Nobody particularly liked Captain Pirta’s idea. Not the captain herself, not Ana, and especially not Messy.

  Aaspiyah the Iron Warrior was surprisingly agreeable, considering the plan involved her joining the Party of no less than three women she’d tried to kill, and who all bore some pretty well founded grudges against her. And especially considering that one of those women had killed one of Aaspiyah’s friends with her own hand.

  Her joining Ana’s Party had been something of a sticking point. Ana had accepted the reasoning almost immediately, putting aside her concerns and personal dislike of the woman in favor of giving them all the best chance of success possible. As personally powerful as Ana was, she was also a force multiplier; taking the Iron Warrior in would not only speed the woman’s recovery, but would let her perform at a level far above normal. Considering she’d held her own against the demon for almost half a minute, Ana couldn’t deny being intrigued to see what she might be able to do with a hefty Vitality bonus and a complete disregard for fear and pain.

  The obvious objection, though, came quickly.

  “I don’t like it. The mercenaries will know all about Ana’s Abilities the moment she joins,” Tellak said. She looked directly at Talleh as she spoke, and was frowning deeply. “They know too much already.”

  Talleh took no visible offense. “With all respect, Miss Tellak, one could argue that you should lay out what she’s capable of plainly, so that I know better what we have to work with. And you can believe me when I say that with the two of them together, I expect even a demon like the one we’re facing will have its work cut out for it. But I do understand your reticence. If you will not even share Miss Cole’s true Class, it must be powerful indeed.”

  “And if you’re hired to fight us again?” the Bulwark asked. “You’ll know her strengths and weaknesses, and be able to plan around them. No. I object in the strongest to putting one of them in Ana’s Party.”

  “Duly noted,” Captain Pirta said, though she didn’t look like she was moved in the least.

  Then Captain Falk spoke up. “Miss Tellak,” he said, “does it soothe your concerns at all to know that the contract we’ve signed with Mister Talleh, and which we will file with both his and our own Guild as soon as possibly, forbids him and anyone else in his company from sharing anything they learn here?”

  “Contracts can be broken,” Sira the Peacekeeper muttered into her clasped hands. From her stormy expression, she didn’t like the idea either. But then, she hated the mercenaries with every fibre of her being; no one in that circle had lost more friends to them than her.

  Tellak didn’t react to her comment. “Mister Talleh,” she said firmly. “How deep are you into your Craft?”

  “Three Levels into Stone,” the Earthbreaker replied without hesitation. “Which your Mistress Drisa can confirm. I registered my Summary with her as part of the contract.”

  Tellak’s face became a little less grim; a little more thoughtful. Some, though far from all the tension left her, and she said, “In that case… yes, that does allay some of my fears. Assuming we can trust you to hold your people to the letter and spirit of the contract.”

  “What, because they’re Earth-mages, we can trust them?” Sira spat.

  “Yes. Because they’re Earth-mages,” Tellak confirmed evenly. “Especially as Mister Talleh here is deep into the Craft of Stone. He will keep to his word, Sira. Earth is malleable. Metal can flex and bend. Stone holds, or it shatters.”

  Ana couldn’t tell if that changed Sira’s mind, but it silenced her objections. And the discussion was pretty much over at that point. With Ana, the Captains, and Talleh all onboard with the idea, they set about hammering out what few details there were.

  Breaking the news to her Party—and asking for their agreement, because there was no way Ana was going to put them directly in harms way without that—went about as well as Ana had expected. Nobody liked being bait, but they understood the reasoning, and they’d do it without too much complaint. Knowing that they wouldn’t be afraid when it happened helped. Being joined by the woman who’d tried to kill three of them, though, was more controversial. Rayni looked nervous; Deni, Lessa, Perri, and Jisha all looked loyally pissed, and objected loudly; Messy hated it, and though she didn’t say anything beyond expressing her objection, Ana’s heart broke a little at how betrayed she looked. But they were all basically sane and reasonable people, and for the sake of everyone’s survival they promised to cooperate with the Iron Warrior to the best of their ability. Though in Messy’s case that promise was more to the effect that she wouldn’t try to off the mage as soon as she was more than twenty feet away from Ana.

