The soldiers are eating and drinking around their fire, while others haul supplies from carts to the buildings.
The ashy soil has stuck to my boots from the walk over, littering me with the land’s dead grime. But the base camp has obviously been subject to its assault for much longer, because the roughshod buildings are completely covered in it.
Thick layers of the dust coat the wooden buildings, the splay of tents, the supply carts, and the soldiers themselves. The large fire burning at the center of the camp seems to burn duller too, as if it has also gotten clogged up with the loam.
One good thing about it? The ground keeps my steps muffled, choking out the sound as I near. None of the gathered fae around their fire notice me until I stop just beside the wooden building and spook them with my voice.
“I’m looking for someone.”
The soldiers snap their heads in my direction, some of them startling so badly they spill their bowls of muck.
“Who are you?” one of them asks, confusion on his face.
I send a rift of rot toward him. A single reaching root that stabs through the ground and then splinters up his body. He jolts, stunned, while black poisoned veins erupt through him.
In a blink, he collapses on the ground, skin browning with rot, and the soldiers around him jerk up in surprise.
“What the fuck?”
One of them aims magic at me. Some sort of blip of light. I don’t know what it does. Doesn’t matter either, because I kill him before his magic can reach me.
Some of them hurry to grab weapons strewn around haphazardly. “Don’t do it,” I say in warning, but they move to attack anyway, and I’m about to shove out more magic when something unexpected happens.
Behind the gathered soldiers, a new group suddenly appears. Swiftly and silently, they start to charge.
Though, not at me.
The soldiers are caught completely unaware as the group attacks them.
With a battle cry, the new group pounces, the element of surprise allowing them to cut the soldiers down before half of them even realize what’s happening. I watch the slaughter, head cocked as they clash.
The attackers aren’t in the same attire as the soldiers. Each of them is dressed in civilian clothing, yet they move with practiced uniformity and obvious combat training.
Swords clash, axes hack, while blood and shouts stream out. Magic bursts from one of the attackers’ hands in a cluster of something that resembles teeth. The sharp projectiles hit the marks of the soldiers, digging into eyes, jabbing through jugulars, while around them, their comrades fight savagely.
Within seconds, the skirmish is over, every soldier dead on the ground.
I look around. “I have to admit, I’m impressed.”
The group snaps their attention toward me, and I shake my head at the male who starts to move forward, his sword dripping blood. “I wouldn’t,” I warn.
He has a thick red beard and bushy brows, with a scar at the side of his neck. His assessing gaze flicks over me before moving to the body I rotted. “You’re no Stone Sword.”
“No, I’m not.”
The group gathers closer, only a handful of them, yet what they lack in numbers, they made up for in pure brutality. The faewith the magic hangs his arms loose at his sides, though I can see another one of those clusters gathering in his palm. He takes a step toward me, fingers twitching.
“You try to aim those little teeth at me and I’ll rot yours from your mouth and then crush your jaw with my fist.”
He goes still, glaring at me with eerie yellow eyes.
The first fae raises his hand, as if telling the others to hold. “Why did you kill one of the Stone Swords?” he asks. Perhaps he’s the leader of this little contingent, though there’s nothing on his clothes to mark him as such.
“Because they didn’t give me the information I asked for.”
He exchanges a look with the others. “And what information is that?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
