Something large was charging Kifra’s way, shaking the ground. Her prey exploded into the clearing, sending shrubs flying. The leathery-skinned monster was massive. Its screech was a cross between thunder and a hellcat’s fury. Thick proboscises dangled from the middle of its open mouth, each snout grasping for Bryont.

“An-ma, now!” Kifra burst from hiding. Nothing happened. Isso had frozen.

Bryont rolled out of the way, on cue. The monster tracked his movement with hungry eyes.

“For Opir’s honor!” Kifra gave the old battle-cry that would stir her mother into action.

Isso shook off her haze. She chopped the rope. The net dropped atop the hideous creature.

Kifra jumped between the monster and Bryont. “Go!” she commanded. He pulled the slipknot and undid his bonds.

Bryont scrambled for the relative safety of the cart. The creature snared his foot with a proboscis as he passed it.

“Oof!” He slammed into the ground. Bryont yanked his leg from his boot. A second tentacle curled itself around his exposed ankle. He screamed in pain.

Kifra sank Enduril and Windslicer into the snake-like proboscis that gripped her squire. Black muck squirted everywhere.

“Get it off!” Bryont shouted.

Kifra struck harder. She wasn’t going to lose her last squire before her triumphant return.

“I’ll get the head.” Isso charged into the fray.

“Don’t,” Kifra ordered between swings. “You’ll cut the net and it’ll get free.”

“It won’t be free if it’s dead,” Isso countered, her weapon at the ready.

“An-ma!” Kifra emphasized her protest with a mighty blow that severed the proboscis. Bryont shook his leg free from the dead appendage as the glowing arrow streamed past Kifra and sank into the amputated proboscis. Bryont dug his heels into the dirt and crab-crawled away.

Kifra spun around with Windslicer raised and ready to fly. “I will hunt you down,” she yelled at the cervitaur’s retreating hindquarters.

“Kif!” Isso said in alarm. “I may be half blind, but it looks like the monster is…boiling.”

Kifra whirled around. Isso had been poking at the netted monster with the blunt end of her halberd. Raised lesions erupted on the monster’s skin. Both warriors pulled back quickly.

The creature exploded, spraying half-digested human parts and pieces of itself everywhere. Kifra gagged at the stench.

“I’ve smelled worse.” Isso calmly wiped a chunk of gore off her face. “Before you were born, the Oligarchy cleared out the Northern Plague Pits. That was a smell worse than death.”

“Opir’s ghost,” Kifra swore in frustration.

“Language!”

“Really, An-ma?”

This might not have happened if you’d cut the rope when you were supposed to instead of having ‘battle freeze’.

Kifra kicked at the now empty net instead of venting aloud about her mother’s trauma-induced pause. “That cervitaur must have been bound with an eradication spell to prevent us from finding out who conjured it.”

“I never believed in using magic to accomplish anything.” Isso pulled a water flask from the cart. “Blades are best,” she added with an authoritative nod before taking a swig.

Kifra lifted the severed remains by the arrow stuck into it, amazed at the tensile strength of the wooden shaft. “Now I have nothing to show for my success except a used arrow and a grey piece of monster snout.”

“Bigger isn’t always better,” Isso said.

“Says the shortest person here.”

“You have something more important than a showy trophy.” Isso offered Kifra a drink as Bryont searched for his boot. “You have information. And information is leverage.”

An-ma was right. Kifra had not only witnessed the cervitaur’s attempt to save the monster, but she also had the arrow the half-human had tried to kill her with. Surely the Cobalt Oligarch would reward her upon her return by making her a trainer of recruits upon her return, as was her due.

Kifra rinsed her blades. “If we make haste, we can get back to Ardismouth before nightfall.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Um, Orn Kifra?” said Bryont. “I can’t put my boot on.” His voice cracked, like that of a pimple-faced youth.

“So there’s a little bit of goo on it,” Kifra replied without looking, as she and Isso secured their weapons. “It won’t kill you.”

“You don’t…I can’t…my ankle!” His squeak became a wail.

Kifra spun around. Bryont’s ankle had swollen up into a misshapen shiny black lump with angry fingerlings progressing into his foot. She knelt next to him. Direct contact with the monster had poisoned him. Something undulated beneath the taut, darkened skin.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not as much as your pell training, but it’s no bed of daylis flowers.”

Judging by the tears in his brown eyes, his heart didn’t possess the same strength as his brave words. Kifra swore under her breath. Every orn who took on a squire accepted responsibility for their safety until the squire completed their training. She didn’t need this now.

Kifra turned her head to Isso, wordlessly seeking her advice.

“We don’t have time to get him to the citadel’s healers.” Isso poked his leg gently with a stick. Bryont winced. Isso shrugged. “Kindling,” she said, part diagnosis and part intent. She pushed aside leafy debris, searching.

“You’re building a funeral pyre?” he asked, eyes wide in disbelief. “I’m not even dead yet.”

“Of course not.”

“Thank the Iphins.”

“We need a fire to heat a sword and cauterize your wound after we cut your leg down,” Isso said with simple certainty.

Bryont’s response died in his throat. Kifra put away the severed proboscis, then assisted her squire off the ground. “I have another plan.”