After another half hour spent in the capital gathering a few alchemical tools that Xaphan needed for his potion, Leon finally made his way back to the Snow Lion camp in the gorge. There weren’t many people in his unit who had returned to the caves so early, and those that had—or simply never left in the first place—weren’t particularly numerous and kept to themselves, which suited him just fine. He made his way farther in all the way to his private room.
[Alright, first things first,] Xaphan began as soon as Leon set down everything he had bought, [Use that curtain to block the entrance to the room.]
Leon quickly complied, hanging a thick black curtain over the entrance of his door-less room, then quickly dug out a few small magic lanterns to scatter around so he wouldn’t have to constantly channel magic into his eyes to see in the pitch-black caves.
[Good. The salamander core shouldn’t be a problem, but when we take the Kagu flower out of its packaging, it’ll emit far too much magic for you to avoid questions. That curtain should block the magic aura from spilling out of this room, though, and keep anyone from noticing anything,] said Xaphan as Leon unpacked the rest of the alchemist’s tools that he’d bought on the way home.
First, Leon took out a narrow two-foot-tall stone cylinder and accompanying lid, both with a few small, subtle lines of runes carved into them. Then, he pulled out half a dozen water-coals, so-called for being able to burn in water. They were fairly cheap, but they would work for his purposes.
[Next,] instructed Xaphan, [fill that container about halfway with water.]
Leon grabbed the cylinder and made for the bathroom. As with the tower, the trainees had made the discovery that the caves had their own bathrooms that even had fully functioning water enchantments. It had been an incredible morale boost, as they had for several days been living primarily on the water from the stream in the gorge and a few smaller water runes made by Leon and the others who were in the enchanting class.
The cylinder was soon filled with the requisite amount of water and Leon hurriedly returned to his room.
[Drop the coals into the water,] said Xaphan. As soon as Leon did so, he impatiently continued with, [Now the core.]
Leon dropped the core into the cylinder as instructed, letting the glowing red orb sink to the bottom and rest among the coals. On contact with the coals, the fire magic it transferred ignited the water-coals, causing them to gently burn a dull blue at the bottom of the cylinder.
[And the flower, stem first.]
Leon carefully extracted the Kagu flower from its box, saturating his room with sweltering fire magic, though he found the heat strangely comfortable. Leon gently dipped the long stem of the flower that had been hidden in the box into the water, threading it through the gaps between the salamander core and the water-coals. To finish up that part of his preparations, he set the rest of the flower onto the surface of the water, where it stayed floating even as he closed the lid of the cylinder.
There wasn’t any concern about allowing the flower access to sunlight; all it needed was heat and fire magic to stay alive for as long as Leon and Xaphan needed it to. The coals would provide that heat and magic so as not to drain the core before Heaven’s Eye managed to find the final necessary ingredient. Leon would need to change out the coals every week, but that was a fine sacrifice to make given how much it cost to buy the salamander core.
[Finally,] said Xaphan, interrupting Leon as he leaned back onto his small stone bed, [we need to inscribe a few simple runes onto the cylinder so that the burning coals don’t transfer too much heat into it instead of the water. We want as much of the heat and fire energy to stay in the cylinder as possible.]
[What?] Leon complained, [Why didn’t we do that to begin with? Now I have to do this when it’s full of water and expensive ingredients?!]
[It was far more important to make sure the Kagu flower was properly taken care of and that the core’s magic wouldn’t dissipate into the surrounding environment. So hurry, we need to make sure the water doesn’t boil away. I mean, the lid should keep most of the steam in, but there’s no point in relying on ‘should’.]
Leon sighed, but he still said, [Fine. What’s needed?] As soon as his mind was open to Xaphan’s information, Leon felt a sharp pain in his head, and he saw exactly what had to be done. He reached for his ink and spell paper and got to work.
It took about an hour of careful work and more spell paper than Leon would care to admit, but even Xaphan couldn’t find any fault with his work. Leon plastered the side of the cylinder with the paper, which stuck as soon as he activated the enchantments.
[Any more steps?] asked an exhausted Leon. He was perfectly willing to perform any more necessary steps but writing the enchantments had left him feeling mentally drained.
[Nope. We’re just waiting on that feather, now. Nothing else to be done except drop in new water-coals every three or four days.]