  There were no smiles or words of welcome for Aaspiyah when she hobbled over to introduce herself. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by that.

  “None of you need to like me,” she said bluntly. “I don’t like any of you. Toméh was a good friend with a quick laugh and bright future, and you—” She pointed sharply at Messy, “killed him. So fuck all of you. That doesn’t mean I won’t go down fighting for any one of you until my chief tells me I’m done with you.” With that she ignored everyone except Ana and asked, “Did they agree?”

  Ana looked around her Party, getting reluctant nods out of each of them. “They did.”

  “Good. Invite me, and I’ll get out of your faces.”

  Ana did, and Aaspiya left. As she was leaving, Ana told her, “Don’t go far. A hundred feet at most. Fifty feet at most from Touanne. And rest! I want you to recover as fast as you possibly can.”

  Aaspiyah gave her a sour look, then a nod.

  “Hey,” Messy called out as the mage turned to leave. Aaspiyah stopped, looking back over her shoulder. “How long did you stand against the demon?”

  “Half a minute is what they tell me,” Aaspiyah replied curtly. “Why?”

  “Ana ran it ragged for two days,” Messy said through a smug smile that stopped at the scar on her cheekbone, where Aaspiyah’s friend Toméh had clipped her with a shard of stone. “Try to keep up.”

  The Iron Warrior’s reply was a snort, a sneer, and her back as she walked away.

  She left the Party with gifts in the form of two Party Abilities. The first was Mana Confluence, the same Ability that Deni already provided. It superseded Deni’s by dint of Aaspiyah being much higher Level, but as far as Ana knew Level made no difference. The second, Ana realized, was the reason Talleh had thought it was such a good idea to put Ana and Aaspiyah together.

  Twenty percent reduced harm from Armor of Valor. Fifteen from Iron Constitution. Unknown amounts from Vitality, Underdog, On The Chin, and Iron Skin. Add Fight Through to the mix, and Ana’s ability to withstand any damage that slipped through her defenses was really adding up. And with most of that applying to anything she absorbed from her Party, she began to feel something resembling confidence that they’d all survive this mess.

  Once Aaspiyah was gone Ana looked forward to relaxing for a moment. She needed to rest and recover as much as Aaspiyah did, and she hadn’t been able to cuddle up to Messy for literal days. But that would have to wait, because as soon as the Iron Warrior left Waller approached, his gaze following the mage. He was carrying something long and thin, wrapped in a blanket.

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  “Gods, it’s creepy how much that woman looks like you,” he said by way of greeting. “Sit her down, give her a haircut—”

  “What do you want, Waller?” Messy asked tiredly, her arm around Ana’s waist as they sat back against a tree.

  “To talk to Marshal Ana, what else?” he answered. There was no heat in it. He was pale and tired, and it sounded like he was trying to cover embarrassment with bravado. “Can I have a moment before you all get back to whatever?”

  “Oh, fuck off with your marshal. You know she doesn’t like it.”

  “I don’t,” Ana confirmed.

  “Yeah, well, I’d still like to talk to Miss Ana for a minute,” Waller said, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked around the group. “Alone. Please?”

  Messy turned her head with a huff. “Angel?”

  “It’s alright, babe,” Ana said, leaning in and resting her head on Messy’s shoulder for just a moment. “Give us a minute or two.”

  Messy buried her face in Ana’s short hair, placing a long, possessive kiss there. Then, with an exaggerated sigh, she released her angel and got to her feet. “We won’t be far,” she said. “Come on, ladies.”

  “What about me?” Perry asked, though he didn’t hesitate to follow.

  “You know that you’re an honorary lady,” Lessa declared, to the enthusiastic agreement of the others and pleased noises from the honorary lady himself.

