“No.”

Maleek blinked in disbelief. He had just spent the past twenty minutes explaining why Kain needed to learn to control his powers and how he could help accomplish that. Martha had seemed to understand what he was saying, but she evidently didn’t agree.

Composing himself, Maleek asked her why she said no.

Martha replied matter-of-factly, “Kain isn’t a soldier so he doesn’t need training from one.”

Maleek was bemused further. He turned to look at Kain, but all he received was a shrug in response.

This is going to be tough.

—————

There were thirteen months in an Ethelian year. The year being 324 days long. The first properly compiled calendar to represent this was devised by a nation long dead on a continent to the north east of Lysken. They didn’t create names for the months, they instead used the seasons. As the winds of trade and conquest blew over Ethel, the calendar tagged along. Even as it passed through millions of hands, it remained largely unchanged. Somewhere along the line it was given a name however, the ‘ventio calendar’. It was a short version of ‘regelto di ventio’, which meant ‘gift of the wind’.

Before its arrival most civilizations used the cycles of the two moons to tell what time of year it was. There were some notable outliers like the yorctics and the fryse. The yorctics were an amphibian race, there were many species within, but the most advanced used the tides to measure the weeks and months. The fryse were a group of enlightened magical beasts. They didn’t measure time in any capacity. They’re biological immortality made it a fruitless venture.

Twelve of the thirteen months had 24 days exactly, a week being a six day time period. Those twelve months contained what were considered the three seasons. Vatra was the first season. It lasted the first three months of the year and was hot, in some places unbearably so. The clouds rarely came out, fortunately the rain of the previous season left the ground fertile enough for agriculture. The days were long and the air was at times dry. Coastal and tropical cities were the only places people properly enjoyed Vatra. The following season was Voda, the calm season. Sitting in between the heat of Vatra and the cold of Vrzli, Voda lasted five months. In some respects it was the perfect season. Days ranged from warm to cool, the land was graced with rain ever so often, and the sun never stayed beyond its welcome. Vrzli, for most of Lysken, was terrible. Sunlight was a myth, hail-like snowfall was not uncommon, and without very thick clothing going outside was akin to attending a date with death.

The seasons weren’t universal across Ethel, some were colder across the board or warmer across the board, but most places didn’t diverge drastically from the norm.

The Lysken continent specifically was located north of the equator, the hottest area on Ethel, and had terrible Vrzlis. That meant that wars weren’t often waged during or around it. It was incredibly hard to do so, but even if one accomplished it, it would come at the cost of many men and resources. It was very rarely worth it and Wolf knew that.

It was the 22nd day of the 5th month of Voda. Vrzli wasn’t just around the corner, it was here. Wolf stood on the south-western side of Arkthur with a telescope. He gazed at it smiling. It was nighttime, but the light coming from both within and around its walls illuminated the city. He could make out all the details. He could see the men standing guard on the walls, the canons that lined them, the camps full of wouldbe refuges pitched outside them. Taking in all the information, his smile only grew wider. He could see his men slowly approaching those very walls. As soon as the men he sent to infiltrate the walls gave the signal the assault would begin.

In reality, they didn’t need to be this covert. With the resources and manpower Wolf had, he could have simply stormed the city in broad daylight. Beyond the needless waste of life, the real reason that option wasn’t taken was the fact Wolf didn’t want to attack the city. He wanted to take it, make it his own. Controlling Arkthur was key, if the rest of his goals were to be achieved he needed to hold the city.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that a group of guards who were making rounds had disappeared. A moment later another group of guards disappeared. Suddenly guards began disappearing all over the wall. One after the other, the wall was losing those who would protect it. Soon, the wall that appeared so lively just a few moments ago was rendered lifeless. Wolf shifted his sights to the northern section and waited. After ten minutes or so, a blue flume shot up. Another shot followed immediately after it.

