Margit! Julianne had to concentrate to block her embarrassment leaking through the mental link. If Margit saw that, she’d never let the matter drop. We were training. To fight!
Is that what the kids call it now? Margit’s tone was sweet enough to make sugared sweets taste like lemons.
Goodnight, Margit. Julianne promptly dropped her connection to the older mystic. You too, Bastian. I’ll see you in the morning. She let him fall away too, leaving her link to Amelia until last.
Jules… how much of a threat are we facing, really? With knowing where Arryn is heading, and now you, too… I feel more and more claustrophobic every day being stuck here and unable to help. The deeply-etched worry of a leader facing an endless battle colored Amelia’s thoughts.
Julianne’s heart ached, knowing that if she dropped her shields just a little, the same fears for her people would be mirrored back to the Arcadian Governor. I wish I knew, Amelia.
Chapter Four
Bette shifted her feet, altering her stance a little. She crouched low, clenching her muscles.
Garrett watched appreciatively. It’d take a Bitch-damned battering ram to shift the lass now, he mused. And even then, me money’d be on her.
The rapid, nervous breath of a nearby soldier reminded him why Bette was bracing herself, and he quickly dropped low and hefted his axe. A quick glance around showed him the team was ready.
The six Tahn guardsmen flanked Bette, weapons ready, beads of sweat pearling on their upper lips and foreheads as they faced the impossible.
Twelve feet away, a bolt of frozen lightning hung in the air. Not a white flash, but a crooked black cut in reality, a thin sliver of space that led to another world.
The dark crack sucked light in, absorbing it into a deep chasm that was paper-thin, yet deep as an ocean. As Garrett watched, the edges warped and billowed, wavering like smoke.
“Aye, beastie. Come out, come out, wherever ye be.” He grinned at Bette’s scowl. She hated it when he made light of the situation.
“I told ye not ta do that,” she snapped.
“Ye told me I wasn’t allowed ta tell it ta ‘push, woman, push!’. Ye said nothing about callin’ the wee beasts out.”
Reality shuddered. With a twist and a pop, someone fell out of the crack in the air. No, not someone. Something.
“What the fuck is this?” Garrett’s face creased in bewilderment. “He’s not one of our wee beasties. He’s a… What is he?”
The beast was bigger than the ones that had come through before, and seemingly more alert. It stood on four roach-like legs, and though its long snout hung limp, its beady eyes protruded from fat humps in the scaly face.
Those eyes darted around, quickly shifting back and forth as it rocked back onto its hind legs. Forelegs rose up to paw the air, stretching over the creature’s total height of just over a foot.
“He’s a fuckin’ monster, like the rest of them.” Carey spat on the ground. “Sharne’ll have my balls for this. She always said there was more beyond that crack.”
“Crack? More like a giant vagina, spittin’ out baby monsters from hell.” Mack relaxed his grip on the long spear. “And Sharne’s wrath will be worth it, just to see the look on Danil’s face when we tell him he missed this.”
Carey shifted warily. “It’s not acting like it wants to bite our faces off. You think he’s friendly, like the others?”
“Boy, they’re about as friendly as slugs. And pests, too.” Sherp shook his head. “You should see what they did to my books.”
“Porn ain’t books.” Garrett said it deadpan, refusing to display the glint in his eye. “And it’s better off gone. Maybe ye’ll find yerself a real lass, now?”
“Shut your face, they were quality girls, you sperm-swilling—what the fuck?” Sherp jerked backwards in fright.
The conversation ceased as the creature from the rift scuttled up a tree. It eyed the men the whole time, pudgy neck forming rolls as it twisted to watch them as it ran.
Garrett jumped as a screech rang out from the bushes behind him. “ATTACK!” he bellowed. “REMNANT!”
Remnant were indeed attacking, but not them. Three of the fetid beasts burst out of the dense foliage and swarmed up the tree the creature had climbed, jumping to catch branches and scraping toes on the rough bark as they climbed.
“Get the bastards!” Bette yelled and launched herself forwards. She stabbed her sword through the calf of a disappearing remnant, pinning it to the tree, howling.