Leon gave a deep sigh of relief as he laid back onto his bed. He missed the bed back in the Snow Lions’ tower. He’d made the stone bed in the cave relatively comfortable with a few blankets, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to a proper mattress designed for a noble.
Regardless, he fell asleep almost as soon as he got settled. He certainly hadn’t intended to sleep, but he was just that tired.
---
The Deathbringers didn’t make a move against the Snow Lions the entire day.
In fact, almost no one saw the Deathbringers at all throughout the weekend. The other units found them strangely somber and silent during meals, and it was only on Monday that they learned why, when the Deathbringers arrived at the training field with no banners. Since none of the other units had either banner that had been in the Deathbringers’ possession, it didn’t take long for everyone else to realize that the Snow Lions had taken their revenge.
Some playful insults were thrown around from the other units, but the Deathbringers endured them with a quiet dignity that was most uncharacteristic of them. Gaius especially seemed to have taken the loss completely in stride, interacting with the other nobles as if nothing had happened.
Even during the afternoon enchantments classes when he and Leon shared the same room, Gaius hardly even blinked in frustration or anger. He did send a few looks Leon’s way, but they didn’t carry the tiniest hint of malice, hate, or killing intent. Not even when Leon and Valeria exchanged a few greetings did Gaius’ mood change.
He knew that he would only bring dishonor to his family if he acted rashly and without a plan, so he remained calm and in control, as if his father were watching over his shoulder, coldly evaluating everything that he did—though, given that Gaius’ brother was a Tribune working at the Academy, it wouldn’t be that inaccurate to say that Duke Tullius was doing just that.
But even then, Gaius found his frustration oddly easy to suppress. He’d started to accept Leon’s fighting strength and skill and a degree of respect couldn’t help but follow, despite his hatred of the Snow Lion. Consequently, rather than waste his time with rage, Gaius channeled that energy into his training. Over the weeks following the Snow Lions’ seizure of the banners, Gaius threw himself into his training and dragged the rest of the Deathbringers with him.
Actaeon had put up some token resistance, wanting to venture out into the training grounds to flush the Snow Lions out of their hiding place, but he loved training and had gotten on board with Gaius’ new policy quickly. Linus could see the benefits of the extra training, and though he personally valued his off-time, Gaius was able to convince him to join the training as well.
With all three third-tier mages on the same page, no one else in the unit was able to go against them. They trained hard, with the nobles supervising the lower-tiered trainees and giving out pointers where needed. Additionally, their Senior Instructor had contemplated invoking the same right as the Snow Lions’ Senior Instructor had, that of revoking all weekend privileges until the Deathbringers had retrieved their banner, but he found that he didn’t have to; Gaius had already forced the Deathbringers into weekend training, much to their consternation and constant complaint.
But Gaius knew they were behind. The Snow Lions had over a month of hard training on the Deathbringers, and Gaius needed to push his unit to catch up as he doubted the Snow Lions would halt their intense training despite recovering their banner.
That training paid off less than two weeks after it began, as the heightened attention to security that the increased training brought allowed them to repulse an attack from another unit that tried to exploit their seeming weakness. Securing the front door of their tower every day was made a priority, so when another unit arrived to try and bully the Deathbringers, it took them several minutes to force their way into the entrance hall. By then, they were faced with the prepared Deathbringers, fully armed and armored and ready to defend their dignity. And they did so with aplomb, eliminating two of the enemy’s third-tier trainees and a dozen others besides with an initial volley of arrows, giving the Deathbringers the advantage in numbers.
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That outcome gave pause to the other units that were hoping to throw their weight around and use the Deathbringers for their own training, thus giving the Deathbringers the time and space that Gaius wanted to improve their skills. And he made use of every second that he could.
---
The weeks passed by quickly for the Snow Lions. The other nine units had started fighting for each other’s banners in earnest, but their conflicts meant little in the secluded gorge. The Snow Lions simply got into the habit of continuing their squad-level training, which meant running many more patrols and sitting through more lessons from their Instructors.
The other units did the same training, but they stopped after lunch; the Snow Lions continued well into the evening, with only Leon and several others keeping up with their extra classes. Since the extra classes weren’t necessary for graduation, almost all of the Snow Lions were perfectly comfortable skipping them, even after the Senior Instructor stopped forcing them to stay in the gorge and train.
