The road from Tarnox was greatly diminished from some past greatness. The paving stones meandered far into the trees suggesting that four or five carts could travel without any risk of bumping into each other. As it was now you could have two way traffic if one way was willing to drive halfway into the brush and let the other pass.

  It wasn't much of a concern for travellers going to Tarnox since that demographic did not exist. News of the city's security and freedom would not spread unless traders who had no reason to waste all their revenue on bribes were willing to waste their time going through the city.

  Austalir had also reported seeing many refugees of the chaos in the woods with their camps. Since they had abandoned the cities and their rules, more specifically the taxes, any representative of the cities would represent them in one word.

  Bandit.

  Guard patrols and soldiers on campaign would have every incentive to 'deal with' these bandits to disincentivize others going the same way. The disincentives made those who escaped or heard of it even more desirous of freedom and even less trusting of authorities.

  They would behave like bandits.

  And so the three carts that were led by Taramo on the road back to NewPort were stopped by a ragtag group of raiders with unbalanced spears ready to throw and crude bows. They were very interested in the barrels on the third cart and wanted to acquire them at the lowest cost.

  The bargaining began thusly.

  "Oi! You give us the shit an we let ye live." The leader, An elderly man with an iron rod and a dozen sparks orbiting above his head called out. Taramo heard his muttering so he knew that the dialect was a front, to appear more threatening.

  "Now I think it's best if we lower our weapons and talk like civilized men." Austalir led the diplomacy. He was the most noticeable among them and he was known for both wealth and military strength. His rods were kept and used by the elites in the Newport military and when earlier deserters had taken the rods with them the quality became recognized across the lands. He had official robes that would be unmistakeable though they were packed away and the bandits weren't going to let him change.

  The contents of their wagon were high value products. Arachne silk, spices from the south, and the leavings after the Pitarav's beetle grubs gave up on eating their eggs. The latter was especially useful in alchemy since it could be used to imbue leather or silk with an inner strength that made it as strong as steel.

  But the conversation continued in circles. Posturing and counterposturing. Sitting in the second wagon Taramo gave up on waiting for them to come up with a peaceful solution. Three of the bandits were circling around in the woods, visible because of the two wisp butterflies that made themselves invisible in the woods. the ground was a little muddy and that gave Taramo an idea.

  The ground under the three bandit's feet suddenly became smooth, granules of dirt moving to accomodate the heav bootfalls and the roots pulling out of the way. They slipped into the earth like a diver into the water, stopping at shoulder depth and hollering for all the good it did them.

  Spears and arrows were stopped by a thin web that twisted and entangled the projectiles. They spun away from their targets, the few that would have actually hit someone. Controlled by Ariwyn through the potted vine. Taramo left it in the hands of the man beside him. One of the dozen who wished to return to Newport as soon as possible.

  "I'll deal with this." He leapt off the back of the wagon and walked towards the furious bandit leader. The sparks of mana flew towards him in a wave. Fireball was a flashy spell but it could be more easily countered for it. All but one of the sparks were snuffed out, the last being deflected far into the sky. It exploded into an octopus of fire, tentacles leaping out and curving in strange directions. It probably would have been effective if he'd let all of them go off.

  "Were they all like that?" Taramo asked as he meandered towards the bandit leader. A ray of frost was sent in response, alongside another volley of arrows from the dozen bandits hiding beside or standing in the open on the road. They were all stopped in place.

  "It would really be best if you surrendered." The look of disgust on the man's face prodded Taramo. What trust would they have that surrender would get them anything better than slavery or execution? If they were willing to threaten a wagonn train with a dozen men they must be desparate.

  "I swear that I will not begin violence against you or your kin for two days." the oath was binding, a vow made on one's life with their life. An Oath could only be falsified if the

  The arrows hanging in the air fell limply to the ground as Taramo waited for a response from the bandit. No response was forthcoming though there were no further attacks.

  "Your other men aren't dead," Taramo prodded, "I'll even take them out of the dirt for free. I just need a promise that you won't start something."

  The old man looked at the sky where his 'fireball' left a mangled mass of smoke and back down to the man before him.

  "We will stand down for now." A little bit of mana made it a small promise. If broken the worst that he'd face would be a migrane. A pretty bad one, but survivable.

