With the falling Twins on their left, they headed along the wider ways, true roads these, which were made to handle wagon, carriage, or other traffic of considerable width. It was easy going and, soon after leaving the walls of their stopover behind, Taipan opened up her gait to bring them to a swift run.
Ulric soon was grateful for the lightening of his pack. It would seem that his comrade was, contrary to her earlier opinion, determined to reach the trade hub. Soon, a small river began to parallel their track, its frozen width ribboning softly back and forth between the low rises of the terrain. As they'd come North, Ulric had noted a distinct softening of the land. Gone were the abrupt bluffs, the sudden hills and steep drops. Even the pronounced rolling that had been typical of the Northern Iriel'en territory was gone, replaced by the gentle ripples of earthen rises.
As his breaths made a metronome, evenly in, held a moment, evenly out, in tune with his steady heartbeats and with the strong tread of his legs, the distant suns colored the skies with impending evening. A later evening than the one before, Ulric noted. Days had begun lengthening several weeks ago. If a festival marked the event, nobody in Iriel had made the time in their preparations for eventual war to celebrate.
They were following a wide, swinging turn in the road around a particularly dense stand of obviously coppiced trees, a lumber farm, the river having diverged to the other side of this slight rise. Just as they came to the gradual peak of this climb, Taipan's stride began to slow. He came abreast of her and let his softly burning thighs and calves finally find a chance to rest. They'd come far more than half the way from Seinajok to Trachn'ir, they had to have.
The Elf woman by his side confirmed that shortly, declaring "We are a stone's throw from the city now. As easy a run as could be hoped, Ulric."
He wasn't sure he'd call that easy. Doable. Not easy. Best not to countermand her over semantics though, especially not when it made him seem like a wussy.
"Whatever you say, Taipan. Here I was wondering if you'd go all the way to the walls before the suns fell. Are we getting camp set up?" He asked.
She smiled then, and it wasn't the fun sort.
"No, Ulric, we are going to lay an ambush for the ones who followed us from Seinajok." She stated with distinct eagerness.
Huh?
"Uhhhm, we were followed?" Ulric asked.
He hadn't noticed anything. Damnit. This was not a piece of news he welcomed.
"Indeed. I set the pace that I did because it allowed us to get well ahead of our would-be pursuers. They will be another quarter Round of the Twins in getting here. Plenty of time for us to have a welcome ready for them. It is almost certainly the caravan guards we encountered earlier, come to relieve the world of their thoughtless waste of air." She told him with unsettling casualness.
Taipan was gone full Taipan, he realized.
Ulric found the proximity to the city more than a little jarring for such a thing.
"Won't they be taking a great risk to attempt whatever they had planned so close to the settlement?"
She led him away from the wide trade road, gesturing to the negative.
"Not really. In all likelihood they have friends and allies within the city. Some of those might even already know what they intend, message birds sent ahead to establish a cover story and, perhaps, a meeting place to share the spoils. There are fewer guards out these days, most of the actual warriors will have been called to muster for the imminent Spring's hostilities. The jackals will be in full force to take advantage."
Ulric found himself reminded again of the harshness of Varda and of the openness of its peoples to conflict. So be it.
"What do you have in mind?" He asked, preparing himself mentally for what was coming.
"I think a pincer maneuver will work well. You from the front and right side of the road. I believe that they will expect to have, somehow, missed us on the road, unless one of them tracks better than I would expect from caravan guard dregs." She stated, eyes scanning the terrain, cataloging it for use.
"There is a very small dip in the road which will allow you to hide from their sight as they come up this grade. I will take a firing position in that tree, fifty meters back along our trail; it offers a beautiful angle on them at this point and they will have no cover." Taipan plotted.
"I will open the ambush by shooting into their rear, turning them and raising panic. You will then hit them with whatever spellwork is most devastating. I would recommend those sharp blades of air, they are fast, nearly invisible, silent, and you appear to be able to guide them, to some extent. Send as many of those as you may simultaneously, I noted about a dozen when you tore yourself free of the [Dropper Ape] trap." She outlined calmly.
Ulric thought it over. She'd probably be able to put five or six arrows into their enemies within a few seconds. If he was preloading those [Wind Blades], he thought he could get upwards of fifteen ready to go for a simultaneous casting. He'd be something like forty or fifty meters away, right around the optimal range for the spell to gain velocity enough to be fantastically lethal. After that, the spelled Caelum started to break apart, becoming brittle on impact, losing some of its punch.
Damn. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel. Here I go killing again, he thought.
"Is there any reason you'd like an intact corpse?" He checked.
If she didn't need a body left over, he'd follow the Caelum blitz with [Stormfire], it would be fairly violent if allowed to travel so far before impacting.
"No." She declined, "If you can wipe them out before they recover from the initial volley do so. We are not interested in what they carry, only that they do not survive to trouble us further."
Cold as a mountain stream was his Shadow. Oh well, stupid is as stupid does and following an Iriel'en into the forests with notions of causing trouble was right up there.
"Gotcha. Make sure you keep well away then, love, I'm going to turn them into a memory on baked clay." Ulric confirmed.
Wait, wasn't he going to do something with those little arcs that seemed to want to jump between the [Wind Blades] earlier? No, no, calm down Wizard boy, he warned himself. Little did he know.
Keep it simple, this is serious. You can practice later; I dunno, on squirrels or something he promised himself.
Taipan nodded her agreement. Just as she turned, he took her arm and pulled her in to kiss her about as thoroughly as he knew how. You never knew.
The harshness in her eyes left for a moment when he released her. She put a hand to his cheek for a moment. Then all was death and dying again and her mana erupted, grasping liquid darkness that wrapped shadows around her causing her to vanish into an almost impossibly difficult to track form.
Sonofabitch, his wife was a spooky lady when she wanted to be.
Okay, Ulric, game face. He felt the stabilizing force of [Warrior's Instinct] settle over him, bringing a measure of calm, despite the creep of adrenal release into his system as he set himself into the small depression that his Shadow swore would hide him from their sight. She was the expert, so he lay flat keeping his face from peeking over the edge.
They waited a little closer to a half Rounding of the Twins and the reason why became obvious. Dudes were struggling. They had, all eight of them, tried for a while, it seemed, to keep pace with him and Taipan, pulling a small cart behind them. Big mistake. She could run forever and he was grown used to trying to keep up with the Iriel'en royal guard, he mostly failed, mind, but he tried, so his conditioning was top notch. These caravan guards had the appearance of not much more than thugs who had lucked into an easy gig. The poor sods. They didn't know it, but he was about to do them a favor. It was probably three months before they got torn limb from limb or eaten alive by one of the migrating beasts that were now roaming the lands freely.
