Soon a month had passed, and we had raided dozens of farmsteads. We had not lost anyone on those raids and only had to kill a handful of elves that did not want to surrender. We lost a couple of men when we stumbled upon a military convoy, which was transporting a large number of leather armours and arrows.

After helping ourselves to the supplies and upgraded our equipment, we had headed back towards the mountain range. Not towards the pass, but somewhere else that we hoped we could find a dwarven outpost. Even if the armours were too large for them as were, I was sure that a thousand leather armours would be useful to them. If for nothing else, then for the leather.

Anders and Chione seemed to have kept their distance in the last month, I had only interacted with them a handful of times or so. They usually were towards the back of the column, where I had Alrik and 1st Platoon keep an eye on them and Axina.

Shenerah usually travelled together with the other elves, but would ever so often strike up conversations with the other mages. What they were talking about, I was not sure. However, I had talked with Yathanae about keeping an eye on her, to make sure she did not stir up any trouble.

As usual, we travelled during the night, while camping during the day. Often we had waited out the days on one of the farmsteads we had raided. Just as often, we had camped in the forests. There were a lot of forests in the elven lands.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Mina, while we were camping for the day. I had worked every day with her, to see if I could repair her broken barrier.

“Better, Milord, I can use my magic for a little while, before it starts to hurt,” she replied.

“I’m really sorry that I messed up.”

“I forgive you, Milord, I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” she said with a bright smile. “I’m getting better, and I increased my rating. It can happen, but it’s not a common occurrence.”

I gave her a wry smile. “I’m glad you forgive me.”

We lapsed into silence as I let my mana flow into her to examine the barrier in question. The cracks had lessened, but the barrier still looked very fragile. Once again, I tried to use my mana to repair the barrier, but no matter how I approached it, I could not do it.

“Sorry, no breakthrough,” I said with a frown.

She stood up and curtsied. “That’s okay, Milord. Thank you for trying.”

As she left, Bendis came over, carrying a plate of food. “Do you wish to examine me next, Milord?”

“Thank you, Bendis. And yes, I would like to examine you and the seven other volunteers, as soon as I finish eating,” I said with a smile. Looking at the plate, it looked like some kind of red meat, some kind of root vegetables, some gravy, and a chunk of bread. “What kind of meat is this?”

“It’s from the long-necked okapi, Milord,” he replied. He must have seen my face looking like one big question mark because he explained, “The striped animals they raised at the farmstead we raided five days ago.”

“Ah, the zebra-giraffe thingy,” I mumbled. Bendis did not reply. I tried a bite and it was really good. “This is really good, my compliments.”

“Thank you, Milord. I’ll leave you to enjoy your meal,” he said and moved away. I did not have time to enjoy more than a single bite of the vegetables before I was disturbed again. Though the disturbance was a welcome one. Yathanae and Shenerah joined me, each with their own plate.

“How are you doing, Shenerah?” I asked after they sat down.

“I guess I’m having the adventure I always wanted, though I’m not sure I like being collared,” she replied.

“I’ve tried to find a way to remove the collars and manacles, but haven’t succeeded.”

“If the four Immortals have not managed in five thousand cycles, how should you be able to do it?” Yathanae pointed out.

“True, though for Shenerah, I’m sure that if we kill her, she’ll be free from the device,” I said.

Shenerah frowned at that. “I’d rather not try that. The thought of going back to be knocked up by my father is revolting.”

“Hear, hear,” I mumbled. It was fucking sick was what it was. I could understand if they were incapable of breeding with other species, or even the other elven races, but they were, so I could not see the need for such a disgusting tradition. Then again, I never understood the race purity thing back on Earth either.

I had asked a question of her earlier, but she had to think about it before giving me an answer. I thought it would be a good time to ask it again. “Shenerah, is there any way we can move the point of your rebirth?”

She shook her head. “If there is one, I don’t know about it. I’ve tried to wrack my brain to find a way, but I can’t think of any possible way to do it.”

“Damn, I had hoped there was a way, then I could link your power to mine. Being reborn would definitely be a good power to have.”

“I don’t know how that power of yours works, but if you say it works on other priests' power, it makes human priests really dangerous,” she said with a frown.

“It should work, not that I’m eager to try it out,” I said with a laugh. “How about if I link to your power, then have someone kill me. I would be reborn right next to Aymon. I could kill him before anyone knew I was there.”

Again she shook her head. “The Fire Lord tells Aymon whenever a soul is redirected from the weave through the power granted by him. Also who the soul belongs to. Aymon would be ready for you to arrive.”

“Well, ain’t you a ray of sunshine today?” I grumbled a bit at my ideas being shot down so completely. Not because I did not value her advice, but because it would seriously hamper my plans. The ability to be reborn at any point you wanted would be invaluable.

After I finished my dinner, Bendis and the seven other troopers that had volunteered arrived. All of them wore a slave collar because that was one of the prerequisites for them to be useful in the experiment, which I had started a week earlier. Originally I had started with ten subjects, but I had to remove two of them.

