Beastborne

by James T Callum

  “They love her,” Elaise said. “But they know not what a gift has been bestowed upon them.”

  Aleya nodded, resting her hands on her hips and shaking out her braided blonde hair. “And no doubt, just as our people once did before the Drowning, they would erect monumental temples to her honor. But from what you have told me, she does not wish this. Even grows uncomfortable when people begin to lavish too much attention on her.”

  “Yes, Warleader. She seems… aware of the path that will take and makes attempts to forestall such eventualities. No matter how inevitable they may be.”

  “Should she approach you and ask, you will afford her all the respect that she is due, yes?”

  The question was practically a slap in the face. But Elaise did well to hide her indignation. This too, was a test. Like much with the Warleader, this was a means to gauge her response. To see if she had regressed to a state of savagery where her emotions ran wild.

  She could not begrudge the Warleader her concern.

  With a slight bow, she said, “I will, Warleader. All my knowledge would be open to her velvety paws if she but asked. Until then, I will maintain my vigil. I will watch and learn and aid where I might but….”

  “What is it, Elaise?”

  The use of her name snapped her gaze up to meet Aleya’s. She quickly colored and looked away to hide it. “I… do not believe they will survive the coming assault. They know not what they have stirred.”

  A deep rich chuckle filled the glade. “Do you wish to be reassigned?” Aleya taunted, knowing full well that Elaise’s bravery was not in question. “Would you rather see them fall from afar instead of all around you?”

  Elaise stood tall and straight as if her spine was made of starmetal. “Never! I would stand beside them to the last if that was your command, Warleader. I would die alongside the heathens if that was your decree. But I thought… perhaps-”

  “Perhaps we should guide the pobul known as Komachi to safer environs before the devastation?” Aleya said, thinking she had finished Elaise’s thought.

  “No.”

  That simple word, spoken so rarely to the Warleader set an oppressive hush over the glade. The Warleader had guessed wrong.

  In a bid to spare the Warleader’s feelings, Elaise added, “Yes, but I would ask something else instead.”

  Aleya watched her, tilting her head to one side waiting.

  “Might we aid them?” Elaise said, her voice hushed. She knew what she was asking was highly irregular. Not just for herself - who had seen countless expeditions destroyed, some by her own hand - but as a request directed at the Warleader, it was bordering on insubordination.

  “You would have the Ebon Star help the fangrah?” Aleya’s voice was curious but Elaise could tell the strain that ran like an undercurrent through her words. She had known all along before coming to this meeting that the Warleader would not expect her request.

  She hadn’t been sure she would even ask. But talk of the pobul brought her back to those hours spent alongside these strange people. They were made of sterner stuff than any other save the various tribes of the Shiverglades.

  And even then… they rivaled some of them. Surely they were better than the Poisonhearts. And so Elaise began to wonder if they couldn’t lend them some aid. More allies against the darkness in the north could never be a bad thing.

  She began to see strength in the people that followed this Hal. Surely the sign of a pobul was enough that their cause was just. That their mettle was not found wanting.

  A pobul would never have approached them if they were not wise, kind, and brave in turn. And this Komachi… she seemed more than a typical pobul. Saw more than all, save perhaps Elaise. She knew the danger arrayed against them, she had to.

  And yet the pobul was sanguine about the whole affair. That meant Komachi either deeply trusted this group to see through to the other side of the conflict… or she trusted that Elaise would secure for her additional aid.

  Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat at the thought of failing that wellspring of trust the pobul placed in her. Elaise would see no harm done to the pobul and even the thought wounded her to her core. She nodded. “I would see them become a Tribe of the Shiverglades on their own merit. But this goes beyond anything we have seen before. You know what they will face. It will destroy them. Without aid, they will die.”

  84

  Aleya sighed. “You ask for much, and give little. I wished only for you to watch and monitor them. Lead them to where they wish to go but no more unless you desired it. I have seen you carrying loads of building supplies for them. Perhaps you are too close to these people.”