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Flumes were very similar to fireworks, the difference being they were brighter and burned much longer. One blue flumes was a signal that there were enemies approaching, two was a signal that the enemy was approaching from where the flume were shot. The system was popularized by a fleet admiral a hundred years ago. His name was Heinrich Flume.

The system was quickly implemented into city defences where it served well for about a decade. Soon after that the Imurians, the military opportunists that they were, found an exploit. They had a spy infiltrate the city and fire the flumes in the opposite direction of where they planned to attack. It was fairly simple, but incredibly effective. They continued to use the exploit for many years until the rest of the continent caught wind of it. The system was thrown out of cities almost as quickly as it was adopted. Using flumes as a misdirect was no longer a viable strategy. Unless of course—

BOOM!

—you gave them a reason to believe there were enemies in that direction.

—————

Saber was growing anxious. The day he had dreamt of for years was finally here. His crown jewel was sitting right in front of him waiting to be taken. He couldn’t wait.

Saber was the leader of an elite unit of 50 malsirs. They were charged with getting to the cities garrison as fast as possible and decimating it. At least that was how Saber interpreted their mission. In truth, they were only supposed to keep them busy until they moved all of their forces into the city. That wasn’t how Saber worked though. When he saw the flumes go up, his hunger for carnage only grew. When the cannons were fired, they released a demon.

Saber immediately leapt onto the wall and began climbing it. He could have simply walked through the gate they cleared, but he wanted to see the city from on top of its ‘impenetrable walls’. When he reached the top, he did. It was beautiful. It was everything he hoped it would be, but he didn’t have time to admire it. He had work to do.

Quickly locating the garrison, he jumped towards it. Clad in a thick sahir barrier he crashed into a small building on the outer ring of the city. It was a very questionable choice, but he was on too much of a high to worry about it. Luckily for him he got up from the crash landing perfectly fine and there was a group of soldiers within a few steps of him. Before the poor soldiers could even process what had occurred, he was on them. He snapped the neck of the one in front in a heartbeat. His two buddies tried to pull out their weapons, but Saber punched holes through their chests before they could even get them off their waists.

Weak.

Not wasting any more time, he removed his arms from their corpses and headed towards the garrison. Running at top speed he had hoped to beat his unit to the punch, but he was in fact late.

Arkthur’s main garrison was located in the third ring, Arkthur being split into four. The garrison itself looked very much like a fortress. In its four corners there were four towers, the center was where the actual garrison was. Everything was made of thick stone and was heavily guarded.

When Saber finally arrived there was already a rather impressive body count. Mildly annoyed, he hurriedly joined the fray. There weren’t really any matches for him or his men so it was more of a one sided massacre than a battle. Most of his men wielded some form of weapon, but Saber choose to fight bare handed. He was incredibly skilled at using sahir to strengthen his body so swords often felt like a downgrade in offensive firepower.

After ten or so minutes of killing the panicked soldiers guarding the garrison one of the towers was finally conquered. It was at that moment a real challenge appeared. A ray of pure heat beamed from outside of the garrison into the tower Saber and his men occupied. It burned right through two of his men, barriers and all.

Raezel

Saber yelled to his men, “Get to the next tower! I’ll handle the caster.”

Some of the men were disgruntled, but they knew how to follow orders. They headed off to the next tower and Saber headed to the source of the beam. It didn’t take him long to find the origin, or rather the caster. Malsirs that had the ability to create were called casters. The ability to use sahir to form other creations, like fire, required a very high level of skill, no less than expert. The ability to modify that creation into more imaginative forms, like rays, was only possible for those who were masters.

Saber moved in front of the caster and smiled, “I didn’t think you’d still be here. Couldn’t let go of home huh, Rae?”

The caster was furious, “Don't you dare call me that!”

Both her hands and her eyes were ablaze; her eyes figuratively, her hands literally. She took a moment to compose herself, taking a deep breath. She looked back at Saber with resolve.

“You’re going to pay for what you did.”

Saber chuckled lightly then abruptly stopped, “No.” His face was now as cold as ice, “They will.”