BT IV - Chapter 16

“I agree,” Drekt said solemnly, “We should be wary.  A winged magical beast would have left signs of struggle.  Even without your foreknowledge that something is rotten in Pereston, your discovery at the trapper outpost would have put me on edge.”

Micah nodded, feet crunching through the shin-deep snow as they descended the mountain. It had taken most of a day for him to catch up with the main column.  By the time he arrived with Trevor, Ravi and Leeka, the rest of the team was setting up their tents.

The next morning was as cold and miserable as the one before, but at least this time there was a glimmer of hope.  They had camped at the end of the mountain pass, and with each step downward they were moving further and further away from the bitter winds and heavy snow that made their earlier travels awful.

“I talked with Trevor about the situation last night,” Drekt continued. “He suggested a winged beast such as drake that somehow killed all of the outpost’s residents while they were out in the open.  Something with such overwhelming power that they had no chance to fight back and damage the cabins in the scuffle.”

“I guess that would explain it,” Micah replied, breath visible in the brisk morning air, “but it doesn’t feel right.  If there was a battle there, it took place a long time ago.  None of the snow was disturbed, and again, the feeling was just off.  It was almost like they all just woke up one morning and decided to fly over the wall on their own.”

“Does Leeka have any theories?”  The big warrior asked.  “I know snow and mountains aren’t exactly her home, but she was a hunter and tracker once.  I suspect she’s spent more time outdoors dealing with magical beasts than anyone else in this group.”

“No,” Micah answered with a shake of his head.  “She noticed a couple more of the signs that things were amiss than I did, but that doesn’t mean Leeka has any answers.  If anything, she’s more worried that I am.”

Drekt sighed, reaching up to pull his coat a little tighter around his neck.  They walked through the glittering white, the only sounds the rush of the wind and the crunch as their boots broke through the snow’s icy crust.  Finally, Drekt broke the silence once more.

“Have you talked to the Baron about it?  The man is a pompous ass, but he is part of this expedition after all.  More than that, he’s the one in charge of the imperial scouts.  They aren’t nearly as good as Telivern or Ravi, but they outnumber the animals 20 to 1.  There’s a chance that he has some clue as to what’s going on.”

He groaned.  Drekt was right, but Micah had been enjoying the blessed silence since he had intimidated his co-commander.  Ordinarily, the scout captain would have bothered him at least twice between breaking camp and breakfast, a mix of jerky and nuts.  This morning, there had been nothing but clear skies and sparkling snow.  He had almost begun to enjoy himself.

“Fine,” Micah grumbled.  “I’ll talk to him once we’re done.  By the way, how are Eris, Esther and Leeka doing?  I know we’ve been pushing the three of them hard, but they show the most promise by far out of any of the recruits.  I don’t know if we’ll be able to get them up to Luoca level in time, but I’d like them to at least be able to handle a brensen.”

“A brensen?”  Drekt asked with a chuckle.  “You do realize that most blessed spend a life adventuring only to grow old and die without being able to last more than ten seconds against a brensen, right?  Even an onkert is a challenge.  A warrior needs to be above level twenty to reliably defeat the simplest daemon, and for most with a Common blessing, they never make it past level 20.”

“Of course,” Micah replied, “but the three of them are hardly Common blessed.  Even if they were, the strength of your blessing isn’t everything.  If you have a knack for a weapon or martial art, you can make up for most weaknesses, and let’s be honest.  All three of them have more than a knack.  They have talent, drive, good instructors and some of the best gear that attunement can buy.  If I am the A-team, you, Trevor and the animals are the B-team.  The three of them along with a couple of the more promising recruits are the best chance we have for developing a C-team.”

“They’re doing well,” Drekt said, a half smile on his face.  “Eris takes more after Trevor than I’d like, but there’s no denying the girl’s talent.  She doesn’t have a lot of power yet, but she’s almost as fast as I am, and she’s managed to learn the trick behind running on top of the snow.”

“That wasn’t exactly a good thing mind you,” he continued with a chuckle.  “As soon as she realized that she could run fast enough to avoid sinking in, she became a little devil.  Spent half the day running around the column bothering people until Leeka knocked her off her feet with a snowball.  Apparently her archery skills translate to thrown weapons as well.  I swear she damn near took Eris out of her boots with one pitch.”

Micah smiled despite himself.  Despite everything, in the face of both daemons and a potential apocalypse Esther and Eris managed to live their lives.  They trained hard and fought when needed, but in between their moments of conflict both of the girls managed to find moments of joy and happiness in simple games.

Really, they were the opposite of him.  He shuddered at the memories of some of his more melodramatic actions.  If anything, he was prone to taking things a little too seriously.

“Of course,” Drekt remarked, tossing a glance back to where Eris and Esther were whispering excitedly and pointing at Telivern.  “As soon as Leeka left formation to scout with you and Trevor, the girl was practically unstoppable, scampering everywhere and challenging folks to games of tag or hide and seek.  Hells, I think even the imperial scouts were starting to warm up to her antics.”

