Kenva was surprised at her lack of fear. More than ten Silvers — it should have been enough to put her ill at ease, or at least make her feel a creeping dread crawling up her back.

  Yet all she felt was anticipation, and a sense of certainty in her own capabilities and strength, and in that of the team around her. Light and loose, she played her part. They were smiling and laughing as if they were just at camp.

  She stared into her team leader's eyes and saw her own steely conviction mirrored in Kaius's gaze. He gave her a casual nod, as if in agreement with a garbled question.

  This was the opening move — the decisive shot. She focused on the spire mage, her target. Tall, with silver-blonde hair, she had a permanent scowl on her face. The mage leered in disgust at their group — she would have struggled though, with the distances involved, to see Ianmus as more than a speck.

  She had no such difficulty. Kenva could see the bloody pores on her targets face.

  Within her, stamina surged. Ranger's Potency was moving at full bore; she could feel the strength and twitchiness in her limbs. She was fast — with her skill, fast enough that she should be able to draw her bow before even Silvers could react. Hers was the opening move, and she knew just how she would do it.

  Many of her skills were synergistic. Winter's Mark highlighted vulnerabilities to her sight, latent magic infusing her shots to devastating effect when she landed them just so. Lance of Fury grew arrows to the size of ballista bolts. Even her arrows themselves, grown from the Gift of the Hungry Forest and spun from the wood of the trees on the twenty-ninth layer, carried their own power. Multiple general skills empowered her, but with the evolution of her first class skill, she knew it with certainty.

  She could make this shot.

  Flicking back to a memory, she remembered her Skills new description.

  Howl of the North Wind:

  Level 201:

  Class Skill - Tier II

  Affinity: Martial, Wind

  Type: Archery Technique, Enhancement, Ranged, Channeled

  Selection Available!

  Heroic

  An atavistic scream that harkens death at the hands of an uncaring world.

  Tier I:

  This skill instantly consumes stamina and mana to empower an arrow shot with devastating strength and unmatched speed. Additional stamina may be channeled into the shot for increasing power, speed, and armour penetration. Howling winds surround the user's arrow, fouling attempts to deflect and lengthening its flight.

  Tier II:

  The North Wind detonates on impact, damaging surrounding targets with concussive force.

  Speed scaling increased to Substantial

  Each level substantially increases the speed of fired arrows.

  Each level significantly increases the distance and power of fired arrows.

  Each level moderately increases the concussive force of the North Wind

  Each level slightly increases the potency of additional channeling.

  It was a potent thing — still chargeable, but now, with its evolution and increase in tier, she could simply consume a chunk of stamina and mana for a single devastating shot.

  She saw no reason to wait.

  Kenva broke the fa?ade — whirling into an explosion of movement as stamina and mana both roared through her body. She lunged, bracing one foot firmly in front of her. She almost punched out with her bow, drawing its titanic weight back to her ear. An arrow summoned from her ring was in her hand and in motion instantly. In battle, it required a split in focus that was unacceptable unless absolutely necessary.

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  Now, the speed and slight of hand it allowed was worth it.

  Her string was by her cheek in an instant. The arrow in her hand grew — from just over a stride in length, to four, crackling with vengeance. With Winter's Mark, she could practically see the blood pulsing in the mage's neck. More mana and stamina flooded her arrow, and she felt it reverberate with the potency of the Howl of the North Wind.

  Through her motion, she felt her mother’s touch at her back — an unbroken chain of hunters that stretched for over ten millenia. The Zdhan were old — many of them had hunted quarry far more dangerous and wily than simple beasts.

  Many of them had been killers. She was amongst that number.

  Death struck at her command.

  Her heart had yet to beat for a second time since she started her draw. A titanic crack ripped through the Frontier, a howling wind ripping at her hair.

  She drew another arrow as the rest of her team burst into motion — faster than her heart could beat.

  …

  Cronte couldn't shake the feeling of a knife blade on the back of his neck. He had to stop himself from scratching at it, half expecting to feel a trickle of blood. His hand slipped into his tunic, feeling for the hilt of his rapier at his waist, trying to soothe the pounding of his heart with its comforting solidity.

