The assassins had shifted their camp much closer to the bowl this time. They found the murderous adventurers inside the third ring of the towers, close to where Zelton had been. Apparently, they wanted to be much closer to their prey, even if they still bickered and argued like before. Clay and Olivia spent a short while observing them and then continued on to the bowl. He had a creeping suspicion that they would see each other soon enough.

Things had changed a little more inside the bowl. The swinefolk were still in larger groups, but they were also starting to keep closer to the fortress. Their comrades inside were clearly keeping watch on things, which would make keeping ahead of any hunting parties that much more difficult. All the same, the work had to be done.

At least, that was what Clay told himself as they finished off the first group of the day. His aches and pains felt much better, though he still felt occasional lances of pain. The swinefolk had not stood much more of a chance, especially with Olivia's increasing power.

He saw her cleaning her scythe of the swinefolk's blood and started his own recital of Pure Touch. The enemy was already trying to hunt them down as much as the assassins were, and the last thing he wanted to do was give them a better way to follow them home.

When he was finished, he looked over to find Olivia standing in the middle of the battlefield. She looked around at the corpses, her brow furrowed. "Clay?"

He felt his brow furrow as he heard the tone in her words. "Yeah. Is something wrong?"

"We aren't burning the corpses because we want to hide from the assassins, right?"

Clay nodded slowly. "Yeah. Otherwise, we'd do things the same way we were before. We just can't risk the smoke."

She looked up. "They're going to find us anyway, right? And then we're going to spend half the day running for our lives."

The tone in her words was starting to worry him. "Unless we can come up with a way to make sure they don't find us, yeah."

He saw the moment that a spark lit in her eyes. "I think we should burn the corpses, anyway. We want to give them a big, clear signal that we are here."

Clay blinked. He tilted his head to the side. "A clearer signal? Why would we want to do that?"

"So we can be sure they are out there, watching the entrances." Olivia grinned at him. "I have a plan. Trust me."

He gave her a skeptical look, and she laughed. "Just help me light the fires and give me a bit of time to get ready. We can finish off the rest of the fighting today, and then we'll have a bit more running. Then we won't have to worry about the assassins, maybe ever again."

Clay frowned, but before he could say anything, his ethereal senses began to sound the alarm. More swinefolk, coming fast. "Well, whatever you are doing, do it fast. The next group is already on its way."

Olivia nodded absently, and Clay tried to brace himself for the fight to come. Just a few more, and he'd be able to make the journey back across the river to rest. After dodging murderous assassins and hiding their trail, of course.

All in a day's work.

Two fights and two columns of smoke later, Clay and Olivia waited in ambush as a third group trampled their way through the undergrowth. He breathed softly, trying to ease the remaining pain in his ribs as he watched them move. Olivia had already killed her share of the things, but they wanted to hit just one more.

He was crouched in the shadow of a tree, his body hidden by a patch of undergrowth. Olivia was actually up in the branches of another tree across from him, ready to strike. The swinefolk were marching along between them, their snouts to the wind to catch any hint of prey. For any other [Commoner], they might have had a chance. Despite the shade from the broad leaves of the strange trees, and the occasional gust of a breeze that blew by, the air in the bowl was hotter the closer they got to the center. Here, it was sweltering, but with [Chants] like Autumn's Grasp and Pure Touch, both of them were relatively free from sweat.

They waited, their weapons ready and their aim was steady. Clay waited until they had drawn even with the middle of the horde.

Then he began the [Chant] for the Canticle of Ice. The screechers both jerked to a halt, their heads lifting as they tried to find him. At first, they looked to where he was hiding, but then they twitched and wavered between him and Olivia; clearly, she'd started her own [Chant] as well. Around them, the other swinefolk were starting to come to a halt, looking around the forest to see what their companions were sensing.

Before they could make up their minds, Clay pulled an arrow back to his cheek and loosed. The shaft snapped across the distance separating him from the nearest screecher. It struck the creature straight between its eyes; for a heartbeat, the screecher stayed standing.

Then it collapsed, and the rest of the swinefolk turned to roar and shriek at him. Before they could take more than a step, Clay fired a second shot at the nearest soul eater, who responded by shielding itself with its dark power. The arrow shattered as it hit, but Clay ignored it and nodded at Olivia. He set his shortbow back in its place and took up his spear as the first of the smashers charged in.

The eaters were already beginning their spells as he slaughtered the incoming smashers. Dark orbs formed in their hands, though their eyes still watched him closely. As he finished his [Chant] and spears of ice formed above him, the more advanced among them dropped their offensive spells and took shelter behind screens of nightmarish power. Clay grimaced at them, holding the spears steady.

