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He glanced up, noting the position of the moon. It was a little past midnight—not as late as he would’ve liked to begin, but the invisibility restrictions with his Tempest Knights forced his hand.

“All right,” he said as loudly as he dared this far behind enemy lines, “any questions? Concerns?”

He expected at least a few given what they were about to do. They were about ten miles away from the eastern fortress where one of the Thunderbird destroyers was being held. Their objective was simple: they were going to steal it, and if that wasn’t feasible, then they were going to destroy it. Leon wanted it quite badly, but the most important thing wasn’t taking it for himself, it was ensuring that the Sunlit Empire lost access to it.

To get there, they’d have to pass into a massive Sunlit fortress with three concentric walls. The fortress was heavily warded, so much so that Leon wasn’t sure they could even approach without their invisibility dropping, but he felt like he had a solution to that problem. Past the outer walls, the fortress was a maze of tall buildings and sectioned-off baileys ensuring that anyone who tried to get around would have to pass through numerous checkpoints. Defensive enchantments ensured that flight was essentially impossible past the first outer wall.

The destroyer was being held in the very center of the fortress alongside several other arks of varying size, though none so large as to need a crew of more than perhaps a dozen. Only the destroyer was large enough to hold all of Leon’s current force.

Fortunately, they had a few things going for them. Firstly, the fortress was more than twenty miles behind the line, so the people in the fortress were, as far as Leon could tell, fairly lax with their security procedures. Secondly, thanks to the time of day, there didn’t seem to be many people out and about—though had had to get a direct visual to confirm that since the defensive wards impeded his magic senses. He’d had to fly nearly seventy-thousand feet above the fortress just a few hours ago so that he could see over the many tall walls that the Imperial earth mages had erected. Thirdly, Iron-Striker and the Jaguar were leading a counter-attack on the Sunlit Emperor’s attack in the west, drawing attention in that direction.

That being said, there were still thousands of Imperial troops stationed in the fortress, including a couple dozen eighth-tier mages. If they weren’t careful, their prize could be sabotaged before they made it, or the fortress’ defensive enchantments might activate and trap them within. Leon wasn’t looking to get bogged down in a protracted battle, he just wanted his Clan’s old ark.

Answering his question, Alix asked for confirmation, “Rules of engagement, Your Majesty?”

“Stay quiet, stay stealthy for as long as possible,” Leon answered. “Anyone in our way is fair game, but I want us to go undetected for as long as possible, so use discretion with force.”

He waited a moment for any more questions, and when none came, he turned in Anshu’s direction.

“You ready to try your hand at flying an ark?” he asked.

“I am,” Anshu confidently replied.

Leon had made good on his resolution to name Anshu the commander of his personal ark. The only real problem was that Leon didn’t yet have a personal ark, only one that the Ravens had built that he’d essentially commandeered. Ravens still staffed that ark, and since they’d built it, Leon had allowed that to continue. Still, Anshu had been taking plenty of lessons in commanding arks since Leon’s appointment, and while he wasn’t yet at the level anyone wanted him to be at, his confidence had been earned. He’d even stated that it was refreshingly similar to commanding a ship, which he’d done for many years.

Adding onto his lessons was a crash course in Thunderbird ark design from Nestor. The dead man hadn’t been able to give Anshu absolutely everything he’d need, but the rough locations of critical systems based on the ark’s design and class, and a primer on how the ark’s control systems would be laid out were given to the Indradian. So, Anshu was confident he could do it, and his confidence was infectious.

“If there are no questions, then let’s get to it,” Leon ordered, and together, he and his one hundred and twenty followers took to the skies.

Thanks to their invisibility, their short flight to the fortress was uneventful. There were frequent Sunlit patrols, but they were concentrated closer to the frontline. There were still a few around the fortress, but there were still wide gaps in their patrols that Leon easily exploited.

They flew around the fortress a bit until they found themselves on the northwestern side, the side of the fortress that had the fewest towers since it was the steepest side of the hill on which the fortress had been built. Their rendezvous point, arranged just in case anyone got lost since they were all invisible, was the point on the walls with the widest gap between towers.

As Leon slowed to a stop, he sensed the leaders of his infiltration force taking a headcount, so he got to work. He drifted forward, filling his mind with the image of a great dome of light surrounding the fortress that represented the defensive wards that enshrouded it. The wards were so strong that their boundaries were easily seen in his magic senses, so getting close to the point where his invisibility would be stripped away was easy enough.

