Chapter 8 Eoin
EOIN
The fortress is a crude thing. A ruin crudely mended, a child’s stack of mismatched stones pretending to be a citadel.
I stand on the ridge overlooking the valley, my assessment of the place called “Haven” swift and dismissive.
Its walls are a patchwork of old granite and new mortar, its defenses reliant on predictable choke points and amateurish wooden battlements.
It is a sanctuary of runaways, and it has the scent of desperation.
Beneath the odors of woodsmoke, livestock, and unwashed bodies, I can feel her.
The Anomaly. Our psychic link, a scar I have learned to ignore for five years, now hums with a sharp, insistent vibration.
It is a torrent of heightened emotion, a frantic energy that I logically identify as fear.
It is the only appropriate response. She knows what I am.
She knows why I am here. Her terror is a beacon, confirming my path.
I descend from the ridge, my movements silent. I do not take to the air; that would be a mercy, a swift approach. Instead, I walk the path to her gate, an inexorable predator, allowing her fear to build.
The territory is littered with primitive traps.
A tripwire fashioned from gut is stretched between two pines.
I step over it without breaking stride. A shallow pit covered with branches lies further on.
I walk around its edge, my lips curling in a faint, humorless line.
These are the defenses of a frightened slave, not a queen.
My confidence is absolute. This will be a simple extraction.
The path leads me through an outer gate, left deliberately open.
An invitation. It winds through a narrow passage between two tall rock faces before opening into the main courtyard.
A kill-zone, by obvious design. She intends to funnel me here.
I allow myself to be funneled. Let her believe her pathetic strategy is working.
And that is where I see it. The specimen.
He is in the courtyard, alone, tossing a small, leather ball against a stone wall.
The silver hair is unmistakable, a stark banner of his Vrakken heritage.
He is small, as is expected for a half-breed of his age, but his movements possess a fluid grace that is not entirely human.
He turns, and for a moment, his gaze falls upon me.
My analytical mind takes over, all other considerations fading to insignificance.
Subject is approximately five years of age.
Physical condition appears optimal. There are no visible signs of The Fading—no discoloration of the skin, no tremor, no hint of the physical decay that plagues my kind.
A faint, golden Purna aura, inherited from the mother, radiates from him, a sign of immense vitality.
He is the cure. A living, breathing solution to the extinction of my race.
The most important scientific discovery in millennia.
The boy’s eyes widen, but he does not cry out. He simply watches me, his expression one of intense, unnerving curiosity. It is an illogical response. He should be terrified.
I dismiss the thought. The child’s reaction is irrelevant. I take a single, deliberate step into the courtyard, my focus narrowing entirely on my objective.
That is when the world lurches.
A deep, groaning sound echoes from the towers above, and a vast shadow falls over me. I look up. A massive net, woven from thick, iron-laced rope and glowing with the sickly green energy of dampening magic, plummets towards me.
My inhuman speed should be more than enough to evade it. I move, a blur of motion, but I am an instant too slow. The sheer size of the net means my escape vector is miscalculated. It crashes down upon me with the force of a collapsing building.
The impact drives me to one knee. The weight is immense, but manageable.
It is the magic woven into the strands that is the true threat.
The moment it touches me, my strength begins to leech away, a disorienting sensation like being plunged into a vat of thick, icy tar.
The power I would use to tear the net apart is smothered, dampened, swallowed by the Aethel-inspired sorcery pulsing through the ropes.
Before I can recover, a series of heavy thunks echoes from hidden positions in the walls around the courtyard.
Massive, iron-tipped bolts, as thick as my wrist, shoot from concealed slots, trailing heavy chains.
They punch into the ground around me, pinning the edges of the net with brutal efficiency, drawing it tight, and locking me in place.
It is an elegant, well-executed trap. Far more sophisticated than the primitive snares outside. My assessment of her abilities was flawed. A critical miscalculation.
Human soldiers, clad in mismatched leather and iron, swarm from the doorways, their weapons raised. They are terrified—I can smell it—but their lines are disciplined. They surround me, but keep their distance. They are not the primary attack. They are a distraction.
I see the glint of movement from a murder hole in the wall to my left.
A puff of air. Something stings my neck.
A dart. I grit my teeth against the sudden, fiery numbness that begins to spread through my veins.
A potent sedative. Derived from Black Root serpent venom, if I am not mistaken.
Fast-acting. Designed to fell a beast ten times the size of a man.
Rage, a hot and unfamiliar sensation, surges through me. To be brought down by such crude, simple methods. By her. I pull against the net, and despite the dampening magic, a roar of pure, guttural fury tears from my throat. The ground around me cracks, and several of the soldiers cry out in alarm.
But the poison is relentless. My limbs grow heavy. The edges of my vision begin to darken, tunneling. The sounds of the courtyard fade to a distant roar. My strength fails, and I fall forward, my body crashing to the cold, unforgiving stone.
The soldiers part, creating a path. A single figure walks through them. The boots are leather. The trousers are practical, durable wool. A dagger with a well-worn hilt hangs at her hip.
She stops just before me, and my fading vision focuses on her face. Her eyes are not wide with fear. There is no trace of the terrified slave I abandoned in a dark elf cell. They are as cold and hard as the winter stone around us.
The Anomaly.
As the darkness closes in, the last thing I see is her, standing over me, her hand resting on the pommel of her dagger, her eyes filled not with terror, but with the chilling, absolute light of victory.