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The day was going perfectly.
Then they got attacked by bandits.
Then the bandits weren’t normal bandits.
And then Rook and Paddy took some bad shots for Gwing and Malark.
And now their friends were hunting them.
Speaking of their friends, Malark had no idea how dangerous the two actually were until they were no longer on the same side. “Come on, Malark, we need to move.” Gwing wrapped one of his arms over her shoulders and helped him limp into a nearby cave. There were pounding footsteps overhead, and the Juhyo monsters that their friends had created marched overhead as they vanished into the cave. As if their situation could not have been worse already, Gwing and Malark were separated from the others, and they had no clue whether or not Paddy and Rook were specifically targeting them or simply anything that had a heartbeat. “Hold on, Malark, just—just sit down here, everything will be okay.” She murmured, helping him to sit against the cave wall. Pulling his shirt away from the bleeding slash in his side—courtesy of Paddy’s sword, the thing was sharp—she winced sympathetically.
“How bad is it?” He asked, and she swallowed once. “Gwing.”
“It’s…it’s not too bad. I mean, it’s bleeding pretty heavily.”
“So slap a few bandages on it and then let’s get going.” He snapped, and she looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m serious, Gwing. We don’t have time, we need to help break whatever happened to Rook and Paddy.” Nodding, she pulled some bandages out of the bag she’d started carrying with her after the luck disaster they’d had several months before. Carefully, she began fixing the wound in Malark’s side, first applying pressure.
As he looked out the cave entrance at the swirling snow outside, he tried not to think about how there might not be a way to break the spell controlling their friends. Because while this was Crown of Madness, a spell he’d seen Paddy used and even had used on himself by Paddy…this was different. Stronger, somehow, amplified by something else. He wasn’t even sure how that worked—Crown of Madness only worked for a certain amount of time, and this spell seemed only to be getting stronger with each passing heartbeat.
Paddy was such an idiot—if only he hadn’t taken that shot for Malark…
~
Two Hours Earlier…
“Come on!” Malark yelled at the bandits, more irritated than anything else. The men had been tracking them for days through several towns, he knew, but only now decided to strike. “Come on! You going to fight or what?”
One of them smiled and stepped forwards, looking at Paddy. “Hello, Paddock Whitlaw.” Paddy froze, staring at them.
“How do you know my name?” He demanded, and the bandit smiled under his hood. Then he produced something from his cloak—a dark red crystal. It looked somewhat like the amber crystals they had encountered a week before, where Paddy got to see his parents again (albeit temporarily). This one was much smaller, however, and seemed to suck the nearby light into it.
“Oh, I’d be much less worried about that. Right now, actually, I’d be more worried about your friends.” The man whispered something, slid a hand around the crystals, and then his eyes were glowing a dark, purplish red and the air suddenly hummed with static.
“Everyone down!” Gwing yelled in warning, and then a massive bolt of lightning struck by where Nagar, Mina, and Terra had been moments before. Paddy threw some magic of his own in the bandits’ direction, as did Rook. It hit against a purplish red shield, flames licking up along the sides.
These weren’t normal bandits.
~
Present Time…
Outside, the storm raged on.
Shifting nervously, Malark watched Gwing pace at the entrance to the cave. “Well, how are we supposed to take them down without hurting them? It’s not like we can get close, not with those monsters—”
“Juhyo.”
Glancing his way, she stared at him. “What?”
“They’re called Juhyo. Snow monsters.” He tilted his head up, pressed a hand to his aching ribs, and hauled himself upright. “There’s one above us right now. If I had to guess, I think Paddy and Rook can make more than one. Those bandits are trying to get us to do their dirty work for them.” Pausing, he glanced to the side. “Well, I guess trying to get Paddy and Rook to do their work for them. They want us dead, and they know we can’t kill Paddy and Rook, so they expect them to do it first. Then, they’ll probably kill Paddy and Rook while they’re still under their control.”
Growling, Gwing glanced outside at the snow. Like Malark had said, the Juhyo above them leapt down into their view and sniffed at the entrance. This one looked like it was one of Rook’s—Malark had noticed his eyes had been glowing blue, like this one’s, while Paddy’s had turned an ice green. It was a snow dragon, and it growled when it saw them in the cave. However, it made no attempt to try and enter. “What’s it doing?” Gwing whispered, and Malark walked up to the thing. It slashed at him then, claws leaving frost across his chest in their trails.
“I think it’s trying to keep us in here.” He paused, then went deeper into the cave and tilted his head. “Gwing, come on. There’s another way out of this cave.” She glanced at him, and he cleared his throat. “I can hear a cross wind.”
