Melandra rolled the soldier’s corpse with her boot. She scrunched her brow as she stared at the body’s unmarked back and shook her head.

“Nothing,” Mela said.

“Fine. Check that one,” said Aszana as she shielded her kohl-lined eyes from the midday sun and pointed to another corpse.

Following the sorceress’s tattooed finger, Mela found clean footing between dead soldiers and emphatically pointed at a young man’s corpse with half a head. 

“This one?” Mela asked. She slapped at her neck and flicked away a burst insect. “These flies bite. You know that, right?”

Batting away more fat, black flies that buzzed from body to body, Mela turned away and drew in a breath of slightly less putrid air.

“No, no, the Saffasian officer beneath him.”

Holding her breath, Mela knelt to the bloody grass and pushed the young levy aside. The officer looked the sort with his high-born jaw, his widow’s peak and black hair, the sturdy armor with the flame insignia of Saffa. Despite every fortune, the very dead man had been run through from the front.

“He was not betrayed,” Mela said.

“How can you be sure?”

The sorceress’s voice hissed across the distance. It came as a grating thing chaffing at raw nerves. The search would go faster if she would sully her pretty hands and white blouse. But Mela said nothing. She did not need another fight today.

“The manner of cut tells me so. As does the blood on his uniform.”

“You are the killer. You would know.”

“Yes, I would.”

Mela left the officer to his death and kept moving. Floring Hill loomed to her left, and avian scavengers picked at the dead. Hours earlier, the army from Saffa and the warriors from Mors Caden had been alive. The hill might have been pretty with summer blooms. But no longer.

The wind came up. It carried the smell of rain from the south where clouds gathered over the pines of Mors Caden. Mela guessed she would be soaked and miserable by day’s end.

“I had assumed soldiers betrayed one another in battle,” the sorceress said. She flicked her hand, and corpses tumbled aside as invisible hands cleared a path toward the hill. “Was I wrong?”

Leaving the thought of rain for later, Mela followed. Ahead, she only saw death. So many bodies. Judging by the colors, the Saffasian army had held the hill, the warriors from Mors Caden had tried to take it, and both sides paid dearly. Soldiering is such a waste, Mela thought. Better to be a mercenary. At least she would make a fortune risking her life.

“Soldiers wouldn’t betray their own ranks,” Mela said. She ran her hand along the shaven side of her head. An idea came to mind, and she thought aloud. “But levies might. They would be commanded by an officer. And when they were ordered into a suicidal charge, they woul-”

“There.”

Aszana pointed at the base of Floring Hill. Four levies and one officer laid in the trampled grass. 

“I’ll look,” Mela said. “You watch for scavengers. And this time, say something if they’re coming.”

The sorceress waved her hand and turned toward the southern storms. 

“Yes, yes. Hurry, Mela. Rain’s coming.”

Grumbling, Mela picked her way across the battlefield. Every time, she promised herself she would not accept another contract from Aszana. Every. Time. And then those doe eyes dampened. She’d drag a tattooed finger along Mela’s jaw. Whisper an invitation. Better if the sorceress had cast a spell. Instead, Mela had to blame herself and her needy loins for walking through viscera and searching corpses for spell components.

The Saffasian levies had been peppered with arrows. One had a sword jutting from his belly. And they had died going up their own hill. Using the war hammer at her hip, Mela moved a levy and rolled the officer onto his back. He had a knife between the fourth and fifth ribs, left side. Killing thrust. Saffasian knife, too. It sure looked like betrayal.

Drawing her knife from its thigh sheath, Mela cut off the officer’s shirt. It had silver thread and cobalt dye. Gold buttons. The buffoon had spent his money on the shirt rather than functional armor. No wonder Saffa has lost its standing on the continent. Its noble sons were idiots.

“Here,” Mela said, holding the shirt aloft. “Clothing of someone murdered by betrayal.”

“Good,” Aszana said as she flashed a dazzling smile. “I think we will find the last component on the hilltop.”

Mela put her hammer away and waited for Aszana to take the bloody shirt. The sorceress didn’t pay any heed to the blood. Rather, she stuffed the shirt into a tiny pouch where it disappeared into darkness. Afterward, she wrinkled her nose at the blood on her fingers. Speaking in the sibilant language of magic, Aszana brushed her hands together and the blood flaked off like so much caked mud. 

