Emily watches in rapt attention as her friends are ushered into the camp by angry soldiers, pushed and jostled as the crowd jeers and calls out names to the Greenbarrow adventurers. She can feel her heart beat strongly through her skin, a panicked fury snaking swiftly around her heart in the form of a roiling, swiftly-shaking mana thread before reaching for her mind, pulsing out in an imperceptible pulse of power that sweeps over the people (and animal) around her, causing Blue to shift from foot to foot and the others to look around with furtive glances.

  She stands up as far as she can on Blue’s back and watches as her best friends are walked into the camp, limping as they go along. They disappear in the sea of bodies, entering the open maw of the camp’s gates. Bill furtively steps up closer to Emily, a nervous look on his face.

  “Uh… Ma’am? Do you want me to, uh… To let you off now? Or would you prefer I just lead you in, if you don’t feel like walking?”

  Emily ignores Bill, craning her neck in a panicked attempt to see where her friends have ended up. Thoughts flowed through her head in rapid order, one after another, too fast for her to grasp properly but lingering long enough for her panic to start ramping up. A faint feeling of relief warms her fingertips and toes for a moment; a part of her heart unclenching from the fear that she’d escape the forest just to find that her friends will never leave it that she’s been carrying all this time. But that feeling of relief is swiftly overwhelmed by the hopeless panic that’s clenching her. How did they end up as prisoners? Are they okay? What is the army going to do to them?

  How is she going to get them out?

  “Ma’am?”

  The sight of them getting pushed around and leered at drives a hard spike of anger right in the middle of her panic. How dare they hurt her friends? What kind of barbarian would beat their prisoner to the point that Alastair and Nora have clearly been brought to? Whoever did that clearly has no conscience or empathy. It’d almost be a mercy to put them down herself… And oh, how well-equipped she is to do just that.

  Emily stares down at her hands, those instruments of death that have taken a life before… Bill said that it was the Spymaster? All she has to do is prepare her mana, point, and that would be one less enemy for her country to face.

  “Ma’am…”

  She looks up at the crowd, as they rapidly part and disappear into the camp. Why stop at just the one? She should just sweep through the camp with as much mana as she can draw from her cells, slicing them down like wheat before the scythe. Every single one that she takes out is another that can’t threaten her home and her loved ones. She wonders for a moment how many she could take out before they got to her. She reckons the number would be surprisingly high.

  “Emily, damn it! I might be a squire, but at least have the decency to acknowledge me when I’m trying to serve you!”

  Emily’s eyes turn to the man standing next to her, fury running through her veins, the uniform he’s wearing just making her fury rise further and further. She prepares her mana, her hand starting to glow, as she stares down the squire.

  “Watch it. I’m in a really, really bad mood that you really don’t want to test right now.”

  Emily hears the click of a crossbow bolt and turns to find Tishia pointing her weapon straight at Emily, her breath coming out heavy and her face red with rage. “Try it, bitch, and I’ll turn you into a unicorn.”

  Emily turns to look at ‘Jeff’ and sees him grasping his sword and shield tightly, ready to pull them out at a moment’s notice. He chews on his lip as he eyes the three people around him, and the group seems to go quiet. The air hangs heavy with tension, and with a sigh, Emily lets out a breath and calms her rage, letting her mana go as she does so.

  “Sorry… I just… Lost my cool for a second there.”

  The rest of the group seems to relax at that, an almost physical tension relaxing as shoulders slouch once again and Tishia unloads the bolt and carefully loosens the tension in the string.

  “Hey, we get it,” ‘Jeff’ says, as he lets go of his weapons and shakes out his hands. “First time you seen a Greenbarrow bastard in person? If even half the rumors about them are true, they deserve all that anger and then some.”

  Emily shrugs non-committedly, as she glances at Bill, finding the man glaring at Emily before turning away at her look. He grabs Blue’s leash and starts leading the ostrich and his passenger towards the gate, stomping as he goes. “Come on. The Commander’s gonna want a debrief from you.”

  “I can walk there.” Emily replies testily, as she swings her leg over the side of Blue’s flank and drops down to the ground, careful to avoid getting caught on his razor sharp claws as she does. “I’m guessing you’ll find me later?”

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  “If that’s what you want, ma’am. It’s not like I’m gonna be serving my knight anytime soon.” he says sullenly, as he walks away, leash in hand and a pensive look on his face. Emily watches them walk away for a moment, before she turns without another word and makes her way towards the Commander’s tent; thinking the entire time of ways to save her friends and get them out of the camp safely.