None of the eaters noticed the second set of ice spears forming behind them. They only became aware of it when four shining projectiles struck among them, killing a soul eater and three crushers nearby in quick succession.

The remaining eaters spun, turning their shields towards Olivia as she dropped from the tree. She flourished her war scythe, the glittering blade glinting in the summer sun as she snarled at them. Her laugh rang out across the battle.

It was that sound that made them realize their mistake. Facing her meant their backs were now to him. The eaters were trying to turn back when Clay's ice spears caught them, killing the soul eater and the land eaters as well. He used the leftover spears to pick off shriekers, impaling them as they started to scrabble for momentum in the overturned soil. Olivia charged into the other side of the battle, already starting on a new [Chant], and Clay began the Carol of Wind.

As he continued forward into the horde, cutting down swinefolk after swinefolk, he heard the telltale crackling of broken ground coming in his direction. He dodged to the side as a spike tore itself out of the earth, and again as another ripped through the dirt from a different direction. Clay looked over to see Olivia taking the last screecher's scream directly in the face. She slid backwards, apparently losing her [Chant], but she snarled and pushed forward again. Curiously, the lesser creatures around her seemed to hesitate before attacking, giving her the chance to close the distance and bring her war scythe down in a devastating strike.

Clay grunted and turned his attention back to killing the monsters around him, until his [Chant] completed at last. The wind suddenly caught half a dozen monsters in its grasp, hurling them into the air before they could strike at him. With a smirk, he charged through what was left of the pack, bowling the enemy out of the way as the wind flung them skyward. Another pair of earth spikes made him dodge, but he still wove past them until he'd reached the nearest shaker.

The massive creature reared back, ready to strike at him. It stomped, but Clay simply leapt over the heaving earth and thrust his spear straight into the thing's face. His spearpoint punched straight into the shaker's skull, killing it in a single blow.

As the corpse rumbled to the dirt, Clay spun around to face the last of them. He was rewarded with the sight of a pair of smashers cringing away from Olivia before she charged past and struck at the shaker. The creature snarled and struck at her, but she dodged. It stomped, and the earth shook, but she rode it with a surefootedness that surprised him. Then she finished another [Chant] that she'd started, and the earthquake grew worse, splintering the earth beneath the shaker. Clay grunted as he watched Drums of the Earth open cracks beneath the shaker's feet, knocking it down to its knees.

Olivia was on it before it could rise, her scythe flashing as it chopped downwards. The shaker's head fell, and then she turned to face the remainder of the swinefolk. They took a step back.

Clay sighed as she charged in again with a yell. He drew out his bow and started to pick off the panicking eaters that were left. It felt almost unfair at this point.

After another column of smoke rose into the air, they were once again on their way. Olivia was leading the way, another part of her apparent plan. She seemed unusually happy.

"It's so frustrating to almost reach eight, but we really should stop before the day ends. We'll run out of time if we aren't careful."

Clay snorted. "If you were so worried about that, you shouldn't have taken so long getting all the corpses together for the burn pile. Seriously, the next group was almost on us by the time we were done."

Olivia nodded vaguely. "That's true. Sorry about that." She did actually sound a little contrite, so Clay felt a little more mollified. He winced as his next step pulled at a sore muscle.

"What's your plan, anyway? We're not going to try to head out through the same passage as yesterday, are we?"

She smiled at him. "Not really, no."

"I'm asking because we are headed for the exact same passage. It's not even a different spot." Clay double-checked his surroundings, trying to make sure. He thought he recognized the cliff face off to the west, and the fallen tree to the right definitely looked familiar.

Olivia glanced back at him. "Yeah, it is. We aren't going out this way, though. We're just going to trigger their trap. You can sense it when it goes off, right?"

Clay blinked. He nodded uncertainly. "Sure, but… we're doing that on purpose?"

"Yep." Her smile turned into a broad grin. "Then we're going to run as fast as possible to the opposite side of the bowl and leave that way."

Understanding dawned. Clay broke into a grin himself. "I get it. They'll be running for this spot, thinking they can hunt us here…"

"And we have a clear run home from the other side." She chuckled to herself. "Should give us plenty of time for the next part of the plan."

Clay paused, giving her a worried look. The way she had said the words seemed far more vicious than it should have been for a simple escape plan.

Then he shrugged. It couldn't be something too wild. It was Olivia, after all.

"Are you insane?"

Clay tried to keep his voice low, but it still came out in a loud whisper.

