave. But he saw the tension in her shoulders ease. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

  It was enough.

  We pushed our way through the grateful, weeping crowd—Faelar signing autographs on pitchfork handles—and into the relative quiet of The Weary Traveler.

  Ignoring the offers of thanks and free porridge, we staked out the large, round table in the center of the room.

  This was our mission. This was our council of war.

  I unrolled the cultist’s map on the table. The obsidian shards were still stuck in its surface. The team gathered around, the adrenaline of the return fading into the serious reality of what came next.

  I pointed to the largest pin, the one driven deep into the mark labeled ‘Old Quarry.’

  “The watchtower was a distraction,” I said, my voice low and hard. “An observation post. This is their nest. It’s where they’re holding the rest of the prisoners. It’s our next target.”

  I opened my mouth to ask for a tactical assessment. I wanted to discuss entry points, guard rotations, and terrain advantages.

  But I was, as always, too slow.

  Faelar slammed a meaty fist on the map, rattling the obsidian pins and knocking over a salt shaker.

  “A quarry!” he bellowed. “It’s a giant hole full of rocks! The plan is obvious: we sneak up to the cliffs above it and give ‘em a glorious landslide! Bury the lot of ‘em! Simple! Dwarven physics!”

  “And bury any prisoners who might be down there?” Liam scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “You’re a tactical genius, Faelar. A true master of collateral damage. Why don't we just set the whole forest on fire while we're at it?”

  Liam tapped the map with a dagger. “No. A quarry means a workforce. Slaves. I go in disguised as a new captive. I learn the layout, find the command tent, and we poison their water supply. Clean, quiet, and professional.”

  Elmsworth’s eyes lit up with a familiar, manic gleam. He stood up, knocking his chair over.

  “Poison? How dreadfully uninspired!” he declared. “A quarry will have ponds! Damp caves! Standing water! It is the perfect environmental setting for a bio-sonic assault using the indigenous amphibian population!”

  He began to mime conducting an orchestra.

  “The resonant frequency of a bullfrog’s croak, when properly amplified and harmonized, can induce debilitating nausea and vertigo! We will fight them with an army of weaponized frogs! Imagine the psychological impact!”

  The team immediately erupted into a three-way argument.

  Faelar was shouting about the honor of a good rockslide and the structural weakness of slate. Liam was coolly defending the merits of arsenic versus hemlock. Elmsworth was passionately lecturing on the acoustic properties of toads. Willow was asking if the frogs would be paid for their service.

  I just stood there, watching the scene unfold.

  We had given this village a flicker of hope. We had a clear objective. We had momentum.

  And my team, my force of nature, my elite unit… was arguing about frogs.

  I closed my eyes. I picked up the pitcher of water from the table—wishing desperately it was whiskey—and took a long, long drink.

  It was going to be a very long mission.