Then, in his mind’s eye, he imagined a hole appearing in that defensive perimeter, the streams of magic that made it up simply parting to make a gap instead of being disrupted to force open a rupture so as not to set off any alarms. He held that image in his head as he retrieved a spell from his soul realm. The spell was simple, a single simple rune inscribed upon the spell paper. The ancient rune for ‘open’.

There were ancient runes for everything that could be imagined, but the more specific the task, the more intricate the rune. More general runes could be used for such purposes, but they required a clear head and a strong vision of what had to be done. Leon was using a very general rune, so he’d have to fill his mind with nothing but what he wanted it to do, otherwise it would likely fail.

As he positioned himself, Valeria murmured to him, [Everyone’s accounted for.]

[Good. I’m going to begin,] he responded.

He brandished the spell and steeled himself. He let all loose thoughts drift away, and when he thought himself ready, he channeled his magic power into the spell. The rune glowed, power extended out from it, and the dome-like barrier formed by the fort’s wards shimmered.

Leon didn’t want the wards destroyed, that would only alert the fortress’ inhabitants that they were under attack. No, he just needed a relatively small hole that his people could pass through, and once they were past the first wall, the hole could close.

A circular pattern roughly six feet in radius appeared in the air, looking like shimmering gray light. After a moment, the light in the center of the circle bent inward and then vanished, leaving what looked almost like a hovering window in the sky large enough for two people side-by-side to pass through without touching the edge.

At the same time, the spell in Leon’s hand began to crumble as his magic passed through it.

“Move!” he whisper-shouted, and his people, mostly touching each other to stay organized, began flying through as quickly as they could without losing track of each other.

After ten made it through, Leon grew worried that the spell wasn’t going to last long enough. He tried to refrain from counting so that he could keep the image he wanted the ‘open’ rune to create in his mind. By the time maybe half of the force had made it through, the spell had practically curled in on itself and the inscribed rune began to burn. Leon filled his mind with nothing but maintaining the spell’s integrity, focusing on that one singular task, and just as the spell was about to burst into flame, Maia grabbed him and pulled him through the gap in the fortress’ wards. Just as he was pulled through, the rune burst into flame and the spell was rendered ash on the wind.

“Headcount?” Leon asked just to be sure.

After getting a quick report, Leon couldn’t help but grin. All of his people had made it through.

The arrangement of towers on the second curtain wall was different, but on the northwestern side, they were still sparser than elsewhere. After taking a moment to inspect the second wall’s wards, Leon grimaced slightly but led his people to the widest gap between them once again. Once there, he retrieved two ‘open’ spells from his soul realm. The fortress’ wards were only going to grow stronger as they made it further in and closer to the wards’ power source, and one spell was barely enough for the outer walls. He didn’t have a large number of these spells, but he was at least certain he had enough to get them past the three curtain walls, at least.

Repeating the same procedure, Leon opened a hole in the wards with one of his spells, allowing his people through. After about two-thirds of his people had made it through, Leon activated the second spell and allowed the first to crumble away. This time, when Maia pulled him through, they’d had plenty of time before his second spell was spent.

Now past the second curtain wall, Leon set about working on the third. He still had six ‘open’ runes remaining, but as he led his people to their third point of ingress, he realized that even that many might not be enough. It took two ‘open’ spells to create the needed gap, and two more were required to sustain it. However, just as Leon worried that he’d have to use the remaining two, he was pulled through.

Once more, he got a headcount, and once more, his people reported that everyone had made it through. They had made it past the curtain walls and now found themselves inside the fortress proper, hovering over an outer bailey and with two ‘open’ spells remaining.

However, they barely had much time to get their bearings before the powerful wards within the fortress pressed down upon them. Almost immediately, about thirty of Leon’s people were rendered visible again, and he quickly ordered, “Drop! Now! Get to the ground!”

His force plummeted to the ground, getting out of sight as quickly as they were able. Fortunately, this outer bailey was quiet and fairly deserted, aside from one patrol and the guards manning the three gates leading to adjacent baileys. There were a couple dozen stone buildings in the bailey, surrounded by high inner walls. These walls were fairly well-manned, so leaping over them wasn’t an option even if they weren’t heavily enchanted.

As they reached the ground, Leon ordered them into the nearest building. His people, understanding their job, entered the building with as much force as they dared to use, quickly seizing control of it. Fortunately, while they went in with all needed intent to establish proper violence of action and subdue anyone inside, the building was being used as a storage site for noncritical materials such as lumber, and as such no one was inside.

