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The Four Horsemen
Book 3 - Chapter 12

Book 3 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Valter threw a bag of coal over his shoulder and grabbed two crates of steel with each hand. He lifted with his legs and a grunt for others—it really didn’t weigh anything to him anymore. He could have thrown them a dozen meters with ease.

His steps took him out of the storage, those that had seen him, chattering to one another as he took his time walking across the space between the storage and the forges.

They were going full tilt, weapons were straightened and repaired, edges were sharpened.

Valter put down the metal with several other crates and pulled the coal sack off, dropping it into a waiting hopper.

Joining had been easy. He’d just told someone that he’d been told to report here to help out. They’d taken one look at his size and put him on hauling gear.

“Talked to a rider the other day, said that one of the supply depots was hit by people from Ilus.” One of the smiths talked to his fellow, taking a break.

“Ilus?” His friend scoffed. “They don’t come out from their city for nothing. Torin has been trying to get them to commit to an attack for months !”

“Well I just heard it alright.” The man said defensively.

“Come grab this!” one of the smiths waved Valter over.

“Be careful, that there is Mithril,” The smith growled.

Take a lot more than me dropping it on the ground to even scratch it .

Valter moved it carefully, acting as if it weighed more than it did an putting it down on the required bench.

To his eye there wasn’t anything wrong with the gear.

“That’s good,” The smith said, waving him off and looking over it. He felt out the armor, finding the small indent.

Valter moved off to gather more coal.

Sending in for that small of a change. It spoke of a force that was nervous. A group that had reached the point where the smallest of things would trip them up and set them to worrying. He’d seen some of the armor of those that had fallen against Ilus. A lot of it had to be melted down again to be of any use.

Wish I could be working on Dimantium armor instead . He hadn’t been wasting his time, talking to smiths that were supposed to be versed in working with such materials. The information was sparse. Most were reluctant to share anything with anyone.

He’d spent his off hours putting Petor’s posters into saddlebags and around the town. Materials and supplies were coming in constantly this close to the magical city.

Light flashed in the direction of one of the gates, Valter turned over as the sound reached a second afterwards.

Valter threw his arm up as wind rushed through the streets.

Bells started ringing moments later . Seems a little redundant now.

People from the storage ran out, to see what was going on. Same from the forge.

The ground trembled with the spells that were being thrown around.

Soldiers ran towards the battle, most with white faces, the veteran molten fist leadership yelling at them from the rear.

Ilus had only attacked the places around them once and cleared the area around them. They’d killed those that fought and sent the rest packing.

Change in tactics? Desperation?

It would be hard to hide the build up of forces around the city and their ability to spy on those around them was pretty much a given.

“Its an attack!” Someone yelled out, part in awe and in panic.

“They’ve never attacked before!” Someone else yelled, the rolling barrage of spells hammered home the truth.

“Get to cover,” Valter said. He started jogging away down a street adjacent to the fighting.

“Where are you going to go?”

“Hide!” Valter growled back.

He picked up his pace, his steps hurling him through the side streets, making for one of the taller buildings that hadn’t been turned into a watchtower.

He weaved invisibility and silence spells, his footfalls disappeared as his body shimmered slightly.

A bounding jump got him to the first roof and then three paces took him up the three floors of outside stairs, he slowed and crouched, staying in the shadows of the covered roof, looking through the arches.

Hit at the gates. Its moving to the supply areas. Raid. Of course its at the gates nearest.

He weaved mana through his channels and connected them to his eyes. The color of the world was tinged with its varying temperatures, allowing him to see through solid objects.

People fought on the rooftops and on the ground. Spells cut down archers and those on the distant roofs, covering the mages. Their armor was a mishmash of different designs and styles. Most of it leathers. Some wearing metal, none of it less than mithril.

He could head out there and help them, make contact. Though in the middle of a fight its more likely I’ll be seen as just another combatant.

