The guards broke camp at first light.
They moved cautiously now.
A tracker led at the front, studying the ground with intense concentration. The formation was tighter than before — twenty in total, walking two abreast. Those at the rear kept glancing over their shoulders, drifting closer to their companions as if proximity alone could ward off what hunted them.
No one spoke.
We followed at a distance, drifting through shadow and brush. Drisnil moved like something born of the forest — never snapping a twig, never disturbing soft soil.
We watched for weakness.
It did not take long.
The men in the centre of the column began to relax first. Safety in numbers. Their attention drifted — eyes fixed on the back of the man in front rather than the tree line.
Drisnil angled left without a word.
She slipped ahead through the undergrowth, circled wide, and positioned herself along the convoy’s flank. From behind the cover of a thick trunk, she selected her mark — a guard mid-column, distracted, unaware.
The bow rose.
She exhaled.
The arrow struck deep into the side of his thigh.
He collapsed instantly, screaming.
“Attack from the left!” someone shouted.
Steel rang as weapons were drawn.
Drisnil was already gone.
We withdrew at speed, weaving between trees, boots leaving no trace. Behind us, the guards gave chase — more organised this time.
Their pursuit lasted longer.
At one point I felt Drisnil tense — Percy.
He was tracking.
Even from a distance, his movements were sharper than the others. He studied broken brush, the faintest shift in leaf scatter. He was not panicked.
He was calculating.
Fortunately, the enchanted boots betrayed nothing.
We settled into concealment as the guards regrouped nearby.
Their voices carried.
“Where are they? They vanished like a ghost!”
“Who do you think it is?”
“I heard it might be Drisnil. Word is she’s lethal.”
“Oh, come on. Isn’t she just a rookie?”
“That’s not what I heard. They say she was exiled after torturing bandits.”
The fear in the man’s voice was unmistakable.
“So why aren’t any of us dead yet?”
A pause.
“Maybe she’s saving that for later. Maybe she wants us afraid.”
Silence followed.
Then Percy’s voice cut through the murmurs — calm, controlled.
“Enough.”
The men fell quiet instantly.
“Rumours are tools of the weak,” he continued. “Drisnil is one woman. If she wished us dead, we would already be dead. The injuries we’ve suffered are from poor aim and opportunism — nothing more.”
There was a pause.
“She bleeds like anyone else,” he added.
His tone did not waver.
But Drisnil smiled in the shadows.
He was wrong.
And she intended to prove it.
After several fruitless hours of searching, the guards finally abandoned the hunt and reformed their column.
Drisnil used the lull to sleep again.
When she woke, we resumed our shadowing.
Their formation had changed.
Tighter now. Denser. The men moved closer together, scanning constantly. Heads turned at every bird call. Hands rested on sword hilts and bowstrings. No one laughed. No one spoke above a murmur.
The cleric remained near the centre.
Even at a distance, I could see the fatigue in her movements. She stumbled slightly while climbing over fallen branches, breath heavier than it had been that morning.
Our work was showing.
We didn’t need to kill them.
We needed her tired.
The afternoon dragged on without opportunity. Percy had disciplined them well. There were no exposed flanks, no drifting attention.
They learned.
Toward evening, they began to make camp again — faster this time, more organised. Two men broke away for firewood after a quiet exchange with Percy.
They moved nervously, staying close to tree trunks, watching every angle.
“They’re bait,” Drisnil murmured. “Percy isn’t careless.”
Sure enough, five more guards followed at a distance, nearly invisible in the undergrowth.
Drisnil did not take it.
Instead, she circled wide — away from the bait — toward the main camp.
Two guards stood at each corner of the clearing, vigilant. The rest worked quickly, tension evident in every movement.
Drisnil slipped into a shallow depression near the edge of camp and dragged a hollow log into position. She found a heavier log nearby and balanced it precariously atop the first, propping it up with a narrow branch.
Crude.
Effective.
We withdrew into the trees and took position behind thick cover.
From roughly fifty metres, she drew and aimed — not at a man.