There. It was the guy he'd kicked, wasting the time of the innkeeper to heal him. Wasting a second chance at life. Ulric sort of took that personally. He started weaving the mana cleansing that would restore some measure of his mana to an unrefined state that he could impress the essence of air and sky into it, Caelum, and then to ready the mental forms that would craft fifteen blades about the size of a butcher's knife traveling at about thirty meters per second. It'd be mostly painless. The [Stormfire] that came after, perhaps less so.
He heard Taipan's opening salvo by the pained yells, some cut off in that way that indicated the owner of the voice would not being saying much ever again. Ulric rose from his concealment to see the backs of five of the caravan guards. Three were on the ground, two of them very still, one dragging himself towards the side of the road.
Regret tinged his mind, somewhere around the edges of what he was about to do. He hardened himself with the thought of what these people would have done to him and his wife had the situation been reversed.
Hate flared.
Yeah, that helped. Anger and the song of the Lord Instinct pushed the mana faster, poured it into the spellform. The combination of calm mind guiding a seething malice purred to his core to add a little something he hadn't initially intended, and he felt the spell sort of twist, almost as if it snapped into the form it was supposed to have had in the first place. Elementalist helped to refine the weave of magic and his own will guided the roiling Caelum blades, towards a unity of purpose, binding them in threads of Ceraun to a central blade.
[Wind Blade]x12***OVERRIDE***[Galvanic Mistral]
*PING*
Ulric discarded the box to watch the evolved form of his basic spell. The original fifteen he'd planned had instead warped into something like twelve scythes tied by thin threads of crackling lightning. They swirled and rotated around central blade that leapt forwards like a rifle shot. Ulric was coldly observing a common theme to the imbuement of his old elemental spells with his new Ceraunic core. They all of them gained an order of magnitude in their velocity. And, as Ulric saw the working unleash its fury on the turned Elves, in their violence.
The [Stormfire] he'd planned was quite unnecessary. Where before had been people, desperate, wrong minded, perhaps evil, but people none the less, there was now meat scattered in a rough oval about twelve meters in diameter. Like some kind of fucked up jigsaw puzzle that still bled into the snow-covered road. The pull cart was kindling.
He felt a little sick. This was a touch different than the kidnappers who'd hurt a child. It was also different than the duel with the Lordling who tried to usurp his position. It was certainly different than the enemy wizard who'd burned him. As for the asshole that had grabbed Taipan, he wasn't even really totally trying for that one. But this here, no, this was plain old-fashioned pre-meditated murder. Justifiable maybe. But definitely a whole bag of murder down there.
Idly, he looked at his status and noted that the experience had ticked up by another Two hundred forty. So. Six lives were worth about forty points apiece to the reckoning of the world. Nice that it had put such a round number to it.
Get your shit together Ulric, this is Varda he scolded himself harshly. Those fucks were gonna slit your throat and laugh it up with their buddies at the pub later. Who the fuck knows what they'd have done to Taipan. Oh, wait, die when she got hold of them, that's what, never mind.
He sort of almost saw the cloaked form of Taipan leap from her perch some fifteen meters up, roll, and come up running to rejoin his side, flickering ribbons of shadow falling from her as she released the skill. That was purely neat as hell, he thought distantly.
He called up the box that he'd dismissed earlier.
Yeah, he thought. That's about what he'd figured, and then some. Interesting that it used dexterity instead of will, the first time that had happened. Probably because the ability to control the rate of that rotation was related to how well he controlled his mana and that was a dexterity related thing. Simple. Elegant. Awful. Just like all good weapons.
Taipan saw his expression and remained silent. She probably knew him well enough to speak his thoughts back to him but chose not to. He stayed silent for a minute, letting the natural gusts of air stir snow and dead limbs as he watched. There was a difference between killing monsters and killing people. There probably shouldn't have been so much, all lives were, ultimately, as valid as each other. That is to say, the universe didn't give a shit about any of them. But it was hard to not feel anything, even though the nagging animal that occupied residence in his hindbrain was just now settling down to a pleased sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, instincts are one thing, this was deliberate.
"It does have to be this way sometimes, doesn't it?" He implored.
Her hand found its way into his and squeezed.
"It does, Ulric Glade Chief. To master your destiny is to remove those who would end it." She confirmed.
Well. Alright then. He released a breath he didn't realize he'd held. So be it, he repeated to himself.
"Let's go, Taipan. I'm fine now, it takes some getting used to is all." He told her, forcing himself to be firm, even though he wasn't fine.
Not yet. A distant voice chimed in with forced cheerfulness, “Getting there though.” Gods help him, it did get easier.
She led on away from the site where eight of her distant kin made the mistake of underestimating her and her Honor. It had been a fearsome sight, he'd risen and a swarm of swallows made of air and lightning had flown almost too quickly to follow, tearing through the bodies of the unprepared would-be ambushers with incredible fury. It reminded her of watching a flock of the sparrow birds flit here and there after mosquitos diving and whirling.
Sometimes her Honor managed to show flickers of his real potential. It was exciting. And terrifying. If she cultivated him well, he would grow into his strength. If she failed, he would cripple himself, limiting his own growth out of fear. Taipan refused to allow it. She'd chosen him for that peculiar blend of sometimes incredible gentleness, and, sometimes, insane violence. Both had to be tended and the challenge was part of the fun; her wonderful monster of a husband was going to grow up quickly. The [Plateau of Ancients] deserved nothing less from its guardian.
As they drifted to a spot around the bend, some easy walking distance to the frozen river but far enough from its banks to be hidden amongst the trees, off of the road, Ulric busied himself with camp tasks. Chopping a night's firewood, breaking a hole in the ice to carry water, making a small [Stone Wall] firepit in which to build their conservative campfire, the usual. The familiarity helped to square away his mind which refused to stop turning over the sudden transition from peace to war that had presented itself this day.
As he pondered, he came to the slow realization that his Shadow had little to no buffer between these two states. In fact, in a way, he had to consider that there might not actually BE two different states in her mind. She'd strolled along for their run in much the same fashion as she had at every point since they'd started, it was only him that hadn't caught on. The more that circled around in his brain as he watched the easy movements of her attendance to their dinner, the more it made sense. There was no difference. She was on a hair trigger always, was ready for battle always. It was his mistake to not have internalized the reality that they were in danger, at essentially all times.
Ulric would have thought that getting the shit burned out of you in an ambush would teach you a little something but he was, evidently, slow on the uptake.
He stirred some coals and watched the sparks scatter, little cinders climbing to fade away.
It was an apt metaphor for living in general. A brilliant burn of intensity that, naturally, was bound to fade quickly. Especially when they threw themselves into a situation that they did not understand nor appreciate.
"Why would they have come after us, knowing that you are Iriel'en?" Ulric asked suddenly.
He needed it to make sense. It was stupid. It was the height of ignorance. He'd been around for less than a Vardan year and he already had learned enough to know that chasing a Hunter into the forest was just not going to end well for you. But no fewer than eight of these Elves, who should have known better, had done so.
