An hour later, there was a temporary respite.

The fire pit occupied the centre of a clearing in a wooded area, far enough off the path for the light to be concealed by trees and the smoke by night. As the weather beaten pair sat around the coals, their coats crumpled from a hellish night in the open and their tired faces illuminated by the flickers of the dancing flames in front of them, there were no complaints. Instead, they talked in hushed tones. Shinsou sharpened his weapon and Storm's daggers with a flat stone whilst the electromancer waited patiently for their freshly plucked chicken to cook on a spit.

Perched on the trunk of a fallen oak, the Telgradian finished his work and peered out from underneath his hood at Storm. Although it now felt like a lifetime ago, it had only been a few weeks since his friend had abruptly parted ways with him. He understood that Veritas had been sent to the depths of Raiaera. He could see that one of the electromancer's arms was jet black from the wrist up to god-knows-where, and the man looked afflicted in ways that even a few weeks of hard travel wouldn't cause.

He turned his head away. As Shinsou stared blankly into the fire, he knew that something terrible had happened. Raiaera had been a hotbed of plagues, dark magic and all sorts of hellish remnants of Pode and Xem'zund's devilish sorcery and curses for a long time now, and he could only imagine what the electromancer had experienced to suffer such a wound. Shinsou mulled over asking his friend about it as he pulled a chargrilled chicken leg from the makeshift wooden griddle in front of him, and sunk his teeth into the tender, juicy meat.

The fire was only small now, but it kept the edge of the midnight chill away and had cooked their food perfectly.

Storm spat into the coals just to hear the sizzle as his saliva evaporated. The daggers that Shinsou had gifted him, now sharpened to perfection, lay at his feet and the flawless steel of their blades glimmered in the fire.

The man threw a bare chicken bone into the flames, and turned to Shinsou.

“Where did Arius send you, then?”

Shinsou, brushing a hand through his brown locks, snorted.

"Alerar. Ettermire, specifically. Long story short, I ended up being spat out into a street, and had to grease a few palms to get home. Luckily, it seems the Brotherhood isn't an international brand yet; I was able to get about relatively un-noticed."

As he shrugged, his breath hit the cold night’s air and turned to steam.

“No idea about Felicity. She wasn't amongst the dead that I could see, but I can't sense her energy. She's probably been warped elsewhere, too.”

Shinsou repositioned a jug of honey mead he had by his side into his palm, and then walked over and dropped it at the Electromancer’s feet. Storm took it quietly and gulped down a swig of ale. As it hit the back of his throat, he wiped his mouth with the corner of his sleeve of his injured arm. The Telgradian's eye was once again caught, and again he wondered how much he could, and should, ask Storm about his own trip home.

"Heard you ended up in Raiaera. That's a hell of a place to be dumped in. What happened there?"

Storm didn’t look up. Instead, he reached down for one of the three bags by his side and flung the first untied sack at the fire. The canvas thing spun through mid air, spreading its powdered contents all over the glowing embers. As the silver dust struck the heart of the glowing coals, the flames roared back to life and the campfire was restored to its former glory.

"It was-"

Storm's voice was cut dead by something moving in the corner of his eye, followed by the sound of snapping twigs. It looked as if the electromancer's very skin bristled as he shot a silent glance to Shinsou, who immediately rested his hand on the hilt of Enpera.

Whoever you are, you picked a bad night to fuck with us.

Suddenly, all went very, very quiet.

The quiet was short lived as a hooded figure darted menacingly through the clearing’s edge behind Shinsou and Storm, his feet pounding the dirt and through the fallen leaves. Shinsou wasted no time. His lithe frame glided into action, scooping Enpera from the ground without a sound and guiding it expertly into a powerful upward arc. The figure’s hooded head snapped back violently on contact, a pitiful whimper escaping his lips as the edge of the blade carved a jagged crevice up the assassin’s chest.

The pair of eyes that had gleamed beneath those black robes faded. Their last moments saw the Telgradian's golden eyes staring back at them, his face spattered with crimson. The body, carried by its own momentum, ragdolled over the trunk on which they had been sat and clumped in a bloodied mess at the base of the large campfire, a crimson pool forming below the face-down corpse.

Fool.

All in all, it had taken about five seconds for the attacker to enter the clearing, charge at Shinsou and rest up in a crumpled, mangled heap in the centre of the camp, but those five seconds had passed almost in slow motion.

“Storm, more in the trees. Looks like we were followed.”

Their assailants could be heard long before they came into sight. Their quick footsteps pressed heavily into the autumn leaves that blanketed every uneven surface for miles around, the crunches of their feet upon the forest floor and the pounding of their breath upon the cold air the only signs of their existence. To the un-trained ear, it was as if the patter of raindrops had reached the forest. To the onrushing attackers, they were the coming of death’s agents.

Shinsou and Storm knew it, even if they didn't. Really, they were all just lambs to the slaughter.