Chapter 5

Intruder

The rustling of branches and forced quiet movement of bare feet sliding against grass awoke Lykan. His heightened senses alerted him to the danger. At first, his mind went to a slithering snake, but these were much larger footsteps than what he had envisioned. His advanced mind and heightened senses worked in tandem to help show the size of the person, no people, that were coming his way.

Bandits?

That was the first thought that went through his mind as he was suddenly wide awake and on his feet, trusty spear in hand. He looked around for the source of the sounds but saw nothing. At least not at first. He blinked his eyes as his mind began filling in the all too familiar source of magic right in front of him. Realizing that he was against Mages, he took in a shuddering breath. He quickly slung his coin pouch over his shoulder. He, unfortunately, had nothing else of value.

He thought about eventually getting a pack that he could use to carry food, but he felt such thoughts would be for when he was out of danger.

Instead, Lykan dropped the point of his spear to be level with the invisible humanoid in front of him.

The person in front stopped, but the movement of others around continued. He turned his spear to point at the next closest, who likewise stopped.

Whispers.

A faint melodic sound carried on the breeze. It was clear that the people were using some form of magic to communicate with each other. Likely using the wind magic to obfuscate the sounds being made. But even muffled, the sounds were easily distinguishable as Elven. No, not just Elven. The Elven spoken by High Wood Elves. These were supposed to be the leaders of the dense magic forests, the protectors of the sacred lands. After hearing them speak, Lykan realized he might be on some type of sacred soil.

“I mean you no harm,” Lykan said, speaking the dialect he heard.

He didn’t want to fight. Truth was, he was tired and had merely collapsed from exhaustion after everything he had been through.

A presence moved behind him. So he shuffled back and to the right before anyone could react. He was in a small sandbar that he had noticed earlier. One that sat just an inch below the water’s surface. This was a great spot as it meant that should anyone try to flank him from behind would either need to walk on water or would make a splashing sound. While there were stories of people being able to walk on water using high magics, the odds that people would be able to cast both invisibility a high air spell and water walking a high water spell were minimal. That said, he hoped that should they try, his enhanced senses would pick up such an attempt. At least that was what he hoped.

“Sleep!” A female appeared, the cloak of her illusion falling away as light blue light shot out. It was clear from her sharp ears and ethereal beauty that she was, in fact, an Elf. Lykan would have found himself smitten by such a figure had she not immediately introduced herself by firing a spell at him.

This spell was the air equivalent of resting. This spell was a pact of sorts with nature, for anyone hit by the elements to sleep in such a way as to be treated as a friend. Not that Lykan knew this. No to his perception, he was being attacked.

As before, the spell shot forward, wrapped around his body, and then filled his aching muscles with much-needed energy. The tension he had felt was mostly gone.

Now Lykan realized that he might be able to use energy to help supplement food, as the slight pains of hunger he had been feeling were missing.

Everyone stayed still as Lykan just leveled his spear at the nearest invisible person who was walking forward.

“You missed,” the voice from in front of him hissed. It was clear that this person was a male.

“Sleep,” she tried again, though just like last time, the magic came, swirled, and finally entered Lykan’s body. What she didn’t know, what no one realized, was that even though the spell had not taken effect, the bonding oath of the spell had been engaged. Worse, it had been engaged twice, meaning that should any violence occur against the boy happen, she would suffer twice as much punishment as normal. To have a simple violation meant the loss of magic for a year. No one knew what problems would cause from attacking someone who was twice bonded.

“Enough of this, I will deal with him myself,” the invisible Elf who spoke a moment before said as he charged forward.

“No!” an old voice cried out from behind. Yet, her words were too late. Violence had been enacted.

The charging Elf only meant to subdue the boy, who he thought was more of a danger to himself than anything walking around the woods unprotected with a dangerous weapon.

The Elf appeared the moment his intention to cause violence was seen. This was the moment when he was no longer protected by the old magics of the woods and the sacred treaties they entail. For when they were invisible, they were not just hidden from the eye but the world as a whole. Even the great Spider Stalkers that plagued this land could not capture a hidden High Wood Elf who made a commitment to the woods.

Though their minds were still vulnerable to the Spider Stalkers, which was why the High Wood Elves often traveled lightly through the forests. Yet, the spiders had all been killed. When searching to find what could have broken the delicate balance of the forest, the search team found a boy who seemed barely old enough to have his initial awakening cast out.