"Me, I understand that. What's a Human youngling, after all, against all eight of them armed? Forget about the fact that they'd just gotten their asses handed to them by said Human, they clearly had the advantage if you discount magic. But to come after you? Their Deep Woods cousin? What would drive them to that sort of foolishness?" he continued.
Taipan poked the fire herself, and watched a moment, gathering her thoughts.
"It is a fair question Ulric, and I have thought about it some. The short answer is that I do not know." She admitted, sending short locks bouncing back and forth as she tossed her head.
"You are right, they should have had greater wisdom than to pursue a vendetta into the wilds. In the city before us? That I could have seen. But to so overtly attempt to trail an Iriel'en Hunter? And they themselves, barely seeing sixty years with no combat classes to speak of? It is beyond foolish." She determined.
Ulric chewed his cheek while he turned it over, his fingers absently snapping against his leg. No reason. No reason of their own maybe. But, possibly, a reason given to them, an opportunity to make it big, something worth the risk.
He looked to the crouched Elf, her high boots tucked under her thighs and her fingers trailing through her hair, "What are the odds they were looking for us specifically?"
Her finger stopped its idle roaming and slid across her throat, "Then they are the dumbest Elves in Orlethrem and we have done my peoples a great service in ridding the lands of them. I am not so very old Ulric, by the reckoning of my kin, but I am known, and not for my kindness. If they came into the forest after us in full knowledge of who I am, to say nothing of who you are, [Forest Lord]'s Bane, they would have brought thrice the number, expecting to lose half."
That sort of checked out. Taipan's classes and level indicated the degree to which she'd essentially lived for being a dagger in the night against the men and beasts that might threaten Iriel. They hadn't brought nearly enough to deal with even just her.
Hmm…He hummed aloud. This situation stank more than the [Shrieking Ravager]'s musk.
Okay, so probably not looking for us, not specifically. But for travelers in general?
"Think we should go check the bodies for some clue what might have spurred them on? It seems a little far-fetched they came on so hard for a simple bar fight, even if their buddy did cash during it. What I know of you people, basically everybody would have said that he had it coming and moved on." Ulric offered.
"It seems a fair plan, and costs us little time." Taipan agreed a little too readily.
"You were going to do it anyway, weren't you?" He checked.
She nodded, "It seemed better to bring you away to set up camp, you were too disturbed at the moment." She confirmed.
"You have collected yourself then?" this she delivered with a slight raise of eyebrow, suggesting that he should have.
Ulric sighed and gave the hand sign for "All is well", before answering, "It had to be done, they accepted dying when they chose to be there, and leaving enemies behind you is no way to see a great many sunrises." He said, reporting what he had learned.
Glittering teeth, pearly white and slightly sharp canines, were displayed in Taipan's smile.
"Good, then you are paying attention after all." The Huntress praised.
They let the matter lie for the rest of the evening, enjoying the silence and the proximity of their company and retired to their bedrolls early to rest.
Ulric spent the first watch with his [Ceraunoperception] up, watching the distant motions of small animals and birds, as they went about their nocturnal business. Late into the night he roused his partner for her turn and laid down in his blankets. The wonder of it was how easily Ulric slept.
A loud, cracking yawn, heralded the day for the Reforged man. A light scratch of the scalp and its lengthening hair, and some other places, preceded his rise to begin the day.
He left the shelter, noting that there was just enough light to see, predawn coming rapidly to true daylight. The moon, larger than its Earthen counterpart, was in a thin crescent phase and had nearly fallen, sitting huge and bright on the horizon. The accompanying moons of the trio were in their umbral phase, invisible against the coming day. While his breath fogged in the morning air he had to consider again that this world was a gift, its natural beauty a thing to be treasured for as long as he could manage.
To appreciate it longer meant he had to stay alive and, currently, staying alive meant figuring out what would motivate a group of caravan guards wintering in a sleepy little nothing of a village to follow a trader and his guide out into the forest to murder them.
Taipan had already rekindled a low fire and had even prepared a treat in the form of fresh camp bread in a small Dutch oven, one of the few metal items in either of their kits. It was easily the heaviest single item in the Elf's pack. He saw why she carried it when she wrapped dried rations in dough and produced a sort of stuffed bun that was incredibly good for how bland travel rations tended to be. She didn't bake often, preferring to conserve their supplies but they were soon to be able to restock and wanted the benefit of a hearty breakfast.
Ulric wasn't sure the wisdom of that when they were about to go review what had to be an absolutely grisly scene of carnage but trusted her judgment. He'd been shoulders deep in gore aplenty since he'd come to this world, what was a little more?
He refilled their water bags and topped off their canteens while his Shadow assembled the meal. The water hole was already frozen back over, though not as thickly, and his knife made short work of it. Fresh clean water, straight out of the river. That would have been unthinkable in his old world, a death sentence.
Upon his return, they completed their silent meal and readied to move.
Packs hoisted, the pair retraced their steps to find the disassembled caravan guards where they'd been summarily MDK'd.
Ulric grimaced. Yep. That was about what he remembered. Unlike many of his spells, which used fire or electricity, or even high-pressure water, the wounds made by the Caelum blades did not cauterize. They bled quite freely and the result down there was basically a crowd-sourced people soup, frozen into the snow.
He followed in his Shadow's wake, taking note of the surroundings that had made for such a wonderful ambush from their perspective. It would be a good idea to note when he himself was walking through such a place, to not find himself on the receiving end of a similar setup.
Taipan started reviewing the bodies and one thing became immediately clear. These were not the same men as from the common room, except for the one guy who'd gotten killed by Ulric twice.
"Okay, well that's odd." Ulric stated the obvious, which made his partner roll her eyes.
He smiled a little, needing the humor in the face of this. He knew it aggravated her when he narrated things that did not need to be said aloud.
"You recognize any of these mooks?" He asked.
"Mooks? Ulric you are making up words again." the investigating Elf informed him.
"A stooge, a tool, a moronic and expendable individual of ill repute useful only for fodder and following one-word directions." Ulric explained.
His Shadow nodded appreciatively, "That is a good word, Ulric. This world you lived in, I must admit they have a way of describing things with such elegance."
"But no," the crouching woman continued, poking through pockets, and inspecting soiled gear, "I do not recognize any of these, except for the twice killed mook over there."
Ulric grinned at her immediate incorporation of the word.
His grey eyes moved slowly over the scene, cataloging details, though he had not the experience as his partner.
There was one thing he found a little odd.
"Is there a reason they're all dressed exactly the same, with exactly the same gear?" He asked.
Taipan looked up from the corpse she'd been inspecting, eyes appreciative.
"You noticed that then, did you? Impressive Glade Chief." She praised, before ruining it, "Since you are proving useful, go through these and see if anything strikes you as inordinate." tossing him a couple of pouches she'd collected from the bodies.