Olivia gave him a half-impatient glare. "You're one to talk! Now keep quiet."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He grimaced and watched as Olivia stepped forward. She slowly crept through the hill grass that surrounded the assassins' camp, trying to get closer to one of the tents.

Literally everything about the situation made Clay want to run. They had left the bowl at a good speed and had probably outpaced the assassins by a good amount. If they'd been lucky, the assassins had missed the second alarm and were still searching the far side of the bowl for them, but it wasn't a sure thing. For all he knew, they had already picked up his trail on the close side of the bowl and were already on their way here. Even if they hadn't, there was always the chance that they would get impatient and return to their camp early.

Yet here he was, watching as Olivia stole through their camp and disappeared inside one of the tents. She was only there a moment, and then she was moving back along her previous route, deliberately erasing any signs that she had come that way. By the time she reached him, he thought that the assassins could have heard his heart beating all the way back at the bowl.

"That was it? What did you want to find in there, anyway?"

She smiled at him and shook a finger in his direction. "Now Clay, some journeys aren't about what you find. They're about what you leave behind."

Clay grimaced as she started to make her way back through the grass towards their own camp, far to the north. "Don't give me Rectory sayings, Olivia. Why did we stop here before going back?"

"All will be revealed in time, Sir Clay." She grinned at him again and gestured for him to follow her. At the very least, she was headed back towards the river. He shook his head and stalked after her, trying his best to avoid leaving any prints. The adventurers would already have enough clues to follow, at this rate, and he wanted to make sure that they didn't have a clear trail to follow.

The last thing he needed was more surprises.

Fortunately, they didn't see any signs of pursuit on their way back from the hills. He and Olivia made sure to double back and check their own trail a few times. It took them a little longer, but they still arrived back in their camp long before the light faded from the sky.

At that point, they settled in and cooked a larger dinner than they had before. Their supplies were holding up fairly well, though Clay was worried that he'd need to arrange another visit with Old Jared before long. At the very least, the numbers of swinefolk were still dropping quickly. There shouldn't be many still outside the fortress, though they would need to run the risk of a strike from the Guardians.

When he mentioned the fact to Olivia, she just cackled like a madwoman for a bit, and turned back to her task of memorizing [Chants].

Baffled, Clay had turned to his own studies. Now that he wasn't nearly as tired or sore, the [Chants] seemed like they were making more sense. The syllables flowed together more easily, but he kept tripping over a section of both spells. Frustration was starting to build, something that only grew worse as he identified the exact part of the [Chant] that was causing him so much of an issue.

One was called the Stanza of Steam, and the other was the Anthem of Thunder. There were bits and pieces of the two [Chants] that seemed familiar, but contrary; it was as if there were parts that seemed to conflict with each other. As he examined it, it was almost like there were miniature parts of the [Chant] that were mirrored, as if it was channeling some power and then immediately reversing it.

Worse, there was a single syllable that seemed to be completely out of place. It was located right after the section that seemed to reduce its own effects. His eyes narrowed as he stared at that symbol, trying to make sense of it. The thing seemed almost familiar…

Mystified, Clay flipped back through his notes on the other [Chants], looking for the same combination. He didn't quite find it, but he did find the frustrating mark again. It was in the notation for the Refrain, not the [Chant] itself, but right after the description of the spell, in the notation's equivalent for parenthesis. There it appeared after the general word for [Chant].

He stared at it for a moment. The Refrain's purpose was to repeat a previous spell's effect. If the symbol was related to that, but it appeared after a section of the [Chant] itself…

Clay went back to the frustrating [Chants] again, running his fingers over the words. Then his eyes widened.

{Insight increased by 1! Memory increased by 1!}

He blinked and then smiled. The [Chants] fell into place for him, their components no longer struggling against his understanding. A feeling of triumph swept through him.

Then he looked up and saw Olivia watching him. She raised an eyebrow. "Found a breakthrough?"

"I think so." He grinned back, and stood up. He wasn't entirely sure what they would do, but there was one way to find out.

Clay stood at the edge of the trees that concealed their camp and prepared himself to use the two new [Chants].

He started with the Anthem of Thunder. The syllables of the spell rolled through him as he spoke it. When he reached the part that held the strange symbol, he just bulldozed past it, finishing the rest of the [Chant] without any real trouble.

When he reached the end of the spell, nothing happened. The spell had completed, but aside from his hair raising a bit on his head and neck, nothing happened.

