Dragon's Tale 23

I cast a simple silencing spell as I moved forward and nothing else. I was confident in my abilities that the barmaid would be unable to leave the pantry for the next several minutes after our delicious encounter. Even walking would be challenging. 

However, when I closed into my prospective assassin, I met with a very unwelcome sight. He was trembling badly, foaming from his mouth. Even worse, he turned to me, a grim, vindictive smile on his face. “Fuck,” I murmured as I dashed forward, hoping to save him, only to fail. When I arrived next to him, he was already dead.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I murmured even as I cast a contained flame spell to burn his body, but knowing that I was already too late. I had miscalculated badly. When he used the Nectar of Pluto to poison me, I had assumed that his employer used his connection to get access to the poison. 

The fanatic determination he showed, committing suicide the moment he was caught, was a completely unexpected development. It meant that he was an Adept of Pluto, meaning he had actually received training in the Temple of the God of the Underworld, enough to embrace their fanaticism. 

It was why I burned his body without bothering to do a search. If he was willing to commit suicide, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to carry critical documents on his body. 

The moment his body turned to ashes, I cast an earth spell, forcing his ashes to create one small clump, and cast an air spell to disperse the smell. I noticed an interesting reaction as I cast elemental spells, like I was swimming against the tide, making my casting slightly difficult. It wasn’t immediately important considering the marked increase in my casting abilities, but still, it was something I needed to ponder when I had some time. 

Unfortunately, time was something I was going to lack for the foreseeable future. I had been just targeted by an Adept of Pluto. I wasn’t scared of him, or any other Adept of Pluto, as at best, they were peripheral members of the Temple of the Underworld with relatively limited capabilities. The real problem lay with the mystery person that could send an Adept of Pluto to find me in a few days. 

I was afraid of who else was going to end up targeting me if I continued to stay. 

The moment I erased the evidence of the recent suicide, I cast a spell to make myself harder to notice, and dashed upstairs, where my wards had stopped sending me signals of being under attack. Since they were far too sturdy to be taken down in a minute, it meant that the Adept had managed to send his accomplices a signal, and they pulled back. 

Pity that I didn’t have time to hunt them, especially since I didn’t even know just how many there were. 

In the upstairs, I burst in, waking up the girls. “Quick, get ready, we have been found,” I said inside. 

“By who,” Astrid murmured while Lillian looked at me in shock, afraid of my reaction. 

“No time to explain, quickly get ready, we’re leaving in two minutes,” I said sharply even as I grabbed the nearest bag and started stuffing it with whatever that looked convenient, including cutlery and a blanket. Not because I had a burning need for a dinner knife, but the raw material was sure to be useful. 

My tone and my hurried actions seemed to be convincing enough, because both jumped up to their feet —and giving me an excellent glimpse of their naked bodies in the process, still carrying the marks of my rough treatment during our earlier encounter. Unfortunately, they dressed quickly, denying me the beautiful sight. While they dressed, I pulled the bedcovers, tying them together to improvise a rope. 

Two minutes later, they were fully dressed and holding half-filled bags, trying to fill them completely. “It’s time, let’s move,” I said. 

“Our bags-” Lillian started, but I gestured her to stop. The time was more important than some extra knick-knack, especially since we needed to travel light. 

“That’s enough, we need to move,” I said, and to their surprise, didn’t walk toward the door. Instead, I walked to the window, and dangled the rope from the window, a rune on one end stabilizing it against the floor of our room. They looked surprised at my decision, but luckily, they didn’t have any other questions. 

The moment I pushed my head out of the window, I was already drenched by the merciless pouring of the rain. But it wasn’t the time to care about the discomfort. I started climbing down using the rope, only to hear the distinctive sound of an arrow, cutting through the air. With the concealment of the pouring rain, I barely noticed the arrow in time. A wave of my hand created a gust of wind that forced the arrow to go wide. “He’s out in the back,” shouted an archer even as he nicked another arrow to his bow, hidden behind a cover, and a magical shield gleamed around him. The torrent helped him to stay concealed as well. 

