Immediately, even the possibility of a settlement in the distance set my nerves on edge. For several reasons.

  The first was that Bronzle hadn’t informed us of a settlement in the region we were passing through. Yes, there were supposed to be some border towns in the general area, but not along this specific road that the Principality had forged through the periphery of the Barren Forest. We were specifically taking a less popular path. To his credit, though, the naval Captain had admitted that his knowledge of the periphery wasn’t encyclopedic. He’d outright told us that there might be more settlements in the woods than he’d known about. After all, he’d admitted no knowledge of the woodcutters' camp.

  That alone wouldn’t have been enough to arouse my suspicion.

  The fact that our scouts hadn’t reported in about this place did. If I could see even the barest hint as to this place's existence, then they would have already checked back in with us. Our scouts traveled several hours ahead of the caravan, after all.

  Something was wrong.

  Snapping into the razor’s edge of focused alertness, I cast out two more Sprites, and my Middle and Core Lattices slipped into them. Back to back, the three of us slowly turned in place in the crow’s nest, scanning all angles of the forest around us.

  I grit my teeth at what I found.

  Enemies, but the expected ones. In other words, monsters.

  They were building up along the far edges of the wards, I could suddenly see. It wasn’t a large amount, but their existence at all was enough for my heart rate to pick up. Seeing more than one or two at a time meant that our monster-slaying teams were suddenly missing. They operated around the clock, working to cull the beasts naturally drawn to our borders.

  They weren’t lax enough to allow the monsters I could already see gathering. The only way they could be there at all was if the teams were either held up somewhere else.

  Or they had been removed from the equation.

  Enough of this.

  Without waiting another second, I ducked down to reach for the alchemical flare hidden within the crow’s nest. It was time to alert the caravan to possible danger. I didn’t know what was happening, but I intended to find out.

  However…

  It turned out that I was extremely lucky to have ducked when I did. I didn’t hear the arrow that had been aimed at me until the last possible second. It zipped ever so quietly over my bowed head to sink itself halfway into the column that the crow’s nest was constructed around, nearly appearing from the darkness.

  I froze in momentary shock, staring up at the shaft from my bent position. For a heart-stopping second, I thought the arrow I had only narrowly avoided, entirely by accident, was Elven in origin. But no. Upon closer, adrenaline-fueled inspection, that wasn’t an arrow.

  It was a crossbow bolt. Perhaps artificially darkened Dwarven military surplus, my Middle Lattice helpfully provided, having slipped back in at the first hint of danger.

  Because it was mainly the Dwarven military that utilized crossbows.

  I grit my teeth and clenched my hand around the original flare I’d gropingly found.

  Unfortunately, my suspicions had been realized.

  We were under attack, and they had just tried to assassinate the lookout of the caravan.

  Without waiting another second, I set down that flare, which was meant as a general alert, and picked up a different one.

  This flare was meant to signify an attack on the caravan.

  I pointed the alchemical flare up into the distant, darkened space under the boughs above me, and yanked on the cord of the packed iron rod. Intellectually, I knew that inside the metal tube, I had just shattered a glass ball filled with one potion, which was now combining with the suspended secondary potion within.

  But what really mattered was the burning red ball of roiling hot fire that shot from the end of it, screaming into the sky loud enough to echo out among the suddenly ominous trees all around us. Beneath me, I could hear the low roar of chatter aboard the Ashen Bride come to a halt at the thunder and fury of the flare, and crane their necks upward.

  And when the flare abruptly stopped in midair, shining brightly through the dark, I bellowed as hard and as loudly as I could, sitting with my back against the crow’s nest wall.

  “ATTACK! ATTACK! ENEMIES IN THE WOODS!”

  A single stunned moment of silence beneath me, and then…

  Whoever was attacking us gave up their pretense.

  A sudden, gurgling shout erupted from beneath me, as I heard one of my soldiers die from one of the same crossbow bolts that had nearly claimed my life. That got everyone moving, and more and more shouts filled the air as the forces of the expedition were roused from their shock and mobilized. The shouts echoed up and down the ship below, as Classers and soldiers alike either bunkered down or drew bows of their own to fire blindly into the murk of the Barren Forest. Judging by the sudden flare of light, someone had the bright idea to flare the Mage lights and even the torches brighter to try and see better in the darkness.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Damnit. That wasn’t going to work. Whoever had ambushed us had to be experienced raiders. This was a professional attack, on the level I would have expected from the Nocturne Division or SED.

  We couldn’t underestimate them. I highly doubted this was anything more than their opening gambit after I had outed them. If I poked my head up from the crows nest, I had no doubt it would get filled with bolts. If I had been on the planning team for a military ambush, I would have made sure the person in the crow’s nest was pinned down. From up here, I would probably be able to make out the attackers better than anyone else.

  Luckily, I had the perfect counter to their overwatch.

  For the first time in months, I let go of the Skill and Talent combination that let me easily process Aether into Mana. My enhancement Talent, Starfire Veil, fell away from Arboreal Channeling and Bloodroot Resilience, and instead I directed it over to my old stealth talent. It latched onto Thorn Cloak almost eagerly, and as soon as it did, I activated the empowered Skill, one of the very first I had received with my Class.

