Chapter Six
Much like the first time, trouble arrived while Dipak was out hunting. Rabbits, today, for meat and fur, mostly his own, but a couple for the blacksmith.
Mercenaries again, but this group wasn't a hunting party. They were armed for war still, but this was a search party. They were trying to find the first group, which made sense, a good thirty people had died nearly two weeks ago now.
Seven, large for a search party, as the point of them was to stay low and quiet, invisible at best and unobtrusive at worst. Two was ideal, four was the maximum, maybe five if one person was remaining at a campsite as a coordination point.
That would have been the smart thing in a forest like this, especially as it was a thousand times more dangerous at night than all other forests combined.
What in the gods' names was going on?
Clearly, he should have taken a closer look at those mercenaries.
He hadn't even bothered to see if they carried some insignia, though a cursory search of the bodies for something useful had not turned up anything noteworthy, and generally that sort of thing did.
The White Wolves. The Clawing Dark. He'd once worked alongside a group called the Merciless Shadows.
It was always something absurdly melodramatic, with crests to match, usually hidden so they could mark each other but not advertise themselves to the greater populace.
"Euclid, if you're listening, I could use you right now."
He wasn't remotely surprised when Euclid appeared a moment later, stepping out from behind a large tree like it was his damned house and he'd just come outside. "Seriously," Dipak hissed, "how do you do that?"
"I walk all available paths, not just the obvious ones."
"That explains nothing, and you know it."
Euclid just smiled, nearly an actual smirk, the teasing bastard. "I will teach you sometime, maybe, though the trade would be significant."
"I traded color for improved eyesight, dragon.
I know the cost of magic. Let's get rid of these interlopers and get through the solstice, and then we'll talk.
" He hadn't thought Euclid would tell him, let alone offer to teach him.
It was just one of their little games. In another life, if Euclid were human, Dipak would say they were flirting.
A life of flirting, however, had died with Lochan.
After the way he'd so deeply hurt Euclid by wanting to hunt him like a trophy, it was madness he even wanted to be Dipak's friend.
No centuries-old dragon was going to flirt with a human, anyway.
He was plenty adult by human standards, but must still seem so pathetically young by dragon.
"Want me to kill them, warn them, or run them off?" he asked, focusing on the matter at hand like he should have been all along, instead of getting distracted by a pretty dragon with fancy powers and a desire to show off.
"Let's get close, see what they're saying, hmm? Maybe they can tell us something useful, like how many more might come if they go missing too."
Dipak watched the group, pondering. "I can loop around east, settle behind that witch maple—"
"Silly human." Euclid grabbed his arm and pulled him close, so that Dipak damn near had to grab him to keep from crashing into him.
Then everything shifted, as if the world had been yanked away like a curtain, and suddenly there was something more there behind the curtain—and then they were behind the maple, exactly as he'd wanted to be, but it had only taken them two steps at most.
His head hurt something fierce, and he was dizzy enough he might throw up if the wrong smell hit him right now. He glared, but Euclid only smirked, then jerked his head in the direction of the mercenaries just steps away.
All his years sneaking around, it was still strange to realize that people were completely unaware of him.
On some level, he just expected them to know, because how could they not?
Even though he was purposely making sure they didn't. Eavesdropping wasn't really pleasant, just strange and uncomfortable. He did not trust anyone who enjoyed it.
"—what they deserved, messing around in this place."
"It was thirty hardened soldiers. No way they all died to one fucking forest. At least one of them would have made it back."
"They were hunting a dragon in the most dangerous place on the continent."
Three voices so far.
A fourth said, "Quit it, all of you." Well, they'd found the person in charge, which was always useful knowledge.
"This place is called the Forbidden Forest for a reason.
In about two hours, you'll learn those reasons firsthand, unless we find a place to make camp real fucking soon.
It is entirely possible the whole crew was wiped out, and that's more likely than anything nefarious, but also dragons are a big game prize, especially right now, so it's possible they crossed paths with another crew who got rid of the competition. "
"Oh, please," said a fifth voice, "we are nobody's competition."
The leader said with chilling calm, "Everyone is easy work to somebody. The cockier you get, the easier you become."
