“Shit.” Chief described the situation with his usual flair for accuracy.

One of the cart’s wheels had broken down as they treaded the mess roads toward the guard-post, and the servants were having a hell of a time trying to fix it. To make things worse, one of the hunters ranging ahead had returned running, an arrow shaft sticking out of his shoulder. So, now they were stuck, and there might be some bandits coming after them soon.

“Bandits or guards?” asked Garner as Lowa tended to the hunter’s shoulder, the apprentices looking over her shoulder.

“Is there much of a difference by now?”

“Yes, Chief. We won’t put down the guards unless we have to. Bandits are another story…”

“What did they seem like to you, young man?” Lowa asked the injured as she finished bandaging the injury. Not that the man was young, but most people would be if the measuring stick was the witch’s age.

“…” shrugged the mute hunter, regretting the movement as soon as he stretched his shoulder, pain flaring up in his member.

“Be still!” chided Lowa.

“Maybe you could cast something on the other hunter when he reports?” Chief asked, scratching his white-hair.

“Stealth? Maybe…”

As the group talked, they were guarded by the avowed warriors, who held their shields tightly, weary of arrows striking suddenly from the trees. Romer’s people were already armed, and up on the carts, stacking boxes to provide cover from arrow fire. This time, the Majordomo picked up a shortbow, which he promptly stringed.

“Master!” gasped Leanor suddenly, coming close to Garner and putting a hand on his arm. “The outer alarms have fired! They are coming!”

“Get ready, people!” shouted Chief, warning his people and the others. Not wishing to become a pincushion, the veteran forsook his axe for a shield and sword combo this time.

“Leanor, ready a Barrier spell, Tealdin, watch the flanks.” oriented Garner before he started casting empowering spells at Chief and his men.

Soon, they could see movement in the trees, though they never could quite pinpoint how many people were there. “Hold your arrows till they show themselves” Chief instructed the ranged combatants of the group as Garner cast one last spell, on himself this time. The warriors were among the carts, one watching the back with Tealdin, and the others were up on the carts again.

“This is becoming a routine…” muttered Romer, bow and arrow in hands. Maybe he would ask that boorish Chief to train his maids and pages a bit. If Romer felt that it would benefit Garner, it could be really hard to stop the man from doing something.

Garner boldly stepped out of cover, saying, “Who goes there?”.

The answer to his question were half a dozen arrows flying at his direction. Garner scowled at the response, as the projectiles met the invisible shield he’d casted around him, making it glow red at each hit. Before he could say anything else, ice shards came hurtling out of the woods, his shield glowing brighter with the more powerful attack.

“That’s not very polite of you.” reproached Garner. “Does someone want to talk, or are you all too shy?”

Attacks stopped coming, and everything was still for a minute before a man emerged from the woods, camouflaged with lot of hanging greenery stuck to his Army coat and helm, bearing the royal green-white sigil on his breastplate, the sword-and-staff. “Wasn’t the arrow warning enough? This is a restricted area. Piss. The. Hell. Off.” said the captain, glaring at the would-be trespassers behind his impressive mustache. The barely visible red sash on his arm denoted his rank.

“What exactly would we be trespassing on, captain?” asked the wizard.

“The Spire, of course. No one allowed, but royals and wizards.”

“If you had bothered to ask, you would have known I’m a godsdamned wizard!” said Garner, getting uncharacteristically angry.

“Ah…”

“Godsdamned idiots!” bellowed Chief, lowering his shield and moving forward, glaring at the captain and the trees his men were concealed into. “I should have known what kind of fuck-up they would send to this shitty post!” remarked the Chief, still pissed that one of his people - more or less, the hunters were quite an independent bunch – could have died because these men’s sheer stupidity and incapacity to do a simple task, like checking who the hells they were attacking.

Though an angry Chief was a really intimidating figure, the captain was far from cowering. “Sorry, I guess.” The man said, shrugging. “Not many folk come by, I guess we never thought you wizard types would-” Chief gave no warning at all: one moment he was standing in front of the man, and on the other, the captain was down on the ground, nursing his jaw.

The captain’s men, about a dozen soldiers, came out of the woods, in a mixture of anger and embarrassment, not knowing how and if they should respond to the right cross their boss had received.

“I guess that was kind of called for.” said the captain, apparently not bearing a grudge after being decked out. His men lowered completely the weapons that had been slightly pointed out towards Garner’s people. Chief continued scowling at the man, but made no further motion to hit him again. Garner shook his head, and offered a hand up to the man, in the spirit of cooperation, reining his anger.

“Okay. Now that that has been dealt with, can we have a serious conversation?”

“Yeah. Follow us, we’ll take you to one of our field camps. Let’s go,” said the captain.

***

Garner, Chief, Lowa and the apprentices followed the soldiers to a simple camp, with easy access to a nearby creek and with some rudimentary shelter built between trees. There were a few supplies stored around it, with same mystery meat being smoked on one side, with a handful of civilians doing various tasks the soldiers were loathe to do, like washing and cleaning, cooking and foraging. While the soldiers dispersed throughout the camp, the group and the captain took their seats on wood stumps placed around the middle of the camp.

“We’re here. Few people come to these parts - we haven’t seen travelers for years. What brings you all here then, wizard, to the Spire?” asked the captain, clearly not a man acquainted with the normal exchange of pleasantries.

“Don’t more wizards come visit the Spire?” asked Tealdin, surprised that the place wasn’t swamped by wizards trying to learn from the advanced warding and spell-casting utilized on building the place. Leanor kind of stopped paying attention to the whole conversation as she imagined what kind of warding she could learn from studying the Spire - this trip might be a lot more useful than what she had originally thought it would be.

“No, boy. There are Spires that are really safe to visit, from what I heard. The Third Spire is far from safe.”