But the gorge wasn’t that large, all things considered, so their training patrols were gradually moved out into the forest. This gave the Snow Lions an unparalleled understanding of the Academy’s geography, with even the dullest of the first-tier commoners in the unit confident in his abilities to navigate around the forest and mountains.
The other units expanded their training areas out into the forest as well, but they rarely ventured out more than a thousand feet from their towers. And, since they barely ever saw them, they had long since started to forget about the Snow Lions. As far as most of the trainees in the cycle were concerned, there were effectively only nine units in the Academy, not ten. Of course, they weren’t exactly wrong, given that the Snow Lions weren’t participating in the inter-unit battles or morning training sessions.
Two units that were quite enthusiastically taking part in said battles were the Steel Century and Crimson Tigresses. The Steel Century, led by the strategically gifted Marcus Aeneas, had managed to seize two other banners, leaving them with a total of three. The first banner to be seized was taken in a night-time raid on one of the other units’ tower, while the second was taken in an ambush as the opposing unit was returning home after dinner.
As for the Crimson Tigresses, they had taken theirs in a significantly stealthier manner, infiltrating the enemy tower and stealing it in the night. Their tactics were quite similar to the Snow Lions, with them eliminating the rather inattentive first-tier trainees on the first floor, then taking the banner from the undefended shrine. Unlike the Snow Lions, however, Asiya fared much better at removing the banner from the shrine than Castor and took it without triggering the alarm.
In every training cycle, the other nine units would always be extremely hesitant to attack the Crimson Tigresses. That was the unit that all the ladies who joined the Knight Academy were sent to, after all, so the vaguely chivalric notions of the third-tier nobles would always leave the Crimson Tigresses safe from attack until they began their own attempts to steal banners. But that also gave them the initiative, letting them take their time and only move when they were ready. They could focus on their training and create a good plan, which meant that the ladies would invariably make the other units pay for not attacking them first.
Under Valeria and Asiya, the Crimson Tigresses truly lived up to their name, attacking four different units in the span of a week and causing far more casualties than they received—though they only managed to take the first banner they went after. They only had about half the numbers of the other units, and that was a hard difference to overcome no matter who was involved. That being said, after these attacks announced to the rest of the training battalion that the ladies were ready for battle, they repulsed three assaults on their own tower without ever being in danger of losing their two banners.
Tiberias’ Black Vipers participated in a couple battles as well but didn’t do much to distinguish themselves. This was, oddly enough, by Tiberias’ own design. He was saving himself for the ending competition, so he led the Black Vipers to attack only two other units. He didn’t even target their banners; he would simply retreat after a few token casualties were inflicted.
But that wasn’t to say Tiberias and the Black Vipers were sitting on their thumbs all day. They had actually filled much of their time with additional training, in the same vein as the Snow Lions and the Deathbringers—though not as intense. Tiberias and his fellow third-tier Black Vipers weren’t helping to train their lower-tiered trainees, only making them practice what they had learned during that day’s morning training.
All of this meant little to the Snow Lions, who continued to do their own thing, gradually becoming something that—to their Instructors at least—started to resemble a proper company of Royal Legion soldiers.
---
Valeria continued sitting next to Leon during their enchantment classes. She and Leon had gotten quite used to sitting next to each other, exchanging short greetings when the class started, and they had managed to start relaxing in each other’s presence. They still refrained from actually conversing with each other for more than a few sentences, though.
When the class was over, they’d say goodbye or something to that effect and proceed to their evening activities. Their respect for each other was profound enough that both greatly desired to train together, but since neither could start a proper conversation with the other, that desire had to go unfulfilled. But then, a little over two months after the Snow Lions regained their banner, Valeria was approached with an offer that could potentially result in the two fighting again.
Marcus Aeneas, following morning training one day, quietly approached Valeria with an offer concerning the Snow Lions. She didn’t have much business with Marcus, but she heard him out anyway.
And when he was done with his proposition, she agreed. After Marcus left, she let her stoic demeanor drop for just a moment, and a smile of anticipation slowly spread across her face.
---
The day after Marcus made his offer to Valeria, she was absent from the enchanting class. Leon found it quite odd, but absences weren’t uncommon if the trainee in question felt their time would be better used for something else—in fact, the class itself had already lost four second-tier noble trainees who simply never bothered to show up anymore. Still, neither Leon nor Valeria had missed a single day the entire cycle, and Leon felt a little unsettled by the sight of her empty seat.