Dipak's brows rose. That was one of the smartest things he'd ever heard a merc say. Too smart for a merc. Which meant either he could help solve the problem if they spoke to him, or he'd become a much bigger problem.
They'd have to get him alone to know for sure, though.
He shared a look with Euclid, who winked and then was gone.
Dipak sighed and relaxed his bow.
Euclid gave the all clear a moment later, and Dipak strode into the clearing to secure all the people that, by the look of them, had been dazed by magic.
There were a hundred variations on the spell, all of them unpleasant, but it was too easy to screw it up and accidentally kill or permanently damage the victim, so it was a 'desperate measures only' type of spell.
Of course Euclid made it look like a party trick. Dipak had always considered himself a more-than-competent mage, but Euclid made him feel like he was in the woods with his mother for the first time all over again.
Once the six subordinates were tied up and out of the way, they turned their attention to the leader.
Tall, dark skin, really short hair but not shaved down like so many mercs favored, shockingly handsome for someone who got paid to be a glorified thug, in that he didn't have the usual wear and tear of someone who lived such a hard life.
No scars, no broken nose, his skin was rather flawless, actually. "Wait, I can see him."
"He's part fae," Euclid said, hands on his hips. "Not much, maybe a grandparent."
"Grandmother," the man said, looking faintly amused. "You're obviously a moon witch, what are you then?"
"You don't get to ask the questions," Dipak said sharply. "You're mercenaries, which group?"
"What makes you think I'll tell you?"
"I could have easily put you with the rest. I can still do that. If you want to walk out of this forest, you'll answer my questions. Violence isn't our preferred solution, but it's still an option."
The man regarded him pensively. "There's something about you. Familiar, somehow, not like I've met you, but like I should recognize you."
"What group are you with?"
"Bloodletters, though I don't know why that matters. I have the tattoo to prove it."
"You wouldn't lie about that." The Bloodletters were bad, bad news. Not the absolute worst, but the kind of mercenaries sent after other mercenaries, that kind of thing. "Dragon hunting is a bit below your pay."
The man gave a small laugh that was sour at the edges.
"I don't make those kinds of decisions. I just try to make sure my people don't die doing what we're told.
Not that anyone listens to me." He sighed and let his head fall back to thump against the tree he was secured to, by rope and magic.
"Some duke or whatnot has put out a call for dragons.
Captured alive. Boss is being cagey, but from what I have been able to overhear, price is ten thousand kesh per dragon, and that price doubles for a blue dragon.
The likeliest place to find one of those is right here in the forest, so yeah, you bet your ass even the Bloodletters are looking. "
If one group had come looking for Euclid, then others would follow. Damn it. That many mercenaries… eventually, one of them would get lucky, or they'd bring a hunter that could stand toe to toe with a dragon.
He looked at Euclid, who clearly shared his every thought. "Nothing will stop people looking for that kind of payout."
"Proof the dragon is dead, maybe," Euclid said, eyeing the man thoughtfully. "What's your name?"
"Abhishek. Yours?"
Dipak rolled his eyes.
"Twenty thousand kesh," Euclid said thoughtfully. "Price has really come down. I remember a king once offered his own hand in marriage to anyone who could bring him the head of a blue dragon."
"King!" Abhishek said, sitting up sharply before he was roughly reminded he couldn't actually do that. "That's who you are. The Kingslayer. Rumor had it you were exiled because the prince was secretly in love with you and couldn't bear to actually kill you."
"I was in love with Lochan, not Madhav," Dipak said, because who he was didn't really matter to anyone or anything. "He exiled me out of guilt, not affection. Kingslayer? Please don't say that's what they're actually calling me now. Why are they talking about me at all?"
Abhishek laughed. "You're joking, right? You killed a king. People like me are paid hundreds, even thousands, a year just to try to kill important people, and you did it so easily."
"Simple, maybe, but it wasn't easy." He held up a hand when Abhishek started to reply.
"My sordid past is not the matter at hand.
We need mercenaries to stay out of our forest. Will a certain number of bodies do it?
I already killed thirty of you. I can make it thirty-seven and keep adding until they stop. "