“If you keep staring at me like that, I might just burn out your eyeballs, Raiten,” Saegor says. His pace doesn’t slow as he makes the threat. It is drenched in his usual veneer of comedy and cynicism, but there is a tone of real menace for once.

  I shrug. “They’d just grow back.”

  We move in a line through the last dregs of the briars. Our feet slosh through the dark mire of the wetlands and the trees bend over us with black leaves that hang and drape over the branches like rattling chains to a dungeon.

  The gray-clouded sky and dreary humidity makes our trek a dreadfully slow affair. Any misstep and our ankles get locked up in mud that clings to us like desperate lovers. So, we must find the sparse dry humps of dirt that pock the mire, and hop across them. Parallel to our trek, the mud rumbles and bubbles up as a wooden fin slices through it, and every so often, Umbrahorn emerges and flings himself into the air, spinning and laughing. When he arcs over the hanging branches, the mud off his hide rains down in big sticky clumps.

  Saegor takes another hopping step in front of me. Then, he pauses—turns back to me with that single eye of his now studying all that I am and all that I have been, peering into my body and soul like a peeving violator.

  “You have something to say. Say it.” Everyone else stops at Saegor’s proclamation. Kiren, who leads our pack now, turns from ahead and watches me in particular. His eyes warn me with their worried creases.

  Zyla nearly bumps into me from behind, but she steadies herself and looks past my shoulder, to her master. Her savior.

  This has been coming for some time now. Maybe Saegor is right. Maybe I should just let it out.

  I take a deep breath.

  “What is your relationship with Thraevirula?”

  His eyebrow furrows. For once, I see no hint of humor in his warped face.

  The very air seems to still. The sound of the trees cracking and their leaves rustling—it all vanishes. As if my posing of the question was a violation to nature’s order.

  A hand grips my shoulder hard. Zyla turns me around to face her.

  Her finger presses into my chest. “You have no right—”

  I slap her hand away. “I have every right. Ever since we entered these damned briars, she has hounded us: with her plagued monstrosities, her illusion traps, her dreams.”

  I point to Kiren. “He keeps getting them. As do I. But I know for a fact that the one who is plagued most by them, is not us, but him.”

  Saegor doesn’t deny it.

  Zyla looks at me as if I’m violating the sanctity of God himself.

  I press on. “I have a sneaking suspicion that not all of this is merely because we are on opposing sides. No, everyone here knows that this is personal. And I want to know why.”

  I turn back to Saegor. “So, will you tell me? Or not?”

  More moments of silence pass. Even Kiren hops back a step, his gaze is not admonishing, but rather, curious. So he must not know the whole story then. I remember our conversation in the Crow’s Nest. Well, he probably knows more than me at least.

  Eventually, Saegor sighs.

  “You… are not wrong. She has been incessant on attacking my mind. And the dreams she chooses are very specific.” He winces at the memory. “Extremely. Specific.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  “Raiten…” Kiren protests, his voice aching in defense of Saegor. But the old mancer holds up a hand.

  “I know, I know. And, you deserve an answer from me.”

  I wait for said answer. Saegor stalls, scratching the stubble on his chin, tapping his foot.

  “Tonight,” he begins, a slow, creeping smile taking form. “Tonight. And I’ll make it fun too, trust me on that. We’re all a bit too tense. We might as well have some team bonding before the battle comes. And it's coming soon.”

  This man frustrates me to no end.

  Him and his games. The way he licks the blood off his enemies. The way the witch talks about him as if he’s something far worse than she could ever be.

  But I concede. Not willing to risk his ire, nor Zyla’s, right before we make it out the briars. After all, we are a team—as Kiren has so thoroughly told me.

  “Alright then,” I say. “Tonight.”

  …

  “Well that went well,” Kiren tells me. He’s dropped back to my brooding pace as Zyla and Saegor hop on ahead. The old mancer is back to whistling now—the tune he ekes out is particularly dreary.

  “Your sarcasm is getting better,” I muse.

  He shakes his head. “I’m being serious. For a second, I thought he’d get angry at you. But no, he’ll actually tell you. That’s good. Means he likes you.”

  Not necessarily something I want. I keep that thought to myself though.

  “Wish he would tell me everything now though. Rather than… well whatever he has planned for tonight.”

  “That’s just how Saegor is. I wouldn’t stress about it.”

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  “You know, I’m with Raiten on this one,” a new voice chimes. Umbrahorn emerges next to us, a wide, toothy grin on display. “I mean, he could just tell us. Save us the trouble.”

  “No wonder it got so quiet. You were listening the whole time?” I ask.

  “Of course. The ears of a Great Spirit are impeccable.”

  Impeccably peeving, that is. I remember how he listened in on my conversation—alright, more like my idiotic clash with Sorina back at the fortress. That stirs up some nasty feeling and the smirk I had so casually plastered on now drops.

  Kiren notices. “I never did thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You know what,” he says, elbowing me conspiratorially. I pause and he looks at me with those wide puppy dog eyes of his.

  “Did I uh… get drunk or something with you? Why are you looking at me like that—”

  “Not everything is sexual Raiten,” Kiren scoffs. I didn’t even mean it like that—

  “I beg to differ,” Umbrahorn says, but Kiren rolls right over him.

  “I meant, thank you for saving my life.” His tone is much darker, much more serious now.

  Right. I did jump in the way of that slash and hammer hit combo from the Lady.

  I wave a hand. “It's no issue. You’d have done the same for me.” Even though I don’t know why. I don’t deserve his friendship. The way he injects some light into these Blightbriars—well its respite enough for any hopeless soul.

