Ahrden could not tell how many months it has been since Sophie visited her, but they had not talked since. He shifted back towards a more balanced lifestyle that involved the outside world, but the scars he got that day did not heal. His days still revolved around studying, but he introduced a lot of other activities. He made sure to leave the house every day to; visit Felinda as often as he could, Berton as often as he had the mood for it and the forest as often as he needed it. The woods became his source of food and a place to blow off some steam. Since he didn't work and the army wouldn't take him in, he had no money to buy food with, but as a mage he didn't require it. With the arcane forces bending to his will so did everything else. Hunting was almost too easy to be fair, while gathering went so fast he could rarely eat it all without using a spell to preserve them.
Making all these colourful activates a constant in his everyday life made Ahrden feel more centred, which he welcomed and cherished. His passion of searching for hidden treasures burned anew and the problems he faced were becoming increasingly easier. His skills were improving, his power increasing, but he still had no reference to compare it to. He had a hidden place in the forest that he lately been visiting more frequently, where he could freely practise his spells. Ahrden enjoyed being able to cast gradually more difficult spells, all the while being more efficient and powerful with the ones he already knew. His arsenal of spells, that had significant effects on the world was growing and it was becoming a rarity for him to learn a new spell that could be practised in his study.
On this particular day, after weeks of never thinking about her once, Sophie found her way into his thoughts again and did not let him be. It was late at night and he was hunching over a large book when he reached his tipping point. Ahrden found himself unable to focus on what he was reading anymore and desperately needed to get away from studying. If he had to guess dawn was not that far away now so it was the quietest time of the day. He put on a light cloak and teleported to the middle of the street in front of his house.
The street was utterly abandoned, with no windows where the firelights still flickered through. The air was chilly and the sky clear with countless stars doting it. Ahrden appreciated the refreshing breeze in his face as he started walking towards the main square. The silence was only broken by the sound of his rhythmical footsteps on the cobblestone, while illumination only came from the moon, which was almost at its fullest.
Ahrden tried to clear his head, and although it was hard at first, each step that took him further from his home eased his mind. Slowly, he began wondering about other things as he walked. When he reached the main square, he stood there for a moment listening to the silence of the night. Moments turned into minutes as he stood there enjoying the evening.
At one point, Ahrden decided to look at Belentedor like he had never looked at it before. He teleported to the roof of a house that lined the square, and from there, he could see the City Hall, upon which he stood in the next moment. It was the tallest building in the whole nation, and he could even see the farthest part of the city from up there. The wind was stronger this high up in the air but not powerful enough to cause him discomfort. From up there, he quickly located the square he had just come from, then traced the street back to where his house stood.
Ahrden enjoyed the process of finding the parts of the city that were of some significance to him until he noticed a cluster of firelights at the edge of the city. Focusing his attention on it, he recognized it to be at the barracks where the warriors trained and consequently, this needed to be one such training. The contrast between how he bettered himself in his class and how others did was so stark that it was hard to wrap one's mind around it. Now that Ahrden actually thought about this, he could see how easily this could cause a natural resentment towards his class by the others. At the end of the day, all they saw him do was sit at home and read books. Ahrden however didn't kid himself to think that this was the only reason that his class was despised. The full list of psychological reasons as to why his class was regarded the way it was, reached so deep and had so many different branches that he doubted to ever get to know them all.
Having an inquisitive nature, Ahrden could not help but to further investigate what was going on down there. He used a cloaking spell he had been practising, and with a few teleportation, he was within hearing range of the soldiers who were gathered at the back of the barrack with torches lining the group.
'...a few at most. Kill on sight, but only if there is no chance for them to get away. If they don't go back, that will leave them guessing, but if we attack and they get away, they'll know that we have been surveilling the route they took. That we cannot let that happen. The biggest priority is to not let the Velintenal nation know that we know about them being here. We should be able to reach them before noon. We stop once before that. Questions?'
That was Huron talking, one of the lieutenants who must have been the leader of this group. After no questions came, he continued: 'Then move out soldiers. Kubin lead the way.'
Kubin, who must have been his second, quickly took up his position at the front, while Huron remained at the end of the group. Without thinking about what he was doing, Ahrden quietly stepped out from his cover and cast a tracking spell onto Huron before the warrior started marching after his soldiers. As Ahrden was left there alone, he contemplated whether to join them before noon or to forget that any of this ever happened.
