- Ambush!

Their journey through the surrounding woods was fast. They arrived at their destination with plenty of time to spare.

"We'll ambush them here," Tess told the two.

"The Aeshian crossroads." Marcus read a sign on the side of the road aloud.

"The convoy is supposed to pass through here soon."

"Should we hide?"

Tess shook her head and spoke words that Marcus didn't understand. "Shroud."

Shadow spilled out of her, smothering the group.

"In here, they won't see us."

"Can they hear us?" Roxy asked her.

"Possibly, depends on how sharp they are, so keep quiet."

Minutes passed in complete silence, stretching the time to an eternity.

"There," Roxy excitedly whispered.

"Wait for my signal," Tess commanded.

The convoy was three carriages long. Marcus saw each held a person on top, acting in the role of sentry.

As the second carriage drew level with them, Tess lowered the veil.

"Now! Strike fast, strike true."

A bolt of lightning, summoned by Roxy, struck into the rear carriage. The force of the bolt caused an explosion under the belly of the carriage, which promptly caught fire.

"Be careful, you fool! They could have captives," Tess yelled at Roxy as she ran.

"Pull!"

The lead carriage toppled towards Tess, falling from a gust of wind.

"Seek!"

Tendrils of shadow flowed from her body towards the carriage, piercing any cultists they found.

'Damn. Guess I gotta perform too.'

Marcus hurled one of the throwing knives as he ran. His accuracy was precise, and the blade carved a path through the air, before embedding itself in the throat of the sentry atop the middle carriage.

A snap of his fingers slammed walls between the carriages, cutting off his targets from aid.

A second snap hurled a fireball at the driver as he disembarked. The force of it sent the man stumbling off the carriage to be trampled under hooves.

Marcus approached the carriage and peered inside. It was empty, except for supplies.

He turned around, but quickly turned back.

A figure lunged at him, the speed greatly enhanced by manipulation of the air.

"Shit!" Marcus snapped his fingers to summon a defensive wall.

Nothing happened at first.

Then a breeze hit him from the side. Marcus was gently knocked out of the path of the cultist by the wind.

The cultist wasn't so lucky.

He had been caught in a vicious cross draft, the force of which tore his jaw away and snapped his neck.

Marcus looked around, trying to find where the Air elementalist was.

'Could it be Tess? She did imply she had more than just her shadow.'

A quick glance in her direction dissuaded that idea. She was slowly advancing toward the overturned carriage, letting her shadows inform her what the situation was inside.

'Roxy, then. But she said she was Shadow and Lightning exclusively.'

His eye scanned the area once more.

'That confirms it. There's no one here but us.'

'Could it have been... me? I did snap my fingers, after all.'

As he approached the back of the carriage, reality reached into the depths of Marcus's mind and tore him out.

The man who had attacked him lay dead on the floor. Blood flooded out of his wound as though a dam had shattered.

His neck was less snapped, more torn out. His jaw swung awkwardly from the one side of his face it hadn't disconnected. On the floor surrounding his body lay skin, flayed from his body by the impact of the air.

Marcus vomited at the sight of it, his head spinning and his vision becoming blurry.

He turned away and took a minute to compose himself.

Once ready, he headed to the entrance of the carriage.

'God, I hope he's dead,' Marcus thought as he stepped over the body. 'For both his sake and mine.'

He took another look inside the carriage.

Once he was satisfied that there wasn't anyone else hiding, he moved around the carriage.

He turned his head as he walked, avoiding the sight of the sentry with a knife in their throat.

As he got to the front of the carriage, Marcus vomited again.

The man he hit with the fireball lay on the ground. His charred corpse was mangled in multiple places from the assault delivered by the horses.

"Marcus, you okay?" Roxy asked. She approached him after seeing his condition at the back of the carriage, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah. First time, that's all."

"First time? Have you never experienced something like this before?" she leadingly asked, a mischievous attack spreading onto her face.

"Not up close."

"You two, come over here!" Tess called to them.

She was crouched down by the entrance to the carriage.

As Marcus approached, he was able to see inside.

Looking back at him were a group of innocent faces. Marcus guessed the children inside were about half his age.

Tess held a hand out to them. "Come on, you're safe now."

She was met with a mixed response. Some crawled back, pushing themselves into a corner in an attempt to escape. Others attempted aggression, meeting her with feral snarls.

"God, what the fuck happened to these kids?"

Marcus crouched down beside Tess and gave the children a soft smile. "Hey, those people are all gone now, you're safe."

After exchanging glances, the children slowly got out of the carriage.

"Is there something wrong with my face or something? Why are they listening to you?" Tess complained.

"Your face is fine. You're probably just too close to the cultists in size for them to trust you."

As the children left, the group noticed various lacerations coating the children's bodies. The way the children walked implied something sinister. They hugged themselves and kept their heads down, as if trying to not be noticed.

Marcus crouched down next to one of them.

"Hey, you all alright? What did they do to you?"

Seeing him next to her, the child yelped in fear and stumbled back.

"What the hell happened to them?" Marcus muttered.

"Assuming from their marks, torture, experimentation, abuse."

Hearing her speak brought tears to Marcus's eyes. He thought back to the orphanage, and thanked whatever deities existed for his peaceful life.

"You were right. They're vermin, and we need to put them down."

He headed back to the carriage and wrenched his knife from the cultist's throat.

"We're taking them back. Marcus, burn the carriages," Tess ordered.

"Yeah."

*Snap.*