Webs & Wards (Beesong Chronicles Book 2)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “This is our target, Bearton. It’s a town bordering several areas that are primarily good for level five to ten adventurers, and most of the locals don’t exceed level ten,” Damaris explained, and grimaced as she added, “The exception is the head of the local adventurer’s guild, Abigail the Red. She’s a level twenty-four Pyromancer, and we’ve been asked to capture her if at all possible, to give her the chance to turn. The rest of the town should be easy to deal with, as long as we avoid the Teeming Jungle to the south of the Bearwood.”

  “I’m guessing there’s a lot of bears in the area, based on the names,” Leah said, the half-elf looking a bit dour.

  “Yes, but again, they aren’t too dangerous,” Damaris said, smiling in return, then looked around the table. “Now, as to our goal. We’re here to search the guild’s records and find the location of the hidden sealing stones from Tarngard. It’s not going to be an easy job, likely as not, which is why we were sent. Leah, Thomas, you two are going to be in charge of setting up a perimeter around Bearton when we get there, along with security after we take it. I don’t want anyone getting out with word that we showed up, if at all possible. Thomas will have command, just to be clear.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Thomas said, the blond man bowing his head graciously while Leah nodded.

  “Now, once we have the town, Ovlin will be in charge of recruiting. If we’re here, we may as well give it a try, as Our Lord does love recruiting those with good potential,” Damaris said, resisting the urge to smile at Ovlin’s look of disgust, since she knew why the woman disliked the job. Her company had a slightly larger number of beautiful women among them, which gave them an edge in recruiting, even if Ovlin didn’t like it. “Egan and I are going to focus on getting the information we need, and his company will be the primary pathfinders when we figure out where the sealing stone is. Shala is good at cryptography, so she should be able to break any code they have, given some time.”

  “Sounds good to me, and it explains why they chose us. My lads and lasses are solid scouts, that’s for sure,” Egan said, tugging on his beard thoughtfully. “May I ask what this sealing stone is for?”

  “Of course. Supposedly it’s one of the keys to release a monster unleashed by the Orthid Empire, ages ago, though which one I’m not sure,” Damaris said, shrugging slightly. “I don’t know where the creature was sealed, but I know this is the only remaining key Our Lord hasn’t located. The other… well, that’s why we have an army. Once we have this seal, he’s intending to march on the last one. If he releases it, then the Kingdoms of Light will be in serious trouble.”

  “And then he’ll likely rise as a Dark Lord,” Leah murmured, smiling slowly. “So we’re the instrument of his will, in this case.”

  “Precisely. And we will not betray his trust, is that clear?” Damaris said, looking around the table fiercely.

  Their rumble of agreement improved her mood immensely, and after a moment Damaris nodded and spoke. “Now then, we’re still several days away from Bearton, so how do you suggest going about this, Leah, Thomas? Do you want to detach and cut off the road separately, or travel together?”

  “I think traveling together will increase the odds of us being spotted,” Thomas said, his voice calm as he tapped a spot on the map. “If we split up around here, a little over a day out from the town, I suspect we could get closer without being seen, which…”

  The others quickly began chiming in with their own advice, and Damaris nodded in satisfaction.

  Chapter 8

  Cora resisted the urge to laugh as she watched Joy prancing along the low cobblestone wall a farmer had built along the edge of the road, singing under her breath, just loud enough for everyone else to hear her.

  I’m a bee, I’m a bee, but not a bum-ble-bee.

  I’m a bee, I’m a bee, and I’m a trav-el-ing!

  We’re on the road and there’s so much to see,

  The world’s so huge and it makes me so hap-pee!

  I’m a bee, I’m a bee, but not a bum-ble-bee.

  The song was incredibly silly, and Joy wasn’t the best singer, with her voice wavering on some of the longer lines, but it was incredibly upbeat, just like the apis was. If there’d been more people within earshot, Cora might have been a little embarrassed by Joy’s singing, but she wouldn’t have stopped Joy either way.

