Merlin sat in the corner with two old women with a handful of dry herbs in his silver bowl. He was carefully channeling his mana to draw some of his essence into the plants and order their magical paths.

  Though the sounds of murmuring and a half dozen children in various states of distress was not optimal Merlin waved his wrinkled fingers over the bowl while adding half the water from his waterskin into it.

  It bubbled and he focused on the poultice in the making. Most alchemists were only able to take advantage of one of a plant's properties but Merlin was an older and experienced mage.

  Though he wasn't an archmage he had a lot of experience with dried lesser marshroot leaves. They were generally treated as the byproduct of marshroot gathering but they had the potential to be used in potions that allow for a higher level of ambient mana processing. They are also used by travellers who use them to draw ambient mana and form it into water.

  "Ready." Merlin spoke and the silver bowl was taken up by one of the women with a small cooking pot being placed underneath. The bowl had filled with water.

  Normally draining the water would be a trivial task with someone using a cloth or a spell that took the form of one to strain the marshroot leaves from the water. Since both properties could technically be used, although touching the leaves would likely contaminate them, the elderly seamstress carefully poured the water while leaving most of the leaves in the bowl.

  The water continued to fall at the same rate for quite a while, filling the cooking pot and a large clay jug that had been emptied of in the last day. The silver chain was waiting outside of bow range, but that was well within the range of their spellcaster, the captain had received serious burns in their altercation and was still recovering after some magical healing.

  Three quarters of the leaves were left when the water was almost gone when Merlin prompted them to stop. He took the next ten minutes to finish the process of creating a salve that the other woman, the leader of this expedition, applied to her neck and face. Any skin contact would be sufficient, so she used all that was easily accessible. Her healing might be needed in the near future so any assistance to her ability would be critical.

  Leaning back now that he was finished Merlin resisted the urge to drink one of his mana regeneration potions as he would normally after draining himself so much. He knew a little glyphmaking so had given a selection of rocks that were found in the hold a glyph that would make them explode after they contacted a surface when they reached a certain distance from him. Half the attacking force had perished to the attack, it would have been all eleven if the spellcaster hadn't been focused on active warding, so was able to spread his protection immediately.

  The leader, an elder of a branch of the Pitarav clan who had lost all their descendants to the war, started muttering with glazed eyes. Communicating with the new clan home that was set up in the cursed city of Tarnox. Nobody who claimed the whole city could hold it for more than a decade, though the patriarch had decided that would change now, for whatever reason.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  And he'd agreed to come with them. His city had been destroyed by the actions of one of the gods in the war, a tens of thousands of years old archmage had decided that if he couldn't take the city then nobody should be allowed to have it. The ground that the city rested on was drained of mana to form a dead zone, where even the corpses of rats would come to life and attack the living.

  So he became a hedge wizard, travelling and offering his services. He'd heard that someone was going to retake Tarnox, a city that had been the home of several academies of magic that were unrivaled, though they had transplanted themselves when the city had fallen or been abandoned several times. Now they were willing to offer a premium to get him to move there, as well as the grounds of the academy of his choice to loot, settle, or build an institution of his own. He would have been mad to ignore that offer, especially since a mage who eschewed the arts of war was in very low demand these days. Hopefully he will live to see the centuries later when peace returns instead of the intermission between great conflicts.

  The Pitarav elder stirred from her mana deprived sleep after the communication with the Patriarch. Merlin poured a cup of tea from his teapot that was resting on his warming stone, designed for his use as a mobile heat source which was excellent for traditional alchemy. The mix of herbs included a dried berries and flowers that helped give energy, with a decent taste.

  The elder took a deep breath of the cup and sipped it for a few minutes as she recovered.

  "We will be receiving some help, but it will not be as much as we hoped. The Silver Chain is becoming more active. There's a spellcaster that was sent two days ago. They should arrive some time tomorrow."

  "So the spellcaster should be getting within a day. I will get everyone ready to move out. You rest." Merlin insisted that the elder stay resting for a while. In the worst case they would get someone to carry her if the mercenaries could be dealt with.

  The adults were enthusiastic but they were careful not to mention it to the children, in case the spellcaster was intercepted and couldn't even make it here.

  They would be leaving if the spellcaster arrived regardless of whether they were successful or not. The cistern had been poisoned by the Silver Chain, probably with all the others that existed on the different secret paths that they could find.

  Whatever disruption the spellcaster made they could deal with the mercenaries and at worst escape back down.

  Then Merlin heard shouting from the roof of the outpost. He scrambled up the ladder and saw the three guards on the roof hiding behind the battlements.

  "Something is attacking the mercs." One of the guards shouted over the shrieking wind that the enemy spellcaster summoned.

  Merlin was thrown against one of the battlements and nearly fell off onto the rocky slope below.

  Then the winds stopped.

  "To Arms." One of the guards called, "Everyone prepare yourselves."

  Merlin was recovering from almost plummeting to his doom when he looked up.

  A monster made of iron had cleaved the spellcaster in two and was netting the other mercenaries with the help of a half-dozen wooden golems. When the five remaining mercenaries were all secured the iron arachne looked up at them, mandibles gleaming in the light of a rapidly approaching nightfall.

  Then someone called out from the heavily sloped woods above. The monster stood down, tucking it's legs in and apparently resting.

  Then another wooden golem left the tree line further down accompanied by an arachne of all things. Had the spiders decided to try to reclaim Tarnox? Why wouldn't the Patriarch have told them about it?

  The arachne looked up at them, seeing the alchemist and guards holding their slings ready to let loose and made another command. The golems and iron monster gathered the webbed mercenaries, taking the dead spellcaster as well, and left up into the brush of the forest.