At the stick.
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The arrow split it cleanly.
The larger log dropped into the hollow trunk below.
The crack echoed through the clearing like a breaking bone.
Every head snapped toward the sound.
Six guards rushed to investigate.
Drisnil pivoted instantly.
The cleric had stepped slightly away from the centre, hands clasped, perhaps praying for guidance.
The arrow struck her low in the abdomen.
She folded with a gasp, collapsing to one knee.
“Back! It’s a diversion!” someone shouted.
Drisnil loosed again — the arrow catching the shouting guard in the shoulder, spinning him sideways with a cry of pain.
Then we ran.
Fast.
Not in a straight line. Never in a straight line.
Branches blurred past. Roots were cleared without thought. Behind us, Percy’s voice barked orders — sharp, controlled, not panicked.
This was no longer harassment.
This was attrition.
And in games of patience and precision—
Drisnil thrived.
We found a tall pine with thick lower branches and climbed silently into its upper canopy. From there, we settled among the needles, hidden in shadow.
Below us, the guards moved through the forest in pairs, torches flaring, blades stabbing into bushes and low growth. No one walked alone now.
Drisnil secured herself to the trunk with a length of cord, tying the knot without looking.
“Watch,” she murmured.
Then she slept.
I hovered in uneasy awareness while the search continued beneath us. Percy knelt occasionally, fingers brushing soil, studying disturbances that no longer existed. His frustration was visible even from above — sharp gestures, clipped instructions.
The boots had done their work. We had left nothing for him.
For two hours they combed the trees beneath us.
Eventually, their discipline began to crack. Shoulders sagged. Movements slowed. The torches dipped lower.
At last, Percy signalled retreat.
They returned to camp.
When darkness thickened again and the moon rose higher, Drisnil stirred. Night restored her edge. The world belonged to her once more.
We descended without a sound and crept back toward the camp’s perimeter.
One guard stood at the edge of the firelight.
Too still.
Too exposed.
We both recognised it.
A trap.
Drisnil drew the bow anyway. Calm. Patient. She loosed an arrow into the figure’s lower back.
No cry. No collapse of flesh.
The body toppled stiffly.
“A scarecrow,” she whispered.
She climbed a nearby tree to gain a clearer vantage.
From above, the deception revealed itself.
Several “sleeping” guards lay sprawled in the open, armour on, weapons within reach — far too visible. Percy lay near the cleric, armour buckled, blade resting across his chest, eyes closed but posture rigid.
Only the cleric appeared genuinely asleep, curled tight from exhaustion.
Drisnil did not hesitate.
She nocked another arrow and released.
The shaft struck the cleric’s leg.
The scream tore through the camp.
Drisnil was already moving.
She dropped from the tree before the echo faded and sprinted for the dark.
This time, they were ready.
Men surged from concealment almost instantly. Five metres behind us before we cleared the tree line. Bows raised. Arrows drawn.
One flew past my ear.
Another split bark inches from her shoulder.
Too close.
Drisnil zigzagged through the undergrowth, cutting hard angles between trunks, forcing them to break formation. An arrow grazed leaves where her head had been a heartbeat earlier.
She tore an embedded arrow from a tree as she passed and vanished fully into the night.
The armour slowed them. The dark swallowed them.
Their shouts followed us for several minutes — angrier now, raw with fatigue and humiliation.
Sleep deprivation was doing its work.
And Percy was losing control.
This time their search lasted longer — harsher, more desperate.
Voices rose. Torches moved erratically. They were no longer methodical. They were angry.
We slipped between patrol routes and circled back toward the camp.
The cleric was seated near the dying fire, armour loosened, hands glowing faintly as she worked divine energy into her own wound. Only three guards remained with her — the rest still combing the forest.
Drisnil slowed.
Opportunity.
We moved wide around the perimeter, staying opposite the search parties. The three guards were focused entirely inward, watching the cleric’s strained expression as she healed.
“That damned drow keeps crippling us,” the cleric muttered, voice tight with fatigue. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up without real rest.”
