They lingered at the old darjee camp for another hour as Kai explained about their roving warbands and went through all the knowledge he’d gained about this savage species.

From what Kai was saying, the whole impetus of their culture was based around hunting and domestication. Where humans might hunt deer and raise herds of cattle, the darjee instead hunted sapient creatures almost exclusively. The powerful and those without practical benefit were killed and harvested, while the rest were taken as slaves.

Skins and pelts were in high demand in darjee society. Kai had seen enough to know that they were symbols of wealth and importance for them.

From what Kai had seen on a few raids into more established darjee lands, slaves were raised for labour and food.

Apparently, it was standard practice for the darjee to have hunting camps along their border. They would raid their surroundings from these camps, looking for new sources of sapient creatures to hunt and enslave.

Verdan was confident that they had found one of these camps. That meant that the darjee would return at some point. Exactly when, he had no idea, but they would be back.

The problem there was that the presence of the darjee placed the logging camp in danger on a more long-term basis. Verdan couldn't tell the workers to return to the camp, knowing that they would be attacked at some point. He'd have to consider their next moves carefully.

‘So, should we head back to the cottage now?’ Tim asked, gesturing at the sun with a wave of his hand and a questioning expression. Between all the searching and travelling, it was after midday now, and given that they didn’t know the way back for definite, it was an excellent question.

‘Yes, let’s head back and see what success Gwen has had today. I need to think about what we’re going to do next,’ Verdan said, pausing as he thought about what the most straightforward way back would be.

‘If we head east from here, we should cut across the trail leading north. We can follow that back to the cottage,’ Kai pointed out once he realised that Verdan was hesitating.

‘Yes, that sounds like a good plan. Lead on, Kai,’ Verdan said, happy to let someone else lead the way. His sense of direction wasn’t always the best, so it was a relief that Kai was willing to lead the way back. He needed to get used to having minimal Aether and no aether constructs to assist in travel. He was far too reliant on the others for direction at the moment.

‘This way,’ Kai said, moving off towards the east without any more delay. As usual, the sorcerer moved at a quick pace, forcing the other three to jog and catch up to him before he could go too far.

-**-

It took almost an hour for them to find their way back to the path that led north. It turned out they’d gone further west than any of them had anticipated while tracking the trail they’d found at the logging camp. Thankfully their pace was much quicker once they were back on the trail, and they made good time back to the cottage.

There was a palpable feeling of relief once they were within the wards of the cottage again, a sense of security that just wasn’t there when travelling through the potentially monster-infested woodland.

‘You’re back. How did it go?’ Gwen rose from where she was sitting at the front of the cottage, waving them over as she put the book she was holding down onto a small pile next to her.

‘Mixed results really,’ Verdan said with a grimace, ‘we think we know what’s caused the issue in general, but we can’t do anything about it right now.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gwen asked, looking between them with concern.

‘Darjee,’ Kai said sharply, making it into a curse word.

‘Damn, that’s not good at all,’ Gwen said, paling and looking more than a little worried. ‘It does explain everything, though.’

‘Yes, so Kai has told me. We need to work out a way to deal with the group that comes through here. That’s the only way to really secure the logging camp.’

‘But how will we know when they’re here? My mother always said they roam frequently,’ Gwen asked, sitting back down at the entrance to the cottage with a worried expression.

‘Well, I’m still working on that part,’ Verdan admitted, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully as his mind drifted away for a moment. He had a few ideas, but he was limited by the amount of Aether he had. He’d meditate on it tomorrow.

‘We found a camp. It may come down to checking in every few days for a while. Eventually, they’ll be back,’ Kai said with a shrug.

‘That sounds like you might want to stay here a lot longer than you initially planned?’ Gwen turned back to Verdan with a raised brow.

‘Yes, potentially anyway. I’m not happy heading back before we’ve done what we came to do, and if today is anything to go by, the true threat is the Darjee group that’s roaming the area.’

‘Well, gives me more time to read, not a problem with me,’ Gwen patted the books next to her with a smile.

‘And you two?’ Verdan turned to the brothers, who were waiting patiently behind him.

‘You’re the boss, Boss,’ Tim said with a toothy smile, Tom grunting and nodding a moment later.

‘Well, let’s get settled in then. We can head back tomorrow or the day after, once I’ve had a chance to think of something,’ Verdan said, giving the others a nod before heading down to the pond behind the cottage. Perhaps some meditation would help make the solution clear to him.

-**-

Verdan was able to make some progress on his gathering spiral over the next few hours, but that was it. There was no miraculous way to get by the Aether requirements that any of the solutions he could think of.

If he had his usual Aether generation and reserves, it would be a simple thing to do. A temporary Aether construct mixed with a warding spell could send him a pulse of Aether when its preset criteria occurred, which would be the presence of Darjee. The problem was that the Aether drain for such a spell would undoubtedly be higher than what he was currently drawing in.

With no better option available, Verdan considered how to change his normal approach and make it feasible. The construct would need a reservoir of Aether to power the ward and keep it coherent without access to him.

