Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

  ‘But first we have to go back to where we met.’ Dileys said. ‘Otherwise how do we find the last piece of the ice?’

  Hearing this, everyone was silent. It seemed that it was too early to celebrate, because no one seemed to have put down any marks while they were following Julia here.

  ‘Well, actually…’ When everyone was gazing at each other in speechless dismay, Kardiac looked proud. ‘I put down some marks.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ The friends screamed with joy. They couldn’t believe this — Kardiac was probably the most negligent one among them; how could he do such a sensible, careful thing?

  ‘Let me guess…’ Catheray punched Kardiac’s chest excitedly. ‘You must be really afraid of the beetalbulls, so you did whatever you can to be safer?’

  ‘Hey, I helped!’ Kardiac was probably blushing, but thanks to the dimness no one could tell. ‘I sacrificed my own ham to make the marks!’

  ‘Oh dear, so it’s really because you were afraid!’ The friends weren’t sure if they should cry or laugh. ‘Anyway, great job!’

  ‘Hold on. That doesn’t sound a great job…’ Julia suddenly stopped everyone. ‘What did you use for your marks again, Kardy?’

  ‘Ham slices. Why?’ Kardiac puzzled for a bit, but soon he realized something —

  ‘What’s that noise?’ At the same time, everyone else realized the problem too. ‘Kardy, you used ham as marks… in a cave full of beasts?’

  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

  ‘Bray, bray…’

  Strange noises echoed in the cave; a number of unknown magimals were approaching. This made the friends nervous and at the same time wonder what they were. Finally, Catheray couldn’t help herself. ‘Kardy, I’m really impressed. Thanks for protecting us!’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Kardiac tightened his muscles and ran to the front of the team.

  ‘Don’t they sound like donkeys?’ Jemario asked. ‘Since when do donkeys like ham?’

  ‘They are magimals. Anything is possible!’ Kardiac said without looking back.

  ‘Of course. If we can get ourselves ambushed, why would donkeys not like ham!’ Catheray humphed.

  ‘Guys, focus!’ Soarame cut off their argument. ‘Wait… why do I hear bat wings?’

  ‘Because they are bats!’ The friends suddenly screamed as a large number of dark figures flashed over them. ‘Watch out! Get down!’

  ‘Donkey bats? Are you kidding me?’ Kardiac was stunned to see the bats’ donkey-like heads. They looked a little too big for their bodies. ‘Anyone know what they are?’

  ‘Dumbats, I call them.’ Julia looked a bit relieved after seeing the dumbats. ‘Thank god, we are lucky.’

  ‘How so?’ The friends were confused.

  ‘Because they are dumb. They don’t have much intelligence, but rely mostly on instinct for their actions — like most Novice magimals do. Plus, they are not very aggressive; they just look weird.’ Julia walked to the front of the team. ‘Kardy, give me a big chunk of ham!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Kardiac handed over an entire tube of ham. ‘What are you gonna do?’

  ‘Distract them and catch one. It could help us find the valley!’ Julia unwrapped the ham and threw it on to the ground. The bats instantly noticed the ham and all pounced on to it. Due to their oversized heads, they bumped against each other on their way, and soon ended up in a chaotic wrestling match. The friends all marvelled at Julia’s judgement; she seemed to be quite experienced.

  ‘Help me catch one of them!’ Julia urged. ‘Quickly! Before the ham is gone!’

  ‘I’ll do it this time!’ Kardiac jumped ahead and tried to grab the wings of a bat with his shaking hands, but the bat struggled immediately, with the wings flapping harshly. This scared the boy; he fell over with a screech.

  ‘Come on, boy!’ Julia rolled her eyes. ‘Who can do this? We don’t have a lot of time!’

  ‘Damn!’ Kardiac jumped up from the ground, feeling insulted. He was trying to spell, but Julia instantly stopped him.

  ‘Don’t do that, or it will enrage the whole crowd and we will be in trouble.’ She urged. ‘I just need some muscle to catch a live one.’

  ‘Fine!’ Kardiac gritted and pounced again. He managed to hold his nerve enough to drag one bat out from the busy crowd, grabbing its struggling wings.

  ‘Bray! Bray!’ The bat was screeching badly. The rest of them turned around to stare at Kardiac, giving him gooseflesh all of a sudden. Fortunately, they only spared him a glance before heading for the ham again.

