The Meet that had followed the informal meeting the day after the conclusion of the Ichani Invasion had resulted in the same decisions that had been made during the informal meeting. However, there had been some additions and considerations added to the agenda by the members of the Guild.
The first had been the location of the Black Magician's residence, and how it would be monitored. This had been simple enough to sort out and Akkarin had been allowed to work on the designs with the architects.
The second point was brought up by Akkarin. He pointed out that there needed to be instructions on how to use black magic written down and hidden in a place where only a few people would know the location. This would ensure that if all the Black Magicians died without passing on the knowledge, that the knowledge would not be lost and Imardin would not be left vulnerable again.
It was agreed that Akkarin would write a book on black magic, superseding the account of the Ichani Invasion, and it would be hidden in a place only known by the Black Magicians and the Higher Magicians.
The third point was that any potential Black Magicians, and therefore the current Escorts, had to undergo a full truth read by two Higher Magicians and one other trustworthy Magician; all of whom would be chosen at random. This would ensure the character and trustworthiness of any potential Black Magicians and that history would not repeat itself.
The point that followed was that a new set of vows needed to be written for a Black Magician. Ones that they must follow or be executed. The vows were written and reviewed between that Meet and the next and Sonea stood beside Akkarin as they spoke their new vows in front of the entire Guild and the King at the beginning of the following Meet.
The fifth point was also brought up by Akkarin. He wanted the Magicians to take regular Warrior skills classes and be taught how to deal with a rogue Black Magician. He had stated that these classes would not be open to Novices and that inside the arena he or Sonea would be allowed to take on power equal to that of an Ichani for teaching purposes only.
As expected, this caused outrage throughout the Guild Magicians until Akkarin pointed out that a potential Black Magician could read his or Sonea's minds for any deception before the lesson. This stipulation satisfied a large majority of the Guild Magicians, but the newly instated High Lord Balkan announced that the Higher Magicians would discuss this point further with Akkarin and Sonea and put forward a plan at the next Meet.
It had been six months since that decision had been made, and a week since her wedding to Akkarin, and they were now stood facing half the Guild in the centre of the arena.
This hadn't been the first Guild Warrior session, but this was the first where Sonea was going to fight alongside Akkarin against the Guild as if they were Ichani. For the previous four months of fighting, Akkarin had been teaching them techniques and tricks to use against a Black Magician without using any extra power, and had been fighting them alone without Sonea's help.
Akkarin had been against the idea, considering how far along she was in her pregnancy. Unfortunately, Lord Garrel had been quite vocal about the fact that they needed to know how to fight multiple Black Magicians sooner rather than later considering there were two Black Magicians living within the Guild and there could be more Ichani waiting for the Guild to let their guard down. Quite a few people supported his protests and the Higher Magicians couldn't say no without giving them a reason; one which Sonea didn't feel comfortable sharing yet.
Lady Vinara did say that the fighting wouldn't be harmful to her, or the baby, as long as she didn't overexert herself during the fight. This seemed to pacify Akkarin slightly, but she could tell that he was still worried and he made her promise not to compromise on shielding or drain her power too severely.
So, here she stood facing the majority of the Guild mid-afternoon on a fourday. It was unseasonably warm and she was sweating in her black robes; the fact that she was seven months into her pregnancy, her stomach still reasonably well hidden beneath the dark robes, and she was about to fight the majority of the Guild wasn't helping with the overheating. She debated on whether to use a little power to cool herself down, but decided against it as she looked over all the Magicians loitering around the Arena; she would need all the extra power that she'd taken from the Arena to fight against everyone here.
'Sonea?' Akkarin's voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she found him looking down at her with a concerned frown. 'Are you feeling okay? Do you want to ask if we can postpone the lesson?'
She shook her head. 'No, I'm alright. I'm just a bit nervous. It doesn't feel right fighting everyone here, I feel like I should be protecting them, not fighting them.'
'I know, but by fighting them now, we are protecting them in the future.'
