After the soldiers sounded the warning horns, what unfolded before my eyes was not utter chaos but the incredible cooperation of the unit of Sahal Imperial soldiers escorting Lord Wigram, riding in a carriage. Colonel Gill, their commanding officer, with whom Rayden handled many of the problems between the soldiers and the guards, bellowed orders to which his men and women responded without the slightest hesitation.
Under his command, the whole mounted force drew closer to the carriage, ready for an attack coming from the northwest, where the western edge of the Granora Mountains Range loomed in the distance to our left.
When the enchantments and runes carved into the wood and metal of the carriage lit up with such force, it made a booming sound and stirred my inner mana, I actually squealed in surprise. Then I watched in wonderment as a protective barrier formed, covering the entire carriage and its horses, before the whole column picked up the pace.
“I’ll be right with you!” Deckard said through the link of the union rings, to which I sent back a simple, “Okay.” Aside from the impending danger, my biggest concern was keeping myself in the saddle. The mare I was riding, sensing the threat behind us as well, picked up speed with the others without me having to prod her, a pace I wasn’t used to riding at.
“How are you holding up, Grey?” Lightfeather, steering her horse closer to me, asked and put her hand on my shoulder. For a moment, I thought it was to comfort me, foolish thought.
“Pip!” At her call, the squirrel left the top of my head and scrambled over my shoulder, across Major’s outstretched arm to her. “You know the drill.”
“Pocket, safe place. Keep head and tail down,” Pipsqueak piped as she hid in the safety of Lightfeather’s breast pocket.
“Very good,” the Major breathed in relief, then looked at me again. “So, Grey. Are you good?”
Was I? I had so many questions and no answers.
What the hell was that twisted presence? Were we under attack? Why were we running to Esulmor and not back to Castiana? Basically, I had no f****** idea what was going on! So, no! I wasn’t okay, but I also didn’t intend to be the weak woman who needed to be saved all the time anymore.
“I’m fine.” A lie she did not miss.
“You sure?”
“I-I’m…”
“Okay, Major, I’ll take it from here!” Deckard boomed, showing up on his steed beside us. She didn’t object, and I felt relieved now that he was here. The question was, what next? In contrast to my rambling, not knowing what to do, Deckard was clear on the next course of action.
“Jump over behind me, Mosshead!”
“W-what the actual f***?!” Was he serious? Both with the nickname and with me jumping from one galloping horse to another.
“This one neither, huh?” Deckard said, amused, after seeing my reaction. He’d spent the last two days trying to come up with nicknames that would fit me. Little Lioness, Dragoness, and so on…he tried calling me Grey too, but even he thought it was too weird, impersonal. So, for now, his efforts have been unsuccessful. Honestly, I think he was trying to force it too much. But now, I was grateful for his brashness as it brought something familiar to this chaos.
“Heck, no!” I shot back, sure as hell that it wasn’t how I wanted him to call me.
He grinned and nodded, then grew serious. “Come on. Jump!”
“Wouldn’t it be better to stop?” Considering the speed at which horses galloped, much faster than horses on Earth, as far as I could tell, that was a pretty dumb question. By the time I’d get over behind him, the column would be long gone and the beast at our heels.
“Seriously?”
Still, I was hesitant. “But…”
“Don’t f****** tell me you’re scared?! It’s nothing but what you’ve been practicing so far.”
S***! He was right. Jumping over hurdles and through hoops was most of what I did in training, except for dancing, and this was no different. Just another jump over the hurdle.
“What about Jewel?” I asked, glancing at the horse I had trouble staying on.
“I’ll take her, give me the reins, and for Traiana’s sake, jump!”
“Do what he says, Grey,” Lightfeather added, still riding beside us. “Although you’ve made great strides in riding for a rookie. You don’t know s*** about how to handle a panicking horse.”
Sure, I could have argued that I would have been able to calm the mare down, given that I could easily communicate with her. But would she even listen to me if she panicked? After all, even the panicking people weren’t thinking straight.
Without further delay, I decided to put aside whatever pride and doubts I had, handed the reins to Deckard, climbed into the saddle, and jumped over behind him. It wasn’t the most elegant execution, but good enough for a first try.