Bette thumped the sword to hold it firm, then drew a dagger. “To the trees, ye gutter-licking pricks! Garrett?”
She dropped her stance to prepare to run, and Garrett’s eyes widened. He spun, dropped to a knee and crouched just in time for her to leap onto his back. He shoved upwards, flinging her towards a sturdy branch.
“And how the fuck am I supposed to get up there?” he called as she hoisted herself up and ran towards the center of the tree.
“Climb, ye lazy turd.” She darted around a thick trunk, dancing from branch to branch, making her way towards the two remnant some distance away.
Garrett looked around in desperation. His comrades were already scaling fat trunks and swinging from limbs. “Never thought I’d say this but… I’m too fucking short!”
All the routes leading up were out of his reach, and his strong legs were designed for kicking, not jumping.
Rather than dwell on his inadequacy, he bolted through the undergrowth, one eye towards the battle waging above.
The remnant had cornered the portal beast, which clung to the wobbling tip of a thin branch. It had nowhere to go but down—a drop far enough to make even Garrett’s sturdy stomach do a backflip.
One of the remnant slid a foot out, grinning when the branch held.
“Leave the wee bastard alone, ye moldy scab-knuckles!” Garrett yelled. He stepped back a little, allowing him a better view.
He reached one hand behind his back as he spoke, eye locked on the scene above. With a smooth movement, a small throwing axe dropped into his grasp.
“You’re dumb as rocks!” the remnant shrieked. “Kill the destroyers!” It hurled itself forward as Garrett flicked his arm up, hurling the sharp-bladed weapon into the trees.
The axe struck home, lodging in the remnant’s arm, the momentum throwing it off the branch. A sickening moment later, the remnant landed with a muffled crunch.
“Bette!” Garrett yelled. “Get yer ass over—”
He hadn’t noticed her sneaking up on the second remnant, hidden behind the trunk of a tree. She jumped, tackling her opponent and knocking it off balance. Her legs wrapped around it as they tumbled, rolling off the precarious platform.
Garrett’s heart stopped, lurching again when Bette slammed her own throwing axe into the branch. She dangled, and the remnant dangled with her, gnashing and snarling as it tried to pull itself up her leg.
She kicked and twisted, and the remnant fell, its life ending as abruptly as its loud shriek.
Bette hoisted herself back up to the branch, and Garrett’s chest finally billowed with a deep breath. She grinned down at him.
“What? Ye didn’t think I’d fall, did ye?”
Garrett just shook his head. Then, he frowned, squinting. “What’s that on yer face?” he asked. A dark splotch had appeared and now slid down her face, leaving a long streak.
Bette touched it and pulled her hand away, face drawing tight in concern. She looked up.
Garrett followed her glance, just in time to see the remnant that had been left pinned to the tree as it fell with outstretched arms from a branch high above Bette and the portal beast.
Like a graceful bird, the remnant slipped silently through the leaves and branches. Garrett couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
The absurdity of it had taken his senses, left him unable to react as the remnant ploughed past the portal beast, latching onto one of its legs and pulling it down in a suicidal dive.
They met the ground together, the thick sou
nd of two bodies slamming onto hard dirt and soft leaves vibrating through Garrett like a painful heartbeat.
Silence fell, cut by a furious shriek from above.
“Fuck!” Bette hurled her axe in anger, slamming it down to cut a path through the leaves and losing it in a branch below. “Fuck.”
Her second curse was subdued.
Garrett’s brow furrowed, unsure why the death of a strange beast from a stranger land cut so deeply. Hell, they might have had to kill it themselves, eventually.
He pushed through a cluster of vines and approached the splattered mess. Blood streaked his sleeve as he pushed through a bush and more squelched beneath his boots as he approached.
The remnant and the portal beast had combined, broken bodies intermingled, bones and flesh and carapace pulverized by the force of the fall.
“That smells like a moldy goat carcass covered in week-old shit,” Garrett muttered, covering his face with the front of his shirt.
He swallowed, glad his shift had started too early to eat before.