“You’ll get sleep tonight, Joan,” one of the guards assured her.
Joan.
The name struck like a snapped bowstring in my mind.
Faie’s Joan.
We could not kill her.
“How do you suppose that will happen?” Joan snapped irritably. “Unless someone finds her spine and ends this—”
“I’m attempting to rest,” she continued, lowering herself carefully. “Guard me properly this time.”
Drisnil moved before I could object.
The stolen arrow left the string in silence.
It struck Joan in the stomach.
She gasped sharply, folding over as the three guards spun in shock.
But something was wrong.
Percy stepped from the treeline directly ahead of us.
He had anticipated the flank.
“Now!” he roared. “I’ve got her! Move!”
For a heartbeat, we were trapped.
Drisnil didn’t hesitate.
She charged the nearest guard instead of retreating. Blade drawn. He barely managed to lift his weapon before she drove steel deep into his shoulder, using the force of impact to shove him aside and break through the camp’s edge.
Behind us, Joan’s voice rose in strained incantation.
“Hold—!”
The divine word crashed against us like invisible chains.
For a split second, Drisnil’s muscles locked.
Then she tore through it.
Not cleanly — but enough.
Guards were already converging from both flanks. Arrows loosed at near point-blank range. One grazed our upper arm, hot and sharp, tearing cloth and skin.
Too close.
“Don’t let her escape!” Percy shouted. “You want sleep? Then catch her!”
He ran harder than the others — lighter on his feet, armour fitted, blade already drawn.
Drisnil cut hard right, diving through a gap between two tents and into brush. Branches whipped at our face. Another arrow split bark inches from her head.
We ran.
This time it was not effortless.
Percy gained ground briefly — close enough that I heard his breathing, controlled but laboured.
Fifteen minutes.
Fifteen brutal minutes of sprinting, doubling back, cutting angles through thickets too narrow for armoured men.
Eventually, their pursuit fractured.
The forest favoured us again.
When the shouts finally faded, Drisnil slowed to a controlled jog.
Blood from the graze trickled down her arm.
She was smiling.
She enjoyed this — the danger, the near-capture, the tightening net.
Especially when the prey fought back.
The rest of the night unfolded in fragments.
Drisnil would strike the edge of their nerves, then vanish again — a snapped branch here, a distant whistle there, the thud of something thrown against a tree trunk. Never enough to justify a charge. Always enough to deny rest.
Between disturbances, she slept in brief, disciplined intervals, reclaiming strength while denying them the same.
No clear opportunity arose to wound Joan again, and our supply of arrows was dwindling. We could not afford waste now. Not with the fort so close.
By dawn, their camp no longer resembled a disciplined unit.
It looked brittle.
Men snapped at one another over small things. Two nearly came to blows before Percy’s sharp command silenced them. The cleric moved more slowly now, her steps heavier, divine light dimmer.
We had done what we set out to do.
When they broke camp, their formation was tighter — not confident, but fearful. Eyes darted constantly to the tree line. Every snapping twig made shoulders tense.
Today, they would reach the fort.
We ran ahead, cutting through the forest at full speed. Along their most likely approach we set several quick spike traps — crude, shallow, but angled to maim rather than kill. Anything to sap more strength before the final clash.
Then we returned.
The clearing came into view.
And the fort had changed.
A shallow ditch now encircled the palisade, sharpened stakes lining its base. The crude gate had been reinforced, and a narrow drawbridge spanned the only safe crossing.
Cain had not wasted our time.
I tightened my grip on control and drew myself fully back into the body. The shift was subtle — posture easing, breathing changing — Drisnil settling behind my thoughts once more.
When we passed through the gate, Illara saw us immediately.
The tension in her shoulders broke.
She crossed the space quickly, relief written openly across her face.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said softly. “I was worried.”
“I’m glad to be back.”
It was more honest than I intended.
I pulled her into my arms.
For a moment, the forest, the guards, Percy, the blood — all of it faded beneath the simple reality of her warmth.
