Tealdin and Leanor accompanied their seniors and the renegade paladin as the group went to try and re-capture the biggest number of released drones they could. Chief and another guard were, of course, ready with crossbows at the back of the group. The key to their task was the ‘command stone’, a stone engraved with the control runes of the golems that had been grudgingly provided by the Guardian. At the apprentices’ backs, followed the gentle Giant golem that had taken a liking to Leanor. After some discussion, Master Garner had prevailed over Romer that a war-machine shouldn’t be used as a maid or a page. Instead of a feather-duster, the construct now carried again the ‘club’ they had originally seen with him when they scouted out the Spire.

“What do you think about the paladin?” asked Leanor, curious, passing a hand through her short blond hair. She had lagged behind the group, pulling Tealdin back with her to ask the question. Leanor looked at the tall white-armored man’s back as she asked her question. The man’s face was badly scarred, and kept his black hair in a buzz cut .

“Seems like a nice guy. Besides, paladins are awesome!”

She raised an eyebrow at him, “Are they, really? Aren’t they slaughtering wizards in this Purge, Tealdin? They destroyed two Towers already, it could have by my family’s.”

“Er-, sorry, you might be right. But when they are not trying to kill us, their people are really helpful to common people!”

“What are they, exactly? I feel magic around him, but I don’t think he’s a practitioner…”

“You know they abhor the excessive use of magic, right? Well, they use a lot of warded and enchanted items to fight wizards. They have a lot more protective magical items than Orwin and his people had, and they say a paladin is worth five warriors on the field.”

“It’s a shame his people are coming to kill us then. Maybe I can take a look at his gear…”

“Aw, come on, Leanor, don’t you think about anything else?”

As the young ones walked behind and bickered, the gentle Giant following behind them like a puppy, the others talked of more serious matters while they reestablished control over the golems.

“You do know that one civilization fell in Ruination because of its excessive use of golems, don’t you?” asked the renegade as he finished tagging a group of golems with the command stone. Every golem that they recovered, they sent to hold next to the gate of the Spire so they could be deployed quickly once their plans were made.

“Did they?” asked Lowa, stretching her weary bones.

“Yes, ma’am. They tried to do something like the Guardian did with this giant piece of armor following us - dominating and affixing souls to the golems. From what you told me about the other Giant golem, you can imagine what happened when their stabilization wards broke.”

“Don’t worry, Lance. I intend to destroy most of these golems, right along with the lotharians that are coming for us. And, forgive my frankness, your people too if it comes to it.”

“I understand, though I do not like it. I don’t believe many of my Order will come here anytime soon at least.”

“That sounds good for us, but why?” asked the raven-haired wizard as they searched for another group of golems.

“Our participation in this Purge, how I mentioned before, seems highly irregular. A lot of important members of the Order are deployed far away, even overseas.”

The practitioners shook their head at that last information. Of course the zealots would brave the murderous sea voyages. A big number of ships never even survived their maiden voyages.

“Small favors,” commented Lowa sarcastically.

“I never thought I would see the Order of Kalidor fighting side by side with the Fidajin, to tell you the truth.”

“Fidajin?” both the paladin and Lowa asked, surprised.

“Come on, guys. Wizards can be a little dismissive of security measures, but the way they hit us right at the beginning reeks of infiltration and betrayal. I’m sure they are involved.”

Lowa cursed and Lance grimaced. The Fidajin were a secretive sect of thieves and killers for hire, famed to be extremely competent, and extremely expensive. They hailed from Savlan but offered their services throughout the world to the highest bidders.

“Do you really think that Lord Favre would have that kind of money to expend on this Purge? Even the Lord of Lothar’s coffers must be suffering…” replied Lowa.

“I don’t know what is motivating him, but he’s trying awful hard to crush us, wizards, and he doesn’t look to worried about collateral damage, as all the other refugees here can attest.”

“That makes a sick kind of sense, but I still wish it isn’t true.”

“Me neither,” said the renegade. “It would be a bad moment in the history of my Order to work alongside people like that, Master Garner.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

After a couple of hours, the group turned back to the Spire in order to arrive at the agreed time of the ‘war council’.

***

“Thanks for joining us, everyone. We’re here to discuss about our preparations to withstand the siege and to survive this Purge,” Garner commenced the meeting formally. Reunited in an old meeting room, cleaned and restored as much as feasible by Romer and his people, the leading wizards and mages that had joined them in the Spire stood around a big round table where the map of the region was spread open. On the map, red markers stood over and around occupied cities and destroyed or besieged Towers. There were a lot of red markers throughout this western region on the Realm, and many more were situated in the Westernwoods, closing in on them.

“I’ll let my lead avowed warrior explain our martial strength, and Lowa to sum our estimated magical capacity.”

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. With the warriors brought by you, we have three scores of warriors ready to defend the Spire. Most of our gear has been enchanted and warded by a few of you, the magical craftspeople have my thanks,” Chief said, referring to the Enchanters and Warders by the collective term. The Warders, mages like Leanor, engraved or painted defensive wards on equipment while the Enchanters specialized in casting long lasting offensive spells, mostly. “We will be heavily outnumbered, so our current idea is to focus mostly on plugging any gaps the Lotharians carve through our screens of golems.”

“You’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself there, Chief, but let me take my turn. We have twenty practitioners, twelve of which we can consider as main combatants, capable of engaging the enemy directly. The others can serve as support and mana providers for artillery spells or rituals, if we need them,” said Lowa, gesturing for Garner to take over the briefing again.