  They weren’t near anyone else, though, as the farmer was on the far side of his field, and the area was sparsely populated. There were several sturdy farmhouses in line of sight, but the farmers themselves were busy, and they were well away from Seldrim by this point. Grasslands stretched out in front of them, creating a long tapestry of green and gold. It wasn’t the sort of terrain that Cora preferred, but it showed they were going in the right direction.

  “Joy?” Brianna finally interrupted, her tone questioning.

  “Yes, Bri?” Joy asked, hopping off the wall, her wings fluttering to make it an unusually high jump before the apis landed softly on the road, barely raising any dust when she did.

  “Why do you sing that you’re a bee, when you’re an apis now?” Brianna asked, looking at the apis curiously. “I didn’t think anything of it when you were in the flower, back when we first heard you, but it’s been about a week, now.”

  “Oh, that’s easy!” Joy said, grinning as she spun around, her arms outstretched. “I may be apis, but that doesn’t rhyme as well! I’m not good at coming up with words for a song to begin with, so I’m trying to use a tune I already figured out.”

  “Maybe you should have been a bard. That might have helped you come up with better words,” Stella suggested, a bubble of amusement in her voice.

  Unfortunately for Cora, she couldn’t quite keep herself from laughing at that and shook her head as she spoke up. “I don’t know about that. Have you heard some of the lyrics that bards have thought were a good idea?”

  Stella paused, thinking for a moment, then conceded. “A definite point.”

  “Where are we going, again? You called it, um, Irador, right? The same place that we’re taking Isolde’s message?” Joy asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she thought.

  “That’s right. Irador is the biggest city in the region, and while we normally wouldn’t be going there quite yet, this isn’t too early, either,” Brianna said, pausing for a few seconds before she continued. “The nice thing is, it also gives us a chance to get the titansteel ore you gathered melted down into ingots, then we can have it made into something useful. No one in Seldrim would be able to process it, let alone forge anything out of it.”

  “Oh, good! So, what’s Irador like?” Joy asked eagerly, continuing along the road. “Is it like Seldrim? Or the Ragged Keep?”

  “I’d say it’s closer to being like the town, though the city has some similarities…” Stella began, then her voice trailed off as she considered for a moment, looking at Cora curiously as she added, “You know, I don’t think that we’ve ever told Joy about the country we’re in, let alone anything else. Given everything else we’ve explained, it might be a good idea to give her some of the background on the region.”

  Cora opened her mouth, then shut it again, feeling a little annoyed with herself. Of course Joy wouldn’t have any idea about the rest of the world, when her entire short life had been inside the Flower Forest. She’d been so excited by leaving town and seeing regular plants that Cora really should have known better, but it simply hadn’t occurred to her before.

  “You’re right,” Cora said, smiling wryly as she shook her head. “I didn’t think about it, so never even considered explaining it. I’m sorry, Joy.”

  “Don’t be! I mean, do you know much about how a hive works?” Joy asked, obviously rhetorically, as she continued immediately. “I don’t expect to know everything; that’s why I ask about it!”

  “Fair,” Cora said, marshalling her thoughts as she pulled out a waterskin to take a drink, which gave her a few moments to figure out where to start. Then she continued. “So, we’re in a kingdom that
’s predominantly ruled by humans, named Astonia. To make that a little clearer, it’s ruled by a king or queen, a bit like your hive might be, but there are groups of… think of them as subsidiary hives beneath them. Irador is the capital of the Duchy of Dorma, where we are. The man who rules it is Duke Dorma, and his family has ruled for about a century and a half.”

  “Ooh…” Joy said in awe, her eyes huge. “That’s amazing, that people can control areas for so long! You said we’re a week from Irador, so does that mean the… the duchy extends that far in every direction?”

  “No, the borders are a bit more irregular than that,” Brianna chimed in calmly, nodding to the east, which was somewhat to their right as she explained. “The border with the Kingdoms of Darkness, or whichever group claims those areas this year, is only a few days east of Irador. I’ve heard that the duke officially claims some of the lands they’ve occupied as his, but they haven’t been ruled by Astonia in over fifty years.”

