Technomancer: Genesis Chapter 54: Onward and Inward

Chaos ensued as the Arcanist was struck he did not think that he would be hit by the arrow, he fell to the ground and the growing fire was surrounding him but he quickly recovered. There were howls, growls and whimpers as the animals started to run berserk.

Ezra did not notice the Arcanist as the fire kept on growing. The whisperer then left without anyone noticing.

"Wait there is a problem, if I get out of this magic circle I will be engulfed in bloodlust and the rage will make me very unstable," yelled Ezra.

"What, you are affected by the night beast rage? That is odd. How did you make it here then? " asked a puzzled Deimos

"Yes, I seem to be influenced by it somehow and I don't know why, as for how I came here, that is a story for another time. We must hurry right now."

"I think I have an item for that, it dampens foreign magic around the user. That should work." Deimos opened a bag on his waist, it contained a pendant and gave it to Ezra.

"Bind me just in case," Ezra exclaimed with a worried look as he turned to Evan.

"If you insist my lord," Evan answered.

There were huge gaps from the former encirclement the animals made. The knights hurried to mount their horses. The burning trees fully blocked the nearest exit back out of the forest, and the felbeasts surrounded the sides they could only go in the direction of Anticourt.

Evan mounted his horse and held Ezra in front as another tree started to catch fire, "Lord Ezra, we are forced to go to Anticourt for the time being."

"Okay then, I'm just worried that I would go on a rampage again," Ezra mumbled. He then braced himself as they left the radius of the circle. He anticipated the effect of the miasma, thankfully it did not affect him but he was still worried, the farther he was from the circle the stronger the effect of the miasma so he was not too complacent.

The Knights pushed through the wide gap but they were startled that the felbeasts at their sides started to pursue them.

Ezra was now a bit relaxed as fixed his seat, the horse began to move, "Can we make it? Can we outrun them?"

"Yes Lord Ezra, our steeds can outrun most of the beasts tailing us," Deimos answered.

Ezra stared at the felbeasts. "Do you have any idea how long the spell from the Whisperer will be effective? There can be three reasons why they are still tailing us."

"One is that the spell that the Arcanist cast on them is still effective meaning that it may stop soon.

"Two the command of that Arcanist is to kill us no matter what and these beasts will chase us regardless of what happens, or three the Arcanist is still alive." Ezra analyzed out loud.

Phobos was impressed at the reasoning ability of the two-year-old, "Sire, pardon my insolence from before. You are indeed capable of commanding us but your second conjecture is erroneous, from the intel we gathered Arcanists need to channel magic to command the beasts so if this magic runs out then the beasts will return to their normal behaviour. Although we still don't know the full extent of the Whisperer's abilities. "

"Hmm, I see then the Arcanist is still alive then, at least we broke through the encirclement,"

"Yes, and for that, we have you to thank Lord Ezra," Phobos answered.

The fire kept raging from behind and their shadows extended toward the direction they were going. A few wolves had gotten near them but because Ezra's command, Evan successfully shot an arrow and pierced through the wolf's head firmly embedding itself into a tree.

The other wolves were smashed by the war-hammer and the mace of Rycharde and Evered. The knights kept galloping through the night.

"Can anyone sense the Arcanist or see him?"

"I don't think so," Evan answered.

"I can't find him as well," Rycharde answered.

The other knights answered and did not seem to sense the Arcanist as well.

"Sir Phobos," Ezra addressed Phobos with a title since he was not a part of the knights of Bren as customary respect, when the battle was tense he did not care for formalities. "Do you know the range of effectivity of the spells Whisperers cast?"

"No milord we don't know," Phobos respectfully answered, he was now humbled by the prowess of this child.

"Then I guess we shall have them accompany us to Anticourt."

The knights laughed at this statement.

"At least we have an escort now," Deimos and Phobos laughed merrily, right now they were relieved that they were moving to Anticourt.

"It's odd," Deimos looked around. "There should be more beasts at night in this part of the grove, that is why we were so adamant that we spend the night. Things are much calmer here in the morning but seeing this, aside from the beasts hounding us, there seems to be less activity here."

"Maybe the Whisperer gathered the beasts from this part of the forest," Ezra presented his conjecture.

"That is possible," admitted Deimos.

"Never mind that at least we are lucky for now," Ezra sighed. He was relieved, right now they were around 20 kilometres away from their starting point, he did not feel any bloodlust at all.

As they kept on riding through the night the pursuing animals thinned. Some felboars tried to attack, but the bears were way behind. The felbears were weak in long distance running although the animals in this world were way better than their counterparts on earth.

There was once a theory that humans dominated the earth, not because of their intellect or opposable thumbs, it was because our ancestors could run for hours.

As they went further in the felbeasts seemed to stop chasing, instead, they gradually attacked one another, the felwolves started tearing up the boars and the boars were retaliating.

After two hours of riding into the forest, they purposely slowed down so that their horses could rest.

"So should where should we go from here?" Ezra asked

"Actually we just go straight Lord Ezra, and follow the path," Deimos answered plainly.

"These paths are too perfect, who made these?"

"Uhh no one knows, milord. It is said this forest and the runes are older than the Empire itself."

"That is weird, these lines are more than two thousand years old?"

"Those are just legends milord, should we dismount to relieve the horses? It's two hours till daybreak and we are pretty deep in the grove, we could do with some rest as we were exhausted from the fight with the beasts," Phobos suggested.

"Sure, looks like I'm safe for now, I don't feel the bloodlust at all, thanks for the amulet," Ezra said as he turned to Deimos.

"It is an honour Milord,"

"Evan, how did you find me by the way?" Ezra looked at Evan.

"Well, I rode from Bren 6 hours nonstop and-"

Suddenly there was a deafening roar in the vicinity. A huge beast emerged and blocked the path right ahead of them.

Chapter end