Even in such an exhausting situation, the panic she felt gave her enough strength to turn around and punch her assailant. Thankfully her hand connected to Ghost’s chest as the man held her with one hand while yelling orders and pointing with the other. The fighting was reaching a chaotic state, with bodies and screams of pain filling the night.

Guilt racked her. Ghost was as exhausted as she was and yet he was helping her. Everyone had reached their limit but they still fought. There wasn’t any glory or greatness in this battle, only valiance and courage. This was primal survival while their deaths were nearby.

With every minute that passed their ranks grew thinner, with more and more injuries and deaths pilling up. A battle of attrition that they were losing. Her will was exhausted, with only fear and anger keeping her from passing out. But she still held unto enough fuel for one more spell. What happened after that she didn’t know.

She was saving this one, just as Ghost had told her. Getting on her feet she yelled into Ghost's ear. “Is it time?!”

Ghost nodded his head, his eyes still scanning for any breaks. “Make it big!” She nodded back. “I’ll need a moment to prepare!”

“Stay here and work on it, I’ll find Nimble!” He picked up a spare weapon in his other hand once he released Ana, rushing towards a few Targs who broke through.

Alright Lia, time for the hail mary.

Are you sure you can do it?

Yes! But in case I fall unconscious I’m going to need you to pilot.

I can’t do that!

I figured a way you can, but it might have unforeseen effects. But that’s better than being a limp body in a battle!

When did you...

No time! I will tell you later, you will know what to do when it happens!

She started working on her spell. It didn’t take much energy to create a light, but that depended on the material or method used. This spell didn’t involve any elaborate designs or any specific methods. Instead, she crafted a spell that would produce as many photons as she could manage, focusing that their wavelength, frequency, and energy were in the visible spectrum.

This was the brightest spell she could create, but she still lacked a personal delivery system. The light needed to be above them for their plan to succeed so Ghost found Nimble who had a crucial role to play. Finishing her spell she opened her eyes seeing Nimble drop a shield and grab his bow that was stashed with a quiver of arrows near the unloaded gear in the center.

The pit fire had almost burned out and without Ana trying to maintain it, and the darkness was only rising. In preparation, Ana had carved out the arrow shafts with runes that would act as conduits for her magic. This was a do-or-die moment, and there wasn’t any time to test or to improve anything. For Ana that alone was causing a knot in her stomach. That was one of the reasons she went with a simpler spell, even if it was more taxing to do. While Ana and Nimble were working on the magical flare, Ghost roared.

His roar was a signal to all allies, and everyone knew that it meant to keep their eyes away from the sky. Simultaneously as Nimble released the arrow straight up, so did Ana her spell, turning the projectile into a second sun. A bright flare arcked up, and the darkness was gone, replaced by daylight.

The bright light revealed all the bodies and limbs that were littered around. For a moment Ana steeled herself to see dead friends in the dirt, but all she could find were Targ corpses. This lit a fire under her, seeing the circle of turned-over carts and shields that were around her.

One arrow after another she lit, the spell while taxing, couldn't be compared to how much lightning took out of her. The light blinded the swarm of Targs that had to run down the ramp of their previous fort to reach their position. It slowed their charge and gave the group some much-needed respite.

Coupled with the fear of a wizard that they had witnessed before, such a bright sudden light had thrown the enemy into disarray. That was only a side effect of the plan. The light acted as a beacon for Razors band, allowing their mounts to see. On the fifth arrow, they heard it. Screams and wails coming from the distance.

Ana expected horns or battle cries to come from the mounted unit, but they rode in deadly silence, taking the enemy by surprise. Using this opportunity Ghost roared again and the group rushed forwards, clearing any enemies that were inside the crater.

Ana gave everything she had to her spell, every emotion and scrap of will she could muster, but after eleven arrows blackness fell over her eyes and she felt her body fall forwards before losing all sense of self.

A second later she was back. The morning had come and she found herself sitting amongst a pile of Targ corpses in excruciating pain. Her mind on the other hand was floating in a cloud of numbness, not unlike the feeling she got when she was drunk.

What happened? She sent a thought to Lia.

Victory!

I mean with our body? Why am I in so much pain? With the torn armor and clothes restricting her movement she couldn’t see why her back was in pain. But she did notice a cleaver blade that had cut deep into her thigh.

We’re not dead, just hurt. I count that as a win.

Yeah, except I have a meat cleaver embedded in my leg.

One of the bastards got lucky.

And someone had actually stabbed me in the back.

Yeah, I got hit from the back protecting one of the riders who fell.

That’s cool.

You sound drunk, what happened?

I’m not drunk, just numb. Using emotions as fuel isn’t a standard practice as it leaves you emotionless and numb for a while.

Ah right, I remember when you learned that.

Aha.

Don’t aha me. Go get help, dumbass!

Why didn’t you get help?

