“Now that we have figured out our plans we should probably gather in our own small groups and figure out exactly how we are going to accomplish our separate tasks.” Milo said this with a glance at his guards who were nodding approvingly. They most likely wanted to discuss formations. Like who would charge in first and things like that. Darius agreed with Milo and huddled into a small circle with his guards. They were going to figure out how to get as many enemies to follow them as possible and then how to deal with them all without any of our allies getting caught in the crossfire and to do it without anyone getting injured. Meanwhile I gestured to all of my guards to follow me a little ways away for a little more privacy and then we started talking about how they would signal me to come back as soon as the enemy began to anticipate me. More likely than not I would not notice that our enemies were starting to anticipate my movements faster then they would. I, just like tons of other warriors, could get caught up in a fight and not think about anything past my very next move. While I was working on it, I was still a long ways away from being a strategic warrior in battle.

We determined that the best way to signal me was for all of them to whistle at the same exact time. That way it would hopefully rise above the sounds of the battle and reach me wherever I was on the battlefield. Our next problem that we had to find a solution for was how my guards would be able to even watch our enemies close enough to see when they were starting to realize what I could do and where I was going next. If they were level with them then they likely would not be able to even see where I was. Never mind the faces of the enemy. However they also couldn’t be in a place where they wouldn’t be able to reach me in time if something bad happened. For example if I suddenly got too tired and my presence failed me. They would have no chance of reaching me in order to save me. We racked our brains trying to think of something, but nothing that we came up with-- which wasn’t much to begin with-- would actually work. They all had an element or part that made that idea unusable. For instance, we thought that maybe they could be up on the wall and that way they could see everything and then could sprint down the stairs if they saw me in danger.

With that idea though, there were way too many stairs for them to get to me in time. Not even they were that fast. A couple of my guards, Casey and Alex, muttered to themselves that they should have been working out more. However I just shook my head. “No matter how much any of you worked out, you still never would have been fast enough to make that plan work.” Which of course my words just made all of them start muttering and saying that they were going to prove me wrong one day. To bring them back on track I pointed out that we had to be alive and free for them to even have a chance of accomplishing that goal. That snapped them back into the present and they all nodded to show that they were ready to plan again. After running through several more ideas we were finally forced to admit that we had no ideas left. “What if we asked Brendon if he had any ideas for where you all could be?” That made everyone go silent as they pondered that thought.

“That is actually a really good idea. He knows this village inside and out. If anyone could think of somewhere for us to be, it would be him.” Liam’s voice sounded so surprised that I was slightly offended by it.

“Why do you sound surprised that I offered up a good idea?” Liam immediately knew he had to step carefully now in order to calm me down. Otherwise he was going to be in a lot of hot water soon. He glanced at the others for help but they all smiled. They were enjoying this too much to help him out. Plus they all wanted to see how he would handle it on his own. It turned out that he was pretty good at it. At least good enough to get himself out of trouble.

“I wasn’t exactly surprised at your idea. I was surprised that we didn’t think of that before. Honestly it just shows that we have grown too reliant on ourselves. We need to start thinking about how the others around us can help us.” His anxious gaze settled on me as the rest of my guards all got thoughtful looks on their faces as they silently agreed with Liam. They weren’t going to say anything however because they wanted to see I was still offended and would lash out at them for agreeing with him. Secretly glad that I could scare them all like this I decided to let them off the hook.

“It is true that we rely too much on ourselves. From now on we need to take that into consideration. You are off the hook for sounding surprised about my idea now Liam. Don’t think that lets you off the hook in the future though.” I threw that last part in as an afterthought. I didn’t want them to get too comfortable after all. What would be the fun in that? As a group we strolled over to where the nearest stranger was and got their attention.

“Would you be able to do something for us?” Alex said this politely and made sure that his posture was non-aggressive. We knew that the strangers were still wary of us. They had made us their captives and were waiting for some kind of retribution. They didn’t realize that we were already over it. Over half of us had already been taken captive once before not that long ago so it wasn’t like it was anything new for us.

The stranger had jumped a little when he had recognized that we were talking to him, but now he calmed his nerves with a deep breath and replied, “It depends on what you want me to do.”

