Whether or not a new monster rises, the men now approaching my location won’t be alive to fight it.
Chapter5
As quietly as a wraith, I glide back to my feet.
I’ve paused for long enough that I’ve given the men the chance to approach around the side of the monolith to my left. Their footfalls tell me they’re moving as a group, but I can’t see them yet, which means they can’t see me, either.
It sounds like one of the men is limping—no doubt the one I stabbed in the thigh.
“We need to find her body,” one whispers.
“We should cut off her hand before we take her body back,” another says. “Make sure her power’s destroyed.”
“Why the fuck are we whispering?” a third asks, speaking more loudly than the first two. “Nobody could have survived that fire. Not even that fucking Blacksmith whore.”
I let the insult wash over me. The Vandawolf would visit my bedroom at night and Braddock seemed happy to spread stories about it. Ironically, the Vandawolf only came to me under the cover of darkness when he wanted me to interrogate and kill his enemies. Sadly, that didn’t include Braddock. I can’t fathom why the Vandawolf kept the ruddy-faced man alive all this time.
Silently, I prowl directly left, staying close to the monolith’s front leg, where I’ll come up behind the men.
If anything, the pall is growing thicker the longer the trees in the distance continue to burn, so there’s no chance they’ll see me until I’m upon them.
The only danger is that the new smoke is from wooden branches, not from crimson coal, and I’m certain it will hurt my lungs.
Soon, I won’t be able to breathe.
But that time is not now.
I move quickly, listening carefully as I follow in the footsteps of the last man. The group is veering wide of the stone wolf, headed toward the heart of the explosion, which makes sense if they’re looking for me since it was the last place they saw me.
The straggler’s silhouette becomes visible to me. He’s tall with a wiry frame.
It’s hard to tell from behind, but he appears to now be wearing a mask tied around his lower face—probably to guard against the smoke. He isn’t carrying the holster with extra crossbow bolts and when I check his hands, it appears he’s only carrying his axe. The men won’t want to accidentally shoot each other while they can’t see far and, if they believe I’m dead, they’ll think they don’t need the extra weapons.
I surge quietly toward the straggler’s back, matching the back-and-forth movement of his left arm, mimicking its swing and judging the exact moment I can strike.
His arm sways back.
My left palm brushes his elbow as gently as a breeze. As softly as…
Smoke.
The command flits through my mind, the briefest thought before the man’s entire body disintegrates into a puff of white.
It’s soundless.
He doesn’t shout. His mind wouldn’t have had time to register the danger before it became nothing. His body has simply become part of the fog hanging around us.
Not so for his weapon and clothing.
I catch his falling axe but allow his clothing to settle to the ground since it drops so softly.
I crouch and find the material he was wearing around his face: a wet flannel. It will protect me from the wood smoke building in the air, so I quickly wrap it around my nose and mouth, trying to ignore the man’s scent lingering on it.
Tipping my head to the side, I take a moment to check for any shouts of alarm before I step over the remainder of his clothing.
The unimpeded sound of movement ahead of me indicates that his friends are none the wiser.
I follow their footfalls in the direction of the crater.
