The next morning started cloudy, but the clouds were at our altitude so it looked like thin mist. My leg was still in a bad condition, but at least it stopped to get worse.

“We should at least strap your hips and legs to the stretcher. For one we don’t want you to fall if the someone slips. And keeping the leg from moving too much, would be helpful as well.” Milly got a length of rope from her backpack.

“That’s a good idea.” Loraline nodded.

I rolled my eyes. Resistance was futile at that point. My backpack was attached to the contraption as well, it was kind of a backrest and I was at least sitting for now. Then Milly and Tilly picked up the stretcher and we started to head east again. The changed once in a while. The others were a few meters ahead, checking the terrain. Alenae had a slightly heavier backpack, but we wanted to see how good she coped with walking and easy climbing all day long.

We had plenty of breaks, as carrying me was taxing and navigating me across difficult terrain took time. The path was narrow at some points and it was either going up or going down, but it wasn’t really hazardous on our first day.

In the late morning the sun came out, which lightened the mood considerably. I kept an eye on the mirror, but for now there was nothing interesting to see. In the afternoon we crossed a deep valley coming up from the south. The tongue of a glacier was a few kilometers up the valley. We refilled our waterskins at the ice cold small river. Wading through the ice cold water let the others chatter with their teeth. They got out of the clothes which would get wet.

“This was really cold.” Tilly dried herself with a rug.

“It’s from a glacier.” I looked at her with a grin.

“I don’t care! And I even don’t have any mana to use that drying spell!” Tilly frowned at me.

“We should get going, to warm up again.” Milly ruffled Tilly’s hair.

“We should throw her in the river!” Tilly splashed a few drops of water at me.”

“Let’s get going. We’re going to swim together in one of those streams when my leg is back to normal, promise.” I grinned at Tilly.

I was lifted up again and we started to scale the eastern slope of the valley. It was nice to look at the maps while traveling. They weren’t really detailed, but there were notes about point where the path wasn’t really obvious to find. We had to climp up a narrow gorge again, which slowed us down considerably. It was evening when we were finally left the gorge.

Fortunately there were no signs of our pursuers. So we headed east for a few weeks, following a narrow mountain pass meandering through the southern slopes of the claws. We had enough food, but gathered a few things on the way. Food was scarce though since we stayed well above the tree line. Once in a while we got some meat as well, but hunting was difficult as the goats were very fast in the rocky terrain. The early summer went by like a breeze. Alenae started to get fitter and the others started put her through some training in the evening. While training only helped so much, I thought that she won’t freeze that much in dangerous situations anymore. After a week my burns were finally healed. My thigh, while the would had closed on the surface, was still in a bad shape, but started to heal magically from this point on.

“It’s good that your thigh starts to get better.” Loraline smiled at me as we rested after a steep climb up a scree ramp.

“The magic seems not to work on everything at once. While it was kind of nasty as the wound hurt, I’m not complaining as long as everything heals in the end.” I patted my thigh, but stopped as a jolt of pain went through it.

“This healing is fed by your mana, is that correct?” Alenae sat down beside me.

“It is. Unfortunately the regeneration doesn’t keep up with it. This slave mark is a real pain.” I touched the mark gently.

“These marks usually kill someone messing with it. It a miracle that you survived this so far. While it won’t at the moment, your regeneration will get faster over time, as your pool grows. Maybe at some point the pool will regenerate faster than the healing. I was told that it takes some time to eat through the pool when you’re topped up. As soon as the man regeneration beats the consumption of the healing you will be able to actually use your mana while the magic healing runs. It’s frustration that I can’t examine that anymore” Alenae hung her head.

“I think I had a faster regeneration with the read mana, but the restart with the orange mana reset the pool to a bare minimum. Are you sure this can’t be healed somehow?” I rubbed her shoulder.

“Don’t forget that orange mana has about three times the energy of red mana. You might regenerate more already than you did before the reset. My magic talent was destroyed, never to come back. Focusing on something else for now will at least give me something to do. While there might be a way to repair this, it’s nothing that I had heard about. And as long as it’s something someone in the empire knew, it will cost to get it. Probably not just money.” She pressed her lips to a thin line and furrowed her brows.

“There’s nothing we can do about it right now.” I sighed.

