Breathing in deeply, Vendis reveled in the scent of budding trees and plants. She always felt more at home in the wilds, and even though they were near one of Kelvanis’ outposts, the forest here was still very similar to those back home. The humans hadn’t yet been able to fully populate the region since they stole it from Sifaren and Yisara, but that was merely a matter of time unless the land was taken back.

Of course, that also didn’t factor Beacon into the equation, either. Vendis’ smile faded as she considered that, worry threading through her. She didn’t think that Phynis would go to war with Sifaren or Yisara, but there was a faint possibility, and her paranoia must be increasing. They received word of the attack on Sistina only the previous day via a message stone, but the brief message had left more questions unanswered than it had answered for Vendis. Still, at least they had the stronghold to fall back to if need be.

Speaking of which, it was at that point that Slaid and a number of his allies stepped out of the bushes, wearing the uniforms of Kelvanis’ military. She raised an eyebrow at them, looking over the clothing critically before asking, “I’m not seeing any rips or bloodstains.”

“That’s because we got these from a small garrison a while back. They weren’t being used at the time,” Slaid replied readily, adjusting his helm with a grimace. “It still feels almost like betraying my father to wear Kelvanis’ gear, but at least it’s for a good cause.”

“Agreed. You’re sure you can get in? They seem to be keeping a close eye on people nearby,” Vendis asked, nodding in the direction of the outpost.

“That won’t be hard. I got the password from a friend in Westgate. They’ll let us in, and then we can disable them,” Slaid told her, trying to settle his uniform properly as he continued. “You’d best come in at that point or we’ll get overwhelmed.”

“If you can take the gates, we’ll be there,” Vendis promised, giving him a broad smile. “I’ve wanted proper payback for ages. This is simply the first step.”

“Fair enough.” Slaid chuckled, then looked at his group, raising an eyebrow. “Is everyone ready?”

His troops let out a chorus of affirmatives, and he nodded firmly. “Right, let’s do this.”

Vendis watched his group head off toward the road, and motioned her people to follow a minute later, trying to keep a fair distance between her and the group of infiltrators.

* * *

Private Alice suppressed a yawn as she kept watch at the gate. She didn’t always like how boring it was to be stationed here, but Alice had to admit privately that it was far better to be bored than to have people trying to kill her. That was definitely a plus.

The Oak Creek outpost was fairly far behind the war front, but it was also more important than some of the other outposts. That was why four squads defended it, a heavier presence than most border posts. From what little Alice had been able to gather and understand, the previous year the magi had managed to find a fairly potent magical node in the area, so the post had been set up and they’d taken to leaving a large number of their supplies here.

What good leaving supplies here did was beyond Alice’s understanding, but it obviously was fairly important to dedicate so many people to year-round. She tried not to let it trouble her, though. She hadn’t passed any of the tests for decent magical talent when she joined the army, so it wouldn’t ever be her problem.

The sight of people coming down the road cut off Alice’s musings, and she pulled out her signal whistle, letting out several blasts to inform the other guards of their approach. As they came closer, Alice relaxed slightly on seeing the uniforms of Kelvanis regulars. It wasn’t a guarantee that the group was what they appeared to be, but it certainly looked like a full squad on patrol.

After a couple of minutes the soldiers were the right distance away, and one paused, waiting for them to hail the patrol. That helped Alice relax more, and she called out, “Who goes there!”

One of the soldiers approached more closely, and her eyebrows rose as she took in the Lieutenant’s missing eye. That startled her, but he replied, quietly enough that others would have a hard time hearing. “The guardians of the southern gate.”

The password made her grin, and she gave the proper response. “Are eternally at their posts. What brings you to Oak Creek?”

“Just on patrol, and bringing a few dispatches,” the Lieutenant explained, motioning his people forward. “Think we could get something to eat? Trail rations get boring after a while.”

“You’d have to talk to whoever’s on cooking duty,” Alice replied, nodding to her partner, and Steve helped her start dragging the gate open. “Come on in, we’ll at least give your men a chance to sit down.”

“Thank you very much, private,” the man replied, stepping inside. There was something odd about his expression, and he continued apologetically. “And I’m sorry about this.”

Alice saw the flash of his shortsword clearing its sheath, but by the time she saw it, it was too late. She fell backward, trying to gasp for air and choking as she clutched at her slit throat. Cries of alarm echoed all around her as her world slowly went dark.

* * *

Waiting for the moment that Slaid’s team attacked the guards, Vendis felt her tension increasing, hoping this would go as planned. It was always possible that it wouldn’t, but she could hope. Watching the gates open, she held her breath, elated and worried at the same time. Slaid’s team stepped inside, and moments later the sound of screams and alarm erupted from the outpost.

