by B A Fleming
“Our instinct is to conserve energy when we can, so when life is predictable, our minds involuntarily tune out. Our minds become efficient at carrying out tasks that have become habitual, so they are freed up to address more pressing issues. Unfortunately, many of us spend this mental energy on worrying, self-analyzing and weighing decisions, which can become quite stressful for our system. It drains our energy unnecessarily...”
She looked at him.
“If I had asked you to do a difficult spell without allowing you to warm up, you would be drained now. Understanding our own energy flows is critical to effective use of magic.”
Let’s continue then. Twenty minutes later Thais had started throwing handfuls of fire across the clearing. Dralan had excused himself for ten minutes and now returned to the campsite and watched, like the others, as she aimed at trees and various rocks. Everyone was laughing and smiling.
Dralan smiled at Thais and she returned his attentions, feeling the limerence in her stomach.
“Okay Thais,” Eren announced quietly, putting a stop to the frivolity. “Let’s now play with snow before we finish for the evening.”
The exercises had not been difficult by any measure, although Eren could see that she was starting to tire. He indicated for her to hold her hand out palm down, a bit over a foot above the snow. He did the same, whispering a word she barely heard and a small amount of snow swirled up to reform in the palm of his hand.
Thais did the same, although without words, and the Seer watched on as the snow swirled up to settle on her hand. She breathed gently as a tear started to form on the side of her eye. She let out a deeper breath and all the snow, almost twice as much as Eren had accumulated, tumbled back towards the ground.
“I think it time for you to rest now dear.”
Eren watched her walk back across to the others, sitting next to Dralan who had joined the others once the fire throwing had ceased. She leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Eren sat watching for a few minutes more and then made his way back over to join them.
*****
He counted out the coins to the innkeeper who stood in front of him smiling, looking down into his palm and back up to the face of Casperi concentrating on the numbers of silvers he placed in the man’s hand as he whispered the count to himself. The man looked him. Half-witted mercenaries was his standing trade.
Jotnar was nowhere to be found and so the party had made their way back to an inconspicuous inn near the border between the dwarf and Morean quarters. They had quietly taken a few ales and dinner in a corner.
After Casperi paid they made their way up to a barren room. Three straw pallets were placed in an otherwise empty space with a small window, now closed, that looked out to the brick wall of the next building.
The disappearance of Jotnar was yet to be explained
although several dwarves they had spoken to had speculated that he may have collapsed in a drunken stupor in any number of parlors throughout the district. All three felt tired and put it down to the first half decent bed they had laid in since the City of the Imuhagh.
Temar was the first to wake. The motion of the cart had stirred him from a dream as he opened his eyes, staring through the roughly carved wooden boards towards the ground. “Casperi, Casperi,” he whispered as he shook the closest of his companions. Another passenger sat in the corner looking at him as the two others were still asleep. Aryz Coun laid facing away from him, one person across.
Casperi woke and half lifted his head.
“Oh shit,” he murmured.
A Morean guard looked into the wooden cage that held the six prisoners. He rode on horseback besides the cart.
“Temar Bolyl. Did you think you could avoid us forever?”
“Do you know me?”
“Only by reputation. Our sentries picked up you and Aryz Coun shortly after you arrived in Masterstone. Seems the Imuhagh like you even less than we do. Welcome back to the Morean Empire, reus. The executioner has been looking forward to meeting you,” he smiled as he rode away.
Aryz Coun eventually woke, raising his head slightly, he looked at the feet of Temar less than a pace from his nose. He waved his hand at them as he rose to his knees. He looked around and swore under his breath as he dragged himself across to sit next to Casperi leaning against the side of the wagon.
“Morean dogs,” he finally said.
Temar smiled and leaned forward to look him in the eye.
“Casperi just told me that Werta warned him.”
Aryz Coun looked at both of them.
“I’m going to strangle that Guerta next I see her,” spat Aryz Coun.
“We think it more likely Kendro,” offered Temar.
“Wouldn’t put it past that bastard either. Still living off
previous glory. I’m strangle him as well.”
Temar and Casperi laughed at him.
“Bastards,” he murmured. He sat his forearms upon his knees and closed his eyes again.
*****
They jumped the low stone wall easily in smooth movements, and set off at pace through the open field. All of the party, except the Seer, were now well-trained soldiers. This meant that they travelled at his pace, which was considerably slower than their pursuers.
They had finally made the decision to leave their horses behind, grazing in some fields that they felt would be beyond the reach of the invading forces. Each forest trail had become more difficult to navigate, and relinquishing the mounts gave them more ease of movement, if not lowing their advancement.
Their hunters continued after them, but they knew they would have to push their way through thick forest if they were to head off the party.
“In another half hour, we should be in the forest over there. Although not entirely safe, it will give us options,” mentioned Eren.
“But if we go this way, we can lose them quicker,” pointed out Dwane, to a patch of forest several hundred paces closer.
“That direction is the correct way,” reinforced the Seer resolutely.
The chase continued for another twenty minutes. The party crossed a small handmade bridge as a group of Ice Gols mercenaries closed in on them. They were three to one and as the party fled, Eren and Soze briefly stopped to set fire to the bridge to try to slow the oncoming attackers. Four of the men were almost on top of the mage, being the slowest, although Soze and Gameard had remained with him.