I was looking over Bendis who was subject number five. His mana pool showed no sign of emptying. His regeneration rate could easily keep up with the drain of the mana crystal I had put into his collar with Ethan’s help.

The mana crystal would tap into the mana pool of people with a rating of zero. Since the collar drained mana from the wearer, I knew that even zeroes would have some form of mana regeneration. The experiment was to find out how much of a regeneration they had.

Subject one would have the least drain on the mana pool, while subject ten had the most. It turned out that when you slept you regenerated more mana than when awake. Anyway, subject ten had been removed from the experiment after two days. The rate of mana drain could not be kept up with by the regeneration. Not even if asleep.

Subject nine was eliminated after five days. Even though a good night’s sleep, or in this case a good day’s sleep, would regenerate a lot of the mana drained, I could still see the mana in the pool would become less and less by the day. So as not to harm her, I had removed her from the experiment as well, even if it would have taken almost two weeks before the drain would empty the pool completely.

Subject six’s mana pool showed signs of the drain, just barely. He was only missing thirty percent of his mana pool after a long night of travelling. When I checked at dinner tonight after he had slept, I was certain it would be completely full again. Subject seven, on the other hand, was at less than 40% mana left. After sleeping, she would probably end up at around 90%.

I would probably need to eliminate her from the study in a day or two. A few new subjects to test a frequency of drain between subject six and seven would be needed to find the optimal drain rate. However, at first, I wanted to see if there were any long term effects from zero raters having their mana pool drain faster than what the collars were doing it at.

After having checked all the subjects I checked the crystal they all were connected to. It was slowly growing, after a week it was as big and held as much mana as I could do in one sitting, which was of course not awe-inspiring. However, there were two things of import to note. The mana was without an aspect, just like my mana was. Which meant that it could be absorbed by anyone without losing mana in transforming it.

Also, it was the work of fewer than ten people and some of them were providing way less mana than I thought was sustainable. If optimized they would provide a lot more mana, and if you counted the number of serfs I had, I would be able to generate a lot of extra mana crystals.

Satisfied, I headed to bed. We did not have tents, but we rigged lean-tos whenever we camped in the wild. It blocked the sun, so it was not completely intolerable to sleep during the day.

As soon as I laid down, Yathanae wrapped her body around mine. “How was your experiment?”

“Good, I’m getting close to the optimal drain rate,” I replied, taking a deep whiff of her scent. She smelled like wildflowers, with a hint of honey and sweat. I felt my loins stir.

I was not the only one, because Yathanae snaked her hand down to caress my length. Huskily, she whispered directly in my ear, “Should we have some fun?”

“Are you willing to give everyone a show?” I asked eagerly, my hand moving down her body.

“I don’t understand most of you humans, you seem afraid of showing your naked body to someone else,” she groaned when I played with her intimate part.

“Well, in that case,” I said and rolled on top of her. I started undressing her, caressing every inch of her body with my hands and tongue. Soon her moans could be heard in the entire camp, earning us some catcalls from a few of the braver troopers. I did not care, I was focused on bringing pleasure to the lovely redhead beneath me.

I found myself back in the glade of the mysterious dream woman. I had found myself there every time I slept for the last nine days. The clearing was still in the progress of regrowing, but I could see improvement each time I entered. My enigmatic saviour had not said a single word since starting to reappear in my dreams.

She had only pointed in different directions each time I dreamt about her. For some reason, I just knew that was the general direction she wanted me to travel for the day. I reckoned that those directions were as good as any because I had tried choosing truly at random, to prevent a pattern from appearing. However, I knew that it was impossible to prevent patterns of some kind, unless I let a spin of the bottle decide.

We had followed the ever-changing route she had provided for us. It led us in the general direction of the mountains, so I did not mind following it. Only twice had we moved away from the mountain, but each time they had led to something good.

One time had been the military convoy with the leather armour. The other had been the large farmstead raising the okapi and horses. They had so many that after leaving there, everyone was now mounted and we had a good number of pack horses as well.

This time she did not point in any direction, instead, she just sat down, staring at me. I was puzzled for a few seconds, before asking, “You want us to wait?”

She just nodded once and then turned to look in a northwesterly direction. So I asked, “You want us to keep a lookout for something to the northwest?”

Once again she nodded and the dreamscape faded away, leaving me to my normal dreams and sleep. My normal dream was one I often had, it had me in a modern hospital room, holding Lily’s hand as she gave birth. Sometimes it was a son, sometimes it was a daughter, and I got to hold him or her for the first time. I could never see a face, but it did not matter. I was holding my child in my arms, it was all that mattered.

Sometimes, the dream substituted Lily for Emma or Yathanae and I would hold a large kitten or a beautiful elven child in my arms instead. I was equally happy each time. The worst dreams were the ones where it turned into a nightmare. Something went wrong, and I lost both child and mother. Yathanae had to hold me for a while after those before I calmed down.

