Crouching, Captain Nadir readied his s.h.i.+eld and not-so-long sword as he shouted, "Archer 11 far, Melee 12 near, Mage 2 far."

With a split second look at the shadows under Stupid Horse, he willed it with force to turn to what he hoped was '2' and gave the order for it to run, thinking to himself, "Of course the mage is too far, lulz. F***, this arrow hurts!"

While Rithus rushed up to provide Orison with a luggage s.h.i.+eld, the boy was lobbing a Fire Shot at the archer with the second of clear view he had before he was surrounded by overprotective meat walls. The archer reacted to the little fire missile in an exaggerated manor, mistaking it for a fireball as he dove into the dirt to the side.

Droya, who had manged to string her bow, was drawing an arrow with deadly determination pointed at the sprawled archer. Stupid Horse didn't hit the mage but it did manage to provide Nadir with enough time to s.h.i.+eld bash his opponent into the mage's line of sight on the tightly packed group.

Through shuffling legs, Orison managed to get a bead on the mage and summoned a poorly organized spell model of Earth Golem. As the hastily constructed golem immediately crumbled, spilling dirt and rock onto the mage, Droya buried an arrow into the archer's spine just below his neck. Judging from his screams but lack of movement, Orison reasoned that the archer was paralyzed.

"Mom, help the captain," Orison screeched as he saw her getting ready to take another arrow out.

As Droya dropped her bow and moved forward with dagger in hand, Rithus, seeing that the archer was no longer a threat, moved himself and the luggage s.h.i.+eld between Orison and the mage. Sadly, he also obstructed the boy's line of sight and bled on Orison from his cut tail.

Fearing that his magic wouldn't construe Nadir as a friendly, Orison closed his eyes and focused his senses on the magic that remained in the dirt his failed golem had been made of and tried to summon it with the same material. A barely audible scream cut through the sound of clas.h.i.+ng metal from where his barely holding together golem stood.

Orison managed to gasp out, "Thanks, Rithus but I need to be able to see."

The Marshlander stuttered a nervous apology as he stood from his crouching position. As Rithus stood, Orison could see that the mage had suffered some broken bones from being shunted out of the golem. Unable to get fine control out of the shoddy golem, Orison had it step on the mage before having it walk towards him.

The armored man facing Nadir was fairly skillful but with the captain taking so much of his attention, Droya slipped through his guard. The dagger meant to sever his spine cut a gash in his neck instead as he partially succeeded in strafing to the side. It wasn't enough to save his life but it did manage to blind Droya with a copious spurt of his blood.

Pulling his stationary set out of storage, Orison scrawled a quick double set of notes. He tore it in half and had the golem stand sideways with arms outstretched, a copy of the note in each, covering the back edge of the cut circle and out behind it in an approximation of the direction from where the teleport started.

As Droya prepared Orison to break and remove the arrow, Rithus asked, "T-This one would like to know what Young-er-Orison is doing with the dirt man."

Orison gritted out a smile and said, "May be no-ah!... n-nothing but if it works it'll be great."

While they waited for Nadir and Droya to finish interrogating the paralyzed archer, Orison healed up his thigh and Rithus' tail enough to close them for the time being and took a small sip of his special 'magic juice' potion hidden in a metal flask inside his robe.

A few seconds later, a whump of displaced air took nearly a third of the back half of the golem before the rest fell like a tree on top of the teleporting mage. The wall of force surrounding the mage protected him from damage but the added pressure of uncalculated, displaced matter and falling debris shot the mage backwards off his feet. When the mage hit the ground, momentarily stunned, Orison threw the axe he had summoned. With his leg still injured, Orison's aim hit low, leaving a ghastly shoulder wound.

As the force s.h.i.+eld wavered back on, the boy tensed. With no element of surprise and nearly out of magic, depending on what spells the mage knew, they were all in big time trouble. With bated breath, willing his potion boosted magic to come back just a little faster, Orison watched the mage struggle to rise and slip in his own blood. When the severely injured shoulder hit the ground, the mage's eyes rolled back in his head and pa.s.sed out.

Not wasting a moment, Orison hobbled over as fast as he could and emptied his tank to summon one last axe which he took to the mages face with vengeance as he said, "That's what you get for using 's.p.a.ce' instead of 'life', dipsh**! That line would have been so much better if you and the whole G.o.dd*mn magic world didn't know Kinetic s.h.i.+eld!"

Orison stripped the mage of valuables and stored them in his s.p.a.ce, even draining a couple vials of blood into empty healing potion bottles.

As soon as he was finished, Droya s.n.a.t.c.hed him up into a hug and whispered, "I'll let it slide but watch your mouth, little cub."

Wincing from his tweaked thigh, he whispered back, "Sorry, mom."

Captain Nadir who had rushed over only to end up as peanut gallery while Orison diced the mage's head, made himself busy reading the leftover note while the mother and son hugged it out. "s.h.i.+fted stroke BEFORE sneeze, still good."

Nadir looked at Orison with grudging admiration and said, "How did you know?"

Orison said, "About what the mage had done or that he'd be showing up?"

The captain just nodded so Orison said, "Ancient elf math, boring stuff. As far as the guess, I knew he would. I only had high hopes of guessing where... So he would want to make it looked like he screwed up because of his apprentice but I gave him a new excuse for getting all jumpy. Either way, he'd be sent to check up or in concern he'd volunteer. Since he want's us dead, he wouldn't want to waste time on a new setup, trying to get here as fast as he could to back up our welcome committee. The next logical step would be to pull back a little from the original destination since going forward might put him facing the wrong way and if he was lucky, set him up for a surprise attack.