'I don't want to accidentally hurt anyone. There's so many of them that I'm scared I'll not notice when someone isn't able to fight anymore and send a bolt towards them that they can't shield against. They already see us as a sort-of enemy. I mean, isn't that why were doing this? So they know how to fight one of us if we decide to go rogue?'
'I understand everything that's going through your head, Sonea. I was thinking the exact same thing the first time I fought them, but we can't hold back, because if we do then they won't learn how to fight. Nothing is going to go wrong.' He placed a hand on her shoulder, his thumb gently grazing her neck. 'Have faith in them and have faith in your own abilities.'
Sonea took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Determination thrummed through her veins.
'Are you ready to start?' He asked.
Sonea nodded once, gave her husband a smile and turned towards the rest of the Guild.
'Magicians!' Akkarin called out over the murmur of voices. 'Can I have your attention please.'
The talking rumbled to a stop and all eyes turned to her and Akkarin.
'As you all know, the past few months I have been teaching you tricks on how to defeat a person who can perform black magic. The most important things to remember are to always keep a skin tight shield around yourself, heal any cuts or lacerations as quickly as possible, and if you know there is no way out for you then you need to release as much power as possible for the advantage of the Guild and to the detriment of the Black Magician.'
Akkarin paused, and Sonea hoped that no one here would ever have to be in a situation where no one was able to help them. Her mind flashed back to the time where the Ichani was draining her of her power in the stables and her fists automatically clenched in her robes. She would not let that happen to anyone else if she could help it.
'Today is different. Today is about brute strength and this is not how you want to be fighting a Black Magician. Brute strength favours the Black Magician unless they are weakened or their opponent is strong or numerous. You need to weaken or distract the Black Magician enough so that other methods can incapacitate or kill them. There is only small chance that you'd win a fight of brute strength so you need to be ready to work together to bring them down.
'For multiple assailants you should try and separate them and deal with them individually, but this will not always work. Today, you'll be fighting Sonea and I together. You need to find a way to communicate without us knowing, this means no mindspeak. I'd suggest coming up with short hand signals or sounds for easy means of communication. And you need to find our weaknesses.
'Today, Sonea and I will not be working as a team; we will be working as the Ichani did and not be sharing our shield, but we will be defending each other. Work out who to focus on and who to distract and stick to it. You know what types of strikes use the most power but you have to weigh damage done against loss of your own source.
'Also, in a fight against a Black Magician, there are no rules. Use your environment to your advantage. There's not much to use in the Arena, but a real battle will not take place in an Arena. We will practice this sort of fighting at a later date. Today we will focus on what we have: our power, creativity, and teamwork.
'I'll give you five minutes to work out a method of communication and a plan of action before we start the fight.'
Almost immediately voices filled the Arena as the Magicians huddled together to talk.
'Alright, do you remember our plan?'
Sonea nodded, twisting her hands in her robes.
'Remember, Sonea, we've been up against worse. This is just practice and no one is going to get hurt. If someone does, then it'll likely be minor and one of the overseers will call an immediate halt to the battle.'
'I know, I know. It still feels strange though. I can't help but feel something is going to go wrong.'
Akkarin just looked at her and gave her one of his half smiles.
'What?'
He chuckled. 'You worry too much. No, that's not right. You care so much. But, it's one of the reasons why I love you. You're going to be a wonderful mother and our child is going to grow up to be strong, and brave, and smart. Just like you.'
Sonea could feel her face flushing as he smiled at her.
'I'm also sure that they're going to grow up knowing the city like the back of their hand if Cery has any say in it, and there's nothing we'll be able to do about it because we'll be stuck in the Guild.'
Sonea laughed, and felt a little bit of the stress leave her body.
'That's probably true. Cery would keep them safe though. I have no doubt about that.' She looked up at her husband with a grin. 'However, if you teach them how to glare and intimidate the way you do to anyone outside our family then I'm sure that they'll never need Cery for protection.'
Akkarin laughed and then took a step closer to her so that she was forced to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. She kept smiling at him as he folded his arms over his chest and let out a dwell-worthy curse beneath his breath.