Glad by his answer, it wasn’t like we were going to ask a hard thing from him, Alex said, “We were just wondering if you could go and talk to the old man for us.” He paused for a moment when he saw the confused expression on the stranger’s face. It appeared that some hadn’t heard what we called their Master yet. “We call your Master the old man.” His confusion melted away to reveal both understanding and indecision. I figured that he was thinking about whether he should take that as an insult to his Master or not. Seeming to come to the same conclusion as me Alex distracted him by asking the rest of his question. “Anyways we were hoping that you would ask permission of him for us to be able to visit Brendon. He used to be the leader of this village before you arrived.” Once he had thought it over for a moment he ran off in the direction of the old man. He probably thought that it would be important for the old man to know that we wanted to talk to Brendon even if he wasn’t going to give us permission to see him. And I was sure that he was positive that we would not get the permission we wanted.

On the other hand I was thinking that our request would get granted. The old man seemed to be willing to do whatever it would take to win this battle and us talking to Brendon would give us a better advantage in this fight. Then we would be in the best position to help in this fight. When the stranger jogged back to us he got close enough that we could see him and meet his eyes so that we knew he was gesturing to us to follow him instead of someone else. Jogging out to meet him we headed into the old man’s house and stepped up to his bed in the middle of the room. “It is good to see you again. How have you been doing? Are your people ready for the coming battle?” I was the one who was speaking since I knew the old man the best.

“I am doing as well as can be expected. If you are wondering if I am feeling weaker or if my mental capacities are shrinking then no. I feel the same as the last time we met. As for my people, they are as ready for this battle as they will ever be. The only thing left to do is to get into position as soon as the enemy is spotted outside of this village. Back to why you are actually in my house though. You wish to speak to Brendon? Why?” The honest curiosity in his eyes showed me that he was open to the idea of us talking to Brendon as long as we had a good enough reason.

“My guards and I have a bit of a problem. We don’t know the best spot in this village for my guards to observe the battle that is also close enough for them to join the battle in a moment’s notice. We figured that the best way to figure that out would be to talk to the one person who knows this village best. That person happens to be Brendon.” A thought suddenly hit me then and I knew I had to ask. “Also I am very curious about something.” The old man’s eyes told me to continue so I did. “Why did you not use your presence to help your people the last time these intruders attacked?” The old man’s eyes grew sad as he thought about that day.

“I would have. However in order to use my presence on them, they have to be in my line of sight. The only ones that I could use my presence on that day were my guards and all they used it for was crying me out of that place.” He shook his head in such a weak way that I could barely see that movement. “Alright then, getting back on topic, I will allow you to go visit Brendon.” Looking at one of his guards he seemed to communicate to him with his eyes. The guard sighed and waved their hand to get us to follow him out of the house. Staying two steps behind him we paid close attention to where we were going. If the strangers broke their promises after the battle was over then we would need to know where everyone else was being kept in order to free them in the shortest amount of time possible. I didn’t think that they would break their promises, but there was always a possibility and we needed to be prepared for everything. My guards were on my same page and were studying everything around us and were figuring out which building we were heading towards. Our guide glanced back at us and their eyes tightened when they figured out what we were doing. It wasn’t like we were trying to hide our actions.

An expression of indecision came onto his face as he debated whether or not he should do something about it. When he finally came to a decision he turned back to look where he was going. He had decided that there was nothing he could do to prevent us from looking. Or at least nothing that wouldn’t get him in trouble with the old man. We all shared a quick glance of triumph before going back to what we were doing. Eventually we got to the very back of the village right up against the wall and spotted a large house there. All of the doors were closed and tons of guards were surrounding it. It was pretty obvious that this was where they were. Kind of disappointed that we did all that observing for nothing, I wondered if our guide had known that this place stood out that much because I doubted that if they did that they would have debated what to do about us looking around the village. Based on the smirk that he sent our way he had no idea that it looked like this. Strolling up to the guards at the house he told them quietly that we were allowed to see Brendon, but not the others in the house. One of them immediately ran inside to go get him. Only a couple seconds later he ran back out towing Brendon behind me.

All of us let out a relieved breath that we hadn’t even known that we had been holding in. He seemed to be in perfect health. We had been slightly afraid, no matter how we had been treated, that he had been mistreated. He was the leader of this village and he didn’t have a presence after all. Speaking of presences I snuck a look at Darius when I felt something flare to life inside me. He was looking right at me when I met his eyes and from the excited look in his eyes he felt it as well. Our presences had just come back. Grabbing each other's hands in a gentle reminder of restraint, we were on their side technically now, we held our excitement in. The battle would be starting within the next 24 hours and we would be able to go wild during that. Gathering in a circle with Brendon in the middle we stepped a couple steps away from the strangers to get a little bit of privacy and began whispering to Brendon. “We needed to talk to you. There will be a battle between our current captors and the ones who took over their old village within a day. We have decided to join that fight. The enemy you know is better than the one you don't, right?”

