The vial pressed cold against Miikka's thigh as he raised the spyglass. Below, smoke curled up from the orc celebration. Laughter. Drums. The smell of roasting meat carried on the updraft. His coin spun between his fingers, the familiar weight steadying his nerves.

  The ridge stone bit into his spine where he leaned against the outcropping. Good vantage point. Clear sightlines. Multiple escape routes. He'd chosen it three days ago, scouting Ruby's target before the mission. Now the waiting was over.

  Through the glass, green faces blurred past. Warriors drinking from wooden cups. Females tending cook fires. Children chasing each other between the tents. One child splashed in a large wooden cistern fed by an aqueduct pipe, water sloshing over the sides as she played. Adults lined up nearby, filling drinking vessels from the same container.

  One vial. Every cup. Every lip.

  His thumb traced the glass stopper. Ruby's poison worked slow. By the time they tasted wrong, the damage would be done.

  "Life's a rumble, eh?" he muttered to the empty ridge.

  The spyglass swept left. His fingers stilled.

  That half-dog creature. Crouched near the cistern's edge, matted fur catching firelight. ScuzNails. Miikka's jaw tightened. He knew that pathetic beast from the White Rocks arena. Lost a tidy sum betting against the thing in the gladiator pits. Everyone had. Fight after fight, the scraggly creature survived when bigger, stronger opponents fell. The gamblers called it luck. Miikka had watched closer. The beast smelled danger before it arrived. Smelled poison on a blade before it struck. Smelled fear on an opponent's breath and knew exactly when to dodge.

  The one creature in this valley who could smell a halfling on a ridge.

  He pocketed the spyglass for a moment. No more nervous movement. Nothing that might catch light or throw scent on the wind.

  His fingers tightened on the spyglass. A massive green orc stood on the broken dam, surveying the celebration. Warchief, by the looks of him. Blade in hand. Necklace of dragon scales. Missing a finger on his sword hand. And beside him, a female orc with her palm pressed flat against the swell of her belly.

  Miikka's throat closed.

  The female's fingers spread across the curve. A gentle touch. Protective. Absent, the way pregnant females touched themselves without thinking. The same gesture. The same angle of the wrist. The same soft curve of fingers he'd watched a hundred times across a campfire.

  Eva's face flashed behind his eyes. Her hand. Her belly. Her screams as Ruby's fire consumed the tent.

  The spyglass dipped. His grip loosened on the vial.

  Don't. Don't think about her. Not now.

  Below, a child's laugh rang out from the cistern. High and bright. Water splashed. Small green arms flailed in clumsy strokes. The sound cut through the drums, through the smoke, through the years.

  Eva's laugh. Before the fire. Before Ruby took everything.

  I can't do this.

  The thought surfaced before he could drown it.

  They're just orcs. Monsters. Beasts who'd gut you for sport. They killed your kin at the border wars. They burned villages. They ate the dead.

  But that child's laugh echoed against the cistern walls. And that female's hand rested on her belly. And somewhere in the ash of his memory, Eva's fingers traced the same curve while firelight danced in her eyes.

  She was going to tell me. That night. Before the fire took her.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  His fingers trembled on the vial. He could drop it. Smash it on the rocks. Tell Ruby the orcs discovered him before he got close. The lie might buy him a day. Maybe two. Long enough to run.

  Run where? She has Ivory. She has the spy-jewels. She has eyes everywhere.

  A shadow crossed the moon.

  Miikka's head snapped up. Bone-white wings stretched against the stars. Ivory circled high above, patient as carrion birds over a dying thing. The skeletal dragon banked slowly, hollow eye sockets fixed on the valley below. On him.

  Behind him, the spy-jewel embedded in the rocks pulsed with faint red light. Ruby's eye. Always open. Always watching. He'd spotted three of them on his approach. There would be more. There were always more.

  She sees everything. Run now, die slow. Fail now, die slower.

  The vial warmed in his grip. His hand tightened around it.

  The choice had never been his. Not since Ruby burned Eva. Not since the dracolich wrapped chains around his throat and called them mercy. He was a tool. A poisoned blade in a skeletal claw. And tools that failed their masters got melted down.

  Do it. Do it and run. It's them or you.

  Below, ScuzNails went still.

