The sun shone brightly overhead, though it offered little warmth. A strong and persistent wind was blowing from the north, sweeping all the cold down from the snow-covered mountains and into the forest. An ever-present creaking and groaning filled the air as the pine trees swayed under the chilly gusts, with occasional pops and cracks of branches snapping or whole trees breaking under the pressure and toppling to the ground.

All in all, it was a good day for an ambush.

Jay, Dys, and Syd were once more pulling the Behemoth as the expedition made its way westward. Jadis pulled the wagon at a sedate pace, making sure not to move faster than the horse-drawn wagon behind her was capable of going. She didn’t want to outpace the horses and leave Gunnar alone and exposed, especially not with all the extra horses tied in a train to the wagon behind him. It took a lot of willpower to not look back to check on the wagon and make sure it was keeping up. It took even more willpower to not look up at the stone ridge looming ahead and to her right.

As the road wended its way west, it passed by a rocky outcropping that was several hundred yards long and maybe twenty feet high on average. The face of the ridge was mostly flat stone, though the land on the top was a long slope and had many pine trees growing across it. The road was butted right up against the ridge, a no-doubt reasonable choice for the builders to make at the time since the ground was flat and the way forward straight. In hindsight, however, it proved to be a strategically inadvisable choice since it turned the ridge into a bandit’s paradise. Anyone on top of the ridge would have perfect cover against anyone on the road. Jadis had no doubt that was why Stavros had chosen the spot for his ambush.

Jadis had no weapons at hand other than the small axes she carried in her belts. It was a necessity to maintain the illusion of the unsuspecting traveler. As was the need for her to simply plod on down the road, passing under the shadow of the ridge as though not a thing was wrong. As she strode forward, cold prickles went up and down her neck at the thought of unseen eyes watching her. She knew Stavros and his men were there, hiding, waiting for the moment to spring their trap. She had no doubt that once she had pulled the wagon next to the ridge far enough, the attack would begin just as Sorcha had outlined for them.

The little goblin woman had laid out the details of Stavros’ plan in full. Stavros and his crew knew the area as they had passed along this road multiple times, both as scouts and more recently as smugglers. Ricket, their trapmaster, was supposed to set up a deadfall along the path, one of a size that could disable a large demon like a grundwyrm. Or a few Nephilim. There would no doubt be more traps set up as well, as many as they could manage in the time they had, but the deadfall was the real danger. The focus of the attack would be on the three giants since they had been recognized as the true threat. All of their efforts would be centered on killing the Nephilim in one big burst. Once they were out of the picture, the Roiling Reavers would retreat. No need for an extended fight, not when the numbers would still be to their disadvantage. However, once the giants were gone, the rest of the mercenaries and soldiers could be picked off with hit-and-run tactics. Of course, if the opportunity presented itself, they’d take the entire expedition out at the same time if they could.

Sorcha had the decency to look ashamed as she described Stavros’ plans. Multiple times throughout the story she insisted that attacking and killing other people, soldiers or otherwise, had never been what she’d signed up for. She admitted to the theft and smuggling, but murder was a step further than she’d ever thought to go. Jadis wasn’t sure how innocent Sorcha really was when it came to plans of violence, especially since she didn’t seem too reluctant to watch her die when Legs had been trying to stab her to death. In any case, she at least trusted the goblin to act in her own best interest, which in this case was to tell them the whole truth so they could foil Stavros’ plans.

Jadis didn’t need much imagination to guess what Stavros was likely to do to a deserter.

As Jadis drew closer to the ridge, she did spare a moment to look back over Syd’s shoulder at “Aila” sitting in the driver’s seat. Seeing her head turn, the woman in the seat gave Syd a slight nod of acknowledgement.

Instead of Aila, one of the soldiers, Ada, was sitting in the mage’s usual spot. She wasn’t anywhere near as tall as Aila, but she had a thin build similar to her and also had reddish brown hair. With a spare robe on and a hood up, she looked enough like Aila at a distance that most people would be fooled at a glance. Jadis didn’t like putting the woman in harm’s way, but Ada was a physical fighter and had a much faster reaction speed as well as a higher health pool than Aila. When the ambush started, she would be far more likely to survive getting hit and could get out of the way and into the safety of the Behemoth interior much faster.

Jadis truly hoped that they would be able to pull off their counterattack without losing anyone.

They had just about reached the edge of the ridgeline where Stavros’ ambush was supposed to take place when Jadis heard the screaming. It was a sudden noise, the abruptness startling Jadis as she came to a full stop. Her muscles tensed as she prepared to dart out of the way of a trap, yet there was nothing to dodge. No trap had been triggered, not that she could see. Instead the shouting continued, growing louder every second. It was a man’s voice, just one, but he was letting out a panicked screech that sounded like gibberish at first until Jadis was able to penetrate his thick accent.

“To arms! To arms! Fight for your fucking lives!”

Had their counterattack been found out? All of the remaining soldiers as well as Kerr, Thea, and Bridget had gone the long way around through the forest to come at the ambush site from the north. While Jadis used her immense strength and speed to attack the smugglers head-on and keep their attention, everyone else would strike from behind. It was a simple pincer move, but it had a high chance of success, especially since Stavros shouldn’t have had any idea that they knew about the ambush and certainly wouldn’t expect the three Nephilim to turn and charge in at them just before they could trigger their traps.