I was tempted to blast him even though it was a bad idea. The shield around him looked strong enough that I had to launch a concentrated assault before my ascension to break through before my Ascension. As a Sorcerer, breaking it wouldn’t even make me sweat, but it would reveal my power. 

Considering the mystery of our opponent, hiding was the better option. 

So, no matter how much it displeased me, I couldn’t eviscerate him. That didn’t mean I was without an option, however. I pointed my finger at him, and shouted, “Fulgur.” I tried to cast a simple lightning spell, one weak enough to barely jolt an unshielded person. I chose that, because it looked flashy, enough to scare the archer. 

However, the effect wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Remembering the earlier resistance I suffered while casting fire and earth-based elemental spells, I put some extra power behind the lightning spell, not wanting it to fizzle halfway due to the rain. While lightning wasn’t a part of the traditional core elements, I had no reason to believe that it wouldn’t be affected the same. 

So, I was shocked when the crackling bolt of lightning landed on the archer’s shield, threatening to make it collapse. 

“What the hell,” I murmured even as I continued to climb down, while the archer rolled behind a building. I moved fast, wanting to use the archer’s distraction to my benefit. Still, even as my feet connected to the ground, I was trying to understand the change. Unlike the reluctance of the other elements, the lightning that departed my finger was almost enthusiastic, several times stronger than necessary. 

And it was new, at least for me. While I had seen some people in the school with a preference toward a certain element, it usually came from habits and laziness. The flexibility of their spells differed, but not the strength, especially when it came to lightning, which was always more volatile compared to four traditional elements. I couldn’t help but remember the shower of lightning I had gone through during my Ascension, saving my life in the process. 

It was hard to argue against the link between two phenomena. 

However, I wasn’t able to think much about that, because almost a dozen armed men walked into the backyard, some carrying bows, the other carrying javelins, their weapons drawn and ready to be let loose. Their weapons were well-crafted, and some of them were glowing with magical runes. They had an impressive arsenal. 

Their silent cooperation was scarier. They moved without caring about their flanks, confident that their brothers-in-arm had their back. It sounded simple, but it was anything but. It was something that could be only forged through countless life-and-death encounters. 

Or military training, I realized when I noticed the matching tattoos on the arms of four of them, the only four that were wearing short-sleeved shirts. The rest wore coats or long-sleeved shirts that hid their right shoulder. I was going to take a wild guess and say that they were ex-legionnaires, which didn’t surprise me much after facing against an Adept of Pluto. For anyone with that kind of clout, hiring retired legionnaires was a simple affair. 

“Come down quickly, I’m going to defend,” I shouted with a desperation that was rather unnecessary considering my strength. Yes, the legionnaires were scary opponents that deserved their reputation several times over, but their overwhelming dominance only mattered when fighting against other soldiers. 

Under normal conditions, a squad —or if I was going to refer them with their proper name, contubernium— contained eight fighting men, and in a fair skirmish, a contubernium could be treated as the same strength as a proficient mage. I wouldn’t bet on Lillian against a contubernium of course, as while she had the necessary strength, she lacked the real battle experience to fight against eight seasoned legionaries. 

Still, thanks to my grandfather’s psychotic training, even before I joined the Hall of Saturn, I could take down one-and-half contubernium with ease. My shout of panic had the same aim as my panicked lightning spell. I wanted to convince them I was prey that they could take down if they could corner me. 

A small shower of ranged attacks joined the merciless torrent of rain, targeting me rather than the girls. Luckily, most of the attacks veered of the target thanks to horrible visibility, and the rest, I sent away with another gust of wind. 

Seeing that their ranged assault was ineffective, eight of them pulled their gladiuses, raised their shields, and charged forward, the other four waiting with their bows drawn. 

I cast another lightning spell, this time with an area effect, but I put much less power behind it this time. Even then, when it collided with the magic-resistant shields of the legionaries, it pushed them back, giving the girls enough time to stand on their ground as well. “Go toward the gate, I’ll protect the flank,” I shouted at the girls as I pointed at the small wooden gate as I made a show of slouching down after my earlier spell.  

