The sharp end of the arrow erupted from the back of Olgier’s head, and his body slumped, tumbling right off the cart. Artorian stepped back into the limelight with a strung recurve bow in hand. Without a word, he drew a second arrow. *Twang*!
The hunched man kept a solid eye on the fallen traitor, now with two arrows in his noggin to confirm the kill. He was admittedly distracted by the end of the raider horde but wasn’t overly concerned. That wasn’t his problem to tackle; his personal war had just advanced. The full might of the Choir’s expedition was waiting for the approaching raiding party in a well-planned ambush.
It was amazing how empty you could make the cloister look by temporarily moving people to the salt flats. When the cart departed, Tibbins was playing guard and had signaled a well-placed scout. While Olgier had been distracted with the ramblings of an old man on the ride away from the cloister, the expedition force erupted forth to reinforce the bastion.
Choir scouts had confirmed beforehand that the raiders had prepared to move out and laid full sets of contingency plans. The raiders thought they were just going to walk all over a few cultivators with sheer numbers, and they certainly fielded a sizable crew in order to do so.
Hakan
Hakan herself wasn’t present for the cleanup job but had still allotted a hefty amount of men. You couldn’t underestimate even a weak cultivator, and the Church wasn’t known as a pushover. However, enough arrows in a man still did the job. So, she just needed to send enough men to guarantee success. So what if a few fell in glorious sacrifice?
At worst, there was going to be a short siege. Equipment had been sent along just in case there were some problems with that cloister wall, but Hakan firmly believed that might made right… especially when she had all the might. She’d find out how it went in a few days when her raiders returned laden with loot and trinkets. Hakan hadn’t the luxury to go with her raiders.
She certainly wanted to wet her blades on some cleric necks, but her camp had been in disarray over the past few weeks. She had been unable to pin down the source of the chaos, but every day, there had been yet another small issue that made her normally cohesive troops snappy. They had even dared to almost fight with one another. Tensions were high, and she had to be personally present to keep order at home. She even sent her apprentices off to sort through the less important problems.
While that did help, it simply didn’t stifle the flow of discord that developed. In truth, she had decided to send such a massive force just to get them all out of the house and relieve some tension. At most, a few dozen raiders remained behind, along with her favorites who she didn’t feel like sacrificing. Mostly, that meant her girls, and she’d allowed them each to choose an assistant or two.
To her relief, Lunella was as reliable as ever. Hakan didn’t approve of her consort choices, but there was a comfort in choosing servants from the village you hailed from. She had to admit that the familiarity had saved Lunella’s chosen servant a lot of pain. With a strong inhale of winter air at the balcony, she made her way back to her private quarters. Of course, she had the most excessive and opulent room in the entire castle, fit for a Baron’s mistress. It was even better when you’d killed the Baron and claimed the place for yourself.
Her mirth was interrupted a few hours later. Panicked noise distracted her in the middle of what should have been a relaxing night. No, surely, her servants would deal with it. She told herself that no less than four times as the sound continued until a bothersome knock finally killed her delusion. “You must be joking with me.”
Hakan’s snap was dry and hungry, “What?”
Lunella pushed open the door, her expression drab but serious. “We have a problem.”
Hakan rolled her head in frustration before she had a drink. “I gathered. What kind?”
Lunella swallowed, her grip on the doorknob tight. “A vengeful phantom is killing our men.”
Hakan spat her drink across the room and got to her feet. “Explain.”
By the time Hakan rushed to the foyer, a considerable number of her troops who dared venture outside or man the walls had joined in on the death dance. Some cowered and were holding themselves on the floor; more were huddled in the corner cradling their heads or knees. The few who had an arrow whiz past their ear and kept a hold of their life hadn’t thought twice, bolting for the safety of the keep.
“Quna. Quna! Get here now.” Hakan pushed her way into the huddled masses and absolutely seethed that she needed to wade through her own raiders. Quna, another woman in the pack that had a few more years on her than the rest, quickly responded to the call.
