In the moments before the mercenary drew close, Hugo raced through his options.

Running was useless if the man had already caught up with him. Hugo needed to attack. If he threw enough of his exploding spheres at the man, he might be able to overwhelm him. A quick check of his mana showed that was impossible. He only had twelve points left.

He had enough for one more sphere, or about four more small shields. Hugo didn’t have time to panic, he had to act now. He glanced behind himself. The ravine was too wide to jump, even if he had invested all of his rank ups into strength. It was at least three times as far as he could jump.

There wasn’t enough time to come up with a better solution. He needed to make the attempt.

Putting every bit of effort back into running, Hugo ran straight for the ravine. He kept his eyes glued to the opposite edge, not allowing himself to look down. He couldn’t even think about down right now. He reached the edge and leapt. He made a long shallow arc across the expanse, creating a small blue foot sized barrier moments before he dipped below the horizon.

With that one foot, he pushed off with all of his might, keeping his momentum going.

Then he made another barrier, and another. He had never been more thankful to Marius for the lessons on quickly creating barriers. He didn’t need to make a fourth step, having made it all the way across. His foot caught on the lip of the ravine as he flew across the expanse. This turned into a tumble, arms and legs flying.

Hugo’s heart was beating a mile a minute and sweat broke out all over his body. He couldn’t believe he had done that. His fear of heights was catching up with him now and his body started shaking with aftershocks.

A glance to the other side of the ravine showed the mercenary standing at the edge, staring at Hugo. It was too far to read his expression, but Hugo assumed he was furious. He just stood there as Hugo slowly recovered. His legs and arms were injured, but he could walk.

Looking around himself, Hugo saw the bridge in the distance to his left. He needed to get running again. The man in black would see it soon and run around to get to him.

Then the mercenary did something strange. He carefully sheathed both weapons and started to slowly walk away. He wasn’t heading towards the bridge. Was he giving up?

Hope blossomed in Hugo’s heart as the man continued to walk away. Once he was a hundred feet from the edge, the man turned and his pants started glowing blue. They were runed with some magic he had just activated. Then he sprinted right for the edge, just as Hugo had done.

Hugo scrambled to his feet and watched in horror as the man ran and leapt. The mercenary was going to make it. His runic boosted leggings must have given him the strength to make the jump. He was arcing high through the air, heading right for Hugo.

Desperately, Hugo drew the last three points of mana he had left. He could make one more buckler and then he would be totally out. It wasn’t going to be enough. This man was an experienced killer, and Hugo was just a kid with two years of training.

He started to form the shield anyway, changing the destination at the last moment. Instead of directly over his right arm, Hugo placed the shield in the path of the flying man.

The mercenary hit the shield midair, with a loud thump. The shield shattered with the impact, but it had been enough. The man’s momentum was no longer enough to make it across. Instead, the mercenary hit the sheer cliff wall five feet below the edge and bounced off.

Hugo couldn’t see him fall from where he was, but he could hear the man’s panicked screams as he fell all the way to the bottom. Hugo made himself walk to the edge, to make sure he hadn’t caught a ledge on the way down. The cliff face was bare, the man had impacted the ravine bottom well below.

It was over. Hugo walked back to safety before he collapsed again and let himself go. He started crying from relief, anger, fear. He wasn’t sure what he felt. He slowly recovered.

...

A few minutes later, Hugo was back with his friends and panicking again. His head swiveled around at every small sound. So far there had been nothing but he knew these woods were dangerous.

Once Hugo had regained his mental stability, he had forced himself to rejoin his team. This time using the bridge. It was still terrifying, but his leap across the same chasm set a new high bar for him to compare against.

His fellow students were unconscious in a monster infested forest. He had to go back and protect them. It took longer than expected to find them. He had run farther than he remembered when escaping the mercenary.

Finally, the walls of dirt and spiderwebs came into view. The unnatural fog had long since dissipated. He raced around to the open section of the wall. All nine of his teammates lay motionless on the forest floor. He rushed over to Daniela first. He put his hand on her neck, checking for a pulse.

Thankfully, the man in black hadn’t lied. She was just knocked out, not dead. A quick check of the others showed that they were all still alive as well. Oliver had thrown his body across Alice in an attempt to save her, that was sweet. Reassured that they were fine, Hugo turned towards the gap in the trees. They were missing a wall where Daniela’s barrier had been broken.

A quick check showed that he didn’t have enough mana to create a large enough barrier. He only had four points now, he would need at least six to create the wall. He grabbed the dropped shields and weapons and stacked them between the trees. It wasn’t enough to fully close the gap, but it would funnel the monsters to the middle so he would have an easier chance of defending his friends.

He armed himself with a spear, wishing that his crossbow hadn’t broken. At least he had his arrows now. He strapped his bag to himself again, pulling out an arrow. He couldn’t shoot it, but he could treat it like a lower powered grenade.

As prepared as he could get, Hugo was standing guard, panicking. He knew he couldn’t protect his team from any group of monsters. He could count on killing one monster before they overwhelmed him. A large group would mean the death of them all.

He needed his mana back, and he didn’t have the time to wait. He glanced back to the alchemist in their group, the boy who had provided the grenades. Would he have a mana potion?

