Stabbing forwards with the spear as warning, I fell back a yard and kept stepping backwards.

  “Stop!” I yelled. With the scant moment, I put my finger to the Analysis Card. Only had time to glimpse the profile boxes of my attacker and one other.

  Only furious eyes met me, and Akishen encroached, her movement lightning. Whipping the Bronze Dagger about with trained fingers, the jungle-folk bandit closed the distance again with a single push, ducking low beneath the spear. At a guess, I’d say she had activated [Vigour] to move so quickly, or utilised that [Quick Press] Special — again I felt neurons firing in my improved Mind; the information came to me more easily.

  But knowledge wasn’t enough right now! Right at my chest, her dagger lashed out. I gritted my teeth and pumped my own [Vigour] through my body. I felt the difficulty to reach the stream of my inner power grow; the small respite since the Stranglethorn was not enough.

  Wrenching my spear down, the haft thudded against her unarmoured clavicle, leaving a welt. She buckled under the weight, her knees shook, and her confident stab instead turned into a wild slash.

  My Linothorax took the brunt, but I felt a thin, hot cut in my side as the material frayed. With the Skill, and both hands on the spear, I bashed the thick haft of the spear into her chest, throwing her a few feet backwards.

  She landed light in the muck, her bare, long feet quickly finding purchase, as another combatant, the much less trained Grakha, leapt forwards.

  With the moment I managed to snap my spear back out and kept her at bay, and I called out again:

  “Akishen! Grakha! Stop!”

  They did so, bodies still twitching. Behind me, an attacker instantly stopped moving towards Lenya, and Alator ceased his advance towards a line of thick bushes, where he must have guessed the slingers were hidden.

  “How do —” Akishen said, her voice tinged sharp but faltering. “Warden dog, wukka, how do you know our names?”

  “Just stop! We’re here to talk,” I barked. I took my spear in one fist close to me, and raised my other hand.

  Akishen’s eyes narrowed, long canines bared. She was tall for a jungle-folk, over four feet — especially tall as the women were much smaller than the men. Her hair crowned her face bright orange and the rest of her fur was a dull brown and grew tight to her form. Her slim, straght nose was a startling pinkish red like a mandrill’s and there were thin blue lines, very slightly indented, running from her eyes down to her lips, which moved with her cheeks as she spoke.

  “So speak,” she said. Her dagger still glinted at the ready, but her mesmerising face calmed.

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  I breathed out and looked around. All of their pieced-together armour was adorned in a similar way to the bandit we encountered on the road before we arrived in Ith-Korr, the Enforcer Keth, with beast teeth and small talismans or other bone trinkets. Akishen, on the other hand, wore an impressive set of very fine bronze scales, all designed with motifs of Ith-Korr.

  Was she also in the Wardship before she defected? I asked myself.

  “We are here to speak with General Skelth. Tilke and Keth have told us something which is very concerning for all Ith-Korr, and Wardship Captain Paresh wishes to put aside conflict to focus on the bigger picture.”

  As I rattled off all the names, I saw recognition for each one in Akishen’s bright orange eyes, and slow thoughtfulness turned behind them. At length, she straightened her back and put her dagger back into a leather sheath on her belt. Next to it, there was an ornate scabbard, empty. She put a hand to her shoulder and winced at the pain.

  There was a discontented grumble about the bandits around her, but they all eventually sheathed their weapons as well. Three slingers, all jungle-folk and dressed the same way, stepped from the darkness.

  “We’ll let the general decide. Follow me,” she said, and turned, her short, stumpy, pink-furred tail flicking behind her. I shared a glance with Alator and Lenya, then followed. Grakha and the rest of the bandits flanked us and took up the rear. I felt their gazes trained on us, and their fingers continued to twitch about their weapons.

  We were led further into the jungle valley, the strange silence continuing, along a peculiar zig-zag path, avoiding known pitfalls or deeper marsh puddles. My nose still ached from the impact against the Stranglethorn, sharp pain shot through whenever I breathed through it, so my mouth lolled open and I swallowed the steam and fragrance of the jungle.

  After fifteen minutes or so, we pushed through tangled masses of briar and Akishen lifted a woven wall of pale green glowing vines and disappeared underneath. She called back:

  “Come.”

  I stepped forwards and lifted the vines, and held them up as Lenya and Alator passed underneath, then followed. We stepped into a clearing of low-cut stumps. There were organic lean-to shelters and bothies of living wood clustered around large pits with the remains of camp fires. The skulls of beasts, familiar and alien to me, adorned the perimeter of the camp and each of the shelters as grim trophies.