  As the Party put some distance between themselves and Ana and Waller, Ana asked, “So, what do you want, Waller?” She had a pretty good idea considering he was carrying a five-foot bundle at his side, but he seemed like he wanted to talk.

  “You don’t have a proper weapon anymore, do you?” he asked. “I heard you came in unarmed.”

  “Don’t need one,” Ana countered. “You know that better than most.”

  An embarrassed flush crept down Waller’s face as he remembered how Ana had choked him out during their first encounter, but he quickly snorted, putting on a mask of forced amusement. “Sure, guess I do,” he said. “Fucking lot of good it’ll do you against an unholy force of nature with a mouth full of knives. Here.”

  He held out the long bundle of cloth he’d been carrying. Ana suspected she knew what it was already, and it was confirmed when he said, “I know you can use a sword. A two-hander’s different, but you’ll figure it out.”

  Ana reached up and accepted the gift, weighing it in her hand. It was heavier than she’d expected. “This is Rill’s,” she stated, unwrapping the blanket as she spoke.

  Waller shrugged. “He gave it to me, didn’t he? Now I’m giving it to you.”

  “A bit more politely, too,” Ana observed, taking the sword by the hilt and testing its balance. She felt like she already knew it from having survived against it for as long as she did. The blade was heavy, at about four feet long and two inches wide for its entire length except the last few inches, where it tapered to a point. It had no real guard; instead the blade and grip were joined by a steel square, three inches on a side and stood on its point so the diagonal ran along the line of the blade. A matching square, this one much thicker and heavier and coming to a pyramidal point on the front and back, served as a pommel.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Waller said, watching her. “A real gentleman.”

  “Well… thanks. I do need something.”

  Ana watched the Fighter for a while. He’d picked up a couple of Levels at some point since she’d left him with Tarkan and the others in the north; he was Level 12 now, same as Jisha. Except she’d only been at this for a few weeks, and he’d been a Fighter for… she had no idea. She knew almost nothing about Waller, except that he defaulted to being an asshole and that all his friends were dead—three of them at her own hand.

  The fact that he didn’t seem to hold a grudge against her was one of two things that made her think he might be salvageable. The other was that he was actually reliable in a fight.

  “I heard what you did,” she said, as kindly as she’d ever spoken to him. “How you got this sword. You stood between the demon and my friends. I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, well… couldn’t let it get at the mages, could I? Not like the rest of us had a chance in all the hells of taking it out. And it’s not like I even slowed it down much. If Miss Kaira hadn’t blown its arm off, that would’ve been it.” He paused, then crouched down so that he wasn’t looking down quite as much at Ana anymore. “You know why I’m still alive?” he asked.

  “I’ve got an idea, but I guess you want to tell me?”

  “I’m alive because that thing is cruel. It could have just cut me down. It hacked halfway through Brosden’s shield and his chest, too, and it could have done the same to me. Instead it ran me through. Right here.” He tapped his solar plexus. “Then it twisted. Had this evil fucking smile on its face the whole time. Didn’t rip the blade out, either. It could’ve. Would’ve half cut me in two. But instead it pressed, slowly. It figured it had a moment, right, and it wanted my death to hurt. I… Rill was a decent bloke, you know? Not a mate, but he could’ve been, in a few weeks or months or whatever. We got along. This thing… I mean, most demons aren’t evil. Not like people can be. They’re just hungry. This thing, I think it wants our pain as much as our souls.”

  Then he looked away, not even hiding his embarrassment. “Fuck. Sorry. I’ve been thinking too damn much lately. Not many people want to talk to me, you know.”

  “Sure,” Ana said. She laid the sword, which she’d been holding the whole time, across her lap. “Hey, you healing up alright?”

  “Wouldn’t want to fight for a bit, but yeah. Mistress Touanne knows her shit.”

  “And you’ve got your axe and shield and all?”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright. Here.”

  Waller blinked, then got a faraway look in his eyes before they widened. “Really?” he asked.

