64th of Season of Fire, 159th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt found himself in a strange situation. He was the senior observing juniors fight, making sure no greater threats to their safety appeared as the Explorer’s Gate group defended his clan’s lands.

  It was his first time watching over the order’s junior members, and the experience was novel.

  “I bet we have two injuries serious enough to warrant healer attention by the end of the day.” Leafwall, Newt’s sixth realm peer, said to Sunhaze, yet another champion, whom Newt hardly knew.

  “I’ll take that bet if you say three wounded,” the woman replied from the next tree over.

  “No way. They are young, but not that incompetent. There’s no way three of them will suffer heavy injuries fighting a horde of manabeasts.”

  Newt agreed. He had been watching the youngsters fight manabeasts for days. At first, third realm students handled everything just fine, then, as the fourth realm manabeasts started poking their heads out of the jungle, the fourth realm students joined the battle.

  Down below, well out of earshot, a team of sixteen third realm mages and mageknights fought against five longclaws. Two of the beasts were at the third realm while three were at the second. It was a routine fight, if a bit dangerous for the third realm mages.

  Fortunately, their mageknight brothers and sisters watched their backs, keeping the third realm beasts occupied while the mages whittled down the second realm ones. A bit further away, four fourth realm elite students fought against a pack of ultraraptors led by a fourth realm matriarch. Still a manageable threat, and so far the toughest battle for his juniors.

  The day ended with Lord Leafwall winning the bet, and exactly two wounded students. Newt kept watch, just in case the man tried to cheat somehow, but there was no reason. No matter how joking, a senior wouldn’t dare injure a junior of the order.

  As days passed in the jungle canopy, everything remained under control. Accidents happened, and as good seniors, Newt and his fellow champions let them happen. If anyone was too weak to handle the onslaught’s relaxed pace, the order didn’t need them, so it was a trial of sorts, and intervening even in a life or death battle would be detrimental to the whole, even if it saved an individual.

  It’s well and easy to think like that while this is just a trial, but in a couple of weeks it will turn into a carnage. Newt could only hope Magmin’s daughter acted on her word and pulled back all the truly powerful manabeasts from their region.

  It’s foolish to hope nobody dies in a war and a trap with this many people and with the level of power imbalance that we have, but I’m still hoping. Assuming Magmin’s daughter stayed true to her word, the real danger would come from the rear in the form of cultists, who had been gathering power and sacrifices for decades.

  Their presence and attacks had been growing bolder with time, and Newt could understand the imperials’ reasoning to an extent. The cults were dangerous, and the authorities needed to handle them somehow. He might’ve even played the same move had he been in their shoes.

  With uneasy mind, he retreated to his old room, looking for a better move to play and failing to find it.

  The week passed quickly, and soon, the end of season of fire approached. The onslaught stopped just as suddenly as always.

  The very next day, an imperial messenger came to the clanhold, wearing green with a hint of gold, indicating her low position in the administration’s hierarchy.

  Still, the entirety of the Explorer’s Gate’s forces had gathered to welcome her as she represented the will of the emperor.

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  “By Imperial Decree, you are to advance twenty thousand miles into the Summersweald and exterminate all monsters you encounter. You will move the front fifty miles each day and are not allowed to retreat until you achieve your goal or until your group loses half its combat strength. You depart on the morning of the ninetieth, in three days. That is all.”

  Newt sensed the wave of rage from those around him. They could all die, with only the seventh realm exemplars surviving, and they wouldn’t lose five percent of their nominal battle strength. Explorer’s Gate had to complete their mission, advancing at an insane pace considering they had third realm mages, or they could only leave once more than half their leadership perished.

  The fourth realm messenger stared at the crowd, as if daring them to say something treasonous, but nobody uttered a word. After a second of silence, Lord Darksong bowed politely. “We have received the imperial decree, and we shall carry out our orders.”

  The fourth realm messenger kept her head aloof, then left with only three words. “As you should.”

  Nobody moved for ten minutes, just standing there in silence as Newt and several others followed the mage with their mana senses.

  “Will we really obey that decree, Lord Champion?” Rushwater, a fourth realm elite student, the Rexheart of his generation, asked.

  “The orders were expected,” Lord Darksong said calmly. “We didn’t know we would have to force our way quite as deep into the Summersweald, but if the saurians don’t react to our presence, this force should easily manage a push twenty thousand miles into the jungle. Even if we have to advance fifty miles every day. In fact, I would’ve preferred it if we were ordered to cover two hundred miles every day, since then we would have an excuse to leave our third and fourth realm mages at this castle.”

  As he spoke, Newt spotted several of his sixth realm peers clenching fists and jaws. There were so many questions in everyone’s minds - what were the odds saurians would ignore them and let them make such a mess without reprisal? Could they evacuate if two or their three seventh realm exemplars fell? How many students would die because they couldn’t keep pace during a retreat? Would they run straight into a cultist trap while disorganized?

  Newt didn’t know which of those worried them exactly, but he had only one question on his mind. Will the dragon exalt act on her word?

  In his mind, their survival hinged on what a tenth realm dragon would do. If she betrayed them, everything else was moot point.

  Another big problem was orderly advances and retreats. The orders weren’t a real army. While they were individuals with heightened mental abilities, they lacked the training, and it was possible some would buckle under pressure. The champions would do what they could, but ultimately the survival of the students was in the students’ hands.

  The three following days passed in hushed whispers of disgruntlement, which the champions pretended they couldn’t hear, and preparations of supplies for the march. In all honesty, Newt had expected worse orders. He had feared they would have to raze the jungle to the ground, but it was infeasible to do so while traveling so quickly and delving so deep into the weald. No, instead of expanding their territory, the imperials had chosen for their sacrificial pawns to rattle the saurians into another rampage. Probably to crush the opportunistic cultists.

  “I smell a scuttler.” Lady Woodhopper muttered, the first, but certainly not the last, of the champions complaining about what was obviously a pointless suicide mission.

  The sun rose on the morning of the last day of summer, and the group of five hundred headed into the jungle in a grim mood. Assuming they managed fifty miles every day, the expedition would take more than a year just to reach the finish line, and then probably just as much time to return unless they lost all their lower realm mages.

  “Any news from the Tidebreakers?” Lord Darksong asked Newt, who maintained correspondence with Maelstrom and Dandelion.

  “They have identical orders as us, but their forces are four times our size. The Swordpeaks are two hundred miles west of us, the Tidebreakers another three hundred miles over. The forces from the kingdom of Couatl are behind our back, two thousand of them in total, but they will probably stay far away from us. Probably with some scouts close behind us, in case the uninvited guests really show up.”

  Lord Darksong nodded, his face as grim as his name.

  “Will their messengers manage to find us?”

  “They shouldn’t have a problem honing in on me.” Newt kept the seals which served as beacons for the fourth realm avians in his pocket. The real trouble would start once they entered deeper into the weald and fifth realm manabeasts appeared, but that was nearly a whole year away.

  “The students are wasting a lot of valuable time. Even if they survive, they will be two or three years behind their peers.” While that wasn’t as much of a problem for the fourth realm elites, the wasted time hit harder at the third realm.

  “I honestly hope the wasted time is their biggest problem,” Lord Darksong said. “The presence of so many youths whose talents haven’t had time to develop worries me.”

  It worried Newt too. Beside him, those students were the real bait for the cultists.