“They’re being very polite, all told,” Olag told me amusedly, shortly after the expedition's bugler had called a start to our day. The use of an instrument like his was the best thing we had under the Skyfall to signal the end of our rest period. With the constant, unending grey of the skies, it’s not like we had a consistent day-night cycle to keep track of it.

  Only…the bugler had somewhat sputtered his way through his call. It was the surprise, you see. The man hadn’t expected an entire roadblock manned by crimson-cloaked Dwarves to spring up out of nowhere in front of the caravan, blocking the way before we could even get underway.

  Both the bugler, our scouts, and the ‘night-shift’ guards posted around the caravan swore up and down that the edifice had appeared instantaneously, as if it had sprang forth from the literal Aether. The Rangers themselves, presumably, had appeared with it.

  I had to admit, such a move was a bit impressive. I wonder how they did it?

  “I do believe they recognize my banners among the rest,” Olag mused, stroking his short beard.

  We were gathered at the prow of the Ashen Bride, the two of us plus Sylvia. The cry of alarm that had followed the choked bugle had roused the two of us from our sleep, together in our shared room, and had rushed out to see what the commotion was. It had taken only a few seconds of hurried explanation with the other leadership before we had settled on a course of action.

  If they weren’t going to attack us, we weren’t going to assault them. Everyone else, aside from us there, were busy preparing the armed escort the leadership was intending to meet the Rhoscarans with, while I conferred with Olag on how best to do so.

  I gave the tattooed Dwarf a side eye as I idly scratched Fade’s furred head. “I thought you were on the outs with the Scarlet Court? You know, after you tried to oust Elysael?”

  My response was a thin smile from Olag and a theatrically placed hand over his heart. “Oust? You wound me, Marshal. I would never think of deposing my dear cousin the Prince. I was merely trying to…present an alternative path to the good nobles of the Rhoscaran court. But, you are mildly correct. I am currently in disfavor, but that does not mean I would ever be met with bared swords and sharpened spears. No, whoever leads this particular squad of Rangers is making a statement. We have been recognized as potential allies of the newly formed City-State, but we must come to them first, to be sure. How appropriately subtle of my people’s greatest warriors.”

  Yes, yes, I get that you’re proud of Rhoscara by this point. You don’t have to fall all over yourself to praise them at every opportunity.

  But I had to admit I was relieved. I didn’t want to potentially alienate the very people we had come to warn before we even reached the city.

  I couldn’t help but wonder, though…

  “How did they get so close to us?” I thought out loud. “It’s not like we were slacking on the job.”

  Surprisingly, Sylvia had an answer for me. My lover had been silent while I conferred with Olag, choosing instead to study the still forms of the Rangers in the distance. “Illusion magic,” She said, a note of almost professional appreciation in her tone. “I can feel the traces of it lingering in the air. It’s…impressive, though, the size of the working needed to conceal such a structure.”

  Olag awarded the Sculpted woman an approving smile at her words. “Well spotted, Lady Sylvia. You are correct. The Rhoscaran Rangers are perhaps the foremost practitioners of Illusion Magic on the continent. Every single member must be a master of the art, or else they are washed out in training. Indeed, it’s entirely possible they’ve been watching us for days under a veil, choosing instead to wait for the prime moment to construct the barricade under cloak of spell in complete silence.”

  Sylvia flickered her eyes over to Olag for a moment and considered him. “If the barricade is even real itself. If they’re even there in the first place.”

  I blinked, and Olag’s smile faltered. He tipped his head to her. “That is also entirely possible. We’ll just have to see shortly, won’t we?” He said, before shifting his eyes over her shoulder and nodding.

  I followed his gaze to see that Nyx had appeared from below decks to wave an obsidian arm our way. The escort must be ready by now.

  “I suppose we will,” I said quietly, grabbing my staff from where it had been standing eerily still, entirely upright and unsupported off to the side. I shrugged my jacketed shoulders, settling my enchanted armor more comfortably as I did so.

  Time to finally meet the people we had traveled the breadth of a continent to come to the aid of, over a period of nearly an entire month.

  Let’s do this.

  …………………………………

  As the combined leadership, Alveron included, approached the Rhoscaran Ranger’s barricade in the middle of the road, I took better note of them.

  For a mostly wilderness-based fighting force, they were surprisingly clean. Each one of them carried a longbow of bright, almost blonde wood, upright in their right hands. The arms of their chosen weapons were actually longer than the Dwarves’ own height, the curve of the stretching above their hooded heads. Speaking of which, their immaculate cloaks were a bright, almost garish crimson red that stood out starkly in the gloom of the Skyfall, covering each one of them from head to toe. My personal espionage experience balked at the bright colors, and I could tell that Maria was a bit put off by the sight of it as well. But, if they were truly such masters of illusion magic, I suppose it didn’t matter all that much.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  With the proper illusion, they could fade from sight as well as any conventional stealth master. Probably better, really.

  It’s not like being literally made from a bright silver magical metal had hurt Sylvia’s stalking abilities all that much, with her own illusionary abilities.

  But, tellingly, a single Dwarf was standing at the front of their formation with their hood down. To my shock, I actually recognized this one. Once upon a time, I had met the Dwarf both when I was first arriving at the city of Rhoscara and when I was leaving it.

  Captain Enzo Gastone.

  At the time, he had been introduced to me as one of Azarus’s friends among the guards of Rhoscara. I had still been collared at the time, and a legal slave in the eyes of the Principality. The Dwarf would have been well within his rights to refuse me entry into the Red City. Although Rhoscara at the time had disdained slavery, not even permitting slave owners and slave catchers into the city, they were still technically required by Velancian law to turn runaway slaves over to the proper authorities.