She nodded.

“In case we find something to help with your condition, I’m going to help you as far I can, but things doesn’t look good and we’ve got plenty of other problems ourselves at the moment. I might know someone I could ask about it, but the chances to meet again anytime soon are negligible for a long time.” I shook my head.

“For now I’m focusing on things I can do. I can learn to defend myself without magic, as long as the Dragon Order is at my tails it won’t hurt. While I’m useless in regard of doing actual magic, I can still help you with things I know about it, I can still remember anything I was taught. While your mana isn’t strong, you can still learn a few nice things. Another point which I think is really interesting is that you can still use your old spells without much adaption. Usually you have to learn them again after changing your mana color.” She looked me into the eyes.

“I don’t mind not having to learn them again, but it would be interesting why it’s different. I like what I see when I see you practicing. You will have plenty of things to learn and get some muscle and stamina as well. I’m looking forward to check your progress myself as soon as I’m back on my feet again.” I looked back into her eyes.

She gave me a timid smile.

We continued our way over the narrow mountain path.

After the pain in my thigh started to fade I spent some time focusing inward for a while. It would have been better to have more mana, since most of the newer stuff was way beyond the maximum of mana I could use. After familiarizing myself with the remains of the rebinding of the maid outfit, it was the same like the thing that appeared after sitting down on that throne. It needed far less mana, but it was still beyond me to use it at the moment. As far as I could tell, I could switch attire spending mana. It looked like it might work with some more mana, but for the moment I couldn’t make use of it. It would make getting into and out of armor quite fast. It wouldn’t be really efficient at the moment, but getting rid of some clothes to carry around would be a nice to have. While winter clothes were essential in winter, they were quite a nuisance in the summer while hiking. They took considerable space in our backpacks.

Towards the end of the month I started to walk again as my thigh was getting better. It was a mess first since the long time without much walking did a number on my muscles.

The jolts of pain from the slave mark over the day returned though. It had started to get more bearable over time. The question was if it was the numbing of my nerves or were the jolts getting weaker. Probably a combination of both.

After a while I tried a few bouts with Alenae. She still had much to learn but I was content with her progress so far.

“What do we do about your weapon?” Milly asked one evening.

“Well. It’s broken. I’m going to use the claws, they are at least nice weapons even without powering them with mana now. I will miss the reach, but getting more accustomed to them isn’t that bad. It’s something I can’t drop and they will probably heal if damaged. I’m going to be much closer to my enemies though. We will have to adjust our tactics a bit, but it won’t hurt to be able to use all options we have.” I shrugged with a grin.

“We can help you to close in, and we still have Tilly with a reach weapon.” Milly nodded and gave me a hug.

“It feels good, to be able to move normally again.” I hugged her back.

“It’s something I missed a lot lately.” She whispered into my ear.

“I missed you too.” I gave her a peck on the cheek.

“While summer is the nicer season, winter is definitely a time where have more time for stuff beside walking, fighting and sleeping.” She pulled me on her lap.

“It is. I’m looking forward to a time where those dreaded slave marks are gone for good, as we could retreat somewhere remote to catch up a bit. At the moment it would just call for trouble to hunker down for a while.” I put an arm around her shoulder.

“While I don’t like the cold, it brings traveling in the mountains to a halt. We wouldn’t have these breaks without.” She smiled at me.

“Aye, we’re going to spent the winter in the northern claws. The coast is mostly wilderness, which will pose more of a problem for a larger number over the winter months.” I smiled back.

“We have to find some place to stay though.” Milly furrowed her brows.

“We could make a log cabin. We’ve all the tools we need. It won’t be as spacious as that old dwarven lookout, but it would do for a few months.” I shrugged.

“Some place to stay or at least to come back to would be great.” Mills sighed.

“We could look for that as soon as we’re rid of the marks, but we have other plans as well which could be in the way for a while.” I rubbed her head.

“I know. A girl can dream though.” She winked at me.

“Sure. And yes, I want some place to life sooner or later as well, but at the moment I don’t see it in the near future. It would probably a good idea to leave the continent, at least for a while.” I smiled at her.

“Sounds like an idea. Some information about other continents would be nice regardless what we will do.” She laid her arms around my waist.