“Sorry, man,” I whispered to the stallion while trying to find the right spot and position behind my mentor. The poor horse had to carry the weight of both of us and still keep pace with the others, a speed which, considering the approaching danger, didn’t seem that high. I’d have to be really dumb not to see the reason why no one was pushing their horses to the sprint, though. It was the carriage whose coachman drove a quartet of black horses as hard as he could, yet poor animals were unable to run any faster.
Honestly, I was in awe of the speed we were rushing in spite of it all. Not even at full gallop, and it felt like I was speeding down the highway in a car. But it was too slow nonetheless, and I wasn’t the only one who saw it that way.
“Faster, silly horse!” squealed Pipsqueak, peeking out of Lightfeather’s pocket. There was tremendous urgency in her tiny voice. “Wren, go faster!”
Just as I was about to open my mouth to calm the little creature down, the mages lifted massive stone walls from the ground, and the soldiers dropped magical devices as we passed between them.
“Are those…mines?”
“Close enough,” Deckard said, nodding. “Bombs. Activated by proximity, though.”
“Will it work?” I damn sure hoped it would.
But he gave me an unsure shrug. “We’ll see.”
The waiting was nerve-wracking. Every second seemed to drag on for minutes. The time that the soldiers didn’t spend just waiting in suspense like I did. They built more obstacles and left more bombs behind to slow down the beasts as best they can. When the first ones exploded in the distance, my ears twitched at the soldiers’ cheers. A breath later, their rejoicing was cut short by the twisted presence that hit us much harder than before, topped off by insane rage.
“What’s going on, Deckard?! What’s following us?! What I felt, w-what I’m feeling…”
“…everybody senses it,” he said, not letting me finish. “A Beast, and not just one, are targeting us.”
“Is that what I sense?”
His silence was nerve-wracking, making me think we were in deeper s*** than I thought. Deckard took too long to nod. “What you felt was not the bloodlust of a single beast. From what I hear the scouts reporting, there are close to a hundred of them.”
That gave me pause. He heard them? I had trouble hearing Colonel Gill’s orders over the roar behind us, the explosion echoing in the distance, the thud of hooves, and the clatter of armor. Not the problem I was going to dwell on, though.
Instead, I took a glance around at the company of imperial soldiers. There were no less of them than beasts. “Why don’t we face them?” They couldn’t all be scared shitless like Pipsqueak and me.
“We may have to,” he said heavily. “They’ll catch us before we get to Esulmor.”
“Are you sure?” Lightfeather asked, looking nervously behind us where the dust kicked up by the blasts was rising in the distance.
“My perception doesn’t reach them yet, but they are catching up to us, Major.”
“F***!”
F***, indeed. But still…Why were we running? Why didn’t the soldiers just stand up to them? Deckard didn’t answer any of my questions. So I asked again.
“Their priority is to protect the Imperial Chief Healer, and right now, Esulmor appears to be the safest choice. It’s a territory of mossbears.”
“Ah, and Esu won’t tolerate another predator in there,” I said as understanding dawned on me. They relied on Esu for protection. “Won’t it just piss him off if we bring them on our tails into his woods?”
“It’s worth the risk,” Lightfeather said, sounding like she was reassuring herself. “Lor-Esu could be said to be allied with Sahal.”
“A very fragile alliance,” Deckard added.
“Of course, we have to be very careful, and it’s going to cost us.”
“We respectful,” piped the little squirrel in her pocket. “Esu, old, wise, deserves respect, then he will help.”
One could not disagree with that. At least not me. “Pipsqueak is right. If we storm his woods like this, we need to make sure that everyone, soldiers included, treats him and the other mossbears with respect.”
“That’s nice and dandy,” Deckard snorted. “It’s just that at this rate, we’re not going to get there before they catch up with us.”
Yeah, if it weren’t for the carriage, we could all spur our horses into a full sprint.
No, that wasn’t some experienced horsemaster talking. Just a woman torn from her world, who occasionally watched horse racing on TV with her dad and knew what a horse running at full speed looked like. Yet no one, not even Deckard, urged their steeds to a greater pace.
“Then why not face them now?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice from quivering. After all, it was not an easy question to ask as the presence of the horde of beasts kept pressing on my senses, sending shivers down my spine. “Didn’t you say we’d have to, anyway?”
“Because it’s not a pack of level 150 iron-fanged wolves.”
“Scouts already know how strong they are?” Lightfeather asked, wonder in her voice.
Deckard gave her a grim look. “It cost the life of one. Levels two hundred to three hundred, half a dozen of them approaching level four hundred.”
