The Peace Lasted Until Breakfast
The transport unit stayed three days at the Imar branch. Part of the existing freight was turned over to the branch, new cargo was taken on, and the wagons were loaded again. They had sold a great deal, but they had bought a great deal as well, and the load never shrank. It looked deliberate—keeping the baggage the same, so thieves would lose the trail.
Chris stole glances at the swollen company. A hundred newly hired mercenaries, one of them a mage, and twenty guards sent out from the branch. Another mage had attached himself too, a friend of the branch manager.
The two mages seemed to know each other. They rode in the same wagon, and whenever they stepped out Chris studied them with care. Neither looked especially advanced. Old Mages, then. Almost certainly.
He walked behind the freight wagons and worried over an ambush. He had kept his nerves drawn tight all day, and by sunset the back of his skull was pulling.
They pitched the tents at the campsite and lit the cookfires, and Lapin came looking for him with a threat.
"Fall asleep on watch tonight and you'll die by my hand. Understand?"
Chris put on a sullen face.
"The mercenaries are here. Why are we standing watch?"
"Mercenaries are mercenaries. Porters are porters. What's a porter's job?"
"Moving cargo."
"That, and guarding it. Keep your eyes open."
Lapin called the porters together, assigned the wagons, and set the order of the watch. First watch and last watch were the good ones. A man on the first could sleep straight through until morning without being woken in the middle, and the last watch only meant starting the morning a little early.
Chris drew the awkward third slot. Sleep sweetly for a stretch, get hauled up in the middle to stand his post, then try to sleep again. A perfect rotation for a ruined night.
He rested a while and turned in. He was sleeping deeply when a presence stirred him awake. Art had come and tapped his shoulder.
"Hyung. Hyung, it's your turn."
"Yeah. I'm up."
Chris stretched, picked the grit from his eyes, and stepped out of the tent. The camp was quiet. When he sharpened his hearing, he caught nocturnal animals moving about.
He sat near the wagons and yawned. He kept a faithful watch, traded off with the next shift, and went back into the tent. He had expected an attack. The night passed untouched. Bringing on the mercenaries and the guard detail seemed to have done the work.
How long would the peace last?
If the treasure was truly precious, it would break within a few days.
It broke with the morning. They had hung a pot over the cookfire and were boiling soup for breakfast when a fireball came screaming in and struck the mages' wagon dead center.
The wagon blew apart. Wreckage sprayed in every direction, and from the debris two mages burst out. Splinters were driven into their bodies and blood ran in streams, but each had a robe in hand. They must have taken the robes off to sleep.
They threw the robes on in a panic, drew the staves tucked into their inner pockets, aimed at the place they guessed the fireball had come from, and shouted.
"Who's there?"
"Stop hiding like a coward and come out!"
The air rippled, and three mages showed themselves. They settled to the ground and spoke with open arrogance.
"Hiding? Who's hiding?"
"They say that in a valley with no tiger, the fox is king. And here are Old Mages daring to play at being mages."
"Kneel and beg, and I'll spare your lives."
Chris looked at them and thought, So these are the ones who were rifling the wagons at night.
They were reckless enough to abduct a unit leader, but he wasn't worried. Two Old Mages couldn't hold three Modern Mages, yet this place was not mages alone. A hundred and nineteen mercenaries and guards stood behind them. With that backing, they could win.
He read the situation with optimism and watched the mages work. They raised barriers first to protect themselves, then used attack magic like fire arrows.
Fighting by the book.
Chris, who had wanted an unusual duel crawling with tricks, was a little disappointed.
Expecting tricks from Jenyeom was too much to ask.
In that instant the ground under the Old Mages heaved. A Modern Mage had warped the earth. The barrier the Old Mages had raised shook as a whole, and a fire arrow punched through it, driving in to skewer them.
The Old Mages seemed rich in fights. Just as Chris was muttering that they had lost, the one on the left ducked behind his companion's right side and stamped. The ground surged higher still. He had hitched a ride on the enemy's own spell and dodged.
The fire arrow missed, buried itself in the risen earth, and died.
Chris muttered inwardly. Cancel the disappointment. They're fighting well.
High ground is, as a rule, better than fighting from below. The Old Mage who was the branch manager's friend caught his breath and shouted.
"You just going to watch?"
With a roar, the guards and mercenaries charged.
"Hmph."
The largest of the three thief-mages snorted and scattered blades of wind.
A skin-crawling sound tore the air—a thin whine, a hiss, a wet rip—and five or six mercenaries went down. The guards and mercenaries knew that hesitating over dead comrades would only swell the losses. They ran faster, trying to close the distance.
"Moths to the flame."
The thieves prepared a mass-killing spell to wipe out the annoying mercenaries and guards. That was when the Old Mage on the high ground struck back. Fists of air poured down on the three Modern Mages.
"A petty trick."
The Modern Mages had a gift for sneers and snorts. They mocked the Old Mages the whole time they cast.
The air fists burst against the barriers. Not one broke through.
"Our turn."
As the Modern Mages moved to answer, Chris's head snapped around. His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. The air where his gaze landed rippled like folding cloth, smoothed, then rippled again. That was what happened when someone under a concealment spell moved quickly.
A new mage. He seemed a full realm above the five already here. Don't tell me he's Chukhwan. If this was Ring Binding, Chris had to run. Now.