It was a fat moving fight, several groups were inside the city, hitting different positions. Fires started where there were supplies, the buildings all made of stone were impervious to it.

Twenty minutes passed quickly and slowly, Valter finding the rhythm of the fighting. The location of the spells and what little he could see, creating an understanding of the fight. It was definitely a raid, there was fighting back through the city as fires went up at the supply depots.

A group reached the smithy he had been working at. People ran, the spell casters tore out everything they could, storing as much as possible.

A wall collapsed and then another, sparks shot up as still lit forges collapsed.

The hairs on Valter’s neck rose as he spotted people moving through the streets. His heat vision picking them up as they moved like liquid shadows. Skilled and professional. Not normal guards .

They moved to the streets around the forge as the spell casters looted everything they could.

A screaming arrow shot up into the sky. The shadows released their spells and attacks, spellcasters dropped. Those in the middle of looting taking precious and deadly seconds to react.

Spells lanced back at the Molten Fist fighters. Roofs and the ground turned into a melee.

Valter held his position. The momentum had changed. He surveyed the other nearby supply sites.

People stopped fighting on the rooftops. Attacks were localized and smaller, then larger. The actions of someone that was in close fighting and didn’t want to hit others and then the panic as the threat overwhelmed them.

It was turning into a frenzy.

Spells erupted with new fury and died down in one location. Casters won that one . Lightning spells appeared at the different locations, turning the battles. Someone strong out there.

Casters had made a skirmish line around the smithy, they’d been around it instead of in the buildings while the others looted. Bad practice if they actually get attacked. Not used to fighting in these conditions .

People were dragging wounded back, others were responding with spells. The Molten Fist people were much more coordinated, shifting around the buildings and working together. Though they didn’t have the fighting ability of the Ilus spell casters.

They were turning the battle on them, pinning them into place.

Valter picked up a rock, drew his arm back and threw it, it hit a fighter in the head, stunning them as a spell tore through their stomach. A green core’s

He took out another rock from his storage and aimed for his next shot. He’d need to commit to the fight and revealing himself if he got involved.

Though I can help out a bit . He threw another rock, hitting another fighter, throwing their attack. The Ilus spell caster’s attack ended them.

He threaded the weave for Thermal Burst, using rocks where he could.

A fighter turned a corner, bow ready and arrow drawn back. Valter’s thermal burst went off next to their head. The pressure imbalance tore out their eyes and detonated their eardrums, the compressed air explosion popped their head neatly as their corpse fell to the ground.

Valter used it behind a group of fighters, pushing them into the open, too stunned to defend against the attacks that cleared through them.

An older man slid into the battlefield, lighting tore away from him like sentient snakes, tearing apart the attackers around the smithy.

“Get the wounded and retreat!” He yelled, he shot away in a burst of lightning, his path discharging into the armor of several attackers he passed, his sword cutting off another’s hand as a bolt shot out of his hand, detonating their head.

The Ilus fighters rushed to obey. More of the trained Molten fighters were swarming, though this man was defeating them handily. Though it was taking its toll upon him.

“Go damn you!” He growled at the people still trying to fight. A burst of lighting erupted from him, throwing back those nearest to him and striking others trying to shoot the fleeing Ilus fighters.

They rushed away as he kept fighting, entrenched in his fight with the growing number of fighters.

Valter helped with his rocks and bursts, mentally clicking his tongue. The man’s spells were powerful, too powerful. Wasting mana in the way he was. His fighting style was rudimentary at best. Though he had enough power and control to make up for it all.

A feeling ran through Valter as he glanced up, sniffing the air. It was becoming thicker, denser.

The man’s eyes were a glowing gold, his breaths coming out fast and heavy, pale from the cuts and wounds upon him.

Molten fighters rushed him, weaving through his defenses and striking at his armor. Each strike getting a returning bolt. Though each was getting progressively weaker as the number climbed.

The Molten fighters were all focusing on him, archers were getting to the roofs and attacking him, his lightning thinning out.

