The creatures did not slow, for they leapt towards the fort, skewering themselves against the stakes in front of the pit, arrows and javelins sying many more. They finally reached the wooden walls, scrambling up towards the fresh warriors who began to pierce them with their mighty ons.

  As Adam prepared to attack, Jurot growled out from beside him, smming his shield against the duabear. “Step back, Adam,” Jurot said, keeping the duabear at bay. “Protect the priests.”

  “The priests are already protected,” Adam replied, though his body was already stepping backwards, his body growing lighter with relief.

  “Nobby, e,” Jurot called, his clear and stern, causing the young Nobby to step forward. The young man, built like an auroch, almost didn’t obey his mentor, for he was a young man in Adam’s employ, but Jurot’s words were also Adam’s.

  Adam pulled back towards Brittany, taking Nobby’s pce, holding up his shield in front of him. An arrow whipped through the air from behind him, far too close to his head for his liking, so he dropped to a knee and aimed his axe out.

  Fire engulfed the st few birdcats, the young Gaks killing them with their innate magic, before their bdes cut through the beasts in front of them.

  Trick: Fme BoltD20 + 6 = 19 (13)Hit!2D6 = 7 (2, 5)7 damage!

  “Fire,” Adam called out, holding out his fist, shooting a fming fist towards one of the duabears to the side, assisting his panions with what little magic he could. ‘I should have prepared Spiritual on.

  While Adam bsted out fme from his fist towards the beasts, he thought of the walls of the Iyr, which were so safe for all within.

  “The shamans believe the boy is reinated, though they do not know who,” Sonarot said.

  Tonagek couldn’t hide the surprise on his face. “A relic…”

  “The Demon Lord also firmed the matter.”

  “The girl?”

  Sonarot nodded, gently stirring the pot as she brewed the tea. It was as though they were talking about enjoying baked goods rather than the revetion the young boy was a relic.

  “If the boy is a relic, why has he not been taken?” Tonagek asked, his eyes glued to his sister, feeling the warmth of the demon boy within his arms. He had e to check up on the children and speak with his sister about nothing in particur, but to hear the boy within his arms was a relic…

  “How he be taken when he is ours?” Sonarot asked, smiling politely towards her younger brother. It was that kind of smile, the kind of smile a Family Head could use against the Elder and Great Elders.

  Tonagek’s eyes remained glued to his sister. The relic being Adam’s son was difficult enough, but for the Iyr to make moves on a child which was sidered to be i family, it was ahiirely. “What of your mother? Does the Family Elder think the same?”

  “Mother thinks the same.”

  Tohought back to the audacity of the Family Elder, when she had dehe goblins their rights. It seemed as though the Rot family wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, even if it meant inviting trouble into their family.

  “It is this way,” Tonagek said.

  “It is this way,” Sonarot replied, p her brother tea.

  Tonagek looked down to the sleeping form the demon boy, a relid wondered how much trouble he would make. There was only one way the Iyr would allow this boy to live and it seemed the boy had lucked into it, being the son of Adam, and adopted by the Rot family.

  In the over two millennia of the Iyr’s existehere had never been something like this. Back whehe Divine’s children dared to cause trouble within the nd, during a time present day Iyrmen could only dream of, something like this didn’t happen. How many Iyrmen had goo sy demigods? Even the children of the main pantheon knew no peace from the Iyrmen’s bde. Yet, even at that time, the Iyr hadn’t adopted a demon.

  When the Demonic Devastation came upon the nd, it was a time filled with death and strife. When the nearby nds baogether to deal with the demons, whid had matched the Iyr’s kill t? The price had been high for the Iyrmen, but the Iyr did not fet just how well it had dealt with the Demonic Devastation, and then the ensuing diplomacy between the nearby nds.

  “Sister, do you recall the time after the Demonic Devastation?” Tonagek asked. “The matter of the Wizards of Skool.”

  Sonarot uood how her brother’s thoughts had here. “It was a time when the Wizards of Skool had dared to believe this nd to be their pyground, trying to force the hand of the Aldish.”

