Buck characterized him as a tall, broad-shouldered knight who walked the sandy plains alone.

This adventuring party had been traveling north through the swamps, up from Hanalagula and thereabouts, for several days when they got a sign that someone, or something, was tailing them. Everyone felt it. Not thanks to their senses or spellcraft, but because of an item they’d gotten from Arkadia.

They’d drizzled the powder from an enchanted stone like pumice along their path like breadcrumbs. The enchantment in the dust would hold for five days after getting ground off the rock, and during that time they could sense, dimly, presences coming along the same path. Using the followstone was a somewhat obnoxious business, what with the merchants and other adventurers using the same path—to say nothing of the animals and minor-rank monsters that appeared as a matter of course. But they used the followstone to track major demons and exceptionally powerful people, and when the magic was strong, the sensation was stronger.

They woke up stunned in the middle of the night—everyone together. All sensing the same thing. They sat upright in their tent and waited. After a minute or two, the feeling fell away, as if the creature had stepped off the road as quickly as it’d stepped on. Which only put them more on their guard. Maybe it was a fluke, a placid dragon crossing their path. But it was just as was possible that this powerful being had sensed the followstone path—sensed that they had just been tracked—and consciously stepped off. To better sneak up.

In the days ahead, the adventurers were constantly on their guard. They spread out, too, and tossed the followstone powder wide around them. Their intuition would be weaker, but their reach would be broader. The stone itself was a nub, its powder now painstakingly fine, but so be it.

“But we ground the damn thing too fine,” said Buck, sounding crushed. “We had to rely on our bare senses again and we feared it wouldn’t be enough, with how powerful that scare was. It was my fault, so as you can imagine I was anxious to be the one to save us.

“We had the time, before the dungeon, so we decided to spend a few days in the hills around there, play it safe, get ‘im off our back. Me an’ Forsythe, that rogue over there, took one side, an’ saw ‘im in the lowlands. That was where I famously unloaded my whole quiver at ‘im, and now I’ve got no more arrows.”

“That figure doesn’t sound dangerous,” said Ethel, “necessarily.”

“Ahh,” said Buck, waggling a finger, “but you don’t know. He’s got powerful wind magic and he showed it to us.”

Forsythe turned a little toward Athalie and Ethel. It had been hard to see earlier, since his clothes were baggy and black, but they were shredded in places, and below the holes were red-brown scabs and purple gashes.

They weren’t the worst wounds one could give. They had been launched from a distance and from a person capable of holding back.

“It wasn’t even that I missed, with the arrows,” Buck went on. “It was the wind he used, he knocked them aside. An’ then he went below a hill, an’ I couldn’t see ‘im anymore.”

“And it happened so fast,” said Forsythe. Even now he was marvelling at it.

Athalie looked pensive. Secretly, Nyx was thankful they hadn’t shared the same path.

If Lord Nyx the Demon Lord had been in here, they’d have adhered to the strategy of fucking off—in fact, they might have left at that moment, with maybe the vaguest hope that their own cocky confidence would rub off on these reluctant adventurers. For god’s sake, it wasn’t even a proven threat! And if they considered themselves real heroes or whatever, they’d either go aggressive or move forward in full confidence, come what may.

But Athalie said, “So you think we can help. Very well...I’ll tell you what we have to offer. I have my blade, my light magic, and my spirit.”

Sopbread the warrior rolled his eyes.

“And Ethel,” Athalie said with a gesture, “uses mind magic. I don’t exactly understand what she’s doing with it, but it’s quite clever.”

Ethel grinned.

“Uh,” Sopbread interrupted, “it’s less about what you’re offering, and more like a fair warning to you. We’re convinced that somebody might come breaking down the door. Don’t blame us. But also, do blame us.”

Just then, the door was flung open—unnaturally loud. This was no demon or monster, not even a witch. It was mortal strength augmented by nothing but magic and rigorous exercise, a fling of the arm merged with a pinpoint-accurate gust. The wooden door all but shattered against the rock.

The guests were still.

Buck glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, that’s ‘im,” he said to the waitress. “Please don’t serve ‘im.”