Sliding through the darkened camp Aignew was a ghost heading carefully toward the Witch’s tent near the centre of it. They and the Shaman of the tribe were the only real threats he faced other than the Fae Chanar herself.

Floating in the darkness he studied the Witch’s tent carefully.

To his eyes the walls sparkled with the magic of the wards woven into them, vermin ward, temperature ward and most importantly to him, a powerful spirit ward.

Moving very carefully to avoid touching the wards and raising an alarm he laid a ward circle out around the tent. It was a simple ward but powerful, time within would pass at a tenth of the speed compared to outside. The tribes usually used it to make their storehouses for food and goods. It was really not good for living things to be within for long and some of the witches would undoubtedly die but they would be removed as a threat until the ritual ran out of magic in about a tenday.

Infusing the ritual with borrowed magic a shimmer surrounded their tent.

He moved through the darkness toward the Shaman's tent watching for anyone or anything who showed awareness of him. A multitude of spirits swarmed the air around the Shaman's tent, most were weak things, little more than a sense of need floating on the air but some were more, much more. They’d probably served generations of Shaman and they were strong. He was careful because while those spirits were more like him they were not quite, they were slaves limited by their bondage and held nothing that could compare to his hunger. Still, he was not sure how dangerous they might be.

They were prey but even the weakest prey may injure an unwary predator, so he approached the tent cloaked from their awareness and burning borrowed magic at a prodigious rate.

He waited patiently for one of the stronger spirits to wander away from the group then lashing out he grabbed it, easily controlling it's struggles and muting it's attempts to cry out.

His learned quickly that his witch was very strong, bolstered by her power these spirits were nothing.

Dropping his concealment as unneeded he flew into the swarm, a shark among fishes.

He ate them all, leaving even the greatest as nothing more than a faint sense of need after he was done draining their power.

A feast taken and crackling with stolen energy he stepped through the side of the tent, these Shaman, were they arrogant or delusional in trusting that such weak spirits could protect them?

Sneering he studied the final hurdle before he could deal with the Fae Chanar and the rest of the tribe, the Shaman themselves. Their spirit handing skills were still dangerous even though he'd taken their magic along with their spirits.

But that also offered his best method of attack, Shaman allowed their spirits to control the gateway of their magic and he was a spirit.

It was the work of moments to throw all of those gateways wide open.

Every Shaman from the Elder to the greenest neophyte went rigid with a silent scream etched into their faces as their magic flowed unimpeded through them and their bodies were viciously ravaged by out of control growths while their sanity shattered like spun glass.

Once satisfied the witches and the shaman were no threat to him he stalked the roaming guards to set their patrols in his mind then one after the other they were snatched by thin chill fingers at their throat when no outcry would be raised. Their throttled bodies were dumped carelessly but far from the camp.

It wouldn’t do to have his targets alerted.

That done he entered every tent in the camp and none in those tents survived his attentions. Not a man, woman, or child.

Only the Fae Chanar remained and he knew if he didn't kill her she would pursue them to the ends of the Realms and beyond. The Fae Chanar were tenacious and extremely vicious when thwarted and by killing this tribe he had undoubtedly disrupted plans perhaps hundreds of turnings in the making.

Purely from long habit he skulked through the darkness and approached the rear of her tent, habit because everyone who could have seen him was dead or disabled.

The tent’s warding crackled in his spirit sight and as expected they were layered, deep, and very strong. What was not expected was the glowing cage around the wards structure that flared with small crackling bolts of spirit energy whenever he reached toward them. Nobody usually bothered to do that because a spirit like himself with the knowledge of how to break wards was very rare. But it wasn't going to help, he had his witch's magic and didn't have to rely purely on spirit energy.

Floating in the darkness the silver lines of his eyes darted around as he studied the wards structure. Eventually he found what he was looking for, the structures that provided power to the whole thing. An exercise of will formed a portion of his witch's magic into a sharp point that he worked carefully and slowly into them creating a tiny tiny gap. Not enough to disrupt the wards on it's own or set off any of the traps laid into them but enough to make a gap in the spirit protections on the ward.

He forced the seething spirit energy he'd stolen from the tribe's spirits through that tiny gap.

The wards abruptly became visible to the naked eye as they tried to deal with the massive overload of power. They sang, crackling like over stressed ice before jagged cracks shot across the entire surface.

A short piercing scream of agony rang out from within the tent and Aignew chuckled darkly.

Floating through the now unprotected fabric he looked at the Fae Chanar as she writhed on the floor of the tent clutching her head and groaning. With the silver lines of his features twisted into a caricature of a smile he said, “It hurts so terribly to have your wards violently broken doesn't it? I would say I'm sorry... but I'm not.”

Drifting closer he tried to wrap his long cold fingers around her throat, and couldn't.

His fingers scrabbled on thin air held barely centimetres away from her neck by an invisible barrier. He frowned, her personal shield was still up and it was strong, very strong but worse it was heavily laced with spirit warding.

He was flung through the wall of the tent by a blast of spirit energy that didn't so much as ripple the fabric.

That concerned him greatly, she was ready for a spirit attack. For him? Or had she expected an attack by the Shaman or Witches? Or maybe she was just paranoid.

Still it didn't matter, she threatened his witch and his plans. She must die. It was as simple as that.

The tent, wrapped around a seething mass of incandescent flame flew past him trailing a twisting streamer of smoke.

The Fae Chanar floated a handspan above the ground and regarded him with an angry quizzical look, shaking her head she said, “I know you not. Who sent you to interfere with my tribesmen spirit?”

An aware and angry Fae Chanar was not a good fight for him. Particularly not one that had spirit defences as strong as hers.

