The departure from Oakhaven was a strange affair.

  A small crowd of villagers had gathered to see us off. They stood by the smithy and the well, their faces a mixture of awe, terror, and a desperate, fragile hope. They didn't cheer. They didn't wave. They watched us go with an intensity that was heavier than any acclamation.

  They were looking at us like we were a life raft pushing off into a storm.

  Brenna stood in the doorway of The Weary Traveler, her arms crossed over her chest, a rag tucked into her belt. Her gaze was fixed on Liam. She didn't look away until we rounded the first bend in the path and the village disappeared behind the trees.

  Liam didn't look back, but I noticed he adjusted the strap of his pack three times in ten seconds. A nervous tic.

  Once we were under the cover of the forest, I tried to establish order.

  “Alright,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Standard scouting formation. Liam, take point. Keep it fifty paces. Willow, Elmsworth, center mass. Faelar, you and I are rear guard. Keep your eyes open.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Faelar grunted.

  The formation lasted for approximately fifty paces before it completely fell apart.

  Elmsworth stopped to inspect a mossy rock, holding up the entire line. Willow drifted off the path to apologize to a flower she had almost stepped on. And Faelar... Faelar was making enough noise to wake the dead.

  “This is pointless, lad,” the dwarf grumbled from behind me. His heavy plate armor clanked with every step. Bessie, the giant axe, shifted on his shoulder with a metallic thud. “We’re not an army on the march. We’re a scalpel, ready to carve the rotten heart out of this quarry! A scalpel doesn’t need a rear guard.”

  “You’re about as much a scalpel as a battering ram is a skeleton key, Faelar,” Liam’s voice drifted back from the trees ahead. He appeared on a branch above us, looking down with disdain. “And you’re making enough noise for an entire legion. If there’s a single cultist patrol within five miles, they’re currently taking bets on what manner of beast is crashing through the forest. My money is on ‘drunken rhinos.’”

  “Bah! Let ‘em hear us!” Faelar roared, slapping his breastplate. “A proper fight needs a proper introduction! Stealth is for people who are ashamed of their weapons!”

  He stopped walking. He looked around suspiciously, then unhooked a large, bulging waterskin from his belt.

  I had noticed him guarding this specific flask all morning. He kept patting it, shifting it, ensuring it was safe. It was dark, oil-slicked leather and looked suspiciously heavy.

  “Faelar,” I said, stopping. “What is that?”

  He held it up, a look of pure, wide-eyed innocence on his face.

  “Hydration, Commander!” he declared. “Marching water! A dwarven specialty. Full of… fortifying minerals. Electrolytes. Good for the stamina. Keeps the joints oiled.”

  He uncorked it. A pungent, malty scent of incredibly strong, dark ale wafted through the air, instantly overpowering the smell of the pine forest.

  He took a long, gurgling pull. His throat worked. He let out a satisfied sigh that sounded like a bellows exhaling, then wiped his beard with the back of a gauntlet.

  “That is not water,” I said, my voice flat.

  “Of course not,” he boomed, offended. “Water’s for rustin’ your insides! Fish make love in water, lad! This is a nutritional supplement! It’s basically liquid bread!”

  “It smells like you dissolved a loaf of bread in pure ethanol,” Liam noted, dropping from the tree.

  “It’s medicinal!” Faelar argued, taking another protective sip. “It steadies the nerves.”

  I sighed and started walking again. “Just… don’t fall over.”

  The midday sun beat down, filtering through the silver-barked pines. The path began to climb into the rocky hills that bordered the valley.

  As we walked, the banter became a relentless, flowing entity. It was their way of dealing with the tension.

  “The real question,” Liam said, dropping back to walk with us as the terrain grew steeper, “is a theoretical one. Let’s say we come to a thirty-foot chasm. Bottomless pit. No bridge. We need to cross. What’s the optimal solution?”

  “I find a taller tree,” Faelar declared immediately. “You tie a rope to my axe, I throw it across, and it embeds in a rock. Then we shimmy.”

  “And if there are no trees?” Liam pressed.

  “Then I throw the axe harder.”

  “A needlessly complex and aerodynamically dubious proposition,” Elmsworth chimed in. He wasn't looking up; he was examining a strange, iridescent beetle on his sleeve. “The obvious solution is a Minor Cantrip of Corporeal Bridging. One creates a temporary, semi-solid walkway of pure force. It’s rudimentary magic.”

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  “But what if the air spirits are grumpy?” Willow asked, her brow furrowed. “You can’t just force a bridge on them. That’s rude. They might drop you. You should always ask first. Maybe they’d be kind enough to just carry us over.”

  “Waste of time,” Faelar snorted. He took another pull from his flask. “I’ve got a better idea. You lot throw me across. I’m stout enough to make the jump. I’m aerodynamic. Like a boulder. I land on the other side, anchor myself, and catch you as you jump.”

  Liam stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at the dwarf.

  “I will only agree to that plan if I am not required to be on the receiving end,” the elf said. “The odds of you landing on the other side are slim. The odds of you landing on me and crushing me into a fine paste are, by my estimation, roughly one hundred percent.”

  “No faith,” Faelar grumbled, shaking his head. “No faith in dwarven engineering.”

  His ‘marching water’ was clearly taking effect. His steps were a little heavier, his arguments a little louder. He had begun to softly, and very badly, sing a dwarven mining shanty about a goblin named Grob who fell in love with a pickaxe.

  “Oh, her handle was smooth and her head was cold, / But she dug for Grob a heart of gold…”

  I sighed. It was going to be a long walk.

  It was late afternoon when the terrain changed. The trees thinned out, replaced by scrub brush and jagged rocks.

  Liam held up a fist, silencing Faelar mid-verse.

