Chapter 267: The Hunt

A rattling volley of projectiles - Ghveris called them shells, though Wren didn’t see what they had to do with the ocean - whistled through the air, tracking just behind her as she climbed up above the first cataract.

On the rocky heights, to either side of where the headwaters of the Airaduinë plunged down to the plateau where the Alliance scouts had set up their camp, a full score of Antrians had taken up the perfect position to fire down upon the arriving army as they made camp. Ten of the machines kneeled in formation, merging their mana shields together, while the second rank let loose with their shoulder-mounted weapons.

Wren dipped low, weaving in and out of trees, and left an explosion of wood chips in her wake from where one of the shells clipped the side of a white oak. Wren doubted that she could get through ten linked mana shields, even with her enchanted daggers, but if she could make it around behind the Antrians -

A lance of light speared up from the plateau, followed by the roar of Ghveris returning fire and half a dozen crossbow bolts. The impacts splashed across the merged mana shield, which flashed bright blue and gold, but held. Still, the assault from the base of the falls bought Wren exactly the distraction she needed.

Coming around through the trees in a tight curve, she shifted form in midair and came down on the back of one of the war-machines. Wren slammed one of her daggers down into its shoulder weapon in a reverse grip, punching straight through the metal and grinding the spinning cylinders to a halt. Then, she shifted into blood just in time for its great, armored fist to swipe through the place she’d just been, completed her transformation, and winged back up into the trees with another volley of shells tracking just behind her.

Under fire, and now harassed by an enemy who could slip through their guard, the Antrians began to retreat back upslope. There was a part of Wren - the hunter - that wanted to pursue them. To harry them from the sides in ambush after ambush, isolating the enemy one by one and finishing off the stragglers. Instead, she turned around and flew back down to the base of the cascades, where tumbling water formed rainbows in the spray that rebounded off the rocks.

There, she shifted back into her human form and landed next to Ghveris and Soile. A single mana shield protected the two of them, and her friend’s shoulder barrels were still spinning slowly, which told Wren that he’d only just finished firing.

“The enemy is pulling back,” Wren reported.

“Good.” Soile nodded. As Wren watched, the Kerian commander pulled the drawstrings shut on a leather pouch full of seeds, and then hung it from her belt. “We’ll need to get people up on those heights, to hold them.” She strode off, gathering Elden and human warriors alike, to do exactly that.

“Their commander will not try this again,” Ghveris rumbled.

“Why not?” Wren asked. For all the fights she’d been in, she knew that she wasn’t a general, and she didn’t think in terms of strategy. But her friend did: he’d led armies for the Vædim during the last war, and though Liv hadn’t used him as a commander yet, she clearly listened to his advice.

“He left our scouts to camp on the plateau, unmolested,” Ghveris said, turning back toward the arriving army. “Because he knew that eventually our main force would follow. Better to strike at that than our scouts.” He extended his massive, armored arm to indicate the plateau, where Dakruiman healers were already pulling the wounded back from where they’d fallen.

Wren looked up to the sky, where half a dozen bats were circling above them, at a great height. “And they’ve been watching us as we came out of the high desert,” she grumbled. The bats were too high for anyone but her, Liv, or Silica to deal with, and the wyrm was being kept out of the mountains for the moment. Liv was, theoretically, supposed to be holding back as well, training with the elders for the confrontation with Ractia. As to whether Wren could win a three on one fight by herself -

“I need to talk to Arjun,” she said. “Walk with me?”

Ghveris nodded. His shoulder-mounted barrels retracted beneath his armor, and his mana shield flickered, then died away. He fell into step beside her as they picked their way through the barely-organized chaos of the army.

The process of setting up a larger encampment on the plateau had

been going smoothly, until the Antrians struck from the heights. The scouts that Wren had left behind had done their best to clear brush, dig latrines, scout the area, and otherwise prepare for the coming of the main force.

Though it had been exhausting, the march across the high desert had proceeded roughly according to plan. With Silica and Wren patrolling overhead, beasts of burden from the east to carry their supplies, and a well-scouted route, Valtteri ka Auris had moved just under fifteen-hundred soldiers without any significant losses. There had been two snake bites and a single scorpion sting, but Arjun and the other healers had managed to keep all three victims alive.

Still, both Wren and Ghveris had been there when the commanders talked numbers. Fifteen hundred was only a three to one advantage - less than what they’d wanted, and it worried Wren. She knew that it worried Liv, too, from conversations in low voices around their campfires late at night. For her part, Wren had been surprised the Eld couldn’t muster more. The Lucanian crown had brought over three thousand to attack Whitehill, and that was without the majority of the barons supporting the war effort. It threw just how much of a population problem the Eld had into a kind of brutal clarity that Wren hadn’t ever been confronted with before.

They found Arjun with the other healers, using a set of pincers to remove a shell from a Whitehill man’s thigh. There was blood everywhere, bright and fresh. Wren had to restrain herself from wetting her lips at the sight. After the brief fight at the cascades, she could use a drink.

