Chapter 11.

- Master, wake up. Master! - the voice broke through the veil of my sleep. With some effort, I still managed to open my eyes and focus on the perfect face of the blue-eyed priest.

- I woke up.

- We are ready and waiting only for you.

Only now, after his words, I noticed that the priest was fully equipped and ready.

My inner feelings told me that I had not been dozing. Having applied minor healing to myself and thus brought myself into relative order, I stretched, loosening my joints. Despite the short rest, I still felt that all this was wrong - an hour of sleep had not had a positive effect on my well-being. I would have to finish sleeping on Missa. Would I be able to? The Hisn are not distinguished by their smooth running, and moving on them is very similar to rowing...

My panther was standing nearby, waiting for me. Having risen, I pulled on my mask and noticed that everyone else had already gathered and were waiting only for me. Quickly jumping on the Missa standing nearby, I took the place in the marching line that my sister had pointed out to me. Our tatrett immediately began to move towards the fork leading to our shelter.

Waiting for the reconnaissance report, my sister explained to me that the Hisn had been given potions of strength and endurance while I was sleeping. Their effect should last for five hours. During this time, we must move as far away as possible from the territories patrolled by the Deep Guard and dive to the lower horizons of the Depth, where the next halt will be, at which the Hisny and their riders will rest a little, have a snack, fill up with water and potions and set off again. Isites looked at her communication bracelet and gave the signal to move. The Hisny rushed from the place, without waiting for the command from their riders.

In general, I hadn't paid much attention to how the hisna moved before. When hunting goblins, the hisna weren't in a hurry, and running back with a triple load couldn't be called fast. But now the hisna moved in huge leaps and jumps of about seventy to seventy-five meters in length. Sitting on the hisna itself was a constant series of jerks. It looked like this: a jump - the overload literally presses the rider into the panther's back, the hisna's body tenses up and stretches like a string, two seconds of flight - weightlessness, the hisna's paws touch the surface - the panther's body compresses like a spring, and the cycle closes.

During this whole complex of movements, the rider was required to press himself as close to the back of his panther as possible, otherwise he could not only get seriously injured from a blow to the seemingly soft back, but the harness straps could also fail.

And then - hello, a fifty-meter flight at speed and, as a result, multiple fractures and even death. That is why almost no people use representatives of the feline family as a means of transportation.

I read in books that only the light Eldar have something like tigers with white and black stripes. In the same books they wrote that only riders on flying creatures experience greater torture.

This is probably just horror - a constant cycle of movements up - weightlessness - down - overload, plus the rarefaction and temperature of the surrounding air ...

Although the larger the flying creature - the less often the wing beats, and after a certain threshold of their size, you can generally sit on them "by the ears".

Dragons have special shields there that protect the ear holes. Legs are conveniently hidden behind these shields – an air pocket is formed there during movement. And large creatures hold their heads evenly during wing flapping and often glide, saving energy. And if you can keep a dragon, then solving the problem of air and cold at high altitude is so… not worth mentioning…

And how did I endure this and the following transitions?.. It was just some kind of nightmare... Face in fur - two seconds to inhale and exhale - face in fur again. Now I understand why all the Atretases and Athars have masks on their faces... And I, a fool, thought - so that the face would not be injured in battle! Idiot... And I seem to have come across a mention of this, but did not take it seriously...

During a short rest, the priestesses put special attachments on the panthers' claws, made of metal literally saturated with magic. A short snack for the hisn, and for me, an equally short sleep.

Actually, my sister was right – I was tolerating the ride well and even began to enjoy it. It was a bit like a roller coaster, only much faster. Once I got used to the pace of Miss, I began to watch the views rushing past me.

Our squad moved through strange wide caves, long galleries, and once we jumped over a crevice, along the bottom of which flowed a fiery orange river of lava. The number of small ordinary rivers that we overcame exceeded ten. At times, the hisns ran along the walls, and once Missa was even carried to the ceiling.

Various rock formations passed me by.

Isites raised her hand up. After making another jump, everyone stopped. The Hisns immediately began to silently disperse around the cave on half-bent paws. The Golden Guard, on the contrary, gathered and, having dismounted, created some kind of complex weaving of black ribbons of Darkness. Isites made a sign for me to "approach".