  Elaise realized where this was going and clenched her fists to stop her from denying her claims. They were true, after all. “You speak the truth. I have given them succor when I deemed it appropriate. On their own, I feel they would thrive in the Shiverglades. Given time and a gentle guiding hand.”

  “Sending Ebon Star Tribesmen to their aid is hardly that,” Aleya pointed out with a snort of laughter.

  “What rises against them is also our enemy, is it not?” Elaise tried to reason. If she could make the Warleader see it as a common threat, she might be willing to bend on the issue.

  It was their only hope.

  The look in Aleya’s eyes told Elaise that she was on the mark. That the Bravers were arrayed against their mortal enemies, the festering wound upon the Shiverglades, did indeed make the Warleader consider the possibilities.

  What cause would she have to allow them to be destroyed? Even if they were weak, another tribe could take them out instead if they were found wanting. But against the darkness of the Shiverglades? What good would there be in letting that vileness score another win?

  The Bravers had no Standing Stones, no Wardings. They had a tree of suspicious origin and even that was barely a twig. They would fall like so many others to the tide of darkness coming their way.

  “You speak the truth,” Aleya said finally. “To allow the shadesblight to spread one inch more would be a devastating blow to the Shiverglades as a whole. But there are… accords in place. Rules that cannot be broken. No matter how profane the outcome. To offer further aid and succor to these people would be to break the Horgrettr. And that, I will not do.”

  “But they will perish to a man,” Elaise burst out.

  The Warleader gave her an arched brow. “Perhaps you should be pulled back. Lest you suffer their corrupting, savage ways.”

  Elaise knew that the Warleader was giving her an out. All she had to do was take it and this assignment of hers could be over. She could bask in the warmth of the Standing Stones once more.

  These people were not her people. No matter how kind and accepting they had been to her. No matter how much they tried to talk to her, to include her in ways that even her own tribe did not.

  They were fangrah and they always would be until the moment the other tribes recognized them. She had to remember that. And yet it was hard to see them as something apart from her now.

  With a start, she checked her warding runes painted across her body. The Warleader watched her but said nothing. Few were the people that would stop somebody from checking their own runes.

  It was vital to their safety.

  When she was done, Elaise breathed a sigh of relief. Her wards were not breached.

  But that confirmation only made her thoughts more troubled. Because if her wards were not befouled, then that would mean that her feelings were her own.

  And if that was the case… then she truly did care for those people.

  Few things scared her more than that realization. She would sooner walk straight into a nest of shadesblight or a charnel of trolls than freely admit those feelings.

  She should take the easy path offered to her. It would be the smart thing to do. The right thing by herself and her tribe. If she persisted in her role… if she allowed herself to stay, there was no telling how far she might fall.

  But they had o
pened their hearth and home to her. They had broken bread with her and thought nothing of sharing their own food. The horned one even brought food out to her, no matter how many times she denied the offer!

  Defeated, Elaise could not stand against the emotions raging within her. Though she kept them from her face, she could not deny them entry into her heart.

  Without the Ebon Star’s aid, these people she had come to care for were nothing more than corpses.

  “You are resolute?” Elaise asked the Warleader. When Aleya gave her a questioning look, she added, “You will not send aid to this group, no matter the cost to our ancestral homeland?”

  The look Aleya gave her was heavy-hearted. And for the first time since they were both little girls, Aleya dropped her eyes in shame. “I cannot.”

  It was as the scout feared. “Then I will not abandon them.”

  And even though Elaise was the one to say the words, she could not help but be shocked by them all the same. She, more than anyone in the Ebon Star Tribe, hated outsiders.

  “Then go with my blessing,” Aleya said with a soft, comforting smile. “And if you happen to find aid to the east with a few bands of scouts that have been placed there on a long mission and know nothing of these developments or the Tribe’s feelings….” She shrugged.