Damn! The thought of facing a hundred beasts like a young mossbear made my wings shake and my tail seek safety near my body.
However, it was something that drilled, trained, and well-equipped soldiers should be able to handle. Right? So why the hell weren’t they going to face the beasts now, when a clash was inevitable anyway?! There had to be more to it.
And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“What kind of beast commands them?” Lightfeather asked, knowing better. “Beasts of his level do not live anywhere around here in such groups except Esulmor.”
Deckard turned with his eyes fixed on the sky. “Look up.”
Doing the same as Lightfeather, I glanced up at the darkening sky lit by the setting sun. There, behind us, way up high, were four shadows. Despite my good night eyesight, all I could tell was that they were birds.
“Are you f****** kidding me?!” Lightfeather cursed, watching the shadows in the sky with the monocle that appeared on her eye. A magic tool, if I had to guess, but what she saw I dared not.
Her disbelief was answered by a small squirrel in her pocket. “Pip, not joking. Needs to hold nut. To calm down.”
“Sorry, Pip. That wasn’t meant for you. Here.” When Pipsqueak took the treat from her, the woman cast a glance at Deckard. “Are those Miros, the Northern Eagles?”
He shrugged. “You tell me, Major. You’re the animal and beast expert here. But it’s what I hear the scouts saying.”
“Are they bad news?” I ventured to ask, knowing nothing about these eagles.
“Bad news?” she asked back, laughing. “They shouldn’t f****** be here. They are beasts of snow-capped mountains high up in the north. They have never been seen this far south. Something is wrong, damn wrong!”
That was something she didn’t have to tell me. I knew that too. What I was missing was how dangerous they were. “I guess they’re stronger than the level four hundred beasts chasing us?”
“Yeah, Grey. Much stronger.”
“They don’t all have to be,” Deckard argued, trying to put a little hope into our plight.
Lightfeather sneered. “Sure, but one of them should be at least level five hundred. I’d guess more since they can control so many beasts.”
Gulping, I looked again at the sky and the four shadows there. Such strength was already in the range of the mossbear mothers.
“Why don’t they attack us, right?” said Deckard, seeing where my thoughts were going. “They could be on us in moments if they wanted to.”
“Yeah, why?”
“For the same reason as it’s not their presence what you’re feeling,” Lightfeather answered for him. “They are proud creatures. It’s beneath them to attack prey as weak as we are to them.” It was just my feeling, but talking about the animals, even the ones that chased us, gave her a certain peace of mind.
“Unless they see fit to do so,” added the man I was holding tightly around the waist. “Anything could f****** set them off! It could be us getting close to Esulmor or fending off the beasts. What I’d like to know is why they’re attacking us in the first place.”
“They don’t shy away from attacking people, as far as I know.”
“Wren, knows a lot,” Pipsqueak squealed from a pocket that just had little ears peeking out. “Good to listen.”
“But those are random attacks, this…” Lightfeather mused, stopping short to look behind her. “….this seems too intentional.”
I wasn’t that dense not to see where she was going with that. The s*** we were in was not some random hunt on the eagles’ part, but a targeted attack. The question was what or who was their target? Was their aim to break off negotiations with Esu and to sow discord among us? Or was it Lord Wigram himself? Then a chilling thought crossed my mind. It couldn’t be me, could it? I had nothing to do with eagles.
“Would you be able to face them?” Not an easy question to answer, I knew that. Still, I needed to know.
“If it was just one, probably. Though we’re too much out in the open, Duster.”
“Who duster?” came from Major’s pocket. “No dust on Pip. Nut dusty?”
Lightfeather ignored her little friend and even Deckard’s latest shot at my nickname, his attempt to distract me and ease my fears. “The plains below the mountains to the north are their hunting grounds. Not too different from where we are now.”
Great, that was f****** great! We were like little mice that came right under the cat’s nose begging to be eaten. So why not just give up, get down on the ground and wait for the inevitable?
Just as my mind began to spiral into dark places and I reeled in my use of [Indomitable Will], a wave of warmth hit me.
My cheeks were not bathed by the warm southern winds, though. Foreign mana surged through my body, forming runic circles and lines within me. If it weren’t for my training with Aspen, I’d probably panic, thinking that some of the beasts on our tails were using magic to attack me. But this was something else entirely.
