“Gardener,” Tag replied. “My parents are big on manual labor. Always have been. They love getting their hands dirty. Dad’s a mechanic, always coming home covered in oil and various lubricants. My mom, on the other hand, doesn’t work, but is part of a knitting group that meets several times a week and gives clothes to the homeless.”

  They passed through an alley of rocks, over which several large trees with long branches which interlocked to create a protective canopy. They were glad of a break from the rain, even if it was only momentary.

  “I can’t imagine that woolen creations work well for the homeless,” Huk said. “Wool gets heavy and cold when it gets wet. Surely there’s a better material to give to them?”

  Tag nodded. “And there’s the age-old argument we keep having. I keep telling her, but the ‘Nifty Knitters’ really think they’re helping the poor men and women out on the street.” He sighed. “I guess they’ll never listen to me…”

  “Especially since you have no experience using your hands for anything other than game controllers and handling your own joystick?” Ben winked.

  Tag flushed a bright shade of red.

  Jessie leaned over to Chloe and said, “What’s a job application?”

  Chloe laughed.

  They eventually reached a point in the road where they could no longer progress toward the mountain. Chloe opened her map and saw that the armor lay directly ahead, so she assumed that what they were seeking must be inside there somewhere.

  Only, the path now forced them left or right—unless they wanted to proceed straight ahead through a bog that looked so deep and wide, she doubted the horses would manage the swim.

  Assuming that there must be a path somewhere further around the mountain, Chloe hedged her bets, tossing a mental coin in her head and choosing right.

  The wind began to pick up, blowing cold through their already sodden clothing. Tag sang a few songs to brighten their spirits, until they heard the howling of wolves somewhere up ahead.

  The path had now wound down to nothing more than a thin ribbon of slick mud.

  Chloe was glad they were on horseback because their own shoes would definitely not have fared so well on the path.

  Very aware that the wolves’ howls lay directly ahead, Chloe proceeded with caution. Bogs flanked them, with trees littering their banks and any spare land available. Great clumps of reeds grew from the water. Insects began to swarm, attracted to the bare warmth that came from the hot-blooded creatures riding through their domain.

  “I hate bugs,” Veronica whined, swatting away the large clouds of insects. “Can’t someone do something?”

  Bolt’s ears twitched violently, also disturbed by the insects swarming his face.

  “We just need to find the path to the mountain,” Chloe called back. “Once we’re inside, we’ll be back on our home turf—the place we earned our pedigree. We can get warm and shelter ourselves from this weather. Just a little farther, I assure you.”

  She turned back to the path and saw several pairs of eyes with yellow-ringed pupils looming out of the growing gloom, accompanied by the sound of hungry snarls.

  Chloe sighed. Unless we get attacked by wolves, that is.

  Several more pairs appeared ahead, joining their company. Chloe pulled to a stop, the others questioning what was happening until the frontrunner—a mean-looking wolf at least double the size of the others and with dirty white fur—stepped forward and let out a blood-curdling howl.

  Two choices, Chloe said, processing this new information with herself. Attack or run.

  Running would, of course, yield experience, but she and the others were already freezing cold. Even though they were riding horses, their stamina was decreasing along with their spirits. If they could outrun these beasts, they might just make it up the mountain in record time, and find somewhere to recover.

  And if they attack? KieraFreya asked. Which, y’know…they definitely will…

  Chloe nodded in agreement. Of course, they’d attack. Weren’t they going to do that either way?

  “Draw your weapons,” Chloe called back, hearing the satisfying sound of metal blades and other weapons being drawn. “We ride on. Kill all who come for you.”

  Chloe barked an instruction for Bolt, kicking him in the side. The horse bucked and brayed, causing the wolves to retreat a few steps before he lowered its head and charged full-speed ahead.

  The others followed. The wolves bared their dagger-like teeth, hearts racing with excitement from the chance to play with their prey.

  Bolt pulled ahead of the pack, his speed impressive to witness. Chloe actually had to slow him down, scared she’d leave the others behind.

