The Turquoise Queen

the grassland and open country did not.
They reached a point close enough to allow them to continue on foot. Lasgol preferred to leave Trotter behind. He gave him a couple of pats. Wait for us here. If you sense danger, flee toward the road, he told his pony using his Animal Communication skill.
He was now using it so much, and so often, that he no longer needed to summon it consciously. His subconscious now did it for him, so that by the time he had decided what message to send, the skill had already been activated. Not only that, but it remained active for a relatively long period of time, allowing him to go on communicating with his partners without having to summon it again. He was very pleased with how fast he was able to call upon this skill, so much so that he felt as though he was doing it without realizing it. Unfortunately, it was the only one of his skills he had managed to develop to that point. The rest took him longer to invoke, and the newer ones, such as Aura Presence, took him forever. It was beginning to be obvious to him that the more he used a skill, the more he developed it. This was something his good friend Egil had explained to him, because it was amply documented and explained in the tomes of Sorcery and Spells they had consulted.
One thing he wanted to do was to see how he could prolong the effect of his skills. But he had not been very successful so far. He would have to keep trying until he succeeded, and then perhaps he could apply it to his other, less advanced skills. With this in mind, he practiced for some time nearly every day whenever he had a moment to spare. He knew progress was slow, but he kept at it.
The world of magic was very complex and hard to master, particularly when you wanted to broaden the limits of what you were capable of. When it came to one of his most lethal skills, True Shot, he could neither invoke it quickly nor extend its range. Beyond a hundred paces it simply did not work, which was a real shame. An Archer with a compound bow, or even a short one, could finish him off before he could get close enough to use the skill – or indeed while he was summoning it, since it took a few moments to activate. It was odd that all his skills, no matter how wonderful or useful they might be, had their limitations. He intended to go on developing them, since he was sure he had seen no more than the tip of the iceberg, and that there was far more under the surface which he had not yet discovered.
He noticed that Camu, beside him, had made himself invisible. Camu too practiced, searching for new skills. His way of doing this was odd and rather chaotic, at least to Lasgol’s eyes. He would choose the skill he wanted to develop almost on a whim, with no real need behind it. If he spotted a gazelle leaping gracefully, he wanted to be able to do the same thing himself, and however much Lasgol tried to convince him that he would never succeed (since he was a pretty sizeable reptile), there was no way of making him change his mind. So Lasgol let him go on trying to develop the skill on a basis of sheer pigheadedness. As was to be expected – at least by Lasgol – he would find he was unable to do it. It would take him weeks to change his mind, which was most curious and frustrating. Camu was so stubborn that he tried Lasgol’s patience, so he simply let things be until the creature either gave up or succeeded. So far he had not acquired any new skill, probably because the ones he chose were either crazy or incomprehensible. At least as far as Lasgol was concerned, because to Camu himself they made absolute sense.
By now they were reaching the origin of the black smoke. When they came to the end of the forest, Ona gave a low warning growl. She had detected something. She stiffened and arched her back, and the fur on her back and tail stood on end. Lasgol crouched behind a bush and stared out at the plain. To his surprise he could see several large, cultivated fields, with three farms at their edges. One of the farms was burning, and this was the cause of the column of smoke.
Ugly soldiers, Camu warned him.
Zangrian?
No. Dark.
The reply made Lasgol stiffen. He concentrated and called upon his Hawk’s Sight and Owl Hearing. Two green flashes ran through his head, and at once he saw a group of mercenaries. There was no doubt about their origin. They were tall and muscular, and their skin was dark as a moonless night. They were armed with scimitars. They were Noceans, and if they were mercenaries who had stayed behind in the area after the end of the civil war, they were probably attacking those farms to take anything of value they found.
They were holding three peasant families beside the second-nearest farm. The first was the one which was on fire, and they were looting the third. Two men lay dead on one side, and several of the prisoners were bleeding. They must have tried to fight back against their captors.
They’re Nocean mercenaries, from the South of Tremia, from the land of deserts, Lasgol explained to Camu and Ona.
When visit that realm?
Lasgol looked at Camu in disbelief. This isn’t the moment for visiting foreign lands.
Visit fun.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be interesting to find new exotic lands, but we’ve got to do our duty, and that duty’s in Norghana. In any case, I don’t suppose you’d like those endless deserts