There is a very simple way to describe my current position, in fact someone long ago came up with a phrase that has been passed down through the generations that sums it up quite well. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Well and truly screwed. Fucked up beyond all recognition.

I figured I had a day at most to escape the camp and get far enough away that Kel couldn’t just summon me back with a calling circle, and I only had an hour if Lum decided I didn’t need a head start. After his little spiel about me being the most selfless member of our family I was banking on only having an hour.

It’s almost funny how quickly things can fall into place when you’re not given the time to plan or think. Suddenly I was crystal clear on what I had to do, and I found that there was no hesitation within me anymore. This camp was enemy territory now, and I was racing against an invisible countdown to my doom the longer I stayed inside it. The solution was simple, I needed to leave. Now.

I raced around my tent stuffing as many of my belongings into my bag of holding as I could, all the while cursing myself for leaving so many valuables and so much equipment back at the capitol. Last month the mage who left the capitol with his family for another campaign had packed away only a few essentials and some battle equipment. He was a practical and naïve fool who hadn’t expected to have his delusions shattered on his trip, and he surely didn’t anticipate his future self having to flee from both the army and his family.

I really wished I had brought more ingredients and spell components, and I would have killed the gods themselves for my grimoire. Sadly all the wishing and theocidal thoughts in the world won’t change things, maybe if I had a djinn…

As I grabbed for my latest staff I had a moment to wonder how I was going to manage to get away. If I left and my crest still worked when Rainer found out I was gone things would not end well for me, at best I’d be ordered to return. At worst though…

I shook my head to banish those more unpleasant thoughts. My crest was a problem yes, but there was a fast and dirty way to be rid of it. I didn’t like having to resort to that option, but seeing Lum this morning had stripped away any option of further research or planning. My crest either came off today, or it wouldn’t be coming off at all.

Fast and dirty would have to do.

Opening the flap to my tent I stepped out and tried to seem unhurried as I walked around the camp. I could sense the undercurrent of mana lingering in the air and the ground, someone had done a pretty significant ritual last night. I didn’t like that, it meant that there was someone here with a lot more power at their disposal than I was used to having to deal with. I quite liked being the strongest or smartest guy in any given room, I was happy being the big fish in the pond. When someone stronger or smarter came by it usually meant that I was in for trouble and pain, that is unless I could avoid there notice.

My mind turned back to yesterday morning and I felt a chill run down my back. Someone in this camp had the ability to channel and harness the mana and willpower of over fifty magic casters, and that same someone had the creativity to craft a spell that killed an entire army outfitted with their own mages and casters. That was a person I did not want to meet, hell that was a person I didn’t even want to think existed.

It’s sort of sad that the thought that there might be a demigod amongst the magic casters in the camp was the most comforting option I could imagine.

Hustling past hungover soldiers and cheerful camp followers I made my way towards the camp border. I didn’t get to replace my fallen minions yesterday, but if I was going to go on the run I would want a few loyal servants by my side to protect me. A battlefield full of the dead or dying would be the perfect place to pick up some new minions, at least it would be for me.

Any mage worthy of the title knows how to create or enslave their own minions. Every magic caster from holy priests to hedge wizards have some way to gain a minion to do their bidding, though oddly enough few every call their minion as such. Terms like familiar or spirit animal get tossed around a lot, but personally I’m found of just calling things like they are. I tend to call my minions pets or if I’m feeling generous guardians, because in the end that’s what they are. I own my minions, care for them and feed them myself, so they are my pets. My minions guard and protect me from harm, so they are my guardians. It’s simple and to the point, but for some reason many of my peers find what I call my own minions to be in poor taste.

Regardless it isn’t all that hard for a magic caster to make a minion for themselves, at a basic level it merely involves channeling your mana into something that is empty of mana and wishing for it to be yours. Not very complicated in all honesty, but if a magic caster wants something more than a mindlessly obedient puppet then they’ll need to get a bit more creative and complex in their casting.

Personally I’m fond of humanoid pets, that way I can take them with me wherever I may need to go and it is easier to communicate with them, who are loyal if not obedient. I always felt that total obedience in a minion was more a detriment than an asset, and have always made my pets and guardians with that in mind. When I tell my pet to wait outside while I get some sleep, I don’t want it to still be waiting outside when an assassin attacks and I start screaming bloody murder. I need adaptable beings who will look out for my interests and person on their own, not mindless puppets to obey my every command to the letter.

