“The night hides a world, but reveals a universe.”

- Terry Gotham

They pressed on until dusk.

“Would that it was still summer we could have reached the main road with another hour or two of daylight.” The corpulent wizard, Villier Gorms, sighed.

“Everything would be better in summer.” Calvin shook frozen mud and slush from his feet tapping his boot against a treestump.

Zhira, the scout materialized out of the gloom between the trees and raised an eyebrow. “Please try to not make such a racket. I heard you two vales over. There are undead in the forest. I killed some but there will be more.”

Alyssa gave a small smile while watching the interplay and raised herself laboriously from the cart. Everything was aching, and her headache was killing her. All around, the students and teachers began to erect tents and ignite a fire. If tapping your feet against a tree was enough to irritate Zhira the woman would not have a good time of it. Turning the white-haired teenager stood up shakily before she was grabbed by Mireille, who had been hovering nearby.

“How are you?” The redhead asked quietly and kept an eye on the fire mage Escaldis who eyed them from a distance.

“Well enough. The headache is slowly getting better but being bumped around in the cart was nearly worse.” Alyssa rubbed her back.

“Would that I could simply heal you.” Alea frowned.

“I don’t know since when that has been a bad idea, but I fear I have to do it myself- but thanks for the thought.” Alyssa smiled at the smaller girl. Butler One stood behind her, the shadows fell across the porcelain mask, and only the slight whirring of cogs and gears showed that he was still active.

“We should try to get a tent of our own. I would prefer not to be separated.” Vivienne interjected.

“That seems prudent.” Annabeth agreed, missing the complicated look that the half-elf shot in her direction. The brunette stood close to Valens, who, despite his usual demeanor, seemed relatively comfortable with her presence.

All in all, the students that had been rescued were fifty to sixty in number, which spoke to either horrific casualties, or, more likely that some had not been at the camp. There were ten teachers including Calvin if he was counted as such. Military personnel was far fewer having been sent away by the Nordmarks before the attempted hostage-taking. There were merely six. The Lieutenant Philias von Drauer’s End was not among them. Alyssa was unsure if that was a good or bad thing, as he had seemed a bit competent.

The general mood was subdued as some of them had lost friends in the conflict. Those that had been wounded most severely were still in recovery.

Sarah had taken charge of distributing the supplies they had liberated and there was already a queue running up to a steaming cauldron holding a stew which was ladled into waiting cups in lieu of other tableware.

Mireille blushed as her stomach grumbled, and Alyssa gave a small laugh. “Let us go and try to get a least a cup of hot soup.” absentmindedly, she brushed over her left hand, which felt icy to the touch, but there was no discomfort- other than the cramps and aches from the uncomfortable ride.

Soon they were standing together, waiting for their turn. The sun sank slowly behind the distant mountains and bathed the sky in red. The wind rustled between the branches of the fir trees lining the clearing beside the muddy road. Breath steamed, and the cold air was like small needles pricking their throat and lungs.

“Does this thing still work?” Mireille patted her coat where the heat-generating runes were located. “It’s cold!” She shivered and looked grumpy.

“I do think you should refresh them. Alea, do you have some crystal dust left?”

Cecily, the spider, turned, and crystal lenses focused on Alyssa. “Yes, I packed, expecting the field training to take much longer.”

“It’s not over yet.” Vivienne gave a half-grin.

“Are you cold?” Annabeth asked Valens and fished a scarf from her backpack. She was already tightly wrapped in a similar one herself- it seemed to be a spare.

Offered the knitted band of cloth, the half-elf blinked embarrassedly but then took the warm fabric throwing it around his neck. “Th...thank you.” He said quietly. The red from the sunset seemed a bit more prominent on his cheeks.

Smiling, Annabeth patted some snow from his shoulders. “I was only carrying it around anyway. Glad that it sees some use.”

Vivienne gritted her teeth. That was not exactly the first time her good-looking brother found someone to care for him- which he needed, regarding this she had no illusions. But the care should come from her and not some unreliable person that got close to him on a whim. She would wait and see where that went.

Vanessa looked at the spindly appendages waving like fronds in a deep lake and rubbed her forehead in annoyance. “Do you understand me?”

A single eye opened and looked at her, blue light gathering in the middle. As always, it was the only thing of beauty on this shadowy being.

She had deliberated and then summoned several Shadelings. Those small creatures served well in the role of scout or spy and, if sufficiently motivated, should make finding...mh.

And there was the problem.

Did she want to find the last person to walk away from the ritual site? Or perhaps the one that had appeared on that tower and killed that old man? And what about the flitting ‘something’ she had observed?

Vanessa grimaced. And for a second there flashed before her inner eye the countenance of a certain snake-woman. Worriedly she thought- How was she faring? Did the army attack? Was the defense of the tribes sufficient? She had the utmost confidence in Sirviel, but the dryad was not exactly ‘normal’ and how she would react to an attack was...uncertain.

She balled her fist and, with an angry snarl, hit a tree cracking the wood and shaking loose copious amounts of snow that drenched her from head to toe. The one eye of the shadeling inspected her seriously, and the small creature seemed to be thinking deeply, leaning slightly forward. Several other glowing blue eyes stared at her from the surrounding shadows.

If Vanessa could have blushed, she would have at that point.

“Hunt after the person who last left the ritual site.” She pointed at soft indentations in the snow she had tracked to this small path into the woods. Suppressing her embarrassment, she brushed snow from her face and made an impatient gesture. “Hurry up!”

