Oliver tumbled end over end, whipping around. His training kicked in and he stretched out his arms and legs, stabilizing quickly.

He looked over, up, down, around — there! Gideon was waving to him, shouting something and pointing to his ears.

Ah, right.

The spell.

Oliver cast the communication spell and Gideon's panicked voice burst into his consciousness over the rushing chill wind.

"—give me a double thumbs up when you can hear me!"

Oliver glanced down. The ground was approaching fast. Surely they couldn't be much more than a couple of thousand feet up at this point.

He gave Gideon a thumbs up.

"The anti-gravity spell! Cast it now!"

He cast it, as they'd planned in the event of an emergency. Then abruptly his counterweight tore free from his belt to shoot down towards the ground. As it accelerated, he slowed in turn. Some moments later it anchored somewhere far below and the rest of his momentum was transferred to it, leaving him suspended in the air. Gideon did the same, and then they were flying, hovering above the air at expense of mana. It was breathtaking and terrifying, floating so high up without safety harness or parachute, protected only by the expense of mana and an impossibility that absolutely didn't jive with his experiences at all.

So this was why they'd practiced sky diving in the Range back in the city…

Below them the fortress stretched out on the mountainside, much larger than it had appeared at first.

"What's going on? Why did you call me out?"

"Our contact," Gideon said. "I can't see him! Can you?"

Oliver scanned the ground far below. He could see enormously thick stone walls with a frankly absurdly huge and fortified entry gate built into the front doors. Crenellations, a number of smaller buildings within the walls, and a central keep. It was more of a fortress than a lab, and he suddenly realized it must have been built with the intention of surviving a focused assault. It was a purely functional, grim building, unlike anything he'd become used to seeing on Earth or even around here, where buildings were built for living as much as defense.

He focused on his mana vision and realized that the entire building was surrounded in a bubble-like web of tiny mana threads, so small as to be barely visible, yet there nonetheless. The wards.

What he did not see was a man standing within the edge of the wall, waiting for them to land within the ring, as they'd arranged. He scanned again; the man simply wasn't there.

"I don't see him either," said Oliver. "What's this mean? Plan B?"

Gideon, hovering ten or so yards away nodded, said through the spell, "You stay outside the ring to let our people out on the ground, and I cause a distraction by entering the wards at the same time, with the hope that they only register the intrusion by proximity and not counting the number of intruders."

"Seems risky when you put it that way," said Oliver.

"I wish we'd had time to plan something better. But this might be our only chance, unless our friend comes out."

"So why bring me out of the ring to tell me this?"

"You'll be second in command if I do this, like we talked about," said Gideon. "I need to know you'll stick to the mission."

"You know I will," said Oliver. "I know what's at stake."

"Do you?"

The truth was, Oliver found himself unwilling to let Gideon sacrifice himself for the company, as such a distraction would surely be; but without their contact, there was little choice.

They hung in the air as the dawn began to light up the far side of the horizon, rimming the mountains in that direction with gold and red light. The chill quickly began to take its toll, Oliver shivering within seconds.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He looked up; it was dark above them and he could barely make out the form of the dragon circling far above, even knowing what he was looking for. But that wouldn't be the case for long.

"We don't have long," said Gideon. "In a moment, we'll have to begin descending."

They waited, long agonizing seconds passing one after another.

His mind was racing furiously. "How long do we have?" he asked Gideon.

"We're already out of time," said Gideon bluntly. "We're in a race against the dawn. The more light there is, the better a chance their patrols will spot out dragon."

"Just a moment longer," said Oliver. "Just wait. Maybe there's another way. Let me think."

"This is no time to be indecisive. We do this, now!"

"Fine. On my mark, we'll drop together," said Oliver. "Three — two — one — mark!"

They simultaneously eased up on their anti-gravity spells, drifting downwards slowly at first and then picking up speed, Gideon slightly ahead as Oliver modulated his rate of fall to track with him.

The glittering web of the wards approached, growing larger and larger in his field of vision. Then, just as they were to pass through it, Oliver did a last scan of the ground to be absolutely sure, and cried out — "Gideon! Wait!"

