In the fading light of dusk the lady Alice of house Taram, a smaller house of the once esteemed city of Dragon's Rest trudged up the mountain pass with the rest of the new 'recruits'.

  She did her utmost not to shiver as she had given her cloak to be shared among her twin brothers, both at the edge of becoming teenagers. Her and her mother had needed to carry the both of them when they fled the ruin of the city. Dragon's rest had been the final resting place of a dozen dragons at least.

  It was a small blessing that the great work of necromancy had a limited scale so the dragons couldn't destroy the whole kingdom. The town they'd settled in, the lands under the Taram house, were a small town that had shrunk more when people heard 'dragon' and decided to not stop running. They showed their disbelief in the pact between the old kings and the dragon's dominion. Then again she ran as well. Undead were less liable to remember or keep to oaths, if they had made any themselves, and new undead were often disoriented.

  They had lived in the Patriarch's quarters in the mansion, one of the heads of the woman's council had decided to turn the rest of the mansion into an inn and boarding house. Her mother had no input on that manner, she was probably still living in her spot with the six spellbooks that she said were family heirlooms and she'd be carefully making the second copy of them.

  Any hope of a future beyond becoming a midwife or witch healer would need to be in the wider world, and the city of Newport had recently been established by the Empire. Most of the surviving houses spurned the settlement but trade from across the mountains was enough to bring wealth.

  And wealth brought those who wanted a piece of it. Alice had been taken on as an apprentice to an enchanter who was wealthy from making and tending danger sense wards for the transport ships. Knowing where the leviathans were was very helpful even though only one of them liked to break ships.

  Her brothers, Simon and Martin, had been taken on at a magic academy with the help of the enchanter. They had a tendency to find trouble and when the recruits for the Silver Chain had cornered some of the street rats that they had befriended they decided to be heroes. Alice had made some enchantments on their belt buckles that would inform her when they were in trouble. There was only one misfire when Martin bungled flirtation quite badly but Alice had taken the 'threat of pickpockets' seriously enough.

  So Alice had intercepted the kidnappers and bedazzled them with enough illusions they couldn't know which way was up. That drew the attention of the more competent Silver Chain members and they made an offer. They would live if they came with the recruiters and worked for them. She'd had to accept.

  There was a chance her employer had noticed her departure and was working to get help, but since the militia was small, in part due to the heavy recruiting, and the other mercenary companies that were allowed to exist were quite unwilling to cross the main power that had their own fortress and powerful backers. There were many upsides to living in a fully secured part of the empire and this place was as close to lawlessness without active fighting everywhere.

  Until there was some army that decided to fight the Silver Chain living among them would be safer. Mages were an important investment so Alice didn't have much fear for herself. Mages were quite dangerous and if anyone would dare to take liberties they would leave much less a man than before. Third degree burns tend to be a deterrent and whoever was in charge would rather have a compliant mage.

  The only threats that would be considered were those that came from outside the mercenary company. Any monsters that would have lived in the area would not have returned with the city of Tarnox being intermittently occupied and the trade route being highly popular. Any monsters who have tried to take their share from the trade have been already dispatched, or the dragons asleep on the other side of Dragon's Rest.

  The heavyset man with a nine tailed whip patrolled up from behind. The Slavemaster gave them a glance, noting that they weren't trying anything, and continued. The body of that orphan boy who tried to run an hour ago was enough deterrent. If he was the only one Alice could probably kill him, though his dozen allies made the thought moot.

  The sun kissed the horizon and Alice made a small orb of light, strong as the light of a full moon, to keep their feet from stumbling. The fort loomed over them but they had to circle around it to get to the drawbridge. The nightfall made the black walls of Tarnox nearly invisible but Martin and Simon still had to be nudged to turn into the fort.

  The gate guards were dark smudges against the night sky but the gate had been lowered when they were seen on the other side. The manor building was across from the gate and the recruits were shuffled towards it. Would they get to sleep inside?

  That small hope was dashed when they came to the door to receive a bowl with a bit of watery soup and stale bread. Once they had eaten the bowls were taken back and they went to the stables. There were two stable buildings and the person who kept the horses seemed to have taken advantage of the new recruits by leaving them to clean the one stable, only moving the horses to the other.

  Alice attacked the manure with loathing and made sure her brothers got a large helping of hay to sleep on. The other recruits scraped, kicked, or gave up and fell to sleep heedless of the leavings on the ground.

  ---

  The morning was hardly better.

  "If you want to eat anything you'd best be quick! The lads have quite the appetite!" The Slavemaster left the barn door open as he wandered off with a fresh cup of coffee. Alice stumbled out with her brothers in tow before most of the others sat up. She'd barely slept but wasn't going to give in, or give up food.

  They got more of the same with a few limp turnips added and a man was looking out the doors from the second story. His armor was immaculate and a shortsword was strapped on his hip. He stared down at Alice with some intensity before turning and going back into the room. She hated him because he had a steaming mug that probably had coffee, something that was more expensive since it needed to go past the plains in the south. She could afford it with her employment as an assistant enchanter but she wasn't going to flash money that she had scarce enough of anyway. She wouldn't have stopped at the bank even if they'd offered to take her there. A bandit would love to have money walk itself into their pockets and a mercenary is only different when they've got oversight.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  The early risers had finished their meal by the time the Slavemaster had returned.

