I punched out, putting as much Force and Kinetic energy into it as I could. Grimdar fell back as the power struck them. I twisted to the side, avoiding a glowing sword, striking out with my left and hitting the Grimdar’s thick wrist. He, maybe it was a she, I wasn’t paying enough attention, cried out in pain, but didn’t drop the weapon. They couldn’t do a counterattack as there were just too many friendlies around.

  Not that these guys seemed to care, as one of the Grimdar in front got pushed to the side by one behind. If he was that eager to die, I could oblige him. The Grimdar took a Force Lance to the head, right through the eye. The body fell back, helped along by me as I pushed it down. I stepped onto the falling body, pushing with kinetic energy off. The energy slammed the Grimdar onto the ground, breaking bones, splattering organs, and pushed me higher.

  I could see Mason to the side, still running for the trees. A quick glance back showed a whole lot of Grimdar chasing. I landed in the middle of this group and lashed out with force, kinetics and sound. In all directions. It was a massive explosion of energy. Grimdar went flying. I made a crater as I landed. Stone and dirt exploding up, knocking more Grimdar down. I threw out a couple Force Lances and another sonic blast before taking off.

  Probably hadn’t killed as many Grimdar as I had wanted to but as long as it slowed them down.

  I pushed off with some kinetic force, launching myself into the air, clearing over the heads of the Grimdar. I landed a dozen feet or so past their clump. Couldn’t call it a line or a formation, they were all over the place, struggling to get up. I threw a couple more Lances and launched a sonic blast, knocking some of them back off their feet.

  Flashes of energy shot out, striking the ground around me.

  I took off running, heading for the forest.

  I could see Mason, a couple dozen feet from the treeline. The Grimdar chasing him were catching up. They fired Abilities and weapons. He kept up the zig zagging evasive pattern, which was slowing him down. I threw a couple Force Lances at the ones chasing him, tagging two of them, which made them fall and trip up others.

  It was pretty comical to watch.

  The two of us hit the woods at the same time. I slowed a bit to let Mason get ahead of me. As I passed the trees, I let out a couple of sonic blasts upwards, cutting into branches and cracking the trunks of the trees. They started to rain down behind us. The cracking and snapping was loud. Followed by the crashing as it all struck the ground.

  I didn’t look back to see if it made a barrier. We had to put space between us and the Grimdar.

  The woods was thick, not much space between trees. It was one of the forests affected by the System Integration. Wide trunks, tall trees, roots spreading across the ground. Branches hung low.

  We crashed into them, breaking and snapping, slamming into the trunks as we dodged our way through. Splinters exploded on impact, trees cracking, branches snapping off. I had my field to protect me, Mason had his armor. Mostly.

  Pre-Integration, I loved to hike. I’d been working on the NH48, the forty-eight mountains in New Hampshire over 4,000 elevation. Done most of them. I liked being in the woods, feeling the burn as my body hiked up the mountains for miles and then back down. I liked hitting the pubs afterwards for a couple of beers and burgers.

  When at the top, I’d sit there at the summit and just look out over the world, looking at it spreading out around me. In New Hampshire, up in the Whites, couldn’t see any cities, barely any civilization. It was like the old world.

  Like how the new world became.

  But it was beautiful. Peaceful. You could see the majesty of nature and it was amazing.

  This run through the forest was not like those hikes. Not even close. It wasn’t peaceful. It wasn’t fun.

  I let Mason lead. Not that he knew where he was going, but he was slower than I would have been and I didn’t want him lagging behind. I kept him in sight as we tried to avoid slamming into trees. At the speeds we were going, it was hard. The damn things were tightly packed and not spread out in nice even lines. There was a lot of having to zag to the side to avoid running into one. Lots of broken branches, clipping the edges of the wide trunks.

  We were leaving a pretty obvious trail.

  Which was the point.

  If Tracy and Nathan hadn’t managed to hitch a ride on the airship, I wanted all the attention on us. Poor Mason hadn’t volunteered for this, but he wasn’t complaining. Not that he could right now, with all the running.

  I could hear the Grimdar behind us. They weren’t trying to be subtle. There wasn’t going to be much left of this forest when they were done with it.

  ***

  Mason pulled up short next to a giant tree. Darkness had fallen, moonlight filtering through the canopy. Neither of us could really see all that great. Luckily the ground was fairly smooth. Not one of those forests where the roots were all exposed and spread out for dozens of feet. Not that many trip hazards.

  He leaned against the tree as I came to a stop, turning back. I could still hear the Grimdar but they had slowed down. I doubted they were giving up the chase. No doubt the Grimdar leadership, or whoever was paying them, had given them a ton of information on Earth, the Solace Fellowship and all our Adventurers. They probably had far more than what was available in the Nexus, since someone on Earth had turned traitor.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  When I found out who, they would not be long for this world.

