“It’s time,” Rworg says. The sun has edged below the horizon and clouds have crept to cover the sky above us. It’s dark, and the temperature is dropping fast.

  “We should reach the first spot without seeing anyone,” Finna says, but then curses. “Except wait, we lost a whole day fighting the camp and killing the bug.”

  Rworg lifts up his sword one handed. He moves without flinching or hesitation. The stuff we distilled from the blood must have worked, and worked well. “Yet we saved everyone in the village,” he says.

  I help him to get the sword into position. The straps and the fasteners let him yank it off his back quickly, but he needs help putting it back on every time.

  “Yet we’ve allowed the Kertharians one extra day to mount their assault,” Mandollel says. “The lives we saved may have been bought with thousands. We have been entrusted with much. Never forget.”

  Finna clenches both her hands into fists. Her eyes are obscured by her mass of dark hair, but her mouth is a tense line. “They have no idea we’re coming. Let’s just go. The hard part comes only after.”

  I close the final fastener and crouch to grab my own backpack. The metal stakes clink against each other. “Wait, hard part? What’s the hard part?”

  Mandollel has his gear already packed. He jumps a couple of times, testing how it is to move without Rworg’s sword. “Activating the stakes is not subtle. The Kertharians will come to investigate.”

  “Not subtle, but beautiful,” Rworg says.

  “You can write a poem about it afterwards,” Finna says. “Let’s not stay around to watch. Not this time.”

  I want to scream at them, remind them that I haven’t seen any of this, have no idea what they are talking about. Still, I prefer it this way, instead of living my life anticipating things I’ve already experienced. The thought of Kertharians coming to investigate makes my throat tight. “Let’s just go. I want to see it too.”

  They go quiet at that.

  Mandollel finishes adjusting his backpack. “You will. It will take us just a couple of hours to reach the spot. Try to stay quiet. We’re in their territory now. If we get spotted, we will have to fight. And in the worst case, fight for every step after that.”

  Rworg pats me on the back. “Thank you for the help with the sword.”

  “Are you ok?” Finna asks him.

  “Of course, don’t I look it?”

  “You look like a dumbass who would hide still being hurt.”

  “Hah!” he says, even if I think she’s completely justified in saying that. “I’m fine. The scars don’t even itch anymore.”

  Finna prods him in the chest with her finger, in a place where one of the darts went through. Rworg yelps and laughs, slapping her hand away.

  Mandollel covers his eyes, rubbing his brow with his hand. “He’s fine. The monster juice has had plenty of time to work. Let’s move.”

  “The what juice?” Rworg asks.

  We don’t see anyone for the next couple of hours. Finna has separate maps of each of the locations we’re supposed to take the stakes. They are more detailed than any I’ve seen. They look more like paintings done from above than maps. I wonder if they actually have flown an artist over the area to draw them. As maps, they would be practically useless for anything else than finding a very specific spot at this very specific place, but that’s exactly what’s needed this time.

  The area is mostly plains with high grass, probably yellow, even if it’s hard to tell in the dark. Mandollel leads us without tripping, even if even he takes a wrong turn at one point and we have to backtrack for a bit.

  “Always get confused by that rock,” he mutters.

  Later, Finna squints at the maps, twisting and tilting them to make out the drawing in the moonlight. “Just a little bit more. So far, so good.”

  The place looks like any other. Just a rock next to a tree. There’s sparse forest around us, more like a small island in a sea of grass with trees sprinkled on top. The trees here are different from any I’ve seen. Dark, gnarly, far apart from each other, thick waxy leaves. They offer less cover than the real forests back home or nearer to the border. The climate and surroundings are changing fast, the further we go. Dry wind blows on my face from the east and carries with it a scent of sand. In the coolness of the night, the wind feels warm.

  I take off my backpack. I have to squint to make out the numbers on the stakes, but find the first one and offer it to Mandollel. “Now we just hammer it into the ground?”

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  He waves at Rworg, who reaches his hand out to me. “You mostly let me do it.”

  I give Rworg the stake. He places the sharp end of the stake on the ground, next to the large rock, and picks up a stone the size of his fist in his other hand.

  “Just don’t smash your thumb this time,” Finna says, just as he’s about to drive the stone onto the stake.

  “Hngg,” both Rworg and Mandollel say.

  Mandollel spins half a turn, rubbing his temples with his fingers. “I’m going to need a long vacation after this.”

  “You can just stay on Kerthar’s side of the border and skip the next 30 years,” Finna says.

  “You might have grown up after those decades, so it might just be worth it.”

  Rworg turns his focus back on the stake. He hammers it with the stone, the loud clangs sounding out into the night.

  I circle around the area, looking into the darkness.

  There’s nothing there.

  We’re in the middle of nowhere. On most of the maps, this part of the borderlands is just vague brown, not worth going into detail. The continent is not densely populated to begin with, towns scattered around, with just some that can be counted as cities. Tenorsbridge in Velonea, Krakkea in Kerthar. There are stories about cities the elves, dwarves and orcs have, but I don’t know anyone who actually knows. Except Mandollel, obviously. The only roads through this area are so far that I haven’t seen a glimpse of them during the time we have been travelling.

