"You knife-eared bastard! You dragged my students into shit again!" Ghorro snarled, slamming his aura into Arwen, sending him tumbling.

  Focusing, Arwen retaliated with his own aura, sending the orc spilling to one knee. "I'm innocent," he said sweetly, a wide smile plastered on his face. Arwen was many things, but innocent wasn't one of them. Not that the meathead Ghorro would ever find any evidence against him. He'd been doing this since before the orc was even a seed in his daddy's balls.

  "Enough." Brava barked, his aura pressing down firm and unyielding on the both of them. "We have students to watch over. Save the bickering for later."

  "Yes Mother," Arwen said with a smirk.

  Ghorro growled.

  "I propose we pull our students out. There was a Silver ranked goblin leading that raiding group. They aren't ready for that level of threat."

  "My students ain't weaklings! They can handle a Silver!"

  "I wouldn't dare deprive my students of a learning opportunity."

  "This region is already escalating beyond the Guild's intelligence. If we don't act, students will die on our watch. Again."

  "My students will be fine since I actually train them! Worry about Arwen's whelps!"

  "Accidents happen and who am I to stand in the way of a student's greatness? If a student is unwilling to ask for help, who am I to force it upon them? Sadly, my previous students were far too stubborn, and it led to tragedy. But I'm innocent. The Academy said so."

  "None of them can sense aura strength yet. They don't know what's out there."

  "And teaching them before they're ready would harm their potential. Besides, you can't interfere with another advisor's students Brava. Our little darlings have all grouped up, so I'm afraid we're in this together. Unless we all agree to pull our students out, none of us can without interfering with the others'."

  "Thus, why we should all agree to pull them out. It's too dangerous."

  "No."

  "Fuck off Paladin!"

  As Ghorro and Brava argued, Arwen pulled out a packet of dried fruit and nuts and tore it open, casually dropping a bit of the waxed paper on the ground as he ate. Having the two around made his job harder, but not impossible.

  Working together, Aya, Gina, and Mara cast a trio of spells to cover their escape. Aya set the frozen trees aflame, her magical fires clinging to the trees around the clearing. Gina's spell conjured a strong and steady breeze that swept the area, encouraging the fire to burn higher and hotter. Mara's spell by comparison seemed tame, but no less valuable as the snow around them smoothed itself out, erasing their tracks as the students ran. The three spells ate up nearly all of their mana, weakening the mages until they had to be carried.

  The effort bought them half an hour. Jun wasn't sure who noticed it first, but when someone yelled to get down, everyone dove to the ground, just in time for a dozen black shafts to sprout from the snow in front of them. Acting on instinct, Jun poured her mana into a barrier, forming a glowing wall behind them as more arrows thudded into the protective energy, chipping away at her mana. "Barrier's up!" she yelled, pushing herself back up. As the rest of the students pushed back up from the ground, Jun glanced behind them, seeing a flicker of movement among a stand of trees just a hundred feet away moments before yet more arrows impacted her barrier, chipping away at the imbued mana.

  Snarling, Ivar spun around, axe in hand, as he started looking at the trees behind them. "Where are they?!" As if responding to the boy, another flicker of movement betrayed another volley of arrows from another position off to the side, angled to get around Jun's barrier.

  "Not the time to fight!" Next to her, Emily hauled Gina and Mara to their feet and pushed them to keep running.

  Fully turning around to focus on the threat behind them, Jun started to back away as more of the students got back up and pushed themselves onwards. Keira stood next to her; an arrow nocked as she looked for a target. Jun barely saw the scout move as she drew and released in one smooth motion, the arrow leaping out and barely missing the interior of Jun's barrier before it vanished into the woods, drawing a single gurgling scream

  Pushing mana down her link with her spell, Jun split a layer away and sent it to block the latest volley, wincing as the flight of arrows did enough damage to shatter the weakened layer. As much as sacrificing a layer weakened her defenses, it was faster than casting a new spell or moving the whole structure, and right now she needed speed. Pulling more mana from her core, Jun started to cast another barrier as another flicker of movement came, this time from her left. Pulling another layer from her barrier, she moved the shining energy to intercept the attack, spreading the spell thin to cover as much area as possible.

  Another minor backlash filled her mind as the layer shattered, taking a chunk of her mana with it. Two layers left. As her second barrier manifested, bringing her up to six, another volley of arrows hit her main barrier, nearly shattering another barrier before she merged the failing spell with the new one, reinforcing their defenses. With her barrier reinforced, Jun manipulated the shape from a simple wall into a horseshoe shape, the sides enveloping the back half of the group.

  "Come out and face me, cowards!" Ivar yelled, bashing his gauntleted fist against his chest. Whether the goblins could understand him or not, he received a response as flickers of movement appeared from two new directions, this time to Jun's right and left, the volleys bouncing off her barrier's extensions.