  She runs through ideas in her mind as her feet take her to where she assumes the commander’s tent is, having entirely forgotten how she got to and from there but vaguely remembering that it was quite the straight path from the gate to it. But it’s not like she could miss it, even if she tried to. It’s the tallest tent here, after all. Instead of worrying about it, Emily considers the merits of extreme ultra magic violence as a form of distraction and lockpicking.

  She wanders around the walkways between the tents for ages, her mind trying to come up with ideas on how to pick locks with wind as the sun starts to set behind her, when she suddenly realizes that she’s wandered past the Commander’s tent. Turning on her heels, she faces the large structure, a soft candlelight glow coming from deep within it.

  She takes a deep breath and decides to get it over and done with. It’s not like it matters if he’s pleased with her performance or not, anyways. The moment she can, she’s going to look for her friends and break out with them, after all.

  She steps into its open maw, the candlelight helping her to adjust to the darkness within it quicker. Sitting behind the large desk in the center of it, on a stool comically too small for him, is the Commander, his perpetual smile a bit wider today as he stops chatting to the soldier in front of him long enough to acknowledge Emily.

  “Ah, Archmage. How good of you to join us. Just one moment, someone was in need of my time before you.”

  He turns back to the soldier, taking a paper from the desk and handing it to him. “Off you go, now. I want his response by the time Emily here has left the tent.”

  The soldier turns and nervously glances at Emily, before looking back at the Commander. “And… How long would you say she’ll be here for, sir?”

  The Commander turns his eyes to Emily, his smile reaching his eyes. “Considering that smolder, I’d say not very long at all.”

  The soldier gulps and snatches the paper, giving the Commander a crisp salute before speed-walking past Emily and out of the tent. The Commander smoothly sits up from his tiny chair, dusting off his pants before walking in front of the table to face her.

  “So. I take it the mission was a success?”

  Emily crosses her arms, glaring up at the man. “I thought mind pixies were supposed to be harmless?”

  “Ahhh,” the Commander says, as his eyebrows lift knowingly. “So, how many soldiers did we lose? I didn’t hear the stomps of your… Little ostrich following behind you.”

  “Actually, we all made it back alive, much to I’m sure your disappointment.” Emily replies, as she taps her foot. “I thought Mind Pixies were supposed to be harmless!”

  The Commander chuckles at that, shaking his head. “Oh, no. They’re quite far from harmless. Which is why I’m quite surprised your party made it back in one piece…”

  He lifts his eyebrow, the smile on his face dropping slightly. “So… Who was it that saved you?”

  Emily feels a sharp spike of anger at his words, as she digs her fingernails painfully into her forearm in an attempt not to lash out and smack the smile right off of the smug bastard’s face. “Nobody ‘saved me’, for your information. I was the one doing the saving. Everyone else just… Collapsed, all sad and useless. I had to take care of almost all of them by myself. So, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you want to kill me, you’re going to have to do it another way.”

  The Commander looks surprised for a moment, before his grin grows wider, his perfectly straight, white teeth almost shining in the darkening light.

  “Well, well. Didn’t we just luck out with you.”

  He steps up closer to Emily, inspecting her from head to toe, and suddenly Emily’s anger gives in just a little bit to nervousness; like a gazelle under the gaze of a lion.

  “Tell me, Emily. What do you know about mind mages?”

  Emily shrugs. “That they’re nothing to worry about? Um… Completely harmless?”

  The Commander watches her for a moment, the silence stripping away more and more of her anger and leaving a cold, worried feeling in its place. Something seems to satisfy him, as he nods his head and turns away from Emily, walking back to the desk, his back to her.

  “We might just have a special place for you, once this assignment is over. That is, if you’d prefer helping out your country from behind the lines.” He glances at her from behind his shoulder, a serious expression on his face. “After all, a war can’t be fought on poor morale. And you’d be well compensated, even more than an Archmage on the front lines would be.”

  Emily tries her hardest to guess as to what he could be alluding to, keeping her mouth shut in case she says the wrong thing. The Commander stares at her for a moment longer, in deep thought, before his smile comes back, cold and calculating.

  “But for now, you’re my piece to play. You’re dismissed. We’ll discuss this in more detail at a later time.”

  He turns back to his papers, leaning on the table and reading over them, completely dismissing Emily’s presence. She takes the opportunity to duck out of the tent, almost colliding with the soldier as she does so, the poor man huffing and puffing like he just ran a marathon.

  She turns and walks down the rows of tents once again, trying her hardest to dismiss the Commander’s words from her mind, filing them away in her “not important, to be forgotten” pile, never to be considered again.

  After all, she won’t be here for much longer. She has some prisoners to break out.