Nodding, she followed him, leaving the Juhyo behind. “So, how do you take out a Juhyo?” She asked, and he paused as they limped. He had a feeling he knew more ways, but there was only one he could think of. And it was exactly why he could not get attached to anyone in High Hopes.
“You kill the creator.”
~
An Hour and Fifty-Five Minutes Earlier…
The fight had gone from okay to bad very, very fast.
Of course, it didn’t help that the guy with the crystal had summoned a snowstorm in the middle of it. They were already in snow-covered mountains, so there was a host of problems that could come with that. Avalanches, rockslides, cave-ins, for starters. Not to mention wild animals.
The Juhyo was something else, though.
The monster looked like an ice tiger, and it attacked Nagar and Hashaan immediately, claws slashing through the air. Nagar swung at it with his battleaxe, and the creature fell to the side as it was cleaved in half. Then it put itself back together as the snow swirled around them, because of course this wasn’t going to be easy. Growling, Malark and Paddy lunged for the bandits-not-bandits. He knew they had made a mistake when he remembered the spell-shield. By then, however, they had already collided with it.
Electricity sparked through his body, burning through his veins and along his bones. He dropped to the ground, still twitching and immobile. Paddy was in a similar state, gasping. “Well, look at this. Seems like we’ve got them exactly where we want them.” One of the bandits mused, and Malark glared up at them. He still couldn’t move, however. Paddy was starting to.
“Paddy…run.” Even two words were difficult to choke out, and Paddy glanced at him. He seemed to realise what was happening, and Malark couldn’t do anything as the elf threw himself between Malark and the bandit with the crystal. There was a sharp jolt, audible even above the roaring snow, and Paddy crumpled to the ground. Paddy!
“PADDY!” Someone behind him shouted, and Paddy let out a gasp as trails of reddish magic sparked along his skin and clothes. Malark still couldn’t move, try as he might. Someone sprinted up, and Malark got a brief glimpse of Gwing in his peripheral. Rook was right behind her.
“Is that really a good idea? Whitlaw, strike your little friend in the snow.” The first man said, and Paddy let out a choked noise.
“I’m not…hurting them…” He let out another cry as the electricity spiking along his skin suddenly reappeared, and Malark got a glimpse of his eyes changing. All of a sudden, they were glowing an icy green, nothing like their usual spring colour, and his expression dropped.
The next thing Malark knew, he was flying towards a tree.
~
Present Time…
As soon as they were out of the cave, three more Juhyo monsters attacked.
These ones were Paddy’s, and one slashed its claws up Malark’s chest. Falling back with a yell, he reached for his blades but found he couldn’t. His arm was frozen at the shoulder with a thick sheet of ice over his skin. Right, because that’s what they can do. He realised. “Gwing, run! Get out of here!” He yelled, and she stared at him for a second with wide eyes before turning and sprinting back into the trees. “Find the others!”
He turned back to the three Juhyo. One was a wolf, another looked somewhat like a panther, and the last was a bear. Pulling himself back with one arm, Malark took a few deep breaths. His blades were scattered in the snow around him, and he could already feel frost creeping up his legs and across his chest. Soon, it’d be at his heart and that would be it.
Someone emerged from the snow.
For a few moments, he couldn’t tell who it was. With a falling heart, he realised it was Paddy. The wood elf was standing at the side of the ice bear, eyes still glowing with that unfamiliar light. Come on, Pads. Fight this. This isn’t you. He might have said the words aloud without realising it, because Paddy tilted his head to the side. Overall, except for the glowing eyes, he looked just as normal as he had earlier that day, when they’d started. A long, eternal second passed, and Paddy remained where he was. Then he made a gesture, turned, and stalked back into the woods with the bear at his side. The panther and wolf stalked forwards, and Malark felt the ground shake beneath him with every step.
This was going to be where he died.
Not on a battlefield, not in a blaze of glory or sacrificing himself for someone else (for Paddy; he’d played the scenario in his mind a few times).
Not in an alley somewhere after a failed mission or from another guild’s attackers.
Not from some noble who was well above his own skills.
He was going to die alone, on a snowy field, with nothing and no one around him to protect. For nothing more than being in the way. All because Paddy had taken that shot for him, instead of letting him take it himself. Briefly, he toyed with the idea of what might have happened if he’d gotten hurt instead. They would have just killed him outright, truly. Yes, he was dangerous, but they knew what they needed to do and he didn’t have the same kind of bonds with High Hopes as Paddy did.