Brendon had seemed shocked for a moment but now sighed. “I agree with that even if I don’t particularly don’t want to. They haven’t treated us badly so it would be better staying with them then taking a chance with the others. Plus then you can figure out a way to break the rest of us free while you are running around free.” He soon realized there was something else that we hadn’t told him. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”

“The strangers, our current captors, have promised that they will leave this village to us if they win this fight.” A hopeful gleam appeared in his eyes. They could break their promise, but at least it was more than not giving us that promise at all. “They will go back to their own village and you will be the leader of this village once again.”

“I assume that you will all be going back to Raetis once you are free?” His tone was so matter of factly and we knew that was what he would do if he was in our place.

Gazing at my guards I knew what they wanted me to say so I said it. “Yes. We will be heading back to Raetis after we are free. It is probably safer for us there than here. Even if we are being threatened.” Brendon’s gaze sharpened and I remembered that I had not told him about that. Shaking my head to forestall his question I spoke up again. “It is not important right now. Lets focus on why we have actually come to talk to you. My guards need a spot that is close enough to the battle to join it in an instant, but is high enough up that they can view at least most of the battle from there.” He pondered this and studied the parts of his village that he could see. From the way his eyes looked glazed we knew that he was seriously thinking over every part of his village. His eyes even closed to think about it better.

When his eyes snapped open we took that as a sign that he knew the perfect spot. Thankfully we were correct. “There is a house by the front gate that has a secret room. It is near the top of the house and has a great view of the area all around the front gate. There is a chute that goes down to the front door of that house for a speedy exit. The house is a light green color and has a brown door. It should be pretty easy to spot. To find the secret entrance to the secret room, tap on the wall to the left of the fireplace.” Tyler actually hugged Brendon after he gave us this information because he was so happy that they now had a spot where they could help me out the most. Brendon looked so shocked by this that the rest of us had to laugh at him.

“We have to get going now. Honestly the new intruders could show up any minute now and we need to be in position before then.” I said this partially because it was true and partially to get Tyler to stop hugging Brendon. Waving goodbye to him as a couple of guards pulled him back into the house, we turned and ran as soon as we couldn’t see him anymore. We knew that the lookouts on the top of the walls would warn us when the intruders came into view, but we had to make sure that we knew how to get in and out of the secret room by that point. It would be bad if we had only found the entrance to the secret room by the time the intruders showed up and I had to join the fight. I definitely knew that my guards would panic and they might try to stop me from leaving. Not that they could, but it would be at least slightly annoying. Finding the house that Brendon had talked about, we ripped open the door and rushed inside. Reaching the fireplace we all began examining the wall to the left of it. Our hands all started searching for something that felt different from the rest of the wall. Our frustration grew more and more as we continued to not find anything. As several minutes passed we were beginning to wonder if we should go back to Brendon and ask him to help us open the wall to get to the secret room. Soon after we had that thought however, Liam’s hand went over a small bump on the wall.

Hurrying to put his hand back onto the small irregularity he pushed on it. A quiet click sounded and all of our attention turned to Liam. When he started pushing on the wall to move it to the left we all helped him. Grinning at each other once the wall was completely open, we ran up the steps two at a time until we reached the top. The last person to enter the stairwell closed the secret door behind them by pushing gently on it. Throwing open the door at the top of the stairs we piled into the secret room. There were several small windows along one of the walls and Alex went over to check out what you could see from them. This would be a useless discovery if Brendon was wrong and you couldn’t see where the battle was going to take place. Giving us a thumbs up when he saw that the windows overlooked the correct spot, we then started looking for the chute that Brendon had talked about. While we were still in the middle of searching, shouting came from outside and we knew that the intruders had been spotted. The search became more frantic as my guards tried to find the chute before I had to leave the room and join the fight. Meanwhile, I went over to the windows and peered down at the world below. I needed to know the exact moment that the fighting began.