Already prepared, Vendis’ soldiers didn’t need orders. The majority bounded forward at the alarm, while a handful of snipers paused and took aim at the distracted guards on the outpost walls. Vendis ran forward as the hiss of arrows came from behind her, followed by more screams of pain and shock.

Her soldiers had been forced to stay far enough back that it took a long minute to reach the entrance of the fort, by which point the inhabitants had begun reacting despite their surprise. Slaid’s team had only been assailed by a handful of soldiers so far, but a stubborn knot of opponents were fighting his troops. The sight of three dead near Slaid himself was a shock, but Vendis took a moment to take aim and loose an arrow into the throat of a man just rushing from the main barracks.

“Slaid, fall back!” Vendis called out, scowling at the difficulty in telling the humans apart. In the same uniforms as Kelvanis, it was entirely possible some of her soldiers might attack his by mistake.

“You heard her!” Slaid snapped, lunging forward, his sword shimmering a strange blue as he struck out at one of the defenders. For a moment Vendis thought he was just feinting as the man was out of Slaid’s reach, but he suddenly staggered as blood began pouring from his side.

Vendis didn’t have time to think about the surprise, instead focusing on the enemy as her allies pulled back, a few of them sporting minor injuries. Nearly a dozen enemy soldiers were down with her arrow and the aid of her snipers, so she motioned her company forward.

Vendis stayed in the back lines, her bow out and ready. Several enemy soldiers emerged from another outbuilding, unarmored but with weapons in hand. A squad descended on them, and Vendis resisted the urge to fire into them, instead spotting a flicker of movement from one of the upper floors.

She sniped the crossbowman before he could target one of her magi, and smiled thinly. It looked like things were going to go according to plan.

* * *

It took less than half an hour to track down all of the enemy soldiers, including a pair of guards who’d tried to escape into the woods. Those two had surrendered, as had a handful of other guards, giving them seven captives in total. Once it was done, Vendis met Slaid in front of the main storeroom of the fort.

The fort wasn’t too impressive in most areas, largely log construction with a palisade around it, only enough to slow determined opponents down. The main offices and storeroom were exceptions, all of them built of masonry firmly mortared in place. The door was iron banded and bore dozens of runes to reinforce the wood and metal. Looking it over, Vendis nodded, moderately impressed by the effort that had been put into security.

“It wouldn’t stop someone from breaking a hole in the wall, but this is definitely more secure than I’d expect one of Kelvanis’ outposts to be,” Vendis murmured.

“Exactly. According to my contacts, the mages found an earth node below here, and have been leaving ingots, gems, and other supplies for enchanting here to absorb as much mana as possible,” Slaid explained, going through the key ring they’d pulled off the commander’s body. The woman had refused to surrender, and despite their best efforts she’d managed to avoid being taken alive. “I think this is the key…”

“That does explain the security, and taking away Kelvanis’ enchanting supplies seems like an excellent idea to me,” Vendis murmured fervently, frowning as Slaid slid the key into the lock. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Hmm? Why?” Slaid asked, glancing at her in confusion, starting to turn the key.

Vendis barely had time to see the runes begin lighting up across the door, and lunged over, knocking Slaid to the side. An instant later a column of white flame burst into being where he’d been standing, the heat scorching the masonry nearly black in barely a moment. Only seconds later the column of fire vanished, leaving no sign of its presence save the scorch marks.

“That’s why,” Vendis replied, shaking her head as she got off the man, shaking from the near encounter with death. She offered a hand to help him up, taking a deep breath to steady herself again.

“Right. If it’s that valuable, it’s sure to be trapped,” Slaid murmured, his voice unsteady. Taking her hand, he stood himself, meeting her gaze and continuing. “Thank you. That was rather stupid of me.”

“I think you let the success of your agents go to your head, Slaid. You shouldn’t do that,” she scolded gently, suppressing a smile of relief.

“You’re right. I’ll keep that in mind. The question is, how to get around the enchantments? You think your magi can decipher it?” Slaid asked warily.

“Not in the time we have. I told you how earlier, anyway,” Vendis replied with a laugh, nodding at the door.

“Oh, of course. I’ll have some of my men grab a couple of sledgehammers. Not what they joined up for, but I suppose it’ll do the job.” Slaid laughed himself.

Both of them left the key where it was in the lock as they left, not willing to risk touching it again.

* * *

It was a few hours before they could get into the room, but eventually they managed it. Some of the walls had been reinforced by iron bars, an expense which had surprised Vendis, but it only served to slow them down. After entering through the hole smashed in the wall, she’d had to stop and stare for a time.

