“The essence of war is to do the unexpected. Even doing expected things at unexpected times or in unexpected ways often suffice to turn the tides of a battle.” - Liang Shi-Zu, famed tactician from the Huan Confederation.

“Coming through,” said Elfriede as she leapt towards Mischka’s broad back and climbed up towards the therian matron’s shoulder. Fortunately, due to her continued charge Mischka’s posture was leaning forward, which made it easier for Elfriede to climb on her back. She had also paid close attention to the wounds Mischka took while she climbed, as she could feel them despite being on the wrong side of the woman.

The wounds were bleeding, but shallow. They were pretty much just flesh wounds on Mischka, but Elfriede expected that the wind blades that caused them would likely cut far deeper wounds on a lightly armored human, as they lacked Mischka’s thick fur and tough skin. Even so, Elfriede’s focus at the moment shifted towards the distant end of her sense range, where she noticed that some of the enemy soldiers had gotten out of the way, probably to allow the mages a clear line of fire.

“How far?” asked Elfriede the moment her head reached the same height as Mischka’s.

“About a hundred paces, dead ahead,” grunted the therian matron with some annoyance and irritation in her voice. While the magical strikes did not injure her in any noteworthy way, it still annoyed her that a mage managed to stop her dead on her tracks during a charge like that. Already Mischka was pushing against the remnants of the stone spikes that aimed towards her and shattered them against her torso, pitting her armored mass against the stone’s integrity.

“Another wave incoming,” warned Elfriede before she leapt off Mischka’s shoulder. Elfriede’s wind-sense was very sensitive to movements of mana, so she knew where the second wave of spell was going to emerge from. In fact, she could tell that a few of the stone spikes were aimed towards her, but pretended she wasn’t aware of that.

Right at the moment the stone spikes that were aimed towards her sprouted out of the ground, she pushed herself towards them using her own wind magic, which messed up the mage’s timing, if only by a fraction of a second. It was enough time for Elfriede to step on the side of the emerging spike and kick off from the spike like it was a foothold, however, propelling her closer towards the mage in question.

The other mage likely noticed her approach, as Elfriede sensed the stirring wind and the invisible blades headed for her the instant they entered her sense’s range. The mage aimed a bit high, probably wary of hitting his own allies, and Elfriede played along as she landed with one foot on the shoulder of a surprised Podovnian soldier and her other foot stepping atop the helmet of the man next to him.

Then she kicked off her surprised footholds before they or their nearby allies could react, hard enough to shove one man to the ground and make the other stumble to the side.

Elfriede weaved between the invisible wind blades in mid-air, likely surprising the mage who was used to opponents who couldn’t detect them. A couple of the wind blades that she could not avoid, she instead struck with her own blades. The adamant steel part of her blades were enchanted with anti-magic enchantment by Hogarth, and they reacted upon contact with the spell.

Anti-magic enchantments mostly function by disrupting the hold that magic had on its medium, so it would do little against something like the stone spikes – which were solid, physical objects that would keep as is even without magic – but was far more effective against things made out of fire or wind and the like. Such objects were literally held together by magic, so the anti-magic simply unraveled them, reducing the flesh-lacerating wind blade from an invisible threat to a comfortable, harmless breeze upon contact.

As she rushed over the heads and shoulders of the enemy soldiers, a few spears were thrust towards her. Elfriede avoided the ones she could, parried away the ones she couldn’t and even used the keen edge of her mithril-edged blades to slice a couple spearheads off and then turned the freshly cut surface into an impromptu foothold as she charged ahead.

From the chaos she noticed behind her, at the edge of her sense’s range, she could tell that the others were chasing after her closely, so the enemy soldiers likely had other issues to worry about as well. The two enemy mages on the other hand, were fully focused on her, given the ever-increasing amount of stone spikes and wind blades she had to deal with.

She ducked under a stone spike even as another missed her face by the barest margin and left bloody scratches on her cheek, the blades in her hands unraveling three wind blades that were directed straight at her. Despite the danger, one good thing about the situation was that the errant spikes and wind blades that missed her often landed on Podovnian soldiers, while only few reached her fellow mercenaries.

It felt like a long moment by was likely only a minute or two before she finally detected the mages that had been hurling projectiles wildly at her. They were on horseback, twenty paces ahead of her and slightly to the side, and seemed to be attempting to head towards her left – probably together with their liege lord who was her primary target – while she could hear shouting from behind them.

Encouraged by the vicinity of her enemies, Elfriede rushed over the final stretch between them faster than before. She took a couple light injuries from the process, either from magical projectiles she avoided too closely or from the spears of the enemy soldiers, but reached them before they could escape. By that point she confirmed through her sense that there was a small group of mounted soldiers behind the mages, as well as two men who had well-made armor with fancy decorations that practically screamed their importance.

The hunt was on.