We linger by the gate, the stone archway yawning like the throat of an ancient beast, reluctant to let us escape. Beyond it, the world waits in uncertainty. There could be another ambush out there, waiting for us. The man who was left behind had time enough to set something up. But we can't wait much longer. In the distance, the dungeon instance we are in is starting to unravel.

At least it isn't unbearably hot anymore. The lava river has solidified into almost pitch black basalt, trapping the monstrous fish inside. It's quiet, if you can tune out the distant rumble of the collapsing caves.

I catch Enea casting a wary glance over her shoulder. Our eyes meet. She gives me a sheepish smile. Then she turns forward again, fidgeting with the string of her bow as if it were a musical instrument.

"Are you ready?" asks Han Ke. We nod at him. "Then let's go. No point in lingering any longer. Remember to exit in formation and be prepared to react to whatever we may find out there."

I take a deep breath, feeling the reassuring presence of Kylo, hidden in the hood of my cloak. I take a step toward the swirling curtain of unreality where space warps under the stone arch, feeling my muscles tense with each step. I take another step, spear in hand. Han Ke disappears in a flicker as if swallowed by a quiet lake, followed closely by Kenae. It's my turn. I take another hasty breath, readying myself mentally. I feel my heart beating wildly in my chest.

I'm ready for everything. Ready to fight. Ready to bolt. An ugly thought crosses my mind. What if we wait? If whoever sent those guys after us is after Han Ke, maybe they would forget about us if we didn't see them taking him. There is still some time before the dungeon completely unravels. Maybe half a bell. We could wait the fight out, and exit afterwards.

I glance at Enea. I would have to convince the girl. But how? She is too innocent. And if we exit and nothing has happened, it would be awkward to explain ourselves to Kenae and Han Ke.

No. I need to follow through with the plan.

Before I can hesitate again, I step into the portal.

After a brief instant of nauseating disorientation that feels as if someone had punched me in the stomach, the portal spits me out onto the grass.

I take a step to the side to evade whatever may be coming my way. Nothing. I try to orient myself, to fall into formation, spear in hand. Where are Han Ke and Kenae? Where are our foes?

But there are no clashing swords anywhere, no grunts, no mad dashes. There is only the chirping of the crickets and the smell of smoke.

Someone appears at my back. I flinch, whirling around, but it's only Enea. She yelps at me in surprise as the point of my spear stops a finger's width from her throat. I give her an apologetic smile.

"Huh? Seems we got here too late. The party is already over," jokes Han Ke. Pointing at something on the ground a few steps away from the path leading to the dungeon entrance.

"What's that?"

We advance in formation, arms ready. The bright moonlight guides our steps. It's night. We must have lost track of time. Or maybe time advances differently inside a dungeon.

"Bodies," mutters Kenae. "Corpses."

She is right. I start to count. One, two, three…, seven, eight. Eight bloodstained dead people are lying around in the dirt. A shiver travels down my spine. What happened here?

Han Ke kneels next to one, touching its cheek with the back of his hand. "Already cold. Whatever happened here isn't recent; some time must have passed."

Not too much, though, they haven't started to bloat yet. There haven't been any scavengers around either. All of the bodies are intact. Slashed up, pierced, and beaten, but intact. Well, there could be a few fingers missing, I'm not sure. It's hard to judge when one hand is just a pulp of flesh and bones.

Han Ke rummages through the dead man's pocket. He holds something he finds against the moonlight to inspect it, then stores it without a word.

Rude! He could at least explain what is happening. Maybe it's his noble upbringing in a top clan that makes him believe himself to be above the necessity to explain his actions to a bunch of commoner girls. I'm starting to like the boy less and less.

What is he even doing with us? He must have had other dungeon delving parties to choose from. Maybe it is because of Kenae, because they are dating or something. Whatever.

I take a closer look at the corpses. Five wear flowing martial robes ripped to pieces, but you can still make out that the style is similar to the cultivators in the city. Nothing particular to identify them with, except maybe whatever it was that Han Ke took. It's probably another group of mercenaries, hired as a backup to wipe us out if their plan inside the dungeon failed. But they seem to have gotten ambushed themselves.

So, who are those other three dressed in those shabby clothes? They look as if they got sewn together out of old potato sacks. Layers of entrenched dust seem to flake off the fabric.

Who could they be? Bandits? Some of those rebels allied with The Crow that everybody talked about not that long ago?

They can't be. Their skin is too pale. It's paler than that of those noble girls who use umbrellas to shelter their skin in the shadows, horrified that a sunray may touch them. But they can't be, dressed like that.