An arrow got him in the leg, a blade across his arm, a hit struck his bald head, blood running down it.

“Heavens descent!” He cried out. Lightning dropped from the sky. Valter flinched back, closing his eyes as a thunderbolt as thick as a hundred year tree dropped from the skies and split into arching crooked tendrils.

Sound had fled in fear as Valter surveyed the battlefield. Going to have to find another forge .

The old man staggered away from the burnt circle on the ground, the space where he stood clear of the impact.

None of the Molten fighters were moving. There were more coming in the distance. The older man reached and alleyway, his breaths shuddering and heaving, blood flowing from his head wound. He was dragging his leg with the arrow through it behind him.

He staggered up against the wall, closing his eyes.

He’s not going to make it out of here without help . He was too far, worn down and wounded to get to his people. All signs showed they were retreating through the gates already.

If he could focus this man’s efforts he could turn him into a powerful force to help in the coming battles.

Fighters were streaming in from across the city. They’d find this guy with ease. Valter slipped from the three story roof and landed on the ground, taking the impact in a crouch, his invisibility and silence spells still working, he moved towards the old man.

He was looking better, pushing onwards as much as his leg would let him.

Valter altered his silence spell and added an alarm one to it, spreading them over the area.

“Hey, you need some place to hide?” Valter asked.

“Who’s there?”

“A friend to Ilus.”

“A friend?” the man scoffed. “We have no one left to rely on but ourselves.”

“Desari sent me.”

That made the man hesitate and then stiffen, conflicting emotions. “Whatever she might be she’s dead.”

“We don’t have long before the rest of the Molten Fist’s fighters reach us.”

“Where are you? You bastard?” The air started to get frizzy.

Well this is not going to work .

Valter crept around the old man’s side withdrawing a pebble. He threw it in the opposite direction. The man turned and blasted the area. Valter’s fist hit him on the chin.

The man turned, his eyes unfocused. Valter headbutted him, his head rocking back as he collapsed to the ground, dropping his sword.

“Always has to be difficult. Valter took out a sleeping potion and poured it on the man’s face. He sputtered and then slumped. Valter stoppered it and stored it away.

The man was wounded but not mortally so. Valter trimmed the ends of the arrow with his dagger, he took out a crate, shoving the man into it and threw a tarp over it.

They’ll know that he’s here and wandering around . He cast invisibility again, it had come apart punching the man.

He headed back to the sight of the lightning blast, picking out the remains of a man nearby with his core showing. Valter plucked out the Orange core and put one of the green cores from Limos in its place, moving it around to cover it in blood and viscera before he hurried back the way he’d come, taking apart his alarm and silence spells and returning to his vantage point.

He settled down and spread out the spells as the first of the organized groups appeared at the site of what had been the forge.

They checked on people, few were living. Others continued on through the city and the gates. A woman appeared, the others giving her space as she kneeled down at the impact crater left by the man’s lightning spell.

Valter weaved a spell to augment his hearing and another for his sight.

She wore armor plate over her chest and shoudlers, bracers on her legs and arms. Throwing blades criss crossed her armor and a small crossbow lay at her hip.

Her black hair was roughly cut, focused on keeping it out of her eyes. Her skin was a pale white except for the angry mottled scar running down one cheek and through her lip, pulling it up into a constant grimace.

“Lightning this powerful, it would have to be Ikor,” The woman said.

“Ilus haven’t tried one attack on us before.”

“Could be division in their ranks. We know that he came out before and kicked everyone out of the local villages.”

Ikor is basically Egrins second in command and oversees the military. He pursed his lips. The attack and the way the man fought was less than impressive. Though he had been a teacher before, the ways of war were a new subject for him.

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“We have him!” Someone yelled next to the corpse Valter had changed cores.

The woman walked over and kneeled next to the body and pulled out the core. “A green core.” She looked around at the damage. “All of this done by just a single man with a green core.” Her voice dropped to a mutter.