“We might stumble over some information sooner or later, but it’s not that important at the moment. We could ask Alenae, she might at least know a few things, but it would be certainly better to get more than her perspective about those lands. The empire certainly looks down on everyone else.” I looked at the small fire where Loraline and Tilly were busy throwing something together for dinner.

“Let’s reach that dungeon first for now. It’s still quite a way to go, isn’t it.” She looked at me.

“Maybe end of next year. Traveling in the mountains takes time. As we will probably have to cope with one other problem, I’d say we’re going to reach the area the year after. It’s difficult to say, as we don’t know much about the eastern claws. The maps will still help for a while, but next year we will have to travel mostly uncharted terrain, which makes finding the right way much more troublesome.” I looked back.

“For now I’m happy that your thigh is whole again. The slave marks will be a nuisance for quite some time.” She sighed.

“The healing should get faster the longer it takes. It would reach maximum speed when the mana pool regenerates as fast as the healing drains. What would I give for a full nights sleep.” I pulled her into a hug.

“The first signs should be visible in the morning, as mana comes back faster while sleeping.” She hugged me back.

“In the night we wake up each hour at the moment, and sometimes even twice an hour, with half an hour offset. It will get worse before it gets better. At least the pain has tuned down considerably. Over the day it’s usually one or two hours before it hits. Which means that in the night the regeneration is higher than the drain from a single heal, but lower that the drain from two. The regeneration while awake is still below a single drain from the healing.” I yawned.

“It’s slower for me in the night. I didn’t wake up twice an hour for now.” She sighed.

“Next year will see much more change on that, as it started with mana at a bare minimum and without any regeneration. As soon as the mana pool won’t drain completely we can make estimates about how long it takes to get rid of that mark. I don’t expect it the next year though, maybe the year after, but for now we can’t quantify it. At least there is an end. While the pain and the lack of good sleep are nasty, it’s better than having no idea how to get rid of these nasty things. I’d prefer a less painful way though.” I yawned again.

“Dinner is ready, we should get something to eat and a bit shuteye.” Milly let go of me.

After dinner we got ready for the night and got ready for another exhausting night.

The terrain had changed over the last few days, there were vast meadows stretching around the more sparse peaks. There were occasional huts and shepherds with goats and cows. As we came over a hilltop a small hamlet with a dozen or two houses lay ahead. A small dirt road went south, but it wasn’t busy.

“We are going to skirt the settlements.” I sat down and gestured the others follow suit.

“While it would be nice to see people again, the last time nearly took us out.” Milly nodded sadly.

“It’s the best to leave not too much traces of our whereabouts.” Caroline sat down beside me.

“The shepherds had seen us though.” Tilly dropped down on her knees.

“We can’t avoid that, but most of them seem to stay in the huts we passed, at least for the summer. It will take some time until they might alert someone.” Loraline took a swig of water.

“We could travel the nights, but that would slow us down considerably.” Milly got some dried apples from her backpack.

“And it would be much more suspicious if someone sees us.” Alenae got some hard cheese from her backpack.

“It will probably take at least days until someone had actually a chance talking about us. The ring is much more of a problem, and we’ve lost much time while I recovered from this crossbow bolt hit.” I had a look at my maps.

“This wound wasn’t normal. It didn’t heal normally in the beginning.” Loraline looked at my thigh.

“It hurt. Badly. the track we’re following goes right through the hamlet, we have to make a detour of about an hour or two.” I studied my map.

“We should go south, the terrain is less open in that direction.” Loraline looked over my shoulder.

“There was small ridge to the south, which will give us some cover towards the hamlet.” I smiled at Loraline.

“We’re close to noon. Should we have a break and eat something?” Milly looked at me.

“Sure. The hamlet is far enough, and we won’t need to have a longer break while passing it.” I nodded at Milly.

We started to have a simple cold lunch, as usual. After an hour we continued our way east. We passed the hamlet without seeing anyone.

A few hours later we saw a column of smoke forming over a hill ahead.

“What’s that?” Tilly furrowed her brows.

“Should we skirt it?” Milly looked at me.

“Hmm. I would like to know if there are hostiles. We should be there in a few minutes. We should at least sneak a peek.” I looked back at Milly.