  ‘Great! Let’s go!’ Julia hastened the sweating boy. Everyone followed immediately, with no time to ask questions.

  ‘Hoo… you are right, they are a little dumb.’ The team ran for quite a while to be certain that they were far away from the bats. They made sure that the captured bat’s mouthpart was sealed, and no ham slices were dropped along their way this time.

  ‘See? I said I’d protect you.’ Kardiac looked back several times, and made sure there were no bats following them, so that he could speak proudly. ‘And the cave is not as scary as I thought.’

  ‘That’s because it’s the outer zone of this area, as the instruction said. Once we arrive at the valley, it’ll be different.’ Julia was amused to hear Kardiac’s petty showing off. ‘By the way, you did do a great job with the ham. I’m sorry.’

  ‘See? I did it for a reason.’ Kardiac raised his head high. ‘It was all planned... Ahh!’

  Catheray had pinched his waist. ‘How can this bat help us find the way?’

  ‘Our team was lucky to find this trick days ago. For some reason, the bats are afraid of going out of the cave, and they are familiar with everything here, so if we go towards the exit they will panic.’ Julia was leading the way with the bat struggling in her hand. ‘See, it’s panicking more and more. That means we are going the right way.’

  ‘Your team must have learnt quite a lot here.’ Soarame praised the girl for her knowledge. ‘Teach us something more please!’

  ‘Sure. The first thing to bear in mind when you adventure in magimals’ territory is to minimize your noise. Otherwise you will easily expose yourself and get besieged — that’s what happened to my team.’ Julia sighed. ‘Oh, maybe the first thing is don’t use ham slices to mark, then minimize your noise…’

  ‘Hey!’ Kardiac barked. Everyone was happy to see Julia feel a little better than when they had just met — she seemed to have accepted the fact that she had lost contact with her team. Obviously, the quest had toughened the girl up quite a bit. Everyone else got scared from time to time — when the bat suddenly burst out struggling — but Julia didn’t even give it a look. In fact, she had been gripping the oddly-curved elastic bat body with nothing more than her bare hands.

  ‘Okay, we are almost there!’ After a couple of hours’ walk, the team was excited to see light coming in from an exit. Everyone was happy, but the bat looked desperate, and it was shaking like hell.

  ‘Let’s set it free, shall we?’ Jemario said.

  ‘Excuse me? We want its soulcore, don’t we?’ Julia frowned.

  ‘No! It didn’t hurt us, so we shouldn’t hurt it either.’ Catheray disagreed.

  ‘It didn’t hurt us because it preferred the taste of ham to us.’ Julia sneered. ‘Soar, what do you say?’

  ‘Julia has a point.’ Soarame scratched his head. ‘But I don’t wanna butcher the weak, especially since it didn’t do any harm to us after all.’

  ‘Fine.’ Watching the bat escape in a flurry, Julia rolled her eyes. ‘It’s your team; it’s your call.’

  ‘Don’t feel that way, Julia.’ Seeing that Julia flipped her hair expressionlessly, Soarame wasn’t sure what to say. Thanks to the sunshine, everyone could finally see her face in a much clearer way. Since Julia had come to the school, she had been growing even prettier than she was when Soarame first met her. The pride showing in her eyes seemed to make up for the dirt on her face, exhibiting her unique style of charm.

  ‘Do you remember where yo
ur team was, Julia?’ Dileys asked.

  Julia carefully checked around and drew her conclusion. ‘No. This exit is different from the one that my team found. Oh dear… it’s also different from the one that I re-entered because of the dholes!’

  ‘Really? So the cave has multiple exits?’ Jemario was surprised. ‘Is that good news or bad?’

  ‘Good question. It really depends on where Snower is.’ Soarame tried to mind-talk again. {Snower, where are you?}

  {Meow! We are still trying to work out where to go.} Snower responded immediately. {Pipi told Omifo that Julia had led you to the exit. You were really lucky.}

  {Indeed.} Soarame winked at the little monkey on Kardiac’s shoulder. {But don’t use ham for anything, okay? It may bring you a gang of wolves.}

  {Meow. Of course. I’m not a mad bear.} Snower teased. {But if it takes you hours to find the exit with a guide, it will take us longer without one.}

  {That’s okay, we’ll wait for you. Let’s hope you can get to the same exit.} Soarame said. {Don’t rush, be safe first!}

  ‘A kitten and a monkey are your coordinators?’ Realizing what was going on, Julia’s eyes widened. ‘What are they after all?’

