Tibs trudged into the inn and looked around for the sorcerer.

“Tibs,” Kroseph called worriedly on seeing him.

“It’s not mine,” he told the server, heading for his table, where Mez and Carina were eating. “Where’s Don?” He demanded.

Carina was exhausted and barely looked up for the stew she ate mechanically.

“I thought he was with you,” Mez said. “When he didn’t come down after me and Amelia, I figured he’d help you from a safe distance.”

“His team left the inn maybe fifteen minutes before you got here,” Kroseph said. “Tibs, you should wash up. You’re rather gory.”

He grabbed a tankard off the table and drained it. “I’m not going to get any cleaner today. If you see Don, tell him I—” Tibs put the tankard down, then shook his head at Kroseph’s expectant expression. “Never mind. I’ll tell him myself when I find him.”

Now was not the time to start a fight with the sorcerer, no matter how badly he deserved it. He turned to head out and paused. “Oh, if anyone asks what happened to the block of houses by Edge Row, they did it.”

* * * * *

Tibs ran after another group of Sebastian’s thugs and watched as one threw a pouch at a building. Tibs deflected it so it landed on the ground ahead of it, but it burst and the Everburn it contained splashed as it ignited and the fire reached the house, anyway. He didn’t waste time pulling at the fire. He’d have to let the thugs get away for how long it would take him to pull all that essence away. It was like Everburn simply made the essence appear.

Tibs had hoped the loss of the catapult would have broken Sebastian’s people, if not the man himself. Instead, the raids had redoubled, with them now using the Everburn the way Tibs had just seen.

And there were other groups of thugs throughout the town, burning down homes and shops.

He tackled the slowest of the thug in green and black, planted his sword in her back while the others kept running, then picked up the chase.

Quigly felt this would be over quickly now.

Tibs wasn’t so sure, but they didn’t have the luxury of this stretching on. Kroseph’s father had mentioned the people in the dungeon had no more than two day’s food left, if they were careful how they ate. They had provisioned them, but once Sto closed his door, he couldn’t open it again until the attack was over. Otherwise, it would seem too suspicious. Animals sensed danger, and Sto had been attacked already. Those Tibs could use to explain the dungeon’s behavior if it came down to it. Anything else and he’d be in trouble.

So he needed to end this as fast as possible.

* * * * *

The scream came as Tibs dispatched another one of what felt like Sebastian’s unending supply of thugs. He’d fought them through the night, as the sun rose, and it was just past the zenith now. He had no idea how many of them he killed, but it never seemed to be enough. The only part of the town free of damage and fighting was the noble’s neighborhood, as they had adventurers blocking every alley leading there.

The scream came again, accompanied by mocking laughter, multiple people laughing.

He climbed the closest building and ran the roofs until he reached the courtyard, then dropped as he saw an archer scanning the roofs. He’d caught sight of two more, and heard one of them let loose an arrow ahead of the scream coming yet again.

“See anything?” a man asked.

“You really think this is going to draw him out?” a woman answered. An arrow was loosed, a man screamed. “This is a big town.”

Tibs sensed eight people in the courtyard, one of which was the man being shot, by the way his essence was broken, and he had an element. Corruption.

Tibs considered leaving Don to his fate. It would serve him right for leaving Tibs to die.

“And there’s a lot of people for us to use as bait. I want that reward. If you’re not interested in it, why don’t you go back and ask for kitchen duty.”

Tibs edged to the peak of the roof and peered over. Not that Tibs thought he was a better man than the sorcerer in saving him. Or that it would show him who of the two was better.

“I’m here.” She snapped, and the man screamed. “I’m doing my part.” He screamed again. “I don’t see you do anything other than stand there and watch.” He screamed again.

Tibs needed Don. The man, as much of a coward as he was, knew strategy. He could speak to the people, he could calm even nobles. Tibs hated him even more for how much Tibs needed him to ensure the town survived.

“Careful where you aim. The point is to have him scream for as long as possible, not kill him.”

The building creating the courtyard also made four alleys between them. He could see two, each with a thug in green and black holding swords. They leaned against the side of the buildings, watching the archers take turn shooting the man who was out of Tibs’s sight. He could sense the other two thugs at the mouth of the unseen alleys.

He considered turning away again, the way Don had. No one would know. The man would just be yet one more Runner to die at the hand of Sebastian’s thugs.

And the town would suffer more for Tibs indulging his anger.

He leaped over the peak and slid down the roof; the archer keeping watch, loosed his arrow and missed. The house was only three stories. Tibs wouldn’t even need essence for the drop.

“Told you!”

He suffused his body with Earth because this wasn’t when he should take chances, rolled and let it go to retake Water as he stood. He had hold of the humidity as the archer loosed another arrow, stopping it as he formed a sword and shield.