  Miikka's gut clenched. The half-dog's ears flattened. His nose worked the air in short, sharp bursts.

  Coincidence. Has to be.

  ScuzNails' head swiveled. Slow. Deliberate. His snout traced an arc from the ridge toward the tree line. Toward the path Miikka would need to take.

  Move. Now.

  He shoved the spyglass into his pack and dropped from the outcropping. Loose stone skittered beneath his boots as he half-slid, half-scrambled down the slope. The tree line swallowed him. Branches clawed at his face. He ducked, weaved, kept low.

  Through a gap in the foliage, he glimpsed the celebration. ScuzNails had broken into a lope. Nose down. Weaving between revelers. Closing the distance.

  He's tracking me. The bastard is actually tracking me.

  Miikka's hand found his dagger hilt.

  The half-dog skidded to a halt beside the warchief. His arm shot up, pointing. His mouth moved in frantic speech. The massive orc's head turned toward the ridge. Toward the path. Toward Miikka.

  The warchief barked commands. His blade hilt struck his chest twice. Around him, warriors broke into groups. Five heading north. Six east. More vanishing into the tree line in different directions.

  Smart bastard. Scattering his forces.

  Miikka's stomach clenched. If the poison took them now, it wouldn't take them all. Ruby's clean sweep just became a partial cull.

  She'll blame me for this.

  But the scattering also meant fewer eyes near the cistern.

  He pressed through the undergrowth. The celebration noise grew louder. Drums pounded in his skull. Smoke stung his eyes. Sweat ran down his spine. The cistern loomed ahead, wooden slats dark with moisture, water sloshing against the sides.

  An orc warrior passed ten paces away. Miikka froze behind a cook tent. The warrior laughed at something, raised a cup to his lips, and moved on.

  That water. That cup. In an hour, he'll be dead.

  Miikka's stomach churned.

  He flattened himself against the cistern's wooden slats. Through a gap between planks, amber eyes scanned the crowd thirty paces away. ScuzNails. Still searching. Head turning in slow sweeps. The half-dog's nose twitched. His ears rotated like weathervanes in a storm.

  Move. Before he looks this way.

  Miikka's fingers found the vial. Cold glass. Colder purpose. He pulled the stopper with his teeth and spat it into the grass. The poison inside was colorless. Odorless. Ruby's finest work. Brewed from nightshade and drake venom and something else, something that made the dying slow and the screaming long.

  A child paddled past on the other side of the wooden wall. Water lapped against small green limbs. Clumsy strokes. A giggle.

  Eva's laugh.

  His hand trembled over the water.

  Forgive me.

  He tipped the vial.

  The liquid slid into the cistern without a ripple. It dispersed, invisible, into water that would touch every lip at the celebration. Every warrior. Every female. Every child splashing in the summer heat.

  Done.

  The word tasted like ash.

  He shoved the empty vial into his pocket and ran.

  The tree line. Twenty strides. The ridge path beyond. Darkness and distance and maybe, if Ruby's eye blinked, freedom. A new name in a distant city. A life where pregnant women didn't remind him of ash.

  Behind him, a howl split the night. ScuzNails had caught the scent. Fresh now. Close. The half-dog's voice rose in alarm, and answering war cries erupted from the celebration.

  Miikka's boots tore through underbrush. Branches whipped his arms. His lungs burned. Smaller. Faster. Built for tight spaces. That's what kept him alive this long.

  Fifteen strides to the tree line.

  War cries multiplied. Heavy footfalls crashed through the forest to his left. To his right. They were flanking him. Spreading out. Cutting off escape routes he'd mapped three days ago.

  They know the terrain. You don't. Move.

  Ten strides.

  His boot found the ridge path. Loose stone shifted beneath his weight. Steep grade. Darkness above. Safety above.

  Nine. Eight. Seven.

  Freedom. Right there. Just beyond the crest.

  Six. Five.

  A grunt behind him. Close. Too close.

  Four. Three.

  A hand closed around his ankle.

  Massive. Green. Iron-strong.

  The world spun. Stone scraped his cheek. Blood filled his mouth.

  Miikka's face hit the ground, and darkness swallowed everything.

  Somewhere in the forest, a blackbird took flight.

  Breach of Balance on Amazon →