Olivia gave him a strange look, but he gestured for her to wait. Clay began the [Chant] again, moving through the syllables. When he reached the mirrored part, instead of simply continuing past it, he repeated the mirrored section, and then repeated it again. After the third repetition, he continued with the rest of the [Chant], feeling a surge of power build and roil within him.

He focused the spell on a section of ground out past the river. There was a single lonely dead tree that stood by itself a ways back from the shore. Clay concentrated on it.

Lightning blasted from the sky. The flash nearly blinded him, but not enough that he missed the second and third bolts that slammed into nearly the same spot. Thunder rolled across him in a terrible roar, accompanied by the crackling destruction of the tree itself as the power blasted most of it to splinters. Olivia's startled shriek was lost in the wave of sound and fury.

Blinking purplish spots from his eyes, Clay felt a surge of triumph. The repeated part could increase the effect of the spell, allowing for it to be increased or decreased depending on what he needed. He threw a fist up in the air and laughed.

When he turned to Olivia, her eyes were wide. Then she slugged him in the shoulder without any real force, a hit he didn't even feel. "How long is it going to take me to learn that one?"

"Level seventeen at least, sorry." Clay turned back again. He wasn't done yet, after all.

The Stanza of Steam immediately seemed different. It wasn't something he could focus at a distance; the shape of it seemed far more narrowly focused, almost like he felt with the Flame-Tongued Song. As he reached the repeated section, he did it three times, and then let the rest of the spell flow to its end.

This time, a jet of superheated steam shot out of his palm. It was as narrow as a spear, and dissipated about twenty strides from him. Clay waved his arm back and forth, and the stream followed the motion. At one point, it brushed a bit of the river, and the water almost immediately bubbled and hissed.

It seemed less impressive than the Anthem, but at the same time, he didn't want to be throwing lightning directly in front of his face. Clay shrugged and released the [Chant].

Olivia smiled at him. "Interesting. What about the reversals?"

Clay shrugged and tried it. The reverse of the Anthem seemed not to do anything at all, however, and the Stanza's reversal just dispersed some of the lingering steam in the air. He shrugged. "Maybe they are a defense against the [Chants] they reverse? Like it would make lightning less likely to strike, or block a jet of steam?"

She nodded. "That seems likely. They seem like rather dangerous spells, so having a defense against them would be useful."

"True. Not that I want to practice that anytime soon." He shrugged. "Either way, we'll have a surprise ready for our enemies tomorrow."

Olivia grinned. "Maybe even more than one." She gave one of those wild, malicious laughs again, and Clay tilted his head. He almost asked a question, but he didn't want to give her the chance to dangle her secrets in front of him again. There would be time enough for all of that on their hike to the bowl in the morning.

They started out early the next day, with Clay once again discovering Olivia sleeping next to him. This time he'd had his arm around her, and she'd been curled inside the curve of his body. He'd worried for a moment about the propriety for nearly a heartbeat before she'd sighed and snuggled back against his chest. Then it didn't seem nearly as important.

Once they'd finally woken and gotten their food, they had headed back to the bowl. Olivia had wanted to check the assassins' camp again, and her smirk had told him she had more in mind than just keeping track of their enemies. He'd rolled his eyes and gone along with it. His pains were fading already, after all, and it was just a short detour.

There was a scorched and blackened wasteland where the assassins' camp had once been. He could see a few spots where the blackened remains of some swinefolk bones had been left behind, and the destruction seemed to trail off into the underbrush headed north.

He'd stared down at the scene of destruction for a few moments, and then turned to stare at Olivia. "Well? What did you do?"

She snorted. "I solved our assassin problem." When he folded his arms and gave her a level look, she sighed. "All right, all right. You remember how we don't take monster parts because the monsters track them?"

He nodded, and she continued. "I just so happened to come by a few screecher teeth yesterday. Thought I'd share them with our friends here."

Clay felt his jaw drop open. It took actual effort to speak. "You put monster bait in their bags."

"And some of their bedrolls. And some clothing." She chuckled, low and grim. "Our dear murderers probably had an interesting night, to say the least."

Clay snorted, still dazed by the audacity and cruel logic of the plan. He shook his head. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Olivia."

She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. "I'm sure you're smart enough not to need a reminder. Aren't you?"

With that somewhat worrying question, Clay turned to lead the way back to the bowl. At least this time, they didn't need to worry nearly as much about whatever alarms the assassins had left behind. They probably were halfway back to Merarbor or wherever they hid, if the swinefolk had left any behind at all.

Clay stood and watched as Olivia fought probably the last swinefolk in the bowl outside of the ones crouched inside of the fortress itself.