This was not the first time such a child was found this deep in the forests. Human children often found themselves cast out for one reason or another. While the sacred woods forced the High Wood Elves to cherish these lives, the most any could do would be to heal them up, then set them on the path where they could find others.

The way of the High Wood Elves was one of balance.

Yet the Elf before Lykan, Ghane, was hot-tempered. He had been on edge looking for a great predator and didn’t have time to play looking after a child while a predator could easily cut down a swarm of Spider Stalkers. He knew that should a child die in the forest, the forest would not take kindly to the death and would punish the High Wood Elves for their lack of vigilance. Thus why, when faced with this situation, it was best to move in and subdue the child with a quick strike to the temple before any monsters were attracted by the disturbance.

Thus when Ghane moved to strike, he felt his greater experience and attributes to be more than enough to knock the blue-tipped stick away from the boy and subdue him long enough to take him where he could be safe.

Clank, twink.

The two weapons met. And as expected, the blue-tipped spear in the boy’s hand was, in fact, made out of densely powerful metal. What was not expected was the fact that the boy not only met the strike but perfectly deflected it and sliced down.

In a second, Ghane went from wielding a great Elven blade to being unarmed, literally. The arm that had once held the great sword was now spraying forth blood in a spray that filled the sacred waters.

“GHAHH!” a female voice cried out. A quick sound and glance proved the voice of the one screaming belonged to the woman who tried to cast some form of sleep spell on him.

While he was confused about the reason, he could not say he was sad about the results. Two down, three, no four to go.

There were four as a new older Elf moved forward.

“Stop this at once!” the voice that had called out to stop earlier cried out. Her tall, lithe frame appeared next to the woman who had collapsed to the ground in pain.

The other three who had been invisible a moment ago now all appeared. They looked around in confusion for a second but then stood still as lifetimes of training kicked in, forcing them to follow orders of their superior.

“Priestess, are you okay?” the woman who was in charge called out. Her words were loud enough to even drown out the voice of the screaming Elf, who was desperately backing away from Lykan.

He made it to the nearest of his fellow guards. Lykan watched as the guard he had backed into began casting a golden green spell over the body. In an instant, the blood stopped pouring. It looked like they were about to do more when the guard suddenly let out a long breath. It was clear from a glance that the dense energy that had filled the guard’s body was now empty.

Healing energy is likely very taxing, Lykan thought. That or the guard had the barest Ability to cast such a potent spell.

“You will have to go to the healer for more,” the healing guard said as he took in a deep breath of air.

The arm, or what was left of it, still lay near Lykan’s feet. Its fingers still gripping the sword in a death grip.

Lykan’s eyes scanned the area. He could only see the six but figured there were likely more.

“My magic, it’s gone. I’ve lost the source,” the woman who had collapsed to the ground cried out, shock in her voice.

With that sudden statement, everyone turned their eyes back to him. Everyone eyed him angrily.

Seeing the tension, the leader of this group held up her arms without a weapon. The weapons she could wield were fastened to her hip, within easy grabbing distance. Seeing that Lykan’s eyes spotted the weapon, she gingerly reached down and unlatched the sword from her hip. Then with a fluid motion, she threw the sword back behind her.

“Everyone back up,” she called out.

While the other guards didn’t seem to want to listen to the command, they obeyed it all the same.

Once they had all gone back to be near the downed Priestess, the Commander spoke, “What are you?”

“Lykan Vita.”

The Commander shook her head. “No, I know who you are. Any scout worth their bark can glean your name with a basic inspection skill. What exactly are you? You are no mere boy. Yet your messages from the Gods could tell us otherwise.”

Shock filled her face as she stared at Lykan. Then she took a step forward as if to get a better look at Lykan. She was doing that and more. Her eyes were using the Wood Forest Ability to analyze which went deeper. This form of analysis went down to the very soul of an individual and showed the truer aspects of a person. These were the aspects that many would wish to keep hidden.

“You were cast out for being a Null. But you changed that somehow. Recently too,” she said, reading the strike-through texts that spun off into two new Magical Abilities that helped explain what was happening. As soon as she came to the line about Energy Absorption Maximum, everything made sense.

“You evolved your Ability. Then managed to max it out not once, but twice,” she said, her voice trembling as she continued reading. “Your Skills, too, have been evolved, and you are but eleven?”