She turned the core over in her hands, not caring for the blood or remains. She waved her hand, the body and core disappeared.

“We’ll move for the gates, we need to make sure there’s no more of them in the city before sending riders to the other villages towns around us. We’ll track them down and kill them.” She stood and jogged towards the gates, the others following except those hauling wounded to the rear.

Valter settled into his position and took out food, eating it as he watched. It took a few hours before the bells chimed again, people appeared from where they had been hiding.

Smiths and workers were shocked at the remains of the forge.

People were set to clearing through the rubble. Others shifted the dead around.

Valter dropped to the ground and checked on his crate before procuring a cart and throwing it ontop. He added some other random crates and hauled it over to the forge.

“Good job, someone thinking with their head!” One of the senior smiths said.

“Load up the cart with what’s left over. We’ll be taking this over to Nardi’s forge.”

“You think that the Molten Fist are going to fix this place up?” Another smith asked the first.

“They got roving bands of spellcasters up their asses. Fixing up a forge is going to be real low on the to-do list.”

Valter helped people stack crates on the cart, loading it up quickly.

“That’s all I can take,” He said.

The senior smith looked him over and then up and down the street. “Some beasts would be nice. Alright, take that over and bring back the cart. Not much left to haul back, but waste not.”

“Heard they hit the food supplies,” The smith’s buddy said as they walked away to check on the damage.

“That’s just what we need a food shortage before we kick in their door. Everything went to shit when they showed up.”

Valter pushed on the cart, hauling it down the street.

“You, head off with the cart, make sure he doesn’t get lost.” The senior smith pointed to someone.

“Sir!” The younger lad ran over to Valter.

“Know where you’re going?” Valter asked.

“I know all the streets, I’m usually a messenger,” The boy looked around, his eyes stuck on one of the dead bodies.

Valter cleared his throat, pulling his attention back. “I don’t know this area much. I got told to show up here and here I am.”

“Drafted?” The boy commiserated.

“Yeah.”

“Well we go up this street for three turns and then we take a left. Its not too far.”

Signs of fighting were everywhere, the dead, spell strikes. Burnt stores. Groups of workers did what they could to put out the fires and salvage what they could.

Dozens of supply points had been hit across the city. The boy was quiet, lost in his own thoughts.

Valter asked directions to distract him from the death as they went. The boy was more interested out of morbid curiosity.

“I’ve seen plenty of death mister, there’s no need to worry. First time that I’ve been in the middle of a war. Though I’ve seen the aftermath of them. There’s always someone that’s heading for a hanging too. There’s Nardi’s.”

A spell had detonated in the forge, its roof collapsing, but people were already clearing it out. The forges were fine underneath.

The doors to the forge’s storage were in bits. Dust covered the smoldering remains of two.

Valter brought the cart to a stop next to the storage.

“Got told to bring over what was left of our forge here,” The boy said, singling out a woman.

“Which forge?” Olix’s,” The boy said.

“He’s going to be pissed about that,” She chuckled.

“You lot.” She waved several down. “Get to work in storing them crates away.”

Valter helped them unload the cart, leaving the tall crate holding one Ilus mage till last.

He picked it up and carried it to the storage huts, putting it down to the side. He wiped off his sweat, the others heading out. Once they were all clear he moved the crate to the back and with unused ones. He opened the top with a tug and dropped clothes ontop, pushing the nails back into place he threw an handful of rock dust over it to make it blend in more.

He headed out to find a mount being drawn over to the cart.

“Lad, guide them back to the forge. I’ll do what I can here,” Valter said.

“Alright!” The boy who’d guided him here started talking to the man hooking up the mount.

Valter leaned against the storage building. The woman who’d told the others to help him walked over.

“Might as well see what we got in here.”

She had him open up the crates, checking the contents and organizing them.

“Clothes?” She said, too short to see in the top of the large crate.

Valter reached in and pulled one out.

“Alright then,” She shook her head. “Guess there was all kinds in storage there.”

