I awoke to a tap on my shoulder. It was Vae. “They’re coming,” she whispered.

  We’d been camping just outside the shallow walls of Yirelen, our team stretched across the ridge that overlooked the road. Sparse trees and dry brush surrounded us. The city still slept behind us, but we had prepared for this.

  Within moments, everyone stirred. Zari was already checking her sword and Captain Russel, the massive orc, was reviewing the battle positions with Miren, Anika, and Jassir. I gripped the water essence stone. I could use the fire but I wasn’t fully confident and lest I lose control of my fire, I didn’t want to hurt my friends.

  Then came a sudden fsh, a crack of lightning split the sky, fired from a twisted, hulking orc striding ahead of the mercenary group. The bolt surged toward us like a nce of raw fury, but Jassir moved quickly. His arms swept forward and the earth answered, a thick wall of packed stone and soil erupted in front of us, absorbing the bst with a dull boom. Dirt rained down.

  And then Anika loosened her arrow.

  It streaked swifty and found its mark in the thigh of a charging wolfman. He stumbled, howled, but kept coming. That was it—the opening strike. The battle began.

  The mercenaries charged like a pack of wild dogs. They were a diverse crew of ten, a hulking orc, a satyr with curling horns, a beast kin that looked like hyena an ogre, and others I couldn’t quite make out in the flurry.

  Some of them still looked vaguely humanoid, but others had twisted, bulging bodies with bestial faces and overgrown limbs, all the signs that indicated corruption. Four of them were magic users, but that still left six brutal physical fighters.

  Our side, despite some of us being inexperienced in combat, had the advantage of magic.

  Ravenna lit up her hands with fmes and flung a barrage of firebolts at a pair of charging beastkin, forcing them to scatter. Evie, standing just behind Russel, extended her arms and summoned a protective dome of dust that stopped an incoming rain of fme that could’ve skewered one of our scouts.

  Serril, the elven mage, began chanting in an old tongue, summoning ethereal chains that wrapped around a minotaur’s legs and dropped him to the ground. They were being scrambled, pulled apart from each other.

  I was at the rear, where they told me to stay.

  At first, I obeyed. I watched, heart hammering, as magic exploded and weapons cshed. I kept my distance, scanning for a chance to contribute without being a liability. Then I saw him, a satyr man, twisted and hunched, dark horns curling over his tangled hair, fmes curling in his fists as he sprinted, trying to make his way ahead of our people. He was heading straight toward our archer, Anika.

  My legs were shaking, my heart beating fast. I acted before I could doubt myself.

  I raised my hand and summoned my water whip, channeling mana into my fingers until the watery coil snapped into existence. I swung it once to test my control, then surged forward to intercept him.

  The satyr saw me and ughed, like I was nothing more than a distraction.

  He unch a fireball at me fast.

  I sidestepped and cracked the whip, striking the projectile. The water sliced through the edge of the fireball and snuffed it out midair in a hiss of steam. He narrowed his eyes. Another fireball came, this time with another behind it.

  I swung wide, letting the water whip spiral, and it collided with the fmes, dissolving them with a spsh. Before he could unch another, I swept the whip low and yanked his leg out from under him. He hit the dirt with a grunt, rolled, and came up snarling.

  He rushed me. His fists were still abze, and he jabbed with surprising speed. I didn’t want to spill blood unless it was necessary, I could see that sickness in him, he was truly corrupted.

  I dodged the first, ducked the second, and shed out again, this time aiming higher. The whip coiled around his left arm and I yanked hard, jerking him to the side. He stumbled, lost bance, and I struck his torso with the whip, water cutting through his charred armor and leaving a cut across his ribs.

  He snarled and spat.

  I charged in response.

  He met me with a fming punch, I raised my arm, doused it in water mana, and blocked by covering my whole arm in a shield of water. The heat bit into me, but I pushed forward. He tried again, right hook this time, I slipped to the side and channeled fme essence in my other hand and smmed a fme-infused punch into his gut.

  He doubled over, and I didn’t hesitate. My whip shed out again, wrapped around his throat, not to choke, but to hold. He filed, struggling against my whip, but I poured more power into it, strengthening the flow, tightening the grip but he was forming a ball of fire in his hand. I had to release him, if I wanted to survive, so I twisted, spun, and hurled him into a nearby tree.

  He hit it with a thud and slumped to the ground.

  I was panting, but alive. I looked down at my scorched sleeve and winced. But I’d done it.

  Behind me, the fight was still far from over. One of the Ashen Bdes had summoned a swarm of stone spikes from the ground, and Captain Russel was charging in with a warhammer that glowed with mana. Anika had taken position atop a boulder and was unching arrows with mechanical precision, each one finding a weak spot in enemy armor but their rage seemed to fuel their stamina and despite being hit with arrows, they managed to fight us.