“One moment,” Arjun said, without looking up. He set the shell aside into a small bowl prepared for this purpose, and then drew his wand of Neem wood, held the tip just over the wound, and muttered an incantation. The flow of blood stopped, then ceased, as flesh regrew. When Arjun wiped a wet cloth over the wound, Wren saw only pink, new skin.

“Get a good meal and a night’s rest,” Arjun instructed the soldier, then rose, sheathed his wand, and joined Wren and Ghveris. “You drove the enemy off?”

Ghveris nodded. “Commander Soile scours the heights even now, but I would not expect further fighting today. There will be more of this as we move up the slopes, however.”

Arjun nodded. “I’m not looking forward to it.”

“How much better off would we be if I could clear out those scouts overhead?” Wren asked. She glanced up at the bats and nodded her chin in their direction to make her meaning clear.

“Better,” Ghveris said, with a rumble. “But they have numbers. Until it is time to bring Silica, we cannot afford a fight in the air.”

“I’ve fought two and won before,” Wren said. “Though neither of them had second forms. I think I might even be able to take three, but I’m worried that one of them will turn into a bear or something, and I don’t know how I could deal with that, on top of being outnumbered.”

Ghveris’s hand, enormous and heavy yet surprisingly gentle, settled on top of Wren’s shoulder. “Do not risk yourself without necessity,” he urged her.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I won’t.” Wren reached up and placed her hand on top of his. “But I have an idea. Arjun, how much have you worked with the word of blood, since you imprinted it?”

“Not a great deal,” the healer admitted, with a grimace. “I’ve mostly used it to stop bleeding or cause blood to coagulate more quickly. I did manage to draw out most of that scorpion venom from the bloodstream the other morning, but I can’t say I’ve had much time to experiment.”

Wren nodded. It would have made her feel better if he’d said he was confident with the word, but this was about what she’d expected. “And Ghveris, you’ve gone through the bloodletter ritual to learn a new form what, a dozen times? You know the prayer they use? The exact words?”

There was a moment of silence before the ancient war-machine answered. “Yes. I know them. What are you considering, Wren?”

“Simply this,” Wren said. “Arjun knows Ractia’s word of power. If we can give him the right invocation, he might be able to stand in for a blood letter.”

☙

They found Liv with the elders who had come with the army: Eila and her brother Eilis, representing Houses Syvä and Däivi, respectively; Aatu, the last of the Iravata elders; and Aira tär Keria. The remaining three had each gone to one of the rifts where Liv suspected that Ractia might have a tether, to confront her in the event the goddess attempted an escape when she was finally confronted.

With how hard the four elders present were pressing Liv, Wren didn’t want to think about the extremes to which they might go with another three. While her great uncle Eilis seemed to be watching, for the most part, Liv’s grandmother kept up a steady barrage of frozen darts, while Aira had grown some sort of evil looking vine that propelled thorns one after the other. Aatu must have been using his second word of power, because a glob of milky, yellow-white venom hovered in front of his chest, occasionally spitting in Liv’s direction.

In response, Liv, sitting cross legged and surrounded by the elders, used a mix of small, circular mana shields and blades of ice to block or parry the incoming projectiles. Her eyes were half-closed, and attacks regularly came from behind her or to her sides, frequently from multiple angles at once. Wren couldn’t be certain how she was detecting the projectiles as they came in - perhaps her Authority? - but she seemed to be smoothly catching each while using two worlds at a time.

Eilis, as the only elder who was not casting, met Wren’s eyes and nodded, holding up a single finger indicating that they should wait. Only after the Eld had finished their current round of magical assaults did they pause, and then Liv opened her eyes.

“Is there a problem?”

Ghveris shook his head and answered. “An enemy assault from the heights above the cataract,” he answered. “It has been driven off, Soile is securing the ground in question, and the wounded are being healed. Minimal losses.”

“Good.” Liv nodded.

“I had an idea,” Wren said. “And we wanted you to look over an incantation.”

“Here.” Arjun stepped forward, and handed Liv a piece of parchment with writing on both sides. “Not that side -” he turned it over. “Those are lists of medicine stockpiles. This.”

“Dō Arum'Ract Co'Veighis Æn'Te,” Liv murmured, reading the incantation aloud. “This is... somewhat complex. ‘I imprint, by means of blood, this form on you.’ Are these the words the blood-letters use?”

“Not quite,” Arjun explained. “Ghveris knew the original prayer, which actually begins with asking for Ractia to do the imprinting - Det, instead of Dō. We modified it.”

“Mostly good,” Liv said. “But you forgot to finish changing Ract - right now it’s just a root. It’s either a noun, and what you’re affecting - or, and this is what I suspect, it’s still being used as an active word of power, in which case you need ‘Dō Arum'Ractet.”

“And this is why I wanted to check it with you before actually using the incantation,” Arjun said, with a grimace. He took the parchment back, set it on a nearby rock that was almost, but not quite, flat, and dug a quill and small corked inkpot out of his things.