“Here!”
Hakan turned on her heel and dodged her way through the cowering, useless men. Her voice was full of dry displeasure. “Explain.”
Quna saluted and pulled the slumped man next to her upright, not at all caring about the bleeding ear he was pressing some cloth against. “Tell the Mistress what you saw.”
Her order was short, and the stammering raider didn’t have any choice but to bow to their wishes. “Arrows! From the forest. They barely ever miss, and if you don’t run, the second one always gets you! Marcovius got lucky; the arrow stuck into his chest armor. The arrow didn’t penetrate. He saw… the thing!”
Quna let the raider sink back to his knees, then took two firm steps and helped up the second man with considerably greater tenderness. Marcovius was a thin boy with big bones. He didn’t at all fit the clothes or loose leather armor he was clad in, but his glazed expression showed that he didn’t at all notice his surroundings. A few gentle taps to the cheek brought some focus back to his dilated eyes. “Mar? Mar. The Mistress is here. You need to tell her what you saw. You need to.”
Marcovius tightly held on to Quna, his grip trembling now not only from what he had seen but also direct contact with Hakan. He liked his face. “Phantom. Red eye thicker and brighter than blood. Vengeance, rage, and fury. It hunted us from the forest. One glance, and it sees your death. It felt the same—exactly the same as when I was sent to the gallows by that judge. They told me death would hunt me. Now it’s happening!”
Quna very gently shook the boy who used to be a noble’s servant. “You’re going to be okay, Mar. Take a seat. Just take a seat.”
The boy’s pupils went dull, but he followed her order and sat on his butt with all the awareness of a potato. Hakan didn’t like what she was hearing; she didn’t buy it. “So, there’s a single archer pulling tricks out in the forest?”
She realized how strange that was when she said it. Still, for an attack to so suddenly hit them? In so short a time after her main force was dispatched? Suspicious. “How many living men do we still have on patrol?”
Quna didn’t want to give the answer and swallowed her discomfort as she had no choice. “None.”
A growl of irritation left Hakan before a blade appeared between her fingers from seemingly thin air. The sudden sprawl of people jumping over one another to get out of the way of her immediate strike zone was a sight to behold. “What position are the attacks coming from?”
Quna was ready for this one and threw out the response. “High hill past the broken portcullis and wall. I’ve tried directing men to sneak to the other side for a look, but they haven’t reported back. I have to assume they didn’t make it.”
Hakan outright bit the tip of her gilded blade. Annoying. “Gather the men; arm them with bows. We’re going to fill every position on the keep and walls, then erupt and fire upon the position with the lights all at the same time.”
A few worried glances were exchanged between raiders at their newly given orders. Hakan was already rolling her eyes and snapped them to Quna. “What now?”
Again, Quna’s reply was on the ball, “The armory is on the second floor. The path to the armory is open to where we’re being shot from.”
Hakan kicked at a raider who was cowering under a table. “So duck below it, fools!”
Quna didn’t have many more answers ready, so she marched
her way to the stairs. “You all heard The Mistress. Get on with it.”
Left without choice, they moved.
Chapter Forty-Four
Hours before, when the sun was still dipping downwards in the sky, Artorian rolled a body under a large shrub. Sustenance for the plant, when the traitor eventually decomposed. The bearded, old warrior wiped his hands off and mounted the now unowned cart. With a strong *fwap* of the reins, the horses trudged along as if nothing had happened.
Artorian’s replenished quiver rested right behind him, having recovered the still functional arrows before moving on with the journey. It was a pleasant day—a little colder than usual, a couple of actual clouds, and only the barest misty breeze. He knew where he was going, even without looking at a map. When the first hill came into view, he didn’t make the animals pull their way over it. Instead, he veered the cart off to the side a few hundred paces and let the horses go.
