'Five minutes and my wyverns get in range, bossman,' Maple offered, flying high over the Halaima Pass. 'Will you be fine until then, or want me to stay and keep an eye on things?'
She was certain the fight wouldn't end or change for a while.
Two shieldwalls were going at it in a narrow-ish mountain road.
Not the most exciting thing to watch, but her new master seemed anxious.
Not like he did anything wrong. He was only inexperienced.
For how well he did in his own tournament while it lasted, Konrad was shaking behind the frontlines. Not out of fear, either. He wanted to do much more than bark orders to his men.
Cute, if anything. He was a capable fighter, too, but with zero confidence in his abilities.
'Describe what it looks like, then go,' he answered with some delay. 'All I see is we're getting pushed back step by step and don't know why. How far off are our reinforcements?!'
'Keep it calm, bossman,' she chuckled, making another wide circle above the battlefield.
She saw no mysteries or anything interesting, but she tried her best to give him the full picture.
'You're pushed back 'cuz it's two hundred men against twice as many. The garrison is holding well. And since the riders fell back, the lancers have to look out for their flanks now, too.'
'Losses?' Konrad demanded, his thoughts full of anxiety regardless.
'Almost nothing. A few wounded and one dead on your side,' Maple reported. 'The nomads have it way worse. Fifty or twenty? Including a horse archer. The first volley hit them hard.'
'So what are my archers even doing now?'
He kept asking more questions every time she was about to leave the area.
The dragoness sighed.
'They're wasting arrows if you ask me,' she offered him her thoughts. 'But since it keeps the nomads in check—if they didn't have to focus on their sides, they could push much harder.'
A wave of unspoken relief reached her through their open channel.
And no new questions for now.
She was about to spread her wings and visit that enemy general when she saw something odd, though. It was hard to tell what it was exactly from that distance, but the banners and staffs—
Oh, no. That wasn't something she1d want to report to her master.
Right when he was finally over his anxiety, too.
'I can also read your thoughts, you know,' Konrad's voice cut her reasoning short.
Damn, he was getting too good at this game.
'Well, you're not gonna like it. But guess you complained about having nothing to do, so—'
'Cut the crap and tell me straight,' he demanded, a fresh wave of worry washing over him.
Maple let out another long sigh.
'You said you saved yourself for the sorcerers, right?' she asked. 'But how 'bout some shamans instead? I'm seeing, uh, three? And a whole ceremonial guard trotting behind them.'
'Shamans?' Konrad repeated, less so in panic than tinged with confusion.
Well, it couldn't hurt to take a closer look so she could confirm it.
'I mean, they've totem poles and stuff. Look nothing like the Silver or the Green Mages, either.'
Or like Zoltan. Did the illusionist count as a sorcerer, too?
Not that it mattered. She knew a shaman when she saw one.
'B-but the spirits are on our side,' Konrad claimed, his confusion deepening further.
'Oh, my sweet summer child,' Maple thought, smiling to herself at his naivety. 'They say the saints reign over chaos because they could never agree on anything. The spirits are way worse.'
While a dozen saints shared power from their pocket dimension, spirits were infinite.
And they were all over the place in more shapes and sizes than she could count.
Small, local forces of nature, almost as weak as a ghost, or enormous entities on par with the gods. Not even the most knowledgeable of them knew how many spirits were alive.
An outsider couldn't begin to hope to guess.
And as many spirits, as many aspirations, goals, and agendas existed, too.
Konrad might've had the backing of one larger group, but most wouldn't even know he existed.
And that was for the best—had they known him, they would've treated him as a threat.
'I see,' Konrad pondered before she even had a chance to gather her thoughts into one telepathic message. Yeah, the damned kid was getting better and better at reading her.
But that was convenient.
And she was certain that a low-level shaman wouldn't make him break a sweat, either.
'I've only fought my twin so far,' he noted, almost apologetic. 'A guess on how they compare?'
'Ugh,' Maple groaned. She was good, but not that good. 'It's impossible to tell without a thorough inspection. My mana sight has its limits, too, you know.'
Judging their banners and their fancy guards, they could have been the real deal.
Or they could've compensating for something—
Whether they came as a morale boost or to destroy the entire mountain was anyone's guess.
'I'll stay here and help you fight them,' the dragoness offered. 'Three of my wyverns are also close now. And your reinforcements will arrive within ten minutes, bossman.'
She was being generous, but to her shock, she could almost see Konrad shake his head.
'No,' he thought, his mind steeled. 'Go spy on their commander. Let me know if your pets spot something, but I'll handle things on my end. All I want is more info.'
He didn't say it, but he hoped the enemy general knew more about these shamans.
Which was a smart thought. She had to find it out for him and fast.
But before she'd spot the carriage, Konrad asked another question.
'Are you far by now?'
'Uh, I'm about a mile down the switchbacks, and the shamans—'
She couldn't finish, feeling a strange buzz under her skin.
A huge thunderclap followed, almost shattering her eardrums.
It struck from the very cloud she's been hiding in until now—even though it was all white and fluffy. She wanted to rush back and help, but after taking a look through her pets' eyes—
There was only a smoldering crater where the shamans once stood.
One charred skeleton and burning banners.
Two casters cowered in fear behind their guards' backs, also pale and shaking in their boots.
'What in the saints was that?' Maple yelped, almost drowning in Konrad's satisfaction.
'So it worked, huh?' he asked. 'A spell I picked up during the tournament, but couldn't test it yet.'
That was one hell of a spell, then. It made her shudder even in this majestic dragon form.
'I focused static electricity from the area, homing in on the highest mana,' Konrad explained. 'I wanted to make sure it wouldn't target you, though. So what does it look like now?'
'Pretty, uh, great,' she stumbled over her own thoughts.
It was magnificent. Even if the other two survived, they were in no shape to strike back.
And that was a single, quick attack.
She was already terrified of Konrad's lovers, whether demonic or came from the heavens. But now she had to keep an eye on the boy as well. If he'd hit her with this, it would've stung a lot.