Several minutes had passed and there had been no additional attack. The knights were still on high alert. Yet from the looks of it that appeared to be no longer necessary. Whoever had attacked them had fled. Lucius gently urged his horse to reduce its pace. When he was near the carriage's left door he knocked and said, "Miss Fiona, you can open the window with the knob at the top."

Moments passed before he heard the familiar sound of gears moving. Dwarven technology was something truly amazing. It was something he wanted to learn, but probably couldn't. It just took too much time, effort and money to find something they had created. There was no living dwarf willing to let humans in on their secrets.

Their current technology was not as advanced as that of their predecessors, the Forerunners. But even one of their golems could defeat a normal, inexperienced knight in battle. An advanced golem, or whatever one might call the Forerunner's creation, was a different story altogether. One of them could bring a small group of knights to their knees. He really didn't want to fight such a terrible war machine. Fortunately, these things never left the fallen and monster-infested cities of the Forerunners.

Lucius took a second look at the carriage. The carriage was a gift the dwarves had given the major general to celebrate his promotion. According to the dwarven blacksmith they had saved from certain death, the carriage was from a new age. Lucius had heard of tales that the dwarves had entered a new age, which they called "The Age of Magitech". Dwarves liked to call the periods when they worked exclusively with something. The last period, at least according to what the dwarf blacksmith had told him, had been "The Age of Staal" or as humans called it the "The Age of Steel".

Steel was better than iron, but not as good as other alloys the dwarves had created. These were better by far, but something the dwarves kept secret. All dwarves were bound by an oath never to reveal their knowledge to outsiders. They would probably never break it. If they did, the mountain guards would not let them into their cities and would kill them instead. It was understandable that no dwarf would want to see that happen; after all, the mountain guards were by far stronger than most human knights or mages.

Lucius had once fought one of them in a mock battle to test his strength and techniques. His sword had been no match for the armour the other knight had worn. The armour had simply been too good to lose against a steel sword forged and enchanted by humans. Lucius sighed, reluctantly remembering his battle. His defeat was not due to a lack of strength or technique, but simply because his opponent had been armed with the best the dwarven city-states had to offer.

But it was no good wallowing in the past, instead one had to focus on the present. He looked closely at the woman they were supposed to be protecting. She was perhaps thirty years old. It was hard to tell since he was not of her race. Besides, it didn't help that all the Monias he had seen so far had been mages, whose age was even harder to estimate because of their advancement of their node.

The woman's red hair was even darker than his or his father's. That colour was rare, yes, but could not compare in rarity to her eyes. Her eyes were a colour he had never seen before. They were a bright purple with small shades of white. He felt like he was looking up at the night sky. If he hadn't been married, he probably would have asked her out. As it was, most of the younger knights would do so regardless of their marital status. Fortunately, they weren't married. As much as he liked his wife, women could get pretty upset if another woman had caught the interest of their beloved husband. That was something he really did not want to experience in his life.

"Miss Anker", he began, "I suppose you want to ask what happened. I can't tell you much because I don't know much myself. But there is no need to worry. After one of my knights displayed his magic, albeit very crudely, he's just not a real mage, they withdrew."

"I see," said Fiona, "Please tell him that my daughter thought of his magic as rather splendid. I don't know that much about magic myself."

"I will do that, but your lack of knowledge is unfortunate," Lucius said, "Yet I doubt that it will have any effect. The Margrave and the Major General have the resources to employ the best teachers the Empire has to offer."

Fiona forced herself to smile and asked, "How long will take before we reach Aschen?"

"If nothing happens? An hour or so," Lucius replied, "Do you have any other questions? Yes? No?"

He made a move to leave, but was stopped.

"Please wait," Fiona called out, "I, no, my daughter had a question. She wanted to know if the knight who created the wall was a mage or just a knight with some talent in magic."

She added, "She really fancies knights and mages."

Lucius nodded slowly. It was great to have ambition, no matter how young. Still, he doubted the girl could become a knight. It was hard to get into the knight's academy, especially if one wasn't of noble blood. It was even harder, perhaps almost impossible, if one were a woman. He only knew about a dozen female knights, all daughters of nobles. Lucius had heard rumours that their fathers had only allowed them to join the knight's academy because they did not behave as a proper lady should. But those were just rumours, and nobles loved to spread them.

Lucius found it quite despicable that women, and even those who were not human, of any gender, rarely became knights. Many people who had the talent to become knights could not become knights. Instead, they died as simple soldiers, became mediocre mages, dead mercenaries or simply had an uneventful life ahead of them. They married, had children, worked and then died of old age or disease, not knowing that their lives could have been different.

