I looked over to the northern edge of the camp where Commander Rel was visible.
She was standing with her staff in her hand, her field coat torn across the shoulder, and her eyes locked on me from a hundred meters away.
The two surviving members of her squad were behind her. The northern line had held because the demons had stopped pressing it, since they were all coming for me.
Rel watched me cast, and I could not read her expression at that distance. But the stillness of her body was its own statement.
I knew a bit about her. She was an Adept who had served in three campaigns, and she must have seen mages do extraordinary things, and yet, here she stood, on the field, while a sixteen-year-old in singed Acolyte robes vented steam from his own breath and unmade demons by the dozen.
Commander Rel was not too close to the Pyramid, and still, she was not as efficient or as powerful as she should be.