We moved together toward the gate while I cast several wind spells to disperse their ranged attacks, my apparent exhaustion getting more and more pronounced, especially when they started raining their arrows in a staggered manner, forcing me to cast more spells. 

It was a smart strategy. Too bad that they were working on a faulty assumption. 

We arrived at the gate after a minute of walking through thick mud on the ground, but our pursuers stayed closed, guard post already empty. It was smart on the guards' end, avoiding being stuck in our battle. 

“Surrender, and we’ll have mercy on you,” called one of them even as they moved forward as a group, their shields raised. 

“Mercy of the blade?” I asked with a scoff as I sent another weak lightning spell, pushing them back once more. 

“It’s better than ending in a torturers’ table, or in a slave pit,” answered the man, which was technically correct. Being captured by the Romans in battle was never a good fate. With the skills I had displayed, I was destined to end up in Colosseum, fighting endless battles against captured monsters and fellow slaves. 

In such an environment, all it took was one mistake to end up dead. 

“Thanks for your kind offer, but I’m going to take my chances,” I shouted before turning to Lillian and whispering. “Hold them back for thirty seconds. Use wide-range defensive spells and don’t worry about exhausting yourself,” I said. The last thing I needed was Lillian to try copying my staggered wind defense, only to end up in an arrow in the neck for mistiming. 

Then, I turned my attention to the gate and started drawing a number of runes on it. The gate was magically-reinforced, of course, but since it was designed to hold the attackers from outside, it was much weaker from our side. Still, rather than simply blasting it down, I started drawing runes to crack it down. I had already shown a rather impressive ability in runic magic, from our first escape from the pirate ship to trapping the Adept. With any luck, they would assume that I had somehow trapped the dragon serpent in a runic scheme and killed it as well. 

“Attack!” called the leader with a great urgency after watching me for a couple of seconds, smart enough to realize the urgency of the attack. 

Breaking the defensive scheme of the gate took me thirty seconds. “Brace,” I called as forced the door to explode. The resulting explosion shook the ground enough to make everyone stumble —not helped by the thick, slippery mud on the ground— but no other harm occurred because I had designed the runes to deflect the explosion outward. 

I grabbed the girls and forced them onto their feet before we started running, finally stepping outside of the wooden palisade of the trading post. Astrid was able to run in her own strength, but Lillian was already stumbling. The defense clearly took a lot from her. 

“Delay them, the rest of the century will be here in a few minutes,” called their leader. “We can’t let the others have the honor. It rightfully belongs to us.” 

“Try harder,” I said even as I triggered the runes I had left on the door, just as they were about to pass through the gate, though the trap strong enough to kill them. I wanted to show-off with my runic aptitude, but breaching a magical gate in thirty seconds was impressive enough, but setting up a trap strong enough to kill twelve legionaries without any external power source would have pushed the bounds of credulity. 

Still, it was a pity that I wasn’t able to kill them, because I really didn’t like it when their leader mentioned their century, for several reasons. First, being hunted by eighty well-equipped and disciplined legionaries wasn’t exactly comforting. Second, it implied that they were still active soldiers rather than retired ones, which had very dangerous implications about the identity and strength of my mysterious enemy. 

Third, he mentioned competition for a reward, which meant that their century wasn’t the only one that was hunting us. I could go and hope that he was thinking the tribe we had fought earlier or the raiders when he said so, but my instincts told me that those words fueled with pride of competition, something a legionnaire would rarely feel against bandits and tribals. 

It meant that we had more than one century in our tail. 

We might be even dealing with a full cohort, which had six centuries. Almost five hundred fighting men, probably with some auxiliaries, which might include cavalry, engineers, and even several war mages. 

Worst, a cohort was always led by an experienced Sorcerer. 

For the first time since my Ascension, I felt the pressure of a deadly threat.