“What do you mean, captain?” asked Garner, frowning. How come have I never heard of such a thing?

“The place is crowded with automatons, golems, and they are aggressive and territorial, wizard.”

“Don’t the golems recognize you as a member of the Realm’s Army?” asked Lowa, also puzzled at the news. This was a situation they really didn’t need now, not when they had already invited various mages and wizards to shelter there from the Lotharian’s purge.

“No, they don’t. And my predecessor told me he only saw one wizard trying to enter the Spire. He died - spectacularly so.”

“We’ll have to look into this, Garner, this is *bad*,” said Lowa, glancing worriedly at him.

“I know. We’ll deal with it.”

“What’s the reason you need to go to that damned tower?” the captain brought them back to his original question.

“Ah, you might want to call your battle-mage to hear this,” said Lowa.

“I am the mage. The mage and the captain, yes I know,” the man said, anticipating Garner and Chief’s comment that that was extremely unusual in the Army. For a long time, mages had been kept out of command when possible, allowing them to focus on their magical tasks.

“What the hell did you do to get this assignment?” interrupted Chief, even more curious now. “Your equipment looks patched and second-hand, and I don’t imagine that supplies arrive regularly, your people seem to have to look for themselves.”

“Not important.”

“Let it go, Chief,” said Garner, not curious about the man’s secrets in light of what trouble they could be heading to. “You should know, captain, that there’s a purge going on, spurred by the Lotharians. They began targeting wizards, but we’ve heard reports that they are not making a lot of effort differentiating between practitioners. Hedge witches, wandering mages…”

“I see. I do not care, they do not have permission to approach the Spire.”

“You might be biting more than you can chew, mage,” pointed out Chief.

“My name is Lamart, captain Lamart, and I’m not a common mage.”

“What are you, sir?” asked Tealdin, intrigued.

“Warlock.”

“Ah.” The group intoned. That explained a lot of things. There were very few warlocks around the Realm, and that was for a simple reason: warlocks wielded the kind of magic only those of Elfey blood could use, and there were very few people with that blood left around the kingdom after the Spires were built and the banishment ritual done. Most of those had fled, as the ones that stayed got sicker and sicker until they nearly all died. Only a few of the hardiest mixed-bloods survived, and one of the captain’s parents must have been one of them.

“It can’t be very pleasant to be stationed around one of the Spires…” said Lowa, leadingly.

“No… It pains me, and I’m often distracted and with dark moods,” confirmed Lamart.

“So this is an even worse punishment than I thought,” concluded Chief.

“You could say that.”

“Very well, captain Lamart. I doubt you’ll take me up on it, but we’ll offer you refuge in the Spire if your clash with the Lotharians become more than you can handle,” said Gardner.

“Yeah, no, thanks. But I might send my people if it gets out of hand.”

“We’ll look after them, I promise.”

“Thanks.”

“Would the Lotharians attack an Army unit?” asked Tealdin, surprised by the possibility.

“I’m sure the brass wouldn’t mind too much if we were to disappear,” replied Lamart, “only misfits and outcasts get sent here.

“And someone has to learn what happened for there be consequences for it, and I don’t see the Lotharians letting anyone to tell the tale.” Pointed out Chief.

“We’ll let your mages pass on your authority as a wizard, Master Garner. And we’ll stop the Lotharians, or do the best we can to do so.” Declared Lamart, wrapping up the conversation.

“Thanks for your assistance, captain. We wish you luck.” Replied Garner, rising with the rest of his entourage.

“And for you as well, wizard. The Spire unsettles me, and it isn’t only because of my blood. My men feel the same. There’s something not right there.”

They parted ways, and Garner’s party went back to the rest of the group, rejoining the carts, the broken wheel already fixed somehow. They started to make their way towards the Spire again.

***

Orwin’s Party

“Why were you alone on the road with so many horses again, Raj? I think you were about to tell me the other day, and then we fell sleep. Come on, tell me,” Mons badgered the new guy.

“No, I wasn’t, and no, I won’t. Please stop talking for one second,” replied the rogue. The warrior’s inquisitiveness actually wasn’t that bad for Raj, because if Mons did something, people in the group usually went out of their way to obstruct him. And so, no one questioned him, but Mons. And the man’s focus was nearly non existent, he would soon change subject and start annoying someone else. But not quite now, it seemed.

“You kind of a horse thief, Raj? All secret-like with your black clothes, stealing people’s mounts in the darkest of the night?”

“Yeah, and I will still your horses and leave you behind,” He riposted. Rajpul had decided to share his extra mounts after everything they had gone through the other night. It was not like their former owners would miss them, after all.

Their group rode in a more sedate pace, taking breaks when they needed them. There was no particular rush now that their pursuers were gone, but they still made good time, changing mounts from time to time. In the afternoon, Maia came back from scouting out ahead. The archer said it was to make sure they were safe and on the right track, but Rajpul suspected she only wanted to get away from her ass of a brother for a while. He could sympathize.

“Hey, boss-man, there’s a shit trail that goes north a bit ahead,” She said, motioning to Orwin. “Seems like there’s been recent activity there.”

“Eh, I’m not sure we should head into a shitty trail. Let’s just keep to the path we know will take us to the Spire, right?”

“Yeah, I vote against it. Let’s keep to the broken down road instead of the dirt path.” agreed Valena, a large bag full of bones now affixed to her horse’s saddle.

Mons and Rajpul just shrugged, and so the group carried on.

***

A few hours later, Garner’s people finally made it back from their detour to meet with the guards, everyone cursing the trail that had managed to break another cartwheel, delaying them. Orwin’s group had passed them in the meantime, and was unwittingly going towards the dangers of the Third Spire.