Still, their skill is so pale that it's almost translucent. You can make out the veins beneath.

"Huh? Those are Blumen," observes Enea, sounding confused. "How did they get here?"

"Disgusting vermin!" Kenae flips one of them over, using her sword as leverage, not to touch the body as if it had the plague. "I can't believe they let them get so close to the city."

"They shouldn't. Normally, they are too cowardly to wander far from their burrows. But with the succession war going on, nobody cares about clearing them out." He sighs. "They have gotten brazen, to brazen if you ask me."

Well, I'm grateful that they did our job for us. I have already had too much fighting in the past days. More fighting? No, thank you!

Blumen must be strong to take out those mercenaries with barely any casualties. Or maybe there were a lot of them, and they used numbers to overwhelm those guys. It's hard to judge in the penumbra of the moonlight.

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Where did they come from? The grass is all trampled around here. There seem to be two trails leading away, one toward the road, the other toward a patch of forest.

A cloud wanders past the moon, making further inspection even harder.

"Fake humans," comments Kylo into my mind, sniffing the air. "Smell like fake humans in sewers-cave."

"Are you sure?" I whisper, tilting my head. "Don't tell anyone else about the sewers-cave. It could be useful."

"Okay. Kylo keep secret. Kylo keep secretest secret. Kylo bestest secret-keeper."

"Great!" I mutter, stroking his fur absentmindedly.

"Do you guys think there could be more of them out there?" asks Enea, shoulders hunched, fists balled over her bow.

"Don't worry," says Han Ke. "If there are, they must be wounded from the clash and wary about initiating another fight. Blumen are cowards. They only attack if they are sure they will win. And here they bolted without even taking their death with them," he reassures the girl, patting her on the shoulder. "They must be long gone, hiding in some hole, terrified somebody may follow them. But that is a job for the city watch, not for us. We only need to get back to the academy." He looks up, squinting his eyes as if it would help him to see further into the darkness. "And in any case, once we get to the road, we are safe. As close to the city as we are, there are patrols."

"I see," mutters the girl, not sounding very convinced.

I somehow have the feeling that it's not the first time that she has had an encounter with these underground dwellers.

"Let's not linger any longer and get back to the city. I can't wait to take a hot bath to wash all the grime away," implores Han Ke.

"Sure."

We follow close behind the boy, formation broken but still a bit wary, ready to react in a heartbeat. The grassland stretches out like a silver sea beneath the moon, and every blade of grass glints with cold fire. Shadows dance around us whenever another cloud passes, making some of us flinch. Each step sinks softly into the dust, stirring up the faint scent of dry earth, baked and cracked by the unrelenting sun, releasing the day's heat back into the chilly night.

The air is vast and thin, carrying the distant cackle of hyenas and the rustle of something unseen stalking between tree shadows. But Kylo remains calm, so I feel at peace too. I've learned to trust his nose.

There is a strange smell, though, faint but lingering, drifting in from a distance. Smoke.

I frown.

"Do you smell that?" I ask.

"What?" asks Han Ke.

"It smells like fire," comments Enea.

"Fire? Huh? Where?" asks Kenae.

"I don't know. Somewhere up ahead," I explain. "Should we check it out?"

"Let's not get involved in matters that don't concern us and head back," implores Han Ke. "Who knows what it is about?"

"Okay!" agrees Kenae all too readily. Enea remains silent, casting wary glances into the darkness.

"Emm. I think we will pass it anyway," I say.

"What do you mean?" Han Ke whirls around a bit too fast. So, he is more nervous than he wants us to believe.

"It's coming from the direction of the city."

"Oh!" Somehow, the comment seems to have dispelled his worries. "It must be a caravan camped close to the gate. Merchants can't enter at night because there is no one to inspect their wares around."

"Oh."

It does make sense. Or maybe not. Many people own spatial storage devices. Those rarely get inspected. Most higher-ranked cultivators have one. How do you know if someone is a merchant or not?

I wonder why some merchants still use wagons and caravans. It could be because most spatial devices I have heard about have a limited capacity in how much they can carry. And you have to be able to live comfortably on the road, too. Whatever. Who cares?

We finally reach the road and start advancing toward the city at a brisk pace.

The smell of smoke grows in intensity.

A shadow rushes over the road. It stretches like a ragged ghost prowling over the dirt. It stops and turns. A set of glowing eyes glares at us. Kenae almost stumbles into the frozen Han Ke, who has stopped in front of her.

"What is the matter?" asks Enea.

