Archers and casters let loose another volley. Ioha threw hard shields to plug holes in their defences. Half an hour earlier the alarm, including his own, went off. What started as a horribly disorganised battle soon centred on him after his first area taunt.

  His brigandine still felt awkward, but Ioha was getting used to it. Shit! The whirling pool of razorblades collapsed around him, and he had to recast it. Something leathery used that moment to throw itself at his face, and only a well-placed net saved him.

  A few minutes after the battle started, cats skilled at bear-baiting pulled monsters from the periphery to where Ioha’s taunts reached. Which was exactly what he wanted, and he almost died as a result. What he called hard shields turned out to be as much window panes when something serious wanted to go through them. When he was about to be overwhelmed, fourth years with third years in tow returned from their mission and blocked the onrushing monsters, while a screaming teacher dragged him away and ordered him into an extra layer of armour.

  Those fourth years still backed him up with defensive contraptions of their own, while his ever more powerful taunts forced a horde of monsters he had never seen before to attack him through his woefully insufficient defences.

  “Healer!”

  Damn! Not again. COWARD! Whatever tried to chew the face off a first-year merc let go and beelined directly at him. “Incoming right!” He blocked something with more teeth than face with his shield, opened his defences to let a fourth-year net it and scrape it off. Behind him, first years chopped whatever was served them by two fourth years to mincemeat. It was disgusting and smelly and horrible, but it worked. My field! My battle! My domain! I’m your lord! Face me and face me alone! At least his aura taunt recognised friend from foe. Ioha wasn’t clear how, because there was no reason for the ability to be discerning. Shit, shit, shit! He had to recast the bragging pole again. It went up just behind him. Battle standard. When the attack began, it took four tries just to cast it. It was brittle and collapsed as soon as anyone gave it an angry stare, but at least everyone knew where he stood. Ten minutes later, it went up on the first try and stayed up. The entire divine set came alive as well. He didn’t have the time to check, but something strange happened around him. Those closest were calmer, braver and better organised than they had any right to be. How the hell do I keep this a secret now? He wouldn’t.

  “Kite them here!” A fourth-year knight who decided to take command directed a duo of cats toward them. Behind them, five things from a low-budget horror movie tried to catch up, and only the superior speed of close to graduated cats kept them alive. COWARD! COWARD! Two taunts. The other three of them got caught in nets and were dragged behind to be slaughtered.

  Aura’s getting thin. “Ai, get ready!” I HATE YOU! His knees buckled, and then his strength returned. He didn’t need to turn around to know Ai kneeled, puking her guts out. Acute aura depletion counted as an injury, but the transferred damage had to be regenerated, not healed, and it burned twice as much aura off her as what she restored for him. We can’t do this much longer.

  Not a bleed and not a gash. A breach, a C-rank event that could have overwhelmed the understrength troops usually in charge of keeping guard here. Even with most of Spellsword Academy here, it was touch-and-go. Numeric superiority, sure. Experience, not so much, and that included their teachers, since a lot of the superb ones decided to quit. And it was a large breach to boot, and just a little too close to B-rank for comfort.

  “Kite them here!”

  Oh hell, not again! COWARD! COWARD! COWARD! Half a dozen of his shields collapsed, and Ioha had to replace them. Another monster found the gap in his defences, his shield went up, the fourth-year cat to his left netted it and scraped it off, and the first years behind him started chopping. How many times now? Damn! Another hole, another shield. The force fields, he gave up after his first tries. They were good enough to hang Anthony out to dry, but the monsters here shredded them instantly. The shields at least slowed them down for a while.

  The next monster got through his defences, on his right this time. Broadsword good! The arming sword he looked at first would have left his right hand ripped open by wounds by now, but his basket-hilt kept Ai’s aura consumption down. Damn! He lacked sword skills. With a wrench of his right arm he fended the attack off, and the knight to his right clubbed the thing to the ground with the pommel of his sword before someone raked it back with an axe, and wet and crunching sounds told Ioha what happened behind his back. There were sounds of pain and fear mixed in with the slaughter as well. Then a high-pitched yell of fear from outside the range of his taunts.

  “Wer-riders to the right!”

  Despite desperation, Ioha smiled at the same time as he delivered yet another monster left with his shield. Wheat-riders, who the hell came up with that name? From his right, he glimpsed another cat with a predator at his back. COWARD! The monster shifted target, and the cat sent Ioha an ironic wave before she returned to the flanks. Did they make it in time?

  “Ai!”

