"Well it's not my fault if we haven't found the mage yet. He's hiding after all, finding him won't be that easy."

Brenia and Penny had checked the south of Artefine broadly but didn't find any signs of the potion's teacher pa.s.sage so they moved back towards the north. They circled the howling hills from the north and moved around the Low-woods into the kingdom of Windbow.

They got really lucky in a small village in the hills however. Mostly no one ever went through there because most traffic pa.s.sed further south through the howling hills so they managed to find someone who remembered a man and two woman coming through a few years back. There was nothing particular about them except the villager wondered how they could be fine travelling on their own.

Brenia couldn't be certain it really was Ninoslav but it was the best clue they found yet. Hopefully they were on the right track. At least, they had tracked down Noey's wings to Windbow as well so they should hopefully be able to meet and recruit them soon.

"I know, that's not what I meant, I've resigned myself to that already. I was speaking about monsters instead. How come we haven't come across anything dangerous at all? I haven't been able to cast a spell in forever." Penny complained.

"It's true." The servant Janna said. "I pictured this whole thing to be much more dangerous than it ended up being."

"I'm glad." Kali said in relief.

They came across many beasts over their travels but none of them were all that powerful. It just so happened that the weakest are also the most numerous. Brenia had to fight loads of weak monsters over the weeks but nothing worthwhile ever showed up. This meant that Penny had nothing to do but walk which she hated doing.

Brenia agreed with her slaves.

"It's better that way, we don't have the funds for you to throw magic everywhere. Most of our budget has been turned into trinkets to resist the illusionist's magic and pay for surplus inn rooms."

"Again with that! Indecent is what you are! I'm not sharing a room, give up already." Penny puffed.

Brenia showed her companion a devious grin.

"Well I'm the one who's going to be laughing this time around, the next village we're crossing is too small, there are no inns there."

"Really?" Penny said on a whining tone. "Can't we keep going until the next then?"

"We can't, we won't reach. Either we sleep out in the forest this time or we sleep in the village even though there will be no inn. I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell you which is safer."

Penny groaned which made Brenia laugh.

"You know, sometimes, I wish I could just blast you with lighting."

Brenia was about to tease her friend some more when she caught a blur of red from the corner of her eyes and something slammed into her side hard.

Pain shot through her whole body in an instant and before she could even voice a groan, she was rammed into the ground a few feet away from the others. All the air left her lungs on impact and all the others panicked.

"Mistress!"

"Brenia!"

"What is that?"

"It's hiding behind the tree there!"

"Watch out!"

Brenia gasped for air and tried to ignore the pain to see what was happening.

A long bright red spike like a sewing needle had pierced into her side, going right through the leather armor. It was held at the end of a long black appendage like a whip that extended all the way to the back of a wide tree. There was a second needle raised in the air and ready to strike.

Penny wasted no time and threw a talisman at the hidden beast while the other four cowered. The second needle darted past the talisman twice as fast at it and flew right through the neck of Kali who tried to escape by ducking.

Her blood flew across the road before an explosion turned the tree to smithereens. The talisman destroyed the creature's cover and sent it reeling back. Brenia was pulled along by the needle and dragged across the road while Kali collapsed and the others screamed.

She cursed out loud and unstrapped her axe as dirt and stones were sc.r.a.pped along her back. She had to twist herself and endure great pain to be able to find her target. She smashed the blade downward and cut off the appendage. It twisted in pain snapped back towards the monster covered by a cloud of dust and smoke.

"Janna pull Kali back!" Brenia ordered before trying to get up herself.

Their answer was completely drowned by the sound of the great tree collapsing with all its branches snapping together.

She had not been hurt this badly in an ambush for a long time, she felt enraged, both for her own wound and for Kali who might very well be dead. The needle along with a length of leathery black skin still hung from her but removing it now wasn't a bright idea. She might loose a lot of blood if she wasn't careful when removing it, it might have pierced something important too. The only things that were certain to her right now were that the needle hit bellow her lungs and that the monster needed to die immediately.

Seeing that Brenia was getting back up, Penny quickly pulled some things from inside her many pockets, preparing a new spell. Brenia wouldn't complain for it because as the dust quickly settled, she managed to recognize what attacked them, a crimson backed fisherbeast.

It was shaped like a wide badger with curved claws used to climb into trees. It had the habit of climbing somewhere and waiting for prey to show up, then it would use the two tentacles sprouting from its shoulder to strike its victims at blinding speed. The needles at the end of them were barbed to hold into anything it caught and reel them in.