  "Good. I hope you've got space for a few more for tonight because I'm not interested in camping the whole way." The men were pushed up from their temporary grave gently and quickly, like a dry stick held under water and let go to drift to the surface.

  Some of the other bandits looked a bit offended at being ignored so thoroughly by the greenish mage, though the leader quickly put them into line and got them returning to the camp.

  The vagrants had taken up in an abandoned abbey with most of them living out of the chapel that was still intact. Stained glass fell onto the tents that were setup inside despite the enclosed space. Smoke from fires on the smooth floor trailed up to the bell tower where windows were probably opened. Going into it Taramo saw gardens with a mostly intact fence around them and evidence of a bonfire some weeks ago, bits of grass were flourishing on the margins of the ashes. Food from the wagons were taken and distributed and once they discovered most of the contents of the wagons were silk and other non-edibles they were mildly disappointed.

  Some of the bandits had hitched a ride on the wagons, though they hadn't touched any of the barrels or crates. They brought a little food, enough to make the trip without hunting. The rest was occupied with the materials to sell at the ports and bring trade.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Hunting for Taramo would be quite easy and in the worst case they could return to Tarnox and get food delivered partway. Ariwyn was still able to connect directly from the city though she would need to place a cutting within a day's travel to keep connected.

  The food barrels, tubers and some dried meats, were rolled inside where an elderly woman judged and had them moved to a large cookpot so the meat could be soaked and the tubers cooked. The wife of the bandit leader, she thanked Taramo for letting them expand their soup beyond gathered herbs and a few rabbits. Women spun wool from long dead sheep they'd butchered and children, thin and young, presented squirrels they'd caught and killed to be added to the soup. They were praised for their ingenuity.

  And they still weren't willing to go back to the cities. If the cities would take them.

  Taramo walked to the far side of the chapel and gazed into the stained glass. There was depicted a fight between someone who was probably Adras and a sea monster made of tentacles and breathing bright yellow fire. Masterful work that was probably reinforced by mana given none of the panes had broken.

  "It's not much, but it's all we've got." The leader, Ben, sounded a bit bitter when saying it. Taramo turned and gazed onto the tents and children who changed to playing tag on the outside of the cluster of tents where there were no firepits.

  "It's nice." Taramo complimented, "Dig a well and clear some land ang you'd have a nice village."

  "It was once." Ben said, "You can see remnants of the fields and farmhouses from the bell tower, though we've been too busy trying to stay fed to look too deep into it."

  "I've seen many animals in the travel here. Shouldn't hunting be profitable?"

  "It should. But everyone who passed through was likely to try to steal from us, or kidnap us. We've needed to be far more cautious because of that..." Ben fell silent as one of the butterflies landed on Taramo's finger, letting out a prismatic light from the spread wings that connected to form a plane showing the landscape.

  "What is that?"

  "The view from the bell tower, don't you recognize it?" Taramo can't have believed that he hadn't gone up to check, especially since there was a rope ladder that was connected to the

  "No. I mean the bug." Ben pointed at the butterfly

  The image flickered as the 'bug' flicked it's wings testily. It hadn't trained in combat magic as far as Taramo knew, though that was no reason to let it make an attempt.

  "It's okay." Taramo insisted and the little butterfly huffed, but sat obediently. "This is a wisp that was born recently. She is one of several and they are interconnected. I began them as a search spell and they grew into themselves. This one, she is a little showoff." The butterfly only didn't blush since she lacked the biology for the function.

  "Wisps? Like those wraiths of Tarnox?" Ben took a small step back.

  "They are mana manifested and given a mind. A wraith would fit the definition, but they were only dangerous because of how they were allowed to develop and their fundamental nature. The wraith's nature was protection and security. They were dangerous because they were a spell designed to keep a place secure for thousands of years and they had many times more than that to develop self-identities."

  "How in all the hells do you know that?"

  Taramo walked right into that one. What should he say. Should he explain his entire history or just

  "I made them."

  "You did? But then you'd have to be-"

  "Ancient, and an archmage."

  Ben's face lost all colour when he realized that he'd threatened someone who was extremely powerful and, often enough, morally variable. IF he'd been sufficiently disinterested Ben would have been extinguished like a candle.

  "It's fine." Taramo insisted, "I am not interested or seeking in wasteful destruction." He used some mana to force it to be truth. Not as effective as making an oath on his life but it was nearly impossible to speak a direct untruth when holding the essence of one's life.

