I raced through the air back the way I came with such speed that the land blurred beneath me as I traveled. Only the change in greenery that marked the Tervan capital brought me back from the state of panic I had allowed myself to fall into. I hovered there for a moment catching my breath and looking down on the city from above.

The last time I had felt anything close to fear like that was when I returned from my experiments over the canyon of hydra. Then, my body had reacted without my permission and I had succumbed to a nervous shaking that left me helpless. What I had seen now was so much worse. There, I had the knowledge that my flight would keep me safe, but there was no such guarantee in the face of the monsters I had seen battle. My mind and body were in complete agreement now that my fear was truly warranted.

I stayed there for more time than I would have allotted had I been in the correct frame of mind. Part of me wanted to continue to flee so that I wouldn’t risk the snake god’s return. Another part of me feared that the only reason I still lived was that their god had somehow ascertained my intent. I held no expectations of limits on power when it came to such an unfathomable type of monster.

I had even changed my mind with regard to prayer. Not that I would pray to it or any of the other gods—my elven heritage left me no desire to risk such a thing. Yet, I felt I could understand why people prayed now more than ever. Before, I had dismissed it as a form heartening oneself and a minor form of magic drawn from elsewhere. Now, I couldn’t dismiss the sheer potency of the gods nor their intentions. It made me leery of the symbol of Bi I had so haphazardly constructed in my tower and the temple that the followers of Elora were constructing.

The two monsters I had just seen also did something else to me: it had brought to the forefront of my mind the realization that this was truly the End of the Age. The ocean of hydra I had seen in the canyon did much to that effect, but it was still a far-away threat. Monsters over the mountains that I could experiment upon and dither with. Yet, now, I saw the Pestilence pressing the Tervan peoples to the point they summoned their god. Yet, even with that being by their side, they were not assured of victory.

My previous efforts to prepare the people of Sena against the tide of Pestilence seemed futile in the face of what I had seen. I wasn’t certain if the hydra broodmother was the only such powerful creature among them, but I doubted it. The plateaus I created might stave off the majority of these monsters, but a creature like that could simply throw its body against the stone until it collapsed. My former apprentice, Baron Froom’s efforts to flee the entire world held much more promise now.

I was so overcome by these thoughts and lost in my own mind, that I didn’t realize I had been surrounded until I heard someone speak.

“Who is this northerner who spies upon us?” Came a woman’s voice, though the ‘s’ sounds in her words were stretched.

The words pierced my attention, and I turned to see three bloodmages floating around me. Two women and a man, dressed only in simply leaf clothing that left little to my imagination. I never liked the Tervan’s level of indecency, yet I also understood that I had magics to cool myself where most of them did not. These three mages though circled me like wolves, their yellow skin shined under the sun and made the blood-red tattoos of snakes and birds seem to move across their hairless bodies. Each had sharpened teeth and red irises, but it was their magics that they held about them that gave me pause.

Each one had a fifth-tier attack spell readied. That meant that I was facing either fourth or fifth-tier bloodmages in a confrontation with little time to prepare myself. I had let my invisibility spell dissipate in my urgency to leave, and while I had enough defense against blood magic to not fear their prepared spells, it was the possibility they had other hidden and exotic magics I wasn't familiar with that concerned me.

“Look at his pale face and frightened eyes. He must have seen the body of our god!” The man said, his voice also stressing the ‘s’ sounds of his words.

I nodded once in response. I still felt short of breath, even though it had been hours since I had been above the coast. It took me a moment to parse my words, but these three held an attitude that showed they were in no hurry, “And what it fights against.”

The man laughed, and declared proudly “Our god will prevail against the deep ones!”

Yet, he was the only of three laughing. One gave him an uncertain glance while the third, the first woman to have spoken was staring at me intently. It was when I noticed her stare, that her eyes widened, and she let out a long, deep hiss.

“You fools! Do you not see who is before us? His pointed ears? His eyes that glow like embers of fire? This is the Harbinger himself!”

I breathed deep and stifled a sigh at their melodramatic name for me, “That was—”

“The Harbinger! You come to strike us down when we are low?!” The man shouted in outrage.

I paused in my words. I didn’t like being spoken over, that was the very embodiment of rudeness. Yet, given his apparent volatile emotions, perhaps I should wait until he calms himself? I shook my head in dismay at the thought.

And the man gazed at me in disbelief, taking the shake of my head as an answer to his question.

The woman, the one who recognized me spoke next, “Then why have you come, if not to do more evil?”

My brows furrowed at her words. Evil? I had done evil? They were the ones that capture and sacrifice children! I light one small fire in a forest, and an entire country considers me evil! How is that—I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to refocus myself.

It was no use arguing with them, and as much as I felt scared and threatened by their god, they likely felt scared and threatened by the folk tales they told about me. I needed a different approach. When I opened my eyes again, I looked only at the woman who had spoken, ignoring the other two. “I have incurred a debt among your people and I mean to repay it. You ask why I have come, and I ask that you let me show you.”

The three mages eyed each other, unsure of how to proceed. I saw the woman who hadn’t spoken yet look down to the city below, her eyes looking at a priest there. The man was built like a warrior with teeth that pierced through parts of his skin, though his skin looked more red than yellow with all the tattoos that covered him. He nodded once up at the bloodmage, and it seemed the signal for them to back away from me. They didn’t drop their prepared spells or appear any less wary, but they allow to let me work.

I considered first preparing more defenses, more wards to protect against the blood spells they had prepared. My defense should be sufficient should they attack, but I wasn’t entirely certain. I had spent decades after the last war against Tervan studying their magics and weaving wards that would hold against them, but these were higher-level bloodmages than the ones I had fought against. I didn’t truly know what they were capable of.

The current spells that they had readied wouldn’t harm me, but it was what they might cast next that was more worrying. Still, if I began by casting more defensive wards there was no way that they wouldn’t assume I was about to attack. I know I would if I were in their position. It was for this reason that I decided to focus first on the earth spell to lift their city onto a plateau. That was the entire reason I had come this far south.

I began by designating the area, the city itself with its tan, egg-shaped buildings, then stretching the area to cover as much of the jungle around it as I could. I estimated the amount of mana it would take, and altered the size so that it wouldn’t draw more than half of what I had available from my artifacts. The mages around me tensed when I began to cast, and I glanced back up to see if they would attack.

They didn’t, not yet. I could see the look in their eyes, though. I had been in enough wars, enough battles to know. They weren’t attacking right now, but they would. I kept my face neutral as I realized this and maintained my casting speed.

I hoped they waited until I was done before they attacked.