They didn’t run off like he’d expected; the unexpected liberty made them trot to a bushy patch of moist grass. He wondered why but wasn’t going to force them. Hoisting several sacks, Artorian marched his way up the first hill on foot. He hummed an old tune under his breath and stuck close to the brambled woods without directly entering. Once atop the first hill, he had a decently good view of the second one. Placing his hand above his eyes to block some sun, he spotted a single raider keeping watch.
“That’s it?” He was nearly certain there would have been at least three. The force sent out had been sizable, but leaving only one lookout was just bad strategy. “Well, can’t say it isn’t helpful.”
The supply sacks gently hit the grassy ground with glassy clinks. Pulling one open to get the weaponry out, he nicked two arrows from a stored quiver and re-strung the recurve bow. He tested the string, getting an instrumental tone in return. “Right, then. War, part one.”
Cycling Essence to his eyes to see the waving air current, his vision shifted to a moving artwork of ebbs and flows. The wavy lines crashed into still space and nudged it into moving. Just beautiful. The string was pulled taut, and Artorian waited for a nice calm patch as he lined up the shot. It was far too slow for any sort of military fire routine, but upon finding a nice pathway of calm for his arrow… he arced and released the arrow with a *twang*!
Ulno never knew what hit him. The arrow descended through his skull and part way down his neck, and the raider dropped like a potato sack. Obviously, an alarm was never raised. Starting to hum the old tune once more, Artorian undid his string and stowed his weapon, leisurely strolling up to the second hill to hide the body under the bushy edge of the forest.
A free snack for the wildlife. Now came the crux of the matter. He could not descend the second hill, or he’d be spotted even with the fading light. So, here was the gamble. Left, or right? Artorian rubbed his chin and thought about it. Did that really need to be a gamble? He cycled the Essence combination for infrared to his eyes and looked to the right, where he’d dumped the raider.
“Oh, busy, busy.” The heat signatures of several large animals moved about. If he had to guess, a small pack of jaguar? Odd for them to be so close to the border of the forest. The group moved away and vanished deeper into the thicket, so that was a definite plus. The proximity to the edge likely also meant that entire wing was their territory.
In other words—not the best option. Artorian turned around and had a good look to his left—a significant lack of animals but a whole host of considerably smaller and bothersome ones. He couldn’t identify the roving packs of little things, but the creature maybe forty to fifty paces from him was definitely a skunk. His nose clenched at the thought.
So, claws to the right, horrible smells and nuisances to the left. No real choice there; left it was. Undoing the Essence-sight, he rubbed his eyes as they normalized. It was getting too dark to see anything, so he was going to have to choose an Essence view to find a place that could qualify as camp. He had a lot of set-up to do and very little time to do it. He might not be heading into the section of the forest with large cats, but worse things certainly roamed.
As an example, abyss-blasted snakes. He knew they were around; that poison the raiders used had to come from somewhere. Infrared might not pick up cold animals. Ultraviolet wasn’t going to do him any good, and it gave him a brutal headache. The realm past ultraviolet was a big no-no. Watching skeletons roam was not his idea of a good time. Light-sight was going to put anything solid in the dark, but if something was dangerous and not moving… he was just going to suffer by walking into it.
Air wasn’t going to help him at all. Wait… why was he overcomplicating this? Artorian cycled refined Essence to his eyes and saw his surroundings jump into clarity. “Yes, that will do nicely.”
It wasn’t as good as daylight, but by the heavens did it get the job done! With a heavy step, he pushed his way through the thorny brush and nestled himself in the Phantomdusk Forest. Another unit of cycled Essence was immediately added as the light level dropped from the dense foliage. An inconvenience but still notable that the difference was so clear. During the middle of the day, it would still look like late evening here. Perhaps that was where the name ‘Phantomdusk’ came from originally?
The ground *clicked* rather than *crunched* below his wooden sandals. That wasn’t something he’d been expecting, so he glanced down. All he saw were tree roots in the majority of the space grass didn’t cover. The tree density was only awful right at the edge and eased off into broad passages. Another odd thing was that certain branches had a bit of an… internal glow to them? How peculiar.
