Book 3, Chapter 28

Our time at the Outlander’s Gateway was enlightening, but ultimately, not the purpose of this journey. Once dawn broke, I woke Senica—after stashing my bed away so she wouldn’t see it—and got us a meal for the road. I’d woken twice during the night to stuff more mana into my mana crystals, but I’d long since gotten used to that and was feeling fully refreshed.

“We could have slept in,” Senica grumbled as she seized a chunk of bread from the bag Eggert had given us on our way out.

“How could you possibly be tired still?” I asked. “You slept ten hours.”

“How do you know I was sleeping?”

I gave her a flat stare. “Do you seriously think I’m not putting up warding and scrying spells anywhere we sleep?”

She blanched and asked, “You… You were watching me sleep?”

“I was watching your room to make sure no one tried to break in,” I corrected.

“Okay, that’s creepy. Don’t do that.”

“Sure, and when some burglar ends up knifing you while trying to steal your boots, I’ll just tell our parents it’s fine, that you knew the risks when you demanded your privacy to snore unobserved.”

“Yes, do exactly that, Gravin. Don’t be a creep. I already have your old shield ward. I don’t need to be watched constantly.”

I rolled my eyes and changed the subject. “Finish up that food so we can get going.”

I’d already scried out the next waypoint, a tower about sixty miles northwest of us just past the channel. Once we were ready, I cast dual flight spells that elicited a few surprised gasps from the other people on the street with us. We took off at a steady, if somewhat slow, pace and soon enough we were over open water.

‘There’s so much of it,’ Senica thought to me. ‘How is there this much water?’

We’d grown up in a desert environment, though not one utterly devoid of water. It was mostly limited to small streams no more than ten feet wide and never very deep. Our people didn’t have much of a concept of waterborne travel, having no need for boats or ships, and Senica was probably the first person from Alkerist to see a body of water that could go over her head in generations.

‘Believe it or not, well over half the world is covered in water,’ I told her. ‘This is actually a fairly narrow band of it, relatively speaking. If we’d gone straight east from Sanctuary, we’d have run into a true sea, so wide that you can’t see anything but endless water stretching all the way to the horizon.’

Now that I thought about it, that might be a nice vacation spot when we got back from our current journey. It would be interesting to see Father and Mother’s reactions when they were presented with the sight. Introducing them to a ship big enough to sail the oceans would be even better, though I wasn’t entirely sure if anything like that still existed.

Great and powerful magic had been needed to safeguard such vessels back in my time, as the ocean teamed with massive beasts that could easily crush a ship. At some points, the waters were so troubled that only airships dared make the crossing. In many cases, teleportation networks were safer and easier that ocean travel, but sometimes great distances that lacked convenient islands to place new hubs necessitated the risk of physically sailing.

If we’d been flying faster, I might not have noticed the black specks in the distance in front of us, but since we were moving at what was, for me, a leisurely pace, I had plenty of time to look around. Frowning, I focused on the specks, but even with a vision enhancing invocation, I couldn’t make out any details. Sometimes, something really was just too far away to see clearly.

It was possible to use a stronger spell to enhance my sight, but also utterly pointless. Simply scrying ahead would give me a better idea of what I was seeing and cost a fraction of the mana. I cast the spell and a trio of brakvaw came into view. Two were circling the waypoint while a third was perched on its peak.

That wouldn’t have been so unusual in and of itself. They were brakvaw constructions, after all, and I knew their newest generation were out on their own journeys of exploration. What really caught my attention was that not only did all three seem to be full-sized adults, I was almost positive I recognized one of them.

I’d met a lot of brakvaw, or at least seen them from a distance, during my time with Grandfather., and while I liked to think I had a good memory, I had to admit that there were only so many variations of black feathers with different colored highlights I could differentiate between before they all started to blend together.

What stood out about the one roosting on the eyrie itself was that I’d made special note of his appearance. He was the elder who’d looked like he was considering attacking me when I’d helped Grandfather relocate his physical form off the graveyard island. I’d be the first to admit that I hadn’t made an in-depth study of their culture, but I’d been under the impression that the elders stayed close to their home mountain.

So what was he doing out here, hundreds of miles away?

More than a few of the birds had expressed discontent at an outsider being taught their magic, but none were willing to challenge Grandfather’s decision. Maybe now that our bargain had been fulfilled, they’d decided it was a good time to eliminate me. It didn’t strike me as something Grandfather would order or even agree to, but it didn’t necessarily have to be his order that these three brakvaw were here.

It always seemed like the subordinates with the most initiative did nothing but made headaches for their bosses, or in this case, their boss’s friend. If I assumed we were about to be attacked, the giant birds really couldn’t have chosen a better spot. We were over open water, I had a non-combatant to protect—one who couldn’t swim, incidentally—and I knew how fast a brakvaw could fly. We wouldn’t be outrunning them, not at Senica’s top speed.

