Kesh crouched at the edge of the treeline, right behind a boulder, and peeked at the mouth of the cave that might or might not be his doom.

  The whole quest had him gripping his sword all the way, and now his worry was reaching its peak.

  He wasn’t good at fighting. At least not as much as the others. Certainly not as good as Rayne, who seemed to improve every day as if the gods themselves were gifting him more stats than the others. He wasn’t even a scout like Bran nor someone who was particularly sneaky like Nate.

  Why he was given such a quest was beyond him. But he could only hope that he wouldn’t fail. If he did, everyone was going to be dead. That was made very clear in the planning meeting itself.

  At least John was a pillar of support.

  He was everything he wasn’t. Older, experienced, and a man who had faced death more times than anyone else in the party, barring maybe Bran.

  “Looks like they did it,” John muttered, pointing back at the sky. Kesh followed his finger, and his eyes fixed on the horizon where the orange glow bled faintly across the treeline. “It looks like we need to hurry. We don’t want to play our parts successfully, only to get back to corpses.”

  Kesh gave him a long stare, every bit of confidence he held about him deflating. “Can’t you say anything positive? Like us pulling it off successfully and going back to Bricksall as heroes?”

  “You need to think of and accept every scenario out in the field,” he replied. “Adventurers are taught to always be prepared for their party’s death. Soldiers on quests are no different. Also, it would make a hell of a story.”

  “What story?”

  “Two idiots surviving a spellsword while the rest of their party died. Don’t you think so?”

  Kesh didn’t reply. He turned to look at the horizon a moment longer, letting out a slow breath through his nose. If he focused, he could even listen to the faint metallic clang of weapons clashing against each other.

  At least that meant that the fighting was still going on.

  “We should move,” he growled, focusing on the cave. “Nothing is coming out of it. We need to head inside.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” John said. “Whatever the outcome, we need to finish the quest. It would have been far better of a story if we managed to do so.”

  Kesh nodded, agreeing. They got up, moving towards the entrance of the cave—a gaping mouth carved into the hillside—and paused. A cold breath traveled out of the cave, and he shivered.

  If he could, he didn’t want to step foot in it. But their target was inside of it. The map had said so, and Captain Baker had confirmed it.

  “Do you think we will have to fight?” he asked, glancing at his companion.

  “No idea,” John said. “Let’s hope not and stick to the plan. Light it.”

  Kesh nodded and struck the flint with a torch. The small flame flared, throwing wild shadows across the cave’s mouth. The walls glistened faintly with a damp mineral sheen, narrowing into darkness ahead.

  They took a step inside, and now Kesh could almost smell the smoke drifting off the wind.

  “The cave smells like rot,” John muttered and took the lead.

  The ground sloped downward, uneven and cracked. Every sound seemed too loud—their boots scraping, armor creaking, the faint hiss of torch flame. The tunnel swallowed them inch by inch, the light barely pushing back the dark.

  Kesh’s thoughts swirled in his head. John’s earlier words made his brain work when it should be focused on the danger up ahead.

  Scenarios danced across his mind, each more troubling than the last. What if they actually went back to everyone’s corpses? What if they won but all of his party turned out dead? What if the plan didn’t work even if they did everything successfully?

  They only stopped when John spoke. “What do you think is going on in the barn right now? Do you think anyone we know is already dead?”

  Kesh shifted uncomfortably. “I hope not. I surely don’t want to see any of my friends dead.”

  “You get used to it after a point.”

  “You always talk like that. How many of them have you lost?” Kesh asked, then stared at a small lizard crawling up the cave walls. “And do you even think we should talk right now?”

  John shrugged. “A few people. And it doesn’t matter. From what I know, it should be deaf. We’ll be fine.”

  “What if there are other monsters around?”

  “Then we’ll not be fine.”

  They kept moving deeper. The tunnel widened gradually, the walls shifting from rough stone to smooth surfaces veined with faint, glowing moss. Kesh stopped and ran his hand along the wall. The glow pulsed weakly under his fingertips like a heartbeat.

  Caves were always so strange, and he wondered if the dungeons would be any different. But he would have to survive till then first.

  He looked back at John and asked the one question he hadn’t but wanted to since they had entered the cave. “Do you think it should work? The whole plan.”

  John paused, running a hand through his hair. “I hope so. If you’re asking what I think of it, then I believe it’s both genius and stupid. But most plans are. If we all make it out alive, it’s the former. Otherwise, people will treat it as the latter.”

  Kesh inclined his head. That made far more sense than what he was expecting from the veteran.

  He suddenly recalled something Bran had told them, that things had a habit of going wrong often, even in the sanest of plans, and sometimes the craziest ones turned out to be the easiest to pull off. It all depended on the execution, and they needed to pull this one off.

