Fifteen men are sitting around a campfire. Their laughter thunders through the shadows of the night. They whine like horses. No, those are real horses. They must have hidden them further down by the river.

  The scent of roasting meat curls and weaves through the underbrush, a symphony of sizzling fat dripping over the embers, of charred crusts kissed by the fire. My mouth waters. The clingy sweetness in the air teases me with memories of the constant company of the hunger I suffered from these past weeks. But I am not that hungry anymore, am I? I spit my spatial ring out and catch it with my hand. I have to store it under my tongue because I forgot to try to inscribe an invisibility rune on it. Not that it would have been possible. The ring is too small to inscribe something complex with my current toolset. I tried to store it inside my boots, but it remains visible there. When I store it inside my mouth, it goes invisible, though. I have no idea why.

  I take a few dried figs out of storage and start munching on them, hidden beneath an oak.

  Another group without dogs. The third one in this night. Well, dogs may be useless at this point for most of them anyway. There are too many trails. And, if they were not part of my original pursuers, they can not even know which of all those is mine.

  What are they talking about? I trigger my invisibility to go closer. Maybe I can learn some new crucial information.

  “Man! You know that barmaid in that inn down in Fishcreek touown?” slurs someone. Waving a bottle of something sharp and pungent like a conductor’s baton.

  “No.”

  “What barmaid?”

  “I’m telling you,” the bottle describes a wide arc. Splashes of liquid spill over the embers. The flames burst higher, igniting the roast. “Man, she has a fat ass!” Well, maybe there is no crucial information to gain here. “And when she wiggles those cheeks, man.” He brings his hands closer, like wanting to measure something, forgetting about the bottle again. A veritable stream of alcohol makes the fire explode. Nobody cares. Laughter erupts around the circle, loud and uneven. “I am telling you, you don’t last long.”

  Yeah, I don’t care. Where do these people store their food? I hope not in spatial rings again, like the last groups I stalked. Why does everybody seem to have spatial rings out here? I thought those two I fought with were special, but no. Spatial rings are everywhere these days. Or are they not? What else would these men need all those big saddlebags for?

  “There is no way you did her, James!” Someone seems offended. He leans his red face over the flickering flames. Beady eyes sparkle. “You’re full of it! Women like that want a real man!” he declares, jabbing his finger into the smoky air. “You are just talk, no action.”

  Where would they store the food while they camp? Maybe in that big tent over there.

  “Sure I did,” replies the first man, irritated. I weave between drunken bodies, unaware of my presence. “I’m telling you I did. And you know those tits, man? Big like a cow.” Yeah, whatever. Who cares? And who is that idiotic to leave their tent open?

  “No, you didn’t!” shouts the second man. They all roar at that.

  I look behind my back. The fire catches the glint of teeth and the gleam of half-lidded eyes. Nobody looks my way. I push the cover aside and slip inside the tent. Leaving the banter behind, dissolving into the smoke.

  Yes! Storage! I channel a trickle of mana into my light-sphere rune. A soft glow illuminates stacks of sacks and barrels, too soft to shine through the tent’s fabric. What do we have here? I pry one of the barrels open with a dagger and look inside.

  A thick and pungent smell hits my nostrils, slowly dissolving into a sizzling sourness. Pickled cabbages? They may not be my favorite food, but who cares? Into my ring with them. What else?

  Sacks of rice and oats disappear into my ring. Tubers and onions, there is still a lot of space to fill if I pack it tight. Sausages and jerky, inside with them. It is easier to move around in the tent now. Salt and spices? You can never have enough of that. What is in those clay pots? I open one and dip my finger into a dark molasse. Hmm! It’s forest-honey. I can taste the pine resin and the oak in it. I won’t say no to that. The tent is starting to feel empty now. What is left? A tin box full of tea leaves. Bottles of some sharp and fruity booze. Now, there is nothing left in here.

  I slip outside into the roaring laughter. Let us see if you will still be laughing tomorrow. We will see how long you can follow me without food to eat. It is time to go to the next group.

  At the next campfire, an older man teaches a young woman how to dress her kill. I sneak closer.

  “No, not like that, or you will tear the hide. Peel it back, slow and steady. You need to glide the knife through the fat.”

  “What fat? There is no fat!” The woman scrunches her nose.

  “The thin fat layer between meat and skin.” Is that the Panther I encountered a few weeks past that they are dressing? I hope not, poor kittens. It can’t be the same. We are too far away from there. “No, not like that! Look where you are cutting!”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?” The woman stands up, face red, fuming mad. The dressing knife disappears into thin air. Another group that has spatial rings. She turns around, stomping hard onto the twigs that cover the ground, and walks away toward the nearest river.