  Or any world.

  All that meant the Grimdar had a big ol’ dossier on me. And I’d used enough of my signature Abilities that they’d have a pretty good idea I was here. They wouldn’t be giving up on a chance to take me out this early in the invasion.

  And if it wasn’t me, they wouldn’t pass up the chance to take out one or more of the Fellowship’s elites. This force had none of their elites. It was just a bunch of grunts put down in numbers to prevent anyone from accessing the Dungeon. They weren’t the best the Grimdar had to offer.

  The longer they could keep any of us up here, the less time we’d have at the other Dungeons or anywhere along the front lines. Yeah, the Grimdar had lost control of the Dungeon, but the whole thing was still a win/win for them.

  We’d had to devote a good chunk of our top end power to take this Dungeon, and the others would be twice as hard now that the Grimdar had time to prepare. Or so they’d think, but I’d have to wait until we got back to the Forward Operating Base to find out how all that went down.

  The more forces we had to devote to the Dungeons, which we absolutely had to clear before they burst, the less we had to help the frontlines. And the more of us they managed to kill up here, the less to bother them later.

  “I need a break,” Mason said, taking deep breaths. “Sorry.”

  “No worries. Gives me a chance to set up a toy.”

  I pulled a decent sized, bigger than a breadbox, oddly shaped thing out of my inventory. There was a round part with three little legs off the bottom, a crystal on one side and what looked like a radar dish on the front. Not that we had radar dishes anymore. The whole thing was made out of stone, not metal.

  Setting it down on the ground, the dish pointing toward the Grimdar, I laid my hand on the crystal. Arcanum flowed through me and into the gem, which lit up and then faded to a dull color. It was still a little bright, I’d have to speak to the folks back in Solacetown, but hopefully no Grimdar would notice.

  “What’s that?” Mason asked.

  “Something the Artificers whipped up.”

  I stepped back from the device, hoping it was pointed in the right direction.

  “You good to go?”

  “For now. Not sure how much longer I can keep this up.”

  “Hopefully won’t be that much more.”

  Mason didn’t respond, knowing it was wishful thinking. We really had no clue how close we were to the edge and I wouldn’t be able to call for a pick-up from the Phoenix’s Feather until we were clear of the forest. And with no pursuing Grimdar.

  I stretched a bit, working the sore muscles. I was doing better than Mason, but this whole thing was starting to take a toll on me. Mason was really impressing me. He was pushing, running ragged, and would need a long rest after this, but the man wasn’t going to stop.

  “I’m good,” Mason said, and took off running deeper into the forest.

  I gave the device one last look and then followed.

  ***

  “What was that?” Mason asked.

  The sound of the explosion spread through the forest. Birds and other animals made a ton of noise as they took off, running away from where we’d been. There were more sounds, smaller explosions and then silence.

  “That should slow them down a bit,” I said.

  “Was that the device you left behind?”

  “Yeah. Remember the old claymore mines from pre-Integration?”

  Mason gave me a blank look.

  “Before your time I guess. Anyways, they were directional explosives. Set a timer, tripwire, trigger, or something and when the enemy walked in front… BOOM!” I pointed behind us, where a cloud of smoke could be seen through the gaps in the trees. I thought I caught some red through the gaps. “That was our version of a claymore. Automatic trigger. As soon as a set number of hostels step in front of it, the thing explodes, sending a wave of concussive and fire energy out in front of it.”

  “That was a lot of energy.”

  “Yep. Big boom.” I clapped Mason on the shoulder. “They should be moving cautiously now.”

  “You left two more of those things behind us?”

  “Yep.”

  Mason smiled.

  “Good.”

  ***

  There were three more explosions through the night. After each one, the sounds of pursuit grew fainter. I wasn’t sure if the Grimdar were just moving much more cautiously or if they’d given up the chase.

  It was another day before we burst out of the treeline on the other side, entering another open tundra-like area. The two of us moved out into the plains, finding shelter and watched the trees. There was no immediate pursuit. I waited a couple of hours before sending a signal to the airship.

  The ship landed, the gangplank slamming down and a large troop of soldiers running out onto the plains. They took up positions around the two of us, watching in all directions. We were both exhausted, Mason far more than me, but we still ran to the ship. There could have been Grimdar waiting for just this moment.

  “Good job,” I told Mason as we hit the deck, the soldiers coming up behind us.

  “I’m going to sleep for a week,” he said.

  I laughed.

  “I wish we could,” I said, seeing Captain Nichols and Nathan walking over to us. They looked like they had news and not of the good kind. “I don’t think we’ll be getting time to rest.”

  “Tell me about it later,” Mason said, sitting down against the railing. “I’m just going to fall asleep right here.”