“Well,” he amended, reaching up to scratch his cheek.  “Other than the Baron.  I don’t think I’ve seen that man with anything but an unhappy look on his face.”

“That reminds me,” Micah replied, face screwing up as if he’d bitten into something sour.  “I need to hunt the Baron down.  He needs to know about the trapper outpost, and if his scouts aren’t back yet, they will be soon.  I’d like a chance to listen to their reports if possible.  As you said, there’s a chance that they found something that will put everything into proper context.”

“You’d better hurry,” Drekt responded, slapping Micah on the shoulder.  “It’s a clear, sunny morning and we’re heading downhill.  He hasn’t had a chance to tire himself out and become truly ornery yet.  The sooner you catch him, the more likely he is to be reasonable.”

Micah snorted but he didn’t answer as he walked toward where the imperial scouts brought up the front of the formation.  If he kept chatting with Drekt, he’d end up getting trapped for another hour or so.

Adrian saw him coming from atop his horse and shot Micah a tight nod.  At least he wasn’t terrible at that part of his job.  The man could notice someone walking in the open toward him on a brilliant white snowfield.  Hopefully the standard for a ‘decorated scout’ was a bit higher than that, but it seemed like it was the luckiest Micah was going to get.

As for the horse, the animal looked like it was having a bit better of a time now that they were starting to make progress down the pass, but it didn’t exactly look happy.  Of course, it was very possible that Micah had spent too long reading Telivern’s facial expressions and was starting to see complex emotions where there weren’t any.  

“Baron,” he said as he approached.  “I just thought I’d pass on what we found in the woods.”

“Nothing pressing I assume,” Adrian replied.  He was still trying to act imperious, but Micah could practically hear the creak of the leather from the man’s gloves as he gripped his horse’s reins.  “Otherwise you surely would have let me know as soon as you returned from your expedition.”

“Nothing pressing,” Micah agreed.  “I’d say the better adjective is ‘worrying.’  We found a small outpost.  Looks like it was for frontiersmen, trappers or something.  It was empty and the doors were barred with no sign of struggle.  Six men and women disappeared sometime fairly recently without a trace or an explanation.  I don’t have a good answer for you, just wanted to pass on the vague sense of unease that’s been plaguing me for the last ten or so hours.”

For the first time in the trip, he thought he saw some light behind the Baron’s eyes, if only for a moment as he thought over their situation.  Then, the noble dismissed it with a snort.

“Probably some new kind of monster,”  Adrian replied.  “I’ll tell the men to keep closer watch at night, and we’ll have to be careful when we come back through the pass, but there’s no use worrying about it now.  Sparsely populated areas like this don’t have the soldiers or guilds needed to keep their dungeons checked.  It’s hardly surprising that we’d get something strange or new from a dungeon break, but we don’t have time to worry about it.  Our job is to try and figure out if Pereston is building up an army, not save some rag tag villages that don’t pay either side taxes from things that go bump in the night.

Micah grunted.  The man was right, but he didn’t have to like it.  There would always be monsters prowling and looking to cull the weak.  Ankros had made sure of that.  If the Third Prince wasn’t lurking out there, he might have had the luxury of staying in the mountains to hunt loose monsters, but that wasn’t in the cards.  He had three goals: get stronger personally, make sure his team was strong enough for the fight that was to come, and do what he could to make the allies he’d need when the daemon finally decided to attack.

“That’s Sergeant Danill there,” the Baron remarked, pointing at a line of figures making their way up the pass, camouflaged white cloaks slung over their backs.  “We can ask her if she’s seen any signs of your trappers or a mystery killer.”

He kept pace with Adrian’s horse, easily pushing through the snow as his co-commander spurred his mount away from the imperial soldiers and toward the returning scouts.  After a minute or so they made contact and the lead scout, a woman with short auburn hair saluted the Baron by clasping one hand into a fist and slapping it into the open palm of her other hand.

“Report,” Adrian said curtly.  “Pay particular attention to any signs of humans or beasts.  Guildmaster Silver has found some strange monster sign.”

The woman shot him a curious look, but she didn’t let her slow her response.

“Sir, we were actually coming back to report the monster sign.  There’s a village near the bottom of the pass, basically just smugglers and outfitters that charge outrageous prices to anyone dumb enough to try and make it across the border without going through a customs outpost.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone act that jumpy.  Their gate was closed and I wasn’t going to sneak close enough to catch an arrow.  It didn’t look like they were opening it for anyone.”

“The monster sign,” the Baron cut in impatiently.  “To the point sergeant.”

Micah bit his lip.  At least the noble was acting a little more professionally now that there was something to do.  Still, it felt like he was ordering his subordinates around for the sake of reminding him that he was in charge.  He’d run into the type before.  As sure as the sun rose in the morning, they tended to induce a headache.