He caught them easily but regretted it: they were not quite dry.
It was nice to be relied on, but volunteering earned you work. It reminded him of his mandatory service days, an unfortunate year and a half.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" He saluted, bloodied hand to his forehead, before pouring the contents upon the ground and poring over them.
Every minute or so, another pouch would sail through the air to land beside him. Before too long, he had a pretty wide assortment of items, mostly surprisingly free of the remains of their owners. Made sense, you didn't want your valuables getting wet, so water, and blood, resistant pouches were a smart move.
Ulric, indulged in his obsessive compulsiveness for a minute, and thus shortly had organized each of the contents in a grid, rows headed by a pouch and columns associated with each row, the different types of objects. Coins in one column, kept to their respective departed owner's row, as who had how much might be useful evidence, tools in another column, documents in another, etc.
Soon, he had everything laid out before him. He had not much clue what any of it meant.
Taipan sidled over examining the array of items. Recognizing the system he had in place, she placed belt knives with their owner's rows in a new column. Added into this, she laid two new documents.
Ulric couldn't read, not well enough to trust himself with this, and cursed himself mentally again for not finding time to correct that deficiency. He had improved to some measure of word salad comprehension, but he didn't want to risk a mistake when it might cost them finding out what the hell was going on here.
Alright, two things stood out immediately. First, Double Kill, was sort of well-heeled. Between the coins on his person and the rather ornate engraving work on his knife, which Elves loosely used as identification, he seemed disproportionately well off compared to the rest. Secondly, none of these men had packed for a stay in the wild. No tinder, no strikers to make sparks, no waterbags or shelter of any kind.
"What the fuck?" Ulric said aloud, earning a grunt of agreement from Taipan.
"Did they plan on sleeping in a huddle in the snow?" He asked sarcastically.
"More likely that they either have an alternative route into the city, which avoids the gates and guards, or that they have a hideout nearby, off the road. Celestin tend to be more agricultural and husbandry-oriented than my own people, and do not tend their forests as assiduously as the Iriel'en, Ulric. A small shack could go unremarked for years." She stated.
Tapping her lips in thought she wondered aloud, "But if they had a place to hide in the forest, they would have set a lookout and been ahead of us, not behind. No, they had a way into the city that would not raise alarm after the gates close."
That seemed sound logic to him.
"Alright, so they had friends in the city. They all dress exactly the same, like caravan guards in uniforms. One of them has a Sil Drake while the rest trade in Eld Knights. They are all youngish Celestin, of sort of similar appearance, probably from the same place. None of them have the sense to leave Iriel'en Hunters in the forest alone and wait until they are more easily caught in a township." Ulric summarized the knowns up to now.
"Those documents say anything interesting? Is there any chance they only meant to harass us rather than kill us?" He checked, hoping that would not end up the case.
It was much easier to live with killing somebody who meant the same for you. It went without saying that they'd have been forfeiting their lives just for accosting somebody in the wilds, the rules for that kind of behavior were clear amongst the Elves of Iriel and what he knew of the other clans didn't far differ in that respect.
Taipan had unrolled one of the documents, a small thing in Double Kill's pouch, and read briefly aloud, "Share the Valin animal's things amongst you, bring the Iriel'en to the usual place, alive. Same price as before."
His hands were gripped into fists, shaking slightly. Well. That took care of that.
Laying that one aside, she opened the one that had been in the coat pocket of one of the others. It was blood-soaked and Taipan took more time trying to make out the message.
She shook her head, "It is near to ruined Ulric but I believe it goes, 'Bring live catch crew, new meat, Seinajok, heads down."
Ulric frowned. Double fuck you people. What was going on here?
"What is going on here?" He asked his more experienced companion.
Taipan rose, scrubbing the drying blood onto her sturdy, once spotless, trousers. The first of many such stains, if Ulric had to guess.
"It would seem that there is some sort of criminal organization in the business of capturing traveling Elven women. They spring up, occasionally. Mostly they are eventually determined to be operating through contacts in Prosper to acquire new Aes'r slaves."
Taipan glossed over that little bit of terribleness with some degree of familiarity. Ulric unclenched his teeth, it wasn't like this was an unheard-of practice. That it was dead in his own world was not a consolation, people had enslaved people, using various names for it, for a solid chunk of their history.
"Fair enough. So, what? We bring this stuff to the guards in Trachn'ir, right? They gotta know about this horseshit; if I'm hearing you right, that letter said 'a catch crew' not 'the catch crew' so there are more of these assholes out there grabbing travelers." Ulric guessed.
Her lips pursed as she assessed the situation. Eventually, her emerald eyes met his and he saw the hardness in them.
"No. No, I think not." Taipan whispered, her tone promising evil.
"We are the exact sort of travelers these conniving [Rot Weevils] thrive on. Small in number, nameless, out of season, and easy to miss. If they are active so far South, then it is almost certain that we will encounter them farther to the North, perhaps even on the road out from Trachn'ir. This problem must be addressed now, before we walk into a trap organized from farther out than I can see." Taipan asserted.
"Whoever leads this troupe was probably based in Trachn'ir, judging by how quickly they were able to send and receive word. We were only stopped three days in Seinajok but they got word there and back to Trachn'ir and also deployed this 'catch crew' to the village. They cannot have been based elsewhere and have been timely enough to attempt this." She reasoned.
"That checks out." Ulric agreed with her assessment, rubbing the stubble growing in on his chin.
"So why not the city guards or whoever polices this area?" He asked.
"Because such as these operate out of places where they feel safest and most guardsmen have gifts to ensure the honesty of those nearby, or at least, become suspicious around duplicitous behaviors. These bastards probably have contacts in the city that will warn them of a break in their security. That they would even still carry these documents is a measure of how easy they've had it, they should have burned such messages immediately, were their brains not rotted rope." detailed the Elf, punctuated by spitting on one of the bisected corpses.
And, yet again, his Shadow proved that she was a seasoned hunter of thinking peoples, in addition to the beasts.
Ulric thought it over, feeling the rising of the Twins on his face. Contacts within the guards. An information network that transmitted orders fairly decisively and had resources to hide themselves in plain sight. These would easily have been mistaken for caravaneers, albeit a little hasty in their departure. That meant that these men would shortly be missed which would spook their handlers, perhaps even so much as to tie up loose ends and disappear.
"We're on the clock then, Taipan, if you have in mind, what I'm thinking you have in mind." Ulric told her.
He was pretty sure his lover was planning to track down the organizer of these goons and show him what his guts looked like.
"We are, Ulric. I estimate that they would be expected to have murdered you, grabbed me, hidden their losses, and reported their success within two rises of the Twins. Then we have that much time to teach them how deep the Deep Wood really goes." Taipan, gestured, cutting with her hand.
Attacked by monsters. A common room brawl. Waylaid by traffickers of people. So, this is what adventures were all about.
