Dusk was still present, sun sunken low but not yet fallen off the cityscape. The wagon continued to bump and jostle over the cobblestoned street. Night soon crept upon them as trapped animals unaware of their impending slaughter. The moon now hung high and clear.

Massed torchlight wavered in the distance from the stationed company of soldiers.

“There’s more of them,” Shen murmured.

Flecks of orange light would reveal haggard faces and flickering steel. One man barked for the wagon’s halt. The captain. He strolled to the backend of the wagon, eyes only on Verena. Several soldiers prowled behind him, two from both flanks. Thael eyed their surroundings, the wagon cut off from either side by looming buildings. Only a dozen at most pikemen stood ahead, the rest within the border of the central district.

The man snarled at Shen’s beginning protest, “Shut up. Remember me, girl?”

“No,” Verena answered. “I don’t recall where I shit.”

The captain gave a rotten smile, “Seems the Minister still yet didn’t take his proper time with this one. I’ll be sure to remedy that. Get her down here. I won’t ask twice.”

The guards handled their still sheathed swords.

“And bring the sylvan too,” he motioned them over with an impatient wave. “We have needs of searching them.”

Thael sat opposite Verena, shaking his head ever so slightly. Verena stood, “Don’t get up Nireih.”

The captain scoffed, “I would prefer to keep this cordial. Now Nireih, be a dear and come down from there. As for the rest of you, turn back. Noone is to enter or exit the Ring by the Ministers' decree.”

Verena stepped down with the captain’s hand. He smiled beneath his limping mustache. “That’s better. We’ll be sure to grant you far gentler treatment than the Minister.”

“You won’t have to,” Verena said, swiping at the captain’s throat. A hiss of air followed her hand; the man stumbled back, clutching at his neck now flowing with blood. She whipped her arms forth, hurling discs of wavering air that sliced the other soldier’s necks nearby in that instant’s confusion.

“Fuck me,” Ircham muttered and stood up from his seat, waving his arms, hands clawed as if tearing away some unknown force. The torched fire that the men held spewed and embered into their faces, screaming as they were engulfed into flames.

“Mages!” a man shrieked. “Sound the horn! They’re fucking Mages!”

Thael opened a crate, grabbed a stout jug of oil in each hand and jumped off, smashing the urns onto the stoned street before retreating back. Pikemen charged towards them, Ircham gesturing forth the fires of the still burning men to leave and flow into a wall of flame. Verena blew into the wilting inferno, the fire blazing and roaring ever higher, ever brighter, soldiers stumbling back.

“Throw the oil into the fire!” Thael shouted, snatching a fallen man’s sword, the former wielder’s face now blackened pink gristle, and climbed back onto the wagon with a helping hand from the dwarf. Shercagh lobbed the few remaining jars into the flames. The others armed themselves with the surrounding dead men’s weapons, Shercagh wielding a halberd once more, Ircham staying over the wagon.

Verena flung slices of hissing wind at the pikemen, whistling over dented armor or rending the staves of their pikes into splinters, forcing them to huddle behind the buildings they were in between. The horses bucked and panicked from the sudden fire, driving forward.

“They’ll kill the horses before we can get past them!” Shen yelled.

“Then we kill them first!” Verena cried out in reply.

“I can’t hold them off for long!” Ircham roared. “Make it quick!”

A horn, deep and resonant, echoed into the night.

They rushed ahead of the wagon, the men realizing too late that they were upon them. Verena raised an open hand, summoning a forceful gust of wind that sent several soldiers reeling back, long enough for the others to close the distance.

Shercagh was deceptively agile for one of his stocky proportions, ducking and weaving under swinging pikes and twirling his weapon quick and light as a willow stick to pierce and shatter armor. Nireih slipped and dashed forward, her blades a dance of ringing steel and blood.

Thael spun past a spear’s thrust, grabbing hold of its haft and stabbing his sword into the man’s gullet. No matter how many battles Thael had gone through, he still felt the boiling fear pour through his veins, powering his every movement. For a while he did not hear the men’s cries, nor the begging man who knelt with snot nosed forgiveness, only to die unforgiven, but his own ragged breath and the thumping thrill of having killed before being killed.

Somewhere near the end Shen’s driver atop the wagon had been skewered through the chest, the others remounting the wagon, Shen taking the reins. The blazing wall of unnatural fire had faded and sputtered with the last drop of oil, men marching past into lined formations.

“Flatbows behind!” Ircham hollered.

Verena rushed to the wagon’s end, raising both hands to face the scattered volley shot towards them. A buffeting spray of wind howling from her hands blew the bolts to clatter onto the stoned walls beside. Another volley passed but could not reach the horses’ frightened speed.

Verena groaned, falling, Thael reaching with swift hands to pull her to the benched seat. Along her waist sprouted the white fletchings of a flatbow bolt, blood ebbing down her sea green dress.

“Is there a medicus in this fucking place?” Thael asked Shen.

"My father has his own personal… physician, I would call her. ”

“Would she know how to treat a flatbolt wound?”

“Matron Wu was a student learned of the Ekven Tribe.”

“A fucking shaman,” Thael swore. “This doesn’t require magical poultices or herbal potions. She needs a medicus.”

“All medicus’ reside in the Ring,” Shen replied. “Matron Wu shall be the one to treat her, and the Matron alone.”

Verena crutched her head against his shoulder. Thael ripped a part of her grey cloak to bunch and wrap the cloth around her wound and waist.

“What is the Wraith Creed, soldier?” Thael asked softly while fashioning the rough bandage.

Verena smiled, eyes half closed, and began to recite its words, “I am the first and last… defense, against the Long Night. I will stop both friend and foe that impede the mission. I will ride atop dark wings to darker lands where no one goes… I am the tip of the spear…” Verena grunted, eyes shut as the wagon jarred past a bumped stone. “...the first to appear and last to fall. I am a specter of vengeance, everywhere and nowhere, unseen and unheard until it is too late. I am a Wraith of Arcadia, and nothing will stop me from enacting the Empire’s will.”

“Your duty right now, Wraith, is to live. You hear me?” Thael whispered. "You remain awake."