  He led us off the main path, up a steep, treacherous incline of loose shale. We crawled the last fifty yards to a concealed ledge screened by a thicket of gorse.

  “Keep low,” Liam whispered. “We’re here.”

  We peered over the edge.

  Below us, the Old Quarry opened up like a giant, festering wound in the earth.

  The sight of it silenced even Faelar.

  It was a massive, tiered pit, dug deep into the bedrock. The walls were sheer cliffs of grey stone, scarred by decades of mining.

  Two crude wooden watchtowers stood on the opposite rim, manned by black-robed figures holding crossbows. Down below, on the quarry floor, dozens of cultists acted as overseers, their whips cracking in the dry air.

  And between them, swarming like ants, were the prisoners.

  There were at least fifty of them. Their forms were gaunt and miserable, dressed in rags. They were being forced to chip away at the rock face with picks and hammers, hauling massive baskets of stone up rickety ramps.

  A large, black tent—likely the command post—sat in the center of the quarry floor. The dark, gaping mouths of several caves dotted the quarry walls behind it.

  “Well,” Liam murmured, his voice losing its sarcastic edge. “That’s a lot more than a scouting post. That’s an operation.”

  “Look at all of ‘em,” Faelar growled. His earlier good humor vanished instantly, replaced by a low, simmering rumble in his chest. His hand tightened on Bessie until the leather of his glove creaked.

  I scanned the scene, my mind racing. Tactical assessment.

  “Two guard towers. One main entrance down that cart path to the east,” I whispered. “The prisoners are scattered, but those caves are the most likely holding area for the ones not working. It’s a kill box. There’s no cover on the quarry floor. If we go down there, they have the high ground and forty archers.”

  “So, a frontal assault is out,” Liam stated, nodding.

  “What about a distraction?” he suggested. “I could try to scale the far wall, start a rockslide, and take out that eastern guard tower. It might draw their attention while the rest of you hit the gate.”

  “A rockslide is a fine idea!” Faelar bellowed, though he kept his voice to a harsh whisper. “But why settle for one tower when you can have the whole bloody wall!”

  “A diversion of that nature requires a corresponding auditory component to maximize confusion!” Elmsworth added, his eyes gleaming. He was already pulling vials from his pockets. “I’ve been observing the local bat population in these cliffs. With the right amplification spell—similar to the moth matrix but pitched for echolocation—a synchronized screeching could create a wonderfully disruptive sonic field! We could blind them with sound!”

  Willow, her face pale as she watched the prisoners below, shook her head.

  “We can’t do anything that might hurt them,” she whispered fiercely. “Look at them. They’re exhausted. If you start a rockslide, the rocks won’t know who is a bad guy and who is a prisoner. We have to get them out first.”

  I tried to take charge. I tried to stitch their chaotic thoughts into something resembling a plan.

  “Okay. A diversion is good,” I said. “Elmsworth, the sonic assault is a possibility, but we need directional control. Liam, if you could take out that tower silently, it gives us a blind spot. Faelar, we need you to secure the gate…”

  I was talking, trying to form a strategy. But I realized with a sinking feeling that I was the only one listening.

  My team was already in their own worlds. Liam was calculating climb rates. Elmsworth was mixing powders. Willow was whispering to the grass.

  While I was trying to plan the first move, they were already on the fifth, their voices a low hum of excited, insane potential.

  But Faelar... Faelar had gone quiet.

  He was swaying slightly on his feet. His knuckles were white where he gripped his empty flask. He wasn't looking at the towers. He wasn't looking at the gate.

  He was staring down into the pit. His brow was furrowed, his eyes fixed on one specific spot near the center of the quarry.

  I followed his gaze.

  A cultist overseer—a big, brutish man with a red sash—was screaming at a prisoner who had collapsed. The prisoner’s pickaxe had fallen from his limp hands.

  It was an old man with a shock of white hair. He looked too frail to lift a spoon, let alone a pickaxe. He was on his knees, gasping for air.

  The overseer shouted something we couldn't hear. Then, he drew back his heavy boot and kicked the old man viciously in the ribs.

  The old man crumpled. The overseer raised his whip.

  Something in Faelar snapped.

  I saw it happen. It was physical. The drunken haze, the boisterous energy, the jokes about marching water—it all burned away in an instant. It was replaced by a blast-furnace of pure, undiluted, ancestral rage.

  All the planning. All the talk of tactics and diversions. All the clever schemes. It meant nothing. Not in the face of that one, simple, brutal act of cruelty.

  Faelar drained the very last drop from his flask. He threw the empty waterskin aside. It hit the ground with a soft slap.

  “Ah, hell with this,” he slurred.

  He stood up. He stepped out of the cover of the gorse bushes. He stood silhouetted against the setting sun on the ridge line, a beacon of metal and anger.

  “Faelar, no!” I hissed, reaching for him.

  He took a deep breath. He puffed out his chest. And before any of us could move, think, or even shout a warning, he let out a deafening, soul-shaking, profoundly drunken roar that echoed off the quarry walls like thunder.

  “FOR THE BEER!”

  Then he charged.

  He didn't take the path. He didn't look for a handhold.

  He simply launched himself over the edge of the overlook.

  His heavy boots hit the steep gravel slope. He didn't tumble. He surfed.

  He slid down the scree, riding a wave of shifting rock and dust, an unstoppable avalanche of dwarf, iron, and poorly-aimed vengeance. He was heading directly for the center of the enemy camp, his axe raised high.

  The five of us on the ledge stared in stunned, horrified silence.

  Nugget, perched on Elmsworth's shoulder, turned a bright, alarming shade of hazard-orange.

  Our element of surprise. Our carefully considered plans. Our strategic advantage.

  All of it was gone. Currently sliding down a cliffside at forty miles an hour, bellowing about ale.

  The assault on the Old Quarry had begun.