As if summoned by some unholy instinct, the shadow erupts into laughter. A high-pitched, guttural, and endless cackle echoes through the night like a chorus of madness. Then another cackle answers from up ahead, and another. They bounce over the plains and between trees, weaving together in a chaotic symphony that makes the wind shiver. A shadow peels away from a towering boulder in the distance, followed by two, three, six more. They rush over in a blur, hard to make out in the darkness.

They come to a stop next to the first predator, the hyena, a pack of hyenas. They are dark, too dark to be more than a silhouette when they aren't moving. Only their glimmering eyes betray their presence, sharp and hungry, reflecting the moonlight like shards of broken glass. Their voices stitch the stillness of the night into something uneasy, something alive with predatory amusement, like a group of bullies in some alley looking for entertainment.

I clutch my spear close and shift into formation, onto the flank, like we did inside the dungeon.

The lead hyena tilts her head, without ever stopping to stare at us. We stand there, humans in front of beasts, wary of making the first move. Then Han Ke smashes his sword against his shield.

Clank!

It sounds like a bell, ringing through the night. The hyenas flinch back. Before any of us can react, they have disappeared into the night as if blown away by the wind, as if the whole encounter was just an illusion.

"Why did you do that?" scolds Kenae. "Who knows where the heck they went now?"

"What?" Han Ke gives her a bewildered look. "I heard hyenas are easy to scare. I just wanted to intimidate them."

"Yeah, but those were shadow hyenas. How are we supposed to know if they really left or not?"

Han Ke scratches the back of his neck. "Err. I hadn't thought about that."

Kylo peeks over my shoulder, seeming interested in the exchange.

"Funny not-cat run away. Want Kylo follow? Want Kylo hunt funny not-cat?"

"What? No, no!" I catch him by the scruff of his neck before he can jump after their trail. "If they left it's okay. We don't know what else could be out there."

Kylo glares at me for an instant, then shrugs. "Then Kylo sleep," he declares, before climbing back into the hood of my cloak.

We continue onward down the road, only to discover that the boulder those hyenas were lingering around isn't a boulder at all but an overturned carriage.

It lies on its side in the middle of the road, wheels spinning faintly in the chill of the night. Moonlight glints off broken glass and scattered belongings, casting long, fractured shadows that seem to twitch with their own life.

There aren't any horses, only deep hoofprints in the dirt. The air smells of wet earth and leather, and smoke. The smell of smoke has gotten even more intense.

"What has happened here?" asks Enea.

"I don't know," answers Han Ke, shrugging. He pokes at the carriage's bottom with the point of his sword. "Somebody there?"

Nobody answers. Silence presses against the wreck, heavy and expectant, broken only by the rustle of fabric and the distant cackles carried by the wind.

"It's from the Feng clan," observes Kenae, pointing at a crest on the broken and splintered wood of the door. "Could they have left?"

"Probably," says Han Ke. "Nobody would stay out here in the middle of the night, this close to the city."

We step around the carriage only to freeze in place. There are five more abandoned wagons of a simpler style than the fancy carriage left in the middle of the road. Most of them seem more or less intact, if you ignore the slit tarp, but one of them has gotten burned almost completely. It smolders in the darkness, its charred frame glowing faintly in the moonlight like the skeleton of a fallen beast. Blackened wood cracks and hisses as embers cling to the splintered beams, sending up ghostly wisps of smoke that curl and vanish into the night.

The wheels are broken, jutted at impossible angles. The scent of smoke is even stronger here, heavy and acrid, almost entrancing as if trying to suck you in, to take in the aftermath of violence.

There is still nobody in sight. No man, no animal. It's as if they had vanished.

"They must have gone to the city, right?" asks Enea.

"Probably," says Han Ke, ignoring the fact that apart from the carriage and the burnt-down husk, the rest of the wagons still seem functional. "We should head there, too. Let the city watch figure out what happened here."

We follow him in silence. Soon we arrive at the gates.

Han Ke frowns, staring at a guard reclined against the wall, seemingly asleep.

"You!" he yells.

The man flinches, yelps, then rushes to his feet. "What?" He seems to recognize Han Ke because his eyes widen in fear. "How can I help you, young master?"

"The Feng caravan. What happened to them?"

"The what?" The man blinks, then rubs his eyes.

"The Feng caravan, have they explained what happened to them out there?"

"Emm, young master, I'm sorry not to be able to answer that. The Fengs haven't visited our magnificent city in almost a month, as far as I know."

Han Ke frowns. Then steps into the city without another word, suddenly seeming in a hurry.

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