Viv emerged from the edge of the woods and crashed on the ground, rolling on the green grass.

“Urggg.”

“You will have recovered in half a day,” Irao informed her with a calm voice.

That man was definitely not great at comforting. Viv finished all the water in her canteen but it did not help.

“Alright, we got to move.”

Irao had disappeared.

“Well thanks anyway. Alright, Viv, on your feet.”

The witch courageously went home and picked up Marruk and Arthur, then headed to Varska’s tower. On the path, she did her best to ignore clumps of citizens discussing in low voices while children ran and cried. Ten minutes later, they were standing before all the Kazar head honchos, including the banker. It was at that moment that something that Viv never expected happened.

The mayor lost it.

Viv watched awkwardly as Corel accompanied the aging leader to her bedroom. They waited a few minutes in silence for him to come back.

“We made an announcement yesterday. I just… we did not think that the Enorians would act so quickly.”

“I’m a bit surprised that you would believe me on the spot. I expected you to be more suspicious,” Viv remarked, but Corel dismissed her question with a wave.

“I had the scouts follow that bastard envoy and they said that he didn’t have enough luggage to cross the forest, so he was part of a larger group. You only confirmed what we already believed. Have you noticed any flags?”

“There was a white and blue flag with, hmm, wings on the background and something else too.”

“A gryphon. The emblem of the second prince. What about the military unit?”

Viv closed her eyes and focused. The image of the camp appeared before her in all its ominous glory.

“A sort of shovel between two arrows on a grey background.”

“That would be the Bridgers, the Enorian siege specialists. One of the companies, in any case. They will have hybrid path earth movers, but more importantly snipers. Bowmen whose only goal is to pick off priority targets such as, well, you,” he said, mentioning the two women.

Silence descended upon the room as everyone digested this piece of information. Viv felt like she could summarize their situation in one rude word.

“We can’t hold them, and if we stay here, they will take everything,” Corel said.

“Would they just really push everyone out into the wilds?” Viv asked, “would the church not condemn that?”

Corel stared as if she had grown an extra head.

“They will not just leave the people outside. They will use the excuse of unpaid debt to capture them, and then sell them east as indentured servants. The population of Kazar could fetch prices in the thousands of gold talents, even if only half of us survive the trip. We have to evacuate, go into the mountains. Hope that they don’t follow. If I were them, I would.”

“Then we have no choice,” Farren said, “some of us need to stay behind as rear guards to force them to waste time. If they are forced to deploy their forces, it will take days for them to reorganize, even if we only offer a token resistance.”

“So you will join the defense?” Viv asked Farren.

“Those who come are not nobles fighting for power, it’s a royal-blooded asshole destroying an entire city. The Temple Guards will fight.”

“Even then, we need to split our forces,” Corel continued, “we will skirt the deadlands and that much vitality will attract attention. I will need all the guards to form a cordon. The scouts and hunters will stay on the wall since they’re the only people well-trained with the ranged weapons we have.”

“Ok,” Viv said, “then when do we start?”

Varska stood up.

“Now. We will ring the alarm. We… we need to tell them.”

The group left, expressions grave. All of Kazar’s public servants had assembled in a small cluster by the door. They were terrified.

“So… they are coming?” a plump girl with ink-stained fingers asked.

“Yes,” Viv said.

The girl started to cry, soon comforted by the others. Varska led the group to the tree. She moved her hand and a bell rang from her tower. People started to move in a few minutes later until the entire square was packed with people. Viv had not seen such collective despair since she had left Afghanistan.

It was Farren who talked first. He whispered a quick prayer and a golden light shimmered around him. When he spoke, his voice was not loud, and yet even those at the other side could hear him with perfect clarity.

“The Enorians will be here in three days.”

Shocked cries. Tears.

“There will be hundreds of men. They will come to steal everything, including you, your children and your family, but we won’t let them.”

Viv watched as the crowd clinged to the glimmer of hope the branch leader offered them, how their eager faces drank in his words.

“We will leave. You will take your children and your food. You will take your cornadons and latch them to your carts, your carriages and your sleds. You will help your neighbours and your friends. You will gather on the communal field with only the essentials and we, the armed forces of Kazar, will lead you to safety. We cannot stop the army from taking this city, but we can stop them from taking its dearest treasure, you. Go now, and do as I say. Remember, only pack up the essentials. The convoy will leave in a day. Now go. Go!”

One by one, then by larger groups, the majority of the crowd dispersed to pack up. They were traumatized but determined, Viv thought. Only a few people stayed to ask questions, some of them struck with disbelief. Eventually, Farren gathered all the incredulous.

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“Listen, the Enorian Second Prince is coming in person and he has brought around six hundred civilians with him. There is not enough room in the fertile strip for six hundred folks unless you remove others first. Take it as you will, but I know what I think. I think that Prince Lancer sold your lands and means to make some extra cash by having you work on his fields, or those belonging to Baran. You can stay and try your luck if you think you have a chance, nobody will force you to come, but I personally would not count on any sort of mercy.”

Viv did not stay, she went back to gather her stuff and then moved her meagre possessions to the sled, which Marruk decided to carry to the meeting point herself. Solfis went on the sled and Arthur accompanied the witch as she went to the tower. Varska was in the greenhouse as she came in. Contrary to usual, she was not moving.

Viv stopped when she realized what it meant.

“You… cannot take them with you?”

“No. We have no room, and they would die anyway. Most would not survive in this climate.”

Varska sighed heavily. Viv did not know what to do until she turned to the side and saw one of the largest specimens. It had a large center and yellow and red petals that shone in the morning’s light. White, ethereal motes sometimes danced around it.