Once caught, they'd be hung in the air above the monster until they bled out at which point it would eat them and hunt for a new meal. Brenia heard that the characteristic crimson fur on their backs turned darker and darker the more prey they caught in their lives because it was their blood raining on their backs that gave it its color.

It was a rare creature that lived in solitude, it was very aggressive and incredibly dangerous. The bright red needles it used to fish could pierce through even thin steel and the fur covering it's body was rock solid. Worse, the one in front of them was very old. The red of its fur was so dark it was close to black in color.

The truth was, despite it looking like a fat badger, their chances of wining against it would be low if they didn't go all out. Brenia would need to use the "fangs of dawn and dusk" that the old Muracier taught her and she would need the a.s.sistance of Penny's magic.

The fangs of dawn and dusk was a special technique that could be used with axes, scythes or war picks. Most of the attacks and movements of the technique were made to imitate the jaw of a giant predator with the weapons replacing the fangs. There were quite a few powerful moves in that technique but she was unable to use most of them. Even with all the efforts she put in it, she couldn't figure out the part about soul magic that would enable her to wield the full extent of the technique. The old man told her not to worry about it because he was certain she'd eventually figure it out but for now, it was out of her reach.

Soul magic wasn't so easy to understand that she could figure it out with a bit of practice however. No one really understood how it worked after all.

Because of this, she needed to use a second axe with the first to make it worthwhile.

She unstrapped the second axe she kept only for the special technique and rushed to place herself directly between Penny and the creature. Being that old, she had no doubt that the fisherbeast would recognize Penny as a serious threat and target her while she was distracted with her own spellcasting. The talisman was a declaration that she was dangerous and the beast would not ignore it.

Brenia circulated her own magu in the pattern she was used to and strengthened herself with self-magic to face the beast. At the same time, the monster started waddling towards them with a snarl. Its look and actions were deceivingly weak looking and amusing. The power it in truth possessed however was chilling enough to freeze the blood of the three remaining slaves into their veins.

An actual badger is dangerous for many animals and even some ordinary humans but a fisherbeast has far transcended the power the usual animal posses. Underestimating it because of its general appearance would probably result in death.

While rus.h.i.+ng forward, the monster twisted its body to the side and sc.r.a.pped its claws against the ground, digging up a lot of dirt and rocks to throw towards Brenia's face, at the same time, it shot out its fis.h.i.+ng needle towards Penny.

Brenia knew what the priority was here and ignored the dirt flying her way. She swung her two axe in opposite directions in an arc over her head pulling as much power as she could from her back muscles to attack swiftly.

The two axes split the air and crossed over her head as the needle pa.s.sed with a shrill whistle. The second appendage got split in three but the needle kept flying freely towards Penny.

The mage had not received an elixir from Emp like Brenia which made her much slower than her friend. However, she had started moving even before the attack was launched. As a mage, it was imperative that she avoid all hits until she was ready and a moving target was much harder to hit than a still one. Penny had watched enough spars in school to know that standing still while casting a spell was far from smart.

The red needle punched a hole through her loose clothes and ripped her sleeve open along with her skin but she managed to escape the worse. It didn't even disturb her incantation.

Even though the creature had lost its two main weapons, the fight wasn't over yet.

The soil landed onto Brenia's face who was forced to close her eyes to escape being blinded. The monster used the opportunity to jump and claw at her face. It was so fast for its size and shape that even Brenia hadn't expected it.

The helm she stole from her traitorous companion in the past saved her as the sharp claws failed to break through it. The row of tightly knit fangs protected her head but the impact still had her stumble a few steps to the side.

Brenia swung her two axes again towards the place she was just standing in but missed the creature by a breath. The thing flattened itself to the ground and bit down into her leg, jerking its head back and pulling her forward.

She put down all her weight into her leg to stop it from moving and slashed down with both of her weapons. The blades. .h.i.t the back of the creature but didn't cut through its skin and just frustratingly slid to the sides before splitting the road open. Roaring in frustration, she kicked the beast in the head three times over in quick succession.

The badger looking thing raised its front leg to try to fight off her leg but was a slightly stuck between her two axes and only managed to add on some new gashes into the leather protecting her leg.