He deemed it best to avoid stepping on those shining roots, as it was a very thin string of Essence that wriggled along the root. It reminded him of a trap string that would spring if disturbed. So was the forest a cultivator, or did it have cultivators in it? Either way, that explained a few things. Seventy more paces and he was climbing the hill that curved around where he knew the castle was.
Torches lining the stone wall were few, but they painted blazing targets on a smattering of raiders. Once on top of the hill, he had a majestic view of the forest. Forest that spanned a far greater distance than he had imagined it did. “Oh. Well, right then.”
He put the weight down and really took in the view. Stars were visible through an opening in the canopy. While it was a little chilly, it certainly wasn’t uncomfortable. Under the foliage, there was only the barest hint of wind. He had the passing suspicion that these trees weren’t fond of air currents but didn’t know why.
The old man swapped out enhanced sight for infrared and had a check up on the situation. Nothing with a significant heat signature in the close vicinity, save for the castle denizens. He noticed the foliage didn’t in the slightest block his Essence sight. How odd… beneficial but odd.
He decided then and there that this was where he was going to set up temporary camp. After an hour of unpacking, he’d nested some pillows near a tree and neatly arrayed supplies in the order he thought he might need them. Quivers had been planted on a firing line that he was going to stand behind so he could snatch and shoot when necessary. The twin moons hung clear and visible in the sky.
“A good evenin’ for a hunt,” Artorian assured himself, uncorking a glass vial of honey and letting it run over some hardened bread. A few crunchy bites later, the old man licked his fingers clean. Honey was sticky, but heavens did he have a weakness for sweet things. He tossed the vial at his camp. He’d clean it up later.
A few brisk steps brought him to the planned firing position. A flat cliff followed by a slant in the hill offered a nice big hole in the foliage ahead. The old man did his basic stretches before getting started. He picked up his bow and kicked off the fear tactics by cycling an overabundance of infrared Essence to his eyes. He skewed the identity of the energy, intending it to invoke the more visual side effect components.
Blazing crimson eyes blossomed on his face. While he couldn’t see the effect without a mirror, he was certain that any observers peering
his way certainly would!
*Fhwizz*. The first arrow flew.
A raider on the wall found himself gurgling. He dropped to his knees as a brand new neck ornament protruded all the way through his throat and a major artery. Blood gushed freely, and gravity did its work as the man fell.
*Fhwizz*. *Fhwizz*. *Fhwizz*. Several more deadly, sharp whistles struck.
Bodies dropped, and the panic began.
Artorian fostered patience. When only the occasional head peeked around the wall to catch a glimpse of where he was, the heat signature gave it away long before they’d fully craned their face around. A taut pull of the bowstring and a clockwork *fwhok* later, there was one less raider.
“Twenty-two,” he counted, adding to his tally for every heat signature that dropped away. It had been a surprisingly leisurely hunt. He doubted it would stay that way; so, with a full forty-arrow quiver expended, Artorian called it a night.
His eyes hurt, and this had been a very successful round of terror spreading. Packing up his other quivers, he brought them back to the makeshift camp and found something peculiar. A small, fluffy, little creature was using the tiniest tongue he had ever seen to lick at the inside of his discarded honey vial. “How endearing. Fond of sugar, little one?”
The small, fluffy thing darted for cover but didn’t go particularly far. It crawled up a tree and settled on a branch above. Artorian released a tiny chuckle and rested on his pillows at the base of the same tree. Pulling a sizable gray blanket from one of the sacks, he threw it over himself and called it a night. He was tired and made the gamble that no raiders were going to be sent into the forest to come check on the threat.
Wild animals? Different story, but he had no true recourse here. His refined sight saw the tiny creature glide down and *plop* back to the vial, which it took in tiny paws, trying to lick more honey from the inside. It was precious! Artorian had never kept any pets, but the drive to care for things called to him strongly. Since the small critter wasn’t deterred, he sunk his hand through his supplies sack and pulled out a full vial of honey.
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