Tala was completely surrounded, barely fending off the Leshkin that swarmed around her.

However, swarmed wasn’t exactly accurate. They were like a pack of dogs, circling and lunging at her, whenever they thought they perceived an opening. The empty eyes of the lessers, fixed on her with a cold detachment, added a creepiness to the situation, underlying the terror and desperation that Tala already felt. She’d been able to keep her focus off their eyes for most of the battle, but now, surrounded and almost entirely on her own, she couldn’t, not any longer.

Even saying that she was fending them off was not accurate. She wasn’t fending them off, not in the individual sense like keeping back a lion with a whip. She was slaughtering them by the dozen, creating an ever-rising low barrier of plant matter around her self-assigned charges while she danced around the group, killing the vicious plant-people that just kept coming.

After a heavy, near silence that had extended for what felt like an eternity, Mistress Odera’s voice finally replied. “Advance into their attack, so that we can get the wounded with less interference. Be ready to retreat when I say.”

Hah, I knew she could hear me. The thought was fleeting across her exhausted mind. “Agreed.”

The quarrels buzzing overhead increased in quantity for a short space of time, opening a hole for Tala to move deeper into the Leshkin tide.

With another curse, this time for luck, Tala lunged into that opening and away from the humans on the ground.

From what little she could see, the Leshkin pursued her, ignoring the guards as they passed over them.

Alright, now to survive.

One of the warriors must have seen her glance and intuited something of her priorities, because it disengaged, moving back towards the downed guards.

Growling, Tala threw one of the prison darts at its retreating form, and after hearing a satisfying thunk, she dove away, deeper into the Leshkin ranks.

The Leshkin warrior screeched in confusion as it moved backwards, even as it continued to try to run forward.

Tala laughed, her exhaustion continuing to cloud her mind.

Flow was moving in constant, looping circles by that point. She no longer had a wall of safety, in the form of guards. That had allowed her to focus her efforts and maintain a modicum of control over her surroundings. It had been a great strategy, which she’d used for the whole of the day so far. It was no longer an option.

Now, she was a solitary island of humanity in the middle of a frenzy of inhuman monsters.

Breathe. Strike, block, dodge. Focus.

As she fought, she became one with Flow to an extent that she’d never achieved before.

As a glaive, Flow decapitated three lessers with its blade, then struck a knight that she hadn’t seen approaching before that moment, driving it back with the butt of the staff.

As a sword, the weapon lashed out to either side, taking eyes and driving life from these temporary forms as Tala advanced on the knight that was still stumbling backwards.

Right hand raised in a familiar gesture, Flow striking out, gripped in her left hand, Tala forced Crush to latch onto four other knights, driving them to the ground, then squashing them to sappy paste.

As a knife, Flow drilled into the still stumbling Leshkin knight almost as fast as a sewing machine’s needle, stitching a path of holes from its groin to its all too human, rage filled face, completely ignoring the wooden armor along the way.

That knight burst apart.

Good to know, sufficient punctures can end them too.

A circular sweep of her glaive gave Tala a bit more space, enough to see a juggernaut coming in the distance.

Flow moved to her left hand as her right hand came up, her arm extended, her palm out. Her first two fingers were pointing towards the sky, the second two bent down. All four fingers and thumb were tucked close together. The target was acquired. Crush.

The juggernaut was being dispatched, but it had cost her a moment’s concentration, leaving her defenses imperfect.

Even as her rod swept aside a pair of Leshkin swords, and her sphere knocked a lesser back with a hit to its sternum, a spear drove through Tala’s low back.

Flow swept around, severing the offending weapon, even as Tala dropped to a knee, a cry of pain ringing through the forest and easily heard over the rustle of foliage and periodic Leshkin screeches.

Terry flickered into being behind her, gripping the spear with his beak and ripping it free to drop to the forest floor before he vanished once more.

Tala gasped, spinning to decapitate the monsters who had swung for Terry and been unbalanced by his quick disappearance.

Her flesh was already pulling back together, but the echoes of pain were building. The ending berry power merely mitigated injury in this fight with the Leshkin, when it would have negated it against any other foe. The power was anything but ideal under these circumstances, but it was enough to keep her limbs attached and her life her own, at least for the moment.

“Mistress Tala, retreat. We’ve got them.” The Mage’s voice was clear in her ears, and it caused relief to wash through her. One task left.

Tala didn’t argue, turning on her heels advancing back the way that she had come.

The caravan was quite a ways away by that point, but Tala could make it. I have to make it.

She cut a path free of the closest press of Leshkin and began sprinting. There were no signs of the fallen guards, so she was reasonably certain that they had, in fact, been retrieved.

Remembering her last fights with the Leshkin, she took her anchor into her left hand and Flow in sword shape into her right, even as she kept moving.