  ‘Amazing ones.’ Soarame smiled proudly but also a little bitterly — he wished that he knew Snower’s breed.

  The team went back into the cave, trying to meet their friends halfway. They tried different directions and put down roadmarks every time, but they never saw the other team. Instead, they received updates of several small battles. Although their friends had been winning all the way along, the two teams still wouldn’t merge till the next morning.

  Therefore, after a mind-talk discussion, Soarame’s team started marching ahead in the unknown valley alone. It was a beautiful and peaceful valley; flowers were everywhere, with fresh grass and the trees’ branches dancing in the wind. This made it hard to believe that there could be dholes and other wild beasts hiding in it, so the team gradually sped up. They were hoping to spot some magimals for a better understanding of the area, but they also had to keep it low key so that what had happened to Julia’s team wouldn’t happen to them.

  ‘Soar, why don’t you fly up to check up front?’ Kardiac didn’t like being quiet for longer than a few minutes. ‘I so wish I could use the flightcloak properly.’

  Soarame shook his head. ‘My master said not. He once warned me against flying in an unknown area, especially if it’s magimals’ territory. Once you fly up there, it’s too easy to be found and targeted — you never know if there are flying magimals.’

  ‘Hello? If there were, wouldn’t we see them already?’ Kardiac wasn’t convinced. ‘Just try it, please! We need a better vision on the front.’

  ‘Fine.’ Soarame looked around and didn’t see anything in the sky, so then he floated up over the trees for a farseek. But soon after he did that, something came shooting over from somewhere below him —

  ‘Windblades?!’ Soarame hurriedly dodged a wave of transparent crescents. The next second, he saw a number of bird-like magimals rising up and coming at him, spelling windblades along their way.

  ‘Birobbers?’ Soarame recognized the magimals and their Adept power. He hurriedly descended, landing in the woods. At the same time, the other friends ran into the woods too and hid there, holding their breath and crouching. The birds had lost their targets by the time they arrived, so they yawped unwillingly for a while, but didn’t want to risk diving into the woods. Finally, they left.

  ‘Happy now?’ Catheray knocked Kardiac’s head. ‘I actually like them. Usually it’s hard to reach your head.’

  ‘That’s so unfair!’ Kardiac complained. ‘They think they are in charge of the entire sky?’

  ‘Yes. Birobbers do think that way.’ Soarame exhaled a relieved breath. ‘We are lucky. Books say they sometimes land to battle, and their windblades can always be lethal.’

  ‘But they usually don’t.’ Dileys nodded. She knew about birobbers too. ‘As long as we stick to the ground, they won’t try to bother us.’ The friends sighed; it seemed that they didn’t have a choice.

  ‘Look, what’s that?’ Jemario suddenly dragged at Soarame’s sleeves, pointing at a direction.

  ‘Is that a pangolin?’ The team gathered together and peered through the trees. The scales of a pangolin-like magimal were shining, impressing everyone with its unique style of beauty. However, due to the birobbers, the pangolin had been alerted — as soon as it saw the friends look over, it instantly dived into the soil and disappeared.

  ‘I thought pangolins were different from moles?’ Julia joked and the team moved on. Surprisingly, nothing else like the birobber event happened during the whole of the rest of the day’s hiking. So the friends found a place for the night, and enjoyed their first jungle night in the warm weather peacefully.

  ‘Yeah! Day two!’ The next morning, Kardiac cheered as soon as everyone woke up.

  ‘Hiss!’ Catheray slapped his shoulder. ‘What’s first thing to bear in mind when you adventure in magimals’ territory?’

  ‘Don’t eat ham.’ Kardiac teased. ‘Okay, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Chacha!’ Right then, Pipi’s yawp came from the top of trees. Kardiac waved at the little monkey in between the leaves. ‘Pipi, come down here. Time to go!’

  ‘Chacha!’ Another similar yawp came from behind Kardiac, and a little monkey jumped on to his shoulder.

  ‘Pipi?’ Kardiac was puzzled. ‘Wait… who’s that up there then?’

  ‘Chacha!’ Obviously, that was another little monkey. It started to yawp at the friends, again and again, louder and louder.

  ‘Something is wrong!’ Everyone was alerted. ‘Kardy, we told you to keep your voice down!’