  “That’s right. The wars between each side cause the border to shift every so often, but for the most part it stays fairly close to where it was, except in the rare cases a kingdom is conquered or defects,” Cora said, thinking sourly about the creation of the dark elves and the loss of the lands they’d taken with them. The worst part about them, in her opinion, was that while some of them could be identified by sight, with more unnatural skin colors, most dark elves were virtually indistinguishable from elves. She shook off her distraction after a moment, though, continuing. “Either way, there are close to fifty kingdoms on our continent, which is a huge landmass in the middle of the sea. There are other continents as well, but for the most part those are the destination of very high-level adventurers, if anyone.”

  “We’re also in one of the kingdoms that’s relatively easy for low-level adventurers to progress in,” Stella added, “Most kingdoms have areas where anyone can level reasonably well, but I believe the most dangerous area of Astonia is appropriate for level forty adventurers.”

  “Interesting!” Joy said, considering for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. “That means the demon guy… Alethus? He was really strong for the kingdom, wasn’t he? Could a group of powerful bad people just… walk in and destroy the kingdom? Like the sealed monsters that they were talking about.”

  “Well… in theory, yes,” Cora admitted, a little troubled by the thought, but she forged through it, trying to explain what everyone knew. “The thing is, both sides are relatively evenly matched on the whole. While a group of high-level soldiers could come and rip through Astonia with ease, they wouldn’t be able to take over the entire kingdom before Astonia’s allies could respond. They just can’t move fast enough to do something like that. On the other hand, if they left the areas they’re currently in, their opponents in that region would take advantage and do the same thing to them as they were doing to Astonia. It just isn’t really worth it for them to try.”

  “I see! Well, hear,” Joy said, nodding vigorously as she tugged on a lock of hair. “That makes sense. It’s sort of like another hive trying to take your territory by moving workers from another spot, and you just take their spots while they’re distracted.”

  “Yes. To answer your earlier question, though, Irador is big, Joy. It has lots of buildings that are much larger than anything in Seldrim, and large stone walls they can use to defend it,” Brianna said, smiling. “It won’t have nearly as many people as you’d prefer, but it’s fairly crowded compared to Seldrim. I even think they have a few greenhouses with unusual flowers that you might be able to go see.”

  “Ooh, flowers? What sort of flowers? And what are greenhouses?” Joy asked eagerly, perking up at the information, prompting a laugh from Cora.

  “All sorts, Joy. There are flowers from areas far away, ones that normally wouldn’t grow around here,” Cora said, shrugging as she admitted, “I personally don’t know a lot about them. A greenhouse, though… think of a house with glass walls. It’s designed to make it warmer, and they can make it more humid inside, to help grow plants year-round.”

  “Oh, that’s amazing!” Joy said excitedly. “I can’t wait to see it!”

  “You’re going to have to wait about a week, Joy,” Stella said, chuckling softly as she did so. “We also have to cross a couple of areas with more monsters, so don’t forget to keep track of your surroundings, hm?”

  “Alright, I can do that!” Joy agreed, and quickly turned to head along the road, obviously eager to get there.

  Cora followed at a more sedate pace, along with the others. Even if Joy seemed to have an inexhaustible source of energy, they didn’t, so they had to pace themselves.

  Thinking about it, Cora asked softly, “Do you think Joy ever gets tired?”

  “I’m not sure,” Brianna replied, glancing at Cora in amusement. “She did say that she could stay up for a day or so without issues. Maybe that’s why they don’t get fat off honey?”

  “I wouldn’t say that she doesn’t get tired, but I don’t think she’d say anything even if she was. Joy’s the type to do everything she can to keep from depressing other people,” Stella said, shrugging idly. “In any case, I’m sure we’ll see, eventually. She has to sleep sometime, after all. We saw it in the caves.”

  “True enough,” Cora admitted, and let out a breath, murmuring, “I’m not letting her die.”

  “Agreed,” Stella said fervently.

