Ameyron froze in place, his hands shaking. He looked back and forth between Varranor and Galenos with wide eyes.
Varranor forced himself to sit down and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. If the Varulan priests are the ones using wyld magic to affect the marewings, then how would you deal with them?”
“I—I need to find them,” Ameyron stammered out at last. His eyes dropped to the floor. “I have an idea for a spell that could trace the use of wyld magic. If the guards arrested them and stopped the ritual, it may allow the marewings to return to normal, but… I can’t guarantee that.”
Varranor rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, hoping he could wake up from a nightmare and this terrible scene would just go away. But when he opened his eyes again, it was all still there. “Alright. Do what you can, and make sure you take a group of guards or soldiers or whoever you can find when you go after the priests. They could be dangerous.” He looked around the rest of the room. “We need a back-up plan, something for the rest of us to do while we wait for the mage. Suggestions?”
Navera shrugged. “We could go back to the earlier idea of pulling out all the cloudfruit and trying to coax them down.”
Galenos leaned forward. “No, I think they’re beyond that now. We need to tap into something more primal.” He held up one finger. “Marewings fight to defend themselves, but they’re not predators by nature—they’re prey. If we frighten them enough, they could fly away instead of continuing to fight.”
Varranor’s eyes narrowed at his brother. “And how would you frighten them? I don’t want to hurt them except as a last resort.”
Navera nodded slowly. “No, I think I see what he means. We can threaten without harming them—make some noise and light more fires, for example. Concentrate on driving them out of the city where they can’t hurt anyone until whatever it is has stopped making them insane.”
Varranor stroked his chin. “Well, I guess we can try.” He looked up at Ameyron. “Go, work as fast as you can to find the source of the wyld magic. We’ll do what we can on our end to stop the attack.”
Ameyron bowed and hurried out of the room.
Varranor stood up again and looked at all of the officers. “Gather all of your riders outside. We’ll need every available fighter to work together on this.”
Ameyron IV
Ameyron rushed down the hallway, turning at several intersections, before he realized that he didn’t even know where he was going. His office and all of his research notes were back at Fort Ropytos, except for the information on gryphon attacks he’d brought to show Duke Galenos. His more esoteric materials, including the spell for tracking a magic user that he’d been thinking of when he spoke to Warlord Varranor, were still in the Academy, even farther away. He had no books, scrolls, or other references to fall back on. He was totally in the dark.
He slumped against a wall and covered his face with his hands. What was he thinking? There was no way that he could remember the precise steps of a spell he hadn’t seen in years. He could calculate specific variations if he had the spell in front of him, but performing a vague approximation would be useless at best—disastrous at worst. Magic had to be cast with exacting standards or who knew what forces he could unleash on the already beleaguered city.
He patted down the pockets of his robe to see what notes he had on him. Gryphon sketches, attack patterns, suggested countermeasures, and musings all tumbled out onto the floor. Nothing of use. He was a mage without any magic, and an entire city counting on him to hunt down a rogue magic user.
He’d almost given up in despair when his hand hit against something solid inside a fold of his robes. Was there something sewn into his robes? He frowned and drew his eating dagger from his belt, using it to pick out the rough stitches.
A slim notebook, wrapped in an oilcloth, fell out into his grasp. At first, the plain leather cover gave him no clues, until he recognized a distinctive scratch near the upper left corner. He cracked it open and the first page confirmed his suspicions—this was his old notebook from his days as a graduate student at the Academy in Miphace, more than a decade before!
Memories came flooding back to him. He’d been working on an important experiment, a major breakthrough which he hoped would win him a position on the Academy’s faculty. Instead, the professors had told him that his ideas were dangerous. He’d been thrown out of the Academy to seek his own employment somewhere else, and all of his research was destroyed—except for this notebook, which he’d managed to smuggle out by sewing it inside his robe.
He flipped through the pages and saw everything laid out in tiny, cramped handwriting. He had tried to combine other traditions of magic into his chosen field of haematomanteya. A dowsing rod was the oldest tradition, used primarily to find elements like water. He’d successfully adapted a rod to find trace amounts of blood even after it had been seemingly cleaned up from the site of a murder. He thought it would revolutionize criminal justice by objectively identifying murderers. Instead, he was accused of practicing the forbidden art of nekromanteya.
Prejudice and misunderstanding had long hampered his research. Most practitioners of haematomanteya, or blood magic as it was more commonly known, were healers. They worked with life, not death, but due to religious beliefs they couldn’t delve into many of the inner workings of living organisms without being accused of nekromanteya. So many restrictions constantly frustrated his research.
But when he’d realized that no one cared if he dissected monsters, he switched his focus to understanding the bizarre creatures that were unique to Seirenia and somehow linked to the wyld magic that had taken hold of the peninsula a thousand years ago. Wyld magic was unpredictable, unlike any natural force he’d studied, and it wasn’t linked to any of the elements so far as he could tell.