Gideon stopped abruptly in the air, mere tens of feet away from the web. "What?" he asked.

"Is that our contact?" Oliver pointed to where a man was slinking furtively alongside the wall in the burgeoning shadows born of the early pre-dawn ambient light.

"It seems so," said Gideon cautiously. The man looked up, looked around in the night, didn't seem to see them. The two flying men held their breaths, hoping that he'd look up and see them hovering at the apogee of the wards.

Far below them, the man reached his destination, the corner where a short, squat tower met the wall, then stopped. Although he was much too far away to be certain, Oliver thought he saw the man raise his eyes heavenwards and begin looking around.

After a moment, he plainly saw them; he raised his hands and waved to them with big, exaggerated movements.

A wave of relief rushed through Oliver. He looked over to Gideon, who nodded. Oliver contrived to drift over to him by angling the target of the spell; doubtless far below the rock that served as his counterweight would suddenly be scooting to the side. A moment later, Gideon and Oliver meet in the air. Gideon stretched out his hand and suddenly Oliver was back in the ring, heart pounding and cold sweat running down his back.

His ears were suddenly invaded by the sounds of loud, panicked conversation. They would have noticed him disappearing and be wondering what had happened. In the wake of his appearance, the conversation stilled and a silence overtook the interior of the ring, his appearance drawing the attention of nearly everybody in there.

"What's going on out there?" asked Tiro, his ever-present grin visible as only the barest smirk.

"There was a slight hiccup, but we're back on track," said Oliver loudly, slowly, calmly. "Our contact didn't show at first, and we were going to enact the infiltration Plan B, but fortunately they did show up at the last moment. Gideon should be here any—"

There was a faint popping sound, and suddenly Gideon floated among them within the ring.

"—second."

—

Just over a thousand feet in the air above a snowy peak in the Range Perilous, a ring made of a plain iron band began to fall. Tumbling end over end through the air, it passed through a tight weave of mana strands, nudging one of the hair-fine lines ever so slightly to the side as it passed.

Far below, in the control room of the Crucible, the archmage Alloman tilted his head to the side, a distant expression coming over his face.

"Something the matter, archmage?" asked the junior mage who'd been tasked with attending to him for that shift.

He didn't respond for a moment, instead closing his eyes. His eyeballs darted rapidly around underneath his eyelids for a moment as he concentrated. A moment later, he opened his eyes.

"I thought I'd felt a disturbance in the wards," he said to her. "But it must be nothing. A bird, perhaps."

"Should I announce an alert, archmage?" asked the woman.

"Hmm, yes. I think a light alert, perhaps a single patrol. Something feels… off, this morning."

"As you will it," she said, striding off.

The iron ring hit the ground with a ting, bounced several times and eventually came to a stop in the open courtyard, having fallen with a remarkable and unnatural speed and precision to within a handful of yards of the man who'd been waiting in the shadow of the wall.

He went over and picked up the ring, then slunk back inside, glancing around cautiously as he did so. There was nobody in the courtyard to pay him any attention.

—

Tallahassee was the first to be withdrawn from the ring with a faint popping sound, followed by Gideon and then Sindra. They disappeared and there was a pause for some time. Tension mounted as the rest of the occupants of the ring around Oliver waited for their turn in silence, with no word of what was happening outside.

Without Tallahassee's mana light, the interior of the ring was cast into darkness. The small space began to feel stifling and small, although Graves' spell was still recycling and keeping fresh the air. There was little to hear but the sound of breathing and the rustling of clothes. It had become quite warm in the ring. Somebody muttered a curse under their breath.

Some four or five minutes later, the popping sounds resumed as the others were drawn from the ring, though of course Oliver couldn't see their faces as they disappeared.

Oliver was waiting for the moment his turn would come, when as unexpectedly as ever he was withdrawn from the quiet interior of the ring and fell to a rough stone floor with a thud, landing on his back at an angle that left him coughing for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the sudden light.