"Caleb! Grab my hand!"

The scream of the woman in front of him made Cale look up at him. She didn't wait for a reaction from him, grabbed his arm before yanking him up into the air and running away.

Surprised, he looked around and stared in disbelief at the spectacle. Great scads of creatures were coming out of the mountains towards the village, prompting an emergency evacuation. Screaming in panic, the inhabitants ran south, but the fastest creatures had long since caught up with them. One by one they fell to the ground and in the next second a mass murder began. Dead bodies lay scattered everywhere among the destroyed buildings, blood stained the grass red, and the dark creatures swallowed all light. Cale hadn't seen so many of them in one place in a long time, but what was more on his mind right now was where he was.

The woman who carried him in her arms ran away with all her might as people died around her. Her grip tightened around Cale's delicate body, making him look in surprise at the young women and then forward.

Cale immediately recognized the huge main building of his village. That building, of which only pitiful remains stood during his last visit, shone with its white walls in the evening light. Cale saw men suddenly gather in the courtyard, watching in disbelief the spectacle in the northern area of the village.

"Olivia!"

A tall, well-built man struggled out of the crowd and welcomed the heavy-breathing woman with both arms. Cale winced at the statement and watched as the black-haired man held the woman, trying to calm her down.

"Is everything all right? What happened?"

In a clear, yet nervous voice, he held the woman in his hands and looked at her with worried eyes before his gaze wandered into the distance. He could make out exactly how the monsters were attacking the townspeople.

"The creatures. They suddenly appeared from the mountains and are attacking us, we need to get out of here now."

"Vincent!" a broadly built, elderly man spoke up, casting a horrified look at his wife and child and glancing at the houses in the distance, which fingered fire. "Take your people and defend the residents, we can't just run away."

Cale's stomach tightened at the statement, screams could be heard in the distance as the men behind them ran armed towards the mountains. Some of their families lived there, they wanted to protect them at all costs. Cale watched as the man nodded hesitantly, so Cale was horrified to grab this one by the collar and yell out.

"No way, even if you can kill the small creatures, you can't fight strong ones like the Novaren on your own."

Surprised, three eyes looked at him, with Cale being more surprised because of his own voice than because of the adults' reaction. It wasn't until he also realized his small hand and recognized the people who surrounded him. His mother Olivia, his father Vincent and the mayor of the village, whose name he did not remember. They had all died in the attack on Groka 20 years ago.

"The boy is right, Robert. We can't fight that. We have to escape with him to even have a chance", a young soldier, who wore the silver clothing of a soldier, came forward and appeared next to them. Robert Meyrl, the man whose name Cale had forgotten, hesitated. He glanced ahead and a glance behind him before drawing his sword and yielding.

"Fine, Vincent grab as many people as you can and escape from here."

"Cale!", Aletta shouted loudly, instantly snapping the mage out of his daydream. At the same moment, he realized how William's dark blades shot towards him and while he tried to dodge, cut at his face.

The mage ducked away to the side and slammed his foot into William, who cried out in a melt-filled scream and flew several feet away from the kick. He landed on the ground with a dull thud, convulsed briefly, and fixed his gaze on Cale. He had taken the moment of his inattention and attacked him head-on, and he had managed to hit him and trigger a backlash. With a triumphant grin, William straightened up and grabbed his stomach, the kick had done quite a bit of damage.

"You're learning fast, I'll give you that."

Cale lowered his weapons and brushed the blood from his face with his hand behind his back. For a few days now, Cale had been training the two swordsmen every evening, after they had covered almost twice the distance during the day at a brisk pace than they had the last few weeks. And besides all the physical activities, they dealt a lot with mana, as well as with the creatures. Cale would often intentionally leave creatures alive so that the four young Anuxers would have a chance to look at the creature and apply what Cale had taught them. Their daily rhythm had therefore turned into a permanent lesson, but no one complained.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

By now, they were only about a day away from the desert, and that made Cale's job much easier. While the mage pushed the group's endurance during the day and practiced swordplay and mana control in the evening, he planned his next steps. He had considered using Grischa for his scheme. Since they were going to meet in private anyway, Cale planned to plant the idea in his head that the High-Mages were not to leave the city under any circumstances. If at least some High-Mages didn't stay put, then the capital would not survive the second wave of attacks. But inwardly Cale knew that he could not rely on the High-Mages alone and should at best stay in the city himself.

