"Ganz is in there." Lakan said breathlessly when he got back to the group. The shock on their faces was visible.
"Wait are you serious?" Binko said, her heartbeat skyrocketing. Lakan nodded.
"Oh fuck. We're screwed." Hark said.
"Wait what do you mean?" Regar asked.
"We can't fight Ganz!" Hark laughed as if Regar had just asked a ludicrous question. "The man is a monster! We need backup."
"Not to mention there's no way in hell he's here alone." Lakan said. "We're sitting ducks. In fact we need to get out of here fast."
"I've never seen you guys this scared." Regar said. "I mean I saw his escape at Pirun City but that was a one time trick, no?"
"Okay first of all, If Ganz is here with more than 5 people we're already outnumbered and that's already bad enough." Hark said.
"Also I've seen him fight." Lakan said. "Let me just tell you we are NOT equipped to fight him. Let's get out of here."
"What if we just call in reinforcements?"
"Let's get out of here first!" Lakan snapped, wiping a sweat of his brow.
Fifteen minutes later they were back at their inn and Binko was pacing around, while Hark reached out to Segi. As soon as she picked the wave prod he told her what they'd discovered.
"He's in Kanam?!" She shouted over the wave. "Guys they said he's in Kanam! Hey Hark, Hold still we're on our way there now!"
"Wait..." Hark protested, but Segi had already gotten off the link.
"Well?" Binko asked.
"Segi's coming here." He said.
"They won't get here until tomorrow afternoon." Lakan said. "Even if they run with speed."
"Ganz may have left by then." Regar said.
"We should trail him?" Hark asked. "Although I'd rather not do that."
"Well at least now we know he's in cahoots with the governor." Lakan said. taking a gulp of water from a nearby jug. "So even if he leaves we can get the governor to give up his location."
"And why would the governor even have that information?" Binko asked.
"Goddamn it." Lakan said. "This is the last place I expected to find that son of a bitch."
"Well I certainly won't be getting any sleep tonight." Binko joked. "This job is stressi—"
She was interrupted by sounds coming from outside the room. They all glanced at each other and invoked armor spells.
Binko moved closer to the door and listened. She could hear footsteps coming up the staircase that led to the guest rooms, she heard the voice of the owner babbling about them, saying who they were and where they were from. He even described how they looked until a firm voice told him to shut up.
Everywhere remained silent. For about three minutes not a sound was uttered both inside and outside... All of them tensed up, ready for a fight.
About five minutes passed and nothing happened. Binko realized she'd been breathing shallow the entire time. She relaxed and took a deep breath.
"I think we're saf—"
The door blast open, knocking her back. Lakan shouted in shock and all of them quickly activated attack spells as no more than six mages rushed in the room to attack them.
---
Segi had spent the entire day after their battle with Zeron searching for General Makon, but it seemed the man, as large as he was, was very good at hiding.
She'd returned to their inn on the South-west side of the city in the evening and had dinner. She was asking Mullam if He'd heard anything from Royi when Hark's wave link came in.
"They found him in Kanam guys!" She said. "We can't lose him now guys."
"Kanam is very far away though." Deyion said. "Thousands of miles away. It will take us several days to get there."
"We can get there tomorrow if we run." She said.
"What?" Mullam laughed. "Run from here to Kanam? We'll be sore and broken when we get there."
"Do you guys understand how lucky this was?" Segi retorted "If we lose this opportunity, we may never find him again! If he's in Kanam today, that means we can't just look for him in cities. He could be in any of the hundreds of towns and villages across the multiple kingdoms."
The rest weren't excited about it and she saw it in their faces.
"Come on guys! which is better, getting him out now or having to go to random places like 'Burden', or 'Keltu' to find him?" Segi said. "Guys come on!"
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Kalum groaned. "Urrghh, Can we at least call everyone we know to head to Kanam? Overwhelm him there?"
"Good Idea actually." Segi said. "Call everyone. The Pirunese, the Seyrulans, the Navons, It's a damn shame we couldn't get to Makon. He would have loved to know where Ganz was."
"So we run?" Mullam asked.
"Yes, Mullam." Segi said. "You don't have to come though."
Mullam threw his hands up. Now he had to go or he wouldn't hear the end of it from his colleagues. He hadn't run long distances with speed in years.
Action began immediately. Within minutes the entirety of Gan knew where Ganz was and an hour later, Segi, her crew, and countless others were headed towards Kanam.
---
But in Kanam, Lakan and his crew seemed to be running out of it as fast as their magically powered legs could take them, hot on their heels, six of Ganz's mages were in pursuit, launching magical attacks at them.
But in reality they weren't running out of Kanam. They wouldn't dare risk being caught outside a spell dampener. Especially knowing Ganz was nearby.
So they let themselves be chased around the town.
The brick walls of Kanam were strong enough to withstand the attacks being launched at them, especially under the heavy spell dampener, nevertheless, a few buildings were cracked and roof eaves were broken off.
"Stop running you worms!" one of their accusers shouted. "How long can you run for?"
"Don't listen to him!" Binko shouted as they whizzed past a mat seller at an incredible speed, blowing her entire shop and scattering her wares across the street with their strong slipstreams. Their chasers whizzed past a few seconds later, dispersing her wares even more.
