So this was it.
Can't run. Can't hide.
A fight.
A full-blown clash between a band of knights, a half-elf ranger, one very fake mage—and five monsters that should not exist.
Luke didn't even have time to curse anymore. His body was moving before his thoughts could catch up, pacing to and fro across the shallow clearing like that might magically produce a solution. He glanced to the treetops, to the ground, to the small hill behind them. His mind raced faster than his feet. But no matter how he spun the board, this was a game of death they weren't ready to play.
He knew it. Everyone probably knew it. But here they stood anyway.
Protect them all, that was the goal. A ridiculous, impossible goal. Yet Luke kept thinking about it. Commander Valerie, General Charis, Larissa, the knights, Ilyrana—they were all counting on him in one way or another. And that was terrifying.
After all, what was he going to do? Outwit monsters stitched together from the corpses of the dead?
