Yuriko felt the hot burst of rage fade away after she kicked the offending cad all the way across the clearing.

Satisfaction.

She grinned to herself.

The barbarian had been a good fighter, much stronger than even senior Kale, though far less skilled with weapons. He’d provided her with the challenge that she relished and for a moment, she felt the urge to wait for him to get up so they could continue their duel. But, even as she watched, his eyes fluttered close and he released a muted groan.

She must have hit him harder than she thought.

She reached up to scrub her cheek, right where he had licked her. Almost at once, fury raced in her veins, and she took a step closer, raising her blade to kill. A moment later, her mind cleared, and a muffled scream from where the other barbarians went reminded her that she was not alone. And they needed her.

She followed the trampled snow, running, skidding against the ice.

Night had fallen completely but the Full Moon illuminated the barren forest almost as much as twilight did. Her eyes adjusted, but it wasn’t enough. Frozen patches of ice surprised her now and then. One sent her skidding to a tree trunk and only a quick twist and her shoulder prevented her from smacking her nose, which would probably have broken.

She could hear the clashing of weapons, stone against the metal of Gwendith’s spear, or Ella-Mai’s side-blade. She could see flashes of light, pink for Gwendith’s Animus, red for Ella-Mai, and varied shades of blues and green from the barbarians.

How many were with that cad?

The three of them managed to kill three barbarians when they came upon them unexpectedly. She caught a glimpse of a dozen or so just before she engaged him. That meant while she had her duel, the other two girls were outnumbered at least five to one!

Run!

The lights gave her a clear target but the treacherous footing meant that by the time she arrived, it was too late.

Even as she arrived at the clearing, Gwendith and Ella-Mai were unconscious while a couple of men bound their limbs. About five barbarians were laid out on the ground, still alive, unfortunately. Three were covered in frost but even as Yuriko arrived, they were throwing off the effects of Gwendith’s Facet.

Several of them looked towards her when she arrived, faces painted with surprise and disbelief. They expected their companion to be victorious instead of her.

Words that she couldn’t understand spat out of their lips. She wished that Ikash had been part of this term’s curriculum rather than part of the second year’s.

Still, she didn’t need to understand their words when three of them took out their stone axes and slowly moved to surround her. The expressions on their faces were somewhat strange: a mixture of fear, trepidation, and anticipation.

The flow of her Animus sped up as she spun the three sword dances into one. The second was almost always the primary pattern she used, and keeping all three Intents into a single braid was still difficult. The oneness she felt during the Chaos storm had been quite elusive, and it was a special state that she could only reach when she was in the best condition.

Maybe she needed another Chaos Storm to get that feeling back, she idly thought.

There were a dozen and a half barbarians--eighteen of them, two preoccupied with binding the two girls, thirteen moving to the sides to make sure she couldn’t escape.

‘Staying would mean getting surrounded and eventually killed or captured,’ she thought grimly even as her mind spun images of what would happen to the other two once they were taken away.

She wasn’t in the tunnels where only a few of them could get to her at once. They were in the clearing of a forest and while she could lead them away and try to use the terrain to her advantage, it wouldn’t change the fact that Gwendith and Ella-Mai were already in their hands. She felt sick to her tummy but she couldn’t help them by being captured, too.

With a powerful burst, she abandoned her sword dances to activate Boost. Snow sprayed as she leapt back, covering the approaching man. These were no boys like that other one but grown men.

Yells followed her as she ran back the way she came. When she came across a tall enough tree, she scampered up the trunk and travelled along the branches, leaping across five or six paces between each barren tree branch. The shouts faded away as she ran and eventually, only the sound of her laboured breathing filled her ears.

She leaned against the tree trunk to catch her breath. She didn’t hear the crunch of boots against freshly fallen snow and she couldn’t see any movement.

What should she do?

The cold wind cut into her jacket and made her shiver.

“Shoulda grabbed my cloak,” she muttered.

But it was impossible. She dropped the garment at the start of the battle and when they retreated, she didn’t think to retrieve it.

How long has it been? Just this morning? It felt longer.

Where were they taking Gwendith and Ella-Mai? The barbarians came from the north, didn’t they? They were due west of the camp and going back there was foolish. Unless all the barbarians headed back to their homeland? Should she try to them rescue when the two were conscious?

There were only eighteen of them and while she couldn’t face them all alone, she could whittle them down to manageable numbers.

Right! She could shadow them and eliminate them one by one!

Well, first, let the Fort know what happened.

She reached into her satchel and drew out a messenger crane. She didn’t have a pen but that was no problem. She extruded a couple of strands of Animus into her fingertip and started writing on the paper.

“After Founding 2998

42nd Day of Water

Fort Commander Adeline Perry

Commander’s Quarters

Fort Aegermonth

Dear Commander,

Barbarians raided Camp Cinderfield. Casualties unknown. Fellow cadets Gwendith Devi Sharine and Ella-Mai Haru Wol have been captured. I will attempt to rescue them.

Please send help as soon as possible.

Cadet Yuriko Mishala Davar”

“Go and bring word,” Yuriko whispered to the crane even though she knew it was but a runescript construct.

She pressed as much Animus as she could to the paper until the crane veritably glowed gold. Then she launched it to the sky, where it flapped its paper wings and flew as fast as it could.

That done, she retraced her path. She didn’t remember exactly where she fought that boy but the tracks of her pursuers were clear after a quarter of a longstride back. A pity the barbarians’ clothing consisted merely of leather trousers otherwise, she might have been tempted to lift them off the corpses. As it were, she wasn’t about to use some stinky man’s trousers to shelter her from the cold. No, the icy wind could be borne.

