Marcus didn’t waste any time. As soon as the bandit left he rushed in the direction Rae flew in. Following the trail of destruction, he quickly found her in the top floor of a clothing shop. She didn’t look too good. She was unconscious and bleeding heavily from multiple cuts. It wasn’t life threatening in the immediate, but she needed aid sooner rather than later. Fortunately, both the guards Marcus had with him had training as field medics. They carried miniature first-aid kits with them at all times. They arrived shortly after Marcus did and immediately went to work.

Fearing they would be ambushed but not wanting to move Rae, Marcus laid his palms on the ground and used his sahir to restructure and reinforce the shop they were in. Marcus was an artisir. They were a similar type of malsirs to casters in that they affected the world, but they differed in the fact that they didn’t create anything. They instead moved or altered what was already there. Marcus, in particular, was especially skilled at manipulating stone, concrete, and things of that nature.

After finishing suring up the buildings defences, he rearranged the room the guards were patching Rae up in. He made an operating table for Rae to lay on and two small tables for the guards to put their tools. It was unnecessary, but Marcus just wanted to do something. He was furious with his own ineptitude. If he wasn’t so weak, Rae could have had back up. Even now, after only reinforcing one building he had used up more than half of his sahir reserves. It was pathetic.

He sat on the floor both frustrated and dejected. The happiness of knowing Rae would be alright was being washed over by the anger that he couldn’t help her before or now. Given the time to think about it the anger only grew. He could have helped her. It would have been incredibly dangerous for him, but he could have still helped. He couldn’t count the amount of times she had willingly risked her life to help others, him included. Yet when she needed the help, he stood by as a spectator. There were so many times he could have stepped in; he could have trapped the bandits hand when he punched the ground, he could have placed a wall behind the bandit when he tried retreating, he could have placed a wall in front of him when he realized Rae was running out of sahir. He could have done many things, but he choose to hide instead. Worse yet, the bandit knew he was there so hiding ultimately meant nothing. His being there at all ultimately mea—

“No.”

Marcus cut off that line of thinking. His thoughts were in a very negative place and that needed to change. He took a few deep breaths, placed his hands on the floor, and began meditating.

Some time later one of the guards approached him and tapped his shoulder, “Marcus?”

Marcus exhaled sharply twice, then slowly once, and ended his meditation. It was good for him. It allowed him to clear his head.

Getting up he looked at Rae, “How is she?”

“Well. We’ve cleaned and treated all of her cuts and bruises. We’re just about finished wrapping them up.”

Looking at Rae, Marcus noticed that some parts were wrapped in bandages and some parts were wrapped in clothes. They guards had too few supplies for the job they were handling. Rae did look okay though. With all the blood gone and the cuts covered, she looked just like she did an hour or so ago when he woke her up. If the bandages and clothes were ignored of course.

The guard continued, “The problem is...we don’t know what going on internally. We know for sure she has at least one broken rib, but it could be far worse. We were thinking about waking her up in case something is wrong and we just can’t see it.”

One of the skills all malsirs learn is the ability to strengthen their body. Some specialize in it and acquire ridiculous strength and speed, but everyone at least knew and could do the basics. The main advantage of learning that ability wasn’t to be stronger or faster either, it was to be able to lightly heal oneself. While reforming body parts or healing mortal injuries were things even most masters couldn’t do, things like closing small wounds and stopping internal bleeding could be done by mere apprentices. It required a fair bit of sahir however. Rae didn’t appear to have any serious internal injuries, but a minor one that was left unchecked could lead to her dying in her sleep. The best way to solve that problem would be to wake her and have her handle it herself.

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Marcus was against waking her up though, “If we wake her and she has enough sahir to heal whatever injury she may have, she’ll use it to go fight the bandits.”

The two guards were good friends of Marcus’, but they weren’t to Rae. They only knew her as Master Meyner. If there was an opportunity to help someone she would take it without hesitation, even if it harmed herself or ultimately more people down the line. If they woke her now, that’s exactly what would occur.

The guard looked at him in confusion for a moment but he trusted his judgment, “So what do we do now?”

Marcus didn’t reply. Not because he didn’t have a response, but because he wasn’t sure if his response was the answer. He had spent a while pondering what they were supposed to do now that their effective leader was taken out in a one-on-one.

The other guard, who just finished wrapping up Rae’s wounds, filled Marcus’ silence with a suggestion, “We should head to Central. We still have Master Gluvdaad and his men.”

Marcus vetoed the idea, “With how strong that bandit was, they’ve definitely taken the garrison by now. If the guys he has attacking from the north are competent at all, they’ll have taken the wall by now too. If Central isn’t already surrounded, it's going to be soon.”

The guard rebutted, “But with you powers we could sneak in. There has to be a part of the wall that isn’t well lit.”

The guard next to Marcus chimed in as well, “We don’t know which bandit group is attacking yet, but they probably just want money and goods. I don’t think there’s a better plan than waiting behind Central’s walls while this blows over.”

It was sound logic, but something didn’t sit right with Marcus. Raiding Arkthur for resources didn’t make sense, while it had them in abundance it was owned by the crown.

Pissing off local barons and viscounts was one thing, pissing off the royal family was a death wish. Why go to that trouble for some coin?

The guard continued “The bandits won’t want to stay for long either, Otger will hear about this in a few days.”

Yeah…

“Vrzli is here too. Snowfall can’t be more than three days away”

Wait.

—————

Saber returned to a conquered garrison. It wasn’t just his men however, he noticed some riflemen station on top of the towers.

So the next stage began without me.

As he walked through the garrison’s front gates, his right hand man came to meet him, “Cap. We’re missing the fight.”

“I know. Tell the men to get ready, we leave in a minute.”

—————

Wolf strolled through the streets of Arkthur casually. It was all but his. They had left the central rings untouched, but the outer two were completely controlled by his men. It was only a matter of time until the whole city was controlled by him

“Enjoying your stroll sir?”

Wolf looked over his shoulder to see Tess approaching with his attendants.

“I am. What news do you bring?”

One of Tess’ attendants handed him a folder, he opened it and began reciting the information, “We’ve taken complete control of both the two outer walls and the garrison. We have our men already stationed in all three, they know their orders. In total, we’ve lost less than a hundred men so far. Also, Zar reports that the citizen evacuation went as we expected. The third ring is about 40% empty. The common folk weren’t allowed passage into the second ring, but the wealthier ones were. Somehow we still managed to sneak 22 of our spies through. We’ve even found a way to safely and covertly communicate with them. We’re fully prepared for either outcome.”

Wolf smiled, “Good, good. Has Mikel reported back yet?

“Not yet. I believe he’s running behind schedule with construction at the camp.”

Wolf frowned slightly, “He is, is he… No matter. Tell the council members we’ll be having a meeting first thing in the morning.”