He stopped and shook his head, clearing away old memories. He had to stay focused on the problem at hand if he was going to help the city.
As chance had it, Ameyron had a set of dowsing rods in his satchel, left in his room. All he had to do was go fetch it.
It took a few wrong turns before he got his bearings in the base’s headquarters, but eventually, he found the room where he'd been staying. He dug out the two small, metal rods from the bottom of his satchel and sat down at the table with his old notebook.
In his old research, he had meticulously detailed the methods he used to adapt the classic dowsing technique in order to follow a murderer's tracks. One of the keys was identifying a person as the target, and not simply any object which had come into contact with the victim's blood. Very well, he could use that to track this wyld magic user. But how to key it into the magic itself? He didn't have a sample, so to speak, of the power he was up against. He needed to get creative.
Sometimes it was helpful to work backwards. What was the wyld magic doing? Affecting the marewings. He immediately discarded this because it was too dangerous to approach a marewing, especially in their current state. But suppose he found a spot where a marewing had been? Could that leave enough of a magical signature for him to follow?
There was no time to calculate his odds of success or create a control to be sure he wasn't following the wrong thing. He'd already delayed enough. Ameyron scribbled down a reworded version of his spell, then rushed outside to the marewing stables, where the problem had started. Maybe this would give him the breakthrough he needed.
The main yard of the base was still half full of soldiers, but the stables were deserted. He found the building in shambles, torn apart by marewings driven to escape. This had to be enough.
He grasped one rod in each hand, holding them out in front of him. Carefully, he recited the new version of his old seeking spell and pointed the rods at the nearest broken board. He emphasized that he wanted to find the person currently using wyld magic in the city. Then he held his breath and concentrated on holding perfectly still.
Both rods slowly swung around until they pointed east. Well, that was a start. He only hoped they were right.
He took a deep breath and headed out the gate into the darkness. In the rush of soldiers, the guards didn't notice one bedraggled mage leaving unarmed.
Tatiana VII
Tatiana searched the floor groggily for her boots. How long had she been asleep, only an hour or two? Long enough for her uniform to wrinkle beyond all hope of repair, but she didn’t know where to find a change of clothes or the time to go looking.
She didn’t know what was going on. The dormitory was full of soldiers all scrambling to prepare for combat, and she could hear alarm bells ringing outside, but no one had said who or what was attacking them now. She forced herself to focus on putting on her boots and stumbling toward the door.
Orivan appeared at her side before she’d gone more than a few steps, and he gave her an encouraging smile. She managed a strained smile back and fell into stride with him.
One of the captains stopped both of them at the door. “I’ve been told that you two can stay and rest,” he said, stretching one arm out to block their path. “You’ve done enough for one night.”
Tatiana shot a look at Orivan. He gave a slight shake of his head. She turned back to the captain and folded her arms. “If everyone else is going, then we’re going, too. I can’t rest with all of this noise anyways.”
The captain frowned. “Are you sure? We don’t need you out there if you’re just going to be a liability.”
Orivan nodded. “We’ll find some way to help without getting in the way.”
Outside, they found that everyone in the military base, from the riders to the lowly clerks, were being organized into groups to spread out across the city. Officers were passing out shields and armor, but instead of weapons, there was a pile of random objects like pots and pans, bells, trumpets, and drums.
Sergeant Navera climbed up on top of a chair and called for their attention. She described the situation in stark terms, then laid out their plan of action. “The goal is to make as much noise as possible. Protect yourselves and any citizens that you can from blows, but do not strike back. I repeat: do not injure any marewings. We’re trying to scare them out of the city.”
Tatiana’s head whipped around so fast that her neck protested painfully. “Is something wrong with the marewings?”
Orivan touched her arm gently and leaned close to whisper to her. “Nobody knows why they’re attacking.”
She craned her neck to look around the military base. Now she realized what was missing—every paddock, every spare patch of ground where they’d put some two hundred-odd marewings down to sleep for the night, they were all empty. A chill ran up her spine. How could they all just leave like that? And now the riders were just supposed to try scaring them off?
Tatiana took a step back from the line of soldiers waiting for their gear. “Lilywhite,” she murmured, peering up into the sky for a glimpse of white wings. “I have to go find her. This has to be a mistake.”
Orivan reached for her, trying to pull her back. “Hey, we have to follow orders right now. The officers know the best way to handle this.”
“No!” Tatiana wrenched away from his grasp. “She wouldn’t just start attacking people. There has to be something going on, and I need to find out what it is.”
She whirled around and ran for the gate. She heard a few shouts ring out, but she ignored them, pumping her arms and legs to reach the exit.
Guards stepped out in front of her, crossing their spears over the gate to the rest of the city. “Where d’you think you’re going?” one of them growled at her. “Get back with your assigned group.”
