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side and tipped. Saure screamed, falling betwixt the struggling horses and cowered there helplessly.

The harriers rushed out from both sides of the road, some leaping down from trees. Fred leapt in front of Saure, baring the tops of his great teeth and snarling at the approaching fiends. They circled slowly, their movements oddly jerked and puppetlike.

Saure struggled to her feet. She set one hand on each of the horses' harnesses and they snapped in an instant. The horses whinnied and bolted, having been painfully singed. She quickly turned to regard the two harriers closing in behind. She summoned the fire.

The flames sizzled and rippled from her slender form, then pooled in a circle that spread slowly around herself and Fred. It parted around the cat, parted around the cart, and thickened into something like a wall. Several puppet-men hissed at the light and leapt backward as if on strings. Two, however, remained within the circle.

They were dark folken, dark-haired and dark-skinned. Not brown, like one would expect from some parts, but more of a muddy bruise color- what skin was left on them. Their eyes had no whites, and their clothes were rotting on their rotted bodies.

"These are corpses touched by ether, Saure. If they fall, they will rise. You must incinerate them." Fred growled, the end of his switching tail bristled into a jagged puff.
"I… I don't know if I can… Fred, I've only lit straw and wood and-"
"CONCENTRATE!" Fred roared. "Remember what you have learned! Concentrate the heat at the center of your enemy. Inside to out. Push!"
"But… I've never killed-"

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"These men are already dead!" Fred leapt upon one and snipped off its head with his huge incisors. It plopped upon the leafy ground and rolled into the circle of flame. The body writhed and kicked, the bony hands beating at Fred's forelegs in aimless thumps. Saure screeched at this and looked away, shielding her eyes. The other possessed harrier took this moment to attack. Fred moved to her aid, and Saure whipped toward the enemy too late. The dark, filth-crusted blade of the dead man's dagger swooped down…

And suddenly all was blinding pain. The forest exploded with light, shadows etched in harsh lines of black and brightest orange-red. The remains of the harriers drifted harmlessly to the forest floor as ash.

Unheard but felt, a voice cried out in echoing dismay and outrage.

Saure simpered as the light died, hands quivering in open-palmed defense before her face. She saw- for a moment- the veins on the backs of her thin, pale hands glowing red. This faded in pulses. She dropped- drained- to her knees and heaved shaking breaths. Her head was spinning wildly, her limbs tingling madly as if they were asleep. Smoke burned in her nostrils, throat and lungs. Perspiration beaded thickly on her forehead and forearms. Her vision began to wink in and out. Her eyes rolled back to whites.

Fred caught her as she fell, supporting her torso with his muzzle. Her frail body was searing hot to the touch, her borrowed clothes were smoking.

"Do not sleep. Stay here. Focus. Saure? Saure, can you hear my voice?"
"nnnneh… Ffff… whuh…" Her violet irises reappeared, but the black pinpoints of her pupils were so tiny they almost weren't there at all.