Once the building was occupied, Leon settled in for a moment and watched for any reactions. Now that he was inside the wards, it was easier to use his magic senses to monitor the people inside, and while what he saw wasn’t entirely in his favor, it was better than he’d feared—there were a few patrols being sent to investigate the points of ingress, he guessed based on how they were converging, but it didn’t seem like they’d tripped any general alarms.

Still, it seemed their infiltration had been detected on some level, and while it didn’t yet appear like anyone knew what had happened, some of the Imperials were aware that something had happened.

This meant that, just in case, it was better if they moved quickly. However, preventing that was the patrol that had been in this bailey when they arrived, numbering about a dozen strong, though none stronger than the fifth-tier. And they were drawing close, though they at least appeared bored and relaxed.

Silently, Leon asked for an update on those who’d lost invisibility. All of the ark crew that he’d brought were visible now, as well as a handful of Tempest Knights, and it seemed like visible was how they were going to stay given the quality of their invisibility enchantments. So, Leon had them gather into a single group and tasked a few light mages with trying to keep them out of sight—not an easy thing to do for a human mage to maintain, but Leon smiled as the group faded from view beneath a dome of bent light. It was imprecise and obvious that there was something happening given the light distortions, but it was better than nothing.

With that done, Leon led some of his people out of the building and into an ambush formation. If the patrol sensed anything, they’d be given quite the surprise.

The patrol neared, the men in it quietly chatting without a care in the world. As they approached, however, the fifth-tier commander called them to a halt just a few doors down from the building Leon’s people had taken shelter in. The talking quieted down as the commander looked around for a moment, then proceeded down the street in Leon’s direction.

With a sinking heart, Leon watched as the man approached, his patrol on his heels. He glanced momentarily at Leon’s building, and Leon almost ordered his prepared ambush to begin right then.

But then the moment was over, and the patrol continued, passing the building without realizing just how close they’d just come to death.

Leon breathed a quiet sigh of relief and then got his people moving again. With the added restriction of the thirty mages now kept under an imperfect dome of bent light, Leon led them toward the gate to the next bailey they’d need to pass through. It was guarded and warded; there would be no passing through it completely undetected. They’d have to eliminate the guards.

After giving out his orders and getting his people into position, Leon waited a few seconds to confirm that the patrol was a fair distance away and that those on the top of the walls weren’t paying attention before ordering his people to begin.

Four men were standing in front of the gate quietly chatting, and another half dozen were in the gatehouse itself. Marcus, Anna, Gaius, and Anshu shot the four outside guards, their thunder wood bows making quick work of the low-tier mages. Before anyone could react, Anzu, Red, and Maia surged forward, rushing through the gatehouse’s open door, and making quick work of the men inside, though all lost their invisibility as the gatehouse was on the other side of the warded gate. One alarm went off inside the gatehouse, but Valeria quickly entered and silenced it.

Leon, his breath held, cast his gaze about. They hadn’t been as quiet as they could’ve been, but this had still gone better than it otherwise could’ve. No one, it seemed, noticed their ambush or the local alarm.

In a moment, the four Sunlit men outside the gatehouse were dragged inside and the door was shut. It was easy enough for them to then pass through the gate with the gatehouse in hand, the controls for the wards inside.

‘So far, so good,’ Leon thought with some relief. They were still three baileys away from their destination, and each bailey was more heavily populated than the last, but he was growing more confident with every step they took. They still had about an hour remaining before many of the other Tempest Knights were rendered visible, more than they could cover with their light mages, so Leon pressed them onward.

However, that concern was quickly proven unneeded. As they moved through the fortress streets, they were forced to pass by many more inhabited buildings. It was effectively inevitable that they’d run into someone, and about halfway through the bailey, they finally did.

They’d been shadowing a patrol for several streets as they made their way through when they passed by a barracks building. There wasn’t much choice in the matter given how restrictive the bailey was designed to be, as much as Leon would’ve preferred to avoid the barracks, and it seemed their luck ran out right then and there.

A handful of men exited the barracks, laughing and joking amongst themselves, and almost ran right into several of Leon’s invisible Knights. That itself wouldn’t have been too much of a problem had they not then turned and saw the distortion created by Leon’s light mages to cover those who’d lost their invisibility.

“What is that…?” one of the men asked, pointing, his words slurred by strong drink.

“That’s strange,” another said as he started walking toward it, his drink-addled look suddenly growing focused.

Just as he was about to enter the light distortion, Leon sighed and ordered the men taken care of. They didn’t have much choice at that point without moving, and that would’ve still been seen.

His people sprang into action, easily dispatching the men.

And from inside the barracks, someone started screaming.

“BY THE FUCKING GODS, WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!!! RAISE THE ALARM!!!”