The first day of travel through the woods was uneventful. It didn’t stop Eres and his party from being on constant alert, jumping at every snapped branch or whistle of the wind. At first, it was easy to laugh off, but as night began to creep closer it got harder and harder to concentrate, as they became more and more fatigued.

Eres had thought himself well prepared for adventuring, but he hadn’t expected the very act of travelling through unfamiliar terrain to be quite so taxing. By the time they reached the waystation, a small inn and stables by the side of the road, all of them were ready to collapse. In fact, the hearty stew and bread that they ate, the rooms they paid for and even the beds they slept in were all a blur for Eres. He had been exhausted before, Brom had seen to that more than once, but his brain felt so sluggish that he was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

Eres woke with the sunrise, as he had developed a habit of doing, and he was surprised at how refreshed he felt. There was a patina of fatigue over his memories of last night, even now, but he felt much better now. He rinsed his face with water, dressed in his clothes and leathers, and headed down to see what the options were for breakfast.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that breakfast was plentiful, with rashers of bacon, eggs with runny yolk and more fresh bread. He made his way through two plates of food and three cups of tea before the clatter of feet on the stairs made him look up. He watched Freya and Myla head across towards him and wondered how he had got quite so lucky.

Eres might have been focused on training these past eight years, but he wasn’t blind. He knew that both of his friends were incredibly attractive women, and if he was being completely honest with himself he might have thrown himself into the training even harder as they all got older to avoid it. While he had gotten more comfortable with remembering his past life, he still had holdovers from that life. Such as it being wrong to feel attracted to someone who was technically employed by him or one of his friends, not talking about the fact that they had grown up together and had only recently come of age.

So when they both came walking towards him, hips swaying, hair still slightly mussed from sleep, with smiles on their lips… He really didn’t think that he could be blamed for spilling the tea all down his chest.

“Still half asleep there, Eres?” Freya laughed as she slid into the chair next to him. Eres mumbled something unintelligible as he mopped at the stain.

“Morning, Eres,” Myla slurred as she slumped into the other chair. Eres hadn’t been able to tell from across the room, but her eyes were still half closed, and she had a sleepy smile on her lips.

“Morning, Myla,” Eres smiled before turning back to Freya, “Ah, I have been up for a while, had breakfast and asked some questions about the road and such. So I can’t blame it on sleep, I guess I’m just clumsy.

“I’m going to go and grab the rest of my things, see if I can work out a way to keep my head clear so I don’t get quite as burned out as yesterday. You guys grab some food and meet me out there in a little while, okay? And Myla, love, grab some tea, wake yourself up a little, yeah?” Eres squeezed Myla’s shoulder and she looked a little sheepish as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Eres walked away as his companions began to talk and laugh softly, and he got the strange feeling that he was the subject of the conversation, but he just shook his head with a chuckle and headed upstairs to grab his bag.

***

It wasn’t much more than an hour later that they were back on the road. Unfortunately, the only thing any of them could come up with to help with the mental exhaustion of always being on guard was to take a few more breaks and see if Freya’s miracles could do anything for their exhaustion during the rest periods. They talked softly as they walked, the winding dirt road wide enough that they could easily walk side-by-side, yet still managing to feel claustrophobic.

The cause of that feeling was the forest itself. The trees surrounding them weren’t particularly thick, nor were they particularly tall. Yet they still blocked the majority of the light from the sun above them, so it felt like they were moving through a perpetual twilight. Eres found that while he was a little less jumpy than yesterday, he was till nearly permanently on edge, and when they found a little clearing and decided to have an early lunch, he couldn’t have been more glad.

“You know,” Freya said, dropping onto a large rock, “I didn’t think learning Miracles to heal the mind and fortitude would be a huge benefit, I only really looked into them after you and Master Brom recommended them, but Gods I feel better.”

The first thing she did when they broke for lunch was gather her Divine power and whisper a prayer for strength of mind, and the difference was night and day. Gone was the fog and the fatigue of the morning's march and guard, replaced with a calm surety that they were as aware as they could be.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Well, I’m sure glad you bothered to pick them up,” Eres mumbled around a hunk of bread, “Honestly I think if something had jumped us last night before the waystation, we would have been too slow to react. We should keep an eye on that and try and keep aware of it in the future, so a break or two to refresh our minds like you have sounds perfect.”

“Yep, we will be relying on you, so keep my brain from going to mush!” Myla laughed as she washed down her food with a swig from her canteen. Eres hadn’t even seen her take a bite but the food was already gone, and he had to stifle a laugh. Myla had always been the one sitting around waiting for them to finish their food, and it felt good to know some things wouldn’t ever change. Even if change was pretty much all that was happening in their lives right now.