---
After the long night, Ahrden slept in, waking up a lot later than he usually did. He got dressed, had a light breakfast, then sat down at his desk to study. After rereading the first line on the page multiple times, he stood up and admitted to himself that he was never going to just study the day through after what he heard last night.
The tracking spell he had placed on Huron was so fresh that he could easily locate him after focusing on it for a short while. When he materialized, the soldiers were marching not far ahead of him. He thought it'd be best to make them aware of his presence sooner rather than later, but the time being close to noon meant that the enemy soldiers could already be close by, so he wanted to do it as quietly as possible.
'Lieutenant Huron,' said Ahrden in a low voice.
All the soldiers swirled around at once, drawing their weapons at the foreign voice, not thinking about the fact that an enemy would do no such thing as to call their leader by his name. After they all recognized who he was, Ahrden walked up to them while they remained motionless, unable to comprehend how they'd been followed for half a day without them noticing by someone as unskilled as Ahrden.
'Why? How? You have no right!' Huron pressed the words out of his clenched teeth when Ahrden came up to him.
'I'll make this simple for you. I'm guessing the ones you're pursuing are close by, so time and stealth are of the essence at the moment. I'll tag along, and you will not notice my presence, or we can argue and shake up the whole forest.'
Huron stared at Ahrden as if he wanted to kill him with his eyes.
'I have skills you could use, and I...'
'One more word, and I'll make this mission about ending you. If you cause any trouble, I'll not hesitate to strike you down. And if you dare to use your filthy powers, I'll make sure you regret coming here. Soldiers move out.'
With that, they all continued their marching through the forest.
---
Ahrden had no idea how much time had passed, but his legs started to hurt, so he was glad when the group abruptly slowed their pace. They were on a downward slope with a flat clearing at the bottom, but that was still hidden from them by the many trees surrounding it. The group slowly moved downwards until everyone could see the enemy camp set up on the clearing.
They moved closer to the enemy's camp, then stopped while they were still hidden behind the trees that lined the clearing. The base was small, made in a hustle and wasn't built to last. It consisted of a few military tents, a campfire in the middle and a wide perimeter for defensive measures.
Crouching down, Huron spoke.
'I see a lot more than just a few rogues. We cannot take them all, and we mustn't engage without being certain that none will escape. We get the intel, then we head back.'
The soldiers murmured disapprovingly, hungry for blood, but none opposed their superior.
'Kubin, what's the count?' Huron asked his second.
'Twelve soldiers, mostly warrior but I can see a few hunters. A horse for each and four hounds, sir,' Kubin whispered in a low but firm and sure voice.
'That makes two for each of us,' a soldier grinned in the back, obviously not counting Ahrden as part of the group. 'I'll take three if someone cares to share.'
'I said we are leaving,' Huron confirmed his order, wiping off the grin from all who started getting into the idea of a glorious battle.
'I can take them,' Ahrden said quietly.
The leader slowly turned towards the back where Ahrden was, seething with fury from being opposed by him. His anger only grew when he saw that Ahrden meant what he said.
'This is real-life kid, not some library story. The hell you can take them. Now shut it and follow my orders, or I'll make you regret tagging along,' Huron blurted out using all of his willpower not to raise his voice.
'We all know that they have valuable information on us. We can't just let them leave. I can take them.'
The soldiers didn't want to agree with him, but more than half nodded approvingly, obviously not to the part about how Ahrden could handle the enemy. The fire grew wilder in Huron's eyes as he gave the order.
'Move out.'
That was when the wind shifted, and the hounds caught their smell. As they were trained to do, all four ran up to the edge of the perimeter and started barking ferociously with foaming muzzles. The enemy soldiers sprang to their feet and ran up to the hounds gathering their weapons while intensely searching the area where Ahrden and the soldiers hid. It didn't take them long to find the hiding Polenteus warriors once they knew where to look for them.
Huron gave silent instructions in the form of hand gestures to the soldiers who prepared for the coming encounter while still staying down to not give up more information than the enemy already knew. The soldiers under his command understood everything that he was telling them as they all readied their weapons while still remaining crouched down.
A seasoned Velintenal warrior who was probably the leader of the group must have estimated how outnumbered the opposing force was because he bellowed orders, to which all the warriors and even the hounds around him started charging at the still unmoving, crouched soldiers.
