Ward Maintenance Request; Halistair; Hunter Branch; #3014323

I know this is the fourth request I’ve submitted, Geoffrey, but you really must stop ignoring me. It’s not some grand dragon scale I’m asking for here. Just send one of your personnel to fix the damned anti-scrying ward that’s been down for the better part of a month. This is your job, and I would wish you would do the bare minimum required of you, you slobbering dope.

I’ll see you at home,

Love, Juniper

Professor Hawthorne grinned at us mischievously. I shifted uncomfortably in my wooden chair. The faint remnants of the smoke the instructor had created with his purple fire wafted up to where I sat. I felt suffocated and jittery all of a sudden, like this space was no longer as safe as I had assumed it was. When I scoured my brain for the source of that discomfort, the only parcel that I could find was that persistent smile Alaric preferred to wear.

“Now, that’s quite enough melodrama. And besides, this class is not the history of enchantments like our dear old Edgelin teaches. No, this is Enchanting 101! I am supposed to prepare you for the actual enchanting process once you all slay your first beasts! Enough chatting like old witches on a weathered porch. Let’s go!” With that, Alaric swept his hands across the room and the everglow lamps redoubled in their vibrancy. The door to the room slammed open and Alaric stepped through. All of us remained seated, stunned by the rapid shift in mood.

“Uhh, does he want us to follow, or are we dismissed?” I heard one of James’ lackeys ask his friends loudly.

One of Alaric’s hands shot back into the room and beckoned us with a wave. “Come, cadets!” Unsure, I stowed my pack with the few materials I had brought, fumbling with the worn leather straps to make sure nothing would jostle about once I got moving.

“Come on, Vena. You’re going to make us late.” Azuris drawled casually from my side. I turned to him, heat filling my cheeks.

“What in the hells does that even mean? And stop acting so impatient you overgrown piece of lapis lazuli.” I shot back as I swung my pack over my shoulders. One of his dark eyebrows shot toward the ceiling.

“What?!” I demanded, the heat joined by what I was sure was a traitorous appearance of red across my cheeks and ears.

“I’m just surprised you know what that is, human,” he answered smoothly. Before I could retort, he calmly shouldered past me and down the stony steps to follow the rest of the class outside.

“You—ERGH!” I got out, but I fell into line behind him, not willing to let him be the reason I missed some crucial bit of information. For it was this class more than any other that I was sure I would get a clue as to why Kaelin was on the run. This chiseled prick of a boy wouldn’t get in my way. I wouldn’t let him.

“Follow me, students!” Alaric called from the front. “We’re going on a bit of a field trip. There’s a bit of a mundane chore that needs doing, and who better to help than cadets eager to learn the subtle science of wardcraft?!”

“I don’t recall being eager,” I heard Gwynneth observe coolly from a few steps ahead of me. I chuckled softly.

We walked through a variety of hallways for the next five or so minutes, passing staffers and students alike in a subdued bundle of sheepish first-years. A few offered consolatory smiles while others ignored us outright. I caught sight of Professor Brayborrow, who only scowled and turned in the opposite direction with a curl to his upper lip.

Good riddance.

Our large troupe took a turn down a section of the academy I had yet to explore. The atmosphere shifted. It became cooler and a thin wisp of wind heralded the scents of pine and wet grass. The walls were more moist with dew and our boots echoed off of the smooth stone bricks that lined this long and narrowing tunnel. After another minute of near silent walking, we escaped into the morning light of a view I had never seen before.

And it took my breath away.

We were outside the walls. Once, when I was younger, my dad had pulled some strings to get me and Kaelin a tour of the high wall, which oversaw the valley and forests below.

But this…

“By Coldor’s eternal flame, this is beautiful!” I heard one of my classmates proclaim in breathy gasp. Alaric didn’t correct his profanity, and I couldn’t blame him. There was just no describing something this captivating—this wild.

Thick canopies obscured the several trade roads that wound down the fortress city of my home. Rocky outcropping interrupted the otherwise smooth descent into the forests that bordered the Wilds. In the far distance, the glint of the ominous circular entrance could be seen through the foliage. My mouth went dry.

I’m going to go in there.

Faint screeches of distant birds and other creatures thrummed from the forest and it took me several seconds to get my heart’s rapid pace under control.

“You alright?” Gwynneth asked, approaching me. I glanced at her, but otherwise couldn’t pay attention to anything other than the untamed beauty right in front of us.

“First time out,” I managed to croak out. I didn’t know what I was feeling right then, and it jumbled together into a prison of entangled cords in my heart.

Fear. Awe. Anticipation?

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“Aye, it’s exciting at first, knowing nearly everything out there could kill you if you don’t remain vigilant,” the dwarf replied with a blank stare. She turned away to coldly assess the distant horizon. I looked at her in full this time,

“What is it to you now?” I asked incredulously.

“Monday,” she said with a shrug.

“Cadets! Fall in!” Alaric called and we bustled about to where he stood next to a pile of light maplewood poles. Each of them were about eight feet in length, and had a series of runes embossed onto the tops, with a staked edge on the opposite side.

“As I said, wards are the most crucial part of what we do as hunters. Orions may do the majority of the killing, but our ultimate responsibility is to the people of our nations, is it not?” When no one answered that rhetorical question, he continued. “Today, we are completing a little task that needs doing. Fear not, it’s nothing complicated. We just need to replace the fried array poles in their fixtures.”

Alaric hefted a pole with ease and walked toward the stony surface of the high wall. Its shadow crept far over the hill the city was situated upon.