  “Leia, be careful! You are going to trip the wards.”

  A high-pitched noise chimes through the clearing. They do have a ward. Where is it centered? The flap of a tent flies open, and a young man stumbles out, falling into a heap of limps.

  “Where are the attackers?”

  “What attackers? There are no attackers. There are only flies, vermin, and dirt out here!” Dry leaves crunch and rustle under the furious steps of the woman. “Come, Sir Charles. Let’s take a walk. Let the servants do what they are good for.”

  The young man jumps to his feet, straps a sword to his belt, and follows the woman into the shadows. Their voices slowly drown between the dense branches.

  “The youth of today,” mumbles the old man. He sighs before kneeling and starts dressing the big cat with smooth and precise strokes.

  Why are there real nobles out here? I need to be a bit careful. Invisibility may not always be enough. Some advanced mages are known to have unlocked additional senses. Mana-sight is the most famous. Those who have it don’t just feel mana; they see it with different degrees of clarity. Some are born with the ability, like me. Though, in my case, it is very faint. Others learn to nurture and enhance their inborn traits and gain a lot of sensibility. You need to know special techniques to improve, but nobody has taught me any. In any case, it won’t work well out here. Everything is drowned under the immense mana density of the region. My eyes fall onto a rune-inscribed metal cube, forgotten on the ground a few feet behind the man. That must be the ward-stone. I want it. I channel mana into my silence and seal-heat runes. Enhanced hearing and thermal vision are other relatively famous sense-enhancements. My steps take me closer at a snail’s pace. The earth is trampled flat here. I don’t even leave any footprints. The man suddenly bends down. I stop, holding my breath in reflex, tense and ready to bolt. But he just turns the carcass around and continues cutting.

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  I can touch the cube now. I put my left index finger into my mouth and maneuver the ring onto it without taking it out. The cube disappears into my storage space. I need to learn to do this without having to put the ring on. I know it is possible. It just needs a mental shift. But I seem unable to demolish the mental block for now.

  I retrace my steps carefully and disappear into the maze of thorns and branches. I am forced to advance slowly. The leaves and branches prevent the moonlight from reaching the ground. Only shadows and adventurous rays of pale light trickle through. An owl hoots softly. The song grows in intensity and disappears again. It must be up there, gliding in obscurity with silent wings. I feel connected to it, a companionship. We are both predators of the night.

  I sit behind a bend in the river to examine the ward cube. Letting my channeled rune rest to recover my mana. My light-sphere reveals a rune component I know, a heat modifier. It is a thermal ward, as I suspected. That makes sense.

  I should try to see if my seal-heat rune can trick it. How do I turn it on? Do I have to press this big button on the top? I try it out. The cube emits a soft chime and starts glowing.

  First, I need to test the distance at which the ward triggers. I take one step, another step, another step. About twelve steps later, I hear a pitched chime, distorted and barely audible above the roaring current.

  I get back to the riverbank. The cube has turned dark. I turn it on again.

  I go back into the distance and start to channel my seal-heat rune before the tenth step. I take another step, another. Nothing. Eighteen steps, nineteen. Okay, that is enough. It is time to go back.

  The cube is still glowing. I smile. It works. The only problem with the rune is that it gets hot inside after a while because your corporal heat builds up and can not escape anywhere. I sit down and keep channeling mana into the rune.

  About half a bell later, I feel sweaty and uncomfortable, like sitting in a sauna. It would probably take less time if I engage in strenuous physical activity. I undress to wash the sweat off in the river. I should have been a bit more careful about that. I don’t have time to wash my clothes. I haven’t seen any dogs tonight, though. Maybe it won’t be a problem.

  I should probably use both the seal-heat and the silence runes together with invisibility from now on when I sneak into another camp. There is no need to tempt fate. Are there sound-based wards? I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to find out by accident.

  Let us find another group of victims.

  There are two men standing watch by the next campfire in silence. Their backs point towards the flame, and their heads face the darkness on opposing sides. Probably the most serious and professional group I have seen so far. But what does it matter when I am invisible? I grin and circle the tents, ignoring those where I can hear snores come from. There is another campfire a bit further down on the other side. Two more guards are tending to a group of bound horses.

  Horses have a keen sense of smell. But I don’t need to get close to them. And my smell is not strange coming from the camp. I am just another human among a bunch of humans.

  So, where do they guard their food?