The little ball of limbs and suckers arrayed around a shadowy lean form shrunk back from her shout and together with perhaps a half-dozen others vanished into the darkness between the trees.

Patting the rest of the snow from her clothes, she took a whiff from her sleeve and sighed. It had been some time since Kronenburg. Gesturing, she focused and called glyphs into being, arranging them just so. After incanting a complicated spell dirt and water streamed from her hands into a ball hanging before her. Gesturing, she sent it splashing under a fir tree. A delicate fragrance floated around her, frayed threads and cuts fused back together, and the fabric regained its luster.

She wore a thickly woven woolen coat with an upturned collar around an embroidered hood dyed a deep black. Buttons made of horn kept it together over her leather-reinforced tunic and pants. Inscribed bracers made of leather and mithril peeked from beneath her sleeves and a broad leather belt festooned with pouches encircled her tiny waist. Steel shod boots completed her attire. A satchel hung behind her back. She had taken the time to anchor a spatial inversion inside of it and so had more than enough room for all her necessities. Sadly the gentle flowery scent was wholly illusory in nature. She would not have someone track her, aided by her vanity.

At least she had good clothing again. She would have to thank Iseret for the recommendation when she saw her again.

Lightening herself with magic she began to chase after the departing Shadelings, a fleeting shadow among the swaying trees.

Calvin twisted his neck and felt his vertebrae popping. Tramping through the woods in winter, what was he thinking? Leaning back against the tree he had chosen for the relatively snow-free ground around it, he shifted his seat to a more comfortable and less prickly position. The fir tree had rained a lot of needles, but his leather trousers coped reasonably well.

The students and teachers were organizing the camp, and he had done his part. But now he really needed a bit of peace and quiet.

“Calvin? What is happening here?” Kira, the older girl, had her dark hair braided into a thick strand hanging down her back and looked a lot better than when he had picked her up with her friend. Clothes from the camp made her seem much more like a traveler rather than a vagabond.

“Mh. That is difficult to explain. You know that I was looking for something around the Nordmark fief?”

“Yes, and you were only pretending,” Gina interjected helpfully.

“And what I found wasn’t good, so I tried to get the news to someone who could do more with it than I.”

“Mh.”

“And then there were the Nordmark soldiers trying to take everyone hostage.”

“Mh.”

“And then Alyssa summoned hordes of undead which, while helpful, was problematic, to say the least.”

“Alyssa is the strange white-haired girl? That was pretty scary.” Gina shuddered.

“So. Now we try to reach Fort Wolfsbane.” Uncomprehending eyes looked at him. “A fort to the southeast. And when we get there, we will probably make for Kronenburg.” ‘I hope.’ He added internally.

The students sat in small groups beneath the trees and drank the soup Sarah, and her helpers had cooked up. Smoke rose lazily into the slowly darkening sky. Stars multiplied in number as the sun's light no longer obscured them. He recognized the Leviathan, the constellation of Thyomena the Wavemother, and the Chalice, dedicated to Charys the Drinker of Tears. Making a small respectful gesture, he hoped the deity of endings and sorrow would keep an eye on the unwanted revenants infesting these woods.

The air was bitter cold, and Calvin regretted not having grabbed a cup. But he had his travel rations and did not want to impose. “Did you get something to eat?”

“Mh.” Kira nodded and blew on her cup of soup before taking another large swallow. She grimaced and breathed rapidly, fanning her mouth as the scaldingly hot beverage slid down her throat. Coughing and with tears in her eyes, she looked angrily at her stocky friend as Gina giggled at the sight.

Calvin gave a short laugh and passed her his waterskin.

A crackle from a breaking branch alerted him, and he jumped to his feet before turning toward the woods. Between the trees, a shambling figure passed a gap in the foliage, and starlight fell on a nearly bare skull; scraps of decayed flesh clung to the temples, and the jaw hung open, exposing battered teeth. Grimly Calvin raised his staff, and with a short incantation, flames raced along the runes and inscriptions before a lance of searing energy shot at the undead stumbling near. Impacting the chest region, the whole skeleton was illuminated brilliantly before a fiery explosion burst the ribcage and shattered the spine. Spinning bone fragments impacted the surrounding trees, and screams of alarm came from the surrounding camp.

“Undead in the woods! Keep to the clearing! No one hares off into the dark!” Calvin shouted before pushing the two girls in the direction of the campfires. “You too! Go!”

Gina nodded and pulled the still coughing Kira with her throwing a worried glance at Calvin.

Flitting shadows surrounding the fallen undead crept over the snow-covered ground before one of them dove down into the earth, and soon enough, with an explosion of frozen dirt and slush, the skeletal form of a small animal, a badger perhaps, rose from its apparently not-final rest. Rotten, frozen flesh barely covered the small bones, and dried eyeballs stared sightlessly yellowed teeth snapped in silent rage.

Concentrating again, he gestured, and a force bolt shattered the newly risen undead.

All around, similar scenes repeated themselves as mages and students shot magical energies at the encroaching undead.

With the warning and the overwhelming firepower of a group full of aspiring mages, there was no contest. But Calvin shuddered to think what a family of peasants would do in the same situation. Die horribly, most likely.

Alea conjured a floating eye made of glyphs shining with brilliant light that emitted flashes of deadly radiance that nearly melted the undead hit by it. The automaton accompanying her silently dispatched a small undead bird hopping toward her.

And then it was quiet again.

“What the hell was that!?” Calvin stormed back toward the center of the camp.