  Not for themselves. But for their party and the town.

  “Looks like we’re close,” John said.

  Kesh raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

  “Look at the ground.”

  He did so, lowering the torch closer to the dirt, and then saw it. The ground was disturbed here, and there were more claw marks, deep and uneven. They looked like they were recent. John tapped the walls.

  Kesh saw similar marks there cutting into the stone.

  He gulped, concerns about the others fading, all replaced by one for his own wellbeing. Was he going to be able to survive this? He sure hoped so. He was too young to die and give grief to his family.

  “Let’s move,” John said.

  They followed the trail deeper. The air grew warmer and thicker. The walls began to be entirely covered by the glowing moss. Every few steps, they passed bones—cleanly picked, scattered, gleaming faintly in the glow. He didn’t wait to see if they were human or monster bones.

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  They simply kept walking until the rancid smell hit them. John gagged, cursing, and Kesh suddenly felt like he was smelling a hundred decaying corpses at once. It was almost unbearable for them.

  Yet they kept walking. They were too close to turn back.

  Then they heard it.

  A low, rhythmic sound, not quite breathing, not quite growling. More like the drag of stone against stone. It echoed faintly at first, then closer, accompanied by the wet, sucking noise of something feeding.

  Kesh raised his hand. Both froze.

  The torchlight flickered over the cavern that opened ahead. It was vast. A hollow chamber carved out by ages of slow erosion, the air thick with haze. Something moved at the center of it.

  At first, Kesh thought it was a mound of shadows. Then the torchlight caught on flesh—slick, pale hide marked with black veins that pulsed faintly like molten lines under the skin. A long, decaying head lifted from the carcass of a giant boar. Its eyes—if they could be called eyes—were three dull, glowing orbs sunk deep in its skull.

  The noise of its feeding stopped.

  For a moment, silence ruled the cave again. Then its nostrils flared.

  Kesh felt the air ripple, his torch sputtering. The creature’s head tilted slightly, and a low, guttural hiss rolled through the chamber, enough to make his skin crawl.

  John whispered, “Henrexa preserve us. We found it.”

  Kesh didn’t move. His voice came out barely above a whisper. “It found us.”

  The creature shifted, a ripple of muscle under pale hide, and started to move, slow and deliberate, toward the both of them.

  Panic seeped through Kesh’s being as he looked at the creature, and his legs froze when it opened its mouth, the same rancid and rotten breath covering them both.

  And then an idea struck him. In a moment of complete bewilderment, he threw the torch straight into the monster’s mouth.

  He didn’t wait to see what happened to it. He looked at John and shouted—

  “Run!”

  ***

  Rayne felt himself stumbling through the grass before coming to a stop. His shield lay broken and burning from Marcus’ strike, and he let it drop to the ground. He took a breath, pain clawing its way up his shoulders.

  But he had no time to cry about it.

  The flames clawed higher into the night, feeding on tents and dry hay. The camp had turned into a pyre, painting the dark with orange and red streaks.

  Screams echoed—half from the deserters caught in fire, half from the soldiers who charged through the chaos. Amid the roar of flames, Rayne raised his head to see a demon dancing between the flames with a mad rush.

  That was the best way to describe it.

  He saw his soldiers fighting him, and Marcus took each of them alone. Each swing and strike only met air as the spellsword slid between them, air covering his legs. A garrison soldier tried to attack from behind, but Marcus turned just in time as if he could sense him.

  Flames met steel, and the man was pushed back. Then, with explosive speed, Marcus stabbed him right in the chest, flames burning a notch higher.

  Marcus’s follow-up strike sent him sprawling into the dirt, chest smoking.

  “Hold him up!” Jason shouted, taking the charge with his axe, but Marcus dodged each strike. When one managed to come close to him, he parried it and kicked the brute in the chest.

  But before he could finish the job, Rayne stood up.

  He ignored the pain and charged straight at Marcus. His sword blocked the flames that were clawing up towards Jason. Heat stung his cheek. The man’s strength was monstrous; even through the clash, Rayne felt the weight drive through his arms and down to his knees.

  Marcus only grinned, swinging his blade again in an overhead strike. Rayne jumped to the side, missing the attack by inches.

  Before the spellsword could turn back to him, more soldiers jumped on him. Rayne smiled at that. At least they weren't being cowards. They knew they only had to hold him up for so long.

  “You really think numbers make a difference?” Marcus said, a grin etching his face.

  Then he moved. One blink, and he was behind them. A soldier turned, bringing up his shield as Marcus swung his flaming sword, but he was too slow. He screamed as his back split open before he went down on the ground.