“Are you going hunting?” Liv asked.

“I am.” Wren turned to look up at the slope of Nightfall Peak, rising above the plateau to the west.

“Do you know what?”

Wren grinned. She’d spent quite a few days hunting the lower slopes and the surrounding range with the other scouts, after all, and had quite a good idea of what predators were active in the area. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

☙

Some hours later, Wren had found the trail she needed.

She’d been fortunate enough to catch the scent of urine, marking the edge of her target’s territory. She’d noticed that city-people, like those born in Whitehill - even Liv, who’d had training as a hunter since she was a little girl - were often noseblind. They walked through the territory of a dozen cats in a day, and never even noticed. But to Wren, the stench of feline urine was obvious. And once she had a hunting territory, she had a start.

A pile of feces, still slightly warm, was next, and from there she was able to follow a trail consisting of paw prints, broken leaves and bent grass, and the occasional tawny hair caught on a branch. Finally, she found the place where the latest killed had been dragged off for a leisurely meal.

When the forested slope around her grew quiet, Wren knew that she was close. No more bird song, no more insects, no shuffling of small animals in the brush. They all knew there was a predator on the prowl - though she doubted they understood that two hunts were actually happening simultaneously.

Come on then, Wren begged her prey, unable to help but smile. She wasn’t meant for marching armies or city life. This was what she knew, this was what she was good at.

When the cougar sprang, Wren dissolved into blood. It splashed through her, and she reformed on its back, stabbing down with her enchanted daggers. With a meaty-thunk, the blades that Jurian had given her sank through thick fur into powerful muscle, and blood splattered up to soak her arms.

The cougar spit and growled and thrashed, throwing Wren off, and she rolled across the ground until she fetched up against the trunk of a tree, the impact driving the air from her lungs. The wounded cat leapt at her again, propelled by those powerful hindquarters, leading with the claws of one enormous paw.

She couldn’t wait to see what that felt like from the other side.

Wren ducked aside, the cougar’s claws just scraping against her hunting leathers and tearing at the flesh just above her right hip. She stabbed again as it went by, and then spun on the balls of her feet. It would have been satisfying to finish the hunt the way she had for years upon years - without magic. But it would be stupid to get herself wounded before a battle, when her friends were depending on her. So she clicked the heels of her Dakruiman boots together, and blurred into motion.

The cougar seemed to hang motionless, paws dug into the earth, sending up a spray of dirt as it caught itself and prepared to turn. Wren blurred around it, stabbing out half a dozen times, to sever the tendons of its legs, and then open its throat.

The enormous cat collapsed, and stared at her with panicked, uncomprehending eyes.

“Shh,” Wren told it. “Go to sleep now.” She ducked her head down and pressed her mouth to the gushing neck, and drank until she was satisfied. Then, she sheathed her daggers, slung the cougar across her shoulders, and began carrying it down the mountain.

The sentries - Eld and human alike - stared when she finally made her way out of the trees and down onto the plateau, but they didn’t stop her. She found Arjun waiting where she’d left him, with Ghveris and Liv. The elders had lingered, as well, apparently out of curiosity.

“You ready to see if this works?” Wren asked Arjun, dropping the carcass in front of him.

“I’m ready if you are,” her friend said. “I’m not the one who’s going to be at risk, Wren. If this doesn’t work how we expect, we really don’t know what it will do to you.”

Wren rolled the cougar over, drew one of her daggers, and began working to open up the chest. “The most likely answer is nothing,” she said, grunting with effort. “Anyway. If I’m going to fight my father, I need to be able to keep up with him. Liv shouldn’t be the only one who’s getting stronger.”

Her arms were soaked to the elbow by the time she had the heart out. Wren knelt in front of Arjun not because she intended to worship Ractia, but because it somehow felt right to treat the moment with solemnity. “Do it,” she urged her friend.

Arjun drew his wand. “Dō Arum'Ractet,” he began. “Co'Veighis Æn'Te.”

Wren bit into the heart, chewed, and swallowed. The taste was strong - intense and metallic. It burned like fire as it went down her throat, and then the heat spread, down to her belly and then throughout her body. She was only half aware when she fell over onto her side, and her arms and legs were entirely out of control, thrashing about against the grass. Her stomach cramped so painfully she wanted nothing more than to vomit.

“Hold it in,” Gheveris said, kneeling down to take Wren by the shoulders and hold her in place against the earth. “Keep it down. The magic needs the heart.”

She clamped her jaw shut, grinding her teeth together, as the pain swelled like a great wave at sea. Wren waited for the agony to crest, and then recede, but it only got worse and worse until she began to despair there would ever be an end to it.

Then her body collapsed in on itself, and Ghveris’s gauntlets of enchanted steel splashed through a puddle of blood. Wren shifted, but it felt different this time. The pain was gone, and for the moment that was enough. She reached out for Ghveris, but instead of a hand, she saw a tawny paw stretched in front of her face.