“I think I just lost all desire for lunch.” Mack stepped forwards, peeked at the carnage, then looked away. His green face faded to a grey pallor.
“What, ye don’t wanna snack on that?” Garrett asked with an evil grin. “Here. I’ll scoop some up, and ye can take it home for dinner. It’ll have time to ferment a bit by then.”
He let out a deep belly laugh as Mack pressed his lips together, swayed, then ran off into the forest. The sound of his retching almost made Garrett do the same, but it was worth the discomfort.
“Yer a wee bit soft in the guts, lad!” Garrett called after him. “Need ta toughen up if ye want ta be in the business of killin’ things!”
“Yer a right donkey’s ass,” Bette opined as she stomped towards him. “Don’t think I didn’t hear ye.”
“Aye, well. We need a bit of fun now and then.” Garrett looked down, feigning a chastened expression.
Bette rolled her eyes. “Ye don’t fool me, ye salty old goat’s testicle.”
“What exactly do ye think it was?” Garrett asked, sobering as he saw a broken, spiked leg poking out from the fleshy mess.
Bette shrugged. “The wee thing didn’t seem to want to cause any harm, though he was a bit more awake than the wee-er ones we’ve seen so far.”
“It didn’t have a chance, did it?” Bile swirled in Garrett’s stomach again as a fresh breeze pushed the stench of shit and coppery blood towards his nostrils.
“Aye. But… I dunno, it looked more scared than homicidal, ye know?”
She prodded a lumpy gibbett of flesh with the toe of her boot, much to Garrett’s roiling disgust. When she squatted down to poke it with her knife, he gave up.
“Bitch,” he mumbled in a strangled voice as he turned and vomited bile into a nearby bush.
“Who’s soft in the guts now?” she asked with an evil cackle.
Chapter Five
“Drop it, now! No, you mouth-breathing moron! DROP!” Jessop gestured with his hands and finally, the men manning the makeshift winch lowered the enormous post into the hole.
Bastian sighed in relief. The old man directing the event stomped over to him, shaking his head.
“Bunch of soft-skirted idiots. You’d think they’d never even built a barn before.” Jessop sucked his teeth and rubbed a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead.
“To be fair, this is a little more involved than a regular barn,” Bastian said. He flinched as the distant sound of fighting drifted past the pause in work.
Jessop frowned. “Looks like those damned remnant are at it again.” He spat on the ground. “Can’t say that I’d have the potatoes to be building a new home so close by that rip in the world.” He grabbed his crotch to make sure Bastian understood.
The mystic gave a quick, nervous grin. “Bette won’t let them past.”
Jessop nodded. “Still. There’s only two of those rearick and a handful of fighters with them. Wouldn’t take much for some hell-spawned demon to slip through that hole and come for us.”
Bastian swallowed, hard. “The bugs? They’re tiny. They haven’t hurt anyone yet.”
Jessop laughed. “Nothing does, until it does. Next thing you know, you’re short one leg and two pints of blood, and your team is strung up by their eggs by the enemy.”
“Jessop, how many euphemisms for balls do you actually know?” Bastian asked, the question pressing harder than his worry. “Because I’ve counted four today, not including the time you called Mack a pile of wet vaginas.”
Jessop frowned, then raised both hands. He quickly ticked off all ten fingers on both, then again. Midway through the third round, he paused. “Uhh… I’ve lost count.”
Bastain laughed. “I thought so. Now, where’s that schematic for the hall?” He looked around, then let out a yelp and a curse.
“Oi!” Jessop yelled, seeing the small red creature on Bastian’s makeshift workbench. “Get off, you rock-brained little sack of beans.” He paused as Bastian raced over to pull a soggy drawing from the creature’s mouth. “Hey, that was number twenty-seven!”
Bastian grabbed the little beast, then promptly dropped it and shook his singed fingers. Still, he managed to free the paper—or, what was left of it.
Bastian growled and held up the mangled schematic. “Bitch-damnit!” He scowled at the tightly-coiled ball on the table. He slipped his hand inside his sleeve to protect his fingers. He hefted the creature in one hand, raised it over his shoulder…. then sighed and gently lowered it to the ground.