Their struggle ended up making her fall down over it but that didn't mean it got the upper hand. Brenia was quite flexible despite her muscular shape and managed to wrestle herself onto the back of the beast. The base of the severed appendages wrapped around her in an attempt to pull her away but she squeezed an arm around its neck and pulled hard by locking it behind her other elbow.

The creature tried to get free from the choke hold by wiggling and tras.h.i.+ng, scratching at her arms and leaving long trails of blood on them. Its fis.h.i.+ng limbs moved so erratically that they hit the nail planted into her side many times over making her cry out in pain but she didn't let it go.

She rolled with the beast and bent herself over it to dig her heels into the ground before pulling it up in the air and exposing its belly to Penny.

��Spell!" Brenia called.

She had no idea whether Penny was ready or not or what sort of spell she had planned to use but she needed it to be cast now! She wouldn't be able to hold the beast there any more than a moment. Already, its hind legs were kicking at her thighs furiously, she felt each hit like the punch of a strong man sending waves after waves of pain into her legs.

The monster was snarling viciously and wiggling enough that it would soon slip out of her grasp despite her efforts to choke it. The blasted thing even got the idea of imitating her and wrapped it's fis.h.i.+ng limbs around her neck to strangle her in return.

Brenia gnashed her teeth and endured until a bright pink flame started rising from a pebble in the hand of Penny. She finished her spell and hurriedly threw the burning stone towards Brenia and the creature. As it flew, Penny cried out in a hurry.

"Hold your breath and don't look!"

Asking someone who was getting choked to hold their breath wasn't very considerate but Brenia did as the mage said. She closed her eyes and turned her head away as well as she could.

In the next moment, she felt a burning heat a.s.sault her arms and pink light pierced through her eyelids as if she looked directly at the sun. Fire crackled as it ate at the fisherbeast and her. She felt the monster squeal and convulse once before a disgusting squelch was heard and it became significantly lighter. The grip around her throat lessened suddenly and she fought against the reflex to gasp for air even though her lungs were burning from the lack of oxygen.

The side of her head was warmed by waves of the powerful fire up to the point that she was forced to back away from the heat fearing her face might get burnt off. She expected her arms to be badly burnt already, the pain they were suffering was staggering by itself. The only reason she hadn't moved yet was to make sure that the creature was dead for sure.

Finally, she felt and heard the fire die out in an instant before she heard Penny call again.

"You can breathe now!"

Brenia breathed in as much air as she could in one go and dropped the corpse of the crimson backed fisherbeast. Opening her eyes, she saw that the beast had died horribly with its insides blown out through its chest. It's fur was only slightly singed and most of the damage had been done from the inside.

Now able to verify that the monster had truly died, Brenia let the exhaustion take control and fell on one knee beside it. She was hurting everywhere but did not thing she was fatally wounded.

"Brenia! Are you okay?" Penny called in worry, rus.h.i.+ng towards her.

"You almost roasted me!" She complained right away, making the other stop and cross her arms in an upset way.

"This is your fault too! How was I supposed to guess you'd start wrestling with it halfway though my spell!"

Brenia smirked at the reaction before a thought erased it again immediately.

"How's Kali? Go see her instead."

A needle went through her neck, at best, this was a horrible injury. Brenia worried for her servant, way more than she worried for herself. She was beaten, burnt, cut and had a spike still planted in her side but Kali might die at any moment if she wasn't already gone.

Penny showed a pained face and turned her head towards the others to see. Her feet didn't move and her expression worsened greatly almost instantly. Brenia didn't have to wait for her answer to know what had happened.

"I'm sorry Brenia, she's gone."

Brenia closed her eyes in sorrow. She was the only one responsible for this death. Kali and Janna had no reason to be here other than to follow their owner. They didn't even know how to fight, walking around small roads looking for a powerful mage was clearly not something they were meant to be doing. Yet here they were because of her.

She didn't know what to do with them so she brought them along but now that one of them was dead, she felt it was a mistake. She should have left them with someone she could trust, maybe Mable or Calla in Dark-glint. Just like that, someone she knew for more than five years had died at her side.

She felt devastated but she wouldn't wallow in misery or feel that her blood was on her hands because monsters were everywhere and this sort of things happened even to the most prepared warriors. She wouldn't deny that she was responsible for setting up this situation however.

She knew what had to be done, she knew her path might not be appropriate for her two servants but she also knew this was the thing she was meant to do.

This was not her first setback and it wouldn't be the last.