  Elaise’s grin tugged at her lips as she caught on. “Who among us would not join in battle against the shadesblight wherever they appeared. Surely we could not be blamed for breaking the Horgrettr if a disconnected force of tribesmen engaged with such evil.”

  “As you say,” Aleya confirmed. “I for one, have had no contact with them for over a moon. Perhaps they have gone from the area. Perhaps not. I know not. Come, Elaise. Let us part not as tribesmen, but as sisters.”

  In a rare display of open affection, Aleya opened her arms. Without conscious thought, Elaise ran to her big sister and buried her in a hug. Her station and the weight of leadership weighed heavily on Aleya but Elaise knew their bond would bear the burden.

  “Are you truly sure this is the course you wish to take?” Aleya asked, her face pressed against the top of Elaise’s coppery red hair.

  Without formality, without pretense or the veil of propriety, Elaise knew her words were heart-guarded. Aleya would speak of them to no one.

  “They are good people, sister,” Elaise said. “Kind, caring, and true. I have persisted in trying to prise cracks where there should be and my fingers cannot find purchase. They are not perfect. But their hearts are strong. To see them destroyed by the shadesblight would be a tragedy not unlike the Drowning.”

  “Then do all you can to protect and aid them,” Aleya replied into Elaise’s hair. “Guard them as you would guard your own. There is a change in the air. The Horgrettr will not hold sway for much longer. But we cannot be the ones to break it.”

  “I will see it done,” Elaise said.

  The sisters lingered for a moment longer, a rare respite in both of their duty-filled lives. Sooner than either would like, they broke apart. Without another word Aleya disappeared into a swirl of blue fog.

  Elaise took a deep breath to steady herself. She could scarcely believe what she just got herself into. But she had spoken truly and from the heart, for what good that did.

  Aleya was clearly of the same mind. Whatever it was she saw within Hal and his group, Elaise was beginning to make out the rough sketches of.

  Tied by tradition and the Horgrettr, Aleya could not directly offer them aid. Though now that Elaise saw the task before her, she wished it would be so easy.

  Finding a group of scouts that had been out for a moon already was not going to be easy. If they were not already headed back to the tribal lands. What she needed, was another pair of eyes.

  As if her ancestors heard her plea, there came a rustling in the underbrush the way she had come. Readying herself, she drew out [Angurvadal]. Runes pulsed to life across the flat of the ancient blade.

  But her wariness was unwarranted. Her heart stopped in her mighty breast at the sight before her. A pobul crawled through the underbrush, her nose pressed to the ground. Obviously, she had followed her, but why… and what was she wearing?

  She didn’t look up until she was halfway to Elaise, who hastily put her [Angurvadal] away. Komachi looked up suddenly as if expecting to find more than just Elaise there.

  Had the precocious miracle come a few minutes earlier, she would have seen a clandestine meeting that nobody was supposed to know about. The pobul scented the air, looked around suspiciously, and twitched her whiskers about.

  On her head was a thin gold chain upon which a peculiar red gem was attached. The gem rested on Komachi’s forehead much like the kesiera of old. The sight of it stole her breath away.

  It was a common sight on mages and those of particular power or nobility. To see it again in anything but an ancient painting was as much of a surprise as finding out that Elaise had been followed.

  “Komachi, where did you run off to?” Elora called from deeper in the forest.

  The pobul ambled up to Elaise, the green grass brushing against her furry underbelly. “Komachi!” she squealed with delight, though Elaise knew it was more for Elora than herself.

  Despite that, she couldn’t help but kneel down to receive the pobul. She pet her and lifted her into her arms, mindful not to disturb the kesiera on her brow.

  The pobul smiled up at Elaise, and pet her arm as if to reassure her. “We found you! You’re not lost anymore.”

  Those words washed over Elaise and nearly broke her practiced façade of strength. They made her soul weep. Did the insightful pobul understand the depths of her own insight?