True to form, a juggernaut tried to take her from the side, this time erupting as if from the ground to her right.

Tala pulled with all her soul’s might and managed to get her tungsten rod and ball between herself and the two-fisted punch barely in time, mirroring her inertia onto the three bloodstars within.

They were driven back past her, stealing much of the viciousness from the attack.

Even so, when the fists hit her, one in the shoulder, one in the hip, the impact made her bones creak.

The blow had the entire force of the juggernaut behind it; its massive body uncoiling to continually add power behind its fists.

She dropped her anchor, even as she was launched up and back.

She stalled out in the air ten feet from the anchor as it bounced to the forest floor.

Looking down, she saw the Leshkin warrior that she’d darted earlier, stumbling around, clearly disoriented.

In that moment of clarity and understanding, she almost laughed. I’ve been dragging that fellow around all over the place.

As her momentum began to run out, she enacted Crush on the juggernaut still so close to her.

Two rings had burned away to empower that effect, when she came back to the ground, landing beside the warrior.

Flow took its head, and Tala caught the falling dart from among the newly created detritus.

The juggernaut, for its part, was kneeling over her, struggling to adjust to the increased gravity as another ring burned away from her right hand, slamming the creature into the ground.

As before, the giant wasn’t disabled completely by three rings worth of power, and this one used its remaining mobility to burst into two knights, breaking her lock and freeing it of her spell-working.

Tala cursed. Great. They’re learning.

Still, she was able to dive between the two new knights, snatching up her anchor and continuing her sprint towards the caravan.

With every unit of guards active, and Tala, herself, now finally in clear view, a veritable cloud of bolts whistled around and past her, sinking into the Leshkin behind her as she ran the final stretch to slap into the back of the chuckwagon.

“She’s here!” A guard on the wagon top called unnecessarily.

A fully enclosing version of Mistress Odera’s signature shield blossomed into being around the caravan, sealing the humans away from their attackers, at least for the moment.

It was a long moment before Tala caught her breath sufficiently to push herself up off the chuckwagon’s rear step, where she’d collapsed after her desperate sprint.

I made it. She grinned openly. I did it!

She’d had help, of course, but no one had had to come rescue her. She’d made good, wise use of her powers, and she’d protected others besides.

The guards. She immediately called up to a guard on the top of the chuckwagon.

She informed Tala that the injured were being tended to in the cargo-slot where the caravan personnel were quartered.

After thanking the woman, Tala walked quickly to the cargo wagon and pulled herself up onto the step before opening the door and striding inside.

She found her destination with ease, after a brief search, and Tala talked in a quiet voice with the servant who’d been put in charge of overseeing the injured guards.

While Tala had still been fighting the Leshkin, Mistress Odera had been able to see to the worst injuries, and stabilize those who had made it to her. Among them were the guards that Tala had stood over, defending with her body as much as her blade and spell-workings.

Unfortunately, the guards’ injuries had been too severe for a quick heal. It had been to the point that even with Mistress Odera’s healing, they would be on bedrest until the caravan reached Bandfast. Still, they would all survive.

All five are alive and will be whole. Tala smiled triumphantly at that.

The servant assured her that she would see to it that the needs of the injured were met and that they were kept as comfortable as possible for the remainder of the voyage.

With that reassurance, Tala thanked the servant and left her to her work.

I need to see what’s happening with the defense.

As Tala opened the door and stepped back outside, the strangely reverberatory sound echoed between the wagons and penetrated the space around her.

It was immediately stressful, announcing each Leshkin attack. That was compounded by the fact that such attacks happened at least every second or so. I need to see what’s going on.

Rane was coming down the ladder as she came out of the cargo-slot, in her way if she was to get to the cargo wagon’s roof.

There was concern in his voice as he met her gaze. “You look whole. Are you okay?”

Tala nodded, her triumphant smile now a small, tired thing. “I am, thank you. What about you?”

Rane grimaced. “I was useless out there. They never wanted to truly engage me. I felt like I was chopping at a river, trying to change its course.”

Tala snorted a laugh. “You did help, I promise you that. And even with your help, I was dancing the edge, there, for a bit. I don’t want to imagine what it would have been like without you.”

That thought reminded her of her spent castings. She glanced down at her right hand and grimaced. Twenty-one. I used twenty-one rings to enact Crush. She only had 9 iterations left.

I’m going to be so glad to change over to the passive gravity manipulation, across the board. She still needed to address the great strain placed on that inscription set by fast enactment, but there was potential there, to say the least.

Rane clapped her on the shoulder. “You did fantastic. I imagine you’re hungry?”

She nodded. “Famished.”

With a sly grin, he nodded. “I’ll get the cooks to start bringing you food. You tell them when you’ve had enough, all right?”

She smiled gratefully at that. “That sounds wonderful.”

“You’ll be up top?” He indicated the direction he’d just come from.

