A sharp prickling sensation crawled over the back of his neck. Finn drew Ghost to a halt, hand dropping to Sunwrath’s hilt as his gaze swept the underbrush. Something was here. Watching.
Then, movement. A flicker at the edges of his vision. Then another, and another. A slow dread settled in his chest when he realized shapes—at least half a dozen—were shifting in the undergrowth, silently encircling him.
Finn swallowed, the dryness in his throat at odds with the clammy chill creeping down his spine. Brilliant. Nothing like eerie silence and invisible enemies to keep things interesting.
“Show yourselves!” he called, aiming for commanding and confident rather than on edge and vaguely annoyed.
The only response was a stillness thicker than fog. Even Ghost seemed tense, ears pinned back, muscles taut beneath him. She had good instincts. He trusted them almost more than as his own.
Sunwrath whispered free of its sheath, the ruby set in the pommel flashing. Finn scanned left to right. How could so many approach without a sound? No footfalls, no voices, no clank of armor.
He nudged Ghost forward a step, then another. The shapes at the edges of his vision swayed but did not advance. Ambush? Or something worse? Sweat trickled down his temple.
Then Finn got a clearer view of his mysterious foes. His breath stilled as he realized they were wooden silhouettes, mounted on hidden hinges. Painted shapes, nothing more.
Finn heaved out a long breath, half relieved, half irritated. The crude cutouts stood frozen in mock battle poses, arrayed like sentries. Some resembled knights in armor, swords raised; others were monstrous things with crooked horns and reptilian tails. They creaked in the breeze, shifting just enough to trick the mind into believing they moved.
“Clever.” Finn sheathed Sunwrath once more. “Someone has a flair for theatrics.”
Ghost snorted, her tension easing now that she sensed no real danger. Finn nudged her closer to one of the silhouettes, eyes narrowing. Even crude as they were, they had worked.
The artistry was rough, but the design? Alarmingly effective. Not just meant to deceive—meant to unnerve. To make intruders question themselves. Second-guess their own senses.
He reached out, tapping a knight-shaped cutout with two fingers. It rocked on its hinge. A scare tactic. Like scarecrows intended to keep crows from a field, though in this case they were meant to…what? Keep rescuers away from a captive princess?
Finn continued on, carefully weaving between the wooden figures, his mind working through the possibilities. Who set these up, and why?
The dragon? Unlikely.
The princess’s captors? Or perhaps…someone else entirely?
Finn advanced only a short distance before a thunderous clamor exploded overhead and all around—a symphony of chaos that sounded like a kitchen had just declared war on itself.
Pots, pans, and assorted scrap rattled violently, their clang echoing off the trees and seeming to come from everywhere at once.
Finn startled, instinctively ducking as he yelped at the unexpected sound. Ghost, by contrast, didn’t so much as flinch. The warhorse merely paused, ears flicking in what could only be described as mild irritation.
Finn straightened, shaking his head. “Nice of you to pretend to care,” he muttered, brushing off the adrenaline surge.
Ghost flicked an ear back at him. Get on with it.
He squinted at the dangling pots and pans. Finn spotted wires and ropes strung among the trees, nearly invisible behind tangled vines. Another trap, or alarm. Set it off, and the entire contraption turned into a percussion ensemble from hell.
Effective. Even knowing it wasn’t a real attack, his pulse still hadn’t quite settled.
Ghost sighed, hooves shifting in the dirt as though unimpressed by his delayed realization.
Finn gave her a look. “I see you’re taking this very seriously.”
She flicked her tail in what he was fairly sure was a gesture of profound indifference.
Fine. Moving on. He swung down from the saddle and knelt beside a cluster of cords looped around a low branch. Whoever had built this contraption was cunning, resourceful, and—judging by the sheer amount of noise—determined to scare intruders off rather than fight them outright.
They don’t want open combat. Maybe they were too few or simply trying to avoid bloodshed.
But that didn’t make sense, not with the skeletal remains left outside the cave. Finn wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Focus. There’s a puzzle here. Solve it.
Before he could trace the ropes further, Finn glimpsed a flash of movement in his periphery. He froze.
