The wind blew, playing with the hem of his tattered cloak. The sun shone a bit brighter, making the armor peeking out of the crates on the cart glitter like diamonds. The group continued arguing, finding the most ridiculous and absurd reasons for why they shouldn’t be the ones to share their saddle. And Ash... Ash stood still, face devoid of any trace of his usual childishness.

Finally, he slammed his staff into the ground. There was a clink, like hitting a crystal glass with a spoon to announce a toast. The group fell silent, watching as tiny circles detached themselves from the mage’s staff. Unlike circles made by pebbles tossed into a lake, these didn’t fade away over time. When they reached the forest, they shook the trees, scaring away birds and small animals.

“What are you doing?” Tul asked, a little concerned.

None of them had ever seen or heard of a Word that could ripple the grass and trees as if they were water. They moved their bewildered gazes back to Ash who was grinning and licking breadcrumbs from the corners of his mouth

“So,” Mary said calmly, bringing them back to the original topic. “Ash, you will ride with—”

“Guido!” he interrupted, waving his hand in greeting.

From the direction of the forest emerged a powerful horse, similar to those often represented on paintings of the most epic battles. It rushed toward them, black mane glistening on the sun like an inky waterfall, contrasting sharply with the pale gray of its hair. On its forehead was a black spot resembling in its shape a wolf’s head. It ran so fast that one could barely track the movement of its legs, but you could still see the muscles rippling under its skin, and chest heaving with every movement.

Ignoring the neighs of its frightened cousins and stunned gasps of the rest of the group, it halted beside its old friend. It nudged the young man with its snout and then laid its head on his shoulder. Smiling, Ash sank his hands into the majestic mane and scratched Guido’s head.

“So? What do you think?” he asked the stunned Lari. “This is Guido. My horse.”

“You call that a horse?!” Mary exclaimed. “Why does it have fangs?!”

Ash turned to look at Guido, whose fangs were so big and strong that it could tear out a bear’s throat. On the horse’s menu were not only bears but also lynxes, foxes, rabbits, badgers, wolverines, and other inhabitants of the forest.

“Wolves raised him,” Ash replied, jumping onto Guido’s back.

“That’s dumb,” Blackbeard snorted. “They don’t raise horses, they eat them.”

“And yet, there are stories of wolves raising human children,” Ash replied. “What’s to stop them from raising a horse?”

“...nothing, I suppose,” Alice whispered barely audibly. She was shy around new people, no matter if they were human or not.

“Right? I saved Guido when he was a foal and asked a pack of wolves to raise him as their own.”

“You can talk to animals?” Mary asked in surprise.

“I can,” Ash mumbled and lowered his gaze, realizing that he had said a bit too much. “I know a couple of Words, but that’s it.”

“It may come in handy,” she said thoughtfully.

According to legends, mages could talk to just about everything that existed in this universe if, of course, they knew the right Word. However, in reality, rare were those who went beyond learning how to communicate with a couple of objects. Mages mostly talked with weapons. After all, there was no better companion on the road than a trusty blade.

If Ash was a druid, him knowing some beast Words wouldn’t be all that surprising, but he was a mage. However, this fact somehow slipped Mary’s mind.

“Wait,” she suddenly said, “will he attack our horses?”

“Of course not! He’s well-mannered! Aren’t you, Guido?”

Guido let out a low growl of affirmation, scaring its relatives who started to anxiously bite on their reins.

“If he does anything, you’ll be the one to blame!” Mary snapped. “All right, boys and girls, we’ll be riding without stopping until nightfall. We’ve given the rest of the groups a big head start, so we have a lot of catching up to do!”

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“Aye!” the group responded in unison and spurred their horses.

“No racing today,” Ash whispered to Guido who snorted in frustration and stomped the ground with his right hoof. “I’m sorry, my friend. However, there are dangers and adventures ahead, so look forward to those...”

Guido neighed with joy and menace — for both Ash and him, one of the best pleasures in life was a good fight.

With another neigh, Guido took off. In a matter of seconds, he caught up with the rest of the group. Unfortunately for the Wandering Stumps, they had no idea just what they had gotten themselves into when they decided to accept Ash into their ranks.

Two days later

Lari took a stick and poked Ash in the thigh. The mage staggered, then collapsed, causing everyone present to burst out laughing.

“All right, break time,” he said, offering Ash his hand so that he could get up.

“Meanie,” the mage muttered.

Waving the offered hand away, he lay down on the grass. Covered in sweat and panting, he stared at the sky, arms outstretched, and head full of cotton. The azure seemed so far away that even the birds seemed unable to reach the white clouds driven by the playful winds.