He regarded her silently, thinking. Should he flee or fight? Could he even win if he did?

“You do not answer, very well then.”

An aura of roiling flames shrouded her and crackling bolts of lightning grounded themselves around her feet.

A dull grey bolt of Death energy squalled as it flew toward him, a burst of panic spiked through him. He only just evaded it.

Fleeing was now the only answer, this was a fight he could not win. He had not expected her to be adept in Death energy, most found it much too dangerous to work with and death comes for all beings eventually, even spirits.

She lifted into the air surrounded by a corona of lashing flames tipped by the dull lifeless grey of Death. A multitude of small keening bolts of dull grey Death energy saturated the sky around him.

He flickered sideways.

A chill tore through his leg as one managed to tag him, it took more than just his spirit energy, it took some of his self.

Terror gripped him and he cloaked himself from view with his witch's magic and fled.

An expanding bubble of grey tipped flames chased him through the tents, incinerating them and their contents.

He didn't even slow until he could no longer see that bubble of flaming death or the Fae Chanar's aura.

Dropping the cloaking he continued back toward his witch, thinking furiously.

The Fae Chanar would not ever stop hunting for him now, she would never forgive and never forget. The sheer affront of him attacking her would force her to hunt him to the ends of the realms, hunt him until one of them was no more. He had no illusions that he could fight this Fae Chanar, he knew that even on his best day he was no match for her and neither was his witch, yet. He must train his witch, he must help and harry her, force her to achieve the potential he saw in her, he had intended to do that anyway but now it was do or die.

Once the tribe's witches awoke they would be located in minutes and caught within days, that was if the Fae Chanar didn't end the ritual early. If she did they were probably dead there simply wouldn't be enough time to get away.

He needed a way to make his witch untrackable by the other witches.

The Ritual of Allabargn would work. It would change his witch, infusing her with his essence and attuning her more closely to the spirit world. As a side effect it would make tracking her much harder, she would gain spirit sight and she would gain an even higher capacity to handle magic. That last one was why he had performed this ritual every time before, to increase his then witch's ability to handle magic.

It wasn't often used because it opened the witch to direct attack by other spirits, spirit on spirit combat was always decided by who the stronger spirit was and witches made weak spirits. Their familiars were usually fairly weak spirits themselves as well. It was considered that summoning a familiar with too much strength was a failed familiar ritual and incredibly dangerous. They were of course wrong and his witch would be perfectly safe because any spirit stupid enough to attack her would just provide him with a snack.

He was very powerful.

Course decided he hurried through the night hoping the Fae Chanar would not be smart enough to rouse the witches.

When he reached the clearing his witch was still deep in exhausted slumber and moving quickly he laid out the symbols and markings for the ritual.

Finishing the circle he immediately began, unlike the other times he didn't have time to slowly and carefully remove parts of himself while he regrew the loss. He just took a cleaver to himself and shoved the hacked off parts into his witch leaving voids that would cripple him until they regrew. But they would be able to flee and hide, buying enough time for his witch to grow and learn. Hopefully.

Without the bolstering strength of his witches magic he would have failed the ritual, killing them both. He slipped into her body, hiding himself away within her spirit and released the grip on most of her magic keeping only a thin thread to sustain him while he healed. He could also afford to release the iron grip he'd held onto awareness with.

Letting go he tumbled into darkness.

*******

Raelea's eyes fluttered open, she felt... different. Sitting up the world had a vibrancy she'd never seen before, everything glowed brightly with life and energy. She could see the small birds who called in the gorse around her, they were small bundles of notplant among the glow of the green and growing plant.

Throwing back the robe and trying to stand her vision greyed at the edges and she fell back to the mat panting from exertion. Aignew had some explaining to do, he'd said she'd feel fatigued but this was totally ridiculous.

Actually where was he? Ever since they'd bonded she'd known exactly where he was. But right now she couldn't 'feel' him.

Concentrating she tried harder to find him... there! She could feel him faintly, but very close, how close?! How in the name of the Unmentioned was he inside her?

Marshalling her thoughts she said internally, “Aignew! How are you... why are you inside me? And why are you so weak, I can barely feel you.”

His voice was so faint and so weak that if she hadn't been concentrating so intently she would probably have missed his reply, “The false god was ready for me and I failed. Your former coven would have put her on us within days, so I performed a ritual to infuse you with a part of my essence. They will find it hard to track you now but I need time to recover, I will rest within until I do. Head for the swamps as we planned. Save us.”

As he fell silent she felt a thrill run through her, the evil spirit of many a campfire tale was relying on her to save him. Moving very carefully as the grey threatened to lay her low she broke camp and set off.

A tenday of thankfully extremely boring travel later she sat on Horse looking at murky water twining between small islands of boggy ground.

She asked Aignew, “Where do we go? I don't like the look of that water.”

He'd woken from his deep torpor only a few days before and his voice was still very faint as he answered, “There will be a road, my first master built a keep deep in the swamp. It is a place I know well, my earliest memories are here and all my witches have ended up here eventually.”

“A keep? What's that?”

“I always forget how lacking you tribesman's knowledge is. A keep is a tent of stone but little remains of it now, just a single wall and a cellar. You will see when we reach the island it is on.”

“A cellar?”

“Your education will begin once we reach the ruins and have secured somewhere for you to live while you learn. For now just know there are many things in this Realm and the other Realms you aren't even aware you don't know and until you learn enough you can't even ask the questions to learn of them.”

Raelea wasn't happy about it but said, “You will be teaching me those things.”

“Of course. I will not have my witch remain an ignorant tribesman.”

“Hmmph, ok then. I'll wait.”

“The path to the keep will be to the left.”

Slightly mollified she turned Horse and trotted off.