Corporal Adan Ortiz could do nothing other than his role in the company. He flew nearly a longstride above the ground and watched with glee as the patrol wiped out a sizable fraction of the herd. Then with disappointment when the herd beasts didn’t rush past the corpses to chase. That was because the foul things rooted at the corpses to dig out their beast cores, the base ingredient to make En Shards.

Pity, those would have been worth a pretty penny. Not enough to trade for a life though.

He spotted Private Rivera winging in from the west, face a frantic mask. He practically dropped on top of the Lieutenant, gesticulating frantically. Adan forced himself to stay aloft. He looked towards the west, and saw exactly what it was that caused Rivera to panic.

“Tsk.”

Another beast tide. Twisted carnivores.

Adan felt a chill run up his spine. Those things were far more aggressive and persistent than herd beasts. They hunted down humanoids even daring to attack towns and villages and, sometimes, cities. Here in the borderlands, the Twisted were a constant threat. But also a source of wealth. Well, mostly threats. What can be harvested from the Twisted could be found in Chaos Founts too, and those were easier to manage and keep safe.

He kept an eye on the company as he flew closer to the carnivores, trying to get an accurate count. There had been hundreds of bicorns, minus a dozen or so killed earlier. From the looks of it, there were at least a hundred carnivores out in the open. There was a network of narrow ravines that Adan hadn’t noticed before, from the way the shadows fell on them. The carnivores were emerging out of them, from the looks of it.

The ravines led westward, and came out in cul-de-sacs that opened up to regular hills. From there, he could see more of the carnivores running.

But…

Why were they running? They could not have detected the herds of bicorns from all the way there, right? Or did the wolf-based Twisted Beasts have really keen noses?

Either way, the company was retreating farther away. Rivera leapt back to the air and joined Adan. The winds were too loud to converse, but both of them were conversant with Ib’honara claw language.

“I saw something strange farther west. Didn’t look. Carnivores coming,” Rivera signed.

“Danger?”

“Could be. Dunno.”

“Go back and check. Make sure.”

“Need fresh eyes. Exhausted.”

“Fine. Guide team to safety.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rivera pointed the direction, and Adan left after signalling Lieutenant Coinoch his intentions. The company was already moving perpendicular to the herd and upcoming carnivore packs, and hopefully, the meatier and slower bicorns would distract the wolf-bear-tigers from coming after the humanoids.

He lingered above for a while, enough time to ascertain that the company had escaped. The packs killed about a hundred bicorns before the herd got away, with the herbivores peeling away from their original easterly direction and headed north. The Republic had five hundred leagues of border against the wasteland, and Duskfoot Guard was roughly a hundred leagues south of the northern border. The herd, if they kept their heading, would eventually leave the Republic’s territory. And even if they don’t, they’ll be the problem of another patrol group.

The carnivores, on the other hand, stopped to feast. When the ones that came late arrived, there were short and vicious fights over the carcasses. There was a rather frenzied nature to their feeding, even more than what Adan knew was normal. But they were occupied enough that he felt safe moving on.

He flew westward for several minutes, nearly half an hour. The Elemental Fog prevented vision from penetrating too far, not without using Arcana Weaving or having an innate spell inscribed for senses. Everything farther out than a longstride or two became blurrier and blurrier, until nothing could be distinguished from the haze. It was mostly the elemental particles that one couldn’t see, but were nonetheless present.

So it was that he started, and nearly stalled with what he saw.

“Is that a…ship? Moving on land?” he squawked.

Squinting his eyes, he could barely believe it. He reached up with a foot talon and pinched his cheek, the pain jolted him enough to convince that he wasn’t in an illusion, dream, or unconscious.

The floating ship, which moved smoothly across the hills as though it were on the waves, sailed to the east. And he could see a few carnivore packs running from it. There were people on board, though through the sails, it was hard to get an accurate number. He saw at least someone at the wheel, near the stern. Their golden hair was so reflective that it shone golden even from up here.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

There was another golden haired figure near the bow, then a few darker haired ones. Adan chewed on his lower lip. His mouth was actually covered in a scaly flesh that looked a cross between a human’s lips, and a bird’s beak. Flexible yet firm. It made speaking the trade tongue and exercise in precision.

It was clear that they were humanoids, but what kind? He decided he needed to know. For all he knew they could be elementals or spirits. Even worse, maybe Chaos Elementals. They were certainly coming from the border.

His innate spells had little to do with enhancing senses so he’d have to weave Arcana for it. He hung back a bit, then began murmuring mnemonics. The syllables were nonsensical, and if another were to hear and repeat them, nothing would have happened. They were, instead, a memory trick that most magi use to prime their brains for casting.