  Chapter 9

  Damaris let out a breath, stretching as she stepped out of the guild house. When her back popped she let out a soft grunt, but it felt good, so she relaxed after a few moments, looking around Bearton with a smile. Only a faint tickle of smoke teased her nose, which showed that they’d taken the town with a minimum of destruction. That was good, since it meant that it was less likely for anyone to notice that they’d taken the town.

  Not impossible, though, and Damaris’s smile faded as she recalled the message she’d gotten from Thomas, reporting that a single elven archer had managed to slip by them. They’d hit her with a poisoned arrow, but had lost the woman’s trail before long. The chances of a low-level adventurer surviving a poisoned arrow weren’t good, but they weren’t impossible… and that concerned Damaris a great deal. She’d rest easier if the woman revived in the temple, but that hadn’t happened yet.

  “Ah, well. Spilt milk, and all that,” Damaris said, looking around a town that was oddly deserted, considering it was the middle of the day, aside from her soldiers, of course.

  Bearton wasn’t huge to begin with, and its wall was the only impressive thing about it, in her opinion. The wall was stone and about eight feet tall, plus it was kept in good repair. Unfortunately for the locals, it hadn’t done much good when it’d only been patrolled by a handful of guards who’d been wishing they were back in their beds rather than keeping an eye out for enemies.

  There were only six hundred inhabitants of the town, all told, and a lot of its economy seemed to be based around the adventurers who got their start in the region, between plots of herbs for brewing weak healing potions, basic materials for crafting their gear, and the minor shops that dotted the small town square, along with a reasonably sized adventurer’s guild and a decent temple.

  The only people that had put up much of a fight had been the Guildmaster and several of her subordinates, but they’d been outmatched by Damaris, Egan, Ovlin, and Velk. Any one of them had been higher-level than most of the defenders, with better gear, so the group of them together had taken down the Pyromancer before she’d managed to more than singe a couple of them. The Guildmaster was currently cooling her heels in the guild prison, something Damaris found bitterly ironic, considering it was normally reserved for adventurers who started attacking locals.

  “Lady Damaris? We’ve searched the last of the buildings, and are fairly sure all the adventurers are in custody. We’ve also confiscated most of the weapons in town,” Velk said, almost surprising Damaris as she looked away from the silly statue in the center of the town square, an eight-f
oot-tall bronze bear, both paws raised as though it was going to maul someone.

  “Excellent. I was wondering if it would take most of the day, but you got it done quite efficiently, Velk,” Damaris said, smiling and nodding to him in approval. “Did the locals give you any trouble?”

  “A few of the younger ones dragged their heels, but the older folks told them off, saying that this wouldn’t be the first time the town changed sides,” Velk said, and grinned toothily as he added, “I think they expect that we’re here to occupy the town permanently, not just on a raid.”

  “Hm, not a bad assumption, honestly. A lot of these little towns have had that happen. I mean, think about the midlands,” Damaris said, nodding to the south before she added, “The cities there have switched sides so many times over the years that everyone rules them with a light hand. It isn’t worth destroying cities that might be your breadbasket for a few decades a couple of years down the road.”

  “I suppose so,” Velk admitted after a moment of thought, shrugging and looking at her curiously. “How long do you think we’ll be here? I didn’t get a chance to see the records room.”

  At that Damaris’s smile faded and she grimaced, shaking her head in annoyance.

  “Unless we can get their record-keeper to talk, Shala says it isn’t going to be easy. Probably a week, maybe two, which will be cutting things close,” Damaris admitted unhappily. “They have a lot of records, and it’s going to take time to wade through it and find what we’re looking for. If we’re lucky we’ll stumble across it early on, but they don’t have an index that we could find.”

  “Alright, then. If you don’t mind, I’ll deliberately try to give the locals the impression we’re here to stay,” Velk said, rubbing his chin as he looked around, then admitted, “It isn’t a bad town, I have to say. A little smaller than I’d like, and not enough challenges in the area for people like us, but that’s the case of a lot of these sorts of places.”