Hurriedly, Hugo ran over to check. The alchemist had a bandolier full of sturdy potion bottles. The problem was that none of them were labeled. There were three colors, red, blue, and light blue. Hugo was reasonably sure that the red ones were health potions. He recognized them from their first aid kit on previous culling trips.

He didn’t know about the others. He thought that the dark blue potions were mana potions, but he wasn’t sure. He had never seen one before. He also knew that alchemists often brought poison along on these trips. If he guessed wrong, he could kill himself.

He held one in each hand. Blue or light blue? A snapped twig in the distance made him realize he was out of time.

“You lot are going to get a failing grade on this defense, you left a section wide open,” a voice called out. Hugo dropped the potion when he realized who it was. It was Sage Emily.

“Oh thank the gods you are back,” Hugo said.

“What happened?” the sage said as she walked closer and saw the bodies laying on the ground. A look of horror appeared on her face.

“Don’t worry, they are still alive,” Hugo said. He quickly gave her a run down of everything that had happened. He went ahead and told her that he thought the mercenary had been sent by the hedge mages. Even if the dean hadn’t told her why she was protecting him, she deserved to know why her charges were drugged on the ground.

When Hugo was done with his explanation, she swore softly and said, “I had no idea. I mean he warned me to keep an eye on you because they might try something. But I had no idea the hedgies would send an assassin.”

Hugo frowned and said, “If you knew that, why did you leave us? We could have died.”

She harrumphed, “Young man, I was responding to an emergency signal. We don’t use those casually. If I hadn’t gone and dealt with that greater velociraptor swarm, those ten students would have died. I regret having to leave you alone, but I clearly made the right choice since no one died. Come on, let’s get your friends healed up.”

Hugo was still upset with her leaving them, but she had a point. It had turned out alright in the end. Together, they worked on removing the darts and pouring his healing potions down their throats. Hugo felt a little silly for not thinking of that himself. He knew nothing about the knockout darts, it hadn’t occurred to him that a healing potion could counteract one.

Daniela was the last one they got to, and as soon as she got her bearings she said, “By the gods, Hugo. Are you alright?”

Hugo realized then that he still had blood on his arms from where he fell. “I’m fine, these scrapes are almost healed.”

“What happened?” she said.

Answering this question was more difficult than Hugo was prepared for. There was no way he could lie and claim a monster did this, but at the same time, could he risk letting potential hedge mage sympathizers know they were after him? He trusted Daniela, but he hadn’t met most of the people listening in before today.

“You were all shot with a poison dart, knocking you all unconscious. I got lucky and the dart headed for me was deflected by my barrier. I led the attacker away, and then escaped,” Hugo said and paused before continuing, “There is more to it, of course, but I don’t think I am supposed to say.”

“That’s right,” Sage Emily said, “I am sure you are all curious, but this is for your own protection. I will discuss this with the dean after we get back, and I will tell you more if he allows it.”

Hugo nodded along. He knew the dean would tell them to continue to be quiet about it, but hopefully the promise would keep them from asking too many questions.

They were all understandably upset. Despite Hugo’s hopes, everyone had questions for him that he couldn’t answer. They talked the whole way to the bridge, the sage allowing them some leeway with the rules considering the circumstances.

On the walk back, some of the students realized the subtext of what Hugo wasn’t saying. They had been attacked, and the attacker was gone now. Hugo had saved them. They each took the chance to personally thank him. It gave Hugo a buoyant and warm feeling.

When they arrived at the bridge, his good mood evaporated. It was harder to convince himself to cross it this time. No one was in imminent danger now, so he had time to think about how horrifying the ravine was. He had recently seen someone plummet to their deaths. It took Daniela’s hand and a lot of patience to get him across the bridge.

This time, no one minded waiting for him to cross, they were much more understanding. When he was finally on the other side, Hugo’s good mood returned.

Once they returned to the mana carts, Sage Emily called over a few other sages and sent them to go collect the body of the mercenary. She stayed to keep watch over them.

The ride back to the academy was subdued. Once they arrived, Sage Emily immediately went to the dean to report, towing Hugo along. The dean listened to Hugo’s story and then sent him back to the dorms. He didn’t get far before he heard the dean yelling at Sage Emily for leaving Hugo. He was a very angry man.

Two days later, Mia and Hugo were called into the dean’s office for an update.

“We got lucky with the mercenary,” Dean Artjom said, “The shimmer corps had a file on him. He was a well known sellsword, a slivered.”

“A slivered?”

“Someone that gets soulmarked, but never gains a magic domain. They can use mana, but they can’t do anything with it. Probably explains why he was working with the hedge mages. He wanted to learn their ways. Not that it would ever work. Once the Acomarian system is in you, you can’t use hedge magic. Part of the reason we are on opposite sides of this conflict. You really have to pick a side.”

“Why is there a conflict, a war? I get that we have been killing them for years, but what started it all? And why are they willing to destroy a whole city to get at us?”

“The answer to both is that they are fanatics,” Dean Artjom said, “Which only scratches the edges of the truth. If you will indulge an old educator, I will tell you the full story since I believe you deserve to know.”