My hands were getting sweaty now that the time of the battle was in sight. Wiping them anxiously on my pants I rested my left hand on my sword to attempt to steady my nerves a little. The feel of the hard steel under my palm did quite a bit to calm me down. It made me feel more in control and ready for what was coming. The sound of steel hitting steel came from outside and I knew that the battle had officially arrived. Tightening my grip on the hilt of my sword I took a deep breath and readied my presence. I didn’t start using it yet, but I made sure that I could begin using it at any moment. A yell of triumph sounded behind me and I glanced over my shoulder. A floorboard had been pried up to reveal the chute and all of my guards’ hands were raised in celebration. Clapping my hands together for a moment to congratulate them I soon turned back to the window. The main gate shuddered a little as the intruders tried to open it. Either they were hitting it with a battering ram or they were trying to scale it. No matter which way they were doing, they would soon be in the village if the shuddering gate was any proof. My eyes were glued to the gate so I almost missed the commotion that occurred on the two walls right by the gate when ropes were thrown onto them and people started to climb.

The strangers tried to cut the ropes, but for some reason they weren’t able to. No matter how hard or how many times they hacked at them, they wouldn’t cut. It didn’t even seem like the ropes were fraying. I could have been mistaken though because I was so far away. Hoping with all my might that I was mistaken, my hopes sank when the first intruder made it onto the top of the wall. Covering my mouth with my right hand I felt tears in my eyes when I saw the first stranger fall. I knew that many more were going to fall before this day was done, but that didn’t make it any easier to see. Concentrating on focusing my sadness into anger, I felt my eyes narrow as I accomplished it. These intruders weren’t going to get away with all of their cruelty. They should have been satisfied with the one village that they had taken over instead of coming here. Now they would have to face my friends and I and we were much more of a challenge to beat than the strangers. The battle on the wall was lost quickly by the strangers. The intruders were clearly the more superior fighters.

My hand began to cramp from how hard I was clenching my hand around my sword as I waited for the right time to leave this house and begin my attack. I was starting to wish that I had practiced more with my presence however. Was there a way for me to use my presence on my body, but not on my sword? That way I could fight without endangering myself at all. Closing my eyes to help banish these thoughts until after this battle was over, I promised myself that I would think about this later. Also once we were back in Raetis I was definitely going to work on my presence as much as I possibly could. Meanwhile, the battle was progressing quickly and the gates were starting to creak open. My guards were gathering around me now as they sensed my anticipation. A few of them gasped when they saw how poorly the fight was going for the strangers. They hadn’t thought that they would be this outmatched. Both in skill and numbers. “Will you tell me the right moment to jump into this fight Alex? You would know better than me.” A hint of nervousness came through in my voice.

“Of course I will Ari. I will also tell you the best place to start so that you can help the most.” Nodding my gratitude to him I stayed silent because I didn’t trust my voice anymore. The moment was drawing too close. Now all of my guards were studying the battle and analyzing the best place for me to join where I could do the most damage to the intruders. The gates were now fully open and the intruders came in like a flood. They overran the strangers initial defenses without even a pause and caused some of the strangers to panic so much that some of their ranks broke apart and allowed the intruders to defeat them easily. The farther back defenses were holding still for the moment, but there was fear on all of the remaining strangers’ faces. I had to either step in now or never. Alex had come to the same conclusion and pointed to a spot not far away from the house. “Start there and work your way to your left as you fight. That should give you the opportunity to do the most damage.” Nods came from the others as they agreed with Alex.

Giving them a quick salute I began using my presence and ran through a wall to get to the stairs and raced down them as fast as I could. Sprinting through the outer wall of the house, I smirked when I saw the shocked expressions on the intruders nearest to me and swept my sword out of its sheathe. I kept my attacks sporadic to give myself the biggest advantage and killed those who tried to cry out a warning to their allies. My sword made fast work of the enemies nearest to me and I danced my deadly dance to the spot that Alex had indicated. I only stopped using my presence an instant before my sword hit someone and turned it back on as soon as I was pulling it back out. Plus I didn’t attack everyone around me. That was not the plan. I was to cause chaos everywhere on this battlefield. So I moved from one spot to another at a jog and didn’t slow down. I fell into an odd kind of pattern and felt like I was a natural disaster. I wrought destruction everywhere I went, but no one could stop me. At least until someone got lucky. In the split second that I was vulnerable someone swung their sword slightly out of my view. It sliced pretty deep into my left shoulder before I used my presence again. After letting out a short cry of pain I clenched my teeth together and rolled my shoulder to make sure that I had full maneuverability still and concluded that it was just a flesh wound.