Maybe if I started a teleportation spell right now, I could get the whole thing finished before they reached me. Even as I had the thought, though, all three of them burst into flight zeroed in on us. We had minutes at most, probably no more than three, to prepare.

‘Senica, I need you to listen to me. We’re about to be attacked. All you need to do is focus on flying. Do not panic. I will keep you safe.’

‘What?’ came the confused reply. ‘Attacked by what? There’s nothing here.’

‘Remember those giant birds I was working with? Well, not all of them liked me so much, and three of them are heading right toward us. Maybe we can talk our way out of this, but I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky.’

I didn’t have much mana available to me, relatively speaking, but it was more than enough to cast anything advanced-tier or lower and still reclaim the lion’s share of it. If I wanted to use master-tier spells, I’d get off maybe two of them before I was completely drained. Even if was willing to make that trade, there were three opponents.

Could I catch two of them in one spell? Normally, I’d have said yes, but they were so damn big, it practically negated any wide-area attacks I could make. Worse, because of their size, they didn’t really group too closely. Maybe if I timed it right and positioned the point of effect perfectly, I could get the right wing of one brakvaw and the left wing of another, though I didn’t honestly think that would ground them. I could vividly remember my first encounter with the birds and them gliding along on mana, barely even needing their wings to remain stable.

That strength was also their weakness, though. Birds at this size couldn’t fly without at least some mana to support them. If I attacked their mana cores, I could drop them into the sea while greatly enriching my own reserves. The trick was going to be doing it while simultaneously defending Senica and myself from three different opponents.

I didn’t even know if the two younger ones were mages or not. If they weren’t using their mana cores for anything but their natural processes, then I’d be looking at physical strikes like buffeting wings, talons wide enough to grab Senica and I both in one pass, and beaks that could easily snip us in half.

The elder was a different story. Not only was he a mage, he was one of the strongest of their entire species. Thankfully, that didn’t put him anywhere on Grandfather’s level, but it did mean he was probably going to be the primary threat.

‘Revised instructions,’ I sent. ‘Focus on flying and keep your shield ward as full on mana as you can manage. Even a glancing blow from one of these things could kill you.’

Senica swallowed hard, but her face firmed up and she gave me a single decisive nod. I could see her hand flexing open and closed by her wand, but she didn’t draw it. That was good. There was nothing in her repertoire that could fight something this big. Her only goal needed to be staying alive while I fought, and she knew it.

We were out of time. The three brakvaw were within two miles and closing fast with no signs of slowing down. I didn’t think we’d be exchanging pleasantries before they attacked. Even as I watched, they sped up. At best, we had thirty seconds.

My strategy decided, I started casting my first master-tier spell. Crippling or killing one of them early on would make the rest of this fight go a lot easier, and I had the one on the left side of the formation pegged as the worst mage of the three. It was the least likely to be able to successfully defend against the attack I had in mind.

Ten seconds to contact. Nine, eight, seven…

They couldn’t have slowed down if they wanted to at this point. Instead, the elder brakvaw’s beak split open, and a mana-laced scream blasted out. Senica responded with a shriek of her own and fell a hundred feet toward the water before she regained control of her flight. Her shield ward absorbed the attack, so I knew she wasn’t hurt, but I didn’t blame her for being surprised.

I ignored the disorienting wave of magic that washed over me and let it break against my shield ward. Fully protected, I unleashed my attack and sent jaws made of pure offensive divination, the great, scary, transformed granddaddy to mind spike, into a brakvaw’s brain. It let out its own screech, but unlike the elder’s, this one was nothing but pain. Blood spurted out of its orifices, especially its eyes, and it spiraled down at an angle, only its forward momentum keeping it going.

The brakvaw was already dead; it just hadn’t hit the water yet. I didn’t have time to track its progress, though, not with the remaining two still closing in. I had at most two seconds before the brakvaw elder’s beak pierced through my stomach.

I couldn’t match the brakvaw elder’s speed, not with a simple flight spell. If I shifted to elemental form, I could outmaneuver it, but that spell took time to create, and besides, it would make me somewhat harder to detect, which might encourage the birds to go after Senica instead.

I flew backward as fast as I could to give me more time while I sent a force cleave directly into the elder’s face. The spell scored a mark and drew blood, but it didn’t slow the elder down even a bit. What did help was the force wall I conjured up right in front of its face, but the brakvaw had so much mass and momentum that the spell merely deflected it slightly off course before shattering.

That was enough to get me out of the way of this pass, and that gave me valuable seconds to deal with the third brakvaw. I turned toward it and gave the bird my best evil smile.