The Ice Eyed Mage

Chapter 8

"At this pace, we should make it to the capital in two weeks." Bryn beamed looking at the map they had brought. They had been traveling for almost a week already, they stopped at inns at night when they could but often found themselves between towns and had to sleep outside. Living in the desert Nysia was used to cold nights and Bryn's company preferred to make camps instead of bothering the regular populace. Crowley, on the other hand, hated sleeping outdoors, and much preferred a good bed.

"That is if we stay at this pace, but there's a lot of land between here and there, some of which is crawling with bandits. These woods, for example, are wrought with the brigands." Crowley commented. The innkeeper at the previous town had warned them about these woods. Wolves and bears were the least concerning thing here. A group of slave trading bandits lived in the area and ambushed even small groups. The three waived off the warning as one was a soldier, another a powerful mage, and the third was a Fury in disguise. There wasn't much they couldn't handle.

"Do you think we could get attacked?" Nysia questioned, suddenly wary of the shadowy trees.

"Perhaps, most likely. To the untrained eye, we are simply a man, a woman, and a boy with a hunting bow. Defenseless." Crowley shrugged.

"I don't know about you, Magister, but I can't wait to get back into action. All I've been doing for the past two weeks is hunting. I haven't been in an actual battle in quite a long time."
"I didn't realize you were so eager to kill someone, boy?" Crowley raised an eyebrow mockingly.

"It's not the need to kill, but simply the want to work. I like to fight, not necessarily to kill. By the way, I had a question. You work as a simple Magister yet your level of spellcasting and what kind of spells you know indicate you as a Warlock. Why don't you show off more? Why keep your power hidden?"

"The same reason I hide my eye. I don't want to be recognized as a prince. If someone were to realize, I would have to take the Warlock test yet again and I'd probably pass it now that they've changed it. I've purposely failed it in the past. If I became a legal warlock, my asshole brother could find me." He huffed.

"Guys, wait." Nysia stopped her horse and sat up in her saddle. Bryn saw her ears twitch and focused his own sensitive ears onto the littlest sound. "We're surrounded." She whispered.

"Damn." Crowley said sarcastically, getting off his horse. "Allow me." He smiled back at his comrades. He placed a hand over his heart, closed his eyes, and whispered. "Viid, Ir'vos, I call thee."

A circular hole appeared on the ground as a portal to, Ziudell, the underworld. With an otherworldly howl, two hounds made of flame and magma leapt from the hole and sat at Crowley's feet, staring at him with empty glowing eye sockets. Crowley flicked his wrists and the hounds leaped into action. Sounds of human screams overpowered the sound of alien barking.

Bryn and Nysia leapt from their horses as well, ready for an attack. While some screams were silenced by the hounds, others changed into battle yells. Burly men ran for them, weapons at the ready only to be met by Bryn's hidden shortsword and Nysia's claws, both cut through flesh as easy as butter. The ones who tried to kill Crowley died either by his spikes of ice or flashes of soundless lightning.

Within a few minutes, all of the attackers were killed. The two hounds returned to their master and received head scritches on their skull heads. The hounds acted like puppies, rolling onto their back and demanding belly rubs. One even thrust his snout, or what was left of it, into Crowley's side for attention.

"What should we do with the bodies? We can't just leave them in the middle of the road." Bryn questioned while studying the amount of the dead.

"Loot their corpses for anything and everything. Once done with that throw their bodies into that hole. Viid and Ir'vos can have them as a treat for such a good job." Bryn nodded and began to do just that.

"I didn't take you as the Ziudellian Hound type. More like a griffin or raven or something." Nysia commented while rummaging through the closest man's pockets.

"I wasn't expecting you to actually use your claws like that? Didn't take you as a fighter." Crowley gave a silent order for the two hounds to drag the bodies in the woods back to him. The two creatures took off in separate directions and began returning with the arms of corpses clamped in their bony jaws.

"Are they your only summons, Crowley?" Bryn was easily tossing the bodies of men twice his size down the hole, suggesting his actual strength.

"I also have a Ziudellian Falcon, but I use her mainly for surveillance but I ride her on occasion." He shrugged, dragging a man by his arm into the hole.

"I heard the Falcons were massive, how can she do surveillance if it's that big?" The boy questioned.

"She can grow or shrink depending on what I need her for." He huffed, exhausted already. Bryn laughed at his huffing and puffing. They made a deal, Crowley would look through pockets and Bryn would carry them off. This turned out to be a good system since they went through half of the corpses in the amount of time it would've taken Crowley to deal with one corpse.

Nysia on the other hand was much stronger than both of them combined and managed to carry two bodies at a time. By the time the bodies were 'disposed of' night had come. It was far too late to make it into town, camping then. Best yet, it appeared like it was about to rain.

"I'll send my falcon up and see if she can find a cave or something." Crowley pressed a hand to his right shoulder and, once again, focused. "Satvia, come forth." Like before, a hole to Ziudell opened, but this time the hole was in the sky and not the ground. A small black falcon zipped through it and landed on his ready hand.

Like the hounds, it had a skull instead of a normal head but unlike them it had eyes. The eyes looked like they were made of glass, with streaks of red mixed in with the glowing gold. At first glance, one might mistake the bird for a crow with its pitch-black feathers, however when it flew black smoke trailed from its wings. Its caw sounded like hundreds of birds screaming mixed in with human screams as well. A terrifying bird.

He sent her a silent request and she took off. The three of them sat and waited for the bird to return. They gathered firewood before the rain fell which helped pass the time. It took Satvia almost 20 minutes to return with news of a nearby cave only a few minutes of walking away. So the crew packed up and followed the smoking bird to a large cave at the top of a hill.