And sooner than Jess thought it would happen, she was leading thirty of her peers to the first of two empty looking mounds of dirt, stumps, and woodchip waste, focusing intently on what was ahead, and what they would need to do the instant they claimed the mound against a score of armed and ready crossbowmen.

Silently they stepped just beyond the clearing, Jess already strengthening her kinship and love of all things that blossomed under the sun to include her entire coterie, as if they were one. Each of them with war hammers looped to their belts, their cavalry sabers secured in specially designed scabbards sheathed to their hips. In hands trembling with excitement and dread, they uniformly wielded spears as long as they could comfortably use in the charge, tipped with heads of finest sharpened steel, affixed to stout poles of ash Jess had used her unique gifts to bring forth, heading the call for an end to this blight upon their forest.

"This is madness. Sheer madness!" Lucas hissed. Neal glared back at him.

“Silence. Hold your formation. The moment she charges forward, you join, spears in concert, a foot from your partner.”

And such was the plan, Jess thought, even as watering eyes carefully squinted past the illusion of a peaceful mound to spot the twenty hunched or kneeling crossbowmen, some lying prone, all of them with weapons aimed at the hard beaten path leading straight to the massive fortress ahead.

“Not a damned fool is coming,” one of the crossbowmen hissed in a harsh northern accent, his companions murmuring assent, and Jess couldn't help but smile.

Just as none of Jess's companions could see the crossbowmen, the crossbowmen did not even bother to look behind them, so confident that they were under perfect cover, their own rough chatter covering up the odd crackle of twig or leaf, for all that Jess's gifts had muted the rustles of undergrowth from the pads of her fellow Squires as they prepared to spring their trap.

And with the sharp cry of a hawk, they all charged forth as one. Jessica's heart hammered with a wolf's exultation. Her chosen prey, a kneeling man turning about at that very moment with the slightest of frowns, was sent crashing to the ground, writhing as her spear punched through his vest of rawhide, her foe bucking like a fish on the hangman's hook. Jess felt only a moment's resistance as she tore her spearhead free, hideous gasps turning to an awful shriek as frothy blood and endless loops of slimy grey intestines spilled out of the wound.

A dozen other screams as an equal number of spears hit their targets, the stench of coppery blood and offal lancing Jess's nose even as panicked shouts and the cries of the wounded assaulted her ears. For all that her fellow Squires were thrusting blind, they did it with measured force in concert with Jess's own thrust, only two dropping their spears at the unexpected jolt of steel biting into rawhide.

“Sabers out! Clear of your friends! Strike to kill!” Neal roared, for whether it was by simple proximity or the pinprick of ruptured flesh, the wounded crossbowmen were suddenly as clear as moonlight to all of them, only a few Squires flinching back from their sudden appearance, and Jess smiled with fierce satisfaction to see the crossbowmen upon the other mound squint desperately at the melee unfolding.

For obviously the spell still held, and their enemies could see past the illusion in this mound no better than her friends could see the new threat approaching.

And so the second wave of crossbowmen stepped carefully down the massive stack of tightly coiled logs fronting their archery mound, logs intended to be rolled down upon foolishly charging knights even as they crashed into the sloping pit below, crushing them to death. Had such gone according to their enemies' designs, the logs would have been released from their strained slipknots by a pair of levers upon either side of the mound.

Levers which chose that instant to snap, for all that they were of stoutest hardwood, and not a soul was near them.

The air rang with the cries of over a dozen men scrabbling desperately to clear themselves of an avalanche of wooden logs rolling atop of them, their panic screams breaking off in abrupt crackling gurgles. Jess smiled in fiercest pleasure as the wood began to claim its due.

“Jess!”

Malek roared and Jess blinked, dodging back desperately as a furious crossbowman yanked free his sword and tried to run Jess through.

Stupid! She couldn't lose focus in the heat of combat, not even for an instant! She roared at herself, cheeks flushing with terror and fury even as her enemy's blade near slashed open her cheek, Jess arching back with an almost painful wrench, her visor wide open, the one vulnerable spot her scowling foe targeted with a blade perfectly designed for close quarter fighting.

And time seemed to slow, as terror and sweetest exhilaration took hold.

Her right hand tightly clenched her saber hilt, wrenching her blade free of specially built sheath as her reinforced left gauntlet slammed aside her opponent's blade, arching back her right shoulder and abruptly twisting her hips as she took half a step back, turning her desperate attempt to unsheathe her blade into a vicious slash of a draw cut, her foe gazing at her in stupid awe, stumbling back and dropping his sword as her saber bit through rawhide breastplate with a jerk and twist, Jess wrenching the blade completely free.