  Zari was battling an ogre with Miren, both of them working in coordination to stop the beast.

  Serril had summoned a burst of frost that locked one of the corrupted warriors’ legs in pce, Ravenna hit him with a fireball.

  We were pushing forward.

  Zari tackled one beastkin to the ground and knocked him unconscious with the hilt of her bde. Russel and Miren worked together to bind another with an enchanted chain but it broke the chain to pieces.

  The satyr I’d fought groaned behind me, though barely conscious.

  I didn’t have time to waste. I summoned my mana again and cast my water whip, this time not to strike, but to pull. It wrapped around his torso with a heavy sp of water, and I yanked hard. He skidded over dirt and stone as I dragged him backward toward the city.

  “Cover me!” I shouted over the chaos.

  Evie heard me. She threw a sharp gust of wind across my fnk, deflecting an incoming fireball. Ravenna unleashed a wide arc of fme at the charging warriors, forcing them to halt or burn. I kept moving, backward, step by step, my grip on the water whip tight as the satyr’s unconscious body trailed behind me like an anchor.

  I crossed the threshold of the city gates. A few of Avaran’s city guards were already stationed there.

  “Take him!” I barked, motioning to the limp satyr. “Put him in a cage, I’ll try to bring more if I can.”

  Two guards ran up and grabbed his arms, hauling him away to be bound and secured.

  Like Captain Russel had said, our pn worked, the enemies were scattered and confused, some of them started fleeing back in the direction they’d come from.

  A jaguar beastman, let out a frustrated roar and turned to run. Another followed. Then another. And then all at once, the remainder of the corrupted mercenaries broke and retreated.

  We didn’t pursue. Not yet.

  We stood panting.

  Zari rested her bde on her shoulder and exhaled, sweat trailing down her brow. “They're hurt but I think they'll be back,” she said. “But next time, we’ll be more ready. Did you capture any?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I have one of them now.”

  ****

  The satyr groaned in the dark, slumped in the iron-barred cage we'd locked him in. His skin was slick with sweat, his chest rising in shallow, angry breaths. He rattled the bars with what little strength he had left.

  Then came the voice, hoarse, furious. “Water… godsdammit, give me water…”

  We had been waiting for this. Ravenna stepped forward, a cy jug in her hands, it carried the mana infused water. She handed the jug through the bars of his cage.

  He snatched it, gulping it down like he hadn’t tasted liquid in days.

  He slumped again, the empty jug cttering to the floor. I could feel the tension in the room, the expectation. Then it began.

  He twitched.

  His fingers flexed, nails digging into the wooden floor of the cell. A low, guttural growl escaped his throat. His veins began to bulge, bck and purple. His breathing quickened, turning to snorts, beastlike, wild.

  His body began to convulse. We backed away instinctively.

  The satyr’s back arched with a sickening crack. Bone twisted beneath skin as his limbs swelled grotesquely. Muscle piled onto muscle, stretching his skin thin. His eyes rolled back, then fred open, now glowing red. His horns thickened, curled, and split into jagged points. His clothes teared up, not able to withstand the pressure of transformation. His hooves scraped against the stone floor as his legs bulked up, becoming almost double the size they had been.

  He let out a roar.

  It was no longer a cry of pain. It was Fury.

  With a snarl, he rammed the bars. Once. Twice.

  “Get back!” Zari shouted, drawing her sword.

  On the third try, the iron cage exploded outward, splinters and metal flying. He charged, knocking over a stone table as if it were made of twigs. I raised my hand, forming a water whip, and shed it at his arm. It wrapped around, but he didn’t stop, instead, he yanked me forward and I barely rolled aside as his fist cracked into the wall where my head had been.

  “Don’t let him out!” Ravenna shouted, hurling a fireball at his back.

  It burst on contact but barely slowed him. He barreled through a door and into the outer hallway of the warhouse we’d been using as a base. The floor trembled with his footsteps. He crushed a support beam on the way out, sending part of the roof crashing behind him.

  Guards rushed forward, weapons drawn but he was already leaping over the city wall with inhuman strength, disappearing into the forest beyond.

  We stood there, stunned.

  “I don’t think there’s any cure,” I said quietly. “Not for them. This wasn’t healing… this made him worse.”

  Ravenna nodded, her face grim. “It’s like his body rejected the mana. Or maybe the corruption’s too far along… Either way, it twisted him more than before. We can’t risk that again.”

  Captain Russel cursed under his breath. “Then we kill them. All of them.”

  Zari looked toward the broken cage and the deep gouges in the stone. “We have to end this.”

  Everyone knew what needed to be done now.

  No more saving.

  No more mercy.

  The Ashen Bdes had to fall.