“Put what away?” she asked, feigning innocence.
“Don’t play dumb. I know you have Lucielle’s Mirror behind your back. I’m a god, and that thing has no effect on me.”
Her smile faded, and her face took on the familiar look I’d seen on it so many times when we’d been kids, when we got caught causing trouble.
“Sorry, Vance,” she murmured. “I just… you know how important making a good first impression is and I knew they’d all be angry at me for stowing away like that…”
“You know that’s no excuse for secretly using a magic item on them,” I said. “And what’s more, my friends aren’t idiots. I’m pretty sure they suspected you were using the mirror on them; it’s not the first time they’ve met you, you know, and they know you have Lucielle’s Mirror. And if you want to make a terrible first impression on someone, using a fucking magic item on them is a tried-and-true method.”
“I’m sorry, Vance,” she murmured, almost on the verge of tears. “I really shouldn’t have done that, now that you put it like that. Look, um, maybe you should just keep the mirror from now on.”
“I don’t need to carry another magic item around,” I said. “You keep it; it’s yours anyway. Just don’t use it so irresponsibly again.”
She started saying something else, but at this point, I felt a sudden tingle of my sixth sense, so I ignored her and looked intently around me. Rollar was busy setting up his tent, and Drok was being directed to the farthest end of the campsite by Isu, who was holding her nose against his reek. Elyse, however, was missing, as was Jort.
“Look,” I muttered, ignoring whatever Anna had been talking about, “just forget about it and don’t use that thing on anyone in the party again. Get yourself set up for the night; I have to check on something.”
I drew Grave Oath and started seeking out the missing people. I shot my consciousness into the heads of all my undead troops, using their eyes to search through the shadows, but there was no sign of her or Jort anywhere. With an unshakable sense of dread, I hurried over to the skeletal horse that Jort had been riding. There was blood all over the saddle.
“Shit,” I muttered. Something definitely wasn’t right here.
I looked down at the ground and saw bloody footprints leading out of the campsite, in the direction of a small creek nearby. I figured Elyse had gone off to fill her waterskin up at the creek, and Jort, seeing that she would be alone in the dark, had followed her. Whatever his intentions were, I was certain they weren’t good.
I followed the trail of the bloody footprints, clutching Grave Oath, my heart hammering in my chest. I wasn’t afraid for myself, of course; I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get to Elyse in time. Perhaps the matchstick-thin peasant was far more dangerous than he looked.
The footprints led through a trail in which the darkness was close-packed and almost suffocating. The sense of dread grew in the pit of my belly with every step. Soon after, I heard the burbling of the creek growing louder. I turned a corner, and my heart almost stopped when I my eyes took in the scene before me—but then, in an instant, my training and instincts took over, and I acted.
Elyse was bent over the stream, filling her bottle, with a burning torch held in one hand for illumination, and standing behind her, gripping a long red dagger with a wavy-shaped blade, was Jort. He was about to plunge the dagger into her neck at the base of her skull, an instantly lethal kind of blow.
I was too far away to tackle him, but I was well within range for a knife throw. I flung Grave Oath at Jort with al the force I could muster. The enchanted dagger spun through the air, and my aim was true. The blade slammed into Jort’s skull and sunk in up to the hilt. But instead of dropping dead, with his body shrivelling up as Grave Oath sucked his soul out, the peasant—or the boy who looked like a peasant, which he now very clearly showed himself not to be—simply stopped what he was doing and turned and stared at me with his mouth twisted into an evil grin, his eyes showing their blood-red color in the fire light. The thud of Grave Oath slamming into Jort’s skull gave Elyse a start, and she screamed when she turned around and saw him standing over her with his red dagger in his hand and my dagger protruding from his skull.
“Run, Elyse!” I yelled. “This is no mortal man we’re dealing with!”
Elyse shrieked, thrusting the burning torch into Jort’s face before he could take a swipe at her with the dagger, but the flames in his face did nothing to stop him, and with a growl, he lunged at her with the dagger. She only just managed to evade the thrust, then jumped back and sprinted over to me, collapsing behind me as soon as she made it.
“Vance,” she gasped, her eyes wide with fright, “what’s going on? What is he?!”
“I don’t know.” I wished I’d brought my kusarigama with me, since I was now unarmed. “But anything Grave Oath can’t kill can be labeled a pretty fucking serious threat.”
Jort—whoever or whatever the hell he really was—turned and lurched toward us, brandishing the red dagger and grinning maniacally. Blood trickled from his red eyes, and a gush of it washed out of his mouth. His laughter was not the laughter of man. It was deep and booming, and it rattled the trees with the depth of its sound.
“Your mace,” I said to Elyse.
“There’s no moonlight; I can’t—”
“No, forget about the magic, just give it to me. I’m not gonna try to take on this thing, whatever it is, without a weapon. Run back to