Don was conscious, and their eyes met. The man still had enough energy to look more scared on realizing who was saving him, then Tibs blocked the coming sword with his shield, and with a scream, he planted his sword into the thug, exploring it into shards of ice. Don’s team was on the ground, dead. Cut and shot.

He reformed his sword to parry the other thug, kicked him away as an archer drew her bow. He sent and ‘x’ attack and put enough essence into it she didn’t get up.

The man came back at him, two more coming from the alley they had been guarding. An arrow nearly hit him, and Tibs didn’t have the time to find the last archer as he dodged and parried.

A sword came down hard, and somehow, Tibs sword shattered under it. Cursing, Tibs summoned a knife in his now free hand and planted it into the thug’s stomach, then ripped it out viciously before sending it back to its hiding place.

A detail Sto hadn’t considered, which Tibs appreciated, was that only the knife returned there. None of the blood it was coated with.

One less thing he had to clean when the battle was over.

Tibs sent another ‘x’ attack at the one archer he could find, but the man jumped to the side. Then the two thugs were on him. That was the problem with that attack; anyone who saw it once, knew to get out of the way when he did the motion.

He blocked the first to attack and used his shield to bash her away; the spikes leaving her bloody, but only angrier. She came again, hard, but smarter, darting left and right. Without the mass most men had on them, her agility made even Tibs’s surprise attack of elongating his blade not as effective. He only nicked her.

Fighting her to something of a stalemate, and keeping an eye on the archer notching another arrow and worrying about the other archer he still hadn’t located meant that the only thing that saved Tibs from the sword in the back was that the sheet of ice covering his armor made it skid off and dig into the side instead.

With as a scream of rage and pain, he let go of his sword and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling at the essence. He realized he was pulling Water and not his element as the core reserve refilled, and the man’s arm withered, and he gasped. It happened so fast Tibs didn’t understand what he’d done, and the woman before him stared at him, her expression turning to horror. He had his sword in her chest before she could do more.

The archer stood, bow drawn, and Tibs had water ready when the man glanced over Tibs. He turned, icing the air between him and the hidden archer as she let her arrow loose. How she’d been hidden from his senses would be a question to answer later, same as how it was that arrow shattered his wall of ice and he landed on his back from the impact. It was in his shoulder, fortunately, not deep enough for the barbs to rip his flesh as he pulled it out and wrapped that injury along with the one in his side in his essence. He threw it to the side as he stood, only absently noting the head was made of a green stone.

He ran at her as she readied another arrow. She dropped it and pulled a sword. He blocked and maneuvered himself to place her between him and the other archer. Immediately, she moved out of the way as she attacked.

She was better than Tibs expected, and underestimating her allowed her a few hits, but they didn’t get through his layers of armor. He wasn’t used to an archer knowing how to fight with a sword. It even felt wrong for her to be that good.

He intercepted the arrow with his shield and worried he’s made a mistake and allowed a repeat of the shattering of his wall, but it embedded itself in the ice. He pressed her, and she panicked. He used her uncoordinated retreat to dispatch her.

The remaining archer turned to run, but Tibs had a wall of ice before him, then at his back, and he closed off another side, leaving him with only one option. Facing Tibs.

The archer fired arrow after arrow as Tibs walked in his direction until he was out. None of them hit. Water in the air caught them, made them fall, and by the time the man reached for his sword, it was too late. Tibs ran the last paces and shoved the man against the wall with his sword in his gut.

The wound wasn’t fatal. Tibs made sure of that. Knowing where people’s essence was in their body told him where to strike to kill, or not to kill.

He left the sword in, rearranged its essence, made it a weave that caused the water around it to turn to ice, and let the weave spread. Tibs had no idea how long it would take for all the water in the man to be turned to ice, but he expected—hoped—that it would not be a pleasant experience.

One last thing to deal with.

Tibs located the sword that had shattered his, along with the arrow with the green stone. Now that he wasn’t fighting for his life, he understood what had happened. The sword had a stone of the same color in the hilt. When he tried to reach for either with essence, he couldn’t. The stone dissipated it.

Tibs knew Sebastian hadn’t been close to the block of green stone when he’d shattered it. He also hadn’t been able to take any before fleeing. Which meant that he’d gotten these after the guild had collected them. And Tibs knew only the guild had collected them.

Why did it surprise him that Sebastian had been able to pay someone in the guild to give him some fragments? The man seemed to have more coins than could be counted, and the guild seemed willing to do anything, so long as it brought it coins.

He broke the tip of the arrow off, then shattered the hilt to retrieve that stone. He thought about putting them in his magical hidden places on his armor, but the way it disrupted essence couldn’t be good for that, so they went into his pouch.

Let the guild make an issue of him having those.