“That’s the plan.”

He nodded and left, another smile obvious across his features.

As Rane dropped off the side of the wagon, down onto the little ground beside the vehicle, inside the bubble, Tala swung out and climbed up the ladder.

In the center of the roof, Mistress Odera sat cross-legged, sweating despite the cool winter air. Her eyes were closed, but not clenched shut. Her breathing was regular and deep, but even still, her effort was obvious.

The oblong bubble surrounding the caravan moved with them through the forest at a steady clip, a testament to the woman’s power and experience.

The drivers were spurring the oxen on as quickly as the beasts could safely move. We might make it, yet.

Tala turned her gaze outward and felt herself pale.

They were surrounded by juggernauts, moving along with them through the woods.

As the wagons advanced, the juggernauts in front of them were nudged backwards at a slow walk for their massive frames. Even so, they attacked relentlessly with a myriad of weapons.

A great club user stood beside a Leshkin wielding sword and shield. Another struck with a greatsword that put Force to shame, if only in its sheer size. A warhammer added its strikes beside a war-pick as well as a long spear. And on and on the variety went: short spear and shield, axe with reverse spike, maul, and others that were too obscured to make out clearly.

If Tala was counting correctly, and that was in doubt due to the constant ripples across the shield’s surface, there were at least ten of the giants, maybe as many as fourteen.

Tala cracked her knuckles. “Time to do this right.” She was still mildly embarrassed that she hadn’t dealt with the last two juggernauts on the last leg of their voyage to Makinaven. I’ll correct that, now.

Her thumb and middle finger came together, and she immediately targeted the two most forward of their advance, ramping up their gravity as quickly as she could without using the Crush mental constructs. She didn’t want to burn out her inscriptions from the strain.

Unfortunately, the last one she’d dealt, the one that had split into two knights to foil her spell-working, wasn’t an outlier, and they were showing their cleverness.

As soon as their gravity was altered sufficiently to be noticed, the two juggernauts cracked apart into knights, breaking her lock and spoiling the working, before they faded from view.

Cursing them, she, nonetheless, immediately targeted two more juggernauts, ramping up their gravity as well. Before that reached inconvenient levels for the creatures, two more juggernauts returned to the front of the shield, renewing the attack. These wielded polearms of differing kinds.

She couldn’t tell if the new arrivals were completely new juggernauts, taking the place of the departed, or a new combination of the same knights. No, they couldn’t be a recombination, that is much too quick for that.

It was disheartening to see her enemies replaced so quickly, but still, she persisted, attempting to relieve some of the strain on the shield for Mistress Odera.

Over the next half-hour, Tala tried all sorts of things to get around their new understanding of her magics, but nothing worked.

Each juggernaut that she forced to split was replaced shortly thereafter, and the weaponry they used continued to alter, covering the gamut from dual daggers to one with a war scythe. If anything, they seemed to be testing if any given weapon affected the shield more easily.

Blessedly, that didn’t seem to be the case, and the shield held.

Even so, there was just no end to them.

Do they have that many? Or were they recombining, somehow. We are surrounded by great trees… It was most likely a combination of having juggernauts in reserve, and the knights going to recombine and then returning.

In the end, she was sure that the majority of the juggernauts attacking the shield were, in fact, just recombinations of those she’d previously forced to disassociate.

To her horror, as she became better at identifying the individual Leshkin, she became increasingly certain that at least some of those that now harassed them were ones that she’d slain that morning.

Is a spawning ground that close? Are some of their heartseeds that close? It was a disheartening thought. Even if I do kill them, they’ll just return in short order.

She had a brief desire to strike out and hunt down whatever hiding place contained the heartseeds so near to hand, but that would be colossally foolish, and so she squashed that desire for the time being.

Finally, she had to admit defeat. At this point, she was just wasting inscriptions. So, with a growl of irritation, she stopped trying.

As she’d been trying to contribute, even while being carted along, the cooks had been bringing her a feast’s worth of food, even by Tala’s standards. That meant that it would have normally counted as a feast for a small family. The deliveries of sustenance continued, even now that she’d stopped working with her gravity manipulation.

She had done a lot of self-healing throughout the morning even despite her defenses, and that had put an incredible strain on her body, inscriptions, and reserves. Thus, even as she continued to devour the food, she could feel a vortex of her power breaking the food down in her gut and shunting the nutrients and energy outwards to refill her reserves and help return her to top form.

Between bites, she topped off each of her bound items, even refilling Terry’s collar, despite it not really needing it. Still, the act allowed her to have the terror bird near, and that gave her some additional comfort.

After that was done, she recharged the cargo-slots, just in case. Who knows what the rest of the day will bring.

Beyond that, she made note to refill them as often as reasonable, probably every half-hour to hour.

It is going to be a long, long day.