I kinda enjoyed feeling pain again.

I didn’t peg you as a masochist.

I’m not. It’s just been a long time since I felt anything like this.

Aha.

Stop doing that and go get help from Angel!

Finding herself beyond the collapsed wall she got up looking for the members of her team. Only the members of Razor’s band were visible, going around killing injured Targs. Climbing the mound was hard with one working leg but she managed it with slow steps, being careful not to pull the weapon sticking out of her leg. While she limped towards her group, Lia retold her the part she had missed.

On the other side where the overturned carts had shielded them, was her group. Only a third was on their feet with a few that were still injured laying down. She spotted Ghost and waved at him, causing his normally stoic face to loosen.

“By the Allfather, I have a dozen people out looking for you.”

Ana shrugged. “Lia was just sitting outside.”

“Who?”

We never did tell them, did we?

Of course, we didn’t. Focus girl.

“Doesn’t matter. I could use some help getting down there.” She pointed to metal sticking out of her leg. Ghost and Sunny rushed over, carrying her down to Angel. She didn’t know who was dead and at the moment couldn’t spare much care. The Targs had retreated after Razor’s intervention, but there was still a lot of them. While unlikely there was a possibility that they could strike again, so everyone who could be spared was resting up.

“I saw you jump over the mounds, thought you died right after.” Ghost said after Ana had sat down.

“Dunno what wizard you met before, but I’m made from sturdier stuff.”

He snorted, a gesture from him she learned to be a chuckle. “Guess so. I thought you said you only had one spell left in you?”

Ana shrugged as Sunny and Angel were looking over her wounds. “I was out of magic, that's why I passed out.”

“Passed out? But you...” Ana raised her hand to silence him.

“Wasn’t me who was fighting after that. It was Lia.”

Sunny was pulling out the weapons while Angel was healing her, stopping any more of her blood from spilling out. And while they did that, Ana told Ghost about Lia. She had mentioned Lia when they talked with Renvi, but she never gave an explanation and nor was she asked for one. The trio buzzing around Ana was shocked at how casually she acted while she was supposed to be in agony. Ana chuckled when they had asked her how she managed to ignore so much pain.

She surmised her relationship with Lia and her experience in the sea. With the healing done she wanted to try out an experiment. Her magic was slowly recovering while Lia was in control, so she had enough for a test.

Want to know how I did it?

Yeah! I thought it was impossible?

Remember our first kiss with Angel?

Sure.

Well, I was able to detach my mind from my body by projecting it into the world. Nathaniel had told me about it but I never understood how one goes about doing it.

Okay.

A body without a mind is just an empty shell. With our situation, we have two minds. If mine isn’t here, you get to be the backup.

But why doesn’t that happen when you go to sleep?

Because I am still there while sleeping. You can only take control once my mind is gone, or when I run out of magic.

Why then?

Because of the hair. When I lost mine, yours replaced it. The same is with my consciousness.

I don’t get it.

Doesn’t matter, what does matter is I know now how to do it while I am awake. Just watch.

Ignoring Lia’s questions she went forward and formed a spell she was secretly working on. It was surprisingly easy to keep secrets from Lia, by simply making her thought process complicated and boring. Lia didn’t have a proper grasp on magic so she ignored anything that didn’t interest her.

Nathaniel had taught her that astral projection was quite simple to do, and it didn’t tire the wizard when done properly. At the time she couldn’t understand from where to start when forming a spell like that, but now things were different. Within a blink of an eye, she found herself looking down on her body, leaving Lia in control.

“Well ain’t this nice.”

“What?” Asked Ghost.

“Being in control finally. We never got introduced. My name is Motoweh’awali ifu, but you can call me Lia.”

“Rose, you feeling okay?” Ghost was confused and was having a hard time understanding what was going on. Lia explained and the two started conversing. In the meantime, Ana took a walk in her Astral form.

With the sun cresting over the sky, no follow-up attack had come. The morning had revealed the carnage that they wrought. The funnel from their first battle was still there, and Targs were strewn all across the field and in a circle around their position. Not wasting water on showers they were all still covered in blood and mud.

But that wasn’t all, as she had feared their losses weren’t small either. Mane, Ice, and Frost were unconscious and had suffered terrible wounds. Coal had lost his leg, Bard his ear, and Artillery his hand. Thanks to Angel they were alive, and there wasn’t a risk of infection with the wounds closed. Zic and Rock weren’t that lucky. The Targs had broken the circle several times, and with only her, Pup, and Wind protecting the breaches, they had gotten overwhelmed a few times.

Zic was killed instantly in front of his brother, but for Rock, it was worse. He had gotten several wounds and had ignored them until it was too late, he had bled out in the shadow of the cart alone. Of the Stone band members, only seven survived, including their leader.

