Marcus looked down the barrel of his rifle to make sure that it was still straight. There was a very slight bend to it that he’d need to compensate for. When had that happened? When he’d blocked that spear thrust? No, that had been a different rifle. Oh well, no time to actually fix it and Cantalia was lacking in gunsmiths anyway. His other rifles had their own problems, and he’d been forced to cannibalize one of them for repairs on the others, but it had been getting ridiculous lugging so many of them around anyway.

  As he did his last check of his kit he listened to Trina lead a number of other mercenaries in their prayers. She had quite a following at this point. Nearly half of the mercenaries that made up Gemini had become congregants, though not all of them were with her now. Many were in different areas, setting up their own parts of the ambush.

  Pyotr finished his prayers with her before approaching Marcus.

  “Are you ready, brother?”

  He nodded. “Always ready to earn my keep.”

  Pyotr smiled and clapped his shoulder. He had never asked Marcus to join their prayers, which he appreciated. Religion wasn’t something he’d bothered with in his old life and he didn’t intend to change that here in this new one. He’d been surprised when Pyotr had joined Trina in her prayers. It seemed funny to pray with Diet Michael now that Michael Classic was gone, but perhaps that was the reason for it. Marcus was curious, but since Pyotr never asked him to join him, he didn’t ask why he had started.

  There was a birdcall and they exchanged a nod as they went to their positions. There was a large group of Burndan troops passing through this section of road and it was their job to make sure that not all of them made it to their destination.

  Marcus quickly climbed the tree he’d already set most of his gear up on and grabbed his rifle, aiming it down the road. He could see the signs of a large approaching column of troops. In swampy Cantalia those signs weren’t dust kicked up on the road, so much as shifting swarms of insects and displaced birds.

  He found himself a bit anxious. It had been a problem since Michael and Ollie had left. Without Michael he couldn’t afford to make a mistake. A broken limb or bad wound Trina might be able to heal, but anything severe and he was done. Aside from that he’d gotten very used to being paired with Ollie whenever they were going into battle. Mages and dragoons were both backline fighters and he’d gotten used to hearing the savage oaths full of unique expletives that Ollie would chant in order to get his spells ready. He’d demanded he be quiet when he was there, but now he found that he missed their familiarity.

  He looked around, making sure no other mage or ranger was nearby and began muttering a few of his favorite choice oaths under his breath, feeling a bit embarrassed that they helped to steady him as he watched the approaching enemies down the sights of his rifle.

  After a few minutes he was able to get a better look at things. No cavalry, as had been the norm this deep into the swamp. He concentrated and his eyes shifted from their usual deep brown to the golden eyes of a hawk. It was something new he’d been granted since he’d been fighting more human opponents. It came from the title Headhunter and let him scan and identify who the strongest people were even at a great distance. It didn’t give him specifics about their strength, but it was valuable nonetheless. The only real problem with it was when the Burndans would shift their titles around and some of them would suddenly jump in strength. Personal strength also didn’t always correspond to usefulness on the battlefield either. Commanders in the Burndan army averaged more titles than many, but often they’d actually have fewer than some of the more experienced frontliners.

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  With that in mind, Marcus began to mentally note which targets to prioritize. A mage towards the middle of the column with a chunk of his pauldron missing. A knight with a bright red feather in his helm. A short man that was yelling orders to a row of infantry in front of him. He wished that he could mark his targets as those with magic could, but he’d just have to rely on his own eyes and focus.

  The Burndan troops were wary. Cantalian forces had already been harassing them constantly as they slowly took territory step by bloody step. Marcus’s great uncle had fought in Vietnam. Had a whole bunch of bullshit to say about his experience. Marcus felt as if they were playing the role of Vietcong in this conflict. He just wished he had a semi-automatic rifle. It seemed only fair considering that Burndan had the magical equivalent of napalm.

  The Cantalians struck first with a salvo of empowered blowdarts that mostly bounced off of invisible shields their mages had created, though a few did make it through and caused soldiers to fall to the ground with mouths foaming and eyes beginning to bleed.

  Right after their salvo came a series of fireballs and lightning bolts. Much like the blowdarts, most of them were blocked by enemy mages, but those that broke through did tremendous damage.

  Marcus watched carefully the entire time, looking to find gaps in the mages' barriers as he slowly lined up his shots, calmly finding his targets and accounting for everything in front of himself. He squeezed the trigger, and watched as the mage with the missing chunk of pauldron’s body went limp and fell.

  He quickly grabbed his second rifle, took aim, and fired at a knight that was moving to meet the ground forces. He fell and the men charging behind him tripped over him, making them easy work as Pyotr danced over their fallen comrade and skewered one of the other knights before shooting a short blast of fire out of his empty hand to drop another even as his sword whipped out again.

  Trina was doing her best Michael impression. She was surrounded by a dozen men and women that were actually praying as they smashed aside Burndan regulars. Trina wasn’t the unyielding hammer that Michael was, but she knew when and where to apply force, threading the needle with her shortsword in strike after strike and quickly healing who she could before falling back to heal whomever had gone down.

  Marcus picked off the knight with the feather in his helmet when he raised his visor for a moment after being blinded by something thrown by the Cantalians, then he dropped the short sergeant who was still barking orders as he tried to rally his men.

  As he began reloading his rifles, their forces were already doing their best to fall back into the swamp. They’d managed to kill dozens of the invaders without taking heavy losses of their own.

  Marcus slung his pack over his shoulder with one shot ready and began quickly climbing down from his perch where he met with the retreating Pyotr and Trina. As he landed, a knight appeared very suddenly and cut at him with the downward slash of a sword.

  Marcus dodged it. His reaction was his highest boon after all.

  The knight followed it up with two more strikes. Marcus could see a few other troops closing in on them and could hear a few of the Gemini troops moving to help him. He gritted his teeth, and on the next strike he grabbed the knight's hands where they met the hilt of his sword and stopped the blow cold before aiming his rifle one handed under his chin, and pulling the trigger.

  The knight fell limp and Marcus turned away, encouraging the others to turn back around and run. A lot of enemies assumed that Marcus wasn’t capable of being a frontliner, but his strength had increased greatly since he’d begun fighting the war. His Lifethief title had gained him an incredible number of stat boosts from the heavily titled Burndan troops. He wasn’t on the front lines because he still believed he was more useful as a sniper.

  As he caught up with Pyotr, he counted heads, noticing that they’d only lost a few. That made this their most successful ambush in some time. Even with it, they were losing. He’d heard Lys arguing loudly with the twins that they should consider abandoning Cantalia. She was right, but as long as it benefited him, he saw no reason not to keep collecting titles and boosts. He needed to be stronger. If he’d been stronger then…

  He spat on the ground, slung his rifle back behind himself and kept running.