  “When the Chief had goo iate, they were killed, and the Iyr called forth a limited war,” Tonagek added, slowly nodding his head. “It was in that tury the fear of the Iyrmen was nailed within the wizards.”

  “By blood and steel,” Sonarot firmed. It was also one of the stories of the Iyr, perhaps one of the top five stories taught to the children.

  “By blood and steel,” Tonagek whispered, still holding the sleeping babe within his arms. ‘A relic…’

  Mana: 10 -> 8Spell: Spiritual on

  Attack: Spiritual on (Fnking)D20 + 7 = 19 (12)Hit!1D6 + 1D3 + 3 = 7 (2)(2)

  Attack: Fme BoltD20 + 6 = 19 (1)Critical miss!

  Adam called forth his magic, having only just remembered he did indeed have Spiritual on prepared. He waved his hand and ted out his magic, before a rge sword made of divine light coalesced beside Laygak, striking into the duabear, while the young Gak also cut into it with his bde, the bde moving through the air with surgical precision.

  Laygak, who was een this year, moved as well as many of his elders, those who had children even half his age. His skill with a bde was greater thahe one hundred Iyrmen who had been plucked in childhood to form the One Hundred, not to be fused with the One Hundred Grandmasters, a fusing enough name sihe Iyr had many mrandmasters who were not part of the group.

  Laygak raised his shield, grunting slightly as he deflected a blow from a duabear. ‘When did I start thinking of such matters during a fight?’ Laygak, who was sidered one of the weakest within his group, had gaihe luxury of casually thinking of other nonsense during his fray with several duabears.

  Faool jabbed a duabear in one of its throats, exhaling for a moment as the creatures body seized up. There was a moment of hesitation as he expected Laygak to strike it, before he drove his staff into the ground before drop kig the beast back towards the stakes, skewering the beast upon them. He squatted to dodge another duabear as its mighty paw tried to crush him.

  ‘Did I kill a duabear alone?’ Faool thought, bringing his staff up to defend himself from a pair of bites, bringing a finger up to jab at one of the bear’s heads to freeze it into pce. The a felt so unnaturally natural, his body uanding he had the ability to do things he would have dreamt of earning by thirty, a he could do so before he was twenty? Something his cousin, Kitool, was able to do. She was someone who had been dubbed as one of the golden children in her geion, like Jurot, Shikan, and Timojin. ‘No, the priest’s magics are also assisting.’

  Naqokan’s attacked viciously, with reckless abandon, her greatsword slig through the spine of the duabear as though it were made of hot butter. Beside her, Uwajin also bisected a duabear in half, though vertically, blood spttering all across her as aook its pce. Though the duabears themselves were g at the pair as they disregarded their own defeheir bodies were still fed through years of training, and the terrifying cws which could tear any normal Aldishman apart, merely scratched against the raging savages known as the Iyrmen.

  The pair roared with joy as they ehe fight, even as they were slowly being torn apart by the mass of duabears who climbed up towards their death.

  ‘Is this how Shikan and Timojin feel?’ Naqokan thought as she fought side by side with Uwajin.

  ‘Our tale will spread through the Iyr!’ Uwajin thought, her lips wide as she formed a wild grin on her face.

  While the teen Iyrmen eheir time sughtering the creatures, their aunt and uncle eheir time drinking tea within the Iyr.

  “You do not have to be so hesitant to speak to me,” Sonarot said, seeing the look on her brother’s face. He had always been like that with her, evehey were children.

  “Adam’s children have a vague retionship with the Iyr,” Tonagek said, holding the baby within his arms, allowing him to remain asleep within his arms.

  “Is the retionship so vague?”

  “Is it not?”

  “It is not vague to the Rot family,” Sonarot replied. “They are my grandchildren.”

  “…” Tonagek he look on Sonarot’s face, telling him to speak his mind. “If somethio happen to the boy, the Iyr may not act.”

  “The Rot family will act, even if the Iyr will not,” Sonarot replied, her neck pulsing slightly, her lips f a wide smile, but it was that kind of Iyrman’s smile.

  These kids aren't do so bad.