With the falling Twins on their left, they headed along the wider ways, true roads these, which were made to handle wagon, carriage, or other traffic of considerable width. It was easy going and, soon after leaving the walls of their stopover behind, Taipan opened up her gait to bring them to a swift run.
Ulric soon was grateful for the lightening of his pack. It would seem that his comrade was, contrary to her earlier opinion, determined to reach the trade hub. Soon, a small river began to parallel their track, its frozen width ribboning softly back and forth between the low rises of the terrain. As they'd come North, Ulric had noted a distinct softening of the land. Gone were the abrupt bluffs, the sudden hills and steep drops. Even the pronounced rolling that had been typical of the Northern Iriel'en territory was gone, replaced by the gentle ripples of earthen rises.
As his breaths made a metronome, evenly in, held a moment, evenly out, in tune with his steady heartbeats and with the strong tread of his legs, the distant suns colored the skies with impending evening. A later evening than the one before, Ulric noted. Days had begun lengthening several weeks ago. If a festival marked the event, nobody in Iriel had made the time in their preparations for eventual war to celebrate.
They were following a wide, swinging turn in the road around a particularly dense stand of obviously coppiced trees, a lumber farm, the river having diverged to the other side of this slight rise. Just as they came to the gradual peak of this climb, Taipan's stride began to slow. He came abreast of her and let his softly burning thighs and calves finally find a chance to rest. They'd come far more than half the way from Seinajok to Trachn'ir, they had to have.
The Elf woman by his side confirmed that shortly, declaring "We are a stone's throw from the city now. As easy a run as could be hoped, Ulric."
He wasn't sure he'd call that easy. Doable. Not easy. Best not to countermand her over semantics though, especially not when it made him seem like a wussy.
"Whatever you say, Taipan. Here I was wondering if you'd go all the way to the walls before the suns fell. Are we getting camp set up?" He asked.
She smiled then, and it wasn't the fun sort.
"No, Ulric, we are going to lay an ambush for the ones who followed us from Seinajok." She stated with distinct eagerness.
Huh?
"Uhhhm, we were followed?" Ulric asked.
He hadn't noticed anything. Damnit. This was not a piece of news he welcomed.
"Indeed. I set the pace that I did because it allowed us to get well ahead of our would-be pursuers. They will be another quarter Round of the Twins in getting here. Plenty of time for us to have a welcome ready for them. It is almost certainly the caravan guards we encountered earlier, come to relieve the world of their thoughtless waste of air." She told him with unsettling casualness.
Taipan was gone full Taipan, he realized.
Ulric found the proximity to the city more than a little jarring for such a thing.
"Won't they be taking a great risk to attempt whatever they had planned so close to the settlement?"
She led him away from the wide trade road, gesturing to the negative.
"Not really. In all likelihood they have friends and allies within the city. Some of those might even already know what they intend, message birds sent ahead to establish a cover story and, perhaps, a meeting place to share the spoils. There are fewer guards out these days, most of the actual warriors will have been called to muster for the imminent Spring's hostilities. The jackals will be in full force to take advantage."
Ulric found himself reminded again of the harshness of Varda and of the openness of its peoples to conflict. So be it.
"What do you have in mind?" He asked, preparing himself mentally for what was coming.
"I think a pincer maneuver will work well. You from the front and right side of the road. I believe that they will expect to have, somehow, missed us on the road, unless one of them tracks better than I would expect from caravan guard dregs." She stated, eyes scanning the terrain, cataloging it for use.
"There is a very small dip in the road which will allow you to hide from their sight as they come up this grade. I will take a firing position in that tree, fifty meters back along our trail; it offers a beautiful angle on them at this point and they will have no cover." Taipan plotted.
"I will open the ambush by shooting into their rear, turning them and raising panic. You will then hit them with whatever spellwork is most devastating. I would recommend those sharp blades of air, they are fast, nearly invisible, silent, and you appear to be able to guide them, to some extent. Send as many of those as you may simultaneously, I noted about a dozen when you tore yourself free of the [Dropper Ape] trap." She outlined calmly.
Ulric thought it over. She'd probably be able to put five or six arrows into their enemies within a few seconds. If he was preloading those [Wind Blades], he thought he could get upwards of fifteen ready to go for a simultaneous casting. He'd be something like forty or fifty meters away, right around the optimal range for the spell to gain velocity enough to be fantastically lethal. After that, the spelled Caelum started to break apart, becoming brittle on impact, losing some of its punch.
Damn. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel. Here I go killing again, he thought.
"Is there any reason you'd like an intact corpse?" He checked.
If she didn't need a body left over, he'd follow the Caelum blitz with [Stormfire], it would be fairly violent if allowed to travel so far before impacting.
"No." She declined, "If you can wipe them out before they recover from the initial volley do so. We are not interested in what they carry, only that they do not survive to trouble us further."
Cold as a mountain stream was his Shadow. Oh well, stupid is as stupid does and following an Iriel'en into the forests with notions of causing trouble was right up there.
"Gotcha. Make sure you keep well away then, love, I'm going to turn them into a memory on baked clay." Ulric confirmed.
Wait, wasn't he going to do something with those little arcs that seemed to want to jump between the [Wind Blades] earlier? No, no, calm down Wizard boy, he warned himself. Little did he know.
Keep it simple, this is serious. You can practice later; I dunno, on squirrels or something he promised himself.
Taipan nodded her agreement. Just as she turned, he took her arm and pulled her in to kiss her about as thoroughly as he knew how. You never knew.
The harshness in her eyes left for a moment when he released her. She put a hand to his cheek for a moment. Then all was death and dying again and her mana erupted, grasping liquid darkness that wrapped shadows around her causing her to vanish into an almost impossibly difficult to track form.
Sonofabitch, his wife was a spooky lady when she wanted to be.
Okay, Ulric, game face. He felt the stabilizing force of [Warrior's Instinct] settle over him, bringing a measure of calm, despite the creep of adrenal release into his system as he set himself into the small depression that his Shadow swore would hide him from their sight. She was the expert, so he lay flat keeping his face from peeking over the edge.
They waited a little closer to a half Rounding of the Twins and the reason why became obvious. Dudes were struggling. They had, all eight of them, tried for a while, it seemed, to keep pace with him and Taipan, pulling a small cart behind them. Big mistake. She could run forever and he was grown used to trying to keep up with the Iriel'en royal guard, he mostly failed, mind, but he tried, so his conditioning was top notch. These caravan guards had the appearance of not much more than thugs who had lucked into an easy gig. The poor sods. They didn't know it, but he was about to do them a favor. It was probably three months before they got torn limb from limb or eaten alive by one of the migrating beasts that were now roaming the lands freely.
