“Lyre Bearer!” My voice echoed over the cacophony of combat. My hazel eyes flashed over the flicker of flames, the fighting foes and the flying fruit. As a soldier slipped on a pile of slush and slammed into a slack-jawed sycophant, my swift eyes and godly cerebellum made sense of the situation.

I spotted Fennik Glenwey, the little puck of a fae responsible for coating the floor in frost. I had helped the child-sized fellow fine tune his ice magic. I scanned past a man who called himself Zack Blaze, seeing many details of his checkered past in a single instant. The demon Nosdyn and the warrior Leoric who faced Blaze would have their hands full. Already flames licked at the floorboards as a result of his noxious powers.

At the window behind the bar, a strange-looking fellow called Squiggy struggled to kidnap a female drow, whose name was unclear. It seemed his intentions were pure, however, so I saw no reason to intervene. I had my hands full looking for Philomel.

There.

Past the pilferous puck, behind the battling boys, and through the fast-spreading flames, I finally spotted her. The faun Philomel, the matriarch of the Gilded Lily, my traveling companion and ally of many years. In her hand was a flaming dagger, in her face was a masked foe, and on his face was a feisty fox-form fellow I knew as Veridian.

I leaped from table to table, the wooden planks jostling beneath my boots, fruit and vegetables flying past me on all sides. I jumped over the spreading flames, intentionally upsetting a tray full of ale mugs which splashed down in attempt to extinguish the fire. The bar owner could thank me later.

Sprinting the length of the last table, I took a flying leap and lashed out with a metal boot at the back of the ninja-assassin’s skull. If the bastard was tough enough to defeat me, Philomel, and her fox, then we didn’t deserve to call ourselves the Awesome-team. Which we never had done, but probably should.