Chapter 1 #6
It might, but I’d rather that than dropping through it and discovering a trap.
We’d almost been trapped once before—though by the gilded riders, not the Mareritt—and I definitely did not want to go through that hell again.
My wound might have healed but it had left me with a rather nasty scar—and I really had more than enough of them already.
She dropped lower, then shifted her wing position so that she could run her rear claws through the fog. Ripples ran away from her touch but quickly settled down.
Is wrong, she said after a moment.
In what way?
Sting like gilded ones’ fog.
Meaning this was likely something else the fucking riders had shared with our foe.
I thrust a gloved hand through my hair and blew out a frustrated breath, my gaze—still lightly connected to hers—skimming the area below.
Drop height and fly around the base of the fog, as close as the trees and the ground will allow. Let’s see if there’s another way in.
Not go in alone.
I won’t.
Maybe a few days ago I might have, but my entire world had been turned upside down since then.
As Jarin had noted, neither Esan nor indeed our drakkons could afford to lose another ruler, especially if it meant Aric gaining control through whatever diabolical threat he was holding over his oldest son to force obedience.
Kaia swept down, her wingtips skimming the ground, leaving little whirls of debris in our wake.
I scanned the base of the fog and, after a few minutes, noticed something odd.
Where the fog met trees, there was a small gap.
Not enough to slip a drakkon through, but certainly big enough for someone thin and tall—which was what all of us strega witches tended to be.
Mom had once suggested the inner fires meant we just couldn’t keep meat on our bones.
Eat more, Kaia said. Problem solved.
According to Mom, eating was not the problem.
Is now.
Are you nagging again?
Will if you no eat .
I snorted but nevertheless reached for the sack containing the Hutzelbrot. We can come back tonight with Kele and Yara; we’ll slip inside and check the situation out while you two keep watch .
And if we could find the pins that were anchoring the magic, we could destroy them. That should bring the fog wall down and give the drakkons a chance to flame whatever it was the Mareritt were hiding.
Like this plan, Kaia said.
You’d like any plan that involves flaming the enemy.
Truth .
I chuckled softly and lightly tapped her neck. Let’s get out of here.
Go home?
No. We’ve a missing scout team to find first.
I might not be able to do anything about the team we’d lost contact with just before the attack, but I’d be damned if I’d let Cate’s team go without at least seeing what had happened to them.
Where?
North to the Barrain Forest, then west, toward the big river.
She swooped around and flew in that direction. Thunder crackled overhead, and in the distance, lightning flashed. It was just our luck to be flying into a storm....
I tore off a good chunk of the Hutzelbrot and happily munched on it as my gaze skimmed the ground, looking for signs of unusual movement.
There was nothing to be seen. As the eerie-looking Barrain Ghost Forest came into sight, we swept to the left and continued on.
The rumbling of thunder gave way to fat drops of rain, then quickly became a deluge.
The desire to just go home rose, but aside from the need to uncover the fate of Cate’s team, there was also a growing curiosity to find out who—what—they had been following.
As with the seeming emptiness below us, I rather suspected there was a story behind the tracks we needed to uncover.
That emptiness continued on unabated except for the occasional drifts of cervine—large brown animals with thick shaggy hair and sharp, multi-pronged horns growing from the back of their skulls.
Though they weren’t domesticated, the Mareritt nevertheless tended them, as they provided good meat for the long months of darkness their half of the continent faced every year.
It was only when we reached the tail end of the Barrain Ghost Forest that the tracks became evident.
It was hard to miss them, in fact, given it was basically a trail of destruction a good twenty feet wide.
It plunged out of the forest, over the Igna, and continued on, heading west initially then gradually curving around to the rockier landscape of the south.
Toward Arleeon. Toward the Blue Steel Mountains.
Toward, if they maintained their current course, the large expanse between the second and third watch stations.
To what point, though?
The Mareritt had tried—and failed—to cross those treacherous mountains multiple times over the centuries, so if these tracks did belong to the riders’ ground force, what made them believe they could achieve what centuries of Mareritt could not?
I didn’t know, but I had a bad feeling we were about to find out.
We flew on and, after a few more miles, saw black dots circling in the sky.
Carrion birds.
My stomach sank. Though I’d been well aware the lack of communication meant it was unlikely Cate and her team had survived, hope had nevertheless remained.
These birds suggested otherwise. They didn’t often circle in such numbers unless there was a big enough carcass—or carcasses—to feed them all.
I burn? Kaia asked.
I smiled. They’re following instinct and do not deserve death for that. But we can burn whatever it is they’re circling.
It was the least we could do if it was Cate, her team, and their coursers. And at least with the heaviness of the rain, the rising column of smoke shouldn’t provide too much of a warning to whoever—whatever—had attacked them.
The carrion scattered as we drew near, although they remained within sighting distance, no doubt eager to continue their feast once we were gone again.
Kaia did a slow, banking circle, and I didn’t look down, instead checking the skies and the deeper distances barely visible through the silvery curtain of rain for any sign of watchers.
There was nothing.
I took a deep breath and finally looked down.
To discover a massacre.