“Well, it’s about time you showed up!” Darl shouted down the hallway as Maru hurried over to the collection of soldiers waiting for him at the end of it. Mandalen had been as good as his word and had managed to round up early a dozen of experienced shooters, some of them faces Maru recognized from his own time in the military as men he knew he could trust. How Mandalen had managed to get so many of them together in a matter of minutes, Maru would probably never know. He doubted even Fylen could have been as effective.

“We’re been waiting for you,” Darl continued once Maru was close. “Heard we get to do a little hunting work.”

“More like clean up, I hope,” Maru replied with a grin. He looked over the men staring back at him quickly. He nodded to those he knew, and quickly sized up those that he didn’t. None of the strangers seemed too amazed by his presence, something he often had trouble with in the younger ones.

“Alright,” Maru announced, drawing everyone’s full attention to what he was about to say. “First off, this is an optional mission. I’m only going to say that once, so if you’ve got any hesitations about this, I don’t want you coming along.” Maru paused, giving any one who already wanted to back out enough time to do so. Of course, none of them did. Maru only hoped that courage lasted. “Our target is one or enemy mages already in the compound,” Maru stated. He wanted to get that out in the open as quickly as possible. He paused again to give them a moment to consider all of the dangers involved in such a mission and whether or not they still were determined to go.

“They’re already in the capital?” Darl finally asked with wide eyes.

“Yes.”

“Shit!” Mandalen suddenly exclaimed. “You didn’t say anything about that!”

Maru inclined his head slightly in apology. “I know, there wasn’t time. I understand if anyone of you feel this goes beyond your duty. It is not something I would ask of any of those of you who do.”

“Are you kidding?” Mandalen replied before anyone else had a chance to say anything. “If any of them are here already, then we sure as hell have to do something about them!”

Maru smiled back. He’d known Mandalen since he’d enlisted, as normal as any other kid and no idea that he had the potential to become a mage. There had been any mages in the rebellion, the only ones that existed any more were loyal to the Empire. Maru had to figure out most things on his own, and Mandalen had been one of those people beside him when he had been, though Mandalen’s contributions were usually more of the keeping him grounded kind than anything else. Mandalen had always been an interesting mixture of skepticism and superstitions. He had always been the one telling Maru not to rely solely on all that mage nonsense while at the same had always been very cautious whenever it came to the enemy’s mages. It didn’t surprise Maru at all that Mandalen would be so adamant now.

“I’m not waiting for one of those witchdoctors to sneak up behind me,” Mandalen told the whole group. “We take care of this now.”

“It’s going to be difficult,” Maru warned. “It will only be us. None of my students will be able to help us.”

“Where’s Dakar?” Darl instantly demanded. “The two of you are always together. What happened to him?”

“The mages we’re after are after him,” Maru told them. “I’ve already order him escorted out of the complex, and hopefully to a secure location.”

“Tokay?” One of the others asked hesitantly. “Didn’t he train with you some?”

“Yes, that’s why I sent him with Dakar. Hopefully he can keep him out of trouble.”

Mandalen snorted. “I doubt it,” he said and everyone managed to chuckle a little.

“So it would just be us, against an unknown number of mages?” Someone else asked.

Maru nodded. “We know that there were at least two at one point. We do not know how many now, or where they are.”

One of Maru’s old squadron mates whistles lowly from the back. “that’s going to take a lot of time, going through this whole place, and even then we might miss them or they might not even be there any more.”

“I know,” Maru said. “But we can’t just ignore it either. I’ve already ordered for guards to be placed near our center of operations. But we need to try to catch them before they get that far. If we can find manage to at least keep them busy dodging us, then that will be some improvement.”

“We might be playing bait?”

“Possibly. I’m going to try everything I’ve got to keep it from getting to that point, but it is a possibility that that will be the only thing that will be effective.”

“Don’t got much choice, do we?” Mandalen replied. “I’m not going to just stand around and let those maniacs run around in my home.” Everyone murmured agreement to that and Mandalen nodded as if that decided it. “So what’s the plan, master mage?” Mandalen asked him with only a hint of sarcasm.

“We stay in tight groups,” Maru began. “I know the style of these mages, and they tend to work individually. We will try to combat that by staying close. They’re good, but they’re human, and it only takes one bullet to bring them down. Having said that, anyone finds anything they raise the alarm first. Try to avoid directly engaging unless there is no other option. I’ll stand a lot better chance against any of them than you will and that’s just a matter of being armed the same way they are.”

“Don’t worry, Maru. I don’t think any of us are that stupid to want to take on a mage on our own,” Darl commented with an arched eyebrow.

“I never underestimate people, Darl, especially not you,” Maru quipped quickly before moving back onto topic. “We will be systematic and constantly vigilant. It is likely that they will know you are coming before you get close enough to see them. It’s a mage thing. They will most likely also over-estimate their own abilities and we’ll have to hope we can use that to our advantage. Mandalen picked you all out for me because he trusts in your ability, and I do as well. If we’re careful and determined, we should be able to match them.”

“And hopefully there’ll be three or four of us to everyone of them, just to make the odds a little more even right?”

“Hopefully.”