Chapter 104: 104. Taracon - Legion Encampment

Jarel Craith sat alone at the table inside General Fabian’s command tent, poring over the atlas of Volos. The tent smelled of canvas soaked in oil, and the faint scent of incense. A vain attempt to mask the odor of sweat and leather that clung to the fabric walls.

He was watching the siege engines move into attack position.

The legion called them brass dragons.

Some Artifex originally designed these small siege machines for an old Numantian conquest, a city with high walls and narrow, serpentine streets. Their weapon used some sort of alchemical mixture for fuel, producing jets of a durable flame that was difficult to extinguish even with Gnosis-powered assistance. Upon the breaching of its walls, the brass dragons stormed in and razed the defenders’ homes and businesses, and everything else capable of burning.

Jarel Craith supposed that would have included mortal bodies.

But such was the grim craft of warfare.

General Fabian suggested the brass dragons after their last conference, where they discussed Redmane’s domain and its peculiar qualities.

The origin of Governess Porsena’s unfortunate lapse in judgment.

Jarel traced his fingers over the detailed topography of Volos in miniature, his fingertips pausing at the cluster of Zones where Gnosis intake spiked unexpectedly. He had explained to the General that at around the same time as the breakout of the Blight, these Zones experienced an unexpected surge in natural Gnosis production, resulting in Volos achieving potentially record-breaking yields.

His own Sicari would later report to him that the cause of the sudden growth appeared to be either a family of nymphs with at least a trace of divine blood, or an awakening Primordial Divinity with a growing number of concurrent incarnations.

They were certainly Redmane’s allies, in that case.

Which presented an opportunity.

Jarel had hoped his ambush at the Abyssal Well had eliminated Redmane’s entire faction, traitorous Imbued and all. Mostly it had, though there were a few stragglers here and there. There were two turncoat knights in a province called Asgoph, who could be dealt with as soon as Fabian’s legionnaires made it to those Zones. They weren’t major targets.

In fact, Redmane had left him with few significant targets, if any. Except for a continent teeming with rapidly evolving beastmen, whose affiliation to Redmane wasn’t formally established as far as he could determine.

But these nymphs, or minor goddesses, or whatever they were, could be the thing he needed to flush Redmane out of hiding.

If he was indeed in hiding.

It was possible he’d succeeded already, and none of this was necessary. But it was better to err on the side of caution. And it would be prudent to sweep away all traces of this Blight regardless, to spare any future Governor or Governess the snare that brought down Mecia Porsena.

He knew too well that an ever-growing number of his countrymen were just like her. Ready to discard their morality for profit. And if one were to point out their error, they rolled their eyes and spoke like children complaining about a new pair of shoes they hadn’t broken in.

Something that hurt to wear, for they lacked the discipline to suffer through a beneficial adaptation.

The only course, then, was to remove the temptation.

So all the remaining brass dragons in the storage of the Venturian Legions had been requisitioned, brought across the Astral Highway in a single shipment, and were now being moved into position across all the borders of House Redmane’s domain.

Those two knights in Asgoph were about to have their first, and likely their last, meeting with the Venturian Sixth.

Jarel leaned back in his chair, the old wood creaking under his weight, and gazed at the flickering shadows cast by the oil lamps swinging gently from the tent’s support poles. His eyes narrowed as he imagined those little nymphs, or whatever they were, running about trying to put out the fires on each other’s backs. He imagined they’d be too busy with that to do much of anything to save their forest.

If Redmane was still out there, this would surely flush him out.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

And Jarel Craith was prepared for that as well.

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The population of the barren world of Astia continued to grow.

First came the Imbued. Some days later came the remnants of a group of beastmen from a place called Magas Village. And then, after a brief discussion across worlds, Pietr made another trip to Volos to return with a clan of demi-humans and a family of giant boars. An effort to spare them the wrath of the Numantians.

The demi-humans brought a pair of human hostages with them, who turned out to be Imbued.

This caused some immediate tension.

There were two captives, a man and a woman, and both were badly beaten and bloodied. The demi-humans had them bound at the wrists and ankles, lashed to the back of one of their makeshift supply sleds. The man was unconscious. The woman wasn’t, but the exhaustion in her eyes was plain for any to see.

Valtr and Vengarl, who had nominated themselves to be the welcoming committee, had just gotten up to greet the newcomers as they emerged from the Abyssal Well. But they froze when they saw those two beaten captives.

Valtr grasped his bow. Vengarl glanced for his firearm, which was propped against a nearby rock.

The leader of the demi-humans, who carried a sword too big for his lanky frame and wore a crown of little skulls at an angle on his head, raised an eyebrow at them.