Verdan paused mid-thought and smiled slightly, realising that he didn't need the ward to be active all the time. If it activated every morning for a short time, he could dramatically reduce the Aether costs. He would still need to provide the construct with a large amount upfront and then top it up every few days.

Hopefully, his progress in compressing and expanding his gathering spiral in-between times would be enough to balance the equation with little impact.

If not, the whole endeavour would eat into his reserves, which was exactly what he didn't want when there was a fight on the horizon. Anything that hunted sapient creatures for fun was going to be a dangerous enemy, after all.

It would do for now, but he’d sleep on it and see what he thought tomorrow. Rising from the bench, Verdan glanced up at the shining moon amid the darkened sky and wondered just what other nasty surprises were waiting for him in this twisted version of the world he knew.

-**-

Verdan rose early the next morning and snacked on some of the dried rations they had before returning to his spot where he could watch the water once more. The gentle movement of the pond water and the occasional ripple from the fish was quite soothing and helped him think.

Dropping into a meditative state, he began to work on his gathering spiral, condensing it down and adding new layers. Each new layer required him to manually take control of the spiral once more. Once Verdan had made the changes he wanted, he could pass it to the part of his consciousness that kept it running, releasing it from his waking mind.

It was tiring and straining work, with Verdan pushing to do as much as he could each session, which in turn meant a larger change to his mental concept of the spiral, which made it harder to update.

The meditative state helped, but it was hard work no matter how you came to it. Only his years of experience in dealing with Aether allowed the process to be this quick.

The others left him to his work for the morning, so when he withdrew from his meditation around midday, he’d managed to complete the fifty-fifth layer of his spiral. There were only five more layers to go before he finished it, at which point he would be on par with a freshly graduated wizard from the academy.

Once the first spiral was established, it would be time to work on a new one, building it around the framework of the first spiral to increase the pull on the Aether. More spirals meant faster gathering and larger reserves, with an established wizard having up to six spirals, a senior wizard up to thirty-six and an archmage over two hundred.

After a certain point, there were diminishing returns when adding new spirals into the framework, but there was still a vast gulf between even a senior wizard and an archmage. Supposedly, there was more to becoming an archmage than simply more spirals, but Verdan had no idea what it would be.

‘You seem satisfied with your meditation today,’ Gwen’s voice jarred Verdan from his thoughts. Blinking in surprise, Verdan saw that Gwen was sitting next to him with a plate of food in her lap.‘Here, you missed our lunch, so I saved you some.’

‘My thanks,’ Verdan said with a nod, taking the offered plate and digging in with vigour. It was easy to push aside his hunger when he was meditating, but it all came back once he was done. ‘I’m making good progress on restoring my strength. How goes your study of your family journals?’

‘Frustratingly,’ Gwen said with a grimace that settled into a frown. ‘My grandmother clearly had far more control over her power than anyone else in the family, but no one could figure out why.’

‘I see. Did your grandmother perchance have an animal that followed her around or appeared near her frequently?’

‘Yes, I was only young at the time, but I remember she always had a hawk that rode on her shoulder. Its feathers would almost shimmer in the light, changing between dark blue and black.’ Gwen spoke softly, her gaze on distant memories that only she could see.

‘That would be her familiar, an unusual looking bird that accompanied her around. It fits the bill perfectly. Did the journals say when she first showed up with the bird?’ Verdan spoke in between bites of fruit, the salted jerky having already been devoured.

‘No, I’ll have to look at some of her earliest journals and see if she wrote about it at all,’ Gwen glanced back at the cottage and shifted uncomfortably.

‘Please, don’t feel the need to stay. The sooner you find out more about this process, the better for all of us,’ Verdan said with a chuckle, laughing all the harder as Gwen thanked him and swiftly headed back inside without further ado.

Verdan rose with a wince from the bench, putting his empty plate to one side. Sitting in one place all morning had done him no favours at all. Familiar with such issues, Verdan knew it would do him some good to stretch his legs, so he started off on a lap around the warded glade.

Along his path, Verdan saw that Kai was at the entrance to the cottage, the sorcerer running through a series of set movements that seemed to be part combat practice and part stretching routine. The concentration on Kai's face deterred Verdan from interrupting him, and he moved on with his lap around the area.

The brothers were sparring up in the northern part of the glade, their movements a little slow at first as they worked through some new techniques and got further accustomed to their weapons. They were too engrossed in their fight to notice him approach, so Verdan carried on his way after watching for a moment. He didn’t want to disturb their training any more than he did Kai’s.

The warm sun was pleasant, and before he knew it, Verdan was back on the bench watching the pond. He’d allow himself a bit of time to relax. Then he would work on his spiral once more. It looked like the Aether construct to warn him of the darjee arriving was their best bet, so he would need as strong a foundation as he could to keep up with the demands of such a complicated construct.

Closing his eyes, he basked in the warmth of the sun for a little longer. The work could wait for now.