“See here,” Professor Hawthorne said, pointing at a dimly pulsing amber rune. “Press and hold this until you hear a click.” As if on command, a satisfying click and a hiss followed his words. A long and slender compartment was exposed as a previously uninterrupted stony surface swung outward. Inside, a charred pole much like the one he currently held popped out from a metal sconce. He pulled it out and the wooden pole flaked away until it was hardly more than a few blackened splinters.

“If you see the amber rune pulsing, that means it needs a replacement pole. Slide it in as such and then simply close the frame behind it.” He did as such and a second click echoed out from the imposing wall.

Pair up with your deskmate and make a sweep around the city’s walls. Careful not to slip!” He ended cheerily. I groaned and looked at Gwynneth.

“Kill me now,” I implored her. She faced me and nodded.

“I liked you alive, but you are my friend, and so I must comply.” She took a step toward me, her hand reaching for a tomahawk slung along her thick leather belt. I held out both hands defensively.

“Whoa! That was a joke, Gwynneth. Seriously,” I laughed nervously, suddenly a bit more okay with getting paired with a blue skinned brat.

“Good,” was Gwynneth’s only reply. She turned and walked toward her deskmate, some short and bulky human boy I didn’t recognize.

I am surrounded by psychos.

In all realness, given that I was now firmly entrenched into the Orion Division, I shouldn’t be too surprised if the majority of the cadets were blood-crazed trolls in disguise.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, Vena,” Azuris said with a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He walked toward me, already shouldering ten poles.

“If that’s supposed to impress me, Vena, then think again. Strength by itself is just a pawn waiting to get used by someone with some brains.” I walked past him and picked up a pole. The weight was impressive, but I wasn’t about to let him dominate me in this unspoken challenge. I focused on my bracer and thought about strength surging through my muscles. I closed my eyes and forced that one idea down whatever ethereal mental link I now shared with the device.

Nothing.

With my free hand, I pressed one of the runes on the bracelet and waited to see if it would do anything. No click or pulse confirmed whether or not it was a button. I tried a few more, but with the same result.

Nothing.

“I’m really starting to hate this thing.”

Chagrinned, I picked up two more poles and trudged after Azuris. Students ahead of us took the nearest fixtures, forcing us to carry our loads far longer than the rest of them. We trudged around the thin trail that ebbed and flowed with the hilly and rocky ground that surrounded the great fortress of HHalistair. We didn’t speak, but I couldn’t help but compare my wheezing to his steady breaths as the trail continued onward.

Finally, after another minute of unwanted hiking, we reached the first unoccupied pole fixture. The amber rune was hard to make out in the dawning light, and I absently feared we had already passed several others at this point.

Guess that’s why Alaric sent a small army of us with these gods-forsaken poles out here.

Azuris beelined for the rune before I could protest. He threw down his poles with a numb disregard, and I envied the motion.

“Aren’t you going to let me have the first one, oh mighty warrior of the Wilds, slayer of krakens?” I put in every ounce of disdain and frustration I could into the question. I didn’t have to dig deep. He cocked an eyebrow at me, and when he didn’t say anything, I squirmed.

“Fine,” I huffed, sweat beading down my forehead in thick rivulets. The dampness of the morning air made what hair that wasn’t already soaked in my sweat frizzy and stand out at all ends. Granted, I barely had time to put it into a messy braid this morning, but this was annoying to all hells.

I walked past him on the thin trail and twisted at the last moment to let one of my poles smack him in the shoulder. Whether it was instinct or divine providence, he bent down right as I attempted my petty vengeance. I careened to the side and nearly slipped down the sharp hill to my left. I yelped in the way only seasoned warriors could, but caught myself in a wide, if frantic, stance. Azuris looked up at me and smirked.

“Careful, Vena. Would hate to see you fall all by yourself. If you need a shove, all you need to do is ask,” he said smoothly. My jaw clenched and if I had the strength, I would’ve thrown one of the poles through his smug face. Instead, I satisfied myself with my weapon of choice:

Verbal abuse.

“I am going to vena you so hard in the face, you Venan…Vena!”

Nailed it.

Azuris laughed, and for the first time, it sounded like a genuine, unprotected noise. His teeth showed, and I noticed how his incisors were a good inch longer than those of humans. His shoulders rolled back and he laughed long and hard. Wiping some tears from his eyes, he finally tilted his head back at me.

“Thank you for that, human. You managed to look so foolish without even knowing it. Thank you. I feel much safer knowing these lands will soon be in your care.”

Any comradery or kinship born from our mutual task vanished like the mist receding under the sun’s stare around us.

“You are the worst!” I spun on my heels and stormed off, refusing to turn around when I heard him laugh at me again. My braid slapped me in the back as I receded from his judgemental gaze. I walked for who knows how long before I found my own flashing amber rune. I tossed down the three poles I carried onto a soft patch of green and yellow grass, grateful for the annoying load to be off my shoulders. I slumped to the ground against the wall and caught my breath. From my seated vantage, I took in the view.

With more light pouring into our valley, I was able to see more details. As I’d seen that day on the high wall, we were in a natural bowl of sorts, with HHalistair in the center of our miles-wide depression in the topography. For as far as I could see, forests and mountains covered the distant horizon. Snowy peaks cut through the low clouds high up into the sky, and I inhaled slowly as the natural glory of it all washed over me.

“I could get used to this,” I muttered to the wind. The sweat that had accumulated on my body began to turn cold, and so with reluctant limbs did I return to my work. I pressed the rune like that mysterious bastard had shown us, and soon the click of an opening fixture reached my ears.

“There you are,” a deep voice spoke from behind me. Pole in hand, I whirled at the newcomer.

Prince James, along with three others, crested the short hill from where I’d just hiked and smiled down at me. I recognized that kind of smile immediately.

It was that of a viper.