While the orcs began to move, the air filled with the noise of countless feet trampling the ground, wagon wheels grinding and crushing the weeds, and the low chorus of howls and grunts from a marching orc army.

  I approached the group of prisoners. The poor devils huddled together for comfort, breathing heavily, eyes cast down. Now and then, a few risked quick glances to the sides, and when they thought I wasn’t watching, their looks turned toward me, filled with fear and hate. There was perhaps a trace of curiosity in those eyes too, but fear clearly ruled.

  Why did they look at me like that?

  I doubted any of them spoke Orcish, but the situation spoke for itself. The orcs were leaving, and they were staying, with me. They must have realized there’d been some kind of transfer of ownership. That, no doubt, was the reason for their fear.

  My heart ached as I looked at them, my mana vision expanding to encompass the group. I could feel their fear, their pain, their suffering. They stood there, shackled with barbaric iron rings around their necks, wrists, and ankles.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. It shouldn’t be like this.

  And at last, I could let my hungry mana devour something.

  Almost instantly, the heavy chains dropped to the ground. They were free.

  For a heartbeat, they only stared, first at their arms and legs, then at me, eyes wide with disbelief. And then one boy suddenly bolted.

  A moment later, chaos erupted. Everyone who could move ran, scattering in every direction. Not all of them, though. Some stood frozen, and many were too wounded to move, but even the man with a deep gash across his belly staggered toward the forest, clutching his entrails in both hands to keep them from spilling onto the ground.

  I huffed in disbelief. Oh, damn it.

  “Hey! What are you doing? Stay where you are!” I shouted, but it was like yelling at the wind. They didn’t even look back. I could’ve announced the weather forecast and probably gotten a better reaction.

  I let out a long, angry breath. I could call the orcs back to round them up again, or run after them myself and shove them back into line, but that was beneath my dignity.

  I was a mage, damn it!

  I tapped my foot angrily against the ground. I could start a big fire all around them, but should I really do that to a group of desperate, wounded people? Old men and children? Some might fall into the flames. Others might be so hopeless they’d throw themselves in.

  Should I just let them go?

  No… the best would be to lift them and put them back where they were. Only—

  I wasn’t good at telekinesis. Actually, I didn’t know any spells for that.

  Wait a minute… how did my spears fly? Wasn’t that telekinesis? And that ball of metal I hurled at that idiot—how did I do that?

  I blinked and tilted my head.

  That was telekinesis. I’d instinctively used the runes to make them fly. Two sets, actually: the first when I conjured the spears to keep them aloft, the second to launch them.

  I applied the runes to the fleeing humans, and sure enough, they lifted off the ground, their feet kicking helplessly at the air. Their arms and legs flailed in all directions as they floated upward, and the sight actually made me chuckle.

  It hadn’t been as simple as with the spears. There was resistance—faint, but there. Their own magic systems instinctively pushed back against being manipulated like that. Still, with their levels sitting somewhere in the single digits, it was trivial to overcome. I barely felt it.

  Okay, but they were still drifting slowly in the same direction they’d been running. So I applied the second set of runes. Not as many as for the spears, just a few, and sure enough, they reversed course and started floating back. Not as fast as the spears, but fast enough.

  When they were about where the rest of the group stood, I removed the runes.

  …Alright, that landing might’ve been a little rough. For the next few, I added counter-runes to slow them down and then gradually dispelled the lift runes, letting them touch the ground a bit more gracefully.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I took a deep breath and smiled to myself.

  Yeah, that worked. Heh. I was starting to feel like a real mage.

  A couple of them went a bit too high, and when I canceled the runes, they nearly crashed. Still, my magic adapted quickly, and soon I had them all gathered back, no extra casualties, though probably a few more soiled pants than before.

  “Now, why do you have to make this difficult for me?” I said, folding my arms. “I’m just trying to bring you back home.”

  “Home?” one of them echoed.

  “Everything’s burned down… there is no home,” a wounded woman murmured, tears glistening in her eyes.