  “Don’t get misty-eyed with me,” Ana said as Waller accepted the Party invitation, his breath shuddering as the Vitality hit him. “We’re bait. I just thought you could keep an eye on the mercenary.”

  “Aw, fuck, the one that looks like you? Who was just here?”

  “That’s her. Don’t annoy her. She’s mean.”

  “So are you.”

  “Only when I want to be. I don’t think she can help it,” Ana said, then dropped the mask of friendliness she’d been wearing. “I mean it,” she said. “I know she was with the people who killed Sylt. I’m choosing to trust you here. Keep an eye on her, but don’t mess with her.”

  “Yeah, no shit. I saw her holding the damn thing off for longer than anyone. And I’ve seen her Level. No fucking worries about me pissing her off, no matter how much I want the bitch dead.”

  “Good,” Ana said, then turned on the friendliness again. “Gods, why couldn’t you have been reasonable like this from the beginning?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with false thoughtfulness. “Might have something to do with my whole fucking life falling apart. Changes a man, yeah? That, or maybe I just like you.”

  “We both know it’s not the second. And, yeah. I know firsthand that the first one’s true.”

  “Suppose you do,” Waller said, straightening his legs so that he towered above Ana again. This time he actually seemed to be thinking before he said, “I like to think that I’d’ve been easier on you that first time if I’d known. Probably not. But I’d like to think so.” Then, without another word, he turned and walked over to where he had his pack and his bedroll.

  “Ana,” Messy said when she returned, alone. It was a little bit surprised, a little bit exasperated, and a whole lot disappointed. “Why?”

  “Waller?” Ana asked, holding her hand up and pulling Messy down when she took it.

  “Is it because of that?” Messy asked, pointing to the sword that leaned against the tree, wrapped back up in its blanket.

  “Sure,” Ana laughed. “You know I’m a sucker for a good sword.”

  “Ugh, don’t even joke about it,” Messy groaned as she settled in against Ana’s side. “Is it Rill’s?”

  “Yeah. And I guess… it is partly because of the sword. When a guy gets run through and then gives you the sword that almost killed him, that’s one hell of a peace offering.”

  “But it’s not just that?”

  “No. He put himself between Kaira and Deni and the demon, Messy. And for all that he’s a whiny, surly bastard, he’s never been anything but reliable when it came down to it. Never hesitated to back his Party up, and never backed down. I don’t know who I poached him from, but if we’re going to be bait, we could do worse than having Waller with us.”

  “You’re adopting him,” Messy accused. “This is, what, the third time you pick him up?”

  “Second. The first time wasn’t my choice. And I’m not adopting him!”

  “You’re adopting him,” Messy replied with finality. “Guess we’d better learn to get along.”

  Ana sighed. “I’m not. But I think that with a push in the right direction he might, some day, not be a drain on society.”

  “Sure. If someone just raised him properly, he might turn into an agreeable young man,” Messy countered. But her genuine annoyance was gone; now she was just teasing. “Just don’t give him any ideas. He seems like the kind of guy who might like being whipped into shape just a little too much.”

  “Goddamit, Messy,” Ana sighed, nuzzling in closer. “One-track mind, I swear.”

  “I’ll have you know my mind has plenty of tracks. They all just go in the same general direction.”

  The next five hours Ana spent doing three things: eating, sleeping, and letting Touanne heal her. Though they had more than a dozen wounded to tend to, Touanne and her helpers focused on Ana, Waller, and Aaspiyah as much as they could. No one complained about favoritism; there weren’t even any dirty looks. Everyone knew the plan. Everyone knew that the bait had to be as strong as possible, if they were to have a chance of surviving.

  Once everyone in Ana’s Party could be trusted to stay on their feet, the camp would be broken and they’d start their march back to the outpost.

  The demon didn’t attack them before then; cunning as it was, it took the time to rest and recover, just as they were. Everyone was grateful for that small mercy. Once they were on the march, they expected none.

  and read 8 chapters ahead of both Splinter Angel and Draka! You also get to read anything else I’m trying out — which is how Splinter Angel got started.

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