Moving Down

"Are you ready?" Alya peeked through the door.

"I'm coming." Joy shouted as he threw a large mantle over his shoulder.

The two walked out of the small castle entrance. They could see the training grounds from the street.

"Too bad I can't train any more magic." Joy listened to the sound of talking coming from them.

Alya stopped to rummage through the leather satchel she had gotten for the journey. She pulled out a small book with a light blue cover, "Here."

"Are you allowed to have that?" Joy looked at the magic tome.

She shrugged it off.

"Thanks, but I think it should belong to you. I'm keeping it for now, though." He opened the first page while they continued walking down the wide main street.

At the large entrance gate, a platoon of around fifty men and women were already waiting for them. In front, a man in a long jacket limped towards them, a red cape was thrown around his shoulder.

"Ready to take over the south?" Cal looked at Joy, "Not long before we got the whole country if it keeps going like this." He waved towards his troops.

Together with three wooden carriages and a dozen horses, they travelled towards the last southern city able to resist the revolution. The port city Amelia Opera. It is the largest of the southern cities, the revolutionary fighters from around the country were beeing summoned to take down the giant fortress. Using the resources from the islands, the city was able to uphold their people from starvation. That was the information given in the letter send to the city of Kyrna.

They set up a quick camp every night. During the time of this night, most of the people were asleep. Only a few were up, they took turns to watch the surroundings. Joy was one of them. Alone, he sat a few meters away from the clearing. The campfire shone a little light into the forest. He could not see, so he relied on his ears. They were freezing in the night cold, he heard the cool breeze swished over the canopy.

Despite the time seemingly dragging out endlessly, Joy kept paying attention. He caught the sound of a small animal rushing through the grass, the clattering of the other watchmen's armor, and then the rustling of the bushes before him.

A few meters away, between the trees, light footsteps could be heard. The undergrowth was short, but Joy was unable to spot anything. A loud grunt made him aware of his eyes' false information.

All of a sudden, it burst out of the green. Aiming straight towards the boy, the animal sprinted forwards. A fat pig with large tusks and brown fur. Joy jumped behind another tree, he turned around to use the second spell from the air tome he had taught in the city. A strong gust of wind blew through the trees, fallen leaves flew up from the ground and towards the boar. The spell was supposed to block weaker projectiles, but it did its job as a distraction.

The animal ignored his effort and started another sprint towards the running boy. He could scream for help, but that would likely alarm the whole camp, rousing everyone in the process. Instead, he kept running sharp curves, he knew of one tool to use. He did not want to use it, it was a violent spell. The first page of magic tomes was usually a simple but interesting offensive spell to draw peoples' interest, the air tome was no different.

Joy's legs already started hurting and tiring, but the animal continued following, "Does it eat meat or why is it chasing me?"

"Boy?!" A voice called out to him. Joy knew it was probably his replacement, that he was supposed to go to sleep.

The man would alarm the other guards if Joy was missing, but the boy could not lead the boar to the camp.

"Damn it all." He slowed down and turned his head. The boar ran towards his legs, he had to jump to the side. The hairy pig could not slow down quickly, it tried to keep running and try again. Joy stopped, like he had hundreds of times before, he pushed his opened palm into the air.

A short deep burst echoed through his ears. The boar's flank fur was pressed away, a cracking sound followed. The animal wanted to continue running, but fell before it could take another step.

Joy turned his head towards the rustling beside him, an armored man walked towards him, "What was that?" He asked before looking to the ground, the large animal lifelessly layed in the dirt.

"Woah." The man kneeled down in front of the animal before looking at the frowning Joy, "I'll help you take it to the camp. Also, your turn is over."

"I know." Joy said quietly.

He slept comfortably in his large mantle, but he felt awful. He had almost thrown up at the sound of the animal breaking beneath his spell. Killing was the main use of magic, Joy had known and yet he

continued learning it since he met Alya. Around that time he became scared to go without ways to defend himself.

It would not take much longer until he seriosuly hurt a man. Until now, he had been one of the civilians scared of seeing their fighters lose. Now, he had to fear not only beeing killed, but having to kill the people attacking him. Joy decided to pretent to not know the magic capable of killing, instead he would learn spells to defend himself and be otherwise useful, but not to hurt.

Alya turned her head in her sleep.