  Not that they had ever done that.

  But the good Captain, who I distinctly remembered as looking remarkably like the Dwarven equivalent of an exhausted office worker from back on Earth, had looked the other way. More than that, he had chosen to help hide my collar on the way to the Scarlet Court. If Azarus and I had gotten a slightly more uptight Guard that day than Captain Gastone…

  I might never have gotten Aetherial Mending, and from there, everything that followed would have been different. I…really owed him a lot, didn’t I?

  Which was why it was so shocking for me to see the Captain here, among the Rangers. I had been certain that Captain Gastone had been nothing more than your run-of-the-mill city guardsman.

  But at the time…I hadn’t had any espionage training, now did I? I’d been wrong about these things in the past.

  Enzo Gastone still looked physically similar to how I remembered him. He still had short-cropped black hair, a bare face denoting a Dwarven commoner, and unassuming brown eyes. The veritable Dwarven everyman, if you would. He wore the same crimson cloak as his apparent comrades and carried the same blonde wood longbow as the rest. The only discernible difference between them was the distinctly tired look upon his haggard features and a small, glinting pin upon his breast. As we grew closer to him, I was just barely able to see that it was a representation of two crossed black feathers, their points oriented up and replaced with the blade and cross guard of a triangular spear blade.

  We came to a halt before the barricade that the Rangers had so secretly erected before us, and…honestly, the atmosphere wasn’t nearly as strained as I had been expecting it to be. The Rangers weren’t tense at all, and their bearing, barring Captain Gastone, was almost formal.

  I soon realized why.

  Captain Gastone looked straight at Olag, standing off to my right, and thumped his leather-clad fist into his breast in a Dwarven salute. “Lord Olag, it is good to see you well. The Prince will be overjoyed to see her cousin in good health.”

  I wasn’t the only one to hear the dry sarcasm in his face, was I? No, no, I don’t think I was. It was far too obvious. I guess Enzo Gastone really hadn’t changed much at all. I relaxed slightly, as a somewhat strained smile crossed Olag’s painted face. “Thank you, Captain…?”

  For a brief, infinitesimal moment, the Captain’s eyes flickered my way. I guess he remembered me as much as I remembered him. “Captain Enzo Gastone, of the Rhoscaran 7th Ranger creche.”

  “Captain Gastone, then,” Olag continued smoothly. “Yes, indeed, my company and I are well. Primarily because we were discovered by these fine fellows, who chose to allow us to accompany them on the journey to our beloved Rhoscara. Marshal, if you would…?”

  “No need,” I shook my head, taking a gamble and stepping forward. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw the Rangers along the barricade tense at my movement. If they did, it was only thanks to the swift, tiny movement of Enzo’s free hand that stayed their reactions. I did my best to pay them no mind and approached the good Captain…

  And extended my hand with a smile. “We know each other, don’t we, Captain Gastone? It’s been a long time, though.”

  Enzo Gastone only eyed my hand for a moment before stretching out his own and taking it with a wry smile. “Over a year now. Truthfully, I never thought to see you again, Nathaniel Hart. Especially not after Rhoscara received reports of a small, localized Ward Break horde originating from the Savoy village you and Azarus were…residing. I’m happy to see you dodged it.”

  I only barely restrained a smirk at that, while behind me, I heard a very poorly muffled, sinister-sounding laugh from Bleddyn. “Oh, yes, we only barely managed to escape the horde that fell on Addersfield. We never did quite figure out what happened there.”

  It was tempting to admit to a war crime that carried a very lethal sentence, like instigating a Ward Break did, but I managed to restrain myself. Still, I couldn’t keep the insincerity from my tone, and thankfully, that just seemed to amuse Enzo. “I’m sure. But, speaking of which…where is Azarus? I was hoping he would be with you when I received…reports of your presence.”

  So, they had been watching us for a while. But Enzo’s words wiped the smile from my lips, and I shook my head at the reminder of Azarus. “I don’t know,” I admitted, a mournful note in my voice. “He was…out on assignment when all this hit, and I never found any traces of him on my way north.”

  Now it was Enzo’s turn to grimace. If he was a Ranger, I’m guessing the Captain was well aware of just how lethal the Skyfall was. He sighed, and surprised me when he made the symbol of the Gyre with his hands, two flat horizontal fingers of a flat vertical palm. “May the Gyre protect him. Azarus is a fighter. If anyone figured out how to survive this, then it would be him.”

  “Of course,” I agreed quietly.

  More than you know.

  I hope you managed to save your Envoy somehow Tarus.

  Enzo shook his head and plastered a new, even more tired smile on his lips. “I see you’ve managed to rise quite high from your former position, ‘Marshal’. And that isn’t the…only change you’ve suffered,” He eyed my more obvious cursed features for a moment, lingering on my pointed, scaled ears. “What brings one of the vaunted Herztalian Marshals so far north, especially in the midst of the Tribulation?”

  I took note of that word. That was what the Principality was calling it.

  So.

  Rhoscara had made some contact with their overall government since the Skyfall began. But I put it out of my mind, sobered up, and met Enzo’s eyes.

  “As we speak, the gathered forces of the Principality, led by House Savoy, are sailing down the Fiume d’Oro with an army,” I said bluntly. “Possibly because of Rhoscara’s decision to secede, or possibly because of its decision to shelter the Unchained, they intend to burn the city to the ground.”

  The smile on Enzo’s face immediately died, and I saw all of his fellow Rangers tense far more tellingly than they had before.

  Enzo blinked, and I heard something new from the Captain. Something I had never heard before.

  A curse.

  “Shit.”