  Something she’d never do.

  She turned her head and saw several wolves as blurs running alongside the horses, one with its eyes fixed on Therese, another with its eyes fixed on Gideon, his robe flapping in the wind behind him.

  The other wolves trailed the group but were making a comeback. Ben, taking the rear of the precession alongside Blueballs, seemed more than comfortable using his bow and arrow while riding on his horse.

  The wolf nearest to Therese’s horse growled and snapped at the horse’s legs, its teeth missing by an inch. It shook its head, dropped on its haunches, and sprang, catching its claws in the horse’s flank.

  The horse yelped in pain, but not as much as the wolf, who realized too late the damage a dwarf’s hammer could do to the skull of a canine.

  The wolf was batted into the air, flying several feet higher than the horses before disappearing into the darkness beyond.

  “I bet I don’t even get experience for killing that one.” Therese sighed, knowing somehow that the wolf hadn’t quite lost all of its HP. She patted her horse’s neck as it continued to run, investigating the wounds and seeing that they weren’t too deep. The horse would last, if only for a little while longer.

  Gideon, meanwhile, was dealing with his own problem. His wolf had also jumped and was now hanging off his robe. The wolf seemed nonplussed, occasionally trying to gain purchase on the horse’s hide so it could pull itself up to the rider.

  Two more wolves had come to join the party.

  “I see they’ve marked you as the weakling of our group,” Tag bellowed from behind him. “Predators do that, y’know?”

  Gideon felt a heaviness as he considered which spell to use that wouldn’t also hurt his horse. There was some truth in Tag’s words. Animals did often target the weak. But then, why would they also have chosen Therese? Gideon considered her to be one of the strongest in their group. Why would she have been targeted if that were true?

  A loud neigh from his horse—whom he had lovingly named “Pylon”—drew his attention back to the wolf, which had abandoned Gideon’s cape and now had his gnashers sunk into Pylon’s backside.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he said, twisting reaching back with a hand pulsing with blue electricity. He would have sent it out in a blast but couldn’t risk hitting Pylon.

  His hand was inches from the snarling wolf’s head and glowed with bright power. Just as he was about to touch the beast, Pylon gave a small jump and Gideon held on for balance, shocking his horse and sending it into overdrive.

  Pylon sprinted faster than ever before, outrunning the other wolves and managing to squeeze past several horses in front. Before he knew it, he had overtaken Chloe and was launching into the darkness ahead.

  Yet still the wolf held on. Gideon steadied himself to try again, this time waiting until his hand was touching the wolf before sending the shock into the creature.

  The wolf went for his hand, its teeth finding Gideon’s palms just as the Volt Shock powered. Its body went rigid, and a strange yelp escaped its mouth. A moment later, it was flying off into the darkness behind like a plastic grocery bag caught in the wind.

  Chloe caught up with Gideon. “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks,” he said uncertainly.

  “You might want to slow down, though, Speed Racer. You realize we missed our turn?”

  Gideon felt himself blush. He managed to steady Pylon and bring him around, the others sprinting out of the darkness and nearly colliding with each other.

  Chloe hopped off her horse, addressing the riders. “We missed our turning. The path to the mountains was back that way.”

  “Good to know,” Tag said. “But why are you off your horse?”

  “Because we need to remove the threat first,” Veronica said, sliding off her own. “We can’t go back there and ride up the mountain blindly at speed. Isn’t that right?”

  Chloe grinned. “Ten points to Gryffindor.”

  Veronica came up beside Chloe. “I’m actually more of a Hufflepuff.”

  “Get out.” Chloe winked.

  The growling wolves sprinted at them now, fired up from their chase. The rest of the KieraSlayers hopped off their steeds and made pretty quick work of the gray wolves, taking them down with increasingly effective techniques and teamwork.