“This doesn’t look like a storage room,” Vendis managed at last.

Poking his head in, Slaid looked past her and blinked before agreeing. “Nope, it doesn’t. Looks like someone had plans for this place.”

The room was definitely different. Instead of crates of enchanting materials, like they’d expected, there were tables covered with engraving tools, jars of a variety of liquids and powders, and tomes set up as well. There was a fair amount of dust in the room, as if it had been left alone for quite some time.

Also in the room was a large circle engraved into the floor, runes filled with silver just inside the circle itself. A dozen sets of shelves were set around the walls of the room, one knocked over from where they’d broken a hole in the wall, and each had boxes and jars on them. Near Slaid and Vendis were piles of powders and broken glass, as well as glittering ingots of copper, iron, and more precious metals.

“You’ve got that right. Let’s see here…” Vendis took a careful step inside, trying not to step on any of the spilled powders. Who knew what they even were?

Slaid followed her, as did a couple of the magi. As he stepped over a couple of broken bottles, he nodded toward the circle. “I’ve got a little magical training, but not enough to identify the details of this. Can any of you explain what all of the… equipment is?”

“Well, most of the items on the table are for alchemy and enchanting. It’s odd that I don’t see a forge in here, with all of the metal around. The circle looks like a summoning circle, so maybe they’re planning on using a fire or earth elemental to shape the metal?” one of the magi said, the elven man stepping forward cautiously, murmuring a spell after a moment and looking around. “Actually, something seems wrong here… the magic is darker than I expected. Please give me a minute, and don’t touch anything.”

Vendis nodded, walking around the room slowly and looking at the jars. She didn’t recognize most of the items, but a lot of them seemed to be quartz powder, various types of sand or stone, with onyx or obsidian being the most common. The liquids came in every hue, from amber to brilliant crimson or purple, while there were also jars of what looked like preserved organs. It was odd and creepy.

“I think this was intended to be a summoning circle for a demon, Captain,” the mage finally spoke up, paling as he looked up from where he was kneeling next to the circle. “I’m not proficient in summoning, that’s a completely different art than what I focused on, but this is slowly charging with mana, and it’s a darkness-aligned ritual circle. The circle is also imbuing everything here with the same type of magic.”

“Darkness magic? Shouldn’t we destroy all of this, then?” Vendis asked, fear surging through her.

“No, no… darkness magic isn’t inherently bad. Even I know that much,” Slaid interrupted, shaking his head. “The headmaster of Beacon’s Academy, that strange, pale-skinned lady? I think her name was Kassandra? She’s a shadow-mage, from what I heard.”

“She’s also a vampire. I don’t trust her,” Vendis replied flatly. “Even if she survived Everium, that’s no reason to simply trust a creature like that.”

“Captain, he’s right. Darkness magic is most easily used for evil, often necromancy and the like, but that’s not the only purpose for it,” the mage interjected nervously. “My teachers often said that fire and mind magic are almost as bad for foul purposes, though fire is generally more obvious than darkness or mind is.”

“Hmmph. Still… it doesn’t sit right with me. You aren’t suggesting we leave it, are you?” Vendis asked, them, her eyes narrowing more. “There’s a lot of stuff here, and I don’t want Kelvanis managing whatever they have planned.”

“Of course not! I think we should destroy the circle and whatever we can’t send back to Beacon, or at least hide it where we can retrieve it later,” the mage immediately protested, standing up. “Any supplies with this much mana imbued into them are valuable and easily turned into enchanted items. While changing the imbued magic type is trickier, I know the enchanters back in the capital can do it.”

“Fine. Figure out what’s the most valuable, and let’s get started. We can’t spend more than a day here,” Vendis ordered, frowning as the man and his partner nodded and started going through the supplies quickly. They were far too eager for her comfort.

“Let them work, Captain. They know what they’re doing better than we do,” Slaid murmured, stepping toward the door.

“Perhaps so, but that reminds me… I saw you attack a soldier from several feet away and cut him. How did you manage that?” Vendis asked, following Slaid out of the strange storeroom.

Slaid laughed, smiling as he glanced at her. “That’s a family secret, Captain. I’d tell you, but I’m afraid that I don’t teach just anyone that magical technique.”

“Really? A technique, is it?” Vendis murmured curiously.

“Yes, yes it is,” Slaid replied, smiling as he asked, “Would you like to have lunch together, Captain?”

“Certainly. But first, my name is Vendis,” she replied, and followed him out toward the courtyard.