“Is there a problem already?” he asked.

Valtr’s gaze hardened as it shifted to the demi-human. “Aye…”

A moment or two passed in tense silence. The rest of their Coterie was elsewhere, exploring the terrain for lack of anything better to do. Flora was at Alma’s grave, all her effort bent on cultivating a small garden in the barren soil. The beastmen led by the one called Sheriff Kard kept watch over her.

Meanwhile, in the here and now, the demi-human leader looked sincerely confused by Valtr and Vengarl’s sudden hostility. He simply stared back at them, blinking.

Until he followed one of their glances to the sled bearing Arnth Nere and Livia Caelestis.

His eyes widened. “Oh!”

“Oh?” said Vengarl, an unmistakable note of anger in his tone.

The demi-human turned and pointed at the Imbued. “Untie those two and get them fed and cleaned up. They are hostages no longer.”

“But we were gonna sacrifice one!” cried a demi-human warrior next to him.

“He’s good eatin!” whined another.

“Can we eat the girl instead?” asked a third, in a pleading tone.

The demi-human leader smacked the last one in the back of the head. “Untie them and clean them up, I said.”

His subjects did as they were told, though there was a lot of sullen mumbling about it. Valtr and Vengarl watched them cut the two Imbued free of their restraints. The man remained senseless, but the woman’s eyes were wide with surprise.

She sat up, swayed from sudden dizziness, and a demi-human put a water skin in her left hand and half an apple with a piece of cheese in her right hand. Another one climbed up on the sled and started trying to wipe her face off with a wet rag and she spluttered and leaned away, nearly dropping the items in her hands.

As that all took place, the demi-human chief turned his attention back to Valtr and Vengarl and bowed with a wry smile on his face.

“These humans assailed our land and slew our kin, and we repaid them in kind. We were going to let the girl go, actually. But, circumstances being what they are, I don’t mind clearing the slate to unite against a common foe. I am King Edd, and I come in peace.”

Valtr and Vengarl glanced at each other.

Then they looked back at King Edd.

“You’re articulate for a demi-human,” said Vengarl.

“I shall take that as a compliment.”

“You were gonna eat one?” asked Valtr.

“Why, yes,” said King Edd, with a smile. “It’s customary. And we do enjoy human meat whenever we can get it.”

Vengarl grimaced. “Least he’s honest.”

The young woman had shoved away the demi-human trying to wipe the dirt and dried blood from her face, had a swig of water and a bite of apple, and was now looking at Valtr and Vengarl with open suspicion in her expression.

“Why do I behold Imbued consorting with Monsters,” she said, her voice steely even though it was weak with weariness.

“Well, it turns out Numantia’s full of evil bastards,” said Valtr.

Vengarl nodded. “This game they had us playin was a mere distraction, it seems. They’re in the business of eating worlds like ours whole. Yours too, I bet. Unless yer from Numantia yourself, then I suppose you’re an evil bastard too. Didja know all the colonies end up lookin like this in the end?”

Vengarl gestured around at the barren landscape surrounding them. Livia Caelestis raised an eyebrow and glanced about, and her eyes grew wide again when she truly noticed the nature of their environment.

“What is this place…”

“Some world Numantia drank dry. Ours is next,” said Valtr.

Livia opened her mouth to ask another question, but just then Pietr emerged from the Abyssal Well behind them, leading a pack of gigantic boars.

“Terribly sorry. These ones had a rough time finding their way, I—“ he stopped, glancing between Valtr and Vengarl and Livia and King Edd. Perhaps it only then occurred to him that he ought to have explained certain things to both parties.

“Is… Everything alright?” he asked.

Valtr nodded. “Aye, it’s sorted.”

Pietr relaxed, smiled. “Very good.”

And just then, a blood curling scream rang out through the air.

Everyone turned in the same direction. It came from Alma’s grave.

It had to have been Flora.

Valtr and Vengarl took off running as fast as their legs would propel them.

That beastman, Kard. He and his warriors ought to have been guarding her. If they had harmed even a hair upon her head…

But when the Hunters reached Alma’s grave and its little garden, they found Kard himself standing over Flora with a shocked look on his face, unsure of what to do.

Flora knelt by the side of Alma’s grave, her body curled inward as she hugged her arms tight around her middle, moaning in pain as she rocked back and forth. Tears streamed down her face. She was making the kind of sounds a mother would make if she were looking down at the corpse of her own child, sounds that made Valtr and Vengarl both flinch as that pain struck them in the heart.

“The forest… Mine own forest… It burneth. All doth burn…”

She looked up at Valtr and Vengarl as if she were about to say something else, but all that came out was another scream of pain.