Huron stood up while shouting his own orders, and his soldiers followed along. He raised his double-handed long sword and to his fellow soldiers shouted. 'Show them no mercy!'
Ahrden was relaxed. He needed to be. His presence there was long forgotten, but that would soon change. He felt his power boiling in him, waiting to be released, unleashed. He crouched down and softly put his fingertips on the ground as he closed his eyes and murmured the word of the spell he had been preparing. The ground around him liquefied and the soldiers around him sank waist-deep into it. Ahrden stood up, and the ground immediately turned back to solid, immobilizing all of his friendly soldiers. He walked past them to the front while eyeing the charging hounds and the soldiers behind them. Ahrden walked past the wide-eyed Huron who was bellowing at Ahrden like he had never before bellowed in his life. Ahrden turned towards him with a face so focused that it was unable to display any emotion.
'I got this lieutenant,' Ahrden said and walked on.
A few steps later, the hounds were only a couple of strides away from Ahrden, but he saw that the hunters' nocked arrows would reach him faster. He had been gathering the arcane powers within him since he saw the enemy base, and it was now all at his fingertips, waiting to be released.
Four arrows were fired at him. For the first time ever Ahrden cast his own spell in action. He released the gathered arcane energies, which spread around him fast in the form of an unnatural mist. He focused hard, and time slowed down for him. Not by much, just enough.
One of the arrow was off by a little, but the soldiers behind Ahrden could easily be hit by it, so he gently steered it further away, clear from anybody behind him. The other three would have hit him, but Ahrden forced them off course too, driving them straight through the skull of the biggest hound, which by then was in the air leaping towards his neck.
The beast died mid-air, so Ahrden stepped out of the path of the flying body to face the second one coming down on him. Ahrden swiftly conjured a blade made of pure arcane energy, and with a measured motion, he cut the flying beast in half with the impossibly sharp blade. Using the same fluent movement, he turned and threw the arcane blade at the third hound, which stumbled and fell to the ground dead.
The mist wasn't as thick as Ahrden hoped it to be so even from the camp the hunters could see him, enabling them to send the second round of arrows towards him. The arrows were going to arrive simultaneously with the fourth beast. Ahrden formed an orb of condensed arcane energy, fed it with some power and threw it in front of him while creating a wide wall of shield between him and the arcane missile he still held intact. As he let go of the sphere, its energy was no longer contained, and it exploded in all directions. The last hound blew to bits with blood and meat flying everywhere while the arrows turned to splinters in the explosion. The shield flared up in a clear blue hue when the blast hit it but held strong. When the shockwave had passed, Ahrden let go of the shield and faced the next wave of enemies.
The charging soldiers were still a bit further away, but they staggered back from the explosion, only to immediately resume their charge. They should have been stunned by the use of magic, but if they were, they didn't show it. Seeing the ineffectiveness of the long-ranged attacks, all but one archer threw down their bows drew their swords and started charging.
Ahrden continued his walk, almost uninterrupted by the wave of hounds. He wanted to feel confident but he was petrified. He only had to make one mistake, one slip of the mind, and he would die along with all who were behind him. Now his actions of trapping his own soldiers looked maniac and could not believe that he had done that just seconds ago, but there was nothing to do about it now. He also wished that he had Duskedge with him, and coming here without it was another mistake he found hard to believe to have made.
He concentrated unwaveringly to correct his past failures.
Ahrden had his hands up when the first warrior reached him, thrusting the sword at his unprotected chest. He let the soldier come close, very close, because while the tip of the sword neared him, he could cast his next spell. This close proximity and flawless execution allowed him to blow a head-sized hole in the warrior's chest, who died before he could feel a thing. As the enemy crumbled, Ahrden caught his falling sword with his power and drove it through the air, around his head to give it some momentum, and back at the oncoming second foe. The sword went clean through the warrior and was stopped after being half-buried in the trunk of a tree.
When the second soldier fell, two others were closing in on Ahrden, one right behind the other, with one wielding a battle axe while the other a heavy sword. Ahrden levitated his runed blades off his belt and, with his channelled power, drove them into the closer foe, which had the battle axe, then teleported a few steps behind the one with the sword. Only a few of the small blades priced the plate armour of the soldier, and even those didn't wound him seriously, but this was all according to Ahrden's intention. The teleportation momentarily stunned the soldiers, but the one with the sword quickly recovered and turned to strike at the mage, who was still within range. Of course, the manoeuvre was to line the enemies up so Ahrden could effortlessly call the blades to him. The one with the axe didn't turn around yet because he was still inspecting the damage he had suffered after seeing his foe disappear, so the blades could quickly end his life due to his reluctance. When the blades went through the second soldier too, blood spattered all over Ahrden as he stopped the runed blades in front of him.
