“Yeah,” I say, with a laugh, as I pull out my dagger. “That’s gonna happen.”
“Whoa-ho-ho there, friends!” Hadrik says. “How about you both take a deep long breath and think about what you are doing? Do you really want to end things like this, over some petty squabble? Wouldn’t you rather have your names immortalized as legendary warriors who fought in the greatest mage tournament in recent history than be remembered as the idiots who died before the contest even started?”
“Daren, please…” Rose says, with a pleading look.
Seeing that nobody is on his side, Daren finally decides to sheathe his sword.
“I’m not going to fight you, Barry,” he says. “I was hoping to intimidate you into backing down, but I suppose that if you aren’t the type to get intimidated by a stillwater or a dragon, a sword isn’t exactly going to do me much good. If you feel so strongly about this, then I have no choice but to leave matters as they are, for now. You were right about Kate, so I can only hope that your instincts are right this time too.”
With these last words, Daren and Hadrik walk past us to take their stations at the top of the hill, while Rose, Illuna and I head down, towards our tents. The three of us descend from the hill without uttering a single word to each other, and when we reach Flower’s tent, Illuna turns her head towards me before going in.
“Your intervention from earlier was unnecessary, human,” she tells me. “I could have taken care of that healer without your help.”
“Come on, don’t be like that!” I say. “Friends should stick out for each other in their time of need!”
“You seem to be under the false impression that you and I are friends,” Illuna says. “I assure you that you could not be any further from the truth.”
“Relax,” I say. “I only wanted to make sure we don’t lose our only guide. It wasn’t anything personal.”
“I see,” the banshee says. “In that case I cannot blame you for being too cautious. However, I will give you one warning. Do not make the mistake of considering me your ally. Our affiliation is only temporary, and it will end the moment we finish our little trip together. You would be a fool to think otherwise.”
She then turns her back on us and slowly steps into her tent.
“Good night, Illuna!” Rose says, waving, but the banshee gives no sign of having heard her, and she closes the tent behind her.
“Well, I’d say that went pretty well!” Rose says, smiling, as we head for our tents.
“You think?” I ask her.
“Of course I do!” she says. “Didn’t you see how happy she was when you jumped to her defense, earlier? If you manage to see past her grumpy facade, you can tell that she really isn’t that much different from the rest of us!”
“I think I’m starting to see a little bit of Flower in you…” I say.
“There’s a little bit of Flower in all of us, Barry!” Rose says, as she points towards me. “Yours just happens to be buried underneath several layers of cynicism and sarcastic quips!”
She smiles.
“Thank you for inviting me to join you tonight,” Rose continues. “I really appreciate it! Maybe we can do this again, sometime!”
“I see no reason why not!” I say.
“Good night, Barry!” Rose says, smiling.
“Sleep well, Rose,” I tell her, as we both part ways and head for our respective tents.
Once I get inside my tent, I fall asleep almost immediately. I never realized how tired I really was, until my head touched the pillow. I wake up a few hours later, to the sound of footsteps and several tents being dismantled.
“Had a nice sleep, Barry?” Hadrik tells me, with a grin, as I step outside. “I’ll be taking back my tent, if you don’t mind!”
As he starts to dismantle the tent, I take a good look around me and see that everyone is already up on their feet, busy either with the tents or with packing their bags. The sun is just starting to rise, which means that we now have a little over four days left to finish our quest.
I suddenly remember that I wanted to do a quick inventory of my backpack’s contents before leaving, since I can no longer see what’s inside of it, due to Daren’s enchantment. I start to take my items out of the backpack, one by one, by focusing on their image before reaching for them. I need to make sure that I don’t forget anything. Maybe I should make a list?
“What the hell are you doing?” Kate says, as she approaches me.
“I’m doing a quick inventory,” I answer her. “I didn’t really get a good look at all of my items before Daren enchanted my backpack, so I just wanted to make sure that I’m not forgetting anything.”
After looking at me for a few seconds, Kate grabs my hand, and she uses it to tap three times on the inside of my backpack. Immediately after she releases me, a screen magically appears above my backpack, giving me a detailed list of all my items, with corresponding pictures for each of them.
“There’s your quick inventory,” Kate says. “Now hurry up and put that stuff back in, or you’ll get left behind.”
Once we all finish what we had to do, we start marching yet again, with Flower leading the group, just like yesterday. This time, however, the five of us are a lot more silent than before. With the exception of Flower’s occasional directions, there are barely any words spoken between the six of us in the first half hour of our journey.
“Did… something happen while I was asleep?” Flower asks, worried, after noticing that something is wrong.
“No!” Daren and I both shout at the same time.
“Uh… okay?” Flower says, with an even more worried tone than before.
“From what I heard, Barry and Daren had a little fight last night,” Kate says. “Pay them no mind. I’m sure they’ll get over it soon enough.”
After a few more hours of walking through the forest, Flower announces to us that we are starting to get closer to our goal. We decide that this would be a good time to take a little break and talk about our strategy for infiltrating the stronghold.