“There was a lot of it around the edge of the town,” she replied. “Only a couple tracks from something that looked like bird talons, but there were a lot of strips of cloth and fur.  Mikey- Corporal Michaels said that it looked like the leftovers from clothing.  We think that whatever the creatures are, they’re grabbing people and tearing their clothes off for some reason.”

“Michaels tracked them back to their hole,” She continued.  “They weren’t exactly careful about hiding their traces.  It was a fresh dungeon sir.  Just outside of the town.  I couldn’t find any records of it in our logs.”

“Make a note of it then,” Adrian replied with a frown.  “Is there any way we can get into the village?  Our supplies are beginning to run low and I haven’t seen much game sign.  If we’re forced to live off the land, I suspect we will have a lot of pine needle and thawed snow soup in our future.”

“No-” The sergeant began only for Micah to interrupt her.

“What about the dungeon?  We have enough blessed here to clear it in an hour.  Maybe if there isn’t an immediate threat of a monster break they’ll be more likely to sell us food.  Plus, something about a brand new dungeon spawning monsters capable of doing all this doesn’t sit right by me.  Something is wrong with this situation.”

“Who appointed you the expert on dung-” the Baron snapped only for his voice to come to a strangled halt as he took in Micah’s stormy expression.

The mounted noble took a deep, shaky breath before trying again.

“Look, what I mean is that we don’t have time to get involved in these people’s lives.  Worse, if we let them know we’re capable of clearing a dungeon in order to get inside the village, that’s information that they can report back.  It marks us as something more than a smuggler team.”

Micah weighed Adrian’s words.  On their surface they were reasonable, but two things kept nagging him.  If Ravi couldn’t find meat, that meant there wasn’t meat.  Something had stripped the mountain pass bare.  There weren’t even rabbits or squirrels for them to snare.

More importantly, something felt wrong.  Hunches weren’t exactly proof, but they’d kept Micah alive for years.  Hells, some of them had even turned into skills.

He wasn’t absolutely sure that the dungeon was the key to their situation, but it sure seemed like a good place to start.  Plus, pine needle stew sounded miserable.

“We’re co-commanders,” Micah finally spoke up.  “You’re in charge of scouting Baron.  I’ll leave you to that.  I’m in charge of security, and I’m making this call.  I don’t like the idea of leaving a dungeon that’s mid-break at my back.  Even if we can beat them in a square fight, what happens if they attack us at night?  Go for the camp guards?  They might not get all of us, but they could certainly do some damage.  Kill some good folks.”

Adrian glared at Micah, indecision written all over his face as his fear warred with his arrogance.  Finally, he turned away, mumbling over his shoulder as he left.

“Take the Guildmaster to the dungeon.  If he’s as good as he says he is, it shouldn’t be too much of a delay.”

Micah rolled his eyes, ignoring the provocation and  letting the Baron retreat with some semblance of grace.  Instead he turned his focus to the scout.

“I’ll grab the rest of my team Sergeant,” Micah said, trying to look approachable.  “We’ll be back in about ten minutes.  Then you can take us to that dungeon.  With any luck we can have it cleared out by the time the rest of the column makes it down the pass.”

Three hours later, right around noon, they stopped outside an unnatural looking cave bored into the side of the mountain.  Sergeant Danill shifted nervously as Ravi walked past her, sniffing the scraps of clothing piled in the snow outside the entrance to the dungeon.

He glanced over his shoulder, past Leeka, Eris, Esther, Drekt, Trevor and Telivern.  Wisps of smoke arose from the walled village.  Unlike the fur trappers there were still people alive out there, just out of sight.

“There are claw marks in the rocks,” Leeka observed.  “They aren’t deep but whatever is walking in and out of the dungeon has talons sharp enough to score limestone.”

Micah followed her gaze.  She was right.  Near the scraps of clothing there were hundreds of scrapes and scratches in the stone entrance of the cave.  He was sure that there were more deeper where the light didn’t reach, but that was enough to confirm the scout’s concerns.  Monsters didn’t leave a dungeon until it overwhelmed its limits and had a break.  He didn’t have a way of knowing exactly how many creatures were filtering in and out of the cavern but there were far too many for it to be natural.

He hefted his spear, walking toward the cave’s mouth, mumbling the words to Haste and Regeneration as he kept his eyes peeled for signs of a threat.  He finished the spell at the precipice of the dungeon, pausing to address the rest of his team.

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, just that whatever it is has wreaked havoc on the entire region so I’ll take point.  The rest of you follow me and watch for fliers.  The tunnel looks narrow for now so hopefully we won’t have to worry about any attacks from above.”

Micah stepped into the darkness.  Immediately the dry cold of the mountain pass disappeared, replaced by a heavy dampness that would have been much more at home in Leeka’s jungles.

He frowned.  There was something familiar in here.  An energy source that was as wrong and horrifying as it was nostalgic.

Another step forward and Micah swore under his breath.

“What in the name of the Sixteen is a dread chorus doing in Pereston?”