Chapter Text
He did not know how it happened, but the joint collection with the apprentice knights of Dunkelfelger had become a fiasco. At this point, it was a miracle no one had gone to greater heights yet, including himself.
"Stop attacking it!" Heisshitze shouted, showing that he was not as stupid as Ferdinand had come to think.
"Get above it! Now!" ordered another of the Dunkelfelger knights who were accompanying him as payment for the latest ditter he had trounced them in.
Ferdinand was halfway done with his fifth year at the Royal Academy. He, Eckhart, and Heidemarie required some supplies to make potions that he very well could have bought, had that idiot Heisshitze not been so insistent on another ditter to get his cape and his honor back. None of this would be happening if that ditterhead had agreed to have his cape back two years ago.
" Ro —aghh!"
Another Rott had been swallowed by the strange black creature that looked very much like the trombes of Ehrenfest. Unlike the previous attempt to call for help, this one would have ended in tragedy if Ferdinand had not jumped in to save the careless apprentice knight.
The force of the feybeast's leg in his chest knocked the breath out of him, and pain exploded in the wake of where its claws raked across his arm.
"Lord Ferdinand, are you alright?" yelled his attendant, Justus, who had just arrived.
"Yes," the young archduke candidate responded, enduring the throbbing pain in his arm along with the other recent blows after realizing he did not have a single potion left at his disposal. "Do you have any idea what that thing is?"
"No, milord, I am sorry." He had never seen that creature before.
Ferdinand looked around, listening to Heisshitze's voice giving orders left and right, while the Dunkelfelger knights' voices sounded like a hornet nest.
The monstrous black animal, the same one that had quintupled in size after absorbing the attacks of the apprentice knights and Ferdinand himself, in addition to devouring their Rotts, was now jumping impatiently, trying to catch one of the apprentice knights in its jaws.
There had to be some way to get help or end this thing.
Eckhart had soon caught up with them, watching the creature and the other apprentices with apprehension.
"Justus, how do the knights of Ehrenfest subjugate the trombes?"
"Eckhart, I do not belong to the knight order, so I do not have that information. All I know is that they use a spell to obtain black weapons, capable of stealing the mana back from the trombe."
Ferdinand already knew this; he had by chance overheard Sylvester begging his cousin Karstedt to teach him the spell at some point during the fall, when he had no choice but to return to the duchy. Of course, Karstedt had refused, claiming that there was a ban on using black weapons for anything other than hunting trombe.
"What are those muscleheads doing now?" Justus murmured.
Ferdinand followed his gaze, feeling his heart race and his blood freeze at the scene unfolding below. Heisshitze and several other Dunkelfelgers were circling the many-eyed abomination at a high speed in an attempt to distract it. Heisshitze's adult attendant already had his schtappe raised to call for help, however, it did not take long for the feybeast's claws to free itself from the annoying Dunkelfelger knight, preparing to jump while still observing the only other adult besides Justus, who had accompanied them.
"These idiots!" Ferdinand murmured, flying full speed to rescue Justus, turning his schtappe into a shield.
The attendant was thrown into the sky by Ferdinand's momentum, who watched for a second to see that Justus and Eckhart were already on their way to save the person who was trying to call for help. The next second he pulled up, alerted by his ears to the beast's approach without completely taking cover.
A huge fang had punctured his leg. He bit his tongue as he tried to ward off the beast with his sword. He did not know what hurt more, the cuts he had, or feeling the poison of that thing circulating with more power inside his body.
He felt exhausted. He was out of breath. Every muscle in his body ached, and his mana was not moving properly, like he had sludge in his veins; his highbeast starting to dissipate.
Then, the strangest thing happened. A huge, beautiful and extremely intricate magic circle appeared above him as he plummeted. He looked down and realized that a deadly open mouth was waiting for him. That moment, someone materialized from the circle before the circle faded. The new person pulled into a dive, her body as tense as a javelin, like a star falling from the sky. For some insane reason, it seems that she was trying to fall faster than him.
The newcomer approached him at breakneck speed. For some reason it seemed like Dregarnuhr had stopped time around him, leaving only the girl, who continued to barrel towards him.
A pair of round, golden eyes like the moon looked at him with determination. Dark blue hair like the night sky waved like a flag behind her. She reached out suddenly embracing and encaging him in her strong arms.
What was this woman thinking? Was she suicidal? Had she not noticed that they both were going straight into the jaws of that monster? Then, something even stranger happened. A pale yellow room came out of her belt, trapping both of them inside. How? Why? What in the name of the stupid gods even happened?
Their bodies hit something warm and fluffy, too welcoming to be the stinking mouth of the creature beneath them. Where were they?
"Are you alright?" The girl asked with a voice full of concern. He nodded, unable to articulate anything because of all the confusion around them.
The young woman released him then, jumping to her feet in an ungraceful way and settling into some sort of soft seat.
"Hold on tight!"
"Hold on to where?" Is what he would have asked had a sudden jolt not made him close his mouth and almost bite his tongue. He could hear the sound of the beast's mouth closing further down followed by a shrill, menacing howl.
