"Yay road trip."
Elena shouted with gusto everything was a game to her and why not.
"Sorry Elena we need to be serious on this one, we are going to go poke around and if we can cause delays if we find the enemy but and this includes you Susan we are not going to fully engage. We'll take a small contingent of the family guards with us but I don't know these men's fighting ability and I don't want to risk our lives for this."
Kyle brought Elena back down with a thud but she merely nodded while pouting slightly. Well she can always play next time. Susan however wasn't happy with her characterisation.
"Why was I included in that? I'll have you know I'm an intelligent and independent woman."
Kyle looked at her before looking to his girls.
"Does one of you want to take this?"
Clara decided to step up to the plate at Kyle's prompting.
"Susan don't you remember yolo? How about wanting to get touched?"
"Objection withdrawn, can we go before you think of something else to crush a girl's spirit?"
"At your age you shouldn't be called a girl shouldn't you be called a woman?"
Elena put in the final dagger bringing the beast known as Susan down.
"Well now that sorted lets round up the guards and head out I don't know when they would plan to attack so I want to get there ASAP."
With the Kyle led the way out followed by the rest of his team and a despondent Susan bringing up the rear.
They headed to the barracks and Kyle spoke to the captain in charge and requested a contingent of 20 men in light scout armour as they would be moving at speed.
Kyle's team were kitted out with their own light armour and Bruno as the vanguard and heavy of the team didn't particularly like this as he had become used to wearing his heavy armour but at least he had been allowed to bring his war hammer with him.
After about 10 minutes the guardsmen arrived. They were equipped with the basic family guardsman armour and as usual were all carrying variants of great swords. Kyle again led the way and the team mounted up and headed to a stable near to where the rendezvous point should be.
Riding in the front Kyle was thinking to himself about the information they had found and knew that this may be a trap but if the Tor family are attacked en masse then they wouldn't be able to hold and if they fell it would leave both the Powell and Black families in an awkward position.
As they approached the slum zone the buildings gradually got closer together until Kyle had to call the expanded team to dismount so they could keep distance between each other without getting crowded.
They left five of the guardsmen to look after their mounts to proceed further into the sprawling slum. Moving in smaller units to again avoid crowding the people were looking around and paid attention to everything around them as they didn't know when or even if they would be ambushed.
This put everyone on edge and Kyle also expanded his soul sense to the limit in the hopes of picking up on the enemies before they were seen.
"Well this is tense."
Bruno said while looking down one of the dark alleys as they passed. All he could see down there was darkness and rubbish but no sign of any men. Kyle could see Bruno was losing focus already as he was relying on Kyle's abilities to warn them of approaching danger.
"Yep but keep your eyes open everyone I don't want us to get caught out okay."
"Aren't you keeping an eye out though won't you sense them before we see them."
Bruno responded while the others also looked in his direction, Kyle sighed at this and explained the reason why he wanted them to keep paying attention.
"Yes but for one I may not always be around and I don't want you falling into bad habits, two you may notice signs of people passing which I may miss which has nothing to do with my senses. Do you understand now?"
"Got it I'll keep both eyes open."
Bruno straightened up after this and began scanning the area looking for anything out of place along with everyone else.
Going deeper and deeper the darkness from the close together buildings grew until it seemed almost as though it was approaching night rather than it being the morning and let's not even mention the smell.
Susan was walking along with her nose scrunched up and a look of distaste on her face. The guardsmen with them had been gradually thinning as Kyle was dispatching them in teams of three to cover more ground while they headed deeper along the main route.
"Damn it where are these buttheads, I've just stepped in something I'd rather not talk about and ruined my boots."
Susan finally said in exasperation as they hadn't seen anything yet and she was beginning to become frustrated. Bruno and the girls were looking equally annoyed, if it was a straight up fight it would be fine but this wondering through dark alleys and roads with no real clue where they were looking for had begun grating on their nerves.
Kyle was equally irritated because he felt that if there was a large group of enemies gathering they should have at least seen some signs by now but there had been nothing yet. Kyle began to think this was a bust but at least it wasn't a trap.