“Want me to get rid of it?” Valter asked.

“We can at least use the wood from it. I feel like we’re going to need everything we can burn soon enough. Things were starting to get tight already.”

Valter nodded along and grabbed the side of the crate, dragging it out. She headed off to check on other things.

He pulled it around to the side of the storage huts, hidden from view. He cast invisibility and picked up the crate, casting silence on himself and it as well.

Well this isn’t ridiculous. He ran across the open area towards the unused stables where horses had been kept to be shoed. Now just burned storage.

He walked in through a burnt side and put down the crate. He stored the clothes away and pulled out the mage Ikor.

He pulled off his armor, stored it and then pulled out the arrow in the mans’s leg. He poured a healing potion on it, the wound closing into fresh pink skin.

He stirred and shifted.

Valter pulled out the sleeping potion, cast the silence spell and the alarm spells over the stable.

He poured the healing potion in the man’s throat.

Ikor stirred and shifted in the charcoal, staining his already muddied and bloodied clothes with soot. He came around, blinking a lot.

“Mister Ikor, you ready to talk now?” Valter asked.

Ikor began weaving a spell.

Valter punched him, Ikor gritted his teeth. “Fucking stubborn bastard.” He clocked him again. The man slumping into the soot.

“Brain is going to be horse slop.” Valter nudged the man with his foot. He groaned, blood spurting out of his broken nose.

“I am here to help you Ikor, I healed your shot up leg and I can get you out of the city. Though I need you to stop trying to call a spell. Else I have to punch you because we both know your spells aren’t on the ‘light’ side of injuries.”

“Fuck are you?”

“Valter, friend of Desari. We’re here to help Illus and good thing too else you would be strung up to some torture or you would be dead.” He needed some way to get this man to trust him.

One option soured in his throat, but he still gave it words.

“I can give you an oath that I am looking to help you and get you back to Ilus and I am not looking to harm you,” Valter said.

“That’s what one of you bastards would say.”

Valter let out a sigh, debating punching the man again. “When you wake up, stop pissing around with that sword, you wave it round worse than my son did when he was seven. Take up a staff or one of those spell books. Casting is your strength, lean into it.”

The man looked up in confusion and Valter grabbed him, pinning him to the floor and dousing him with sleeping potion.

He struggled till he slumped. Then Valter took out another and gave him another dose before standing. “Well that just made things a bit more annoying.” He let out a huff of breath with feeling.

I’ll move away to a part of the city that isn’t as well used, and just stay there, blend in with the people or stay hidden. Possibly somewhere near the walls where people won’t be watching.

He used a rope, trussing up Ikor and strapped him to his back, his weight negligible. Some people don’t like help . He cast invisibility on him. Then stored away the crate before casting invisibility and silence on himself.

Withdrawing his other spells he left the stables and moved out of the area. Only letting his invisibility fall away a few streets away. People were hesitantly entering the streets again.

Most talking to one another, checking what had been lost or happened. Valter dipped through little seen locations and put up posters as he moved.

Hope I have enough sleeping potions to keep this one down. Also he was going to need to figure out a way to teleport out of here with him. He was one too many teleports for his left over scrolls.

Before he joined the forge he’d taken his time wandering though the city and finding empty and disused locations. One was a two storey store. The second floor was given over to an apartment, the bottom floor the store with storage in the back.

It had been emptied out of everything and had a for sale sign on the front.

Valter cut through the back door’s bolt and headed within.

He took out a nail and shoved it through the door and the wall, casting alarm on the door. He withdrew some of the threads for his silence spell, directing it to everything within the building instead of just himself.

The spell weave activated and settled throughout the building, taking much more constant mana to maintain. Very little compared to what he naturally generated.

Each step took a bit more mana, the spell compensating for the noise made. He reached the dividing door between the back and front of the shop, peeking through, the windows were all boards nailed into place. He flung a mirrored alarm spell from the back door onto the front door.