When I woke up, it was to a naked Yathanae draped over half my body, the sweat on both our bodies had dried a long time ago. I had barely been awake for more than a minute when someone lightly knocked on the tree my lean-to was leaning on. It was Hrothgar. “Milord, dinner is ready in a half-glass, we’re moving out in a glass.”

“Belay that order,” I said immediately, keeping my voice low as not to disturb Yathanae. “We’re staying put until tomorrow evening. Make sure to double our patrols for the duration of our stay. Especially in the west to northern quadrant.”

“Milord?” he asked, confusion clear in his voice.

“I’ve decided we need an extra day of rest. We need to make sure the horses are in good shape and well-rested if we suddenly need to flee. We’ve been pushing them hard lately.”

“Yes, Milord,” he said and went away.

Yathanae was still lightly snoring, so I decided to wake her up in a pleasurable way. I rolled her on to her back, a slight hitch in her breath before she returned to her peaceful slumber. Starting at her right ear tip, I kissed it, drawing a sleepy moan from her. Slowly, I kissed my way down her body. She woke when I made my way down to her belly button.

“What a delightful way to wake up,” she said with a mix of a yawn and a moan. “Come up here, so I can kiss you.”

I shook my head against her stomach. “No, I want to continue what I started.”

With that, I continued my way down her body, worshipping every part of it.

It was after dusk when suddenly one of the members of one of the scout groups returned. He did not even wait for the horse to stop moving before jumping off it. “Milord, High Commander, there are a large number of fires to the northwest. On the other side of the main road.”

I was sitting next to Mina, trying to repair her barrier yet again. As usual, I was so far unsuccessful. However, I would not give up. I knew it was possible to repair the barrier, even recreate it. Because my mysterious saviour from my dreams had done it. Not only had she repaired them, but she had also recreated some of them. If I could somehow find a method of repairing the damage, or control the damage to the barrier, I could make all of my people able to do magic.

“Have you gone to investigate, Ansin?” Hrothgar asked.

He shook his head. “I came straight back. Munson and Esta have gone to take a closer look.”

“I guess we should head out then. Alan, you guys follow me and Ansin,” I said as I stood up. “Hrothgar, prepare the troopers, we might need to move out in a hurry.”

“Yes, Milord,” came the replies.

Fifteen minutes later, we were approaching the main road. There were no signs of Munson and Esta, only their horses. I dismounted and ordered Ansin and Charles to stay with the horses, while Alan and Nishka followed me.

We snuck across the main road and into the forest beyond it, heading towards the glow of the fires we could see a couple of kilometres to the west. It should be a spot just to the side of the road, from what I could estimate.

I had hoped to run into my two other scouts on the way there, but no such luck. Either they had been discovered, or they had taken another, more indirect route. When we got close to our destination, the trees thinned out, so my two bodyguards stopped, while I crawled further ahead. Leaving behind my sabre, shortsword, and rifles, which would all make it harder to crawl stealthily.

Soon, I saw why the trees had been thinned out. The spot with the campfires looked to be a regular camping spot for wagons travelling the main road. There were outhouses built, as well as a stream nearby that had been diverted. A large amount of wood had been cut into firewood and placed under tarps to dry. The elves camping there were in the progress of turning a few newly felled trees into new firewood.

There were two hundred elves in the camping spot from my count, as well as almost forty wagons pulled by four oxen each. There were only twenty horses from what I could see. The worst part was that every one of those two hundred elves seemed to be soldiers. All of them were wood elves, except for forty harpies.

It was another military convoy, but much more heavily defended than the one we had run into earlier. The weird part was that a score of the wagons were empty. Maybe they were used to transport the infantry or something. It was the only thing that made sense from my perspective.

Most of the elves were sitting on their pallets next to the many campfires. There was only a single tent in the whole area. It was a big one, more of a pavilion than a tent. The woman it belonged to was an impressive specimen of the dryad race. She was almost as tall as me and seemed to be all muscles. If not for her impressive bust, I would not have known it was a woman, since she was bald and very muscular.

She was carrying a larger than normal longbow, and a weird polearm. It looked like a spear for the most part, but it had a crossguard of sorts that were rather wide and curved backwards. It took me a moment to realize that the weird crossguard would be perfect for catching someone’s calf and trip them with it.

The one thing that did get my heart pounding, was once when she entered the tent, I caught a glimpse of what was inside. I counted at least six chests stacked upon each other, and I was only able to see a small corner of the inside of the tent. There might be more chests than that. I was of course not sure that it contained valuables, but I would think so. Why else put it inside the tent?

Having seen what I wanted to see, I made my way back to my bodyguards, before we made our way back to the horses. When we got there, Munson and Esta had gotten back as well. It turned out they had observed from across the road instead. After comparing notes with regards to the number of soldiers, livestock, and so on, we found out we had come to the same conclusion. They had not been able to see inside the tent. However, they had spotted that the filled wagons were carrying large amounts of iron bars. Before I got there, the elves had emptied one of the wagons for repairs and put the content in another.

With scouting done, all that was left was to plan a midnight raid.