Death was a normal part of life and came for everyone.

She would feel bitter and sad but she would keep moving on like she had done every other time before.

Kali was gone but Gytha and that other girl were probably still there. Giving up now just because a friend died would be disgusting.

At least the monster died too, revenge was dealt.

Do not break now, get up, move forward again.

She knew how to do it, she did it before. She also knew what breaking was like. Never again.

She took another deep breath to scream in anger but swallowed it back for later. She needed to stay strong now, needed to keep calm and get up.

"Let me remove that spike at least." Penny said while getting closer hesitantly.

Brenia opened her tear filled eyes and spoke with her usual tone.

"Don't, that thing needs to stay there for now."

"What? Don't be ridiculous, you're bleeding." Penny said in clear confusion.

"I'm not being ridiculous, I'll loose blood a lot more quickly if you remove it and we don't know what it touched. Yes its really painful but as long as I'm not ready to get it healed, it has to stay there. That's basic survival knowledge you should have learned in school if not before that." She had to explain to the mage.

"I-I know that! I'm just, I feel a bit panicky right now. It's the first time I see you get injured! It's also the first time..." The mage turned her eyes towards the others again.

Brenia understood that it might be a terrible experience for her but it meant it would make things harder for herself because Penny wasn't completely there anymore. She was trying her best to show the same indifferent front as usual but there were obvious cracks in her act, her eyes were fluttering and her speech was crumbling as the situation was registering in her head.

She was just working on reflexes right now, answering by automatism to everything. If anything else happened before they reached the village, she wouldn't be as useful as she had been just now and Brenia wasn't in any state to fight either.

"Penny listen. Do not pay attention to Kali now, I need you. We have to take the fur and the needle that went flying over there because they're worth a fortune. You burnt my arms and I can't wield my knife properly so you have to do it with the other three. It needs to be done quick so that we can move to the village as quickly as we can. We could carry the whole corpse but we're down one person and I need to carry Kali."

"Carry Kali? What for?" Penny asked.

"We don't have a shovel." Brenia answered simply as she pushed herself up with a pained groan.

There was no way she was leaving the corpse of her friend on the road like that. Kali deserved to join the ancestors and would be buried properly. To do that however, she'd have to carry her back. Kali's share of baggage would have to be split among everyone else and would have to travel the rest of the way while being overburdened.

"I'll help you with the fur because I know you're bad at it but I need to see Kali first."

"Right... I'll hurry." Penny added while eyeing the spike jutting from Brenia's side.

While the mage ordered her two slaves to move, going so far as to waking them up of their shocked state with a flash of pain sent through the slave seal, Brenia walked up to the fresh corpse of her friend held by her second servant.

She knelt at her side and took a long look at the two. Kali looked surprisingly peaceful despite her gaping neck wound. She wasn't smiling per say but her resting face had always looked rather cheerful so it seemed that even death did not damage her spirits. Almost a third of her neck had been ripped open however, she must have bled out in seconds. The grotesque wound was still letting out blood onto the road and Janna but with her still heart, it wasn't flying out of her neck anymore, just flowing like a tiny stream instead.

Janna had tried to stop the bleeding with her hands but it was an impossible task. That sort of wound was fatal and no mortal hands could have saved her. Now her hands and sleeves were soaked in blood but the fact didn't seem to bother her yet. Janna was openly crying over the death of her friend and fellow slave, keeping the corpse close to her and wailing. Later on, Brenia knew that that she'd frantically try to wash away the blood but for now, she only felt sadness.

Brenia didn't wish to disturb her just yet. Instead, she removed her helm and extended her hands to Kali's face. Her sleeves were all black and burnt, her arms were probably wounded but her hands were mostly fine. She brushed her hair out of the way and placed a kiss on her forehead. That was the only thing she could do for her.

"I'm sorry to have failed you Kali. I'm sorry."

She hugged Janna strongly to comfort her a bit but she soon had to move back because things needed to be done and they couldn't stay here on the road forever.

Brenia kept ignoring the pain and helped the other three with their improvised dismantling. The skin and fur of a crimson backed fisherbeast was very valuable and the darker it was, the better it was. She couldn't leave it there knowing the reward for it would be counted in gold royals. She could also choose to keep it and have some armor made out of it, the material could resist her axe strike easily after all, it would make for a good upgrade compared to her current gear.