“You know there will be scavengers up there, right?” Mela asked, her gaze dropping to her blood-soaked hands and the bits of stubborn ichor.

Aszana set her clean hand on Mela’s arm. Squeezed. Opened wide those damned doe eyes.

“That’s why you’re here, love.”

Mela loosened the bastard sword across her back. Yeah, she knew why she was here. Stupid loins. By the five gods, she needed a bath. Her chain shirt smelled of steel and sweat. She could only imagine how she looked with half her head shaven and the other half feeling like she’d had a night’s roll in a brothel. And now her clothes reeked of blood. 

“That’s why I’m here,” Mela said. 

#

The wind bit harder at the rise. Banners snapped and waved from their bent and broken hafts. The gold-and-blue Saffasian flag held on by one eyelet. Ravens and crows hopped from corpse to corpse, perching on bloodied steel as they pecked and cawed.

“All this for a hill,” Mela said. She counted several dozens of bodies. Maybe a hundred. Where the fighting at the base of the hill had left people stabbed or trampled, these bodies were in pieces. 

“Vela would have been up here,” Aszana said. She waved her hand at the scorch marks and ragged furrows on the bodies and ground. “This is her handiwork.”

Velanya of Briscroft. The witch of Cadiff Reach. Mela sighed. If the gods were fair, Vela’s corpse would be here. Alas . . .

“What’s the last thing we need for Xandra’s cure?” Mela asked.

Aszana took out her leather-bound journal and began to read.

“Tonic to lift a curse. In a cauldron of boiled water, add twelve rose petals. A vial of morning dew. One fly fat with a belly full of death. Green moss from a sapling. One garment from a betrayed man. The marrow of a magic-slain body. Stir and boil until black. Drain. Serve at room temperature.” At that, the sorceress returned the journal to her bag and pushed her long, red hair to the side. “Look for a corpse with a black mark and a web of bruises around it.”

Casting her gaze upon the hundreds of bodies, Mela asked, “What do I do when I find it?”

“Tell me so I can pry out a bone. We need the marrow.”

Shrugging, Mela knelt and tore at the nearest corpse’s clothes. 

“By the Five! You mercenaries are thick-headed,” Aszana said as she pulled a glass orb with glowing prismatic runes from her bag. “The spell had to target exposed flesh, so stop undressing that dead man and start looking at hands and faces.”

“Will you be joining me?” Mela asked as she moved among the bodies.

“I’ll focus on the magic,” Aszana said without looking up from the orb. She tapped a series of runes and the orb filled with flame, which the sorceress gathered into her hand and kept there as a fiery tattoo. “You focus on the dead.”

Working in a grid, Mela kicked dirt onto each body she inspected so she didn’t waste time on the same corpses. There were so many marks to decipher. Green splotches. Burns. Yellow smears. Rainbow bruises. But no black marks. No web of bruises.

There were opened bellies and exposed bones. Steel pinned the dead in place. Birds had eaten eyes and noses. Still no black marks.

“Melandra?”

Glancing at Aszana, Mela realized she had crossed the rise and started down the far side.

“Mind coming over here?” Worry edged into the sorceress’s voice. 

Mela broke into a jog. She saw flames gather in Aszana’s palms, and she drew her arming sword, slowed to a guarded sidestep, and eyed the horizon.

“There’s something in the ground,” Aszana whispered.

Mela watched the grass. Her eyes unfocused to better see movement. A heartbeat later, she saw a corpse jostle as though a dog chewed on it. The ground bulged around the body. Black spines poked through the battle-churned soil.

“Burrowers,” Mela hissed.

“Ghouls? Already?” Aszana asked as flames wreathed her fingers and a hot wind gathered around her.

Mela shook her head and said, “Vela would have summoned them.”

“Your sister has a way of bringing ruin,” Aszana said. She gestured at the corpse being eaten from below and asked, “Fire will work on her conjurations, yes?”

“Eh,” Mela said. She carefully stepped forward. “Probably not. Vela isn’t one for common fare. Best to beware their poisoned spines, don’t let them bite you, and by the gods, don’t run away. Steel and lightning should do just fine.”