  Jun felt someone grab her shoulder, tugging her along. "Fall back!" Letting herself be pulled along, Jun pumped half her mana into the barrier, slowly pulling it back to cover their movement. Jun thought her barrier would hit Ivar as he stood his ground, screaming a challenge, but the boy's team leader grabbed him on the shoulder, shouting an order as he pulled the boy back. Ivar whirled around, his axe already mid-swing before Gregor grabbed the warrior by the wrist and hauled him back while shouting obscenities. Ivar stumbled a few steps and froze, his helmeted head turning back towards Gregor as his team leader backed away from Jun's slowly moving barrier. For a moment, Jun thought Ivar would attack, his hand squeezing the haft of his axe tight, then she was pulled behind a tree, losing sight of the two as they left them behind.

  Shaking her head, Jun turned around and started to run, keeping pace with Keira as they caught up to the rest of their team, then the other students. As Jun got farther from her barrier, she severed the link, willing the spell to remain manifested until it ran out of mana. Without a link to her core or fresh mana, she knew the spell wouldn't last more than a few minutes, but hopefully it stalled the goblins long enough. The sound of a horn echoed out as crashing sounds from behind drew her attention back, moments before Gregor and Ivar burst into view, running hard to catch up to the rest of the students.

  Snow-covered limbs whipped by as they ran East, every passing minute feeling like an eternity as they slowly grouped back up. Tensions were high as they moved, eyes darting back and forth hunting for any hint of a threat after the latest ambush. Despite the eerie darkness caused by the layers of snow unnaturally trapped in the Forest canopy, Jun felt a sense of relief as they finally entered the Forest, the goblins' horn calls noticeably quieter with every step deeper in.

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  Without the snow on the ground slowing them, the students moved faster, quickly pushing further to the East as they moved through the Forest, though the day's exertions eventually caught up to them.

  "Enough! I demand a break!" Roger growled as he came to a stop against a tree less than an hour into the Forest. The warrior removed his helmet to reveal the boy's red, sweat drenched face as he gasped for air.

  "This is why you do more stamina training," Ivar chuckled as he jogged past, but Jun could hear the slight waver in his voice betraying his own exhaustion.

  "We're all tired, but we can't stop here. The goblins will catch us." Gregor said, grabbing Roger and pulling him away from the tree with a protest.

  "Let them come! We should have just fought back there instead of running like weaklings!"

  Jun was surprised as she looked around, realizing that all six of the heavily armored warriors were flagging. She'd expected to be the first to break. The uncomfortable chill of sweat running down her spine had been plaguing her since before Ivar's team unexpectedly joined them, and her legs burned, she'd felt a growing weakness for the past half hour. But she supposed she shouldn't be surprised. The warriors in their teams wore the heaviest armor, and Ivar and his two friends had the heaviest of them all. Where Cian, Emily, Chao, Gregor, and two others had chain and leather, with a rare few bits of plate over the most vital bits, Ivar and his two friends had heavy steel gauntlets, shin guards, and full chest plates. Ivar had taken it a step further, covering himself completely and looking like a fully armored knight out of a fantasy novel.

  The greater defense seemed impressive, but she assumed there were other reasons why none of the warriors used armor nearly as heavy. But now wasn't the time to dig into it. Shaking her head, Jun realized she zoned out again, chasing a tangent of a thought while ignoring the situation at hand. Though at least others hadn't.

  "—rest. There's no way we can outrun the horde without it." Melody said to a chorus of nods.

  Given how Ivar reacted every time they had to run, Jun expected him to say something about fighting, but the boy had simply removed his helmet and joined his friends Roger and Karl to lean against a tree and gulp greedily at a skin of water.

  "I don't think we'll be able to outrun them at all," Chao rumbled into the silence. It was the first time Jun had heard the boy speak, and from the way Michael and Keira's eyebrows raised in surprise, it might've been one of the first times he'd spoken since they joined in the morning. His voice was rough, but in a pleasant and soothing way, something she could easily imagine coming from a soldier or a noble.

  "Chao's right. They caught up to us too fast. We'd need to move much faster to outrun them, and as much as the Forest speeds our travel, it'll speed theirs too. Half of Gregor's team is exhausted, Michael said, gesturing at Ivar and his friends resting against a tree. Scowls broke out over their faces and Ivar pushed himself away from the tree, opening his mouth to interrupt the healer, only to be forestalled as Gregor and Emily moved to block them. Ignoring their reaction, Michael continued, pointing at the group's mages, standing but slouched. " Aya and Gina still haven't recovered from draining their mana, Mara's still weakened from the wounds she took this morning. As for the rest of us, we're all tired. Most of us have been walking without rest all day. Even if we've managed to escape three times, this pace is unsustainable."