Nimble and Gramps had gone through the night with only scratches and bruises, so once Lia was done with Ghost and Ana had returned to her body, they mounted up. The plan was to go check how far the Targs had fled, and if they got the chance to retrieve Ana’s board, they would. Half of the Razor’s band had joined them, the other half either lost their mounts or were injured.

The mounted band had suffered the greatest losses among them as they were in the thick of the fighting. Their group didn’t hurry and was progressing slowly, Ana rode behind Nimble as he had much more experience riding. Being her first time riding a mount, her excitement was bubbling, but that was until two minutes in once her ass started to ache. She would stick to her board in the future, please and thank you.

They passed many tracks that led towards the direction they had originally come from, it looked like the Targs were fleeing back to where they had launched their first strike from.

With clear skies and an open field they continued, mounted like that they had speed, much to Ana’s chagrin. After one hellish ride later they got to her board that was half-buried where it had fallen. They had seen a few corpses along the way, Targs either dying to their wounds or due to infighting.

Getting her board she convinced her companions to let her scout the area from the sky. If they could find where the Targs were headed it could help them plan for the future. It took some convincing since the last time they saw her fly she crashed and almost died.

Flying again felt right, and she took the skies scanning the area. It didn’t take a genius to see where a group of a hundred had gone. Flying around she spotted something in the distance, taking Nimble to take a better look. They figured out that the Targs had settled around the carts from Stone’s band, resting as well from the nighttime assault.

Even defeated there were a lot of them, and that was after almost two-thirds had died the previous night. But with their reduced numbers and in clear disarray, they identified the leader with ease. Following Nimble’s lead, as Ghost had told her to, she flew towards the group. While she didn’t agree with the plan and had quite enough of killing for one day, she understood the benefit of taking out their leader.

Combining her flying, the tired and injured enemies, and the keen eye of Nimble, it was a fairly easy task to take out the leader. It surprised her how easy it was, and it just proved the point that wizards were crazy powerful. It did take some fine-tuning for the magnetic field not to interfere with Nimble's arrows, but with the experience piloting the hovering platform she could use air pressure instead of magnetic fields. At least long enough for Nimble to take a few shots. He fired five shots in as many seconds, with the last three hitting their mark.

Not wanting to push their luck they decided to head back and inform the rest of the riders. There were twenty-seven of them in total, the enemy outnumbering them four to one. It would have been possible to attack the defeated Targs, but it was too reckless. They were all tired, worn out, and bloodied.

So instead of going for an attack, they took action into their own hands and were successful. Without their leader, the rest of the Targs split into three different groups after an intense argument and several fights.

As they were waiting to see what the Targs would do, the first people she had killed with her bare hands came to mind, and how bad she felt after that. The monsters that she had slain, the battle from last night. All of it painted a picture she didn’t like. But then again she wasn’t just a simple human living its life like the smith and his wife were. Did she even want a life like that?

If she did, why follow her career and not settle down with a more lucrative job and better hours. Why hasn’t she started a family before this mess? She was close to thirty now and had friends with kids starting school. So she had chosen long ago that a simple normal life wasn’t for her.

She hadn’t chosen to come here, but she chose to get stronger, to advance far enough so returning home wouldn’t only be a distant wish. And now she even questioned that desire. She was also afraid, afraid that if she did return home would her old life take her back? After everything she had done to get there, was there a line that she couldn’t uncross?

That was a vicious cycle, and Lia had snapped her out of the self-deprecating questions. The Targs decided to attack. Even if they fled their home for some unknown reason, they still came to the kingdom and were not up for negotiations. Lia’s reasoning turned Ana’s doubts about a murder into justified self-defense.

After an hour no Targ was in sight, and Razor had led his party after one of the smaller splintered groups. She joined Gramps and Nimble in collecting bodies from dead members of Stone’s group. The carts were still functional but most of the supplies were gone.

With the two mounts pulling the wagons instead of dead and eaten pack animals, they started to slowly make their way back with as many supplies as they could salvage. They would be late checking in, but their speed was slow with the carts and additional cargo, as it took them around an hour just to load everything in.

They got back in the afternoon and seeing the relieved and pissed-off face of Ghost, Ana knew a shit storm was coming. Gramps and Nimble didn’t say much on their way back. The fight had taken a lot out of them, and they dreaded finding out if any more of their friends had died while they were gone.

The fact that they retrieved the bodies and the supplies would mean a lot to Stone. In the meantime the group that stayed had created a new campsite away from the bodies, moving the injured there. While they were loading supplies Ana threw anything that looked good on the cart, which included some medical supplies.

She imagined syringes, bandages, and pills, but instead, she got bandages, herbs, honey, animal grease, and lint. Without a healer on their side, Stone band had a lot of supplies intended for wound care. Gramps and Nimble explained what had transpired, and how Razor was after the splintered group.

That night they rested a first good rest for the members of Stone’s band in three days, after fighting for two nights, running for a day, and losing more than half of their friends.