  "You've got work late tonight! Sleep if you can. Woman! You and your magelets need to come with me," He shook his empty cup "yer job's gonna be more important and the boss'l haf to tell ya himself. I'll even let ya get coffee." He chuckled as Alice's head snapped up at that.

  ---

  There was a simple diagram of a street where a block of buildings had been fortified. It was made with some spell holding a bunch of sand in the shape of the space.

  "You'll be going with the other recruits," Sabir, the man with the shortsword, said, "But you'll need to punch a hole in the gate so they can do their work." He smacked the representation of the gate with a riding crop that he had on the table with the sand. The gate crumbled. "They've got a few magelings of their own but I've had their teacher dealt with. They won't be a problem if you're any good."

  Against her better judgement Alice responded "So you've spent so much to get us here just to throw us away?"

  "Acquisitions lowered the standards a bit much." Sabir noted dryly, "Half the people they brought will probably run at the first sign of combat. Prove yourself and you'll be one of us. That goes for everyone new. You ride the dragon- "He swept the crop through the sand-buildings, making the boys jump, "or you get eaten. My people will be the heart of a kingdom of the south. Prove yourself and you'll have a house name of your own."

  She accepted that and left before either of her brothers could say that they had their own house. If Sabir doesn't know then there's no reason to tell him.

  ---

  It was late evening and the attack was imminent. Carlam waited patiently in the temple hall, looking at the group of bedraggled aggressors. Sabir was sending in the newblood, probably to reduce the pay he'd need to allocate to them, he's been worrying over his own quickly dwindling coin.

  They were walking down the crown road, past the collection of noble's houses that were built on the bones of the Arachne palace. A smaller group of scouts and one slavemaster, one of the less desirable classes, were older soldiers among the gaggle.

  The tactics would be simple. Blast the gates open with the three sibling mages and send the rest of the horde in a charge. Effective if they are not noticed, which is highly unlikely. It's a shame the magelings were competent, their mana would have made a proper addition to his pool.

  Thinking of the pool he went to the shrine and moved a curtain from one of the countertops. From a lower shelf he drew a cordial filled with a potent anticoagulent.

  One of the candelabras was affixed in it's place on the shelf with a lock of mana. Carlam unlocked it, moved it, then poured half the anti-coagulant into the hole that was beneath. He quickly stoppered the hole with the candlelabra before the bubbling liquid could send it's coppery scent into the shrine.

  It was hard enough to air it out before the Silver Chain arrived but the smell of blood without a proper reason would alarm most who had any basic understanding of magic. He'd had to make most of his collections beside a butcher's for that reason. The best collections he could make nowadays were the odd beetle and whatever animals that would move to the city. The mothlings were too jumpy and Sabir was hardly going to let him get away without giving them a cut of the power. And a knife to his throat.

  The Priest sat on one of the stools that was near the manapool while he turned his attention on the attacking group.

  They were approaching the beetle's compound. The beetles had planted some of those vines that were, or housed, their goddess all around the compound. The attackers would probably not even know the meaning behind it so it's ability to drive them away was hardly effective.

  Then his connection to them was fuzzed and temporarily disconnected. When it returned the slavemaster was beheaded and the scouts were in the process of being strangled by the vines. The main group was hit with some powder but they were stabbing wildly with their spears.

  The magelings were hiding behind a shield, the woman was quite skilled in combat apparently, but one of the wraiths was stalking at the border of the shield. It was baring it's teeth at them.

  Then something turned it's attention on him. Apparently it had sensed him looking through those desperate untrained soldiers who had accepted Adras' power for the hope of survival. A knife of mana was sent through the connection towards him. He struck it out of the connection, leaking some mana through the tear in the connection which ran along the ley line. Trivially easy to maintain when it is so near another source of mana to leech off, though there are downsides.

  The raw mana from the ley line flooded the connection, the unstructured mana breaking the connection like a magnet breaking an intricate clock. He worked to reconnect the rip in the tube of mana and by the time he filled the tube with his intent and got attention onto the battlefield it was over.

  All the scouts and the slavemaster were dead. The soldiers were unconscious or deeply asleep from the powdery substance. The magelings were absent, with no sign of their escape or their bodies and the tag he'd set on the woman was absent. It was as if they had gone far outside of the range of his domain or the tag itself had been destroyed.

  There was only one enemy he'd faced who had been able and mad enough to attack through the System itself. That damned goddess had escaped from her prison. Then he noticed a cord of mana that had been severed, with the resonance of death. That bitch had attacked him and killed her own high priest to mess with him. She'd done the same before when he'd subverted some of her followers.

  The cistern of mana bubbled, threatening to explode and destroy the whole fort. Carlam tamped down on his hate. It was impacting the mana.

  Bloodmagic was a difficult thing since it mirrored the passions of the user and could grow reinforce itself. Maintaining lifeforce in the mana would allow for more mana to be harvested from each individual, but it kept some of the individual in it. Even if they were hopelessly mad and absent any memory or perception that would give them being. But it was more efficient and, the main reason, it was much more difficult for anyone but a dedicated bloodmage to usurp his power over the mana.

  He would have to finally deal with that little goddess, and to keep his connection to Adras he'd need to get her to attack him unprovoked. He'd send a notice to Adras and get enough power to level the city, destroy her, then subjugate the beetles after Adras would turn his attention away.

  While he was plotting the false flag he spun his pointer finger and the cistern of blood began to pump. He would need a proper threat to present to Adras for the power and a work of blood magic was enough to work last time.