  Tag and Therese marched to the front, slowing and blocking the wolves’ progression with their shields, leaving time for the warriors and battle mage to do their thing. Meanwhile, Gideon and Ben shot from afar, keeping an eye on Veronica, who dipped in and out of battle, providing healing powers to anyone impacted by the wolves’ attacks. Blueballs took the wolves one at a time, roaring ferociously as he battled the beasts.

  Yet, the wolves kept coming. The pack, consisting of a dozen of the beasts, was relentless, not to mention the enormous pack alpha, who stood studying the battle from the edge of the shadows. Chloe kept an eye on him as she slashed her sword and pulsed ice shards at the pack, but the sight of him gave her chills.

  When they finally came down to the final two gray wolves, Tag popped out from behind his shield and went berserk with his hammer. One of the wolves, clearly excited to see his target out in the open, lunged for him, almost nipping his thighs with its teeth.

  But Tag was faster, and had played thousands of hours of Whack-A-Mole at his local arcade growing up. His hammer found the wolf’s cranium and dropped him to the muddy ground with its power.

  One remaining.

  Chloe smiled, conjuring several ice shards.

  She moved to fire.

  Therese was faster, ducking out from behind her own shield and swinging the hammer like a baseball bat. The wolf yelped as it flew into the nearby bog and lay still on the water’s surface.

  Chloe’s shoulders dropped. What was she going to do with these two ice shards?

  Oh, yeah…

  She looked up toward the white wolf, ready to launch her missiles into his flank. She was still unnerved that it hadn’t joined into the battle.

  But when she searched for it, the beast had gone. There was no sign of him…

  “Where did it go?” Chloe asked.

  Huk wiped his blade clean. “What?”

  “The big guy. The white wolf.”

  Gideon looked around nervously, as if the beast would come barreling down the path behind them and take them by surprise. “No idea.”

  Not wanting to waste her magic, Chloe shot the ice shards into the darkness. She heard them crash into a tree, but there was no further sign of the large wolf.

  “Maybe he got scared?” Therese suggested.

  “Alphas never get scared,” Chloe replied.

  Ben nodded. “No, we don’t.”

  Veronica shoved Ben playfully. “Oh, shut up, ranger. You’re hardly the alpha of this pack.”

  “I could be.” He winked.

  Chloe rolled her eyes before lending Veronica a hand with their Healing Hands abilities. They brought everyone to perfect health, then turned their attention onto the horses, watching with satisfaction as the wounds knitted themselves shut and the horses’ affections grew.

  Soon they were all mounted and heading back the way they had come. They found the path leading to the mountain, which was wide enough to pass two abreast.

  But Chloe never lowered her guard, her mind now haunted by the white wolf. She knew somehow that wasn’t the last they’d see of him.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Rodrik stopped at the end of the tunnel, staring at yet another dead end.

  He closed his eyes, hands bunched into fists that shook with rage. His thick, knotted muscles tensed and writhed beneath his silver armor.

  “No luck?”

  The voice belonged to Bolton, Rodrik’s number two. Half the size of Rodrik, Bolton was nimble and quick, adept with his two needle-tipped blades. His hair was bunched into a ponytail behind him, leaving his gaunt face sticking out.

  Rodrik’s eyes flashed. He was often angry, but never this angry. He turned and grabbed Bolton by the collar, lifting him clean off his feet.

  “Oh, yes. All the luck in the world. Thankfully this tunnel leads exactly to where we want to go. Unlike the other twenty or so tunnels we’ve explored, this one leads to the precise location we want to get to. Why else would I have stopped suddenly at a dead end and grunted with rage?”

  Bolton’s legs flailed, and he held onto Rodrik’s thick wrists with both hands. He wasn’t an orc, but he was certainly built like one. His fingers pressed into Bolton’s windpipe, threatening to extinguish his life. It was his favorite method of removing an enemy, if only for the fact he could watch the light fade from their eyes as he squeezed their helpless forms.

  Bolton thought about the countless enemies Rodrik had destroyed this way. It was part of the reason he followed him around so religiously. To be the second in command to someone so powerful gave him a distinct advantage in survival.

