It was night once more by the time we reached the outskirts of Tradum.

  Val and I—and maybe even the horse—had all sensed that something was wrong. There was something intangible in the air, an atmosphere and ineffable quality that I can’t describe even now, all this time later. Was it the glum faces on those we passed by? Was it that we saw so many travelling the road away from Tradum, and so few heading there? Suffice to say only that when we arrived in the small city and saw it under military rule, we were not surprised.

  There were no high stone walls or guardhouses around the perimeter of this city. Tradum was too small to warrant such defences, and held little strategic value to the Goldmarch—there was no big agricultural industry around these parts as the soil wasn’t kind to crops, and it was still too far from the coast to support the empire’s new navy. Instead, the city of Tradum was guarded by an army of soldiers in their golden uniforms, so many here that they didn’t even need a wall to keep people out. Well, keep others out, at least; those of us with portal magicks could always find a way inside.

  Val and I doubled back, hitched our horse a half mile away, in the woods off the road, and crept back towards town by foot. We crouched down behind a large shrub, peeking over. Soldiers stood alert every dozen yards around the edges of the city, a pair of them each time—one facing out, one facing in. They weren’t talking to their colleagues, or distracted in any way; they were determined to do their jobs well. Just what had put the fear of the gods into them?

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘No good reason for them to be here, is there?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So they’re hiding something. They’re doing something in Tradum that they don’t want others to know about.’

  I nodded. ‘Otherwise they’d do it somewhere on the main traveller’s road. One thing I’m not sure about though: are these soldiers here on behalf of Amira, or the Council?’

  Val retreated from the top of the shrub; she’d seen all she needed. ‘You think Amira’s planning another invasion?’

  ‘The Sundorn?’ I asked. ‘Maybe. If she’s hungry enough for an empire, I wouldn’t rule it out. But Arzak’s informants seemed to think there was a Player here. That, to me, says this is a Council ploy.’

  My wife nodded. ‘Finding the others isn’t going to be easy.’

  ‘No. We’ve gotta put a locator stone on them or something. On Lore, at least, as he’s always wandering off anyway.’ I looked back over the shrub, getting a view of a portal-accessible rooftop. ‘They’ll be staying at one of the inns. How many can there be?’

  ‘A lot,’ came the reply.

  ‘Oh. Well, then, we best get started.’ I opened a portal at our feet, sending the pair of us soaring down onto the rooftop I’d spotted earlier.

  Val scoffed as she landed. ‘I thought you said you were gonna warn me when—’

  An almighty wail cut her off. A sound I’d heard before, but one that it took me a moment to place. Usually when I heard the screech of a banshee, it was my own doing, my own Shrill Perimeter ability going off, either intentionally or because danger was close. This time, I’d set no such spell.

  Waves of rippling purples magicks, flickering like a fire, rose from the perimeter of the city nearest to us. This was a version of my ability far more powerful, covering far greater an area… maybe even the entirety of the city itself. This meant that there was a Worldbender here with great power, and keeping in mind what Arzak’s informant had told us…

  ‘Player!’ Val shouted, taking the word right out of my mouth.

  I heard the charging guards before I saw them—those light armoured boots were helpful for withstanding damage, but they were clunky, too. Without waiting around for them to come upon us, I opened a portal at our side, practically throwing my pregnant wife through it. These portals brought us out on a not-too-distant rooftop; being able to open portals anywhere in sight was all well and good, but my aim was pretty shoddy after a certain distance, and I didn’t want us to accidentally fall to our deaths. Pretty sensible, if you ask me.

  Guards appeared on the original rooftop, pointing at us and shouting for their colleagues to close the gap. I wasn’t worried, because I had a portal, and—

  A portal opened on the rooftop next to us.