Her foe collapsed, entrails and screams alike bursting forth from the man now writhing upon the ground.

And Jess howled, awash in the coppery stench of crimson gore, embracing the hot, boiling rage suddenly roaring through her.

The illusionist was neutralized. Whether by spear, saber, or crushing logs, Jess knew not. She knew only that all magics had suddenly been ruptured, the pair of crossbowmen charging her with swords drawn weer now plain for all to see.

“Jess!”

She heard the twang of crossbows, felt but did not see the half dozen bolts aimed for her friends from the crossbowmen who had been savvy enough not to rush to their fellows' aid, even as Jess had sprung their own trap upon them.

And a half dozen quarrels whizzed harmlessly aside, even as Jess stumbled back from the frantically stabbing swords of her enemy, desperate to bring her down before they themselves were killed.

Jess tasted death's caress, manic laughter bubbling to her lips, sound growing tinny and strange as time stretched all the more under her furious gaze.

A short blade with a flaring tip lashing out for her eyes. The clang of bronze hitting steel, parrying gauntlet slamming the blade away. Her foe's eyes widened, the air filled with his wavering cry as his hand flew free, cavalry saber kissing flesh and bone, ever hungry for more.

A scream cut off to the crimson spray of a ruptured throat, rawhide like paper to her saber's kiss. The cry of a reed flute, the crash of armored flesh collapsing to the ground.

The dying soldier's partner gazed at Jess in horror, Jess having killed his friend in two strokes and as many heartbeats. His breath hitched, arms frozen to his sides, and Jess seized the Vor before the terrified man could so much as blink. And blink he did, to no avail, soft brown eyes tumbling to the ground, his headless corpse crashing atop his comrade but moments after her crimson saber danced across his soft, supple flesh.

And two more soldiers charged as Jess furiously blinked away the hot salty blood stinging her eyes, saber now held in tierce, reinforced left forearm held out to parry.

The stink of rotting teeth and wrath. Dark angry eyes fixed upon a pustulent face dwarfed by a massive frame wielding an an ancient bar mace of bronze, its shaft inured to the ways of wood.

Jess twisted and weaved as the deadly weapon whistled but inches from her skull, her gauntlet knocking aside his partner's desperate slash, a scarred face grimacing as his blade was momentarily trapped in softer bronze.

Jess cleaved down even as she dodged back, bronze warhammer lashing out for her skull once more as the giant's partner howled and shrieked, spraying coppery blood upon them both.

"Focus, Jess!"

Her familiar's panicked voice, oddly tinny as her head rang with the force of the blow that had clipped her helmet and sent her stumbling, grateful the wounded swordsman had jostled his massive companion before he could strike again, and Jess realized how truly perilous her situation was. Should she be knocked senseless in this melee, death's kiss would be the last ever to cross her lips.

Her foe roared, his massive frame charging into her, and Jess did not hesitate to embrace the unorthodox, hunching down and crashing her armored torso into his feet, tripping him much like the swine herder who had sought her death, only hours before.

And still she hissed with the blow of feet slamming into her side, for all that she was covered in rawhide and steel.

But her foe had crashed to the ground, and a furious curse as he desperately struggled to his feet was no contest against a girl who had trained endless hours in flips, throws, and the mastery of rough and tumble melee, so boys like Mord could never again humiliate her so thoroughly as he had the first and only time they had ever crossed blades.

A roar as her foe raised his bronze mace up high, before crashing to the ground. Hamstrung. Screeching in horrified disbelief as choking gurgles replaced desperate threats or pleas, her crimson saber drinking deep of the madman's blood.

"No!"

Rowan's voice.

Jess lurched about in panic, saw her shieldsister pinned by a man ruthlessly trying to force his gladius past her desperate grip, and plunge it straight into her throat.

"No!" Jess wanted to weep with terror for her friend.

Her lover.

A heartbeat from death.

“Jess! Behind you!” Twilight roared.

Jess gasped and whipped her blade around, tearing open the face of a howling swordsman suddenly stumbling back before crashing to the ground, his iron helm crumpled, brained from a war hammer held in the hand of none other than a grimly smiling Mord who had somehow managed a shield in his off-hand, for all that he had joined Jess in leading with the spear but moments before.

Her heart lurched in her chest.

No time!

Jess stumbled past a crumpled body as Rowan's assailant tore his blade free of her desperate hands, plunging his sword straight for Rowan's throat.