  Damn! She linked minds with him while they had dinner – an experiment, she said. Through it Ioha knew she was in no danger, but she cramped with convulsions after transferring something seriously bad to herself.

  “Granny’s bastards to the right!”

  Another smile. They get to call themselves whatever they want? All fear left him, and Ioha methodically bounced things left with his shield and pounded monsters to his right with sword and hilt. There was a sudden lull in the attacks, then a thinning out and after that silence.

  We made it?

  Kids panted from exhaustion around him. In the distance, the sound of crying, whether of grief or relief, Ioha couldn’t tell. The air stank of blood, sugar and roses. He turned. Heimdall, thank you! Surprised faces looked at him when he cleaned up everything in a few metres radius. Very clean, for once, an absurdly large divine aura might not suffice for idiotically clean if he were to continue.

  Ioha grabbed the shaft to stay upright. His battle standard was solid, a pole reaching up into the night, one small shield on top of a larger, just like the ornamental decorations from the tournament last autumn. This one, however, was the real thing. Something ancient, something almost alive, and Ai’s flares made it glow in the dark.

  Her eyes glowed as well when she looked at him.

  “You look really cool,” she said.

  He looked grimy and tired and weak enough that he needed support just to stand up. “Yeah, he grinned, like your hero, right?” If she wanted cool, he could pretend for her sake. Well, he could do something about the grime. “Over here, I’ll clean you up,” he shouted. Grateful students lined up, and he started. Somewhere else, logistics students and their teachers began their own work to change a battlefield into a camp once more. Cleaning, while making them feel better, wasn’t important, but it allowed staff and logistics students to work uninterrupted.

  “It’s important, young moron,” a voice said in his head.

  “Heimdall?”

  “How do you think soldiers die?”

  He was too tired to think clearly. “They get killed?”

  “They die from diseases. They die from dirt.”

  Memories from scattered pieces of his education slowly surfaced. Yes, battles killed a lot, but there was even a word for the big one. Camp fever. So there was a reason for his first divine ability after all.

  “Ah.”

  “You call yourself a tank. If that makes it easier for you to understand, that’s fine. You are a protector of the line. Remember that, a protector!”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It made brutal sense. The line had to survive between battles as well. “Are you supposed to help me like this? Like, isn’t it kind of unfair?”

  “Unfair? I’m a god. You are my saint.”

  “Ioha?”

  The presence vanished from his head. “Ai?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  He wasn’t, and she knew. The link was still there. “You heard him?”

  She shook her head. “There were three of us, and you were talking to someone.” Ai faltered. “I didn’t hear, not even what you said.”

  “My patron god.”

  “A saint. I guess saints get to talk with their gods.” A tinge of envy found its way into her voice.

  He kissed her. “If I can, I’ll share him with you.” Jealousy of any kind was the last thing he wanted. “I promise.” The taste of Ai lingered on his lips, so far removed from the foulness around them. With her, I can do anything.

  Back at the small cluster with their shelters, Ioha couldn’t decide if he wanted breakfast or a few extra hours of sleep. There was the assigning of extra guards as well. Good for morale, maybe. Another attack was unlikely. In the end, he didn’t get to sleep. The fourth years responsible for him staying alive dragged him over to their own campfire.

  “Freshman?” someone asked when he was led there.

  “He’s with me.” It was a statement as well as an order.

  “Didn’t see you, Harvali.”

  “Was busy.”

  “Good fight?”

  “Thanks to him.” The knight named Harvali, who spent the attack guarding Ioha’s right, slapped him over his shoulders. “Brave kid!”

  I’m five or six years older, and he’s calling me a kid? But to them, he was a freshman, three years their junior. For teenagers, that was an eternity.

  Ai had joined them as well and hid by his side.

  “Cute girl,” someone commented.

  “She’s mine, and my healer.”

  “Cocky much?”

  “Drop it,” Harvali said. “She’s the best healer I’ve ever seen.”

  Ioha sat down on a log the group had dragged out of the forest when they made camp. Ai took a seat beside him.

  “Scared without him?” came the teasing voice. It was the same boy who got told to drop the bullying earlier.

  “Huh? Are you daft? He’s mine. I’m here to see that nothing happens to him.”

  The guffaw that spread among their seniors told Ioha most of them were friendly. He allowed himself to sag a little and accepted a mug with something warm. A little spicy and a little sweet, it did loads for raising his mood.

  “Still think we’re doing the party subjugations today?” he asked.