Eventually, they left the thicker forests and she had to descend back to the ground. She followed the ploughed over snow that they’ve already walked and she kept her eyes sharp. Once she crested the hill, she found them by the shelter of an overhang, seated around a small campfire. She saw the boy nursing his ribs to the laughter of the other warriors.

Gwendith and Ella-Mai had their backs against the rockface. Gwendith’s face was set into a scowl while Ella-Mai looked frightened, not that Yuriko could blame her. Her heart started racing when one of the men sauntered close to the two girls. She grabbed her Plasma Caster and started channelling her Animus inside it to form a bolt.

If they did something, then Yuriko would shoot them, consequences be to Chaos!

The man knelt beside Gwendith and proffered a piece of meat jerky to which the girl turned her nose up at. The man just chuckled and placed the meat where she could get to it if she wanted to. Both girls' hands were bound, and they were tethered to a spike driven to the ground. The man placed another piece of jerky next to Ella-Mai, spoke a few words then left them alone.

Yuriko breathed a sigh of relief.

What should she do?

She could snipe at the sentries until none were left, or she could attempt to sneak into camp and cut them loose. The problem with the first idea was that the barbarians seem unusually resilient against superheated plasma. Yuriko didn’t have any techniques to make her plasma bolts more potent. She had no doubt that if it were her Da or her elder brothers in her position, their shots would have burned through whatever protections the barbarians had. If only she received the Davar Heritage!

No, no, now’s not the time to think of that.

She doubted she could take out a sentry with a single shot, and any attack that didn’t kill or incapacitate in one go would only serve to warn them. No, she had to bide her time.

Yuriko retreated from the hilltop and returned to the shelter of the forest. She scaled a tree so that she could still keep line of sight with the camp. Once she was settled, she took a ration bar from her satchel and devoured it in three bites. It was only when she finished that she realized that the bars seemed much softer than the ones she ate a year ago. Oh well. Still tasted much the same.

It took her a while to sleep, but even then, she woke up every hour or so, feeling a rising panic. Only when she determined that the barbarians hadn't moved did she try to return to her fitful slumber.

The next morning, the smell of roasting meat wafted from the camp. Yuriko felt her tummy grumble in protest.

“Achoo!”

The cold got to her. She rubbed her hands until friction heated it up then pressed it against the back of her neck. The warmth brought her cold blood back to life.

Unleash your Anima, silly.

“Eh?” Yuriko hesitated, but since it was already daytime, the golden flames of her Anima wouldn’t be so eye-catching.

Still, she shimmied down the tree before she released the flame. Almost at once, her body’s stiffness disappeared. The cold receded. The kinks she didn't even notice in her muscles and joints disappeared.

“Ohh, that feels niiiice,” she yawned.

Still, the light of her Anima was too obvious. She pulled it back under her skin once she felt better.

“I want my toothbrush,” she muttered as she trekked up the hill and waited just behind the ridge.

The barbarians soon moved out, a couple of men carried the two girls under their arms. Instead of heading north, the group headed back east towards the camp. Yuriko followed surreptitiously behind. Stealth and evasion had been part of Reserve Officers Training during the first term, but it had only contained basics.

“Avoid skylining, stay low on the ground, and stay upwind…er rather, keep them upwind,” Yuriko muttered while she crawled over the snow.

She couldn’t resist releasing a tiny tiny bit of her Anima to keep herself warm. The banked flames kept the snow from touching her skin but she saw a bit of runoff. Her Anima melted the snow, albeit slowly, but that meant she couldn’t stay in one place for too long lest she melt a puddle around herself.

Once she saw the group cresting the next hill, she got up and practically flew down the hill. There were the odd bush and a lone rock formation to give her some cover but sometimes she had to run a stretch out in the open. Thank the Ancestors that the barbarians still hadn’t spotted her.

By midday, the group and Yuriko had returned to the vicinity of the camp. The barbarians veered north without quite reaching Camp Cinderfield though. After a minute of agonizing indecision, Yuriko headed to the camp, hoping to find survivors and reinforcements.

Instead, she found a smoking ruin and bloody corpses thrown into a ditch. She took one glance down the ditch, not understanding why the ice was red for several moments before the reality of the situation solidified for her.

“Urk!”

Her breakfast of ration bar made an encore performance while she leaned on a pole, one of the few remnants of the palisade. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and with renewed determination, she trudged back into the camp to see if she could find any gear she could use. She swore she would make the barbarians pay for the slaughter, but she had to push away that thought and focus. Carelessness and anger would only lead to ruin.

_____

“Is she still there?” Thaer asked, wincing as pain lanced through his side. He broke a couple of ribs, at least, and it was a good thing his codpiece was tough yet flexible otherwise he probably should kill himself. Still, his side will heal and his manhood was safe.

“No, she left for the invaders camp a few minutes ago,” Iarl answered.

“Let’s continue then. But walk slow.”

“Yes.”

Thaer grimaced as they walked on. Their two captives were quite eye-catching and he wouldn’t mind having his way with the feisty blonde. He licked his lips but froze when he remembered her attack. He gulped instead. Well, nobody would touch them unless they became truly part of the tribe.

It would take a few days to reach T’Pyun at the rate they were going. The other blooded warriors would have already returned, carrying loot and captives with them. Their tracks were quite clear. Still, it wouldn’t do to join up with the rest of the tribe and frighten their stalker to flee. How would he answer to the Progenitor if they allowed that?

But as long as they gave her hope that she could rescue her friends, she would follow.

Thaer only wished that when the Progenitor was done with the girl, she would be given to him. He’d enact his revenge then.

He twitched at the twinge of pain between his legs.

Very well, revenge after he got himself an iron codpiece.