“First things first,” Daren says. “We need to decide what to do with Rose during our attack. The way I see it, we have two options. Either we take her with us, or we leave her in a safe area outside of the stronghold, with someone to act as her bodyguard, just in case. Anyone have any thoughts on this?”
“I volunteer to stay behind and guard Rose,” Kate says. “I’m not sure of how much help I can be in infiltrating the fort without my magic, but I should be able to handle a few ogre scouts on my own if need be.”
“I think it would be safer to take Rose with us to the stronghold,” I say. “We’ve been told that the ogres have mages within their ranks. If even one of those mages happens to be in the scouting party, Kate will have no chance to beat him.”
“The lad makes a good point,” Hadrik says. “It’s too risky to leave Rose behind. I say we take her with us. If we managed to protect her in the ruins, we can do it here too!”
Daren turns towards Rose.
“Rose, is this okay with you?” he asks her.
“Of course!” she says. “We’ve already been through much worse together. I’ll try my best not to get in anyone’s way, once we enter the fort.”
“Before we make any concrete plans,” Hadrik says, “could we maybe go over the leopard’s briefing one more time? His accent in Common was horrible and I’m not sure if I got all he said.”
“Well, first of all,” Kate says, “the chalice we are meant to retrieve was used to give water unique healing properties which could cure some illnesses that were incurable through the use of spells. The artifact itself looks like a regular golden chalice, except it has triangular markings on the sides. Regarding the stronghold’s defenses, the leopard said that the ogres are primarily divided between regular warriors that use big clubs to fight, and mages that have a variety of magical specialties. The most dangerous ones that we should be on the lookout for are their shaman, who should be easily recognizable by the multi
tude of tattoos inscribed on his body, and the stronghold captain, who is the only ogre warrior in the fort that wears heavy armor. That should be about the main gist of it.”
“If this chalice of theirs is so important, I still don’t get why the fox doesn’t just storm the fort herself to get it back,” Hadrik says. “Isn’t she supposed to be really powerful?”
“Eleya derives most of her power from the sacred woods throughout the continent,” Flower says. “When she steps outside those woods, she is not much stronger than most other animals. This is why the war between animals and monsters has been going on for decades, without reaching a conclusion. This is also why access to the sacred woods is forbidden for all outsiders.”
“Getting back to the discussion at hand,” Daren says, “I believe that the next thing we need to establish is how we are going to retrieve that chalice. From what I heard, the stronghold is positioned on top of a hill, and all of the trees in a mile radius from it have been cut down. There’s no way we’ll be able to sneak our way in.”
“Maybe we could try to buy it from them?” Rose suggests.
“It wouldn’t work,” Kate says. “The ogres stole that chalice knowing full well what it was capable of. They’re not going to give it away for any price.”
“Well then, I guess there’s only one option left,” Hadrik says, with a grin. “We go in right through their front door!”
“I’m afraid that we are left with no other alternative,” Daren says.
“If we encounter any elementalists, leave them to me!” Hadrik says. “Since I focus mainly on shapeshifting magic, I’ve had to develop certain techniques that I can use in place of defensive spells while I am transformed. One of these techniques allows me to harden the magical aura around my body, which is not only great for defense, but also for attacking. If I use it to harden the magical aura around my fists, I can easily deflect fireballs with my punches, and send them right back at their casters!”
“My sword is also good against elementalists,” Daren says. “I can use it to absorb any element, and I also have a sword technique that can temporarily sever a mage’s link to the magical plane, making them unable to cast spells for thirty minutes.”
“Hah!” Hadrik says. “Who says mages need magic to fight? We’ll conquer this stronghold of theirs in no time!”
“If we’re all agreed to attack the fort openly, then I guess there’s not much more to discuss,” Daren says. “There are too many things we don’t know about the building’s layout and the distribution of their troops to be able to anticipate what will happen. We’ll just have to rely on our instincts, once the battle begins. If no one else has anything to add, then I suggest we get going. We still have a lot of ground to cover until we reach our objective.”
It was a few more hours later that we got close enough to the stronghold to be able to do a bit of reconnaissance. Flower and Hadrik went to scout ahead, while the rest of us looked for a good place to bury our backpacks, since it would be too difficult to fight with them on our backs and we’d have no place to leave them while we’re in the fort. Before burying my backpack, I made sure to take my crossbow out of it, since I am sure to need it in the upcoming battle.
After about thirty or so minutes, Flower and Hadrik returned to us, with some rather unsettling news.
“It’s dead quiet out there,” Hadrik tells us. “And I’m not just talking about a lack of patrols, I’m saying there weren’t even any ogres posted on the walls. Something doesn’t add up, here. The ogres may be stupid, but they couldn’t possibly be this sloppy.”
“Maybe they abandoned the fort and moved elsewhere,” I say.
“I would find that hard to believe,” Hadrik says. “From what the leopard told us, this fortified structure used to belong to a group of goblins before the ogres took it from them, by force. If they went through so much trouble to secure this fort, I doubt they’d just abandon it like that for no reason. This smells like a trap to me.”