  The others hesitated before two soldiers jumped right at Marcus. He parried their strikes with ease as if he didn’t feel the weight of the attacks. After each parry, he stabbed through the armor, putting the man down before moving onto the next.

  All of them burned and etched on the ground.

  Was it the strength of a spellsword? It felt like seeing a wide gap in front of him that Rayne could never cross. He shook those thoughts out of his mind.

  A battle was no place for them.

  He got up and dashed right at Marcus as another soldier went down in the dirt. He saw the strike from the corner of his eye and turned to block it. They matched eyes, and Rayne saw amusement flicker in his opponent’s eyes.

  He pushed, aiming to stagger the man, but he barely budged. Flames danced across his own blade, and he knew he couldn’t hold for long. So he let the strike pass by his side and rolled on the ground before another could come.

  All of Bran’s lessons became instinct as he jumped up in another strike.

  Marcus raised an eyebrow as if surprised, then moved to parry each one of them. Rayne’s lungs and hair burned with the proximity to the flames, but he knew that if anyone had a chance to take the man on, it was him. His inflated stats and [Lesser Regeneration] made it possible.

  Each time Marcus managed to land a cut or burn his skin, Rayne didn’t flinch. He let the pain wash away his fears.

  He countered a slash, ducked low, and kicked at Marcus’s knee. The blow landed, but Marcus didn’t even flinch. His hand came to grab at his shoulders, but Rayne took a step back and stabbed at his chest.

  Marcus dodged to the left, then smiled at him.

  “You have spirit,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time someone managed to stand against me for this long. But you are going to burn the same as others.”

  “Maybe,” Rayne grunted, twisting his grip, “but you’re bleeding.”

  Marcus blinked, then looked down. A shallow cut ran across his side, seared shut from his own heat, but there nonetheless. Rayne’s blade had found a gap in the armor.

  For the first time, Marcus’s smile faltered.

  He looked up at him in a completely different light, and Rayne instinctively took a step back. Fury burned in the man’s eyes, and he realized he might have just made a mistake.

  But before Marcus could move to finish him, Jason, Nate, and Jeff circled behind him.

  Jason lunged in from the left, swinging an axe in a heavy arc. Marcus sidestepped with inhuman grace, letting the axe slice through air before slamming his elbow into the man’s gut. Jason staggered but didn’t fall. He spat blood, growled, and swung again.

  Nate attacked Marcus’s side but got a kick in return, and Jeff moved to slam into his shoulders. All of their attacks failed, but they kept at it even when Jeff’s shield and arm caught on fire.

  Among it all, Marcus’s gaze kept wandering onto Rayne. And he didn’t back down.

  As Jason’s axe clashed with the flaming sword, Rayne darted in with a strike to the side. But Marcus turned just in time, letting the axe pass him by before kicking Rayne, who dodged to the left.

  More strikes came for the spellsword, but he fixed his gaze onto him and rushed at a speed Rayne hadn’t seen before.

  The flaming sword cut him right in the shoulder. Pain lanced through him, and he cried out but saw another attack come for his throat. He managed to move his sword just in time to block it, and Marcus looked frustrated for the first time in the battle.

  “Why are you still alive?”

  “Fuck you!” Rayne spat right on Marcus’s face even as flames burned his blood and flesh. That only made the man angrier, and he kicked, sending Rayne sprawling across the ground.

  His vision swam, and pain struggled to take his attention, but he felt his regeneration skill at work and looked up to see the other soldiers trying to pin Marcus down.

  But he moved like a flaming storm.

  He punched Jeff right in the face before throwing him over a burning tent. Jason and Nate came from the sides, but the man dodged both their attacks. His blade stabbed through Nate’s chest before swinging back to Jason.

  A bloody slash across his arm made the brute drop his axe, and before the other soldiers could come, Marcus turned to Rayne, and in just two steps, he appeared right in front of him.

  The flames of the blade reflected off Rayne’s eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs. He could almost feel the weight of mana in the air and the bloodlust emanating from Marcus.

  “I don’t like a lowly soldier cutting my flesh,” he said, moving to finish him off.

  Rayne barely managed to put his sword in front of him, knowing it wouldn’t work. And—

  A howling screech tore through the air.

  The flaming blade froze midair. Marcus raised his head, looking above the flames and onto the fields leading up to the treeline. Another roar made him shrink, and realization dawned on his face.

  Rayne almost laughed, seeing something familiar flicker in his dark eyes. Fear.

  The man turned to him. “What did you fucking do?”

  Rayne smiled. “Gave you a gift. Happy fucking birthday!” Then kicked the man right in the chest.

  ***