"He is just a simple knight with some talent when it comes to magic. Unfortunately, his talent is not enough to become a mage. He wasn't accepted into the academy, if I'm not mistaken," Lucius replied, adding, "I welcome any mage in our group, but there aren't many who want to work for a necromancer."

It was rather unfortunate that he could count on both hands all the living mages who worked for the Major General. Fortunately, there were quite a few Liches who could use magic. Most could use dark magic, others rare types of elemental magic and one was also able to use holy magic. That was strange, but something he had long since begun to ignore.

Fiona frowned A necromancer? Who had he been referring to? The margrave? No, he was just a transmutation mage and an alchemist.

Perhaps the person she was supposed to be working for?

Hopefully not. She didn't like the undead. All the stories she had heard from her parents had portrayed the undead as mindless creatures who preyed on the living. A necromancer, their summoner and master, would probably be even worse. But that was only her guess. Necromancers were rare and she had never seen one. Maybe this one liked to cook, loved rabbits and had a colourful field of flowers for a garden.

"I see," she replied, "I'll tell Elise that when she wakes up."

Lucius took note of the fact that Monia's daughter spoke in her sleep. It was a language he did not know, but probably the language of her mother's homeland.

The knight gently urged his horse to fall back. He needed to talk to the other knights who served beside him. There were many things they needed to plan. The Major General wanted to clear a nest to set up some new summons. They had lost some on the way to Aschen to several monster and bandit attacks.

He frowned, if he remembered correctly, the Major General had turned all those that had attacked them who subsequently died into undead.... he should have more than enough summons. Lucius shrugged, the Major General was someone who liked to plan for the future, a trait they both shared.

"The Major is an amazing man, isn't he?" murmured Ferdinand suddenly.

"Major General," Lucius interrupted, ignoring the rest of Ferdinand and his friend's conversation.

He liked working for the Major General too. It was quite fortunate that he was a royal knight and not an ordinary knight. Otherwise he would surely have to listen to the whims of the nobles, perhaps even work for one of them, something he really did not want to do. Lucius had met many decent nobles, but there was still a majority who had been so rotten that the Red General would probably have executed them himself rather than with a guillotine.

Fortunately, the king ignored their demands, most simply too outrageous to take seriously. Others were based on fear instead. Most questioned what a necromancer would do without proper guidance. What they defined as "guidance", however, was as vague as it could be. The king wisely had decided, as a sign of goodwill, that a royal guard would watch over the major general. That had been the best thing that had happened in Lucius' life, only marrying his wife was even better.

Over the past years, Lucius had learned that the nobles' worries had been unfounded. The Major General was a kind and humble man, a man who was by far more righteous than most nobles and, in stark contrast to them, had never abused his power.

Nevertheless, the Major General was an eccentric man. Like most of the Lebensblut family, he believed in love that fate bestowed upon him. That, strange as it may sound, was one of the reasons he had chosen to serve the Empire. It was something Lucius had found strange years ago and found even stranger now that the Major General believed he was close to his lifelong goal. Lucius wondered who his wife would be, probably someone as strange as the Major General, hopefully not stranger.

Despite the Major General's oddities, they were both friends. Lucius could never repay the debt he owed him. Tobias had personally asked the king to raise his rank to captain, which in return had allowed him to marry the love of his life.

Lucius took a deep breath. Changing the nobles' way of life was something he or Tobias could not do. He had seen others try to do so, often mercenaries, rarely soldiers who had returned from war, or sometimes mages who had worked with commoners. All their attempts had been futile and had ended in the deaths of many innocents, or in them remaining silent after having their throats slit.

The nobles valued their customs as much as the dragons valued their treasures. That was something that clearly would not change unless the empire fell overnight and all the nobles were killed. And that was something he knew would not happen. The citizens of the Empire were content with their lives, and unless the nobles did something stupid, that wouldn't change.

He glanced at the flag fluttering in the wind. On it was a black eagle on a golden background with red feet, beak and tongue. The eagle was the symbol of the empire. It also expressed that Aschen had long ago been the coronation site of most of the Borussian kings, until Königsfeld had become the actual capital.

"Is everything all right?" he heard Ferdinand ask.

"Yes, yes," he murmured, "I was just thinking."

He smiled, remembering that he had told them to stay alert. And what was he doing? He daydreamed and thought about things that he should rather deal with behind the safe walls of Aschen.