He straightened, turned, and strode toward the sorcerer.

Don was still alive. Considering the number of arrows in his arms, legs, and chest, Tibs was impressed. Don’s terror rose as Tibs approached.

“I—” the man said, the rest devolving into a gargle.

Tibs looked down at him, not bothering to hide his anger. “Did you hide behind them? Did you force them to fight for you until they were dead, Don? Did you fucking care?” he yelled.

Don shook his head and tried to say something, but blood dribbled from his lips.

He would die, Tibs could see that in the way his essence was broken. He thought it was already fading. In someone without an element, this amount of damage would have killed them long before Tibs arrived.

“If you could talk, Don. Could you give me even one reason to not walk away right now and leave you to die?”

“Pl—plea—” he coughed and spat blood.

Tibs ground his teeth against his desire to just heal him. No one deserved to suffer like he was. To look at him with desperation and have to justify being saved.

But fuck if Don didn’t come close to it.

Tibs crouched. “Can you melt the arrows? If I pull them out, I’m afraid I’ll hurt you enough it might kill you.”

“Please,” Don managed to say, sounding pathetic. “I didn’t—”

“I’m not letting you die!”

Don winced, shuddered and cried.

“Can you melt the arrows?”

The sorcerer closed his eyes.

Tibs couldn’t see his reserve, and while the concentration of the essence gave him a sense of how powerful a Runner was, it wasn’t a representation of how empty their reserves were. By the strain on Don’s face, he has little left, but the arrows fell out, leaving only corrupted goo in the wound. That was one thing Don didn’t have to fear since it was his element.

Tibs iced the injuries, wrapping them in his essence at the same time. He couldn’t afford for Don’s essence to be anymore disrupted while he carried him. Even if it didn’t come with the sense of wellbeing healing with Purity brought, Tibs wasn’t trying it. Having met the two elements, he didn’t believe the animosity Clerics had toward anyone wielding Corruption came from the elements, but he had no way to know how opposed essence would interact with the little control he had.

Yet one more thing he’d have to figure out a way to practice.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” He told Don as the only warning. He closed his eyes, channeled Earth, pulled the sorcerer over his shoulders and stood. The man’s whimpers were not something to be enjoyed, Tibs repeated to himself as he started walking.

* * * * *

His arrival, with Don over his shoulders, turned the inn into an even more chaotic place than it had been. Clara was horrified at the sorcerer’s state, but at least, she didn’t seem worried that his element was Corruption.

As soon as soon as Tibs place the man on the table, he switched back to water and hoped no one would question how he’d carried him all this way.

Kroseph grabbed his arm and roughly pulled him to the bar. “You saved him?” he demanded in a low, angry voice.

“He—” Tibs started, tiredly.

“Don’t even try to tell me it was the right thing to do. Mez thought he stayed behind with you. You had no idea where he was. That means the man left you to die, Tibs. Why the fuck did you save his miserable life?”

“The town needs him.”

Kroseph scoffed.

“How many of us are left, Kro?” Tibs winced at using Kroseph’s abbreviated name. It was Jackal’s name for him. Not… “He’s the Hero of Kragle Rock. His death will kill morale. I’m not going to be the reason for that. And he’s better at planning than I am.”

“You have Quigly, you have Jack—okay, sorry, I know he promised, but the only thing he’s done since this started was go out and hit as many of them as he can.”

“So Jackal’s still out there?”

Kroseph nodded.

“Have you seen the rest of the team?”

“Mez left not long after you. He came back for some food, then went back out hunting. Carina would not listen to me and sleep. She’s probably still out there with the other sorcerers controlling the fires and Khumdar… if he’s been in the inn since you last say him, I haven’t seen him. But then again, the way he loves wrapping himself in shadows now that he can. He could be next to us and I wouldn’t know it.”

“He isn’t,” Tibs said, grinning. Sometimes, he thought the cleric felt about his new darkness robes, the way Jackal felt about Kroseph. Someone had to have noticed him vanishing in shadows by now, and there was a risk the guild would find out, but Khumdar didn’t care.

Kroseph plopped the bowl of thick stew before Tibs. “Eat.”

“I’m okay.”

“Eat, Tibs,” the server ordered. “Then you’re going to rest. I don’t care if you need it or not. I will tie you to a bed if needed.”

“I’m not your man. I will get out of it.”

“Has my man been telling you stories?” Kroseph asked, amused.

“Yes,” Tibs groaned. “He never listens when I tell him I don’t want to know.”

“Then if you don’t rest, I will tell you some things we’ve been getting up to that I know he wouldn’t ever think of telling you.”

Tibs opened his mouth to protest, but the seriousness in Kroseph’s eyes made him close it and take the spoon that waited next to the bowl.