To that end I search for a specific base for all my pets, I look for the desperate and the broken. Those who long for death, for an end to suffering, and for a savior. I look for despite and broken souls and I offer them a new life under my mostly benevolent command. I raise my pets up from the horrors they were faced with and ask only for them to devote their everything to me. It works more often than not, and when it doesn’t it’s easier to overpower a desperate and broken thing’s mental and spiritual defenses than it is to do so on something happy and healthy.

To me battlefields, slave houses, and slums were like pet shops. All I have to do is go in and pick out the ones I like and want to take home with me.

***

It is sometimes good to have a reputation as a dark and evil mage, sure it can just as easily get you killed but on occasion having just such a reputation is the best way to get things done. For instance when the mage you’ve seen torture and slaughter countless men asks to go out to the battlefield to replenish his lost minions, you tend to let him pass unquestioned. Sure being connected to the commander of a renowned knight company might have helped, but I personally like to think it’s my reputation, not Rainer’s, that saw me out of the camp.

As I walked over the rise and back to the small stretch of wasteland in death I had a sudden thought. I would probably never see my family again, and if I did it would be because they had come to drag me back to I life I wanted nothing to do with. Right here and now I was putting an end to the life I knew and had once loved. It was a sobering thought. It was also a very sad one.

There would be no more Tuesday game night, no more helping Kel take care of her stables, no more hunting trips with Josh, no more pranks with Carter. Lum wouldn’t come to me for advice anymore, and Sarah wouldn’t be just a word away anymore either. I was well and truly on my own now. Alone, with no one to rely on or to catch me if I should stumble and fall.

For freedom I had cast aside family.

I came to the top of the rise and stopped, I didn’t have the time to search around carefully for the living among the dead. I also couldn’t afford to care for those too wounded to care for themselves, nor did I know what effects could be lingering from the unknown spell that had caused this. Compounding on these issues was the fact that I would need to rely on my pets more than I ever have before, I needed them to be competent and deadly as well as unendingly loyal and devoted.

I could sit up here and cast a few tracking spells to locate those who had the potential for those qualities and were still alive down there, I could do that but it would take me almost all day. I didn’t have the time to do that, but I could craft a simple charm that would seek out living mana unlike my own.

It was always a risk to try and turn a magic caster into a pet, but I was already risking everything that mattered so who cared? Worse that could happen is I die, but as I was quickly learning about myself I would rather die than continue to be a slave. With a deep breath I started to focus my mind and will.

Casting a typically spell isn’t all that difficult, after a person learns to feel their mana and channel it things just sort of fall into place. A mentor of mine once equated casting a spell to the act of walking. ‘For a baby it is impossible, for a baby struggles to move at all. The baby is a mundane person, one with the latent potential for magic. Toddlers will crawl and stumble, fumbling for the ability to walk steadily. The toddler is when you learn to channel mana. The child with some effort can walk and run, jump and play. Mages in training and novices are the child, they have some trouble in accomplishing their goal but it not enough to stop them. To the adult walking is effortless, as to is spell casting effortless to a mage. A mage merely decides what a spell should do, and casts the spell. An adult merely decides to walk, and simply walks there.’ It was a good metaphor, and it was the best way I had ever heard spell casting described.

To mundane people unable to use mage spell casting seems difficult or even impossible, and as such they feel it must be just as difficult for mages. For mages and other accomplished magic casters casting a spell is merely a matter of using up some mana, it can be difficult if you attempt something tiring that will use up a lot of mana but ultimately the action of casting a spell was as effortless as walking. An adult can run a marathon much like a mage can cast larger works, it will tire them as they do it but the action and steps taken are as simple as can be.

Charms were easy simple things, less a walk and more a step. For my charm I simply reached for my mana, thought of what I wanted, and used my mana to shape… no shape is the wrong word. I used my mana to make my thought reality, and through my will I kept the charm under my control before it took shape. Simple and easy.

Rituals were more like what mundanes thought spells were, rituals were complex and messy things that could be difficult to manage and power. Still rituals allowed a magic caster to get more bang for their buck, effectively multiplying the effects and power of any spell cast through them. Most times rituals were unnecessary, and I personally felt that there was little point in using a ritual when you could just alter the way you cast a spell to make it more reasonable and efficient. Then again I have been repeatedly told I am a strange case for a mage and would have been better trained as a wizard or shaman, personally I didn’t see why that would be the case.

As I looked out on the field of death I felt my charm take effect. I could sense around six distinct pinpricks of strange mana that still felt alive. It was as good a sign as any that there were still magic casters alive down there, not all that surprising really. Magic casters always tended to be the last to die in battle and the hardest to actually put down, there were just too many ways for a clever caster to heal or protect themselves from harm when they weren’t being specifically targeted.

With a deep breath I started down the hill in pursuit of a couple new deadly pets.