“Your suncult marea, the one you had since you were a kid. We can take it. There is enough room in the sled.”

Varska turned around and watched the massive flower.

“Yes. My most precious work. It can be saved.”

“Let me help.”

With extreme care and the help of Varska’s maid, they packed the essentials in record time. There were not a lot of them, Viv realized. It was a bit tragic how the mage’s life and legacy could hold in so few luggages. She had even left her favorite tea set behind.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take it?”

“I know when to prioritize life, my dear. Come on, finish everything and then we will go to the training fields. I need to teach you a few things if we are to hold off earth users.”

Varska’s stuff was left on one of the temple’s carts and the two were soon walking to the training grounds.

“Has Ganimatalo recovered yet? She is the mayor, we kind of need her,” Viv said to fill the silence.

“I did not ask, but I have not seen her since the incident. Corel has taken over her responsibilities for now. You must understand, she never married and spurned her original family. Kazar was all she had, and it’s gone now.”

“It’s not gone yet.”

“It is. You may not realize it, but it is. We cannot hold it. The mayor knows it and she sees all her plans going up in smoke because of something that she had little opportunity to anticipate and no opportunity to stop. Just imagine spending twenty years growing something and the local authorities just legally confiscate it.”

“I’d be mad.”

“She is old, Viv. You can only get so mad. In any case, where are Marruk and Solfis?”

“They should be at the meeting point. I only picked up Arthur.”

Varska turned and glared at her as they passed by a smith lowering his anvil on a cart, his arms straining with the weight.

“First lesson. In a war situation, you never leave the secure compound without an escort. Never. That’s how they get you.”

“You think they would send assassins to pick us off?” Viv asked, a bit ashamed that she had not thought of it.

She immediately felt stupid for asking.

It made perfect sense. In fact, that’s exactly what she would have done on earth. Fighting monsters instead of humans was dulling her strategic edge. It was not because the people of Nyil didn’t have guns that they didn’t have brains. Taking down a caster would always be a great boon, even in more civilized places where war mages were sure to be more common.

“It does not matter what I think, dear. If you are part of a military force, you get yourself an escort. Period. If you must remember one thing from this lesson, remember that. The Kark are losing against the Pure League because their shamans keep being taken down by an order of assassins, not because they have inferior armies.”

“If mages are so strong, can the two of us not defeat the foe?”

Varska stopped to consider the question.

“You know, if every last fighter on our side is willing to die, if Solfis goes on a rampage until he runs out of energy, if the enemy snipers are disabled properly, and if the Prince has not brought a dangerous bodyguard, then yes, victory is possible. Most of us would still die, though. Are you willing to try it? I am not.”

“When you put it that way…”

“Good. Bide your time.”

The pair went to pick up their bodyguards. The communal field was slowly getting filled and a line of carts was already heading out onto the road leading to the mountains. There were a lot of crying people, including children, but most of the folks were too shell-shocked to show much emotion. Marruk left the sled where it was with the suncult marea resting on it. The view would have been comical in other circumstances.

Stress settled in Viv’s stomach when they arrived at the training grounds. Her gaze returned to the edge of the trees as if drawn by a magnet, the familiar vista now hostile and threatening. It felt like a betrayal.

Varska did not wait.

“Red mana users will throw fire at your face, but brown mages will use the ground around you to attack, if you let them. Fortunately, people with a good command of mana like us can fend it off. You need to saturate the ground with your own mana as soon as you feel a spell going off. You do not have to use everything you have, merely enough to disrupt the spell. Now, spread mana in the ground around you.”

“Just sending raw mana?”

“You can just spread a tendril, like you normally do. Try it.”

Viv did. Sending mana out of her body was instinctual by now, but she had never tried to send one below. It was actually not that difficult. There was significantly more resistance than sending one through the air, but nothing insurmountable. Now that she thought about it, her mana was not really pushing the air away when it came out of her body, though it was still affecting it.

Viv shook her head and gave up on exploring the physics behind mana shaping. She didn’t have that sort of time right now.

Varska said a few words, drew glyphs that Viv recognized as ‘earth’, ‘direction’, and ‘push’ and Viv felt the ground shake under her feet. The mana spike bounced against the construct, and won. The spell petered out.

“Ah yes, I forgot that black mana is the most disruptive of all. This will serve you well. Now, you must train to detect the attacks. I will let the mana build up first. We will do this slowly.”

Varska trained Viv for an hour, then she went to meditate for another under Solfis’ vigilant protection. The golem had simply deployed and walked to the edge of the forest where he had disappeared, and Viv felt sorry for any poor bastards trying to sneak up on them. The practice continued throughout the afternoon.

Detecting a spell build-up was not too hard, but aiming the spike at it was, sometimes. Viv had to force it. As soon as she believed she had things well in hand, Varska started to use feints and multi-directional attacks. After that Varska used less mana to make Viv more sensitive. It was close enough to the way she trained mana sensitivity to be easy to handle. Although her skill did not progress she still felt like she was making headway.

“Enough for today,” Varska said as the sun set, “you are… passable.”

“Lies. The enemy casters cannot do what you do,” Viv replied.

“Of course not!” Varska clamored, then she realized her mistake. “It does not mean that you should not try your best. Who can the most can the least!”

“Yeah yeah.”

They headed back to the tower, alone. Varska settled in the greenhouse to say goodbye, Viv guessed.

“Will you spend the night?” Varska asked.

“Here?”

“We still have the linen. And tea as well as my favorite tea set. What more can you ask?”

That was such an easy trap. Viv placed a hand on the small of her lover’s back, where it curved gently.

“You, of course,” she whispered in her ear.

“You know,” Varska said with a scowl, “it would be rather terrible if I thought you didn’t mean it.”