  As we walked, she asked us our names.

  “Alator of the Solar Wheel.”

  “Lenya of the Hoary Gold.”

  “Talbot,” I shrugged.

  Akishen led us through the centre and towards a narrow ditch flanked with sharpened stakes. Watchful eyes followed us, and curious whispers picked up everywhere in Vyneshi, the jungle-folk language. The bandits who had followed us dispersed amongst the rest and spread the word.

  The winding trail descended into a deep hollow, packed earth and tangled roots for walls, where a towering wooden platform loomed, draped in crimson banners. It was four yards on criss-crossed wooden stakes, and the walls of the ditch rose another two or so yards above it. A figure, silhouetted by the sun, sat atop the structure, perfectly still. He was cross-legged but appeared like a king upon a throne. The floor was damp soil, tamped flat, save for light footprints and strange divots that looked like someone had pushed a stick into the ground.

  Squinting upwards, I saw a pair of piercing bright orange eyes, almost radiant, open as we approached. Akishen dropped to one knee, and addressed the figure sitting atop the platform. She spoke in Vyneshi, but I heard our names as she introduced us, then Paresh’s name as she explained why we had come.

  Then she stood, gave us a wary eye, and retreated away from the hollow to stand maybe ten yards back in the dark, damp earth.

  Not worried about Skelth’s safety, it seems, I thought, my gaze still fixed on the figure above. Or else inexperienced and woefully underestimating us. Analysis.

  2 Strength and 3 Dex? . . . This man was a general in the army — he is either shockingly old, or massively weakened. Degenerating from the Secret? His other Stats aren’t anything too impressive. . . . Or maybe I’ve been thrown off by Alator. Level 6 [Battle Tactics]! I didn’t get anything new from levelling [Vigour] to 3, so I’m guessing you get a new active effect at each even level, at the most. I wonder what he’s capable of. . . .

  Still silhouetted, with only his orange eyes visible within a halo of shadowed fur, he spoke the common tongue in a low growl — he had a thick accent but enunciated every word.

  “Talbot, Lenya and Alator. Sent by Paresh, Wardship Captain of Ith-Korr. I am General Skelth, and you have been brought to my headquarters, where the last true loyalists of Ith-Korr reside.”

  I gulped. The deep voice was not entirely unwelcoming, but was commanding, and every word seemed a considered matter of fact. A zealot, I thought.

  “We are grateful for your time, General,” Lenya said after a moment’s silence — and down where we were, in the ditch in the camp in the valley, it was complete silence. She took a step forwards and lowered herself to both knees, straight-backed, placing her staff before her and both hands crossed over her heart. There was a preternatural elven grace in the way she held herself; it was as if addressing royalty was a practised act. “We have come to extend the hand of peace. The Hanging City of Ith-Korr has withstood a tragedy, and all its people are called in this time of great misfortune to come home.”

  Her plea was emphatic, heartfelt, but there was no stirring atop the throne. Kelth still sat, the suns over his shoulder, shadowed between the high earthen walls. I felt the pressure of hovering my cursor over an imaginary Persuasion Check : 50% Chance of Success button. . . . Let’s put all our cards on the table.

  “Ward Captain Paresh told us that you have taken four wardens into your custody,” I said. “He seeks their safe return.”

  “They are prisoners of war — hostages in our civil conflict,” came the voice from above. A cloud, or perhaps a plume of smoke, blew softly over the suns and the light was diffused around him. I finally saw his features; very similar brown-orange fur as Akishen, his lieutenant who still stood behind us, quietly watching. He had also the same thin, reddish nose and blue lines, though his were like deep ridged wrinkles running down from his eyes, bent outwards to his upper lip. In fact his whole face was a mess of tired mess of wrinkles and old scars. Skelth even had the same orange eyes as Akishen, but his were weathered and dull, though fierce. To me, they could have been father and daughter. Her Weakness was referring to General Skelth, I realised.

  “That war has become one-sided since Ith-Korr was decimated by the World-Eater,” Alator said. He stood proud beside me, arms crossed, barking up at the figure beneath a furrowed brow, leaning slightly backwards but not deigning to raise his head.

  “Then the war is ours to win,” a short, flat pink tongue licked over his lips.

  Persuasion Check : Failed.