Word had begun to spread around the city and people had started shutting themselves in their houses. Several law enforcement agents had been dispatched to try and catch them, but matching the speed of elite war mages was a fool's game. Even at their top speeds, The Aku'andans and their pursuers ran circles around them.
They tried everything. hot coals on the ground, which were useless because the Aku'andans were armored, hastily constructed wooden boards to block the roads, which didn't work because at the incredible speeds the Aku'andans were running at, they could simply run up the sides of walls and land on the other side.
They tried having an army with shields block the road but that didn't work either. within a blink, the Aku'andans had jumped up and run off using their heads as stepping stones, in the end, they ended up delaying the pursuers because their disorganization made it harder for the pursuers to follow the Aku'andans. Eventually they were asked to stop.
Ganz did not appear at any point. Lakan kept dreading his presence but he never showed up. The chase continued for about three hours and the streets were completely emptied. Several trees and plants snapped in slipstreams and the sharp turnings on streets and walls lead to several cracks and folds on the streets and buildings.
It was about midnight when help came.
it was a group of four Navon War Mages. Led by a man named Mage Ranker. They'd been in Burden investigating a murder cult from one of Navon's towns that was on the run, but ultimately decided Ganz was the bigger threat. They'd run on highly cushioned speed, mostly because they wanted to get there in good time, but not too quickly.
They were astonished to arrive at Kanam an witness what amounted to a game of tag on steroids. The loud noise of the slipstreams could be heard from the chawbig river outside Kanam.
"What the hell is going on in there?" Mage Ranker muttered as he walked up to the gates of Kanam. A guard came to meet them. Ranker showed his badge.
"Oh great. Another foreign mage. Why are all of you people coming to our town to cause trouble?"
"We're here to capture Ganz." Mage Ranker said. "You know who that is, right?"
"Ganz wouldn't dare come here." A guard said self assuredly. Ranker looked at him incredulously. He could instantly kill this twat with about a dozen different spells at his disposal, he had no business being this confident.
"What's going on in there?" Ranker's colleague, a woman named Werfa asked the guard.
"Some Aku'andans came here this afternoon to cause trouble. Then they started chasing themselves around. They've been at it for hours." The guard said.
"And you have not been able to do anything about it?" Ranker asked.
"We tried but... They're warfare mages." The guard complained. "They're so fast."
"the Aku'andan spy group?" Ranker said to his colleagues. "Guard, open the gates please."
The guard let them in with a warning to not contribute to the chaos of the city. Ranker decided not to even think about the ridiculousness of it all, especially since he was immediately faced with a trashed city. Everything that was not bolted down or firmly attached to a house was snapped out of its place and smashed on the streets. Pots, plants, Signs, lamp posts... even pieces of roof tile.
"What the hell happened here?" He asked himself. The loud noise of the pursuit could be heard in the distance.
They walked slowly into the city, then someone shouted from a window.
"Get off the streets!"
"Yeah get the hell out of there!" Someone else shouted.
More people came to their windows and shouted at them to step out of the streets.
A man beckoned to them frantically and they went to him. He opened his door and urged them to come in.
"They'll circle around here in the next two minutes." he said. "I counted the intervals, you see."
"Who?" Ranker asked.
"Two sets of mages. One group is clearly Aku'andans, their terrible fashion always gives them away. The second group... I'm not so sure. They're dressed even worse!"
"They've been running around like this for how long?"
"Three hours." The man said. "...And not a single one of them is tired or even breaking a sweat. War mages are superhuman, aren't they. Thank goodness they're usually on our side."
Ranker chuckled. It was heartwarming to be appreciated like that sometimes.
"Oh, look at that. it's been two minutes already." He said. "They'll be here any minute."
And indeed, at that moment, Lakan whizzed past the window, the wind rattled some of the cutlery inside the man's house. Within a split second he'd come and gone.
Ranker jumped up and rushed to the window. Then Hark and Binko rushed by next, then Regar, all in quick succession, Followed closely by Ganz's men.
"Couldn't they've just flanked them or something?" Werfa said. "This seems... rather absurd."
"They tried that!" The man said from the back of the room. "Didn't work haha, the Aku'andans are much, much faster than the people chasing them."
"Oh?" Ranker asked.
"Yep." The man said. "I've been watching them for hours now. The Aku'andans are barely even trying. They're only running fast enough to keep a healthy distance between them and the other guys. Two hours ago, they tried to flank them, but the Aku'andans ran past them every single time. Now they're just trying to tire them out."
Werfa's jaw opened in surprise.
"So the pursuing group, yeah... they've been taking breaks to refresh their... magic running spell, Whatever it's called. So they can keep going." The man continued. "I think they're waiting for the Aku'andans to run out of the spell so they can slow down and get caught."
"You seem to know a lot about this." Zitan, one of the mages said.
"Oh, I'm retired! This is the most excitement I've had in years!" The man said happily.
Werfa pulled Ranker aside. "How do we talk to them?" she asked. "I'm not sure we can match their speed."
"No, probably not." Ranker said. "Let's take out their pursuers instead. If there's nothing chasing them they'll stop running."
"Okay." Werfa said. "I'll tell the others."
Ranker nodded.