"We should sneak out the back before they encircle us," said Oleandra, slowly closing the barn's door behind her as she retreated backwards. "Colloportus!"
Oleandra sealed the doors with a wave of her wand, but the rickety wooden doors wouldn't hold for long against a concentrated assault.
"What do you think, Wanderer? …Wanderer?"
When her travelling companion didn't respond, Oleandra glanced over her shoulder and saw the boy in question swaying unsteadily, his eyes half-closed, before toppling backwards into a pile of dried hay.
Startled, Oleandra rushed to his side, but as she bent down to help him up, a faint lavender scent drifted into her nostrils. It was a smell that belonged to the fields in the summer months, not in a stable that reeked of manure…
Oleandra immediately Conjured an invisible bubble of fresh air around her head with the Bubble-Head Charm, silently thanking her lucky stars that Professor Flitwick had taught the spell to his N.E.W.T. class just a week earlier. If it hadn't been for his homework, Oleandra would have probably never bothered to learn it, since its main use was to allow its user to breathe underwater!
The spell took effect just in time— Oleandra was briefly struck by a dizzy spell, since she had breathed in a little bit of the soporific gas, which had somehow found its way into the stable, but the vertigo and the blurred vision quickly passed.
Although Oleandra's Fae nature protected her from being knocked unconscious by magic— thanks to her ability to swap minds with one of her Shadows— that protection applied only to spells, such as Sleeping Charms and Stunning Curses. Drugs, potions, and poisons would continue lingering in her body until metabolised or evacuated, continuously affecting her nervous system, and thus, ignoring her resistances.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The soldiers outside had begun hacking at the door with their weapons, but so far, Oleandra's Ward was holding strong. If they had simply thought to attack the rotten walls around the door instead of the magically reinforced door itself, then they would have probably already breached the stable by now!
"Come on, Sleepyhead," Oleandra grunted, grabbing Wanderer's arm and scooping up his spear. "Up we go…"
Oleandra hefted him over her shoulder without too much trouble, using Gungnir as a crutch to stabilise herself. Now, she just needed to sneak out through the back…
"Stand back, fools," a man's deep gravelly voice rang out from the other side of the door.
"Sir Druid!" exclaimed the soldiers' captain. "But surely your potion would have rendered them unconscious by now!"
Oleandra did not know much about Druids, except that their ancient discipline of magic had not withstood the test of time— for the simple reason that they had ceased to exist by the time her epoch had come along.
Since Druids never recorded their knowledge in writing, it was possible their legacy had simply vanished when the chain of oral inheritance was broken, but…
…it was also likely that the Druids had been eradicated by the successive waves of invaders that had claimed the British Isles as their home. The rune- and star-based magic of the Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen was formidable, while the Romans' wand- and incantation-based magic proved remarkably versatile.
Oleandra hoped it was the latter.
"No ordinary practitioners of magic could defeat three Giants in such a short amount of time— even the most powerful of spells bounce off their skin, like water off a duck's back," came the Druid's gruff voice. "I'll lead the charge."
Oleandra pressed her eye to a gap between the wall's planks and peered outside. It looked like they were surrounded— and the Druid sounded disturbingly confident in his chances of defeating them. Fighting her way out of the encirclement shouldn't prove too difficult as long as she was alone, but carrying Wanderer on her back… that sounded quite tough.
A loud roar suddenly resounded through the stable, making Oleandra jump— and a fraction of a second later, an enormous brown bear crashed through the entrance, sending splinters flying everywhere. It glanced left and right with its intelligent eyes— and when it failed to find them by sight, it lowered its wet snout to the ground, sniffing loudly.
Hiding behind a partition wall at the back of the stable, Oleandra held her breath and raised her wand, remaining perfectly still to avoid drawing the creature's attention. Before anything, she needed to work out how the Druid's magic worked.
Was he an Animagus, or was he manipulating the bear?
Was some other magic at work? Was he the only Wizard among his contingent?
Oleandra had too little information to make an educated decision. Though the magic of this era was primitive, Wanderer's Gungnir had taught her that a lack of modern convenience didn't equate to a lack of firepower.
After all, an arrow could kill her just as surely as a bullet…
And so, Oleandra decided to take a chance on playing possum, pretending as though the lavender-scented potion had knocked her unconscious. Earlier, the soldiers had shouted something about 'submit peacefully to face justice,' so she doubted they would be killed on the spot, which would give her more time to think of an actual plan.
Sliding quietly along the wall, Oleandra lowered herself to the ground and closed her eyes, allowing Wanderer's head to fall in her lap.
To make her performance even more realistic, Oleandra entered a meditative state— though she kept an eye on her surroundings, using the ankle-deep reflective pool of lake water that covered the entirety of her inner world as a window to look outside— ready to retake control of her body, should the bear show any aggression towards them…
Slowly but surely, the large brown bear advanced towards the back of the stable, followed by a squad of soldiers with swords at the ready. A few agonising moments later, the bear was upon Oleandra and Wanderer.
It sniffed at them suspiciously, before opening its jaws… only to give them each a lick on the cheek.
Satisfied that Wanderer and Oleandra were truly unconscious, the bear stood on its hind legs. Its tough hide receded back into its body, its large body folding in on itself, and in a flash, it had turned back to human form.
"Tie them up and put them in chains," ordered the Druid. "Silver and iron— not bronze or brass," he then added, lifting a lock of Oleandra's hair, revealing her pointed ears. "This one's not fully human."
A thread of Fairy magic sparked to life, connecting Oleandra to the Druid and the soldiers. Oleandra had successfully fooled them…