This thought had only just entered Kyle's head when from up ahead he heard a loud bang followed by a flash. Kyle recognised this as it was a signal sent using an array similar to what he himself had used previously but this one was much simpler.
By overloading a small array you would get a loud bang and the flash was from the magic in the array releasing the stored magic as light. Kyle believed this was similar to a flare and knew this was bad as they or their men must have been seen.
"Start moving back, keep quiet and keep your heads on a swivel."
Kyle said as he quickly looked behind them to check the way was still clear. Before he could do anything else the sounds of fighting began echoing down the alleys making it difficult to determine which direction the sound was coming from.
It looked as though the signal wasn't because they had been seen but instead one of the other teams must have been noticed eliciting the response. As they couldn't identify the direction the battle was coming from Kyle decided to pull back and assess the situation before attempting to pull out the guardsmen.
He didn't get a chance to do more than think about it as a contingent of enemies appeared at the end of the road they were on. The enemies numbered around a hundred and even with their skills Kyle didn't want to risk them getting swarmed in this small road with all the alleys surrounding them.
"Pull back move it!"
Following Kyle's order they all turned and began running back with Kyle and Susan firing the occasional spell at the enemies following them. This kept them from closing in but they refused to leave them and hung around what was perceived to be the limit of their range.
The team was switching out their members as they withdrew allowing different members to cover as they moved so different magic's were fired in a continuous stream keeping the enemies away. As they passed alleys they began to encounter other members of their force who were running for their lives.
These additions were pulled to the middle of the group with Kyle's team creating a perimeter firing down those alleys holding back the enemies until they had passed.
Eventually they came to a tee junction and just as Kyle was going to head to the left he saw Susan's face. She was pale, shaking and appeared to be on the verge of tears.
"Bruno, Miranda keep us covered Elena, Clara watch the sides. Susan what's wrong have you been hurt?"
Kyle moved to Susan who grabbed him and her tears began to fall. She looked nothing like the playful and happy Susan he knew and appeared to be nothing more than a scared little girl.
"No, no, no, no this is it this is the place of prophecy. If we go left we die if we go right we die and if we go back we die. There is nothing we can do we have to accept our fate."
As she said this Susan slipped to the floor and began weeping. She had believed what Kyle had said about her prophecy but she had been wrong and now they were all going to die here.
Kyle heard what Susan said and thought for a moment before a wide smile appeared on his face. Susan looked at him and saw his smile and became angry with him.
"Why are you smiling you, me and all these people are going to die?"
"Oh I just think I understand how your gift works. So we can't go back, left or right so that just leaves right up main street."
With that Kyle looked at the wall behind him. It was part of a semi large building which would house several families like an apartment block. Kyle extended his soul sense to cover the whole building alone and found no one was there. They must have been evacuated earlier.
Knowing that no one would be injured Kyle held up his hand palm forward and thought for a second. He couldn't use fire or lightning magic because of possible fire so the best way to open the path was wind magic.
He focused his mana into a tightly controlled sphere and when the pressure was as high as possible he unleashed this directed blast of hurricane force wind. The force of this blast was tightly contained and as it tore through the building Kyle raised his hand cleanly severing the building in half leaving a clear path for them to escape through.
Susan saw this and her eyes went wide, she hadn't even thought of this and with a sense of vertigo the prophecy was broken.
Kyle grabbed Susan who was still sitting on the floor and threw her over his shoulder and led the way through the destroyed building With Bruno and Miranda still holding back the enemies.
Once they reached the road on the other side Kyle dropped Susan unceremoniously on the ground and turned his attention to his new path. The Miles family force was making their way through and Kyle knew exactly what to do.
Using wind magic once again he created a zone of negative pressure in the middle of the building. As the atmosphere rushed into this area it pulled both sides of the building in with it and with a resounding bang the building collapsed behind them taking the forces following them with it.
Grabbing Susan by the hand he lifted/dragged her along with the others moving towards the Powell family territory. They exited the slums and ran into a large market square where the first thing they heard was.
"Why didn't you warn me you little bugger."