She shook her head. What she was reading made no sense. Especially not for happening to one so small.

Then an idea hit her. “Were you the one who took out the nest of Spider Stalkers?” she asked.

“Those big spider things? Yeah, what of it?” he asked.

Hearing the words, everyone took a step back. Well, everyone that is except for the Captain, who took an involuntary step forward.

She still had her hands out as if trying to calm a wild animal. Seeing the look on his face and the way he easily sliced off Ghane’s arm, she realized the fear and caution were well warranted.

“We have made a terrible mistake. Please allow me to be the first to offer our sincere apologies. But our magic is odd. The Priestess here bound her magic to you. So now, in order for her to ever regain her Ability to interact with the source, she must make amends. Please come with us. I promise you no harm will come to you from any of our people,” the Commander said.

Lykan shook his head, still not trusting the evil looks being shot his way from the guard he had disarmed.

“Our magic is about balance and order. When she cast her sleep spell on you, she bound her spirit to you. When you resisted or rather absorbed the effects, the magic still bound her to you, even though it had no effect on you. Thus when you were attacked by a moron,” she said the last part while glaring daggers at the now one-armed Ghane.

Ghane, for his part, looked down and away as if properly chastised.

“Please come with us. We will need to discuss a few things. But realize that should anyone else attack you, worse fates would happen to our Priestess here,” the Commander said, pointing to the woman who was only now coming to her feet with the help of one of the free guards.

The others, now realizing the seriousness of the situation, went from giving glaring looks to looks of true embarrassment toward Lykan. Everyone that is except for Ghane, who was still angry about his missing an arm.

Tensions were running high. The Commander felt sweat pour down her neck as she tried to figure out what would happen next. She thought that she would likely have to force the Priestess on him anyways if he decided to leave. Then she feared for the livelihood of a High Wood Elf Priestess who was sent to human lands without the protection of their magic to aid them. She shuddered at the thought of what would happen, but such a fate would be necessary.

Now that the bonds of magic had been severed, they could only be reforged by near-constant exposure to each other for at least a year. Though given the circumstances of her having cast two spells back to back, it would likely be two or more years before she could even touch the source again. That was, of course, assuming the forest forgave her for breaking the sacred sanctity of peace. This whole event was a mess, this kid was clearly more than they had expected, and he clearly had managed to do many things. Given the scope and change of his Skills and Magical Abilities, she would swear he was some form of demon. If it had not been for the blessings of the sacred woods telling her; otherwise, she would likely have tried to kill this boy on sight. His whole appearance seemed to contradict the world as she knew it, and she had known the world for quite some time.

Fortunately, before things could get out of hand, he spoke, “Could we eat?”

The words were so out of place that she felt herself laughing. She quickly stopped herself as she realized the boy was being completely serious. She took a look at him and the state of his clothing and apparel, along with the fact that he didn’t have a backpack or anything, and realized he was serious.

Realizing he was serious, her emotions went from laughing at the absurdity to pangs of sadness and regret. Here was a boy who had clearly been through an ordeal, cleared out a pack of Spider Stalkers, passed out on the banks, only to be awoken and attacked by High Wood Elves.

“Yes. Please eat with us while you at least hear of our offer?” the Commander said. While she had tried to prevent the attack on the boy, the fact that the Priestess was under her control when she lost her magic made this at least partially her fault.

“Okay.”

With that one simple word, the tension that had been in the Commander’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. Now that that is out of the way, I am Reyna, the Commander of this group of normally disciplined soldiers,” Commander Reyna said, directing her glare directly at Ghane.

“Ghane is the man you uh, disarmed. Kirgil is the one who stopped the bleeding. Our Priestess who is now bound to you, until the forest forgives her for this breach of its laws, is Octavia. Then to round us out, we have Sleena and Salena who are fraternal twins,” the Commander said, pointing out each and every person as she went around the group.

Once introductions were out of the way, Lykan nodded and placed his spear back on the sling that he had created. He figured that he could at least use the Elves to provide a warm meal and shelter long enough for him to be able to rest and continue his journey.

Seeing that the others all sheathed their weapons, everyone but Ghane, who had his weapon, returned to its sheath by Kirgil. Once that was done, the group made their way slowly through the woods. While they were all visible, knowing that the Spider Stalkers were killed made the trip a little easier to accomplish.