When I approached, she explained to me with signs that reconnaissance had discovered a patrol of the Deep Guard of our house and we would hide from it with one of the spells of the third stage of Darkness called "Black Shadow".

Usually the patrol is led by the senior priestess, and her strength may not be enough even to simply sense the work of this spell, let alone see through it. But just in case, "Black Shadow" will be supplemented with "Haze", a spell of the Order-Chaos school, it will distract attention and prevent concentration. Having received Isites's explanations, I began to watch the work of the assembled Golden Guard with interest, and if the first spell did not arouse much interest in me, then "Haze" was simply incredible in terms of energy.

Black ribbons, like fish hooks, held a strange rainbow jelly-like mass - a spell. Isites, as it was being created, explained to me the principle of its construction. From her explanations it followed that the atar would influence the Order-Chaos through the Darkness, creating the very structure of the spell. In general, I had an analogy with heating up metal - in order to heat it, they used fuel, in our case - the power of Darkness.

Mages of Order do not use these crutches - they use the Order-Chaos directly ... Meanwhile, the amorphous rainbow structure took the form of a hedgehog with many long needles. The next second, the first spell - "Black Shadow" - worked. The Darkness spell blossomed into a multitude of small, absolutely black worms, which very quickly crawled to each Eldar, hisn and, touching them, covered their armor and exposed parts of the body with a thin layer of slightly hovering Darkness.

I immediately stopped seeing even the silhouettes of those around me, but, turning on my magical vision, I saw their auras and teras. The limitations of its use became clear and why "Black Shadow" was supplemented with "Haze".

The gold ones jumped back onto the hisn, and the sister explained that the spell was complete, and there were about ten minutes until the patrol arrived. Having given the general command to hide, she froze, as did the rest of us.

Time seemed to drag on forever. I tried to distract myself by looking at the rainbow structure of the spell "Mirage". The spell itself was even beautiful. Thin sharp transparent spikes, about two meters long, and a small spherical core from which they grew.

An incredible structure - no component parts, like "at" in elements or forces. This spell is a single whole. During my studies, my teachers did not teach me Order-Chaos, and my library did not have anything on this inseparable pair ...

Movement caught my attention: a lone rider on a hisna appeared at the far end of the tunnel. The hisna, slowly and silently, crept along the corridor on bent legs. As it passed me, four more riders appeared at the same end of the tunnel from which the first rider had appeared, and after them another one rode. Well, that's it. The patrol has passed. The sister gives the signal "assemble", and a little later we continue on.

Here we approached another underground river. Sister stopped our detachment and commanded a long halt. We dismounted. Isites came up to me and said:

- This is the border river of our house's domain. Beyond it begins the No Man's Land. There is little life there - both we and the illithids knock out everything that is there. Therefore, only the most dangerous, fast or fearful remain. This is the penultimate big stop. There is only one place in the No Man's Land where you can rest in safety.

And through the territory of the illithids, all the way to Ishaksha, we will go at maximum speed - their lands are well patrolled by creatures of different nations. - The sister smiled wryly: - They are all so brainwashed that it is not uncommon to see a dwarf, a dark eldar, a human and a naga in one patrol, covering each other's backs. We once tried to heal our own, but it is quite difficult to capture them alive, and it is much easier to kill them...

- I may need Eldar prisoners. We have "sleep silk". Let them wrap the prisoners in it, stop the bleeding and heal critical wounds.

- I'll let you know.

- But haven't you previously called upon the Eternal One to restore... hmm... consciousness to the Eldar?

- They did. But you have to understand - there are atretases from all, you know, all the houses, and to spend energy for someone else's soldier... It's somehow... Not very good. After several failures, when the atretases tried to escape or attack, these attempts themselves came to naught.

- What about other races?

- Experiments were conducted on everyone except the dwarves, for obvious reasons. They were all successful. Well, you understand, warriors are sometimes hard to stop on the battlefield. In addition, we have arirs in tatretta, and they need constant supervision, otherwise the ranks of the few prisoners will quickly thin out...

- Maybe I should perform again?

- No need, I will convey your wish to them. Now rest - our stop will not last more than five hours...

As soon as she said this, I felt extremely tired. Nodding, I went to Miss and, spreading my blanket next to him, fell asleep almost instantly.