The Juhyo were practically on top of him now, and he took a deep breath. If this was where he died, then fine. He glanced at where Gwing had vanished into the storm. Sorry.
The Juhyo above him reared up. By now, Malark’s legs were frozen, too. If there was a time for last words, it was probably now. He wasn’t even sure he could talk, his chest felt a little icy. Still, he took a breath anyways and faced the two Juhyo down. A slight smile played behind his mask.
“There’s something you always say, Pads, isn’t there? Or you think it?” The wolf reared back even more, and he could see snow swirl around it. Taking a deep breath, he added, “Have hope.”
The wolf dropped its paws down on top of him.
~
Two Hours Later…
She finally found them all, sheltering in a cave under one of the mountains.
Nagar and Hashaan were sitting by a fire, trying to warm the parts of them that were still frozen. For a brief moment, Gwing found herself thinking about Malark. If she had managed to get him here…
“Gwing?” Ryce looked up from where he was sitting, plucking out some sort of protective tune on his lute. At least, Gwing was pretty sure it was a lute. She could never tell. “Gwing, what happened? Where’s Malark?”
She had to take a few moments to compose herself before looking at the others. Nala, who had been with the others, having been separated from her and Malark, let out a low whine. Zenya was curled in Mina’s lap, frozen like she had been ever since Rook had gotten hit. She still remembered what had happened—he’d grabbed her and thrown her to the side, taking it to the chest and then falling to the ground exactly like Paddy had. Then his eyes had begun to glow pale blue and he was gone, just like that. It was almost like Paddy’s Crown of Madness spell, but it was different.
Much, much different.
“Gwing?” Blinking, she glanced around. Brio and Ava were unconscious, Terra tending to them as carefully as she could. Mina absentmindedly kept stroking along Zenya’s spines, as if the pseudodragon could feel her doing so. “Gwing, are you okay?”
Swallowing, Gwing cleared her throat. “Malark—I lost Malark. The Juhyo—” Mina’s eyes widened and she glanced at the fire. So did Hashaan, eyes narrowing as she bandaged her wrist. “And he—I don’t think that there’s any other way to break the spell. We’re—we’re going to have to kill Paddy and Rook.”
Ryce ran a hand through his hair, glancing out at the snow outside. “There has to be another way, Gwing.” Mina said desperately. “We can’t—we can’t lose Paddy and Rook, too.” Meanwhile, Gwing kept staring at the fire, tears in her eyes. No one wanted to have to kill Paddy and Rook, obviously. They were teammates. And no one wanted to lose Malark, either, but there was no way that he had survived that. The Juhyo monsters…
Ryce walked over to the entrance of the cave, catching everyone’s attention. “Look, everyone, we don’t have a choice here. Malark is gone. If we’re not careful, Paddy and Rook will kill the rest of us without even realising it. There’s nothing we can do, so they’re good as dead already.”
Mina rose to her feet before remembering she had Zenya in her lap. “We’re not going to kill them, Ryce! That’s—it’s Rook and Paddy!”
“Do you think I like this, Mina? We don’t have a choice. It’s either we kill them or someone else does, and do you really think anyone else is going to make sure they do it fast?” He countered, and Mina flinched back. “Either way, Paddy and Rook are going to die. If we don’t do it, someone else will. Even the bandits might, and I for one would rather make sure they don’t suffer when it happens.”
For a long while, no one spoke.
~
The Next Day…
When they left the cave in the morning, Paddy and Rook were waiting for them outside already.
The two stood at the other side of the clearing, and one of the Juhyo monster was holding something in its jaws. The beast itself looked vaguely like a bear, and it stalked forwards before dumping something in front of High Hopes carelessly. Then it retreated to Paddy and Rook’s side. Crouching, Ryce swept some of the snow away from the thing it had dropped. As he did, Mina screamed.
It was Malark.
The assassin was, without a doubt, dead. Shielding his face from the others, Ryce gently reached over and closed his eyes. There was a spike of ice pierced through Malark’s chest, and Ryce bent over him as Hashaan went to his side. She carefully pulled Malark into her arms, stroking his hair back. He was limp in her arms, head falling into the crook of her arm. “Zey killed him.” She whispered, almost like she couldn’t believe it. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked up at Rook and Paddy where they were standing across the clearing, and then at Ryce. “It vas not Paddy and Rook. It vas ze bandits. So ven you find zem, you kill zem. Understand?” Ryce nodded, and she cradled Malark closer. One of his arms fell to the side, and she adjusted her grip after a moment before standing up. “I vill vatch over him.” Ryce nodded.
She turned and carried Malark back into the cave, much to the horrified stares of the other members of High Hopes.