  "Resting means they'll probably find us. Even if we lose them in the Forest, if what your team said is true, they have the numbers to scour the area," Emily said with a thoughtful look on her face.

  "What about the healers?" Gregor asked, eyeing Michael and Mara. "I heard they can restore stamina with magic. Couldn't they just use those spells so we can travel through the night?"

  "That's not how it works," Mara spoke up, even as her amulet started to glow. Jun felt some of the weakness in her legs fade as peoples' breathing eased. But even as Jun and the others started to stand straighter, Mara sagged even more, Michael moving to catch his fellow healer. "Even with stamina spells," she gasped tiredly, "It's just delaying the inevitable."

  Michael nodded, handing the girl a strip of jerky to gnaw on as she leaned against him. To the side, Jun saw Aya clench her fist tight for a moment before relaxing. "Stamina spells trade mana and stamina from the caster for pure stamina to the targets, but they never net more energy gained than the caster loses. What Mara cast was enough to take the edge off, but she won't be able to do it again without sleep, and I'm just as limited.

  "What we need is a defensible place to rest for a few hours. Some place that, if the goblins catch up to us again, we can use to limit the advantage of numbers," Aya said. "That's enough rest! Let's get going!"

  Ivar glared through the slits in his helmet at the three team leaders as they marched through the Forest. After just a short five minutes of rest, they were on the move again, the damned scouts ditching them to run ahead and choose a new location.

  Gregor hadn't pushed back on the two girl leaders at all, the weak-willed fool falling for female charms just as easily as all the other men. All except himself and his friends. Roger and Karl might not be as strong willed or tough as him, but they knew the right of things. They knew that girls had no place as a adventurers. They got in the way, distracted good men with honeyed words and pretty faces, all while pushing weak plans since they lacked the fortitude to handle real fighting.

  This whole afternoon only confirmed it. Before those girls got their hooks into Gregor, he was a decent leader, leading them through fights well enough even if he wasn't as aggressive as a man should be. Without their influence, he would've let them fight, kill the goblins that tried to ambush them, given them the opportunity for glory and battle. Working together, the six of them could do it. With the other four men on the girls' teams, it would've been even smoother. It's not like they actually faced a horde. It was obviously just hysteria from the weaker sex.

  But Gregor fell for their tricks and took Hunter and Clint with him. Just a few minutes with girls and half his team would rather run away from a bunch of goblins than stand and fight. He'd considered staying behind and taking the glory himself, but he wasn't a fool. Even if it was only a couple raiding groups like he suspected, not the full horde the girls and their simpering pets hysterically claimed, that was enough to eventually take him down, even if Karl and Roger backed him up. Just because he was a strong man didn't make him stupid. He'd stick with the group because it was smart, but he wouldn't let them just keep running away like cowards if he could help it.

  Jun forgot how difficult it was to keep track of time in the shadowy and still air of the frozen over Forest. The deeper they went, the dimmer it got, until Jun wasn't sure if it was dark from the thick layers of snow and ice that blocked the watery sunlight of winter, or if night had already fallen. They'd need to find a clearing with a view of the sky for that.

  Only a few minutes after she thought that, Samuel came back to them and led them North and East until they came across a flowing river that broke up the canopy, revealing the pinks and greys of dusk in the sky. Following the flow of water led them to a forested hill as part of a horseshoe bend. Though the hill's slope was gentle, little more than a slightly rocky bump covered in trees and resilient brush, the steep banks and flowing water of the river protected it on three sides, leaving only a narrow approach of a couple hundred feet to the crest.

  By the time Samuel led them there, Keira and Melody had already started to prepare a space at the crest, chopping and clearing brush that they piled between the trees to serve as wind breaks and shields against sight. With the rest of the students there, they quickly set to work setting camp, though it was a light one. Time setting up comforts was lost time for rest, and the risk of the horde finding them was high. If they had to run again, anything they couldn't easily grab would be lost.

  Cramming three teams together on a small hilltop was difficult, and Jun could feel the tension in the air from the close quarters. Especially with the people involved. She could tell that Melody and her friends didn't like her, but being forced to work together had at least started to break down those barriers, and they were at least cordial. More problematic was Ivar and his friends. Gregor and the other two on their team seemed good enough, but Jun didn't like the way the other three looked at her and the other girls when they thought no one was paying attention. As she and Aya claimed a spot to sleep against the base of a pine tree, she told her friend what she'd seen, Aya assuring her she'd let the other girls know before she slipped away to talk with Emily.

  As she watched the two team leaders talk, Jun couldn't help feeling like she was being watched, looking over her shoulder to see Ivar turning away from her. Keeping an eye on the three, Jun quietly whispered something to Shiori before she wrapped herself in a blanket and settled in, drifting off to a fitful sleep.

  What felt like minutes later, someone shook her awake as a voice hissed into her ears. "Jun, wake up and get ready to fight. We're surrounded."

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