I’d only been a cop for a year when my partner and I entered the home of a man who’d been abusing his daughters, nine and three years old. He was genuinely shocked when we arrested him. He actually spit at me and said, “They’re my daughters! I can do whatever the hell I want with them!”

If my partner hadn’t been there, I would’ve rammed the guy’s head through the door to his own home.

That was the kind of rage I felt toward Trox when I saw those brave gnomes—who just wanted to defend their homes and families—cut down in the blink of an eye. They didn’t even have time to turn around and see their murderer. Some of them were probably the parents of the gnome kids who were laughing at me earlier. Maybe the ones who looked like Jack.

Those memories and the explosion of rage burst through me within seconds of Trox’s slaughter. But I was too slow even for Sonja. No sooner had the gnome bodies fallen when Sonja grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eye.

“Remember the plan,” she said. Before I could respond, she turned, screamed a feral battle cry, and charged toward Trox.

Right, the plan. Ironically, Mace’s tactical instincts cooled my anger and refocused me toward what we had to do.

As Sonja ran toward Trox with Mourner raised, Trox grinned again. He raised his hand in that chopping motion he’d used to cut his soldier in half, and I saw the hand begin to glow with a magical black mist.

I pointed at Sonja and yelled, “Ancestral Shield!” I poured five Magic Points into that thing.

The magic welled up from my chest, into my hands, and released in an ethereal blue wave toward Sonja. The spell encased Sonja in a pale, transparent cocoon when Trox brought his hand down. The Ancestral Shield flared brightly, and I knew it had worked because Sonja didn’t even slow down. She got to Trox in seconds and swung Mourner at his torso.

The grin disappeared from Trox’s ugly face, but a hazy black aura surrounded him just before Mourner bounced off his chest. The aura flashed dark sparks upon impact, and Trox stumbled backward. Sonja moved with a dancer’s elegance, for she used the bounce of her ax to whirl around smoothly and take another swing at Trox. This time he raised his jacketed arm to block the blow. More black sparks and a loud crack as Trox’s arm seemed to bend inward from the strike. Trox snarled a goblin curse and backed away from Sonja’s vicious attacks. She continued to follow him, refusing to let him catch his breath from her onslaught.

By this time, Constantine had rushed toward Trox, so I threw another Ancestral Shield around him but only spent one Magic Point. I needed to conserve my spells for later, plus Constantine had a far better Toughness score than Sonja due to his chain mail armor and shield. The Ancestral Shield encased the dwarf in a pale haze slightly dimmer than Sonja’s just as he swung his mace at Trox’s legs. He hit Trox in the knee. The goblin wizard’s black aura flashed, but Constantine’s didn’t seem to do as much damage as Sonja. The mace blow bounced off Trox’s knee without a flinch from the goblin.

But at least Constantine got Trox’s attention. The goblin snarled his irritation at the dwarf and kicked him in the chest. Constantine flew backward and rolled to a stop twenty feet away.

That kick distracted Trox enough for Sonja to hit him with another ax strike, this time in the middle of his back. Trox howled in pain, then swung his good arm around and punched Sonja in the face with a massive closed fist.

A sickening crack came from Sonja’s nose as it exploded in a bloody spray. She stumbled backward, stunned, but stayed on her feet. She tried swinging Mourner, but Trox pressed his attack with another fist connecting in the center of Sonja’s chest. All the air left her lungs in an explosive gasp. Now Sonja was the one retreating as Trox swung at her with growls and snarls.

“Krait’s Fire!” yelled Stephen next to me.

I got all sickened from Stephen’s magic, and then two fireballs flew from his outstretched hands. One hit Trox’s chest, and the other flew past his head and dissipated several dozen feet behind him. The impact caused a splash of orange flames, and his black aura sparked more than it had yet. Trox stumbled backward from Stephen’s spell, which forced him to stop his attack on Sonja.

And Sonja took advantage of it. With her face covered in blood, she screamed another feral cry, her white teeth viciously exposed, and swung her ax with renewed frenzy. Trox took another brutal hit on the side of his already injured arm, and the humerus broke with the sound of a rifle shot. The goblin howled and backed away further.

Constantine had recovered and rejoined the fight. He swung his mace back and forth at Trox’s legs, dodging kicks and fists that Trox directed at him when he wasn’t defending himself against Sonja. Stephen threw another fireball at Trox, this one impacting in his face. The goblin’s head jerked backward, but the black aura held.

If he didn’t have that aura, I thought with irritation, we would’ve killed him by now. But we’re beating him. We’re beating him, and I haven’t even joined the fight yet.

I smelled blood and wanted to get a few good licks in on that ass-face for using my son against me. I queried Mace’s instincts. The desire was mutual, but the course of action I got back was: Not yet.