With the strength he had, Ferdinand pulled himself into the seat in front of him, the one that had emerged from the floor and walls next to the girl. His curiosity was so great that his wounds had momentarily stopped throbbing in pain.
They were inside what looked like a carriage with the most comfortable chairs he had ever sat on. The carriage was the same light yellow color, almost white both inside and out, as he could see through the windows around him. The young woman was holding a strange circle that was attached to the rest of the carriage, almost as if she were driving with it.
"Hold on tight, we're going to turn."
Ferdinand gripped the seat as tightly as he could, feeling how his body was pulled and pressed up against the wall of the bizarre carriage.
The carriage was moving faster than Steifebrise, as it soon caught up with the Dunkelfelger knight apprentices, stabilizing again in a more normal position before the girl leaned out of the window, next to Heisshitze.
"Tell them to pull up, now!"
The woman's voice was authoritative as his father's when he gave orders. It was impossible not to obey her.
Heisshitze glanced at him, Ferdinand nodded. The order was repeated and the girl pulled up higher into the air with the carriage. Ferdinand turned around in his seat, noticing that all of the Dunkelfelger knights were following closely behind them, leaving the monster further and further in their wake.
When they were high up, Ferdinand tried to look out like the girl had done, hitting his forehead against the glass. How had she made the glass disappear?
"Listen to me!" barked the woman, half her body hanging out of the carriage, and one hand still on the strange circle, "That is a turnisbefallen! It feeds on mana! Those who can keep fighting, produce your weapons now!"
Turning around, Ferdinand observed how less than half of the Dunkelfelger apprentice knights obeyed her, unsure. The girl murmured something that sounded like a prayer to Ferdinand. Suddenly, the weapons the apprentices were holding took on a much more intense black color than the beast below them.
"These are black weapons, they can subjugate the turnisbefallen! Focus on cutting off its legs while I heal the others!"
"HRAAAHHH!" The Dunkelfelger apprentice knights shouted before launching into the attack again.
Justus arrived at that moment along with Eckhart, watching him worriedly.
Ferdinand walked away startled, as the glass disappeared along with the strange furry wall, forming a door next to him.
"Keep him safe," the strange girl ordered again, looking at Ferdinand's assistants, "I haven't been able to check on him due to the rush, but it's possible that he can't be healed with just a prayer."
Eckhart seemed ready to scream and attack her, Justus move faster thankfully, grabbing Ferdinand and sitting with him on top of his highbeast. Seeing it from the outside, Ferdinand noticed he had been inside a pale yellow grun that suddenly reduced its size, as if it knew he was no longer inside it.
"I need the wounded to come to me, now!" The girl ordered again.
Justus looked at him perplexed. Eckhart looked anxious. Ferdinand just nodded, too tired to refuse or say anything. This time, the girl, with half her body outside the strange grun, made a divine instrument appear in her free hand before chanting what was clearly a prayer. The green lights of a blessing emerged from the Flutrane's staff she held, raining down on everyone around her and the apprentices below. The lights felt warm and comforting, easing his pain a little.
Ferdinand could feel how parts of his body had been healed. He still felt tired and his body hurt as if he had been poisoned by his stepmother, Veronica.
"You, you, you, and you," she began to order again, pointing to Ferdinand last, "I want you to find a place to take shelter. If you have any potions left, take them now and stay away. The others, with me."
Justus and Eckhart walked away with Ferdinand and the other three apprentices who had been singled out. Ferdinand could not help but look back, noticing the moment when the girl summoned the divine instruments of Leidenshaft and the god of darkness, just before reciting something that he could not hear, and seeing all of their weapons turned black as his world faded away into darkness.
"Lord Ferdinand! Lord Ferdinand!" Justus yelled, moving the nearly fifteen year old boy that he had placed on the ground next to the other injured boys.
"Justus, give him this!" Eckhart said, handing Justus a potion.
With difficulty, Justus opened his lord's mouth to pour in the potion. He had to stop though, the potion was running out of his mouth to one side, it was obvious that he had not drunk it.
"Milord, I am very sorry for what I am going to do," the gray-haired man murmured with worry seeping into his voice.
Justus capped the vial, tore off a piece of his own clothing which he washed with a quick washen and opened the vial again to wet the piece of cloth with the potion before inserting it into Ferdinand's half-open mouth, making sure to rub his tongue, the roof of his mouth, his teeth, and the inside of his cheeks before leaving the torn piece of cloth there, pouring a little more potion into it.
There was an explosion in the distance. When the shockwave reached them moments later, the two of them were certainly glad they had reacted in time and covered the young lord they had served.
"What the hell?…" Justus muttered before remembering that he was around minors, biting his tongue to keep from cursing.
"What was that?" The other adult of the group asked before standing up from where he had tried to protect the three injured students.
Justus looked around. The ground seemed scorched, as well as the earth that had partially protected them from the strong wind created by the shockwave.
The other three students were still conscious, they must be in quite a bit of pain if they could not hide it from their faces, which worried the scholar even more. How bad was it for Lord Ferdinand to have lost consciousness?
"Eckhart," do you have any more potions?
The green haired man shook his head. He could read the concern in his eyes.