“Buffs,” Lightfeather said, as she was struck by the same. “S***, that’s not good!”
As she spoke, Colonel Gill’s orders reached my ears. Lord Wigram was to proceed in a carriage with an escort of ten on the road to Esulmor. Lightfeather was to go with them if nothing else to ensure the safety of the Imperial Chief Healer in the presence of mossbear.
Me and Deckard? Since no one knew what the eagle’s aim was, we were to head into the woods separately, away from the carriage. The rest of the soldiers will stay behind, facing the beasts. When he ordered it, a strange feeling rushed through me. On the one hand, I was glad that they would allow me to escape. On the other, I had a strong urge to defy the orders and stay with them. I wanted to fight my own battles.
Foolishness, I know. I’d just be a liability, still…
“Wouldn’t it help if I used my beast presence on them?” I asked Deckard anyway. “It might break whatever control the eagles have over the beasts.”
“Good idea, but no. You’d have to hold that presence for more than a few moments. And don’t think for a second that those eagles would let the challenge of their dominance over those beasts slide. That’s not how beasts work.”
Yeah, if challenged, fight back. Show who’s stronger.
“Be prepared. The army guys and gals and the old man will finish up some more buffs, and we’re off.”
Honestly, the foreign mana in my body was throwing me off even though I knew what it was, and if I didn’t know better, I’d be struggling against it. Nobody’s told me how these things work yet. Another thing I needed Aspen to explain.
However, I could feel the energy, strength, and sharpness the magic raging in my guts gave me. Any fatigue built up from the day was gone, and I was ready to go into action more than ever.
Yet this was not to be my time to show my brilliance in battle, as my instincts urged me to do so.
Instead, as more and more energy surged through my body, I realized the soldiers were actually sending the best healer in the Empire away on the dawn of battle. Was it a wise thing to do? I’d like to argue not. But who was I to say against Colonel Gill’s orders when even Deckard didn’t object.
So, I kept my mouth shut.
When I looked back over my shoulder, there in the distance behind us, I could see the beasts with my eyesight now sharper than ever. They looked like a wall of raging claws and fangs coming at us. The closer they got, the more oppressive their presence was, the more the bloodlust grew.
The beasts were still relatively far away. We all still had a chance to escape. There was no need to fight them, right?
Wishful thinking.
The forest was even further out, if I had to guess minutes of a full horse sprint away, and the beasts seemed to have learned their lesson, avoiding the bombs quite successfully. Or possibly, the stupid ones were gone now. Either way, there was no way we could make it to the woods before they caught up with us.
“Good luck, Grey. Deckard,” Lightfeather said, feeling the growing tension too. The time to part our ways was coming.
“Major.”
“You too. Good luck to you both, Pipsqueak,” I said, my voice shaking. Despite my best efforts, the dread crept in.
“It’s Pip, lady,” came back from the pocket of the Major’s uniform. Though not a clear question, her intent was plain. She recognized me as her friend and asked if I was willing to become hers.
“I’ll see you in the woods, Pip,” I said, trying to put as much confidence in my voice as possible and reassure her that I wanted her as a friend, too.
Then, without warning, Colonel’s aura, something I’d experienced with Rayden, spread among us before he bellowed. “Now!”
Without any sign of reluctance to his order, Deckard spurred the stallion into a sprint, and Jewel, whose reins were tied to the saddle, ran with us. “Do your best!” I urged the stallion, giving him my full confidence.
The company of soldiers that stayed behind us slowed down.
We were not even two hundred paces from them, and they had already stopped and dismounted, shying the horses away. Then, as the last rays of the day’s sun sowed on the horizon, their ranks lit up with magic. Not a breath later, a myriad of spells slammed into the rushing horde of beasts, tearing many of them apart.
Never in my life have I seen anything like it. The impact was so powerful that I felt the air pressure even at this distance, and the following boom made my ears ring.
The neighing of the stallion, whose reins Deckard held tightly, could only be described as a curse.
“F***, indeed!” I agreed silently with the animal.
Still too far from the foot of the forest for my liking, the thought of Lord Wigram’s carriage crossed my mind. They were to our left, running parallel to us, yet moving away. Among the nearly a dozen soldiers accompanying the carriage were Lightfeather and Pip, my new friend.
Sadly, all I could do was hope they would make it in time, and Esu would be benevolent enough not to let them all get eaten by moss.