The needles were just as precious although not useful for her, selling them to the right person would still net her a lot of coins. Finally, she didn't know about the claws but Penny insisted that they were used for some advanced and powerful earth spells so they took them as well.

The meat was edible but weighted too much for them to carry just like the bones. They were forced to leave it all here. Because the skin was so though, they had to pull out everything from the hole torn into its belly. The other girls found the task gruesomely disgusting but Brenia hurried them along.

They gathered everything they could and Brenia hoisted Kali into her arms to walk.

"Everyone, be extremely vigilant now. I won't be able to react quickly this way."

The others nodded gravely.

With a bleeding wound to the side, burnt arms and carrying a corpse in her arms, she would have a hard time reacting to threats as quickly as she usually did. She needed everyone to keep an eye out and warn the others if they spotted anything. Those facts combined with how they just got ambushed in the middle of a conversation, the others were now obsessively vigilant.

n.o.body was in any mood to talk at all and they walked in silence.

Brenia felt the needle move painfully into her flesh at every step she took and the extra weight of Kali in her arms was not helping at all. She gritted her teeth and kept her attention on the forest on either side of them instead.

They pushed through carrying the heavy loads all the way to the village she had mentioned earlier. Even if they wasted quite a while taking off the skin of the beast, they arrived before dusk.

Like everywhere in the empire, the village was surrounded by a st.u.r.dy palisade and the few guards protecting the place rested by the gate. All of it looked typical but something else was here. There were a large array of tents erected around the gate, just outside the village.

The guards and the people around the tents noticed Brenia's group at the same time but the soldiers let the people outside go meet them first. They looked to be mercenaries or hunters by how they were equipped and how many they were.

Brenia and the others weren't moving all that quickly because of tiredness and what they carried so the other group had a lot of time to prepare to receive them.

"They look like combatants too and you're in no shape to fight with anyone right now so please don't say anything vulgar." Penny said from her side. "We might need their help for your wound."

"Yeah, I know. I won't do anything stupid don't worry." Brenia rea.s.sured her along with a pained groan.

Once they got closer, the unknown group noticed how battered they looked and called back into their camp for others to come. Brenia hoped that they were decent people because if they decided to steal their things, there was nothing she'd be able to do and she highly doubted the few guards at the gate would do anything to help her.

Three woman came from deeper into their camp and ran up to them.

A short woman with grey robes, possibly a mage, an axe wielder with a long braid and the last one a tall spear wielding one with short hair. The mage looked worried, the axe and beast skin looked wary and the spear and scale armor looked welcoming.

���You look like you have some injured in your group. Do you need our help?" The spear wielder asked first as they got close.

"We came across a crimson backed fisherbeast and the barbed spike got stuck into my side. If you have a healer, I'd appreciate the help." Brenia spoke in a more polite manner than usual.

The spear wielder looked at the robed woman to her side who nodded right away.

"I'll have to take a look but I think I can fix that properly. What about the one in your arms?"

"Dead." Brenia said simply.

The three women facing them made a pained grimace. This told Brenia they were good people, at least good enough to not steal from them and leave them to die. She relaxed her tense muscles slightly.

"Then lets hurry into our camp, we'll talk more there after the injuries in your group have been dealt with. Is that fine with you?"

"It's fine with me. Penny what do you think? They seem trustworthy to me."

She frowned a bit and looked over the three of them again while pondering.

"I'm not that good with healing magic so I think we don't really have a choice. I'd like to hear your names first before I agree to anything however."

Her request wasn't that special so the spear wielder agreed right away.

"I'm Connie, our mage here is Jaska and that one is my second in command Tacey. We're the leaders of Noey's wings. We're a group of huntresses here on a request although I think you might have taken care of that for us."

Noey's wings! That was such a lucky find. She'd be really happy right now if she wasn't carrying the corpse of her friend. Knowing they found the huntress they were looking for only slightly soothed her pain. Penny reacted a bit more vividly.

"Is that true? In that case, I'll gladly follow you in your camp, we were coincidentally searching for you."

She was relieved to hear a trustworthy name. Noey's wings was a well known group of huntresses after all. They surely had some way to heal their members properly. They could happen to be fake but Brenia didn't think so, they seemed trustworthy at a glance.

"Were you really? In that case, come on in quick. You all need a rest and I want to hear about the fisherbeast and what brought you here in the first place."

And like that, Brenia and the four remaining girls entered the huntresses camp.

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