She stopped short and stared at them. “Please. I have to get out of here and find my marewing.”
The guards didn’t budge. “We can’t let you mercenaries just run around on your own,” the same one told her with a menacing glare. “You’ll go with your assigned group or you won’t leave this base at all.” He pointed the tip of his spear at her.
She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender and backed away. Her breath caught in her throat and it seemed like the walls were closing in. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Why did the guards suddenly not trust them? Did the city guards think that the riders were somehow responsible for what their marewings were doing?
Someone caught her around the shoulders. She cried out and spun around, terrified that she was about to be punished for breaking rank, but instead she saw Orivan looking concerned. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Whoa, easy there,” Orivan murmured, holding her close and stroking her hair. “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. In… and out.”
She forced herself to do as he said. Air rushed back into her lungs and the claustrophobic feeling gradually disappeared. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, feeling calmer. “I’m sorry. I just—do you know anything else about what’s going on? Are you sure this is the best way to help?”
He shrugged helplessly. “No, I’ve just heard the basics. But we don’t have time for detailed explanations. The top brass decided what to do, and we have to follow them now.” He took a step back and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye. “But if this is too much for you, we can still go back inside. We’ve both been through a lot tonight and they don’t expect us to push ourselves past the limit.”
She blinked and scanned the courtyard again, trying to comprehend what was happening. Marewings were attacking civilians for some reason. Their orders were not to hurt them, just scare them out of the city. Well, if those were the only options, she would rather pick the nonlethal one. She nodded slowly.
“No, I’ll help,” she said, raising her chin with grim determination. “If these are our orders, then I’ll follow them.”
Orivan gave her a measuring look, but he didn’t try to talk her out of it. He let go of her and they walked back to their assigned group together.
When they reached the front of the line, Tatiana accepted a shield and a frying pan. She raised her eyebrows at the combination, but she quickly found that striking the two together created a resounding “clang!” that echoed off of the surrounding walls.
Next to her, Orivan winced and covered his ears. “Ow! Remind me not to stand too close to you when we get out there.”
The captain leading their group nodded. “We’ll want to spread out a little when we get out into the city, but don’t get separated from the others. Pick a partner and watch their back. It’s dangerous out there.”
Tatiana frowned. Just how dangerous could the marewings be? She’d seen them deliver a few nasty bites, but it wasn’t like they could actually kill people. They weren’t like real monsters that could destroy an entire village.
Warlord Varranor made an appearance long enough to give each group their assigned location in the city. Tatiana and Orivan’s group were going to the Market District, which was one of the closer spots. Some of the others would be trying to go all the way across the city in the midst of the panic and she didn’t envy them the trip.
The captain led them with a torch held high in one hand. They marched out of the base at double-time, trying to clear the narrow gate as quickly as possible. For the first few blocks, there were so many soldiers passing in every direction, each group making their own racket, that she didn’t see any marewings or civilians nearby. It would have felt more like some bizarre training exercise than an actual emergency if it weren’t the sense of urgency buzzing in the air and the alarm bells still clanging overhead.
When the swarm of soldiers began to thin out, though, the atmosphere changed. City guards had quelled the initial riots by forcing the civilians off of the streets and now they patrolled near major buildings to make sure that
no one tried to run outside again. Tatiana glimpsed a few casualties, battered bodies pushed to the side of the road, but in the rush of their march and the darkness she couldn’t tell if they’d been crushed by humans or marewings. Perhaps the panicked rioters had trampled each other.
Sometimes, she thought she heard the sound of leathery wings beating overhead, but the noise of the soldiers blocked them out. She kept glancing up at the sky at the slightest sign of movement, but she couldn’t be sure if that flicker of movement was a marewing fleeing from the noise or simply her imagination. The farther they went into the city, the more she was convinced that the reports of marewing attacks were exaggerated.
The noise was too great to speak, so she tucked her frying pan under her shield arm and tried to signal to Orivan with her free hand. When he looked her way, she pointed to the sky, then flashed the sign that meant “Where is the target?”
He frowned and shrugged back at her. “Wait,” he signed back.
She gritted her teeth but marched on.
She was breathing heavily by the time they got close to the Market District. Her bruises and the lack of sleep were catching up to her, and she began to question if she should have accepted the offer to stay back at base.
The captain held up his shield to halt them at the entrance of the main square. Relieved, Tatiana leaned forward, gasping to catch her breath. Then she heard the others exclaim in surprise and straightened up to see why they had stopped.
The marketplace was in ruins. None of the vendors were there with their wares in the middle of the night, but the empty stalls had all been reduced to splintered boards and torn awnings. From the surrounding shop buildings, shattered glass had fallen from every window and some of the walls had been knocked down, leaving gaping holes. The level of destruction rivaled the time Tatiana had seen a farm raided by ogres.
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