Droplets of water gathered around his eyes and formed into a pair of lenses. With his mind, he willed the things to adjust, sharpen, then focus. And with the impromptu telescope, he focused on the floating ship,

The figure at the bow was definitely human. Female and young looking, with delicate and beautiful features. Those corkscrew curls looked like they belonged to a ballroom rather than in the wilderness though. The woman was glaring at the carnivore packs and Adan could see a crystalline dagger floating around her. She gestured sharply with a finger and the dagger darted away from focus. Adan followed the motion and found one of the lupine beasts with a slit throat. The creature collapsed and gurgled, dying. The ship simply floated past them without trying to collect the beast core. Wasteful.

But also, they were potential allies. Foreigners, from the cut of their clothes and their equipment. He dispelled his cast, feeling a long moment of weariness take its toll, then winged over and flew towards the company. This was above his pay grade and he was more than happy to pass the headache over to the lieutenant.

________

“Foreigners?” Cillian Coinoch frowned at Corporal Ortiz’ report. Fleeing from the herd and the packs didn’t take too long, however, the Steelds’ power reserves were flagging. They moved into a defensible nook, a gully that was deep enough to prevent easy sight and gave a passable wind shelter. The mechanical horses were down on their bellies, head tucked into chests and recharging handles out.

He had been in the process of channeling elemental fire into the mechanical core, and he should be done after an hour or so. The others might take a bit longer, or shorter, depending on their proficiencies. All of them were Journeymen Magi after all.

“Your orders, Lieutenant?” Corporal Ortiz asked pointedly and Cillian shook his head.

Orders, yes. He shut his eyes and used a memory recalling technique. A book appeared in his head, the pages turned until it showed the appropriate protocols for every event.

In case of contact with foreign magi, peaceful contact if possible, avoid if hostile. Defeat and capture if attacked, retreat and report if too strong.

What were the foreigners doing when Corporal Ortiz found them? Travelling east while destroying carnivore packs. No data on hostility and the only one who could make the attempt without undue risk were either Corporal Ortiz or Private Rivera.

He opened his eyes and looked at the younger, and flightier, Ib’honara. Yeah, no.

“Corporal Ortiz,” he began formally, “begin surveillance of the foreigners, then, after you ascertain they are not hostile, make contact.”

The older man gave him a sour look, and muttered something under his breath that Cillian managed to hear anyway: “How in the bloody daemonic hells will I know they’re not hostile without contact?” Regardless, the man saluted him, with two fingers extended from his right wing-arm touched to his eyebrow, then left.

Huh, Cillian thought. That was a valid question, wasn’t it? The protocols in the operation manual didn’t specify any action. Either way, it was beyond his reach now, and he still had not finished charging his Steeld.

__________

“How will I know?” Adan grumbled as he took to the air. Bloody young kid!

Lieutenant Coinoch, despite being the leader, was the youngest and most inexperienced soldier in the bunch. Gods knew who he offended to get deployed at the borderlands. If it were any other border, say against the Ishodir Empire or the Xotha Matriarchy, then maybe Coinoch would have had a chance. But no, he had been deployed against the border at the end of the known world. The Wastelands and the Shattered Realm lay beyond, and only crazy people, or adventurers at the end of their lifespan bothered to go here.

Which did beg the question of who the foreigners were. The Myriad Realms were vast beyond belief, and if not for the portals in the capital cities of the three neighboring countries, and the occasional drifter that got shafted from beyond the Chaos Founts, knowledge of the wider world would have been lost.

Perhaps these foreigners came through the Shattered Realm? But from which border country did they originate? Well, he wanted to find out.

Adan cut through the air and soon enough, he found the floating ship again. There were more carnivore carcasses left behind, and he was sorely tempted to salvage them himself. From the way the foreigners acted, they were at least hostile to the Twisted Beasts. Well, the beasts would attack anyone, really, except for Chaos Elementals and Chaos Magi, anyway.

He hovered a few hundred paces above and to the south of the ship. He had recovered from his Arcana Weaving earlier so he was ready to create another telescope to better spy on them.

The first blonde woman he saw wasn’t on deck any longer, but the other one was still at the helm. He focused the lenses on her and adjusted his position so that the sail wasn’t in the way.

“Oh, my…” he muttered. A vision of perfect beauty. He felt his heart race, but he squelched it down and forced himself to calm. Human beauty. He wasn’t that interested in someone who didn’t have wings and feathers, and the fact that he was momentarily stunned was strange. He stared at the perfect face for a long, long moment, then flinched when she seemed to look up towards him.

Did she catch sight of him? Impossible unless the woman had a sense enhancing spell. And even so, at this distance, he was but a speck in the air. An unmoving speck that was no doubt more suspicious than anything else.

“Damn fool,” he muttered to himself as he allowed the winds to move him. He looked back at the ship, wondering if it was a coincidence…

The woman was gone.

His eyes widened in alarm, and the next moment, it was as if the very winds seized him. He couldn’t move! He was falling…he wasn’t falling. Eh.

The next thing he knew, that golden haired beauty was right there in front of him. Standing in midair.

And if Adan didn’t have perfect control of his bladder, he would have wet himself by now.