The one hunter who remained finally had a clear shot of Ahrden so he sent an arrow flying towards him. Ahrden felt the arrow coming through the arcane fog he had created and blocked it by forming a small patch of solid shield in front of it.
After seeing all that Ahrden just did, the rushing soldiers slowed their pace, eyeing him, trying to come up with a plan rather than to just run in and meet the same faith as their brothers. The problem for them was that despite their many years of experience, they were not prepared to fight a foe who wielded arcane. The moment of pause was not to Ahrden's liking. He was focused and determined. He didn't want to wait, so he brought the fight to the pondering soldiers.
Ahrden began forming a ball of energy just before teleporting between the closest two warrior, dropping it between them, then teleporting out again. The contained energy exploded before it could hit the ground, killing the soldiers instantly. Ahrden arrived in the middle of a group of four soldiers while two arcane blades were already forming in his hands. Two warriors could recover fast enough and managed to dance backwards in time as Ahrden turned in a circle with his conjured weapons raised at shoulder level. The slower two dropped dead immediately, while the other two only had their blades cut in half as they met the arcane swords. Looking at one while feeling the other through his extended senses Ahrden expertly threw the blades. The shocked soldiers now had the very things protruding from their chests that had cut their swords in half a moment ago. They too fell before they could understand what had happened to them.
Ahrden felt another arrow coming, and he turned it sharply away and drove it into the back of the last charging soldier. The sudden turn took away most of the arrow's speed, so the soldier only staggered from it, but died a moment later when Ahrden's arcane missile hit him straight in the chest.
The remaining warrior and the three hunters stood motionless with swords drawn waiting for Ahrden to come to them. Whatever they planned Ahrden knew that he was the one directing the flow of the events. As he walked the fog that he had created followed him. He felt another arrow enter it and rather than creating a solid patch of shield before it he slowed it through the arcane mist. Simultaneously, he strengthened his grip with a spell and when the arrow arrived, he leaned to the side and caught it with his hand. The enemy tried not to be disheartened by it, but it was all written on their faces.
Ahrden felt to be close enough, so he stopped. He chuckled softly at how the hunters have given up their main weapon with which they would have had the highest chance to wound him. Even the warrior stopped for whatever reason thinking that the distance will aid him against a mage.
The first spell that Ahrden cast, mostly failed as the blue arcane washed over the armour of the warrior. The attack however, was threatening enough to make all four of them launch themselves at him. As they neared Ahrden repeated the spell, that hit the warrior in the chest again, but this time crushing him from the inside out.
Ahrden only had to direct the next incoming arrow slightly for it to pierce the skull of a hunter. The remaining two who came at him saw the blue light spread across Ahrden's body, before he disappeared. The following jumps he made came in a close succession one after the other. He only stopped momentarily right next to one of the hunters to cast a swift but powerful spell. Not fully understanding how powerful these were Ahrden could have used only two to end them, but his speed allowed him to deliver many more. By the time the hunters fell to the ground they were long gone.
With only one hunter standing most of the treat was gone. During this last flurry of jumps he was unable to follow Ahrden so he just stood there franticly jerking his bow from one place to the other. When Ahrden finally teleported behind him the poor hunter had lost him completely. Ahrden mused at the confusion as the archer, who was agitatedly looking for him at the area where he'd stood just a moment ago. After failing to locate him, the hunter turned around to start for the horses, and almost stumble into Ahrden. He gasped but recovered quickly, nocking an arrow and sending it flying at Ahrden, who stood a mere arm's length away. The arrow stopped when it was halfway between them, trapped in a tight energy field. Hoping for the best and clearly unwilling to switch to the sword that hung at his side, the hunter took out a second arrow but went no further as his neck snapped from Ahrden's final spell.
When the archer dropped, Ahrden raised his eyes to look at his own soldiers who were no longer trying to dig themselves out but were instead watching him with their mouths open from utter astonishment. Ahrden smiled and turned his back on them to pet the horses.