  ‘Ah, that’s right,’ I mumbled. ‘Player worldbender.’ Before anyone—or anything? No, just anyone—could emerge from the enemy portal, I opened a portal of my own in front of it. Anyone passing through the first portal would also pass through mine, but to them, there would be no difference. A dozen soldiers poured out of a portal high in the sky above Tradum instead of onto a rooftop, and that bought us a precious few seconds.

  The other pair of portals I used to step us down to street level, hoping that we would be able to blend in to the crowds. My hopes were dashed immediately; though the sun had only just set, the streets were deserted. The fist of the Golden Empire had squeezed all the life out of this city. People preferred—or were forced—to spend time after dark inside rather than out.

  I released Val’s hand, gesturing her away. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘Change your face. I’ll lead the soldiers away.’

  But my wife didn’t move a muscle. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t change form. It’d hurt the baby.’

  ‘You know, I’d really thought your changeling abilities would come in handy more often than they have.’

  ‘Well sorry if—’

  I cut Val off by beginning to run and dragging her along with me. ‘Not the time!’ I told her. It was nice to get the last word for once, even if it did come at a time when we were in very severe danger. We bolted down streets, taking abrupt corners and backing up whenever we ran into the soldiers of the Golden Empire. I felt increasingly cornered, that there was no way out for us, and I considered simply portalling us back to the rooftops and away from Tradum entirely—even though it meant abandoning the rest of the team. But I was distracted from such shameful thoughts when a man stepped out into the street ahead of us. One with aura powerful enough that I knew instinctively that this was the Player we suspected was in town.

  I stopped running, Val slamming into the back of me, and then cast a quick glance over my shoulder. There were soldiers there too, also slowing, allowing their boss to do as he pleased. I resisted the urge to glance towards the rooftops; they were our only way out, now. I knew that, and I suspected that the Player did too.

  ‘You with the Council?’ I shouted down the street, flanked by tall buildings and host to only me, Val, two dozen Goldmarch soldiers, and the worldbender.

  ‘Do you need to ask?’ the man replied. ‘I thought perhaps Cleo had dealt with you already. Alas, no.’ With the flick of his wrist, the Player opened four more portals against the buildings that loomed over us. More soldiers still poured forth.

  ‘And our friends?’

  The Player hesitated, but only for a moment. It was enough for me to see through him; he’d heard of us, he knew exactly who we were, but he didn’t know where Lore, Arzak and Corminar were. That was a relief. They’d escaped. Maybe they were far from Tradum, quicker than we were to realise that helping here was biting off more than we could chew.

  And then I reconsidered. Who among Lore, Arzak and Corminar would realise that? Lore would be oblivious. Corminar had never once expressed doubt in his ability to do anything. And Arzak? She wouldn’t be able to turn her back on people in need. No, they were here. Somewhere.

  ‘Do you expect me to be honest with the Slayers?’ the Player asked. ‘The greatest thorn in the Council’s side?’

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ I said, my vision flicking to the slowly encroaching soldiers. They crept forward gradually, as though Val and I might not notice. ‘You gonna introduce yourself?’

  The man raised an eyebrow. ‘I am Arit of the Council. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of me?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ I replied.

  ‘Yeah, me neither,’ Val added. She was on the same page as me, then; whatever we could do to distract the Player could be the difference between life and death, between the Player using his Worldbending abilities to trap us and accidentally letting us slip away. As with all Players, their pride was their greatest strength… and their greatest weakness.

  ‘Eli, you said?’ I asked. ‘No, I don’t think I know that name.’

  ‘Arit,’ the worldbender Player spat back at me.

  ‘Arit, right. No, still don’t think… don’t think you’ve come up at all.’ I glanced over at the nearest batch of soldiers. They were close now. Too close. It was now or never. Though Val had kept herself composed, giving off no air of anxiety, I knew that she, too, was searching desperately for a way out.

  The moment came when the soldiers finally pounced. Within half a second, Val struck left with her lifedrain magicks, the green lightning effect crackling through them, while I swung one arm around, peppering the enemies on the right with needle darts. Neither attack was enough to kill, but both were enough to stun—and I’d also opened a portal beneath our feet.