  Their muffled sobs and choked cries filled the air. I sighed. I wasn’t going to start arguing with them. I only wanted to save them. But how could I stop them from trying to run again?

  Maybe… maybe I could bring them somewhere else for now.

  Someplace safe, like that space I used before, with the orc councilor, the divinarch.

  As soon as I willed it, my magic obeyed, and in an instant, we were elsewhere.

  Darkness surrounded us. Absolute, endless black in every direction. Only the small area where we stood was faintly illuminated by a strange, sourceless glow, as if light itself had been trapped here, unable to escape.

  Strange sounds filled the air—soft grinding, like shifting walls of shadow rubbing against each other. Faint echoes drifted through the void, half like distant wails, half like metal scraping far away.

  “We’re in hell,” someone whispered, but in the near-silence, it sounded like a scream.

  “Listen! The souls, they’re wailing!” another voice cried.

  Panic erupted. A boy bolted into the darkness, only to reappear a moment later, sprinting straight back into the light. He stopped, blinking in confusion, then turned and ran again… emerging this time from the opposite side.

  I clicked my tongue. “Oh, calm down,” I sighed. “You’re staying here until you settle down. I’m not running after you all night, especially not before I’ve healed you.”

  Really, it was worse than herding cats, but at least I had them all in one place.

  “Heal us?” one of them mumbled, surprised.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Now, if you’d be so kind, gather a little closer together,” I said, while gently pressing the boundaries of the space inward.

  That, somehow, only made them more nervous, but they obeyed. They didn’t have much choice, not with the darkness closing in. A few tried to push it back with their hands, only to watch in horror as their arms sank into the shadows… and other hands appeared, reaching out from somewhere else entirely.

  A chorus of shocked cries followed.

  I tilted my head, watching. “Interesting,” I murmured. I hadn’t known it worked like that.

  I really needed to study this thing more closely, though perhaps now wasn’t quite the right time.

  With a small effort of mana, I pushed Lili out again, a firefly in the dark, light shimmering around her like a living glamour. A chorus of astonished gasps followed her appearance. She flapped her wings once, twice, then landed neatly on my outstretched fingers.

  “You want to force me to work again!” she grumbled, tapping her tiny foot against my palm, arms crossed over her chest.

  I snorted. “Indeed. You should be able to work now, shouldn’t you?”

  She sighed and sank down to sit in my palm. “If Your Majesty says so, then it must be true,” she said, pulling a sorry face before adding, “But this will cost me more than another day of my life!”

  I rolled my eyes at her theatrics. She’d be knocked out again, of course, but what else could we do?

  “Don’t play the drama queen. Just do it,” I said.

  She crossed her legs and folded her arms again, lifting her chin in defiance. “You’re mean! What choice do I have?”

  I chuckled, ignoring the protest. I understood her perfectly, she loved to fly and explore, and now I was making her use white magic instead, which would leave her unconscious for a day or two. Who wouldn’t hate that?

  Lili fluttered her tiny wings and soared above the group, a faint trail of sparkling dust falling in her wake. She began her casting, and I joined in, cleansing the air and stripping away the traces of dark magic around her. Her glow brightened, spreading outward in a soft, expanding wave.

  Since these were all low levels, a mass heal should have been possible—and indeed, within seconds came a chorus of astonished cries. Wounds and deep gashes closed, burned flesh smoothed, shattered limbs knit together, and even missing eyes and hands reformed before their astonished eyes.

  The spell lasted only a few seconds more before her light dimmed, and she began to drift gently downward.

  “Hey,” I called, weaving a few runes to draw her back to my hand, “no time to rest now—I still have work for you.”

  “Oh no,” she groaned as she landed in my palm, striking her brow with one tiny hand and bracing herself dramatically with the other as if she might faint. Then she sighed and tucked her legs under her arms. “But maybe they shouldn’t see everything… you know, just in case?”

  She was right, of course. It wouldn’t exactly improve my reputation if we went ahead with another undead right in front of them.