  And when it did, I fell away into true invisibility.

  I’d like to see these bastards pick me off now.

  Not wasting any time, I scrambled to my feet and looked over the rim. What I saw made me grimace.

  Like all good ambushes, we had been caught off guard by this assault. I had only been meant to be the third line of defense at best, with our dedicated scouts and the monster slayer teams working at the first and second. Even then, I liked to consider myself fairly observant, but whoever this was had expertly operated just out of my sight.

  The result was that we were scrambling. Soldiers hunkered down behind crates and walls as they desperately tried to avoid an almost unceasing hail of crossbow fire, some even hugging the deck of the Ashen Bride in their desperation. Some soldiers tried their best to fire back with whatever they had on hand, while even more tried to peek out of the openings into the ship itself. But they weren’t able to stay out long before they had to duck back in to avoid a bolt through the head. Dozens and dozens of bolts fired on the defenders every second, coming from somewhere in the woods.

  Christ, they had to have entire crates of bolts out there to draw from. This was a frankly ridiculous amount of arrow fire.

  From above the chaos, I squinted into those darkened trees, trying to see where they were coming from. Unlike my soldiers below, I wasn’t blinded by a light source, as the crow’s nest was without one. Still, I had trouble seeing much at all, even with both my high Perception score and the mutation to my eyes that Rhazal’s curse had wrought upon me. All I could see were vague, darkened shapes that peaked out from behind trees to fire a shot, before ducking behind it and then repeating the process once they’d reloaded. However…I could tell one thing.

  They were short. These definitely weren’t Elves.

  Their height, the presence of so many crossbows, and the mere fact that they had infiltrated our wards from the outside of them, unafraid of the Skyfall’s corruption…

  It made their identity obvious. This had to be an ambush from Principality special forces of some kind.

  I grit my teeth, hopping up onto the railing of the crow’s nest.

  It was just too bad for them that I knew how to deal with something like this. I tensed and activated Might of the Wyrdwood at the lowest strength I could, before the glow of the Skill could potentially pierce through my invisibility. Then, before I launched myself off from the edge, I spared a single glance down at the battle below.

  What I saw was a bit comforting.

  It seemed that my fellow Abjurer in the form of Meia Itzelan had realized the same thing I had. My soldiers needed a solid position from which they could launch a counterattack, and stationary shield Spells were perfect for that. The half-Orc woman was wading her way out from below decks, projecting a large, glowing blue dome shield that crossbow bolts were simply plinking off of with a shower of sparks. Inside of it, she was escorting dozens of warriors, among them Nyx and the rest of the Captainry. As soon as everyone was safely escorted outside, the Sorceress visibly concentrated, gritting her teeth, before casting a larger Spell than I had ever seen from her before. She threw out her arms side, and with a shout, two bulwark Spells appeared on either side of the Ashen Bride, amidship. They stretched up to about chest height on a man and were just as durable as the dome had been.

  Now protected from the hail of crossbow fire, soldiers began to pour out from below decks.

  I breathed a short sigh of relief. With that, my people could hopefully plan a counterattack, while I got to work.

  Because I had noticed something. Not only had I not seen any of the former SED and Nocturne Agents among the defenders below, but I hadn’t noticed Sylvia or Maria among the defenders. And it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

  It took an assassin to deal with an ambusher.

  I leapt from the railing, into the open air of the Barren Forest. If I had been transformed, I would have easily flown dozens and dozens of feet from the sheer force of my jump. As it was, I only traveled far enough away from the ship that I was able to outstretch one arm and cast out a Thorn Whip instead, the barbed length of vine burrowing into the surface of a distant tree. My momentum transferred into an arc, and I swung high above the chaos of battle, sailing over the furthest point in which I could see our attackers hiding.

  And then I dispelled the Thorn Whip and twisted and turned in midair as I fell, dodging the thick branches of the uncleared, wild forest off the road as I did. I landed with a soft rustle in the undergrowth, crouching for a moment to see if our attackers had noticed me.

  No bolts came flying my way, so I guessed I was in the clear.

  A grim smile crossed my hidden lips, and I reached for one of the few weapons I had taken with me on my overwatch shift. Neither Terractus nor my staff would have been appropriate for such a thing, but something I did have was.

  I withdrew my collapsed, enchanted shortbow, forged with my own two hands, and opened it.

  They wanted to hunt us with bows?

  Well.

  Let’s see how they liked it.

  As I slotted an arrow into my bow, crouched behind the back lines of our ambushers, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye that sent a vicious thrill of satisfaction running down my spine.

  A glint of silver, as Sylvia, accompanied by Maria and well over a dozen former fellow assassins slowly crept through the underbrush. As I’d expected, everyone else with the requisite training among the expedition had immediately realized the best course of action and mobilized. Across the distance, I met my lover’s eye and exchanged a mutual glance of understanding.

  We all knew what our goal was.

  Slowly, carefully, I joined them in stalking forward. Some with blades drawn, and others, like Maria and me, with bows.

  Time for the counterattack.