  Val and I fell through it, into the sky high above Tradum. I was about to open another portal to get us away from the enemies, when suddenly a purple ring appeared around us. We fell through it, landing hard on the cobbled streets at Arit’s feet.

  I flung my hands forward and opened two portals behind Arit, in the foundation of the building that loomed over him. The foundations of the house began to disintegrate immediately, and I didn’t waste time hanging around to see what would happen. At the slate roof tiles began to fall on the Player, I grabbed Val by the arm and opened another portal beneath us. In the sky once more, I quickly located a safe spot below—anywhere would do, as long as there were no soldiers nearby—and opened another portal to spill us out there.

  I tumbled across the cobbled street, clutching Val and protecting her from the pain of the impact. The moment we came to a stop, I wrenched her back to her feet, but she was well on her way to being upright anyway.

  I took her by the hand, and bolted. We ran down the winding, narrow streets of Tradum, blinking in and out of sight of the enemy as we charged through portals. The soldiers had eyes on us, at least most of the time, but it seemed that the Player was happy to let Amira’s golden army do the hard work, as they were nowhere in sight. We continued on down desolate streets, passed huge warehouse buildings and houses with no signs of life.

  I kept myself oriented by glancing at the stars above, making sure we weren’t going around in circles. If we head in a straight line, then sooner or later we would break out of the city, and—hopefully—escape the grasp of this Player worldbender. It was a simple plan, and one that surely was going to work.

  Except, of course, we got sidetracked.

  As we turned a corner, a sewer plate slide from the street, and a hand reached out to grab my ankle as I sprinted past. I slammed to the stones before I knew what had hit me, and had just enough presence of mind to start kicking wildly as I got dragged into the sewers.

  An enormous hand slammed over my mouth, and Lore’s face smiled back at me.

  ‘It’s us!’ he announced.

  Val slipped inside, the dark, dingy and incredibly smelly sewer as Arzak and Corminar slid the cover back in place. We stood still for a moment in the near pitch black, lit only by the small glowing orb hovering over a stranger’s finger, and waited for signs that the soldiers had seen us slip inside.

  Footsteps grew louder, and then softer. Our pursuers passed the sewer plate.

  ‘You’re alive,’ Val said.

  ‘Surprised?’ Corminar replied. ‘Because that would be rather rude.’

  I opened my mouth to say something, and then was so overwhelmed by the stench of… you know, sewer stuff… to actually speak. But even foul smells couldn’t shut Val’s trap.

  ‘What happened? Where’ve you been?’ Val looked at the stranger with the orb—one of two. ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘There lot to expl—’ Arzak started.

  Lore blurted out, ‘We found em.’

  ‘Found who? The Council? We know where they are.’ Val glanced at me, and with glance alone managed to communicate the question “are the fumes going to his head?”

  But Lore looked glum. ‘No. The missing malae. They’re here. They’re Tana’s witchcraft—what she wants to use to create the new world.’

  I nodded, making eye contact with Val again, across the cool, dark sewer, trying to ignore the trickle flowing over my boots. ‘OK. OK, that’s OK. We knew they’d be used for something, and we can—’

  ‘That is not all,’ my elven friend interrupted. He looked to Lore. ‘We have to tell them about Alenna.’

  ‘She—’ the big man started.

  ‘Alenna sought to save us all with her experiments, yes,’ Corminar said. ‘But she may, in the end, have doomed us all.’ The elf looked to Val and I in turn. ‘The Council have replicated her creation. They know how to use the malae to create soldiers.’

  ‘They’re creating an army?’ I asked. ‘They’re corrupting people? How many?’

  Nobody spoke, nobody able to put the answer into words.

  ‘How many, guys?’ Val asked, voice strained.

  Arzak met her gaze. ‘Half of Tradum,’ she said.