Eren stopped momentarily at the end of the clearing. He incanted a phrase and the image of a bears’ head appeared in his hand as a floating mist. He cast it towards his pursuers as the image grew into a full-size bear that
ran straight towards the four soldiers. They froze and ducked in fear as the apparition swept past them. They rose to find that the humans had vanished.
A moonless night hid the party easily. If the forest was not dark enough before, then it certainly was now. Eren insisted that they were on a trail, but with the thick brush and limited vision it was hard to consider this possible.
They would keep moving for three to four hours and hope that their attackers had given up the chase until first light.
“When the light first appears, I’ll backtrack and make some false trails,” Dwane suggested.
“No one can see anything in this darkness, but good idea. Get some sleep now and I’ll take first watch,” said Dralan.
Two hours later Nathe was awoken by Dralan. “Your turn master swordsman.” He turned and sat, closing his eyes, instantly falling into a deep sleep like trance.
Dralan was shaken awake deep into the night. He seemed to sleep very deeply in his strange position. The first glimpses of light had started to appear. Dwane and Orate had already set off back through the forest to set some false trails.
Dwane reappeared at a run towards the party and they stopped for a few minutes to allow him to catch up. Nathe let him catch his breath and then asked about what he had seen.
“They have some good trackers with them. We might gain an extra hour,
but I doubt that we would have more.”
“And in numbers?”
“I figure more than ten. Maybe even twice that number, but no more. They seemed to sleep all night so I imagine they will be onto us before the end of the day.”
“Mage, do you have any more tricks to surprise us with?” asked Veer, turning to him.
“Maybe not as many as you’d like, but I know the safest passage through these forests, which is the best that we can hope for.”
“Maybe, but we may need more than that.”
“We may well,” he suggested and turned to continue walking. The others looked at each other, Nathe slightly shrugging his shoulders before they all followed.
The forest opened up to a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing stood a large, flat toped rock, balanced on three others. With the tabletops’ incredible size, almost the size of a wagon, it was a mystery as to how it could have been put there. In the center sat a small pyramid made of stones stacked atop the others.
Eren raised his left hand.
“Gather a stone, each of you, from the edge of the clearing.”
All in the party gave a confused looked as the sage started chanting something. A small, rhythmic saying, over and over again. He pulled a small loaf from his bag and with his head bent towards his chest, he balanced his staff between his two index fingers and half dragged it across the ground as he slowly strode measured paces forward, chanting and making an offering to some unknown god.
Once he had placed the food on the stone table, he turned to the others. “Take half a loaf of bread from your sack and put it next to mine. With the rocks that you have gathered, make a small stack from them. Bow slightly before placing your bread upon the table.”
He indicated how to bow and present the offering.
Although somewhat swaying between confused and bemused, each did as they were told.
When the last had finished the seer gently spoke. “Come” and proceeded to continue on the path on the other side of the clearing.
“Um, why the peace offering?” quizzed Dwane. The first to ask the question over five minutes after they left the clearing.
“This is the home of the Bo monks. This is their forest. It is important to respect their practices. It brings good fortune,” whispered Eren, glancing about the darkness that laid outside of the path.
“But that was a days’ food!” remarked Gameard.
“Always well worth it,” remarked Eren, as if he had become quickly bored with the conversation.
The party walked along in silence for almost half an hour.
Suddenly a noise could be heard from the darkness. They all gathered toward the center, facing outward in a circle. An old man appeared, almost half stumbling out of the
bush with his old walking stick.
“Thacometum, thacometum, thacometum, ohhh, Thacometum, thacometum, thacometum” he chanted softly as he wandered through their circle and past them. Everyone turned to Eren.
“What did he say?”
“He said – “’They come. Prepare yourselves,’” he remarked stanchly. Thais turned to notice that the old man had simply vanished, even though his words had remained, and then slowly dissipated.
They firstly heard the attackers yelling and running towards them. The group could see them, but in the half darkness of the forest it was hard to make out how many, although the noise was suffice to indicate more the thrice their number came upon them. Soze, Nathe, Dralan, and Orate all crouched slightly, swords drawn, in preparation for their foe. Gameard cocked his bow, as did Dwane. Thais held her bow by her side, and with her other hand, like Eren, held it ready to cast a spell if required.
The party came upon them. One hundred paces, eighty paces, seventy. Suddenly the trees erupted as men came swinging from the darkness, some with long sticks, others with nothing. Three of the attackers quickly had their necks wrapped by the vines that their opponents had swung on.
These men all wore a dark navy blue gi of the Bo monks. They acrobatically struck at their opponents, sidekicks, turning back kicks, jumping front kicks, five blows within a second, all executed perfectly. Within twenty seconds all of the enemy laid prone on the ground. Their weapons either thrown across the clearing or fallen near to them. The monks quickly gathered the weapons, and approached the party.
The outfits of the Bo monks shimmered in a small beam of light that drew through the narrow clearing, the dark blue material contained a hint of mauve. They stood before the group, all bowed in unison, and then disappeared with all the weapons of the enemy into the forest from where they came.
“Did our enemy just get made by a bunch of monks?” laughed Soze.
“I told you the offering brings good fortune,” quipped the
sage as he turned to leave.
“What about them?” questioned Dwane, pointing to the enemy, all either dead or unconscious some thirty paces across the clearing.
“The creatures of the night will take them. Speaking of which, it will be dark in a few hours. We had better keep going. The foothills of Briers’ Range is not far from us now.”
Eren continued along the path, and after a few glances to each other and their fallen foes, the rest of the party continued as well.
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