Mela eased her war hammer from her hip and dropped both it and her satchel to the ground. She pushed her hair behind her ear and stared at the jostled corpse.

“I’ll draw it out. You stun it, and I’ll kill it,” Mela said as she hefted her sword and started forward, stomping with her front foot.

“To your left,” Aszana shouted.

More spines poked through. Black claws followed. That badger-like head erupted from the soil and sniffed. Damn things couldn’t see well, but they smelled everything. It made a sound between a whine and a growl, and then it came all the way out. Fully exposed, it had the size of a mastiff. 

Mela knew she could do this. She’d fought burrowers before. She had the scars to prove it.

The creature stalked forward on its claws. Its spines stood upright, and its head snapped toward Mela.

“Lightning. Now.”

A heartbeat later, thunder shook the hilltop as a bolt of lightning arced over Mela’s shoulder and struck the burrower. Sprinting forward, Mela brought her sword up, took it in both hands, and slashed across the dazed ghoul’s neck. Black blood spattered onto the grass, and the stench of a charnel pit filled the air.

More burrowers came to the surface. They gathered into a pack of three and began to chitter and bark. Not good. Ghouls weren’t smart, but they were dangerous.

“Keep casting!”

Thunder clapped, and one of the ghouls collapsed under a torrent of lightning. The other two split up and circled the mercenary. Too late, Mela realized they were avoiding her and going toward Aszana. 

Dashing to the stunned ghoul, Mela lifted a broken spear from the ground and jabbed it through the creature and into the soil. She shook the haft until that beast shrieked and gave a wavering call. The stalking ghouls stopped. Turned.

“That’s it. Come to me,” Mela said. 

Come they did. Loping, the monsters closed the gap in seconds.

Mela plunged her sword through the pinned ghoul’s head. She jerked the blade free and spun away as black claws raked the air. She hopped backward as the other ghoul tried to bite her thigh. Aiming a kick at the beast’s jaw, her toes broke against that dense bone. But she followed up with a cross-slash to the shoulder all the same, and the ghoul yelped and withdrew.

Aszana shouted something, and the ground beneath the remaining ghoul churned like boiling water. The creature barely whined before it sank beneath the surface. Mela heard the grinding of bones, and she turned her attention toward the ghoul she’d cut.

It growled and clawed at the ground, but it did not charge. Mela roared and waved her sword, and the beast fled the hilltop.

“Are there more?” the sorceress asked.

Mela studied the ground. Listened. Watched the bodies. 

“No.”

“Good. Now hurry. We need to find the last component before something worse shows up.”

“Ghouls probably ate the marked flesh,” Mela said. “They go for rotted meat first.”

Aszana cursed and took out her journal again.

Mela retrieved her items. She poured oil onto her foul-smelling blade and held it out for Aszana’s fire. As the blade ignited and burned away the tainted blood, she studied the nearby corpses. Thunder roared to the south where a sheet of rain fell over the pines of Mors Caden. 

Something silver caught Mela’s eye. She swished her flaming sword to fan the fire as she knelt beside a soldier’s corpse and pried its fingers loose. A silver locket with a broken chain nestled in his filthy palm.

Mela stuck her sword in the ground and took hold of the locket. She examined it. Turned it over. Opened it. Stared at tiny portraits of her and her twin. Velanya looked so innocent. So much unlike the witch she had become.

“What did you find?”

Closing her hand over the locket, Mela said, “A witch’s trinket.”

“Vela’s?”

Mela didn’t say anything.

“Leave it.”

Mela slid the locket inside her shirt. She felt Aszana’s hand on her shoulder.

“You know her best.”

“I did,” Mela said.

“Let’s keep looking. Maybe the back slope has a body for us.”

#

Fat drops of rain stung Mela’s head. Cursing the storm, she wiped water from her face and glanced at Aszana. The sorceress smiled and spread her arms, showing off her soaked shirt and leggings. She laughed at the storm and combed her fingers through her fire-red hair.

“It’s rain, Mela. A natural risk of being outdoors. Stand in it long enough, you might smell better.”