  I found it. This time, I cut the tent open with a knife on the opposite side of the watchmen, out of their sight. The guards are too alert to try other ways. I store everything in haste, without inspecting it much, and make my way back into the forest. I think I got more of the same, but instead of meat, nuts, and dried fish.

  It fits all together inside my ring like a puzzle. There is still a lot of space left. Next!

  “… those damned foreigners traipsing through our woods. If they didn’t travel in such big groups, I would just put an arrow through their backsides.” A man spits into the dirt next to the dying flickers of a tiny campfire. He looks up, caressing his longbow like a lover.

  His companion grunts, poking the embers with a stick, face worn and cracked from a live outside under the harsh sun.

  “What are they even looking for? There are no beasts to hunt left. Only a few goats. What they haven’t killed yet has run away.” He tosses the stick into the fire. Sparks dance upward, vanishing between the dense crowns.

  Could these men be local hunters? It is the first time I have encountered those. Is there a village nearby?

  “The fuckers don’t even make use of half of what they kill. The whole forest is full of half-rotten carcasses.”

  “Men with no honor,” replies the second man, his tone flat but bitter. “They don’t hunt; they steal. No respect for the chase, for the land. Like it is just a dumb game for them.”

  “Yeah.”

  The fire crackles in the silence that hangs between them. The weight of their shared frustration seems to hang heavy in the air. I change my position because my leg is falling asleep.

  “Where did they even come from?”

  The first man leans back before responding, his hand falling into his lap.

  “I don’t know, but they are everywhere. From here to Minas Kalin. We might have to go north to find something worthwhile. But you know what is up there.”

  Minas Kalin. What is that? A town, a city? Could it be where my compass is pointing?

  “Yeah.” The second man looks around like he is about to tell a secret that you don’t want your neighbors to overhear. “You think they are rebels?”

  “Nah.” The first man looks at him and pokes another stick into the fire. “There is a legion of the Imperial guard stationed at Deepwater. They would have come up and smashed them all if they were.”

  Imperial what? Where the hell am I? As far as I know, there does not exist an empire close to the Solarian kingdom.

  “What is a legion doing down there? I heard there were skirmishes again in the eastern provinces.”

  “Who knows? People talk, taxmen talk, and nobles talk, but half of what they say are lies and hearsay.”

  “But they always take our young ones to the front, don’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  What front? Is there a war? Whatever. I am not going to steal from these poor sods. I feel a bit bad about them. It feels like their problems are, in part, my fault. Let us find another campfire.

  “Hey, what is that?”

  “What?”

  “That sack, where did it come from?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are those chickpeas?”

  The next campfire is a bit further away. I can’t see anybody around it. Solitary flames roar high into the night sky. Is this a trap? I can hear snores coming out of three different tents. Can they be so careless? They have another ward-stone, turned on, yes. But it isn’t aware that I am wandering right up to it, hidden behind my runes that I am. How do I turn it off? I don’t know. I’m just going to store it. Problem solved.

  “Damn, pigfuckers!” I swirl around. Someone is swearing, hidden behind the bushes. What is he doing there? Is he taking a shit? I realize that one of the tents is empty. Well, I could use a tent. Store it, and scram.

  Next!

  I wander towards the last camp on this side of the river.

  Sharp barks slice through the darkness like jagged blades. I freeze, clenching my fist. I might have messed up. More barks echo closer this time, startling the crickets into silence and sending a shiver through the leaves of the trees. My eyes dart through the dark undergrowth, searching for the fastest escape route to the river.

  “Do you see something?” asks someone a dozen meters away.

  “No.”

  “Must be some night-hunting beast.”

  I bolt over leaves and stones, twigs and hidden roots. Invisible and soundless that I am, I only care about speed.

  “Get a grip on the dogs!” orders the first voice, more distant this time. “We can’t afford to lose another one.”

  But the dogs are still at my heels. Their barks and yaps sound frenzied and guttural. I run even faster, not caring about the branches ripping at my clothes. I only care about crossing the river and climbing back up the canyon.

  The barking rises to a fevered pitch, punctuated by the snapping of branches and a frantic rustle of undergrowth. Then, a shrill whistle pierces the night.

  The dogs fall back, but I don’t stop until I reach the river. That was close! My heart still races like a mad horse.

  The rushing waters cast everything else into silence. A deafening, heavy silence, as if the night itself is holding its breath. I splash a bit of water into my steaming face. Calm down, it is over.

  I wade downriver, keeping my feet inside the stream to erase my scent trail. Then, I cross and carefully climb back up to my hidden sanctuary.

  Enough for tonight.