He closed the dividing door and headed for the stairs up to the apartment.

At the top he could see through the entire living space. It was divided into three rooms, two bedrooms, one that could be used for entertaining and a room for cooking at the rear of the house.

Valter took off Ikor, removing the invisibility spells, he drove a nail through an exposed beam with his hand, then hung Ikor there.

He turned his gaze inward, focusing on the silence spell weave.

A single thread ran through his channels and nodes before hitting his external node and splitting into two, one for each door.

I want and alarm that would vibrate my channels if it was to be triggered. He began his weave. “Though instead of it being connected to just movement. I want it tied to increased movement.” The thread went through the same node as the other two, but slightly off.

“I want it to adhere as well.” He completed his weave and held it ready, he cast it, the spell coalescing on his finger, wisps of faint light.

He pressed it to Ikor’s neck, right over the artery there.

That way if his heart rate picks up it’ll alert me. Idiot sorted out. Valter checked the floor. There was a bed and sheets, though little else. He moved to the bucket that acted as a sink and washed his face with some canteen water.

He dried his hands and moved to the front room. There was still a desk and chair there, he moved them to the front of the room and watched through the slatted windows, tilted to allow air through.

He bided his time, reading on forming Dimantium and watching the city recover, occasionally checking on his wall ornament he’d hung from a drying rack’s hook in the abandoned store. In war there were few things being bought or sold.

Keeping these alarm and silence spells up is a pain . It had become a lot easier to cast multiple spells though—he didn’t need to.

“There has to be a way to have a formation hold onto a spell I cast and keep it powered.” It should actually be easier than a full formation. In that he had to create the weave of a spell in runes.

This it just needed something to hold the form of the weave he created, then power to keep it active.

He opened up his metal book and flipped through the runes. With Desari teaching him about spells it had changed his understanding on formations in a way that made so much click.

Casting a spell was rather forgiving. Take a fire spell, you run through the concepts of heat, object and external. If you were uncsciously thinking of a white hot flame, then that was the concept of heat you picked. If you were thinking of an arrow as its form, the object concept would be that, then if you wanted it to shoot from your hand, from the area around you, from another area, that was all through the external concept.

If you could picture it, essentially you could do it. Though the amount of mana required would be massive and what you’re picturing had to obey the rules of the concepts you understood and that of the world.

Now—enchantments and formations. You were basically brute forcing someone’s mana channels and concepts.

Channels for the mana to flow through, runes to change it. You basically wrote out, type of heat, then type of object, then how it would appear in the world.

“Casting gives you so much more versatility. Most of the time an external enchantment is fire an arrow in this direction. Much easier to do. Adding in ‘form around this person and fire’ then you’d have to key it to a certain person, or add in some kind of targeting parameter. Instinctual in casting, rote with formations.”

He stopped on a page, going through runes that went over stasis, or copy.

He took out a pad of paper and started copying.

There were hundreds of versions. He’d never understood why there were so many. Each was just a part of the concept.

If one was to look at it like a color pallet, then the closer you looked at it, one would realize that it was not solid but instead made up of a cloud of colored dust, and each piece of dust was an activating rune, slightly, ever so, different from the others around it.

Spells were more always more efficient because they could lance through the specific concepts easily, using runes was like grabbing an area of that cloud and shoving mana through it to work.

Just has to work, get in too far and you’ll be spending forever trying to get the single mote of dust you want to use.

He crossed out runes, leaving him with three. “Empowerment runes.”

He flipped through the book, the pages tapping against one another as there always seemed to be the same amount of pages on either side.

He went through the empowerment runes and powering ones quickly.

“Do a circular formation, have the copy in the middle, then the empowerment around it. Cast the spell into the center, the empowerment keeps it active and running. Then I can pass power into the outer channels, have to make those deep to hold more mana, and that’ll power the runes in the middle and the spell within.”

He drew out a rough on a spare part of the paper. Two circles within one another, the runes written into the actual channels.