Their enemies had been waiting for them, the same way they had on the other days. Beneath the broad leaves and in the sweltering heat, they'd ambushed and destroyed two separate groups with relative ease. He and Olivia had fought together enough that they moved like they had been training together for their entire lives. By the time they had moved on the very last of the monsters, they had descended on the swinefolk like the wrath of the gods.

Ice had impaled and baffled. Fire had burned and ash had choked. The ground had shaken and hurled itself at them; the air had caught at their weapons and sent them screaming into the sky. Clay hadn't deployed his new [Chants] yet, wanting to save them to strike at the main group in the fortress, but what they had used was more than enough to butcher the whole lot of the creatures.

Now it was down to just a single screecher, who was already bleeding. It stared at Olivia with obvious hatred, its hands and feet shifting in the torn earth as it prepared to charge.

Olivia stared back with narrowed eyes. She'd already made eighth level earlier that day, gaining both [Undaunted] and [Studious]. She'd rolled her eyes at the last [Experience], but she said the first had given her yet another [Achievement]. Apparently, this [Fearless] gave her plenty of bonuses for up-front combat, something she'd leaned into more and more as the day had gone on.

Such as now. She watched the screecher with a predatory look. He could hear her reciting a [Chant] quietly as she waited for the thing to charge. There was no hurry to kill it, not now. There weren't any swinefolk left to reinforce the thing. Not anymore, anyway.

The screecher stood watching her for a moment longer. Its eyes darted to him, as if looking for an easier target; Clay just raised an eyebrow at the monster. Its narrow eyes went back to her.

Then it charged, dirt spraying behind it as it dug its limbs into the earth. To anyone else, it would have been a blur of speed, its poison-coated blades shifting in its meaty fists. A terrifying being of power and malice.

Clay just snorted. All she would need to do was set herself and swing. Or really, just brace herself and impale the thing. Neither task seemed particularly difficult.

Olivia did neither. She blocked the creature's wild charge, knocking it off to the side but not killing it. The thing bounced away, its path curving in a wide course to come back at her. Clay's eyes narrowed as she knocked it aside again. It was almost like she was toying with the thing. Was she not treating it seriously? What was she up to?

By the third time she knocked the screecher aside, Clay was nearly ready to step in. Then he paused as the screecher jerked to a halt right next to her, sucking in a breath. He caught sight of the look on her face.

She looked victorious.

Then the force of the scream hit her. Clay expected it to break her [Chant] as it always had before. Instead, she bore down and seemed to force her way through it; a small dribble of blood leaked from her nose. Yet when the force of it ended, she was still standing. The screecher's eyes went wide, and its feet scrabbled in the dirt as it tried to get back up to speed.

It failed. Her scythe swept out with a speed that proved that Olivia could have ended it far sooner. The blade bit through the thing's skin, and its forearm collapsed beneath it. As it tried to lurch back to its feet, her scythe whipped up and back down in a lethal cut. Olivia turned away as the screecher gasped and bled its life out into the dirt.

She sighed with contentment. "There. All done."

Clay raised an eyebrow. "Last level of [Swinebane]?" She nodded, and he continued in a neutral tone. "And maybe maximum level of [Will] too?"

Olivia winced. "It seems like it will be useful."

"Just in case someone gives you access to Garden's Peace?" Clay saw her wince again and sighed. "Olivia…"

"I know." She shook her head. "I'm not going to ask you again. You've already said what you need to."

Clay watched her another moment, his mind going through the arguments both for and against that course of action. Then he looked up at the sky. "We should probably head back. I don't think we want to start attacking the fortress yet, and Mitchell did say something about meeting help on the other side of the river. I don't want whoever it is to get caught before we can talk with them."

With a solemn look on her face, Olivia nodded in agreement. A moment later, the last of their enemies burning behind them, they left the bowl. The next time they came, it would be to finish the Lair forever.

The trip back through the hills was incredibly relaxing now that the threat of the assassins had been removed. They made good time; the aches and pains of his injuries were almost entirely faded now, though his armor had certainly seen better days. He hoped that Lana, Andrew, and the Baroness were healing just as well. A part of him even debated sneaking into Janburg to free them, but it seemed like the kind of risk that would invite more trouble than it was worth, especially if they were already wounded.

As they made their way back across the river, and then from there to the thunderstruck oak, they didn't see many people moving along the road. Perhaps the [Nobles] had locked down the village, but Clay wondered if there was another explanation. Either way, the people here would never need to worry about the threat of the Lair again soon. One way or the other, tomorrow things would be the beginning of the end.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.