  “Of course,” he says with a smile as wide as the sun. “But I’m thanking you anyway. I have promises to keep. People I need to repay.” He looks after Zyla and Saegor at that moment and sighs. “I wouldn’t have been able to do so if I died at that outpost. So thank you.”

  I’m not ten anymore. I’m a man. Why do I feel so embarrassed?

  I clap his shoulder awkwardly and turn him around. “I said don’t worry about it. You told me earlier we’re a team. A Mancer Troop, right? Might as well act like one.”

  “Yah. You’re right,” he says. Then, he sighs once more. “It's a shame the whip is so frayed now. Good weapon that. Maybe I’ll make you a new one. Or maybe, I’ll commission another Kusarigama once this is all over. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  My hand goes to the handle of my whip, which looks as though its latter half has been through a grind of swords. I can still use it probably. Just not for long.

  I hesitate. Then, I too give him the first true smile I’ve etched on my perpetually angry visage in a long time.

  “You're a friend.”

  One of the only ones I’ve had. One of the only ones that remain.

  I’ve broken all the other relations. Hui. Sorina. Sadai… Hells, I've killed Sadai. Or Saegor’s trapped him and the Lady somewhere in a pocket dimension. I’ll have to ask about that tonight as well.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a soppy bastard Raiten?”

  “No. Usually it's just the bastard part.”

  He starts laughing for a moment, then he realizes what I said and cuts it off abruptly.

  “Oh. Ohhhhhh. I did not know that, I’m sorry I didn’t mean—”

  “Kiren, it was a joke. Don’t worry.”

  “So you… aren’t a bastard?”

  “No I am. My mother was a…” I pause, realizing what I’m about to tell him. Then I sigh. “She was a prostitute. Had to do a lot of hard things to keep us afloat. And… because of something I did, a mistake that I made, the Elders of my clan killed her.”

  He’s silent as he processes that, eyes flitting like dark moons in flux.

  “That’s why you hate Masaru—that’s why you were so caged when I met you,” he realizes, his mental calculus now complete. He looks at me solemnly. “If I had known Raiten, I never would’ve tried broaching—”

  “It's fine. You couldn’t have known.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten.”

  He nods. “Zyla and I, we were twelve when our mother was killed.”

  Now it's my turn to do some emotional calculus. And I remember him telling me of the dream that keeps on playing—the one the witch tortures him with.

  “Saegor saved you then?”

  He nods.

  I’m about to press further, when I notice a distinct lack of something. Something loud and self-important and—

  “Where is my shark?” I look around, eyes searching the mud. “Umbrahorn was just with us a second ago.”

  Kiren frowns. Then, he too starts searching, calling out to Umbrahorn even. Zyla and Saegor stop ahead of us, turning back now.

  Did he leave? Was everything he told me a front? Was this the moment he wanted to use to escape? Covered in mud, with the rest of us distracted?

  I shake my head.

  No. He wouldn’t do that. He was being serious about paying Erot back. And besides, he’s stuck with me this far—stuck with me at my worst. Why leave at my best?

  “Umbrahorn!” I call out.

  A blubbering, boiling sound comes—like stew frothing over a pan. The mud near us begins to rise and from its wet cracks comes bursting the wooden hammerhead. Except, rather than arc gracefully through the air, his body flings into a tree and his hide snaps back.

  “Umbrahorn!” I hop across the dry mud before giving up on it and delving into the mire, trudging through its depths to his side.

  He coughs out something. Then wheezes, in a very human way.

  “Ambush…”

  And the hairs on my neck rise as more volcanoes of mud burst forth and from their depths, comes screaming out that sound that I’ve come to despise.

  Four plagued surround our number. Each drenched in filth.

  Adults all.

  The lead one—the biggest and fattest one with frog legs that have thousands of centipede-like mini-legs sputtering out from them—actually carries a sword in his hands. A guardsman by the look of him. His mouth moves in a slow, chewing fashion.

  “Hobbes…. HOBBES. Where HOBBES?” He asks.

  Saegor answers by summoning a circle of fire while Zyla unleashes her spirits.

  Kiren’s Meteorfang comes ablaze.

  But the adult plagued has his eyes only set on me. He points the sword my way.

  “Are you Hobbes?”

  I shake my head, not knowing what else to do.

  He frowns. Then, he lifts his head back and the neck cracks unnaturally, spinning and spinning until it levels its gaze at Saegor.

  “Are you Hobbes?”

  Saegor shoots a ball of fire at the beast.

  It jumps back, its frog legs actually skirting along the mud like ice. The rest of the plagued screech.

  “Looking looking looking! Lost child. In the woods. Hobbes and I look and look. And we find Jonah. Jonah jonah jonah. Where Jonah? Where little little Jonah? Must see him. Must save him. Oh she wants to see him too. She wants to see all of you!”

  His neck continues to spin, skin cracking to show bone and rot underneath, all pulsing with worms.

  Then he turns his head towards me once more.

  “Raiten? Is that you Raiten? Raiten raiten raiten, oh we’re on your side Raiten. We see you Raiten. We see you. We bring you to her. She be very pleased. Oh she likey likes you little Raiten!” The beast frowns then, for a moment. The expression looks all wrong… too many blackened teeth, too much wrinkle and grime, too much anger in the eyes. “Why she like you so much? Why not me? Why not —ME? Why — whywhywhy — whycouldnithavebeen MEEEAAGHHGH?!?”

  And then, all at once, the four plagued ignore everyone else, and charge my way.