Trox issued a different howl that made the hairs stand on my arms. It had a shrill resonance that I had not heard from him or his goblin warriors. It sounded more like a human scream. My limbs suddenly trembled, and my gut started churning. Whereas just a moment ago, I had wanted to get in the fight, I now had the incredible urge to run away as far as I could from Trox.

“It’s magic!” Stephen cried next to me. “Some kind of Fear spell.” He spoke through clenched teeth and leaned forward like he was using all his strength to walk into a hurricane's wind. Or to keep from running.

Knowing it was a Fear spell didn’t make its effects disappear, but it gave me the courage to stand my ground.

Trox’s howl made Constantine pause his attacks, though, and then take a couple of tentative steps backward, where he froze with his shield up as though hiding behind it. My Ancestral Shield gave him a 60% chance of resisting a spell, and it seemed the Fear spell got him in that 40% opening.

Sonja, her face covered in her own blood, stopped her attack and looked indecisive about swinging at Trox. She bared her teeth and issued a frustrated scream.

That delay was all Trox needed. Rather than press his advantage against Sonja and Constantine, he turned and ran toward his black oval portal.

Now, came Mace’s instincts.

I pointed toward the portal and yelled, “Cancel Krait’s Magic!”

I spent five Magic Points on that spell and felt the magical rush leave my body and fly toward the oval in a concentrated blue energy beam. I didn’t know if anyone else could see it, but it lit up my mind’s eye as if I were looking into a spotlight. The energy struck the portal, flashed as bright as the sun, and then the portal disappeared.

Less than an hour earlier, I had asked Stephen about Krait’s magic and properties while we were coming up with a way to trap Trox.

“Do goblins use Krait’s magic?” I'd asked.

He'd looked uncomfortable before answering slowly. “My spell book’s history texts say some so-called ‘evil’ creatures use Krait’s magic. But that doesn’t make Krait an evil god. Krait’s magic is primal, individualistic—its users tap into their primal energy to use it. Unfortunately, creatures like goblins don’t have many other instincts besides primal ones, so hence they gravitate toward Krait.”

When I told Stephen that I had been awarded a “Cancel Krait’s Magic” spell at Expert Rank, he winced. “Of course you did,” he muttered. “Anyway, there are other pantheons of magic that creatures like goblins can use. Krait is the most obvious, but if Trox doesn’t use it, then this trap will be for nothing.”

“Well, it has that black haze like yours,” I said, “and I get the same sick feeling as I do when you cast your spells. I got the same feeling when the stranglers attacked us, and it could’ve been because Trox opened a portal to snag Constantine. I got it again when he opened the portal near the river, then when he cut one of his goblins in half—”

“Yeah, well, there’s plenty of other evil magic in The Tomb that could offend your delicate paladin sensibilities,” he grumbled.

So up until the moment I cast Cancel Krait’s Magic at Trox’s portal, I wasn’t sure it would work. The triumph and relief I felt when the portal disappeared were overwhelming, and I screamed, “Yes!”

And my Cancel spell had a bonus effect: The urge to run away from Trox evaporated. I felt my lips curl into a snarl, and a surge of righteous anger fueled my limbs. I raised my sword and ran toward Trox.

The goblin wizard skidded to a stop where the oval should’ve been. He whipped his head left and right, desperately looking for his escape route. It took him a second to realize that the portal was gone, then he turned around, and we locked eyes. He no longer wore an evil grin. This time I saw genuine fear in his wide eyes.

And at that moment, I saw my—or rather Mace’s—Ancestral Longsword poking from the goblin’s dragon scale trench coat.

Mace’s desire to retrieve that sword took over, and I screamed, “Give me back my sword!”

Trox bolted to the left between several gnome buildings, his broken arm hanging uselessly, and disappeared from my sight.

When I passed Constantine and Sonja, who had not moved since Trox’s Fear spell, I asked, “You coming?”

They didn’t respond or even move. I slowed to a jog and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t move,” Sonja said, her teeth still bared and Mourner raised in mid-swing.

“Me neither,” Constantine said.

I had thought the spell only produced fear, but it had also frozen Sonja and Constantine. I looked back and saw that Stephen was also frozen in place as if he were still walking into a strong wind. Perhaps only I was released because I was the one who had cast the Cancel spell.

“Damn,” I muttered. I looked to where Trox had fled. I didn’t see him, but I could hear his massive, thumping footsteps recede into the village. I didn’t know if Trox was low on Magic Points or how long it would take him to cast another portal. If he did, then our ballsy trap was a failure.

“Go,” Sonja said, her eyes blinking slowly at me in resignation.

“It’s loosening a wee bit,” Constantine said. “I can flex my toes. We should be along soon. Go, brother!”

I didn’t let them tell me twice. I chased Trox into the dark gnome village.