A short while ago…

  Pip hated battles like this. They were too loud with people stomping about like frightened cattle, shouting and screaming as if noise alone could frighten death away. The branches trembled beneath her padded feet as a large war orc knocked into the tree as it passed by.

  From her perch high in the canopy, she watched it all with narrowed eyes while waiting for the perfect moment to strike. She could almost feel the goblin shrieks and clatter of steel rippling through the night air, while torchlight turned the clearing into a sea of gold and shadows.

  Even from this distance, she watched William at the centre of it all, his golden armour blazing like the sun as his sword burned with holy light. He fought like a storm given human form, cutting goblins down in wide arcs while villagers clung to his presence like sailors clambering for the only lifeboat.

  Pip shook her head and stifled a scoff. Can’t he tone it down or something? William’s flashy armour was distasteful to her, making her feel uncomfortable; it went against all her rogue instincts. Idiot, she smirked. A very shiny idiot.

  Her gaze slid past him, past Marie’s flashing blade and Sibrek’s roaring axe, towards the real threat waiting at the treeline.

  Three orc shamans stood behind the goblin mass, unmoving, their staves glowing with sickly red-orange light. They did not shout or wave their arms like lesser casters. They simply waited, eyes fixed on the battlefield as if the goblins were nothing more than expendable pieces on a board.

  The goblins surged forward like a diseased tide, crude blades flashing, their bodies colliding with pits and spikes in a satisfying mess of limbs and screams. She twitched an ear as another volley of arrows hissed through the air before burying themselves in green flesh. The overpowering smell hit her, blood, fear, and wet earth, all of it sharp and nauseating in a way she would never admit to anyone.

  Pip moved before the next wave even broke from the treeline. Their chaos would be her cover.

  Her tail flicked once, slow and deliberate as she dropped from the tree, hitting the ground without a sound. Her knees bent to absorb the impact as she rolled into the underbrush. Goblins rushed past her position, shrieking and laughing as they charged towards the defenders, never once noticing the catkin slipping through the shadows between them.

  This was her battlefield. Where William burned bright and loud, Pip blended with the darkness.

  She darted forward in short bursts, using the chaos as cover, slipping from shadow to shadow while the earth shook beneath charging feet. A goblin turned in her direction, sniffing the air, its yellow eyes narrowed as it probed the darkness.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Pip froze mid-step and held her breath as her hand slid to her hip, retrieving one of her twin daggers; she loosened her body, ready to slit the creature’s throat.

  The goblin stepped closer to her hiding spot and took more shallow sniffs. She stayed silent and unmoving. The wind blew across the forest floor, picking up rustling leaves and drawing the creature’s attention. The goblin relaxed, shrugged its shoulders, and ran on towards louder prey.

  Pip exhaled and continued as the excitement of stalking her quarry sent shivers down her feline spine. The forest edge loomed closer, the air growing cooler and the night darker as the torchlight thinned. She could hear the shamans’ low guttural chants that crawled beneath her skin, each word vibrating through the ground rather than the air. Dark magic, old and ugly, the sort that left scars on the land for months if not years.

  She climbed without thinking, claws biting into bark as she scaled a thick oak. She leapt to the next tree, then the next, moving above her prey while goblins and villagers slaughtered each other a couple of hundred feet away. From the branches, the catkin rogue watched one of the trolls lumber forward, chewing noisily on a goblin corpse, while an orc laughed and shoved another goblin aside with its club.

  None of that mattered. Only the shaman on the left, who stood far enough away from the others to make a viable target. He was smaller than his brethren, with war paint smeared into intricate spirals across grey-green skin. Feathers and bone charms clinked as he moved, his staff planted in the soil as he chanted. Power bled from him in slow, rhythmic pulses, each one answered by a distant howl from the goblin horde.

  Pip’s lips curled, just a little. You’re mine. She circled downwind, careful to keep the breeze carrying her scent away, then dropped behind a fallen log without making a sound. The shaman’s back was to her, attention fixed on the battle ahead, confidence radiating from him in lazy waves.

  They always thought they were untouchable, but the rogue knew no one was invincible.

  Pip smiled as she drew one of her blades. It was short, narrow, and as dark as sin, enchanted just enough to bite where it mattered. She rolled her shoulders, loosening muscles that had been coiled tight since the first goblin screams had split the night.

  One breath. Two. Then she moved as silent as a whisper on the wind.

  She crossed the distance in a heartbeat, feet barely brushing the ground, and leapt. Her left arm wrapped around the shaman’s head as her blade slid home across his throat in one clean, practised motion, slicing through flesh and voice alike. The chant cut off mid-syllable, replaced by a wet gurgle that sprayed her wrist with hot blood.

  The shaman convulsed once, claws scrabbling at nothing, before his staff toppled from limp fingers and thudded into the dirt.

  Pip flipped backwards as the body collapsed, already landing back into the shadows unseen.

  She giggled. The exhilaration got the better of her; it slipped out before she could stop it, a soft, breathy sound that echoed far louder in her own ears than she liked. She slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, then stifled another laugh as goblins nearby screeched in confusion, turning in circles as if the forest itself had betrayed them.

  They were too slow; her prey was dead, and she was already gone.

  Pip sprang back into the trees as goblins rushed the orc shaman’s corpse, shrieking and stabbing at shadows, their panic delicious and contagious. She bounded from branch to branch, heart pounding, tail lashing with excitement.

  One down, she thought, grinning into the dark. Two more to go.

  Not far away, the battle for Brindlecross roared on, but Pip didn’t spare it a glance as she vanished deeper into the forest, already hunting her next target, already tasting victory on the air.

  Chapter 031 [Game Changer: The Catkin Rogue’s Surgical Strike]