[Who cares where that girl is.] muttered Xaphan after sensing Leon’s unease. [Look, boy, don’t go biting off more than you can chew. You can barely talk to that Erika girl—]
[—Elise,] Leon corrected rather testily.
Xaphan continued with barely a missed beat, [—without getting all red-faced and tongue-tied, I can’t see you juggling two ladies like this. Stick with what you know, and just let this one go.]
[Your faith in my abilities never ceases to amaze me, demon,] Leon grumbled.
[What abilities?] Xaphan playfully mocked. [You look like nothing more than a young kid thinking with his wrong head.]
Their back-and-forth ended there as the enchanting instructor arrived and the class began. Afterward, Leon made for the Snow Lion tower, as had become routine. As he leisurely jogged down the forest roads, though, he suddenly realized that he was being followed. This wasn’t too unusual, he had fought off spies sent by other units before, but he had a bad feeling that this time was different. His pursuer was staying off the road so Leon couldn’t see them. Whoever they were, they moved so silently that if the wind hadn’t carried the sound just so, Leon might’ve missed them entirely.
Leon frowned but kept moving. There wouldn’t be much point in confronting the enemy right there in the middle of the road as Leon couldn’t know their numbers or identities, though he guessed that it couldn’t be more than one or two. There might be even more out in the forest somewhere, though, and that thought had his heart start to beat faster, and his fingers instinctively curling in anticipation of grasping a blade.
The other returning trainees didn’t take such a slow pace and arrived at the tower before he did, so once he entered their sight, he motioned for them to head inside. This group of Snow Lions, half a dozen strong, had had to fend off enough spies to create a protocol for it, which essentially boiled down to heading inside to strategize in a place where they wouldn’t be overheard. If anyone did try to take the opportunity to attack while they were inside, then while the attacker was busy with the locked door, they could leave out of a window and make a break for it.
When Leon made it to the door, he took one last look over his shoulder before making his way inside. He didn’t see anyone, but he could still feel their eyes on him from the forest. That he couldn’t locate this mysterious enemy in the terrain he was most comfortable in unnerved him.
“What’s going on?” asked one of the other Snow Lions.
“We’re being followed. Don’t know how many, but they’re out there.” Leon’s attitude caught the others off-guard.
“What… what should we do?” asked another of the second-tier trainees.
“Hmmm…” Leon muttered, having been mulling that very problem over since he first noticed the uninvited guest. “We don’t have enough people to fight off a coordinated attack from another unit… For now, we’ll head north instead of west and try to lose them in the forest. If we’re lucky, our pursuer will get bored and leave. If we’re not lucky, then… we scatter. If everyone runs in a separate direction, at least one of us should escape. Our mystery pursuer will probably go after me, seeing as they should also be third-tier if they’re hiding from me so well…”
“Define ‘not lucky’…” asked the first trainee who spoke up.
“If they attack us. Let me know if you see anyone, and if we’re attacked, then do as I said and bail.”
The other trainees frowned but accepted his plan. They were in a terrible position, but there wouldn’t be much they could do other than hope for the best if even Leon was so obviously expecting the worst. The six men trusted Leon, though. His defense of the tower when the Deathbringers attacked and his actions afterward had won over most of the second-tier nobles, helped greatly by Castor’s friendly attitude towards him. They weren’t Leon’s followers, but since Castor wasn’t there, they accepted his authority without much reservation.
“Well, we’re not going to get anywhere if we just hide in here,” said Leon as he turned back to the entrance. He paused before opening the door to listen, but after not hearing anything, he pushed it open and confidently led the others back outside.
The group nervously walked across the open area surrounding the tower to enter the forest, expecting arrows to rain down on them any second.
They made it to the tree line without coming under fire, despite their anxiety, and sped off into the forest, with Leon setting a pace brisk enough to make it nearly impossible for anyone to follow them silently. But follow them silently the spy must have because Leon couldn’t hear or see anything. In fact, after about five minutes of running through the quiet forest, the thought that Leon was mistaken had started to creep into the minds of the other Snow Lions.
And then an arrow sped through the trees, narrowly missing both Leon and one of the second-tier nobles.