Ryce rose to his feet and looked at the others. “What do you think? If we take Rook and Paddy down now, we might still be able to catch up to the—to the people who did this to them. To Malark.” He replied, noticing a sudden hardness had come across Mina’s face. She vanished into the cave, set Zenya down beside Malark and Hashaan, and then returned. All of her usual cheerfulness was gone, replaced by a stormy sort of fire.
“Let’s take them down.”
~
Like, Literally Twenty Seconds Later…
Nala launched at Rook and clung to his shoulders, clawing at his back while Gwing attacked from the front. The wizard made a quick gesture—whatever spell had been used on him, apparently it made him a lot stronger. She didn’t remember that spell. “Come on, Rook! If you can fight this, you have to!” She wasn’t sure why she was saying it. Maybe she just wanted to think that she had tried her best, hadn’t immediately tried to kill him. Or maybe she honestly thought it would make some difference. “Rook, please!” He pinned her, Nala tearing at her shoulders. For a second, they were nose-to-nose. His eyes were still glowing blue. “Please, Rook, you can’t do this!”
She could have sworn he hesitated.
Then Nagar threw him off her, brandishing his axe. With a quick gesture, Rook turned another tree into a Juhyo and it attacked him. “Oh, come on!” Nagar yowled as he was smashed into the ground again. Frost sparked out across his scales, and he twisted and writhed beneath the beast. Meanwhile, Gwing turned to look at Rook, frowning slightly. He was standing facing her, but he kept making aborted motions at a spell. When Nagar had thrown him, something had fallen from his shirt. It was a small medallion, and vaguely Gwing remembered that some old lady in a town they had been at a few weeks before had given him it. Him…and Paddy.
No way… A sudden burst of hope filled her chest, and she dodged to the side before lunging at Rook, pulling an arrow from her bow and nocking it. He leapt to the side, and in that split second the medallion was off his chest. String back, she found her target and loosed the arrow. Lightning cracked from the medallion as it shattered, and Rook gasped before falling to the ground. The Juhyo he had created suddenly froze where they were, normal trees once more. Racing to Rook’s side, she pulled him into her arms and slapped his cheek a few times. “Rook? Rook, open your eyes.”
He groaned, cracking his eyes open. They wandered to her, still half-closed, and she almost laughed and kissed him right then. “Gw-Gwing? What—” He froze and jerked upright. “The medallion! The bandits! Gwing, we have to—Paddy!”
“Lay back down. Ryce!” She turned around, catching the sun elf’s attention. He had managed to pin Paddy down with the help of Mina, who was currently decking Paddy in the face repeatedly and ruthlessly. “The medallion! Break the medallion!”
After a second, he seemed to understand, ripping it from Paddy’s neck and crushing it in his fist. Paddy let out a cry, then went limp in the snow. Ryce and Ava had to pull Mina away before she accidentally killed their now-freed teammate, and Gwing slumped over Rook. Fingers reached up and stroked her cheek, and she looked down to smile at him. “Where—where’s Malark?” She froze up, and apparently that was all the answer he needed. “We need to—we need to get to him. We don’t have much time before he dies.”
“Rook, he’s already dead. He died last night.”
“Was he stiff?” When she shook her head, he tried getting up again. “You need to get me back to him. Do you still have my bag?” She nodded, and he explained what his plan was. Across from them, Paddy let out a loud, grieving wail. From the sound of it, he’d just been told that Malark was dead. “Come on, we need to hurry.”
They limped across the snowy plain over to the cave. When they stumbled inside, Rook practically collapsed next to Malark, raising shaking hands over Malark’s body. When Hashaan met Gwing’s gaze, all that was needed was a slight nod.
While Rook worked, Ryce helped Paddy stumble into the cave, and the wood elf collapsed beside Malark with tears already streaming down his face. “Malark…” His voice faltered, and he reached out before hesitating. Hashaan cupped his hand, then gently pressed it to Malark’s pulse point. His eyes widened a little bit. “He…he’s alive?”
“Barely.” Rook forced out, eyes closing. Gwing wasn’t sure exactly what he had done, but all of a sudden she could see Malark breathing ever so slightly. “You’re probably going to have to take care of us for the next couple weeks. There’s a village about two miles from here. We should…start going there tomorrow.”
Then he collapsed against Gwing, and relief flooded through her. Everything was okay. Sure, saying things hadn’t exactly gone to plan was an understatement of a dragon’s lifespan. But things had turned out okay in the end.
And for the next couple of weeks…they should be fine. If they weren’t…well, they survived whatever the past couple of days had been.