“Should have thrown the nasty little vermin,” Jessop said, shaking his head. He sucked a whistle through his teeth again. “I keep saying, they’re trouble.”
“I know, I know,” Bastian grumbled as he set the little creature on the dirt and nudged it with his toe.
It didn’t move. Sighing irritably, he tore a strip off the paper he’d rescued—it was ruined anyway—and dangled it in front of the red ball.
It twitched. Then, it slowly unfurled to reveal beady little eyes and a long, trembling snout. Just before that snout shot forwards, Bastian snatched the paper out of its reach.
“Pig,” he said. “Going by that heat you’re putting out, you’ve clearly been eating all day.”
The creature ambled forwards. Bastian moved, too. He painstakingly led it off towards a bush that had been damaged by the construction work. Those dead leaves should keep the little beast busy for a while, he thought to himself.
“As many phrases as I’ve got for a set of brass eggs, I’ve got none for a man as soft as you,” Jessop said with a chuckle.
Bastian spared him a withering look. “We don’t know what they are. Maybe they’re lost, or somehow important.”
“Your doorknockers are important, too. What if one of those critters sneaks into your bed and chews one off? You just can’t trust a beast that looks like it belongs down a man’s pants.” Jessop nodded once to punctuate his words, then walked over to the workbench. “Should be another one of those plans in here somewhere.”
Bastian let Jessop rummage through the papers, rubbing his head as he squinted into the morning glare.
“You look miserable, Mystic!” Tomas asked as he wandered past, a bucket of wet plaster balancing on a stick on his shoulder. “Tansy finally leave you for Mack?”
“He couldn’t hold onto her for a night, let alone a relationship,” Bastian scoffed.
“Ha!” Tansy’s voice was bright and clear over the lower grumbles of conversation throughout the worksite. “He couldn’t catch me in the first place, let alone hold on.”
Tomas laughed and sauntered off, but Bastian’s mind was already skipping across the long, long list of things he had to do.
He took a moment to re-center himself. His eyes glowed softly as he sank into a deep meditation, years of practice making the transition as easy as breathing.
Around him, sounds flitted past, ethereal and disconnected, yet part of a bigger symphony. The hum of voices ebbed and flo
wed, rustling leaves drowning out any silence in between gaps in conversation.
The faint scent of lavender tickled his nose, a heady aroma beneath the grounding smell of freshly turned dirt and the spice of newly-cut timber.
Bastian?
Amelia’s thought floated into Bastian’s mind, not interrupting his peace but gently bringing his mind back to the present.
Governor? What may I do for you? he replied.
I just wanted to give you a heads up. There’s a trade wagon headed to Tahn, and with it will be two Arcadian-trained physical mages who are interested in seeing your school, or your plans for it, at least. The governor’s tone was bland, but Bastian’s heart raced.
Why so soon? He queried. I’m far from ready.
Word travels fast, she said with a hint of mirth in her thoughts. And once these little trinkets start being handed out, it will go faster. Both of your guests are considering sending children there, if you impress them, and one is also interested in a teaching job.
A barrage of images and thoughts flooded Bastian’s mind. The two Arcadian women were both well-dressed. Tamara, a dark-haired woman with a stern, scowling face, had teaching credentials from Arcadia as well as experience running a small estate outside of the city.
Angelica was a plump, smiling woman with tightly curled blonde hair. A widow, she had arrived after three years in her husband’s manor to the south.
Bastian felt, rather than saw the woman’s doting attention on her two boys and didn’t miss Amelia’s slightly irritated reaction to her babying of them.
Importantly, neither woman had been a supporter of Adrien. Though they hadn’t fought for the rebellion, either, both expressed goodwill towards the new policies Amelia had implemented.
Catching his relief at that, Amelia sent a mental chuckle. You didn’t think I’d let some stuck up noble come and teach for you, did you?
Well, it would be a handy way to get them out of the city, Bastian admitted. Then, with an evil grin, he added, And you know people have a tendency to go missing in the Madlands, right?
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