  ‘I wasn’t that loud!’ Kardiac was aggrieved. ‘He was probably there before we even woke up!’

  ‘Chacha… Chacha…’ A series of similar noises came from farther away in the trees. This made everyone nervous. ‘More are coming! Let’s run!’

  They tried to dash in a direction picked at random, but had to stop in the next second — the noises were sounding all around the opening, surrounding the team in the middle. Soon enough, the magimals showed up from behind the trees — they were indeed monkey-like ones.

  ‘Oh dear, not again!’ Julia muffled a cry. ‘We are besieged! What now?’

  ‘Get ready to break out with me!’ Soarame commanded. ‘Don’t split, okay?’

  ‘No, and don’t fight either! There are too many of them!’ Jemario hurriedly urged, holding Pipi in her arms. ‘Don’t attack them unless they attack us first. Please, trust me!’

  ‘Ahh… fine!’ Soarame cancelled his spell in preparation, with a deep breath. ‘Ready to trigger your emblems then!’

  ‘We will.’ Dileys said. ‘But if we have to leave, you fly to escape by yourself, Soar!’

  ‘Right! Get something for Rodka!’ Everyone agreed. ‘We have faith in you, Soar!’

  As the friends talked, a large number of monkeys walked into the opening and slowly approached them. The monkeys didn’t look very friendly — their tusks were all showing as they yelled one after another, sending threatening signals. Seconds later, a bigger monkey walked to the front of the monkey crew — actually, it looked more like an ape.

  ‘Jem, careful!’ Seeing the ape walking closer and closer to Jemario, everyone was nervous.

  ‘It’s okay!’ Jemario stopped Soarame from intercepting the ape. ‘I think he’s here for Pipi.’

  ‘Hacha, Hacha!’ The ape looked at Pipi. Pipi looked back at it. ‘Cha, cha?’

  ‘They are talking?’ The friends whispered to each other. They kept their voices very low so that they wouldn’t enrage any of the monkeys around.

  {Snower, tell Omi to ask Pipi what they are talking about!} Soarame quickly mind-talked to Snower. {Make it quick! We are in danger!}

  {Meow! That big ape wouldn’t try to harm Pipi, but he doesn’t like you people.} Snower’s response came back soon. {He’s asking Pipi how he met you and why
he is with you. Pipi told him the truth — his parents were killed by other magimals, but a human wizard happened to pass by and saved him. Then Omi adopted him as an orphan.}

  ‘Thank god we can cross-talk like this.’ After Soarame whispered to the team, everyone couldn’t help feeling relieved. ‘They are not going to hurt us then, right?’

  However, the ape became irritable all of a sudden. He beat his palms hard at the ground, and yelled at Pipi.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Jemario was frightened. She stepped back with a shaking Pipi in her arms. ‘Don’t you scare him!’

  The ape didn’t listen to Jemario. He was becoming more irritable. So Soarame instantly cut in between them, shielding Jemario behind him. ‘Hey, step back! I know you can understand us!’

  {Soar, watch out! He’s trying to take Pipi away with his gang!} Snower mind-talked at the same time. {Pipi refused, that’s why he’s enraged!}

  ‘His name is Pipi, and he’s our family member!’ Soarame hurriedly said to the angry ape. ‘You are not taking him!’

  ‘HOCHACHA!’ The ape became angrier to hear that. The entire gang of the monkeys followed their leader to yell at the friends, louder and louder.

  {The monkeys claim themselves to be Pipi’s family, not us.} Snower urgently delivered the message. {Omi is freaking out right now. You must make sure they are not taking Pipi!}

  Meanwhile, Pipi yelled loudly at the ape. The entire monkey gang looked puzzled at that. They looked at their leader, waiting for his decision.

  {Pipi said he’s not going anywhere, and if they forced him and hurt you, he would kill himself!} Snower’s synchronization was very timely. {Be careful, they had been planning to steal Pipi and kill the rest of you! Not sure if they still might!}

  Soarame was frightened to hear this. ‘Guys, get ready to trigger your emblems! But make sure Jem and Pipi leave first! I’ll buy you some time!’

  On the other side, the ape moved his eyes from Pipi to the friends, hesitating. Everyone was silent, staring at the ape, and at the same time holding their emblems in their sweating hands. They tried to control their quickened breath, surrounding Jemario and Pipi, in a stalemate against the monkey gang.