For a brief moment, Jadis’ stomach plummeted. Had she misjudged the goblin’s intentions? Had Sorcha let herself be captured as part of some larger plot to feed them false information? Jadis had dismissed such a notion, as had the others, based on the idea that such a tactic would be utterly reckless, especially since Sorcha was the smuggler’s only true mage. It would have been utterly idiotic to use one of their most valuable members as bait, especially when there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t have just been killed outright when she’d run into Jadis or anyone else from her expedition.

Or had Stavros accounted for their tendency towards mercy and purposefully sent the goblin witch as a means to allay suspicion?

That temporary moment of panic passed as Jadis tore free of her harnesses in reaction to the growing shouts of alarm and sounds of combat. She could hear people screaming, but none of them were the voices of her companions or the soldiers. No, voices she heard were only passingly familiar, at least one recognizable as that weird blood bitch. The other sounds she heard were familiar for a different reason. Hissing, clicking, rattling, and stomping. A wordless anger, action without shouts.

Demons.

As Dys dashed like lightning to the wagon, Ada was already falling back inside the open door. With a click and a thunk, the left side wall of the Behemoth sprang open just as Sabina had modified it to do. Inside, Ada was already equipping her spear and shield. Dys only gave her a passing glance as she grabbed her weapons from the bed of the wagon. She quickly tossed Syd her lance, then heaved the giant hammer to Jay before taking up her axe.

The three of her moved as one off of the road into the forest, heading up the slope of the ridge. Two heads on a swivel, she checked behind her to see that Ada and Gunnar were already pairing up, following their orders to protect the wagons unless called for. From the soldiers' wagon, Jadis saw more figures emerge. Aila leapt out, followed by Eir and Sabina. The three had been hiding inside the wagon, along with their two prisoners since it was the safest place to be. The smugglers wanted to use the wagon for transport, after all. They would naturally avoid doing any damage to it.

Jadis’ primary focus switched to what was happening ahead of her. She trusted Aila to make the right call when it came to how closely she and the others would follow behind her.

Once she crested the high point of the ridge, Jadis caught sight of where all the commotion was coming from. Approximately halfway down the length of the ridge, nestled in a copse of trees, she saw the Roiling Reavers. And there, surrounding them, were dozens upon dozens of bone thieves, twisted wretches, bramble fiends, and at least two frost drakes, no doubt possessed. Worse, from Jadis’ vantage point, she could see more demonic forms surging up the far side of the ridge. It was no small band of roaming demons that had happened to stumble across the outlaws at an inopportune time. No, it was a full blown hoard of demons, maybe a hundred including all the bramble fiends.

Jadis paused at the sight. Her first instinct had been to rush straight into the fray to aid the embattled Reavers. The demons had more than enough numbers to overwhelm the twelve smugglers. Even if Stavros and a few others were stronger than average and had decently high levels, they weren’t anywhere near as strong as Jadis and her team. Without a prepared position, they’d be overwhelmed by the sheer number of demons.

But was that a bad thing?

Stavros and his crew were bad people. They had tried to kill Jadis and those she loved multiple times. They were literally at this spot in the woods specifically for the purpose of trying to ambush and kill Jadis. Again. Wasn’t it only poetic justice that these despicable murderers face their end via an unexpected ambush to demons they could have avoided entirely if they’d only taken the opportunity to run rather than stay behind for completely greedy reasons? Couldn’t Jadis just sit back and let these two factions that absolutely loathed fight and kill each other? It would certainly make it easier for her and her companions to finish off whoever won the fight afterwards.

Jadis’ weapons lowered slightly as she paused, watching the fight progress. She could see the fat man, Jockel, dodging and weaving around the attacks of two wretches, his movements hampered by the leg she had broken. Next to him was the blood bitch, swinging her scythe in a manic frenzy as she sliced through the core of a bone thief only for another to take its place a moment later. To their left she saw two men with swords and shields that had been pilfered from the soldiers work together to knock a bear-like wretch to the ground, hacking at its chest and head before one of them fell back, a bramble fiend wrapping around his chest and arms.

It wouldn’t take long. If she waited for a minute, maybe two, and the battle would be over. Even in the space of the two seconds it took her to have the thought, another Reaver was knocked to the ground by the oversized club arm of a bone thief. They couldn’t last, they were going to die. All of them.

As the downed smuggler raised his shield to block the killing blow of the bone thief, a figure spun in from the side. With a swift sweep of his sword, he dismembered the bone thief, cutting through its club arm with ease before slicing its legs off in the next move. In the next instant he turned, blocking the attack of a wretch with his small buckler shield before cutting the demon from shoulder to hip in a diagonal slash. He moved again, blocking another attack, giving his downed companion the time he needed to get back to his feet. Once the smuggler was up again, Stavros moved on to the next weak spot, his blade slicing at every opening the demons gave him, constantly trying to buy his murderous mercenaries more time.

At one moment, as Stavros spun and kicked a bone thief back and away, a clear view opened between him and the three of Jadis. She saw him pause for just the briefest of moments, his spinning frenzy stilled. She could not see his face; he was too far and his helmet covered too much. But she saw his shoulders square as his back straightened for just an instant. Then, he nodded once before tapping the tip of his curved scimitar to the brow of his helm in a salute. In the next instant, Stavros was back in the fight, struggling desperately against the overwhelming hoard of demons.

“Oh, fuck you if you think I’m going to give you some kind of noble death,” Jadis spat in unison. “We are not fucking done with you!”

With a tremendous roar, all three of Jadis activated Knight’s Daring Charge and rushed forward to kill the demons attacking the Roiling Reavers.