There. It was the guy he'd kicked, wasting the time of the innkeeper to heal him. Wasting a second chance at life. Ulric sort of took that personally. He started weaving the mana cleansing that would restore some measure of his mana to an unrefined state that he could impress the essence of air and sky into it, Caelum, and then to ready the mental forms that would craft fifteen blades about the size of a butcher's knife traveling at about thirty meters per second. It'd be mostly painless. The [Stormfire] that came after, perhaps less so.
He heard Taipan's opening salvo by the pained yells, some cut off in that way that indicated the owner of the voice would not being saying much ever again. Ulric rose from his concealment to see the backs of five of the caravan guards. Three were on the ground, two of them very still, one dragging himself towards the side of the road.
Regret tinged his mind, somewhere around the edges of what he was about to do. He hardened himself with the thought of what these people would have done to him and his wife had the situation been reversed.
Hate flared.
Yeah, that helped. Anger and the song of the Lord Instinct pushed the mana faster, poured it into the spellform. The combination of calm mind guiding a seething malice purred to his core to add a little something he hadn't initially intended, and he felt the spell sort of twist, almost as if it snapped into the form it was supposed to have had in the first place. Elementalist helped to refine the weave of magic and his own will guided the roiling Caelum blades, towards a unity of purpose, binding them in threads of Ceraun to a central blade.
[Wind Blade]x12***OVERRIDE***[Galvanic Mistral]
*PING*
Ulric discarded the box to watch the evolved form of his basic spell. The original fifteen he'd planned had instead warped into something like twelve scythes tied by thin threads of crackling lightning. They swirled and rotated around central blade that leapt forwards like a rifle shot. Ulric was coldly observing a common theme to the imbuement of his old elemental spells with his new Ceraunic core. They all of them gained an order of magnitude in their velocity. And, as Ulric saw the working unleash its fury on the turned Elves, in their violence.
The [Stormfire] he'd planned was quite unnecessary. Where before had been people, desperate, wrong minded, perhaps evil, but people none the less, there was now meat scattered in a rough oval about twelve meters in diameter. Like some kind of fucked up jigsaw puzzle that still bled into the snow-covered road. The pull cart was kindling.
He felt a little sick. This was a touch different than the kidnappers who'd hurt a child. It was also different than the duel with the Lordling who tried to usurp his position. It was certainly different than the enemy wizard who'd burned him. As for the asshole that had grabbed Taipan, he wasn't even really totally trying for that one. But this here, no, this was plain old-fashioned pre-meditated murder. Justifiable maybe. But definitely a whole bag of murder down there.
Idly, he looked at his status and noted that the experience had ticked up by another Two hundred forty. So. Six lives were worth about forty points apiece to the reckoning of the world. Nice that it had put such a round number to it.
Get your shit together Ulric, this is Varda he scolded himself harshly. Those fucks were gonna slit your throat and laugh it up with their buddies at the pub later. Who the fuck knows what they'd have done to Taipan. Oh, wait, die when she got hold of them, that's what, never mind.
He sort of almost saw the cloaked form of Taipan leap from her perch some fifteen meters up, roll, and come up running to rejoin his side, flickering ribbons of shadow falling from her as she released the skill. That was purely neat as hell, he thought distantly.
He called up the box that he'd dismissed earlier.
Yeah, he thought. That's about what he'd figured, and then some. Interesting that it used dexterity instead of will, the first time that had happened. Probably because the ability to control the rate of that rotation was related to how well he controlled his mana and that was a dexterity related thing. Simple. Elegant. Awful. Just like all good weapons.
Taipan saw his expression and remained silent. She probably knew him well enough to speak his thoughts back to him but chose not to. He stayed silent for a minute, letting the natural gusts of air stir snow and dead limbs as he watched. There was a difference between killing monsters and killing people. There probably shouldn't have been so much, all lives were, ultimately, as valid as each other. That is to say, the universe didn't give a shit about any of them. But it was hard to not feel anything, even though the nagging animal that occupied residence in his hindbrain was just now settling down to a pleased sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, instincts are one thing, this was deliberate.
"It does have to be this way sometimes, doesn't it?" He implored.
Her hand found its way into his and squeezed.
"It does, Ulric Glade Chief. To master your destiny is to remove those who would end it." She confirmed.
Well. Alright then. He released a breath he didn't realize he'd held. So be it, he repeated to himself.
"Let's go, Taipan. I'm fine now, it takes some getting used to is all." He told her, forcing himself to be firm, even though he wasn't fine.
Not yet. A distant voice chimed in with forced cheerfulness, “Getting there though.” Gods help him, it did get easier.
She led on away from the site where eight of her distant kin made the mistake of underestimating her and her Honor. It had been a fearsome sight, he'd risen and a swarm of swallows made of air and lightning had flown almost too quickly to follow, tearing through the bodies of the unprepared would-be ambushers with incredible fury. It reminded her of watching a flock of the sparrow birds flit here and there after mosquitos diving and whirling.
Sometimes her Honor managed to show flickers of his real potential. It was exciting. And terrifying. If she cultivated him well, he would grow into his strength. If she failed, he would cripple himself, limiting his own growth out of fear. Taipan refused to allow it. She'd chosen him for that peculiar blend of sometimes incredible gentleness, and, sometimes, insane violence. Both had to be tended and the challenge was part of the fun; her wonderful monster of a husband was going to grow up quickly. The [Plateau of Ancients] deserved nothing less from its guardian.
As they drifted to a spot around the bend, some easy walking distance to the frozen river but far enough from its banks to be hidden amongst the trees, off of the road, Ulric busied himself with camp tasks. Chopping a night's firewood, breaking a hole in the ice to carry water, making a small [Stone Wall] firepit in which to build their conservative campfire, the usual. The familiarity helped to square away his mind which refused to stop turning over the sudden transition from peace to war that had presented itself this day.
As he pondered, he came to the slow realization that his Shadow had little to no buffer between these two states. In fact, in a way, he had to consider that there might not actually BE two different states in her mind. She'd strolled along for their run in much the same fashion as she had at every point since they'd started, it was only him that hadn't caught on. The more that circled around in his brain as he watched the easy movements of her attendance to their dinner, the more it made sense. There was no difference. She was on a hair trigger always, was ready for battle always. It was his mistake to not have internalized the reality that they were in danger, at essentially all times.
Ulric would have thought that getting the shit burned out of you in an ambush would teach you a little something but he was, evidently, slow on the uptake.
He stirred some coals and watched the sparks scatter, little cinders climbing to fade away.
It was an apt metaphor for living in general. A brilliant burn of intensity that, naturally, was bound to fade quickly. Especially when they threw themselves into a situation that they did not understand nor appreciate.
"Why would they have come after us, knowing that you are Iriel'en?" Ulric asked suddenly.
He needed it to make sense. It was stupid. It was the height of ignorance. He'd been around for less than a Vardan year and he already had learned enough to know that chasing a Hunter into the forest was just not going to end well for you. But no fewer than eight of these Elves, who should have known better, had done so.