“Steel should be enough, one for the alarm, one for the silence. Easier to work with.” He pulled out several sheets and his carving tools, putting them on the table.

He carved in mana channels, then the first set of runes that the mana would pass through, then into the large looping circle that would hold the mana charge, runes added in, each that would change the flow of mana and direct it.

It spiralled into a circle, larger to take on the several runes he strung together without overcrowding. Too many runes and not enough material, or space to separate them, they could interfere with one another. At the least it would create small hiccups and melt a bit.

The most, well there was a reason many of the Sacrophytes had replaced parts of their body with runed metal.

Though I wasn’t much different. It had been from battles instead of experimentation gone wrong.

He cleared away the last of the metal into his storage device and studied, a connecting mana channel that looped with runes caved into it like cursive calligraphy, just spaced out more with the connecting line. Then it joined into a central circle with runes much more densely packed together.

Valter threaded mana through his channels and connected it to the external mana channel.

The mana flowed into the looping line and runes, continuing into the center of the formation, it filled the runes there, but didn’t light them up.

He touched the metal and focused. There wasn’t an vibrations or errant mana moving around.

“Channels and runes are good,” He started weaving a copy of the silence spell, turning it into an object instead of resonating directly with the world and turning it into a spell.

It appeared as a glowing orb of shifting runes and mists.

I wonder if my concepts and how I visualize things affects how I see the spells? It would make sense, spells worked off his understanding of concepts after all.

He pressed the ball into the middle of the formation. The runes underneath lit up and the sphere was absorbed into the center of the steel.

He flipped it over, it didn’t come out of the other side.

The mana at the edge of the formation started to slowly dim and recede into the spiral. He cancelled his spell and listened.

Not a noise. He tapped on the table, nothing. A smile spread across his face, no essence flowed, the item well below his highest threshold. Though it began to open up new possibilities, combine new knowledge with old, and bring hidden mysteries to light.

“Now lets get one done for the alarms too.”

Night quickly approached as he finished up the second spell maintaining formation.

If I could maintain a spell for a longer period of time. It could free him up to cast more complicated spells if he had the right kind of spell input into the maintaining formation. There was certainly options there, but it was something he’d have to play with.

“I can replace the easy parts with formations. Really that’s just power. The other parts, having them free flowing or at least have it in a way that I can change.” He held his chin, falling into thought as darkness started to settle.

He took out his crystal and found it lit, at least one of the others ready to talk. Valter activated the crystal.

“V here, how copy?”

“P here, loud and clear.”

“M here, loud and clear.”

“D here, loud and clear.”

“There was an attack here today.” Valter said. “One of the spellcasters is Ikor. He was wounded I tried to help him, he thought I was an attacker. I knocked him out, put him back together. He attacked me again. I’ve dosed him with sleeping potions and trussed him up in the abandoned building I’m using. I left the smithing position. I think there is little that I can do from here. I believe the best course of action is for me to head to Mya’s location. With the additional person I cannot teleport as we wanted.” He took a breath, sounding annoyed. “The other option is to have D teleport to me, then we use the other method to group together. Complete reports and we will discus afterwards.”

“Made it to another village today, anyone that can fight has been drafted into this mess. The harvests are going to be poor and they’re even more reliant on the Cinderborn than I think we realized. Heard that there was an attack by Ilus on several locations. Talk is that they were able to get a lot of supplies,” Petor said.

“Got people trailing me after I dropped off the information for the Marauder’s High Captain. Think they’re interested and unless I miss my mark I’m pretty sure they sent her a message about yours truly,” Mya said.

“The people on the mountain are used to defensive missions. Not being an attacking force. They do not have enough supplies to carry out long operations in the field. The magmaists that run the military are loathed to head out of the volcano. Worried that another might take their position or usurp them. Only the youngest and those that are not in favor with their house’s leadership are heading out into the field. Few of them know how to command. I’ve inserted the fail safe,” Desari said.