"Let's hope for their sake that they really are." Ikaris uttered indifferently as he ventured into the destroyed town.
He temporarily set Ellie down on the ground and asked her to walk normally as if they weren't being chased seconds earlier. With his ntal link to the Glenring hive he could sense that the monsters chasing them had not retreated.
The Crawlers were lurking in the dense vegetation at the edge of the jungle. Far from dwindling, their numbers were increasing rapidly, having already surpassed ten thousand. As soon as their numbers were sufficient they would swarm this camp without hesitation.
The bison could also sniff out their scent, and despite his aversion to humans he followed the group along quietly. Malia brought her face close to the boy's ear and whispered tensely,
"How many monsters are following us?"
"Several dozen thousand are hiding in the foliage behind the hill. Many more are rapidly converging on our position." Ikaris replied in a whisper in her ear.
The young woman froze, but the gray-haired Knight-Sorcerer's ears pricked up as well. He imdiately regained his composure and continued to put on a straight face. Nevertheless, he clutched the handle of his greatsword more tightly.
"Malia! Ikaris? Th-the bison?!" The voice of a man who was both excited and shocked sounded next to them.
"MOOOO!"
Turning their heads in the direction of the noise, they saw a handso young man with a ssy blond head of hair and wearing gleaming silver armor as well as a navy-blue overcoat with gold embroidery over it. He was covered in gri and bright blue and red blood, but his appearance was still recognizable. Especially in the Barren Bush.
"Asselin?" Malia said tentatively, surprised to find him here.
The aristocrat chuckled bitterly,
"The one and only."
His eyes were dead, devoid of any vitality. Ikaris noticed imdiately that he was sitting alone on a rock without his parents or any of his tribe around.
"Your tribe?" Malia asked sympathetically.
The man shook his head.
"I ca too late." He explained sadly, "I didn't find the bodies of my parents, but my father being a Lord Sorcerer I have high hopes of eting them again one day. I was hoping to find them here but no one has seen them..."
The group sensed his anxiety but they had no words of consolation for him. Pragmatic, Ikaris stoically reminded the others,
"No ti to chat. We have to leave now."
Asselin sensed that sothing was wrong and rembering that the teenager was a Crawling-Thrall he imdiately understood the implication. Decisively, he imdiately started walking along with them.
"Let join you." He smiled. "One more sword will co in handy and Ballabyne doesn't even have an inn left standing so I might as well hike a little further to Hadrakin."
Ellie, who thought the reaction of Ikaris, Malia and Asselin was extrely suspicious, couldn't help but ask in a timid voice with so unease,
"Why don't we rest here?"
Malia and Asselin gave the boy a sidelong glance, but he simply replied without turning around,
"It's not safe here."
The answer was vague, but Ellie got the ssage. Alas, she wasn't done annoying them.
"Aren't we warning the villagers of the danger?"
Ikaris rolled his eyes at her suggestion.
"And who will cover our backs if we warn them now?" Asselin retorted gently. He'd always had a soft spot for pretty naive blondes. "The Kingdom of Hadrakin is still more than 20km from here. The Crawlings are getting bigger and faster. If Ballabyne doesn't buy us so ti, we'll have to fight an army of monsters stronger and faster than us to get out of the jungle. As a reminder, the Crawlings usually attack in their millions..."
Ellie turned livid, but the nobleman wasn't done,
"Even if we manage to outrun them, it would get us to Hadrakin after dark. The wall surrounding Hadrakin is not comparable to the Great Wall, but it is high enough to keep us out. The gate only opens in the morning and closes at sunset. Without a pass we have no chance of getting in. I guess I don't need to spell out what will happen if the gate is closed when we arrive?"
Ellie gulped.
If they arrived too late, they would find themselves cornered, caught between the wall and the Crawler army. No matter how brave they were, they would be eaten in minutes.
"Still, isn't it unfair to the refugees of Ballabyne?" She began to tear up regardless.
Ikaris frowned. Were their lives really worth more than those of the thousands of refugees? After hesitating for a few seconds, he pulled a blank piece of parchnt out of his bag and so writing materials, then scribbled "Millions of Glenring approaching. Attack imminent."
He folded the corners of the sheet, then quickly made a paper plane in front of Malia and Asselin's befuddled stares. Without a second look, he then threw the paper plane in the direction of the gray-haired Knight-Sorcerer who seed to be in charge of Ballabyne at the mont.
The warrior who was listening attentively to their conversation was surprised to see a paper object flying towards him, but he caught it in midair with a straight face. When he read the ssage, his hands trembled slightly, but he recovered his composure in less than a second.
Wordlessly, he handed the scroll to the Body Warrior standing next to him and the latter's face clouded over as he read the ssage. Silently, the man passed the scroll to another soldier and soon the entire squad of Body Sorcerers was aware of the danger.
The Knight-Sorcerer leading the group wrote a short letter and gave it to the youngest soldier under his command, a young man with dark skin and a military haircut. A striking detail was that his hair was red and his ears were pointed.
He then whispered a few words in the soldier's ear, pointing at the group of Ikaris, and the soldier complied with a mortified grimace. It took a few more words to convince him, but the young man finally complied.
As Ikaris and his group left Ballabyne and entered the jungle again, they heard footsteps approaching them and drew their weapons in a flash. At the sight of the young black man they relaxed but did not lower their swords.
"Who are you?" Asselin yelled sternly, but he had already identified the stranger's armor.
His armor was as gaudy as that of the other Hadrakin Body Sorcerers, but he lacked a cloak, and there was no colored edge on his armor to give away his rank.
This kind of unembellished but high quality equipnt was usually reserved for Apprentice Sorcerers about to beco Sorcerers or for wealthy recruits who could afford to serve under a Sorcerer during their military service.
"My na is Zaos, Squire to Baronet Arnumin Ilijor." The soldier replied calmly. "He instructed to give you this."
Asselin snatched the letter directly from his hands and after reading it passed it to Malia. To his astonishnt she then passed the letter to Ikaris, who after reading it stated succinctly,
"You can travel with us."
As they entered the jungle, Asselin's face beca thoughtful and he muttered in a low voice,
"Arnumin Ilijor... where have I heard that na before..."
"My master is a First Class Lord Sorcerer. An official Paladin of the Confederation. You may have heard his na since he was responsible for the annual tribute rounds in the Barren Bush."
"Oh that's it!" The aristocrat exclaid with a laugh. "He could have beco a Baron and run his own town, but he chose to stay posted here in this remote, mosquito-ridden jungle. I never understood his motives. He must be a masochist, heh."
The hitherto compliant Zaos stopped being polite and snarled in an icy voice,
"Do not disrespect my master or I will fight you to the death to make you repent."
Asselin looked at him carefully for a mont and seeing that the soldier was dead serious, he held up his arms and sighed,
"Fine, I apologize for my rudeness. He's going to die anyway."
This Baronet was indeed going to die, whether he was a Lord Sorcerer or a Paladin. For so reason that eluded Ikaris, the grizzled man had chosen to defend Ballabyne.
The letter simply asked them to escort Zaos to Hadrakin and inform the authorities of his sacrifice. Ikaris couldn't really refuse because it suited his plans.
He had no idea what a Lord Sorcerer amounted to in terms of power, but it sounded pretty powerful. If Body Sorcerers specialized in hand-to-hand combat, these warriors must all be pretty tough guys. They wouldn't go down so easily.
Less than five minutes after entering the forest, they heard screams of terror echoing behind them.
Ballabyne was under attack.
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