Justus bit his lip to keep from cursing as he reached for his belt. He did not have any more potion either and, anyway, they both knew well that normal potions would not be enough for his master.
Cheers and shouts of victory soon reached them. The cheers of the Dunkelfelger knights soon enveloped them, announcing the arrival of the apprentices who were victorious, now returning to where the rest were taking refuge.
The strange grun, that Justus had thought swallowed his lord a few minutes ago, appeared among the celebrating and shouting Dunkelfelger knights, praising the mysterious woman who saved Lord Ferdinand and gave them black weapons to protect themselves.
The grun disappeared after the girl got off of it. Was it some kind of highbeast? If Justus had not been so worried about Lord Ferdinand, he would have started asking all kinds of questions to find out more about the strange highbeast that came from only the gods knew where.
"It was a great fight!" Heisshitze cheered with emotion before looking at the place where the wounded were.
Justus noted the moment the stubborn boy realized, changing the thrill of victory to worry. He watched him run towards them, glancing at the wounded.
"Are they alright?"
At that moment, the fun stopped, leaving behind a heavy silence in which the assertive steps of the woman who had helped them were all that could be heard.
"I need to examine them," The woman announced, observing them, her beautiful face tense with worry, "It is possible that they have been poisoned by the turnisbefallen."
Justus was able to hear some murmurs of surprise and anguish. He himself felt distressed. As much as this girl had helped them, he was not sure about allowing her to examine Lord Ferdinand. Apparently, Eckhart was also unwilling to trust him with the life of his lord, they both had moved between the woman and Lord Ferdinand.
"Those who are healthy, divide into two groups! One will go to take the parts of the turnisbefallen and the other group will have to get me ingredients and a cauldron to mix! I can create an antidote and restorative potions, but I lack the materials at the moment."
"Yes my Lady!"
Justus did not know if the Dunkelfelgers were all stupid for blindly following a stranger's directions or if it was some kind of sense of obligation after receiving her help… maybe he would never know.
"Milady," the other adult interjected, forcing Justus to turn around, "Where do you expect the material for the potions to be obtained? There is nothing here left to collect!"
Justus watched the girl look around the place before sighing, removing a vial from her waist and drinking half of it before grimacing, capping it and placing it in a pocket on her chest; a strange place to carry something, if you asked Justus.
"You're right, I'll take care of it."
The girl chanted something and her schtappe transformed back into Flutrane's staff. He heard her sing a prayer to Flutrane and her twelve subordinates of water. Without anyone expecting it, the grass began to grow, the land taking on its red tone again, and the plants growing all around them. Justus had never seen anything more beautiful than this in his life.
He then heard a tired unladylike groan. The girl dispelled her schtappe. There were faint purple circles under her eyes, she looked even paler than she was before. Even so, she wore a noble smile, trying to hide her own tiredness.
"I imagine we are not at any of the Academy's collection sites, no?"
Justus nodded, from the look on the young woman's face, he assumed the other adult was also nodding.
"Go get the antidote ingredients now please. There is no need to ask for help, I promise to heal the rest of the land once all the wounded are healed."
The other adult nodded before shooting Justus a pleading glance, who nodded. There was nothing that could move him from his place by his lord's side. He would stay with the injured.
"Who are you?" Eckhart asked sharply, stepping between Ferdinand and the mysterious young woman, while drawing his sword.
The girl heaved a sigh of resignation, abandoning all noble lady manners. There was no trace of her noble smile or her determined face ready to give orders, instead, a girl on the cusp of her autumn, just like their master. She was exhausted, worried and apparently frustrated. She took two weary steps to Eckhart's sword pointed at her, letting the edge of it rest on her shoulder, next to her neck.
"If I wanted to hurt him, I would have done so already when we were inside my highbeast, no?" She proposed, looking Eckhart in the eye.
His coworker hesitated for a moment, then lowered his sword and stepped aside. The young woman dropped gracelessly next to Justus. Her concern was palpable on her face as she quickly examined Lord Ferdinand's body and her damaged armor before turning towards them.
"I don't have many ultra-nasty potions left, but it seems that he can't swallow anyways"
Justus watched her take the potion she just drank from, and pour some onto the damp cloth in Lord Ferdinand's mouth. She then downed the rest, grimacing before closing the vial and turning to look at Justus.
"Take care of Ferdinand while I tend to the others."
Justus nodded, taking note that the stranger knew his lord's name on a personal basis, but not daring to say anything when Lord Ferdinand's face twitched into a frown.
Eckhart seemed to notice it too, it did not take long before he dropped to the ground to see Lord Ferdinand up close. His young lord's chest was now rising and falling rapidly and sharply. He seemed to be in a lot of pain. As terrible as this seemed, it was a relief, he was still alive, and the potion the woman had given him was working.
"Hold on, milord, just a little longer," Eckhart pleaded with watery eyes and a squinched nose.
"Calm down, Eckhart, Lord Ferdinand will recover."
"I will go look for the materials he uses for his potions, Justus," Eckhart announced, casting another suspicious look at the young woman who was tending to the three wounded Dunkelfelger knights, "I will give them to you afterwards."
Justus nodded, looking around one last time at all the injured young men being examined.