“I hope that everyone is with the amulets we’ve distributed - they are the only things avoiding a lot of nasty traps from activating on you. Keep them well-hidden when the fighting starts so the enemy doesn’t discover them easily,” He said, not needing to clarify in which scenario the enemy would have free access to their belongings - in case they were killed. “Any questions so far?”

“Yeah, I sure do. Who the seven hells put you in charge?” challenged one irascible and annoying young wizard, Master Wilhelm. The redheaded wizard was of noble birth and had a terrible reputation among the Wizardly Order, but they had to put up with him. Only half of the main wizards and mages reunited had the magical knowledge to be ranked as a Master, a title of the wizards only reached by those who could feel magical energy so precisely that it come close to being a ‘magic sight’. That ability usually made a practitioner a lot more dangerous as they could understand spells as they were being formed and react accordingly. Besides that combat advantage, the magical sight helped mages and wizards improve their own spells, eliminating inefficiencies and reducing their casting time.

“Guardian,” Garner called, though he was sure the creature had been spying on their meeting the entire time, “who controls the Spire at the moment?”

“You do, sage Steward,” replied the spirit-creature as it materialized besides Garner.

“Hmpf… Only because you were a coward and got here earlier.”

Luckily, the man had virtually no support among the other practitioners who just looked at his failed power-grab with varying levels of disgust and reproach. Garner tried to smooth his expression and his tone, but he failed. One vein was pulsing on his forehead, and there was a dangerous edge in his reply, “We need you in the defense, Master Wilhelm, but you’re free to get away from the Spire as well. In fact, if you continue with your posture, I’ll *personally* guide you to the exit.”

The readheaded wizard sneered back at him, but fortunately managed to keep his mouth shut this time. The tense moment passed, and Garner breathed in deeply to control his anger before he continued, “Guardian, please describe to them the numbers and types of golems we’ve managed to gather.”

The spirit dispassionately listed every construct that they had at their disposal to protect the Spire, though he left out the Giant one that was constantly following Leanor around, according to Garner’s earlier instructions. Chief came forward again to discuss the deployment of the golems, and heard and replied to some suggestions mainly from other avowed warriors, and a mercenary leader.

“Moving on, we have to talk about the state of our supplies. In the last few days, our hunters have worked hard to acquire and prepare smoked and salted meat. We’ve received valuable donations of supplies from the Druids as well. That’s besides the supplies some of us brought from the get-go. I’ve asked my majordomo, Romer, to inventory the supplies, and he has informed me that we have enough to last for three months, though it will be stretching it at the end.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” one wandering mage observed.

“Yeah, the king must intervene before then, this purge only damages the Realm!” commented other.

“That might be so, but I suggest you hope for the best, but expect the worst,” advised Lowa.

“And what about our allies, Master Garner?” one slim and petite wizard asked, Master Tara.

“We shouldn’t expect help for a while, I’m afraid,” said Garner.

“Captain Lamart’s soldiers have bloodied the enemy, but they were hurt in the exchange too. The Captain seems to have been injured and they have temporarily retreated from what we could see in the Mirror,” informed Chief.

“The Druids are a different matter. We can’t get in contact with them, they are shielding themselves from the Mirror somehow and are ignoring our messages. They are grieving for their lost little ones, and they will probably remain recluse for a while. But when they come back… Their wrath will be impressive,” predicted Lowa.

“The Westernwoods are their place of power, after all. Even now, I think the Lotharians will have to deal with a very hostile forest. Its anger is nearly palpable,” agreed Garner.

They interrogated the Guardian for any defensive capability of the Spire, and learned a great deal they could use in the upcoming struggle. The group kept on readying their plans for hours still.

***

Valena, Tealdin and Leanor (and her constant shadow) were gathered at the Eyrie, the highest observation point of the whole Spire, and the apprentices observed the necromancer as she got ready to animate the skeleton she had found in her earlier exploration. She could bring creatures back a lot faster, like she had done before when fighting the Lotharians, but there were some differences between the situations. First, all the bodies had been fresh, that is, killed just before she cast her spell. They still had a substantial portion of their life mana, which allowed her to use this energy as fuel to cast a re-raise spell quickly. A skeleton was a different matter - it required that a necromancer cast a reanimation spell, a lot harder than the re-raise, requiring attention and patience. The re-raised creature could be very strong and durable if a necromancer imbued it with a lot of mana.

The young ones kept silent so as not to disturb her, and alternated between watching her and the beautiful view. After half an hour of careful casting, Valena willed her energy forward and the bird skeleton started moving, surprising the other two.

“Hells, that’s weird to watch,” commented Tealdin.

Leanor looked into the bones a lot more attentively, smiling when she saw the wards she’d carefully insculpted in the bones flare for a moment before subsiding. It was the first time she had tried, but she had successfully strengthened Valena’s pet against both physical and magical attacks, if she hadn’t gotten her runes mixed - she never did.

“Come here, beautiful,” Valena said, extending her arm, and the creature followed its master commands the best way it knew how, extending its bony wings and pushing itself off the ground and onto the offered arm.

“Do you think your spell will work?” asked Leanor, looking to the grinning raven-haired necromancer.

“I’ve done it before, but it might be harder seeing from an eagle’s point of view than usual…”

“Let me get something straight - you want to find your green-haired friend in the forest by looking from on high?” Tealdin asked skeptically.

“No one’s forcing you to be here,” replied Leanor surly, making him raise his hands in surrender with a glare.

“Sorry, sorry, my bad.”

“And we’re looking for her bird, actually,” Valena replied to the untactful comment, letting it go. With a deep sigh, she let her skeletal bird fly, magic powering its flight and search for her grieving friend and her Commune.