Lightning forked beneath black clouds. A breath later, thunder rolled down the hill’s slope. Look as she might, Mela could not see the hilltop through the downpour. She couldn’t hear the little sounds or smell anything other than rain.

“You want to find a body in this?” Mela called out as water filled her boots and thoroughly soaked her clothes.

“A spell component, yes,” Aszana said through her smile and laughter as she twirled and danced among the dead.

Mela threw her arms wide.

“Where? That one has a spear in its back. That one is headless. Magic didn’t kill anyone here.”

Aszana came close. She reached up and set her tattooed fingers against Mela’s jaw. She opened wide those blue, doe eyes. Leaning in, breathing on Mela’s ear, she whispered, “Want to go back? Tell Xandra goodbye? Or will you stay with me? I promise I’ll make this worth your while.”

Mela felt heat build within her despite the cold rain. Stupid loins. And she couldn’t abandon Xandra. Not now. Not ever.

“I’ll stay with you.”

“That’s a dear,” Aszana said as she patted Mela’s cheek. 

The sorceress looked over Mela’s shoulder and stumbled backward. Her eyes widened and her mouth went slack. 

Mela followed the sorceress’s fright. Two people approached on horseback. Squinting through the curtain of rain, she recognized the symbol of the Three-Faced God. Cultists. Graverobbers and necromancers. They’ve come to read the dead and portend omens.

“They’re witch hunters,” Aszana said.

Waving the sorceress away, Mela walked toward the riders. She raised her hand in greeting, and they greeted her in turn. 

And then she saw it.

The shimmer.

Rain struck a magicked barrier around their armor. 

One of the cultists spurred his mount and charged, lowering a spear as his horse’s hooves threw clods of mud. The other stood in the saddle and hefted a crossbow.

“Run!” Mela shouted. She drew her hammer and leaned forward, open hand ready to grab the spear, hoping like hell the rain fouled the archer’s shot.

Aszana stood her ground, too. Lightning crackled from finger to finger. 

The crossbow bolt twanged past Mela, missing her by a whisper. Lightning erupted behind her. The bolt had pierced Aszana’s palm and detonated the spell, knocking the sorceress prone and setting fire to her clothes.

Mela focused on the approaching rider. She waited for the spear to dip toward her heart. 

Never blinking, holding her breath, she watched that wet steel speed toward her. At the last second, she sidestepped. Grabbed the haft. Pulled.

The rider didn’t let go, and Mela dragged him from the saddle. He bounced on the ground and barely settled when she put the hammer’s spike into his temple. She stove in his cuirass for good measure, crushing the steel against his sternum. 

She saw Aszana’s chest rise and fall. The sorceress lives, she thought.

Shoulders hunched against the rain, bloody hammer in hand, Mela turned to the other witch hunter. She started forward, glowering beneath her wet brow, knuckles white on the hammer’s steel handle.

The cultist tossed aside the crossbow and drew a sword. Dismounted and kept his footing.

“You travel with a witch,” the cultist shouted. “Stand aside or be purified.”

Mela meant to make this hurt. She stared at that breastplate. At the hinges and joints. At that shaven head and its snarling mouth with entirely too many teeth. Oh, she would fix all these things with her hammer.

But the cultist moved fast. He stepped left, moved right, got behind Mela, and cut the back of her arm. She spun with the attack and aimed her hammer at his knee, but he backpedaled to safety. The hammer wouldn’t work. Too slow. Too predictable. She let it fall. Drew her sword and knife. 

“You oppose the Gray-Faced God,” the cultist said. “You betray your own kind to consort with witches and devils.”

Mela stepped and thrust. Expected the parry. Ducked beneath the riposte. She lunged with her knife, but the cultist dropped his shoulder, and she sliced through his ear rather than his neck.

He screamed. His sword fell. His huge hands closed around Mela’s shoulders, and he head-butted her. Twice.

She lost her footing. Fell to her backside. Her weapons slipped from her hands. She tried to stand, but he put his foot on her chest and pushed her into the ground. Her fingers brushed the sword’s hilt. The knife had tumbled elsewhere. 

A wild, terrible howl pierced the storm and rolled across the battlefield. 