“I agree,” Daren says. “We’ve been told that their mages are quite capable, so it’s entirely possible that they’re using magic to detect when anyone is approaching their stronghold. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury to just stand here and wait them out until they get bored. Time is not on our side, and we can’t really tell what they are trying to accomplish until we actually enter the fort. Let’s just hope that our lack of any detailed plan regarding our actions once we’ve infiltrated the stronghold won’t prove fatal to us.”
“Oh, don’t worry!” Flower says. “Petal and I have a secret plan. It’s sure to work!”
“I see,” Daren says. “And would you by any chance have any intention of sharing this secret plan with the rest of us?”
“No, of course not!” Flower says, shocked. “How would it still be a secret if we just started telling everyone about it?”
“Right,” Daren says, in a dismissive tone. “Well then, I guess this is it. This won’t be an easy fight. Not by a long shot. We’re going to be vastly outnumbered, we’ll be fighting on unfamiliar terrain, and worst of all, we won’t have our magic to help us. However, we’ve all had to go through hardships since the beginning of this tournament, and we’ve always somehow managed to pull through. It would be pointless to hold a last minute strategy meeting now, given the extremely limited information we have on our enemy, so instead, I will tell you this: Whatever you do, don’t get yourselves killed!”
“You worry too much, Daren,” Hadrik says, with a grin. “Nobody is going to die here. Most of us have already had our fair share of battles in the past. We haven’t survived this long just to be taken out by a bunch of overgrown baboons in the middle of nowhere. We’ll win this fight like we’ve won many others, and by the end of the day we’ll all have another exciting story to share with friends over a drink near the fireside!”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Daren says.
“Flower, are you sure about this?” Kate says. “The fox only said you had to lead us to the stronghold. You’ve already fulfilled your promise. There’s no need for you to risk your life for us any further.”
“Oh, I could never live with myself if I just abandoned you here like this!” Flower says. “And besides, Petal and I have fought ogres before. They’re not that tough! I don’t think there will be any problems.”
While Flower and Kate were talking, I heard what sounded like footsteps somewhere behind me. I immediately turn around to see if we are being followed, but there’s no one there. Was it just my imagination?
After looking around for a few more seconds and coming up empty, I arrive at the conclusion that I’m just too tense right now to be able to fully trust my senses, so I turn around and get ready to leave for the fort. Once we all make sure that we have everything we need, we start our final march towards the stronghold.
It takes us about ten minutes to reach the end of the forest. The whole area around the fort has been completely cleansed of trees and all other vegetation, to provide direct line of sight for the ogre patrols. The stronghold itself is placed on top of a hill, and it has a surface of around four hundred thousand square feet. Its walls are made of stone and have a height of about thirty feet, while the only visible entrance to the fort seems to be a very large wooden gate that has been left wide open, giving us a clear view of the stronghold’s inner yard.
There seems to be one main building in the middle, which is connected to all four of the walls that are forming a square around it. Getting a closer look at the fort, we soon realize that it isn’t just the walls that are deserted, but the whole yard as well.
“They sure aren’t trying to hide the fact that this is a trap, are they?” Hadrik asks, as we step through their open gates.
“Keep your guards up,” Daren says, as he looks around. “They could attack us from any direction.”
While we make our way inside their inner yard, Arraka suddenly starts to make a very loud noise from inside her amulet.
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Flower says. “If I open the amulet now, you’re just going to shout as loud as you can and give away our position to the ogres, aren’t you? You’re not going to fool me again!”
Arraka makes an even louder muffled sound, and she doesn’t appear to have any intention of stopping. As we advance through the fort’s yard, Arraka is starting to get even more agitated, and the amulet is beginning to shake violently as her muffled sounds intensify.
“What’s happening?” Hadrik says. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
“They must be waiting for something,” Daren says. “If only I could figure out what they are trying to accomplish.”
Arraka is now shaking the amulet more violently than ever before, as her muffled screams are so loud that I can almost start to understand her words.
“What do you want?!” Flower says, finally, as she caves in and opens the amulet.
“They’re invisible, you morons!” Arraka shouts loudly, with her voice full of rage. “They have you all surrounded!”
As I turn around, I am terrified to learn that one of the ogres has just come out of invisibility, and is now bringing down a five foot long club towards my skull. While the club was descending towards me, my body moved on its own, reacting with an incredible speed, and I managed to get out of harm’s way, while the ogre’s weapon smashed the ground and sent bits of rock flying everywhere.
As I get a closer look at my attacker, I see that the monster is about eight feet tall, with thick gray skin, and it’s wearing nothing other than a loincloth around its waist. Two of its lower fangs are sticking out of its closed mouth, its forehead is exceedingly narrow, and on its face, it is wearing one of the dumbest expressions I’ve ever seen in my life.
The rest of the ogres are now also slowly appearing out of thin air, and it turns out that there are at least a hundred of them, and they have us all surrounded. Two of the ogres stand out from the crowd, one because of the excessive amount of tattoos on his body, and the other because of his heavy armor. They must be the shaman and the fort captain that we’ve heard so much about. All of the other ogres are wearing nothing but loincloths and are holding big clubs in their hands, so it’s a bit difficult to distinguish their mages from their warriors.
Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1 Page 22