“You’re still too focused on tracking where the weapon is going,” Lari said, plopping next to him. “You need to be more aware of your arms and shoulders...”

Ash closed his eyes and nodded. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve killed Lari in a heartbeat, but he had to restrain himself and upkeep his image of a foolish, naïve mage. This surprisingly turned out to be more difficult than any sort of training.

“I know, I know...” He sighed.

“We’ll continue in half an hour.”

Muttering something in a very offended tone, Ash opened his eyes and rolled them. Mary, who was watching them train, smirked and crossed her arms. It wasn’t that she was enjoying Ash’s pain, just that she believed that it was good for both the body and the soul to train as hard as one could. She also believed that there was no time for fooling around when the life of a princess was at stake.

The rest of the squad, however, was less uptight than her and even found Ash’s cheerfulness refreshing. Alice cast a glance in the mage’s direction, imagining him as the hero of the romance novel she had been immersed into. Had he not been so lazy and childish, he would’ve made for a good prince. Tul and Blackbeard were playing chess and discussing politics, trying to guess which state would go to war first and with whom. Such conversations had long become commonplace so no one really paid attention to the two as they could go on about it until the cows came home.

“Look! Herald!” Alice exclaimed, sitting in the shade of the cart.

The rest of the group immediately turned their gaze in the direction in which Alice was pointing and saw a small dot approaching the clearing. It gradually grew in size, becoming more and more visible until it turned into a pigeon with a folded newspaper attached to it.

If you told someone that a pigeon could carry such a weight, they’d probably laugh at you, but the answer was simple — magic and gnomish engineering. The pigeon wasn’t a living, breathing being, but that made of metal and cogs. Its iron feathers sparkled in the sun, and its glassy stare oftentimes frightened the receivers of its messages.

The pigeon landed on Mary’s shoulder; a slit appeared in its chest, into which Mary put three copper coins that she took from her pocket. Satisfied, the bird let out a mechanical whistle and took off, squeaking with its metallic wings.

Mary looked down at the latest issue of the Herald. She’d always order the newspaper when they were on a long journey in order to keep up with the events going on in the country. Information was, after all, vital in her line of business. The subscription fee wasn’t all that high, so it wouldn’t leave a dent in their budget

“What’s the news?” Lari asked.

Mary gave him a reproachful glance. She knew that Lari was more interested in rumors than news. Particularly rumors about Ternites who had gotten themselves into some serious trouble. As she flipped through the pages she noticed someone named “Krivolap” be mentioned quite often.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she snorted.

Continuing to flip through the pages, she soon found what she had been looking for — reports on recent duels and fights. These reports, written by that moron Perot, were something that interested almost everyone.

“Guys!” she exclaimed, attracting their attention. “The Order got a new Master.”

“Urg?” Mervyn asked. “Don’t give me that look, it’s no secret that he’s ready to do just about anything to get a spot there.”

“Smartass,” Mary snorted. “Yes, Toothless defeated Drunken Lee, the warrior monk, and took his place in the Order. He’s the eleventh one.”

“Shoddy luck.”Lari spat. He had dreamed that one day he’d join the Order of the Dozen, but getting into it wasn’t so simple as the Order was an informal organization. One could say that it didn’t exist at all, because, unlike the Guilds, it didn’t have a coat of arms issued by the king.

It always had twelve members, consisting of the most powerful Masters of the Mormanon Continent. It was said that each of them was equal in strength to a small Guild and that their rank in the Order corresponded to their power. No one knew how the most powerful member of the Order looked for no one had ever seen the Master.

Little did the Wandering Stumps know that amongst them was the twelfth member of the Order. However, truth be told, Ash got this position by accident. It was because of this misunderstanding that those who wanted to become members of the Order would challenge the eleventh Master to battle. No one wanted to fight against the “demon in human clothing” after all.

“It says here,” Mary continued, “that the duel took place on Bourbon Hill, which cartographers have renamed to Toothless Hollow.”

“At least they didn’t decide to duke it out in the city,” Blackbeard muttered. “I remember when Ash and Gawain Ironhead had their duel... They leveled an entire city with the ground.”

“It’s hard to believe that such monsters really exist,” Alice whispered, a little scared, and covered her legs with her robe as she was feeling chilly.

“Those rumors are exaggerated,” Ash exclaimed, eyes still closed. “They didn’t destroy a city, just blew up a powder mill.”

“And how do you know that?” Lari asked, chewing a blade of grass.

“Well, I’m E’sh, after all.”