The cultist looked around. He put more of his weight on Mela’s chest as he fingered a dagger at his belt and called out, “Who’s there?”

Mela pushed on the cultist’s boot to no avail. She tried to breathe. Couldn’t.

A jagged bolt of green magic struck the cultist’s forehead. He teetered. His foot lifted. He pitched sideways and collapsed, his lifeless face inches from hers.

Gasping for air, Mela stared at the black mark and web of bruises on his face.

Strong hands slid beneath her arm and pulled her upright. Slender fingers combed through her hair.

“Why have you come into my wilds, little sister?”

Mela closed her eyes at hearing Velanya’s voice. She waited for the brief shock of death or the crackle of magic. Seconds passed. Neither came. When she yet lived, Mela let out a long breath and glanced at her sister. The witch of Cadiff Reach looked as wild as the stories described with her matted brown hair and rust-colored tattoos that glowed with an inner light. She wore stained, leather leggings and muck-covered boots, but she bore nothing above the waist.

“We’re trying to save Xandra.”

Vela’s lips curled into an ugly grin.

“That traitor? Feed her to the crows.”

Mela frowned and looked away.

“She saved my life after you left me for dead,” Mela whispered.

“I warned you to stay away,” Vela hissed. “You came after me with steel and magic. Your death should and Xandra’s curse should have been permanent things. But here we are.”

Mela said nothing. Instead, she reached inside her shirt and pulled out the silver locket.

“Give it back, Melandra,” Vela said, her voice heavy with threat. 

Mela coughed and sputtered in the heavy rain as she opened her hand. 

Vela plucked the locket from Mela’s palm and smiled. For a moment, Mela saw the sister she had once known.

“Finally lost your pretty dresses?” Vela ran her fingers over the shaved half of Mela’s scalp and said, “Loving this tough look, little sister. You’re out here playing the part of the mercenary. You even found your own witch.”

When Mela didn’t respond, when she only watched with a stoic expression, Vela smirked and brushed Mela’s hair from her brow. “You’re not so tough. Not so tough at all.”

A breath later, Velanya roughly slapped Mela’s cheek. The witch’s green eyes hardened into a glare, and she whispered, “Don’t come looking for me. We aren’t enemies, but we aren’t friends.”

And then the witch was up and away. Seconds later, a massive, white wolf joined her. She leapt onto its back and buried herself in its fur. The rain swallowed them both. A wild, terrible howl echoed through the storm and faded into the patter of rain.

Mela pressed her fingers where Vela had slapped her. She stood on unsteady legs and gathered her weapons. Her wound still bled, but she could feel her fingers. She saw Aszana had sat up. The sorceress’s hair had burned away in the front, and her white shirt had charred and burned through in places. The skin on her belly blistered. But she stood with Mela’s help. They bound Aszana’s hand and Mela’s arm, and together, they worked in silence to remove a length of bone from the magic-slain cultist’s forearm.

By the time they finished, the afternoon threatened to become evening and the rain slowed to a drizzle. Mela rolled the bone in a damp cloth and shoved it inside her satchel. She retrieved the cultists’ horses and helped Aszana into the saddle. Wincing, she climbed onto the other horse.

“We have everything we need?” Mela asked. She scanned the horizon and let out her breath. No more fighting today, gods. Just give me a warm bed.

“Yes,” Aszana said as she blinked slowly and wiped the wet from her face.

“Ready to return to the Vale? To Xandra?”

Aszana nodded. Said, “Keep close. I feel better when you’re close.”

Mela kept one eye on the sorceress as they left Floring Hill and headed west. She stayed within arm’s reach of her lover at all times and set a steady pace. 

“Think Xandra will be okay?” Mela asked after some moments passed and they entered the flatlands.

“Yeah.”

As Mela swayed in the saddle, she looked over her shoulder. “Velanya saved us.”

“I saw.”

“It’s more than I expected.”

“I know.”

“It’s more than I deserve.”

A pause, then Aszana whispered, “Leave Vela to the wilds. We have us.”

Mela took a steadying breath and let it whistle between her lips. 

“Think we’ll be okay?”

Aszana reached over. Touched Mela’s jaw. Looked at her with those blue, doe eyes. Said, “I know we will be.”

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