  While I circle and Rworg hammers, Mandollel and Finna fiddle with the Device. They have it placed on the ground and are talking about it. Mandollel points out different levers and finally Finna flips one of them.

  “You mean you just go in order, one by one? What was the rest of the explanation for, then?” she says, stuffing the device back into her backpack.

  “Done,” Rworg says. The stake is nowhere to be seen, driven deep into the ground. There’s just a rock and a tree. He places a handful of moss on top of the spot. It will be impossible for anyone to know there’s something here without digging up the soil from the whole area, and why would they?

  Finna sits down, takes off her boot and pours sand out of it.

  Rworg peers into the distance, toward west and Velonea. A faint red glow illuminates shimmers from here and there. “Fires. The war has started.”

  “Tenorsbridge will fight back and have evacuated as many people as possible,” Mandollel says. “They just won’t be able to do it as effectively anymore. They probably can still use the Mountain Ride to get some useful information to the border if they ride their horses hard.”

  “Did you know that was how it got its name?” Finna asks.

  I’ve been watching the place where the stake sits, underground. Nothing is happening. Finna’s comment makes me perk up. “Huh?”

  “Yeah, the Mountain Ride. He told me about it. It’s a pretty dumb story, like most stories that come out of that city.”

  Now I’m interested for sure. I learned nothing of the artifact the whole time I was in Tenorsbridge. “Lictor did? What did he tell you?”

  “When they were planning the whatever teleport shredder, they tested out how far they could get on a single Ride without using teleportation. Some guys spent weeks planning routes and making sure he would reach a place with fresh horses before the previous ones crumpled. He paid like a madman for them, because why wouldn’t he, and rode them even harder. Do you guess what was the furthest place he managed to reach?”

  “Noo,” Mandollel says, breathlessly, face falling. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Yup, a mountain. The one up north.”

  Mandollel takes a long breath through his nose and holds it.

  “It’s a good, strong name. It even looks like a mountain,” Rworg says.

  “That does sound like something they would do,” I say. “But is something going to happen at some point?”

  Finna glances at the spot where the stake is. “Not for a while. Maybe give it a zap? As you said, we’re in a hurry.”

  Mandollel twirls a lock of hair between his fingers. “Hmm, I did. Velonea is already burning. Forcing mana into the stake makes the effect more localized, but I think it’s worth the risk. What do you say?”

  I shrug. I have no idea what they are talking about.

  Rworg grunts and nods at him. “Do it. Consequences are best met fresh.”

  “That’s a weird saying,” Mandollel mutters. He turns and walks next to the large rock. He kneels and places his palm on the ground, above the stake. A blue glow escapes between his fingers and there’s a faint smell of ozone I haven’t smelled in a while.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m speeding up the process. The stake is designed to siphon ambient mana from the ground and activate itself slowly. It creates a magical anchor for the device we’re carrying to use. But some of us are feeling hasty.” Blue mana flows from his hand and seeps into the ground. It looks a bit like he’s bleeding light, the pulses of light resembling a heartbeat.

  “Why are we staying around, if it would activate itself even if we left it here?”

  “That’s actually a good question,” Finna says. She has walked to watch as well and crouches down to look at Mandollel’s hand closer.

  “The process can be interrupted or fail in general if there’s a problem with the ambient mana in the location. We can only be certain this first one will work the first time. Pushing mana into the stake manually expedites the process, but it’s… noisy.” He scrunches up his brow before finishing the sentence.

  “Interrupted?” I feel stupid asking so many questions, but it’s their own damn fault for not explaining anything to me before this.

  “Yes, we basically have to protect the stake until it’s ready. It disrupts the flow of mana in the area. It can attract wild animals, teratomes even more likely, or even Kertharian mages can notice the effect. Ok, stop that already!”

  Finna keeps poking Mandollel’s hand with her finger. She runs her hand through the glowing field and it leaves a ripple in the light, like smoke being disrupted. “Could you teach me to do this? Does it work the same way as with the pot? It feels tingly.”

  Mandollel pushes her away with his other hand, keeping the other flat on the ground. “Yes, but not right now. Let me work.” He then puts a finger on his nose and presses it down toward his lips, like he does when he’s thinking. “If you can feel the mana, it actually means you might have some aptitude for this. We could try it out the next time we stop.”

  I reach my hand to pass it through the mana as well, but Mandollel glares at me, so I pull it back.

  “Movement,” Rworg says from behind us.

  He’s standing with a hand on the hilt of his sword, eyes tracking something on the plains. Motes of light are rushing toward us. Sound of hoofs thudding on the ground reaches us, faintly, from afar. But coming closer.

  Rworg yanks the sword off from his back. The straps and fasteners snap open, the sound loud in the silent night.

  “It is done,” Mandollel says. “You said you wanted to see. Look up, Folke.”