'I really want to kiss you right now, wife.' His voice was gravelly and she suddenly wished that they were anywhere but standing in front of the entire Guild.
'We could use it as a tactic,' she mused, tapping her finger on her lips as if deep in thought and not teasing her new husband. 'Maybe it'll distract them enough that we win quickly and then we'll be able to go home.'
'Don't tempt me. I would kiss you in a heartbeat if I knew that that was what you actually wanted and you weren't teasing me.'
Sonea innocently smiled up at him. 'Teasing? Me? I can see what you're doing though. You're trying to distract me from overthinking.'
'Is it working?'
'Yes. It was highly effective.'
'Good. But just so you know, if we're both not completely exhausted later, I'm getting that kiss later.'
'I'll hold you to that.'
'Now, are you ready to fight?'
'Yeah, I think so. Better than I was five minutes ago anyway.'
'Perfect.' He smiled. 'You're going to do great, and it'll be over before you know it. Have faith, Sonea.'
Akkarin then turned to the rest of the Magicians and called them to their start positions.
The Magicians formed a loose circle around them giving enough space to not be picked off as a group but close enough to join their shields together.
Once everyone was in position, Lord Darlen, one of the Healers kept on the side lines in case of an emergency within the arena or the Guild, called out 'Begin!'
Sonea immediately threw up a set of shields. One at skin level and the other a sphere. She sensed Akkarin do the same behind her and it felt weird not automatically joining their shields together.
She also sensed the magicians throwing up their own protection before a barrage of strikes started battering her outer shield. With the amount of power contained within her, she was easily defending against the wide range of powerful strikes.
The air shimmered before her as power rippled through the arena, slightly blurring the Magicians who stood opposite her. Despite that, she noted that most of the Magicians were focusing their strikes on Akkarin rather than her. Tactically, that made sense. Akkarin had more experience and had trained as a Warrior before he became the High Lord, but she was still a lot stronger than any of the Magicians that stood before her.
She sent a barrage of powerful forcestrikes to those who were aiming at her, sending them at their joint shield from all directions. She gave a satisfied smile as they shifted slightly under the force of the strikes.
She had just dealt the Magicians a few more powerful strikes when their tactics changed.
Sonea stumbled to the side as the ground beneath her feet started to bubble and writhe. Instinctually, she formed a levitation disk beneath her feet and rose a couple of inches off the ground. She gritted her teeth in annoyance; levitating was a drain on her power. She tried levitating out of the way of the writhing ground, but it just followed her around.
She could see what they were doing. They were trying to get her to drain as much power as possible so that if Akkarin was defeated then she would be easier to take down. Well, she could just use their tactic against them.
Sonea frowned in concentration as she tried to keep power flowing into her shields, levitation disk, and the strikes that were acting as a distraction for her subterranean attack.
She could see when her attack took affect because their attacks faltered and she was given a brief reprieve which she used to look over her shoulder to see how Akkarin was faring.
Surprisingly, it didn't look good. To the rest of the Guild, it would look like Akkarin was confident in his attack but she could see that he was quickly being drained of power.
In the time it took to blink she had taken in his exhaustion, the Magicians training their power on the both of them, and the air shimmering with power.
Fear coursed through her veins and dread settled in her stomach.
It felt like the final fight with the Ichani again, but worse.
Sweat trickled down her back and made her eyes sting.
All the noises of the battle disappeared, leaving only ringing in its place.
The Magicians morphed into Kariko, Parika, Avala, and the other Ichani.
She knew they weren't really here. She knew they were dead.
But seeing their faces again. Seeing them attacking Akkarin and sending strikes that could pierce her shields and harm their child. She couldn't do it.
She couldn't do it.
She couldn't do it.
Not again.
She almost killed her child when she went up against Parika last time. There was no way she was going to risk him getting that close again.
Cutting the power to her levitating disk, she dropped into sand in a crouch and simultaneously pushed out a ring of power in all directions whilst strengthening her shield.
She watched as shock registered on the faces of the Ichani before waiting to see what they did next.