A very painful and pretty deep flesh wound, but nothing too serious. Getting back into a fighting stance my eyes burned with anger now and I went into a dance of vengeance. More and more people started to get lucky hits, however I didn’t slow down. I knew that if I stopped then this fight was lost. I was smart enough to signal that I needed help though. Realizing now that we hadn’t set a signal for me to say that I wanted my guards to join, I ignored everyone attempting to kill me and raised both of my hands in the air as high as I could and hoped that they could see my sword over everything. Shrugging I knew that they would either get my signal and come or they would see that I was in trouble later and come then. The only other thing that I could do to get their attention was to run all the way back to them, but that wasn’t going to happen. One, it would take too much time that I could spend creating more chaos, and two, I wasn’t completely sure that I had the energy to make it all the way there. I was almost to the wall and across basically the entire battlefield from them. Both physically and mentally I was getting tired and I knew that I had to keep going as hard as I could for as long as I could.

I remembered my promise to go back to them if I got too tired to continue, but I also knew that if we lost this fight then we were going to be in a difficult situation. We hadn’t actually talked about what we would do if the intruders won. Would we sneak away from the village and leave the strangers to be killed? I shuddered at the thought and knew that if we lost then I wouldn’t be able to leave the strangers. I would fight to the end and stay with the strangers and my friends. Focusing back on the fight I smiled wryly. Everyone around me was trying so hard to hurt me. They were making sure that at least one weapon was in my body at all times and I couldn’t help but feel a little violated. It was still my body afterall, even if I couldn’t feel their weapons. Settling back into a fighting stance I ran away from the enemies around me and headed to where I would be able to hit someone without getting hit myself. Or at least not getting hit as hard as I would hit. Finding a small pocket of space to stop using my presence, a rare find in a battle as crowded as this, I swept my sword in a large circle to keep everyone at bay for a second. Locking my eyes on the target of my choice I engaged in a battle with them.

I watched his friends out of the corner of my eyes, they would leave us to fight alone as long as their friend was winning. Once I got the upper hand they would swoop in unexpectedly and try to kill me. This forced me to think ahead a lot more than I normally would. I would have to fake like I was losing, or at least not having the advantage, until the last moment. Then I could wound or kill him and immediately turn my presence back on. I had done this a couple of times now and it was getting harder and harder to win. This intruder seemed to be a good fighter and I knew that I was in a bit of trouble. I might have to back out of this fight if it kept going the way it was going and that thought made me irritated. I hated even the thought of losing or retreating so I fought even harder. For a split second I thought that I had turned the tide and felt a rush of excitement. That passed quickly as this intruder did a perfectly executed spin move and knocked my sword from my hand. Turning my presence back on I rested my hands on my knees to help me get my breath back as the person that I had just been facing stabbed his sword through my head. His mouth dropped open and I had to let out a little chuckle. His face was too great to not.

Standing up straight I had to work hard to keep my presence going. A calculating look was on the boy’s face and I narrowed my eyes at him in a question. Then he did something that I hadn’t been expecting. He scooped up my sword and sprinted away from me. Now it was my turn for my mouth to drop open. Forcing my legs to move I staggered after him. It was too hard to keep him in my sights however. Especially since he had gotten a head start. Soon I had lost sight of him and screamed in frustration. That had been a really good sword and I was upset to have lost it. In what I thought was a huge miracle, the boy who had stolen my sword appeared in my peripheral vision. Spinning around to face him I stumbled a few steps before I had to stop. The adrenaline that had surged through my veins when I had first joined this fight was starting to dissipate and I didn’t have any strength left. Thankfully my guards had caught sight of me when I had been fighting the boy and knew that I needed them. They reached me right before I hit my knees and my presence left me. Forming a circle of protection around me they yelled at me to ask if I was injured.

I could barely get the words out. “I only have superficial injuries. Nothing that won’t heal in a day or so.” Relief spread across all of their faces’ before cold hard determination replaced it. Feeling safe, at least as safe as someone can feel in the middle of a battle, I allowed myself to sink down to the ground fully and relax my muscles. I would help them if I could, but there was no way that I would be able to do anything until I got some rest. “I am sorry, but I don’t think I will be able to help you all for a little while. I need to rest to be able to get my presence working again, and some rude boy stole my sword so I would need a new weapon before I would be able to do anything.”

There was a beat of silence that was only punctured by the clash of weapons colliding. “What do you mean some boy stole your sword?” Casey sounded pretty incredulous and I hoped that he wasn’t too distracted by my words that he got injured.