"Stop!"
The newcomer dropped his concealment and barked the word. The big Modern Mage was on the verge of releasing his spell. Stop suddenly, and the backlash would injure him. So he ignored the warning and tried to loose it anyway.
"You dare ignore me!"
The newly arrived mage roared and swung his staff. The air split as if a sheet of ice were cracking. The big mage standing beyond that split cracked with it.
His upper body tore free of his lower half and slammed into the ground like refuse.
The charging mercenaries and guards froze mid-stride. The mages stopped too. The newcomer looked at the Old Mages and spoke with arrogance.
"Still mean to look down on me?"
The two Old Mages, terrified, lowered the ground. They must have strained themselves moving the earth in such a hurry. Blood seeped between their lips.
The newcomer crooked a finger, and the dead mage's spatial pouch flew into his grasp. He didn't so much as look inside. He slipped it straight into an inner pocket of his robe.
The two Modern Mages stared at their colleague's corpse with complicated eyes, then turned and stood straight. They bowed their heads together.
"Wolfgang, of the Dafuno Magic Tower."
"I'm Jefferson."
The Dafuno Magic Tower was the largest magic tower in the Britan Kingdom.
"It's an honor to meet a senior."
The Old Mages closed their robes and offered greetings of their own. The mage attached to the mercenaries gave his name as Draine. The branch manager's friend was Collum.
Collum gathered his courage and asked, carefully.
"And who might you be, Senior?"
The newcomer answered curtly.
"And what would you do with that?"
Collum ducked his head at once.
"Nothing."
"Nothing what?"
"Nothing."
"Then say what the nothing is."
"I'm sorry."
Chris's brow creased. He truly hated the sort who gnawed on the tail of a sentence.
"What were you lot doing here?"
Draine jabbed a finger at the Modern Mages.
"Those bastards attacked us."
Wolfgang denied it on reflex.
"We didn't."
Then he remembered that they had, in fact, attacked, and his face went blank with panic.
"We did attack, but…"
"Why?"
Wolfgang couldn't answer. The newcomer lifted his staff a fraction. Wolfgang flinched and answered at once.
"There was cargo we were interested in…"
"So you meant to rob them."
Wolfgang couldn't deny it.
"What cargo were you after?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? Talking won't be enough with you."
Desperate, Wolfgang waved his hands wildly.
"It's true. All I heard was that they were moving some tremendous treasure."
"You tried to steal a thing you don't even know?"
"They said any mage who saw it would know its worth at once. If we just obtained this and offered it up, the tower would furnish the resources to rise to Sikbae—Seed Cultivation…"
"Find it."
"What?"
"Find that precious treasure."
Collum shook off his fear and protested.
"The cargo belongs to the Senfo Merchant Guild."
"Not anymore."
The newcomer pointed his staff at Collum's stomach.
Collum was blown backward. His belly burst, and his entrails sprayed in every direction. Supervisor McKeon shook violently and grabbed Vice-Leader Hammonds by the hem.
"We have to protect the cargo."
"Right. We have to. If we all rush him, we can win."
Hammonds yanked McKeon forward and set him in front like a shield.
"Go tell the mercenaries to honor the contract."
McKeon swallowed hard.
"Me?"
"You."
"That's something the vice-leader ought to do."
"Me?"
"You're the one who contracted the mercenary company."
Just then the newcomer shot up into the empty air. His voice fell like rain.
"Who's in charge of this guild caravan?"
Every eye turned to Hammonds. He was so startled he started to hiccup.
"Hk—hk—hkk."
"The treasure. Where is it?"
Hammonds only hiccuped. Irritated, the newcomer flicked his staff.
A wind blade dropped and sheared Hammonds's wrist clean off.
"Agh!"
Blood fountained from the stump, and a scream tore the air.
"The treasure."
The newcomer's tone was dry. That made it worse. Half out of his mind, Hammonds pointed at the seventh wagon.
The newcomer ran to the seventh wagon and started tearing through the cargo.
"Save me! Save me!"
Hammonds came to his senses and shouted. Draine ran over, calmed him, picked up the severed hand, pressed it back into place, and cast a healing spell.
"I'm no healing specialist. This is rough work, so when you've got the leisure later, cut it off again and have it stuck back on."
Hammonds's face went blank.
"Cut it off again?"
"Leave it the way it was cut and it'll rot, so I tacked it on as a stopgap. The nerves and the vessels have to be joined properly."
Hammonds seized the mage with his good hand.
"We have to protect the cargo."
Draine, the mercenary mage, looked troubled.
"Well…"
"If we lose the treasure, we're ruined."
"The mage who just arrived is Sikbae. With our skill, it's impossible."
"Honor the contract."
"Fight him and we all die."
Draine coldly shook off Hammonds, who kept clinging to him.
"I'll fetch the captain. Talk to the captain."
A short while later the mercenary captain arrived. Before Hammonds could latch onto him, he cut the man off, cold.
"If a natural disaster occurs, we don't have to fulfill the contract. The proviso. You saw it too."
"Was there an earthquake? A flood? No. This isn't a natural disaster. You can't just wash your hands of it."
"A Sikbae mage is a natural disaster."
The newcomer unpacked every piece of cargo in the seventh wagon and checked it. Nothing that looked like treasure turned up.