“Finde, Mother Dwarf; shed us a light, eh?” Slayter looked around the clearing. He spotted eight corpses lying at their feet in the moonlight, some missing limbs, some hewn into pieces. Theo stood next to the paladin, eyes still scanning the fields around them, though he’d clearly relaxed his stance.

Slayter grinned to the stalker, who returned him a shaky smile. Despite his sudden awakening, Theo had jumped into the fight with remarkable celerity, moving to defend the paladin as he’d been pinned.

Arcane illumination flared from the fire. Under Mother Brandy’s hand, the flames leapt to full life, though it shed neither heat nor the merry crackles and pops Slayter had grown familiar with after so many nights burning the stalks and chaff they cleared for their camps. The dwarf stood next to the fire on shaky legs. Next to her stood the blood-stained boar wearing a curious expression as it regarded the illusory fire.

Slayter laughed as he looked over the carnage of their campsite. “Surprise follows dull nights, eh? And look! The piggy’s come to our aid.”

Finde stumbled over into the light. Her robes were torn and matted with dark blood. She clutched her side and looked like she was beginning to shiver despite the unseasonable warmth of the spring night.

Finde nodded to Brandy’s new companion. “That boar has an owner.”

Mother Brandy looked at the hog next to her. It snorted and began snuffling among the coals for stray grains that had escaped Brandy’s cooking.

“Then I owe him a meal and my grace. This beast protected me as I rose. It fought at my side like the houndmaster’s dog used to.”

Slayter knelt to examine one of the fallen foes, but turned to look up at the fire, saying, “So the piggy isn’t our breakfast, Mother Dwarf?”

“I should think not.”

“I, too, owe a debt to our hidden guest,” Finde grunted as she began to wave a hand over her robes, siphoning out the blood that had seeped into the fabric. “Mother? I appear to still be bleeding. Would you be so kind as to lend me your aid?”

“Oh? Oh, of course.” Brandy moved around the campfire and seated herself next to the bloodied mage. After a minute of prayer, a painful white light speared down from the sky, coiling around the cleric’s hands before fading. Finde sighed with relief as Brandy blinked away the negative impression from her sight.

Slayter looked up from his inspection, rubbing his eyes. “Couldn’t have made that brighter, Mother Dwarf?”

“It seems the Great Dragon saw fit to announce our presence,” she replied. Turning back to Finde, she asked, “How do you feel?”

Finde checked herself. The hole in her side was closed, the skin knitting itself back together. The gashes in her leg and all along her back were mending too, threaded closed by an unseen hand. She attempted once more to clean her robes and gave a weak smile. “Much better, thank you, Mother.”

“Not a problem. Theo, what are you doing over there in the dark.”

“Keeping watch on our guest,” came his reply.

“Damn,” Poppy muttered under her breath, sure she had been hidden. She loosened the pull she’d been holding on her bow. She only had two arrows left, but she’d kept one trained at the thin man whose scythe was still readied in her direction. She looked through the stalks toward the camp’s centre, where Lawrence was sitting in comfortable silence next to the dwarf and the bundled-up woman. The boar was munching something, content and comfortable.

Slayter stood, cracking his back as he stretched. “Does our guest have wings and a beak?”

“Not that I can see,” Theo replied, his voice level with a forced-casual tone.

“Then he’s likely not our opponent. Else he’d have left us to the eken.”

“The what?”

Slayter ran a hand through his swirl of hair. “Well, not exactly eken. These are more grounded, more bird than bird-men. Wings, yes, but they’re not enough to get off the ground. These are probably their fields we’ve been cutting through. And they’ve got beaks, see? Not row after row of needle teeth.”

The stalker remained facing the field. Slayter moved to his comrade, returning his greatscissors in the leather frog slung on his hip.

“Theo, lad, lower your blade a bit. We owe him thanks.”

“Her,” came the reply from the field. The stalks rustled and a short clump of barley, rye, and millet materialized into a small shape resembling a woman.

Slayter held his hands out. “Theo, come now. Courtesy, please.”

The stalker relaxed his stance, but kept his eyes locked on Poppy. He gave her a slow nod and stepped back, gesturing to the paladin, who clapped his hands with a grin.

“Welcome and well met, Lady Halfling,” the paladin stepped forward with a bow. “We give you thanks for your aid, and that of your pig.”

Poppy cocked an eyebrow and looked to Theo. “Is he all there?” she asked, nodding at Slayter.

Theo gave his companion a wry smile. “Most of the time, but he believes in decorum. Something to do with past transgressions. You’d have to ask him.”

“I might sometime,” Poppy said, turning back to Slayter. “Your name, halfbreed?”

Slayter straightened his back, his nose flaring as he ground his teeth. “I am a paladin of the Order of the Dragon. My companions and I—”

“Your name, Paladin,” Poppy growled. Lawrence stood from his spot near the false fire and trotted over to stand next to her.

“Slayter of—”

“That’ll do,” Poppy cut him off with a wave. She clicked her tongue and gave two short whistles. Lawrence looked up at her, then disappeared into the barley stalks.

“Now, look here, I think we’ve been—”

“Do you?” Poppy scoffed. “Hard to tell considering the loud mess you’ve been making along the way.”

Brandy gave a chuckle from the fire. “Finde, if you’re well enough, would you please gather what grain you can? We should stoke a proper fire.” She waved around the clearing. “Theo, Slayter, perhaps you two can pile the… ekens, I think you called them?”

“Well, actually, they’re not quite—“ Slayter began.

“But they can be stacked, yes?” Mother Brandy gave him a smile that was dripping in sickly sweet honey.

“Of course,” Slayter replied through gritted teeth.

“Wonderful.”

Poppy moved to sit across from Finde and Brandy. Around them, Theo and Slayter began the grim task of piling the dead. And so the five spent their first night together.