"I could have been completely wrong or he might have chickened out. He could have came with company, like his a.s.sistant, or Gerrald might have insisted on coming. Too many ifs but too good of a chance not to take."

Nadir whistled then said, "Glad I'm on your side... In any case, how merciful are you feeling?"

Orison's expression darkened. "Not very."

Nadir sighed. "He was following orders. The man I fought was the dead captain's second, meaning he was in charge. I'm inclined if you can be convinced."

Droya frowned but left it Orison.

"That arrow was meant to kill me, was five inches from raping me and four from castrating me," Orison said and hissed from s.h.i.+fting feet, apparently close enough to a Marshlander display of agitation that Rithus let out a much more authentic one in a show solidarity.

"There are six more men back at the barracks who will welcome us a little more warmly with one of their number returning with us to explain why their temporary captain was dead," Nadir said.

Orison spat, "Where were they then? If that archer was just being a good soldier, why aren't there more? Why only these three? Allow me to guess... If that mage over there isn't dark gray with pointy ears then the archer can live. Is that fair?"

Everyone turned towards the broken mage covered in dirt while Nadir walked over to pull back the cowl. Orison felt like crowing when Ashlander features were revealed until he took in that it was a young girl not quite a woman. Feeling a lot less pleased with himself but still justified, he looked at the locket Nadir handed him. The back inscription read 'Father loves you always, Quentus'.

Orison said softly, "Which one is her father? Don't bother, the archer's a bit too young."

Orison hobbled over to the archer and said, "I'm going to pull out the arrow and cast a heal. As soon as I do, there's a chance you're whole body is going to hurt as the nerves start to reconnect. Whatever you do, don't move or all the heal spells I can cast for days won't keep you from having permanent nerve damage."

The archer, close to death from difficulty breathing, weakly a.s.sented. Orison yanked the arrow out with one hand and healed with the other. The archer's heart skipped a beat, almost stopping, before he sucked in a small breath, weakly screamed and pa.s.sed out.

"You were right. what changed your mind?" the captain asked.

Orison thought, "You s.h.i.+fty f***. You know why." Out loud he replied, "A Centerland soldier's daughter wouldn't be a revivalist. Judging by the age of the girl, she was born before the meteor shower. He was probably supporting her in secret even before he got here. The archer knew but was either loyal or friendly enough that he not only helped keep the secret, he was helping the guy earn side money but before I guess too much and make a fool of myself, why don't you tell me what the archer said that convinced you because I'm not seeing it."

Nadir said, "The situation here is a mess. Morale is practically nonexistent. When the men staged a coup, Quentus there kept the boy out of harm's way. Yes, I say eighteen is a boy because of where he comes from. The archer is from the west woodlands. They make good sharpshooters from all the game hunting and take to soldiering well, simple and honest people.

"Not only was the boy doing what he thought was his duty, he probably thought well of the man who saved him and looked after his illegitimate daughter because that's what a good man does. He had no idea he was signing up to kill a woman and a child. If he saw something other than your rear end when we appeared here, he probably would have froze up. You saw how he reacted to your spell. He probably doesn't even know his a** from a hole in the ground when it comes to magic. A raw recruit fresh out of basic can be easily ruined but if he found someone worth a d.a.m.n to follow, he'd be a solid and dependable soldier for them."

Orison waited until he could pull out his least powerful healing potion, poured some into the back wound after cleaning it then flipped the freshly screaming soldier over and got him to drink the rest.

"Listen closely, in just a little bit I'm going to ask you to stand. Captain Nadir is going to brace you. Take it slow and if you suddenly feel a strong pain or an area of numbness you ask to be lowered back down unless you're almost standing," Orison said.

The young archer didn't have any problems getting to his feet but he suddenly frowned and said, "I can't feel the left side of my leg and most of my left foot."

Orison felt like cursing but held back and said, "I'm going to be honest with you. Before I could clean out the wound I had to cast a heal to save your life when I removed the arrow and because of that, I believe a small piece of bone got locked in and I missed it when I cleaned the wound later... The only ways I can think to fix it is while the healed wound is still fresh, I can cut back in and fish out the piece then heal you again. Alternatively, you can save up around 500 gold and take your problem to a temple of healing for them to take care of. What will it be?"

"Will ya forgive me fer planting tail feathers on ya if I let ya cut on me a bit? Name's Cray, by the way." The archer said.

Orison chuckled and said, "Sure, fine... Captain, I need you to hold him still as you can while I try to get some magic back. When I'm ready, I'm going to need you to turn around, put his arms over your shoulders and slowly kneel down. You got to keep him from moving... Rithus, I'll need you to hold his..."

After a series of complicated orders, some of which were probably unnecessary, Orison cleaned his dagger and tried his best to ignore the screaming as he got to work. A half an hour later, the archer was good as new but looked at Orison like he was the devil. Another half hour of rest and Nadir revealed to the archer how much two healing potions of that caliber cost then Cray looked at Orison like he was a devil he owed his soul to. After Orison threw some heavily shaded humor about how his tribute to the Abyss was filled for the month so Cray got a free pa.s.s, the archer latched on to Orison like they'd been best friends for years.

Orison thought, "Well, after that I can scratch doctor and inquisitor from my list of possible future professions... That's weird but kind of a relief. I didn't get the girl's soul."

With an emotion difficult for him to express, Orison burned the girl's body and collected her ashes. Rested and mostly recovered, Orison summoned Stupid Horse for Cray to ride and the dead man to be slumped over. Slipping the makes.h.i.+ft container holding locket and ashes into the dead man's emptied kit pack, Orison let his mom know he was done and the group set off southwest towards their new home for at least the next year or two.