  When Elora came through the brush, wearing a matching kesiera, Elaise couldn’t help but grin at the humor of her ancestors. They had delivered to her that of which she asked. This woman who held the love of a pobul above all others.

  Yes, she would take this one and find the Ebon Star scouts.

  85

  Hal woke up several hours later, by far the longest sleep he had in a long while. When he woke up he found the wagon was already empty except for Noth, fast asleep in her bunk.

  Vorax was nestled underneath Hal’s bunk, but the koblins were nowhere to be seen. With a shrug, Hal got up and was going to make something to eat. To his surprise, somebody had already taken care of that.

  There was a pair of plates covered in a stonework lid with a note attached. Reading it, Hal couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t Ashera, as he expected, but Elora that had arranged the food and the letter.

  In it, she explained that she would be out for the day scouting with Komachi. And that she found a means to keep everybody warm temporarily. Next to the two plates was a small pile of golden chains.

  Before he sat down to eat, Hal decided to pick up the chain and try to put it on as the letter described. Elora had found one of the dwarves using a fire-imbued chunk of [Shardite] to heat his wagon.

  After a few hours of work, Elora was able to get a working prototype for individuals to wear. Using Ashera’s [Fragment of Flame], Elora was able to imbue small chips of [Shardite] with what essentially amounted to a heat enchantment.

  Just enough to keep a person wearing one warm.

  There were a few caveats, however. First, she didn’t know how long the [Shardite] would retain the heat. And secondly, if it got too cold outside they might not work as well.

  They were newly made after all and a lot of testing would need to go into them before they understood their limitations.

  Elora already had a few dwarves hard at work producing them. They came on a fine chain that had to be worn like a circlet with the piece of shardite coming to rest on the brow.

  For some reason, it simply worked better that way and Elora didn’t bother to test it further.

  Hal slipped his on and found it odd to begin with but as soon as the warming enchantment flooded into him, he was beyond such petty concerns. The warmth it provided was beyond anything he ever felt before.

&nb
sp; This wasn’t just Insulation, it was a countering heat that seeped into his bones as if he was standing in the warming rays on a late spring afternoon. Not quite hot, but pleasantly toasty.

  Beneath the stone lid covering one of the plates, Hal found a plate of hot food waiting for him. Crispy bacon, eggs, sausage, and a biscuit. Naturally, he devoured it in short order. The buff it provided wasn’t anything to write home about, but it did increase his MP and SP regeneration rate by 10%.

  Considering he was going to be spending the day working out a method to make bone bricks or something similar to them, he would need all the MP he could get his hands on.

  Seeing Noth bundled up in her bunk, Hal felt he should do something nice for her. So, taking the chain left for Noth, he gingerly set it upon her head and adjusted the heated piece of [Shardite] so it rested on her brow.

  Flipping Elora’s note over, Hal found a fountain pen and wrote a quick note to Noth explaining where he was and for her to join him whenever she got up and around.

  Rested, fed, and warm, Hal promptly left the wagon.

  He took a detour over to the Town Hall, checking on the progress. Since it was only started last night, it hadn’t progressed very far. Unfortunately, he discovered that his Tactician skill didn’t retroactively affect his buildings.

  Which meant he needed to go pay a visit to the walls being built first and foremost to make sure the reduction to CP cost was applied as well as the improvement to the building parameters.

  At Tactician Level 1, it wasn’t much of a reduction. For the Earthen Bulwarks they were making, that amounted to a grand total of 1.5 CP less off their substantial 300 CP cost.

  Of course, they had to build 25 such bulwarks. And even 1.5 CP - small though it was - added up over time. Provided his skill didn’t improve at all from all this planning, Hal would save 37.5 CP worth of work.

  Still small, yes, but noticeable in the grand scheme of things. That was 37.5 more CP that could be dedicated to a home being built.

  And the more he used it, the more it would increase. Unfortunately, Tactician was considered a Crafting Skill. Which meant he couldn’t dump sparks into it to improve it.