"Me, I understand that. What's a Human youngling, after all, against all eight of them armed? Forget about the fact that they'd just gotten their asses handed to them by said Human, they clearly had the advantage if you discount magic. But to come after you? Their Deep Woods cousin? What would drive them to that sort of foolishness?" he continued.
Taipan poked the fire herself, and watched a moment, gathering her thoughts.
"It is a fair question Ulric, and I have thought about it some. The short answer is that I do not know." She admitted, sending short locks bouncing back and forth as she tossed her head.
"You are right, they should have had greater wisdom than to pursue a vendetta into the wilds. In the city before us? That I could have seen. But to so overtly attempt to trail an Iriel'en Hunter? And they themselves, barely seeing sixty years with no combat classes to speak of? It is beyond foolish." She determined.
Ulric chewed his cheek while he turned it over, his fingers absently snapping against his leg. No reason. No reason of their own maybe. But, possibly, a reason given to them, an opportunity to make it big, something worth the risk.
He looked to the crouched Elf, her high boots tucked under her thighs and her fingers trailing through her hair, "What are the odds they were looking for us specifically?"
Her finger stopped its idle roaming and slid across her throat, "Then they are the dumbest Elves in Orlethrem and we have done my peoples a great service in ridding the lands of them. I am not so very old Ulric, by the reckoning of my kin, but I am known, and not for my kindness. If they came into the forest after us in full knowledge of who I am, to say nothing of who you are, [Forest Lord]'s Bane, they would have brought thrice the number, expecting to lose half."
That sort of checked out. Taipan's classes and level indicated the degree to which she'd essentially lived for being a dagger in the night against the men and beasts that might threaten Iriel. They hadn't brought nearly enough to deal with even just her.
Hmm…He hummed aloud. This situation stank more than the [Shrieking Ravager]'s musk.
Okay, so probably not looking for us, not specifically. But for travelers in general?
"Think we should go check the bodies for some clue what might have spurred them on? It seems a little far-fetched they came on so hard for a simple bar fight, even if their buddy did cash during it. What I know of you people, basically everybody would have said that he had it coming and moved on." Ulric offered.
"It seems a fair plan, and costs us little time." Taipan agreed a little too readily.
"You were going to do it anyway, weren't you?" He checked.
She nodded, "It seemed better to bring you away to set up camp, you were too disturbed at the moment." She confirmed.
"You have collected yourself then?" this she delivered with a slight raise of eyebrow, suggesting that he should have.
Ulric sighed and gave the hand sign for "All is well", before answering, "It had to be done, they accepted dying when they chose to be there, and leaving enemies behind you is no way to see a great many sunrises." He said, reporting what he had learned.
Glittering teeth, pearly white and slightly sharp canines, were displayed in Taipan's smile.
"Good, then you are paying attention after all." The Huntress praised.
They let the matter lie for the rest of the evening, enjoying the silence and the proximity of their company and retired to their bedrolls early to rest.
Ulric spent the first watch with his [Ceraunoperception] up, watching the distant motions of small animals and birds, as they went about their nocturnal business. Late into the night he roused his partner for her turn and laid down in his blankets. The wonder of it was how easily Ulric slept.
A loud, cracking yawn, heralded the day for the Reforged man. A light scratch of the scalp and its lengthening hair, and some other places, preceded his rise to begin the day.
He left the shelter, noting that there was just enough light to see, predawn coming rapidly to true daylight. The moon, larger than its Earthen counterpart, was in a thin crescent phase and had nearly fallen, sitting huge and bright on the horizon. The accompanying moons of the trio were in their umbral phase, invisible against the coming day. While his breath fogged in the morning air he had to consider again that this world was a gift, its natural beauty a thing to be treasured for as long as he could manage.
To appreciate it longer meant he had to stay alive and, currently, staying alive meant figuring out what would motivate a group of caravan guards wintering in a sleepy little nothing of a village to follow a trader and his guide out into the forest to murder them.
Taipan had already rekindled a low fire and had even prepared a treat in the form of fresh camp bread in a small Dutch oven, one of the few metal items in either of their kits. It was easily the heaviest single item in the Elf's pack. He saw why she carried it when she wrapped dried rations in dough and produced a sort of stuffed bun that was incredibly good for how bland travel rations tended to be. She didn't bake often, preferring to conserve their supplies but they were soon to be able to restock and wanted the benefit of a hearty breakfast.
Ulric wasn't sure the wisdom of that when they were about to go review what had to be an absolutely grisly scene of carnage but trusted her judgment. He'd been shoulders deep in gore aplenty since he'd come to this world, what was a little more?
He refilled their water bags and topped off their canteens while his Shadow assembled the meal. The water hole was already frozen back over, though not as thickly, and his knife made short work of it. Fresh clean water, straight out of the river. That would have been unthinkable in his old world, a death sentence.
Upon his return, they completed their silent meal and readied to move.
Packs hoisted, the pair retraced their steps to find the disassembled caravan guards where they'd been summarily MDK'd.
Ulric grimaced. Yep. That was about what he remembered. Unlike many of his spells, which used fire or electricity, or even high-pressure water, the wounds made by the Caelum blades did not cauterize. They bled quite freely and the result down there was basically a crowd-sourced people soup, frozen into the snow.
He followed in his Shadow's wake, taking note of the surroundings that had made for such a wonderful ambush from their perspective. It would be a good idea to note when he himself was walking through such a place, to not find himself on the receiving end of a similar setup.
Taipan started reviewing the bodies and one thing became immediately clear. These were not the same men as from the common room, except for the one guy who'd gotten killed by Ulric twice.
"Okay, well that's odd." Ulric stated the obvious, which made his partner roll her eyes.
He smiled a little, needing the humor in the face of this. He knew it aggravated her when he narrated things that did not need to be said aloud.
"You recognize any of these mooks?" He asked.
"Mooks? Ulric you are making up words again." the investigating Elf informed him.
"A stooge, a tool, a moronic and expendable individual of ill repute useful only for fodder and following one-word directions." Ulric explained.
His Shadow nodded appreciatively, "That is a good word, Ulric. This world you lived in, I must admit they have a way of describing things with such elegance."
"But no," the crouching woman continued, poking through pockets, and inspecting soiled gear, "I do not recognize any of these, except for the twice killed mook over there."
Ulric grinned at her immediate incorporation of the word.
His grey eyes moved slowly over the scene, cataloging details, though he had not the experience as his partner.
There was one thing he found a little odd.
"Is there a reason they're all dressed exactly the same, with exactly the same gear?" He asked.
Taipan looked up from the corpse she'd been inspecting, eyes appreciative.
"You noticed that then, did you? Impressive Glade Chief." She praised, before ruining it, "Since you are proving useful, go through these and see if anything strikes you as inordinate." tossing him a couple of pouches she'd collected from the bodies.