  "Okay, okay." Ben took a moment to breathe, and Taramo let him. The children, who had been sneaking and watching for an undetermined time, spoke up.

  "Is that a magic butterfly?"

  "It's soooo pretty!"

  And other exclamations were made.

  Taramo let the little one show off their skills and bent light to make streamers, beams, and explosions like fireworks. There were no sounds but the children made enough noise for the lot of it.

  Then supper was ready and all were being called to sit and eat.

  The Newport men sat around the fires with the other men and their families when they took their meals. Austalir and Taramo sat with the leader and his elderly wife who was content to let some of the younger women ladle the soup into their wooden bowls.

  Ben ignored the facts about hosting ancient mages of unexplainable power, but

  "You say that though we've been having more than enough problems while here. The Silver Chain passed through weeks ago and they made off with our venison we were smoking and collapsed our smokehouse. There's not been any venison since because there's been those mossy wolves about."

  "Mossy Wolves?" Austalir was sitting beside them while politely sipping from his bowl of soup. "They were seen around Newport and they were driven off. We had to burn the underbrush in most of our woods to get them to leave."

  "There a terror for us. We've lost two of our best hunters to them. You can hardly notice them and they're on you. We were hunting when we noticed you but hunting is harder when we have to be close enough to help each other."

  The potted vine in Taramo's lap twitched.

  "That sounds interesting. We should learn more about them"

  Ariwyn projected the voice, which startled Ben quite a bit. A thin weave from Taramo brought the soup back into his bowl before it touched the ground or anything else.

  "The plant talks?"

  "Yes. She's the local goddess of Tarnox."

  Ben failed to think of a proper response so he set upon finishing his soup.

  They set up their tents afterwards and Taramo sat with Ariwyn in the first watch.

  Taramo scanned the woods from a space on the roof. The little butterflies were wandering in the woods and Taramo was able to see what they did.

  Moss wolves. He didn't want to send one of the butterflies to check the ground because they had some means to observe or attack that he didn't know yet. They probably couldn't damage the butterflies but there was no reason to take risks when there would be time to view them.

  There was movement, a large form melting away in the darkness. He thought that he saw something, but by the time he could focus on one of the forms it had disappeared.

  Like magic.

  But the magic was something definitely absent here, or something so subtle that even he couldn't notice it from a distance.

  He would have to get closer and personally investigate it. The pot containing the vine was resting in Ben's tent, Ariwyn having left her attention to focus on Tarnox.

  The quotidien, dealing with rats that were nibbling on vines in her garden, she forced the vines to not engage in their self-defensive behavior because of the children who might be a bit rough in touching them. Reviewing the progress that the Village, the farm, and Merlin got to and giving any advice that they wished to recieve. He would wait until she returned to consult her.

  Then a horse screamed. A sound of desparation.

  He made it over the roof and to the other side to see one of the horses being flanked by two wolves. The others were huddled against the wall with rolling eyes.

  Taramo pulled earth up to cover and immobilize the wolves, but they passed through it like it was mist that was pushing down on them. They stopped the attack on the horse to look up at him.

  Distraction. Get them to leave. Fire drove them from Newport. He called up a handful of fire and threw it at the horse. It curved around the animal causing no physical harm and swarmed the wolves. Except the wolves disappeared into the dirt when the fire approached.

  It probably was one of them before. Were they checking on whether he was looking that way? Could they determine his power and decide that he had to be accounted for?

  Taramo floated down to the paddock to investigate, others who guarded the doors were rousing all the necessary people.

  Having not extinguished the fire and ignored the horse Taramo was thrown against the fence by a kick. His shields saved him, but not the logs that made up the fence. The horses seemed to know what was in the night so they were unwilling to go anywhere except inside the cathedral, nosing the partially opened door the rest of the way. Hooves clicking on the stone floor.

  Stone. That might be the solution. The paddock was good soil with a layer of grass overtop even after the horses tried to trim it. If the wolves were aggressive and they hadn't attacked people in the cathedral- Had they?- that might explain their abilities.

  Taramo had to excuse the help that had surrounded him, accepting a hand to his feet but refusing the offer of medical aid. Ariwyn would give better if he needed anything and he did not.

  He'd have to set up a wolf hunt for the morning.