  He could barely make them out, but the targets looked relaxed, at ease. By all rights, they had caught them by surprise; they were utterly unprepared. Yet he could not help but think of the ferocity and might of the one who had taken his arm. He knew Old Yon was convinced the meles was the linchpin and the source of the team’s unnatural growth — but he wasn’t so sure.

  He had tortured the damn boy for months. Kaius should have broken — perhaps not immediately, it wouldn’t have been odd for someone driven to hold on for a while — but the signs should have come: the weariness, the weakness, the pain.

  Pain weighed on everyone, from kings to beggars. Yet the boy had stayed calm and angry, a flinty heat that burned brighter with every passing day. Cronte still remembered the look in Kaius's eyes when he had taken his arm. It hadn’t been desperate rage, not the look of someone driven to the brink — it had been the hot fury of the strong.

  His companions unsettled him as well. Everyone was ready, professionals still focused, quiet and driven; but he could see it in their relaxed shoulders and the lack of steel in their eyes — they thought the fight was already a foregone conclusion. He wasn’t so sure, even if they had gotten the drop on the team.

  He wasn’t even convinced that they had.

  His eyes burned a hole in Torrin, the hunter standing ahead of them. Annoying as the man was, he was the only other one who seemed to sense it. With his skills, he would be able to see the team far better than Cronte could, and react to anything odd.

  Already, Cronte had two skills thrumming within him. One surged through his body with stamina, hastening his reactions and speed. The other lay coiled and white, a bundle of mana ready to be discharged to summon the wind and move him faster.

  Then Torrin flinched.

  Cronte hurled himself to the side, wind surging around him. It was graceless — a brutish leap that sent him slamming into the nearest tree and ricocheting into the undergrowth. He gasped, feeling bones creak in his back from the force of the impact.

  Spinning in the dirt, he saw the mirror mage, Yena, standing headless. Blood fountained from the stump of her neck as Old Yon staggered behind her corpse, crimson running down his face in a stream. The shot was already gone — but then came the winds. A devastating wall of force that rocked their formation, sending everyone staggering back.

  Cronte found himself hurled back into the air. He reached for his own skill, counteracting its effects as he pivoted to land on his feet.

  Only then did he hear the crack of the empowered arrow being discharged.

  “Fuck!” Old Yon screamed, hurling himself to the side to put a tree between him and the team. “Heavies to the front! Backline behind! Skirmishers, disperse through the trees! Rangers, take that fucking archer down, now!”

  The orders fell on deaf ears. The sudden merciless assault shattered their cohesion. The Delver team from Roanwheat wheeled together in an instant — their bastion with his great shield and plate hunkering down, their archer peeking from behind to try for a shot. The rest of the motley crew fell into a loose charge, only instinct and superior physical stats pushing skirmishers and heavies to drift toward the front.

  Then a void opened above them, and the stars began to fall. It was as though the sky had been eaten. Glistening gems appeared, growing brighter as they screamed down toward the earth. The spell’s magical potency was palpable, vibrating the very air. The field was too wide; none of them would be able to dodge.

  Except, perhaps, for him and Torrin. Neither of them had charged.

  He watched bolts of starfire smash into the ground, detonating with concussive force as they fell like rain. Those who could defend did so, and those who dodged tried, but the spell covered everything. It was potent — bursting trees into showers of splinters, and leaving great smoking depressions in the ground with each impact.

  He heard screams before he turned to the ranger at his side.

  “I suppose that's our cue?”

  As he spoke, Cronte reached up and pinched the ear studs, shattering the communication artifact that sat there — and cutting off the bellowed orders of Old Yon that he had been ignoring. No point letting the man track them.

  Torrin nodded. He spun on his heel, breaking his own artifact before he started to run, cutting west where they could keep to the trees and move away from Deadacre. Cronte fell in beside him, reaching for the wind to hasten both their pace.

  Torrin grunted his acknowledgement at the enhancement.

  “Perhaps it would be best if we work together until we put half of Vaastivar between them and us.”

  Cronte risked a look back, taking in the field of devastation where stars had fallen from the sky.

  Trees lay shattered and broken, and the earth had been turned over as if it were the site of a great battle. He could smell the blood, hear the frantic yells of his former employer and allies. They hadn’t even noticed they had vanished yet.

  “I think that would be for the best,” Cronte agreed.

  They kept running.

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