"How about paying attention? Did you always keep track of where Ben and the others were?", Cale directed his question to William, who stood up, patted some dust off his pants and looked up happily.

"Yes, I did. Once you get the hang of it, it's easier than you think."

Cale nodded his understanding and repeated the question to Ben as well. He was having a little trouble concentrating on several things at once, but it had gotten considerably easier.

"That's enough for today, feel free to fight each other some more, but I'll deal with Aletta first."

The blonde girl, who was a bit exhausted from todays journey, merely nodded in agreement and walked into the camp together with Philippa and the mage. The two had been given a small side task. They were to watch the fight from a distance and try to follow the quick movements of the three men. Philippa could handle it to some extent, but for Aletta it was quite difficult. Since she had only practiced her Healer skills and her Holy Mana her whole life, she automatically drew the short straw in a direct fight. She had nowhere near the same stamina, couldn't react quickly like the others and most importantly, she couldn't defend herself. She had expressed her concerns to Cale, but he felt that she needed to focus on other things first. She was one of the most important members of the group, the healer. If something happened to her, the group would have quite a problem. Therefore, she had been practicing her mana control as well as her mana usage for a few days. She had been given the task by Cale to try to completely suppress the leakage of her mana, which was definitely not an easy task. Especially since she was supposed to be working on making a small source of mana appear outside her body meanwhile.

"You were distracted", Philippa stated the obvious as the three sat down on the floor.

"You've got a point there. Standing around all day blocking attacks is a bit tiring in the long run. No wonder I never became a teacher, I don't have the patience for it."

Cale spoke as if it annoyed him to duel with them every day, but in reality he didn't mind it with them in particular. With strangers he barely knew and didn't know how seriously they would take his teachings, he saw his efforts as a waste. That's why he had been looking for other people to take care of the training - like Yusuf. But with this group, it was different. He knew their strengths and weaknesses, so there was no more suitable person than him and on top of that, he enjoyed witnessing his friends successes.

"What do you think, Philippa? Can you keep up with their movements well enough to hit them with an arrow?"

The girls had known what Cale was planning for some time, so they were not surprised by his question. Their eyes were on the archers, who looked thoughtfully at the ground.

"I think so. By now I've developed a feel for how they move and how fast they are. I think I could hit them."

Cale let a smile slide across his lips as he held out his hands to Aletta. Without a word, the young mage took them, closed her eyes and began to release large amounts of mana. On Cale's command, she was to try to stop any leakage as quickly as possible, so that nothing happened to her in the process, they maintained a connection so that Cale could intervene more quickly in case of emergency. Patiently, he followed their drill while keeping his eyes glued on Ben and William.

The two Sylvers engaged in an altercation by attempting to strike the other on the head with their bare hands. They left their swords behind for this exercise, because it was more important to them to react faster instead of having to concentrate on the weapon. In this way, they subliminally learned to look ahead and be able to react in time - a perfect prerequisite for the defensive. The fact that Cale was really playing with them bothered the two more than they admitted, which is why they took the training quite seriously. Cale's skill was only due to the fact that he is a skilled swordmaster. At any rate, without mana, he would also have a hard time dodging any attack. Against Ben and William, he had an advantage that no one was aware of.

He knew how they moved. He pretty much knew how they attacked and the patterns they fell into; after all, he had learned and fought with them in the north. They were a team, the scout Philippa, the healer Aletta, the mage Caleb, the swordsman William and the tank Ben. Each had a role in the group that had evolved over time. Until that very day, when their only way out remained an avalanche.

Literally.

"Well, we'll try it tomorrow", Cale confirmed calmly. Even if Philippa got the short end of the stick in a direct fight with humans, she was still useful when it came to fighting creatures. Her experiences as a loner in Winstest, away from her faith society, transformed her into a survivalist without her realizing it. After Cale, she was probably the most experienced of the group when it came to a life and death struggle and that was exactly what she would face in the future. If Cale could not be present, then Philippa was to have an overview of the group while William was in command. At least that's how it had been in the past, and it always seemed to work well. "Keep a low profile until I give you the command. Alright?"