  Particularly now that the world was growing crowded with blessed. Beings who could resurrect and re-live their life a thousand times. Unfortunately, none of the warriors in this tunnel shared that privilege.

  As stars began to blossom in Bolton’s vision, he felt Rodrik’s fingers release. Bolton dropped to the floor, landing more gracefully than he thought he would, one knee bent and one hand on the floor as if bowing to a monarch.

  “About face, gentlemen,” Rodrik said, addressing the half-dozen other fighters gathered behind him. His surly expression was indicative of the hatred he felt for this failure. “Let’s go.”

  They wandered back through the tunnel. The twenty-fourth tunnel they’d tried, to be precise. Ever since they had entered the mountain, they had been met with fork after fork after fork of tunnels leading in various directions.

  The damn place was a labyrinth, something that not only wound Rodrik up no end (he barely had patience at the best of times) but certainly also angered his mistress, who was keener than he was to find the correct route and take the treasure they sought.

  They stepped over the corpses of the goblins they had destroyed. A dozen of them, several of them riding on wargs—cave wolves with elongated necks and broad faces, a cross between a hyena and a jackal, only nearly twice the size.

  When they made it back to the fork where they had entered the dead end tunnel, Rodrik assessed their route.

  There were four more tunnels leading off in various directions. His search party had explored one, his mistress had explored another, and a band of rangers and mages had taken a third.

  It was the band of rangers and mages they heard returning through the tunnel now.

  “Any luck?” Asyra asked, his surly face almost a match for Rodrik’s. He was an elven ranger with a lean frame, though the veins of his muscles pressed against his flesh and his grizzly beard gave him the appearance of someone who might have been born in the woods.

  Rodrik shook his head and grunted.

  Bolton opened his mouth to protest that Asyra had asked almost exactly the same question as him but received no punishment, but thought better of it.

  Asyra cursed in the language of the elves. His men shuffled awkwardly behind him. Cursing in Elvish was something that was rarely ever done among their kind, and to hear it now was a pain that they could hardly bear.

  “And the mistress?” Asyra continued. “Any word?”

  Rodrik shook his head. “None.”

  Asyra turned his head toward the tunnel she had disappeared down with her own band of followers. “Should we follow?”

  “The command was to stay put until she returns,” Rodrik growled.

  Asyra considered this. Although he held an advanced position among the rangers and the mages, he was relatively new to the party, having only been picked up a few days ago in the Yoren Woods of the north. He had yet to build up the same trust in his mistress as she had in him, but the threat of death made even the boldest traitor turn loyal, if only for a little while.

  “But what if she goes on without us? Would it not serve us better to find her and save her the time of returning? What if her tunnel is the correct tunnel? She might thank us for saving her the bother of return—”

  “The command was to stay put.” Rodrik’s eyes flashed again, a vein in his neck throbbing. His voice echoed in all directions around them.

  Asyra’s mouth flapped, his brow furrowed in anger. He wanted to argue but knew that inside the tunnel, he would never get his licks in against Rodrik. A ranger thrived in the woods, utilizing the shade of the trees and the camouflage of its colors. Trapped inside a dungeon with a warrior, he barely stood a chance.

  Not only that, but to be questioned in front of his own men? Now that was a bitter pill to swallow. Rodrik might be the second in command overall, but that didn’t mean disrespect should be given to Asyra in front of his troops.

  Asyra puffed out his chest and took a step forward.

  Rodrik grunted and did the same, the two now only a few feet from each other.

  “Shout like that at me in front of my men once more, and I will find a way to make sure you never speak again,” Asyra muttered.

  Rodrik grinned. Not the comforting grin one might see from a friend or relative, but a grin that made his face grow darker, as though the action pained him in every way. “Try me.”

  “Now, now, gentlemen, there’s no need to fight.”

  They turned at the same time, seeing their mistress appear from the darkness. Her words were crystal-clear despite the helmet she wore.