Instead, when he and Zach came to the meeting point, they found almost a hundred men, all of them mages. Some of them were indeed carrying rifles, but Alanic explained that they were mages who also carried firearms rather than regular soldiers.
Xvim and Alanic had clearly taken their warnings about the invaders and Quatach-Ichl very seriously, which was a good sign.
In any case, Alanic, who was the overall commander of the group, with Xvim being content to follow the man’s lead, decided not to waste their strength by fighting through the city to reach the Hole. Instead, the entire group hid themselves near their destination well in advance and waited for the invasion to begin.
“The point of this operation is to catch the leaders of the attack red-handed,” Alanic explained when one of th