  The fourth years shared quick glances among themselves. They were a tight-knit group, because, in silence, somehow a decision was made about who’d speak for them. To Ioha’s surprise, it turned out to be the verbal bully.

  “After the shit-show? No chance.” He looked at his friends and received some kind of approval. “We barely got our third years out. Worst case, someone died. I don’t know. We’re going home after this.”

  A murmur of agreement spread among them.

  “Clevasti will raise hell,” Harvali observed. By now Ioha was sure he had seen him before, well, apart from spending half an hour with the fourth-year saving his life.

  “Anthony can go play the hero alone for all I care.”

  A moment of silence fell over them, and Ioha realised this specific topic was closed.

  “Sir Questingtank, what happened back there?” Harvali asked. This, Ioha knew, was where the real conversation started.

  “Sir? He’s knighted?” Mister bully still didn’t seem to fully accept that a freshman had been invited.

  The knight nodded. “Divine knighthood, I guess.”

  Ioha looked at him. “Yeah. I kinda got called out by my god.”

  With a shrug, the knight inhaled and smiled. “Happens. A few students every year. Don’t worry!” A long exhale followed the advice.

  Relief flooded Ioha. Receiving a second name from your god was unusual, but far from unheard of. So he only had to worry about his sainthood. “Got a power up with the name,” he probed.

  “Mm, yes, divine knighthood gives you a pretty big boost. It’s a once-only thing, though.” Harvali stirred embers and added a piece of firewood. “Sometimes adds an ability as well, like that pointy shield of yours.”

  Pointy shield, huh. If that was what they believed the battle standard was, then Ioha didn’t plan to correct them. “Thanks for keeping me safe back there,” he said and thumbed the general direction where the focus of the battle had played out.

  “How did you do that, you know, summoning thing?”

  Summoning? “You mean my taunt?”

  “Taunt you call it. I see. I can use bear-baiting as well, but only on one enemy at a time.”

  Ah, yes, guess mass taunts are uncommon. “Dunno. I have a rather weak ability where I can insult everyone around me.”

  “It’s not weak,” Ai suggested.

  “Well, compared to… Ai! Really!”

  She laughed but shot him a warning glance. Telling them too much could be dangerous. Telling them how any enemy refusing his taunt started taking internal damage was definitely off the menu then.

  “You heard me using bear-baiting multiple times, right?”

  The knight nodded.

  “That’s because the area version is too unreliable.” Compared to his single-target taunt, it wasn’t a lie. Technically. The single target taunt had jumped up to the high sixties. “Safer to be sure they go for you. Burns more aura, though.”

  Ai pinched him, and Ioha looked down and stayed silent.

  If last night’s battle had pumped up his abilities, then this night was a loot pinata. His defensive, disruptive and divine abilities pretty much jumped a full grade across the line. From useless, to trainable, to perfectly useful, to strong, to very strong, and in two cases, from very strong to absurd. Everything he’d learned about a parrying sword carried over to how to handle a shield, but stronger, when he gave up on being a cat. Now his physical abilities with a shield scratched at the one-hundred-point break through. The same, since Heimdall had junk for a sense of humour, was true for his cleaning ability as well. Ioha was the god of cleaning, who just upgraded his ability from idiotically clean to utterly absurdly clean.

  “The pointy shield?” That was the verbal bully.

  “A shield with fireworks,” Ioha lied. “Need my healer and tactical support to see where I am.”

  “Huh?”

  “I kinda antagonise the opponents, so I need help not to get overwhelmed.” It was the truth, and it said absolutely nothing about what the battle standard did.”

  “Yeah. The entire team had to get the critters away from him all the time.”

  Ioha smiled at the knight. Right now, it was a good thing the fourth-year turned out to be a little dense. The bully, though, was smarter than he looked and probably dangerous for that reason. “I’d gone down if you and that left-winger hadn’t been there.” And that was just the simple truth. Worst-case, Ai would have been unable to save him.

  “Guys, we’re a bit tired. He’s my man, and he’s very cool and manly, and all that, and I want him for myself now. We good?”

  The knight snorted, which killed any chance for the bully to keep interrogating them. “Sleep well,” he said and winked.

  Ioha pretended he was unaware of the innuendo, took Ai’s hand, waved and left the group.

  “Thanks for some quick thinking,” he said when they were out of earshot.

  “Quick thinking, my arse! I just want you for myself,” Ai said and snuggled close enough for him to feel exactly in what way she wasn’t male.

  “Really!”

  “I wish.”