The crack of a breaking branch echoed through the clearing, breaking Eres from his contemplation. All three of them froze, straining their senses. The forest around them was silent apart from the rustle of wind through the branches high above them.

Then they heard the first growl rumbling from the brush.

Eres and his companions were on their feet with weapons ready in seconds. Myla stepped to the front, her huge Great-Spear held in a low guard, point forward towards the noise. Freya had her staff held across her chest and stood a few paces behind Myla as her eyes roamed over the edges of the clearing, her skin starting to cast off motes of what looked like golden dust as she began to channel her Divine power.

Eres stood at the back, ready to protect his companions. Instead of a weapon, he was swirling the Mana around him in and through his Magic Core. It rolled back and forth, responding to his call quickly. It had taken years of practice to get it to respond quickly, but after all that time the lethargy in it was gone, and it was always ready for him to call on it. He couldn’t see it, but he knew that his eyes had changed to the deep purple colour of his Mana. They wouldn’t start glowing unless he had to channel huge amounts of it, but he had been told it was a striking sight, if not slightly unnerving.

The silence stretched out again for a second, then two, then ten. Then, the undergrowth exploded into motion.

Three shapes dived towards Myla, with another two coming from the opposite side of the clearing and pouncing towards Eres. Eres caught sight of open jaws, large teeth and glowing green eyes before instinct took over and he gathered himself.

“SHIELD!” He roared. He pictured the solid planes of purple power he was so used to summoning, he envisioned what he wanted them to do, what he wanted from them. What he needed from them. And then he commanded his Mana to exert his will on the world. He told reality to bend itself to protect him and his friends, and it listened.

The pair of Mana constructs appeared in front of him and in front of Myla, with all of their attackers crashing nose-first into the solid walls. The shields spiderwebbed with cracks from the impact, but he pushed more Mana out through his Core and into them, and he saw them solidify.

The creatures slammed into the floor with a whimper as they rebounded from the walls, and they got their first good look at them. They stood on all fours, eyes glowing and drool dripping from their open jaws. Their heads came up to Eres’ breastbone, but the most notable thing about these seemingly canine monsters wasn’t their size, it was their flesh. Rather than fur, skin and muscle, these creatures consisted of various plant matter. Vicious thorns, creeping vines and twisted roots made their bodies. Even what they had thought to be teeth seemed to be sharpened stakes of wood.

“Briar wolves,” Myla spat as she twirled her weapon around into an overhead swing, cleaving one of the creatures in half, “Their bite is poisonous, but they die easy enough. Use fire if you can!”

As she heaved the weapon back from the dispatched monster to parry another bite, golden light settled onto her shoulders, and her weapon smoothly knocked the wolf aside. Freya was praying as she blessed Myla with strength and speed, her staff held ready in case one slipped past their Berserker vanguard.

Eres had dived forward after his two attackers fell to the ground, summoning the thin dagger made of Mana that he often practiced with. The shields had dissipated, and all of their power was concentrated now into the small blade he clutched. His right arm whipped out, driving the arcane blade deep into the right-hand wolf's throat. A gout of thick, green, brackish fluid burst from the wound and covered his hand. It smelled like stagnant pond water and rot, and he had to stop himself from gagging at the stench.

He circled the other wolf, now back on its feet. He could see Myla fending off the other pair of monsters easily, so he focused on dispatching this one safely and quickly. He called back the Mana from his construct and watched as the dagger shattered into pieces, then began to reform with his will.

Eres was trying to use incantations less and less and to channel with just his will, but a fight like this wasn’t the time to practice that. “Armour.” He hissed, watching the oversized gauntlets form around his hands and forearms. He and Brom had trained in all sorts of weapons over the years, but he had kept coming back to hand-to-hand fighting as being the most comfortable, and with his Mana constructs it eliminated a lot of the downsides of fighting without a weapon.

As soon as the weapon was solid, Eres didn’t wait for the monster to pounce; he sprung forward instead. The extra reach from the oversized construct let him slam a jab into the creature's face before it could spring backwards, slide to the side and hammer a blow into its ribs. The whine it let out mixed with the crunch of its body, but Eres kept the pressure up. He slammed blow after blow into the briar wolf, punching until the same green fluid leaked from its mouth and its eyes went dark.

It was as he was looking at the beaten monster in front of him and the torn throat of its partner that he heard Myla scream.