He caught them easily but regretted it: they were not quite dry.
It was nice to be relied on, but volunteering earned you work. It reminded him of his mandatory service days, an unfortunate year and a half.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" He saluted, bloodied hand to his forehead, before pouring the contents upon the ground and poring over them.
Every minute or so, another pouch would sail through the air to land beside him. Before too long, he had a pretty wide assortment of items, mostly surprisingly free of the remains of their owners. Made sense, you didn't want your valuables getting wet, so water, and blood, resistant pouches were a smart move.
Ulric, indulged in his obsessive compulsiveness for a minute, and thus shortly had organized each of the contents in a grid, rows headed by a pouch and columns associated with each row, the different types of objects. Coins in one column, kept to their respective departed owner's row, as who had how much might be useful evidence, tools in another column, documents in another, etc.
Soon, he had everything laid out before him. He had not much clue what any of it meant.
Taipan sidled over examining the array of items. Recognizing the system he had in place, she placed belt knives with their owner's rows in a new column. Added into this, she laid two new documents.
Ulric couldn't read, not well enough to trust himself with this, and cursed himself mentally again for not finding time to correct that deficiency. He had improved to some measure of word salad comprehension, but he didn't want to risk a mistake when it might cost them finding out what the hell was going on here.
Alright, two things stood out immediately. First, Double Kill, was sort of well-heeled. Between the coins on his person and the rather ornate engraving work on his knife, which Elves loosely used as identification, he seemed disproportionately well off compared to the rest. Secondly, none of these men had packed for a stay in the wild. No tinder, no strikers to make sparks, no waterbags or shelter of any kind.
"What the fuck?" Ulric said aloud, earning a grunt of agreement from Taipan.
"Did they plan on sleeping in a huddle in the snow?" He asked sarcastically.
"More likely that they either have an alternative route into the city, which avoids the gates and guards, or that they have a hideout nearby, off the road. Celestin tend to be more agricultural and husbandry-oriented than my own people, and do not tend their forests as assiduously as the Iriel'en, Ulric. A small shack could go unremarked for years." She stated.
Tapping her lips in thought she wondered aloud, "But if they had a place to hide in the forest, they would have set a lookout and been ahead of us, not behind. No, they had a way into the city that would not raise alarm after the gates close."
That seemed sound logic to him.
"Alright, so they had friends in the city. They all dress exactly the same, like caravan guards in uniforms. One of them has a Sil Drake while the rest trade in Eld Knights. They are all youngish Celestin, of sort of similar appearance, probably from the same place. None of them have the sense to leave Iriel'en Hunters in the forest alone and wait until they are more easily caught in a township." Ulric summarized the knowns up to now.
"Those documents say anything interesting? Is there any chance they only meant to harass us rather than kill us?" He checked, hoping that would not end up the case.
It was much easier to live with killing somebody who meant the same for you. It went without saying that they'd have been forfeiting their lives just for accosting somebody in the wilds, the rules for that kind of behavior were clear amongst the Elves of Iriel and what he knew of the other clans didn't far differ in that respect.
Taipan had unrolled one of the documents, a small thing in Double Kill's pouch, and read briefly aloud, "Share the Valin animal's things amongst you, bring the Iriel'en to the usual place, alive. Same price as before."
His hands were gripped into fists, shaking slightly. Well. That took care of that.
Laying that one aside, she opened the one that had been in the coat pocket of one of the others. It was blood-soaked and Taipan took more time trying to make out the message.
She shook her head, "It is near to ruined Ulric but I believe it goes, 'Bring live catch crew, new meat, Seinajok, heads down."
Ulric frowned. Double fuck you people. What was going on here?
"What is going on here?" He asked his more experienced companion.
Taipan rose, scrubbing the drying blood onto her sturdy, once spotless, trousers. The first of many such stains, if Ulric had to guess.
"It would seem that there is some sort of criminal organization in the business of capturing traveling Elven women. They spring up, occasionally. Mostly they are eventually determined to be operating through contacts in Prosper to acquire new Aes'r slaves."
Taipan glossed over that little bit of terribleness with some degree of familiarity. Ulric unclenched his teeth, it wasn't like this was an unheard-of practice. That it was dead in his own world was not a consolation, people had enslaved people, using various names for it, for a solid chunk of their history.
"Fair enough. So, what? We bring this stuff to the guards in Trachn'ir, right? They gotta know about this horseshit; if I'm hearing you right, that letter said 'a catch crew' not 'the catch crew' so there are more of these assholes out there grabbing travelers." Ulric guessed.
Her lips pursed as she assessed the situation. Eventually, her emerald eyes met his and he saw the hardness in them.
"No. No, I think not." Taipan whispered, her tone promising evil.
"We are the exact sort of travelers these conniving [Rot Weevils] thrive on. Small in number, nameless, out of season, and easy to miss. If they are active so far South, then it is almost certain that we will encounter them farther to the North, perhaps even on the road out from Trachn'ir. This problem must be addressed now, before we walk into a trap organized from farther out than I can see." Taipan asserted.
"Whoever leads this troupe was probably based in Trachn'ir, judging by how quickly they were able to send and receive word. We were only stopped three days in Seinajok but they got word there and back to Trachn'ir and also deployed this 'catch crew' to the village. They cannot have been based elsewhere and have been timely enough to attempt this." She reasoned.
"That checks out." Ulric agreed with her assessment, rubbing the stubble growing in on his chin.
"So why not the city guards or whoever polices this area?" He asked.
"Because such as these operate out of places where they feel safest and most guardsmen have gifts to ensure the honesty of those nearby, or at least, become suspicious around duplicitous behaviors. These bastards probably have contacts in the city that will warn them of a break in their security. That they would even still carry these documents is a measure of how easy they've had it, they should have burned such messages immediately, were their brains not rotted rope." detailed the Elf, punctuated by spitting on one of the bisected corpses.
And, yet again, his Shadow proved that she was a seasoned hunter of thinking peoples, in addition to the beasts.
Ulric thought it over, feeling the rising of the Twins on his face. Contacts within the guards. An information network that transmitted orders fairly decisively and had resources to hide themselves in plain sight. These would easily have been mistaken for caravaneers, albeit a little hasty in their departure. That meant that these men would shortly be missed which would spook their handlers, perhaps even so much as to tie up loose ends and disappear.
"We're on the clock then, Taipan, if you have in mind, what I'm thinking you have in mind." Ulric told her.
He was pretty sure his lover was planning to track down the organizer of these goons and show him what his guts looked like.
"We are, Ulric. I estimate that they would be expected to have murdered you, grabbed me, hidden their losses, and reported their success within two rises of the Twins. Then we have that much time to teach them how deep the Deep Wood really goes." Taipan, gestured, cutting with her hand.
Attacked by monsters. A common room brawl. Waylaid by traffickers of people. So, this is what adventures were all about.