“I meant what I said. We were fighting and I was losing. He managed to disarm me and when I turned on my presence so that I didn’t die, he grabbed my sword and ran. The last time I saw him he was to my left about 50 yards away.”

Tyler was facing the direction that I had been talking about and he said, “Well I don’t see your sword anywhere, but I could just not be recognizing it. I don’t know what the boy looks like and there are a lot of swords out there after all.” I sighed sadly and hoped that I would be able to find a sword that was as good as the one that I had lost. Heaving myself to my feet I peered over Tyler’s shoulder to see if I could find the boy. He had been right. He hadn’t seen the boy so I would be the only to tell if the boy was anywhere close to us. I scanned all of the faces that were closest to us and wasn’t able to see the boy. Resigning myself to the fact that he was probably bragging to a group of his friends about stealing my sword and that he was either going to use it to hurt my allies or throw it on the ground. No matter which one he did, I was never going to see that sword again. About to sink back to the ground, my legs were shaking so hard that I was afraid they were going to give out on me, my eyes shot open in surprise when I saw an unexpected sight. The boy was coming towards us with my sword in his hands.

“There he is! He is about 100 yards away and getting closer.” Liam and Alex protected Tyler as he stared in the direction that I was pointing. A sharp nod from him told me that he saw who I was pointing out and would do his best to get my sword back. Re-establishing his position in the circle around me, he helped push back the people surrounding us until everyone had a second to breathe. “If any of you have the chance, can you give me a sword? Until I get my original sword back, I would prefer that I still have something that I can use to protect myself.” While I still had my knife, it wouldn’t help me as much as I wanted if one of these enemies made it past my guards. Before any of my guards could answer me, they were interrupted by a battle cry. Turning in the direction of the cry, we spotted Brendon and his villagers raising weapons high and charging into the battle. It appeared that the strangers had come to their senses and figured out that we were losing and needed some more help. That sight helped renew our hopes of winning this fight and when the enemy re-engaged my guards, they fought back even harder than before.

For every person that they cut down though, another would take their place. There seemed to be an endless supply of enemies and the one enemy that I actually wanted to fight was staying infuriatingly out of reach. None of my guards was able to get me a sword as well so I was stuck with my little knife. Pulling it out of its sheathe, I clutched it in my right hand and forced myself to stay on my feet. I would be defenseless on the ground and if I sat down then I wasn’t getting back up anytime soon. Slowly rotating in a circle to make sure that I knew what was happening on all sides of me, a small sigh of relief escaped my lips when Darius and his guards showed up out of nowhere. They slammed into the enemies closest to us and quickly merged into our circle. Darius’s guards shoved him into the middle with me, he was not very happy about that, and we embraced briefly. “How did your plan go?”

A gleam showed in his eyes. “It went better than I thought that it would. We managed to lure twenty-two people away from the fight and with surprise on our side we knocked them all out and tied them up. We joined the battle after that and slowly came closer and closer to you. As soon as we caught a glimpse of this circle through the bodies in between us, we rushed over here. It worked better than I thought it would. How did your plan go?”

“Pretty well. I helped out a lot of areas in this battlefield. Unfortunately in the last battle that I fought in, the person managed to disarm me and they ran off with my sword. That person is now waiting just out of reach with my sword still in his hand.” Darius and I peered over Tyler’s shoulder and I pointed the boy out. “He was very skilled with the sword and I was too tired to match his skills.”

Grabbing the tops of my arms Darius said, “Don’t worry. We will get your sword back for you. Even if we have to find him after we win this fight.” Grinning at his confidence that we were going to win, I nodded my head in agreement. Turning so that we were back to back now we moved slowly in a circle so that we were covering every side of the battle that surrounded us so that we couldn’t be attacked from behind. Our circle of guards seemed to be holding really well though. No one seemed to be getting close to being overwhelmed and if a sword got too close to any of our guards then the two people around them would help them out. Even if they didn’t need that help. I felt the boredom start to creep in and I wanted to join the circle, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen because one, I was still too tired to do much good, and two, my guards were a little too protective to allow me to put myself in danger like that. Especially since I had already done something dangerous today. Also my small injuries that I had gathered running through the battle was starting to hurt quite badly. They would most likely slow me down if I attempted to fight. I was thankful that Darius hadn’t looked too closely at me, otherwise he would have panicked and then all the guards around us would have panicked as well. That was the last thing that we needed right now.