by Sarah Lin
They had reached a bronze plain on the other side of the forest by the time they spotted another rainhorn. When Theo attempted to cast a gravitational field over it, the beast leapt away with preternatural awareness. If it had been him alone, it would have escaped over the grasses, but Nauda threw herself after it, briefly outpacing the beast before getting close enough to bind it in place with her staff.
While Fiyu caught up with them, Theo walked beside the struggling rainhorn, extending his senses toward it. Instead of a true soulhome, it contained a naturalistic expanse within itself. This one was a fragment of a forest, several of the trees bent together into a strange structure that bound some cantae.
When he'd first visited the Nine, he'd assumed that sublime beasts must have tiers similar to humans. Instead of building upward, they grew out, with more dangerous sublime beasts having soulhomes that were rings within rings. They tended to be uneven as well: the rainhorn had senses comparable to an Archcrafter, but their strength was barely first tier, and they had no cantae defenses to speak of. Clearly a prey animal, if a majestic one.
"Could we eat any of the rainhorn meat?" Fiyu wiped off her hand once she finished the beast, though he didn't notice any blood on her skin. "If we are to kill these creatures, I would feel more comfortable if I at least partook of their sacrifice."
"The villagers will eat it all, but I understand." Nauda set to binding the body with the other they had captured earlier that day. "It isn't much of a sublime material, but it might be worth tasting."
"I would like to store more sublime foods. There was little meat on Tatian, so I think more diversity would help me."
"Everyone assumes that, but I've seen soulcrafters who ate nothing but sublime vegetables."
The two of them began to discuss how best to create a chamber of sublime food, but Theo let their conversation flow through the back of his mind while he instead looked to the horizon. As far as he could tell, there was nothing but grass and lakes in that direction, but could more rainhorns be hiding there? Their hides would seem to stand out in the bronze grass, though if they lowered themselves...
Because he was observing his environment so carefully, Theo noticed the sled plowing toward them. It wasn't as elaborate or expensive as the one Esaire had used, but it had a bulky front that flowed with cantae defenses. Theo hastily gestured to the others and they leapt aside, Fiyu pulling the floating bodies along with her.
Though the sled skidded to a halt, someone leapt from the side while it was still moving, aiming for Fiyu. Theo immediately tried to reverse their gravity, but they burned with cantae to resist it, exactly as Esaire had done.
Fiyu threw herself back in time to avoid his pike smashing into the earth and Theo regained his bearings. The attacker wasn't Esaire, but Delarde - the other Archcrafter had apparently been soulcrafting since their last meeting, or Esaire had taught him the technique rather easily. Several others remained in the sled, including Hauloe but no Archcrafters.
It was clear that Fiyu needed help, but at that moment the sled began moving again, intending to run her down. Theo set a gravitational field in its path and when the levitation sublime materials hit it, the vehicle suddenly flipped end over end. Most of the soulcrafters within went tumbling out over the field, the sled remaining intact but spilling out supplies, including two rainhorn corpses.
Meanwhile, the carnage had separated him from Fiyu, who now dodged away from Delarde's pike. She managed to evade him by retreating, but one of his cuts sliced the line holding the hovering rainhorns, which he grabbed and jerked back toward him.
"Thanks for gathering these for us!" Delarde laughed and pulled the rainhorns to his side, and though Theo tried to send them falling upward, the Archrafter's strength held them down, even against multiplied gravity.
"We hunted those." Though Fiyu's face looked deeply distressed, her hands fell to her sides in her ready position. "You can't take them."
"Don't you know anything?" Delarde laughed again, more to cheer his disrupted allies than out of mirth. "Stealing is an age-old part of the Great Rainhorn Hunt!"
"The rules said that anything you hunted was yours to keep."
He grinned and pulled the rainhorns closer to him. "That's right, and we just hunted these two rainhorns."
"That is unkind." Fiyu's hands began to flicker with cantae, but the Archcrafter didn't consider her a threat, just laughed. This time was in actual amusement, hearing her words as childishness instead of a serious Ichili statement.
"You really have no idea how the world works, do you? The strong take from the weak, that's just a law of nature. My master told me that Ichil was a brutal world, but I'm starting to wonder if she got it wrong."
When Fiyu attempted to launch a hail of light at him, the Archcrafter leapt over it with superior speed, still surrounded by the cantae cloak that made him invulnerable to gravitational manipulation. He had to be burning through most of his cantae stores, but there was nothing Theo could do, and he was swinging his pike overhead...
Nauda caught him in midair with her staff against his stomach. They fell in opposite directions, both landing on their feet. Delarde no longer looked playful, shoving aside the rainhorns and gripping his pike in a proper stance.
"You ascended, huh? You're about to learn the difference between a newborn Archcrafter and one that's actually trained."
While they faced off, Theo noted that the others were pulling back to their feet. Theo immediately cast a gravitational field to lift and drop all of them, but Hauloe landed on her feet, cantae burning around her in that same cloak technique. It seemed that Esaire had been busy, planning for a conflict just like this.
Fiyu remained off to the side, wrapping her arms around herself in a position that looked vulnerable, but was actually gathering and preparing cantae. There was no one around to threaten her, so Theo focused on Hauloe, hitting her with multiple gravitational fields. She didn't fall, but struggled to move forward under the multiplied gravity.
Meanwhile, Nauda and Delarde struck violently, their weapons clashing... and then Nauda's other hand whipped from her side, her broken fork pinning him in place. Delarde sneered, but when he attempted to move, he grimaced. He might have more soulcrafted rooms, but Nauda's binding technique was a powerful one, and now that they both had Archcrafter-tier cantae, he couldn't resist it so easily.
Yet, by virtue of raw cantae alone, he began to struggle forward, raising his pike, still while maintaining the anti-gravitational cloak. Even Nauda looked surprised... just how much cantae did Delarde have?
Hauloe managed to hurl a bolt of cantae at Theo, but he easily dodged aside. She was beginning to struggle as her soulhome emptied, which was more what he would have expected. He'd dismissed Delarde at first, but the Archcrafter's skills were sharp and he seemed to have unreal depths of cantae. Grinning, the Deuxan man began to advance toward Nauda with his pike raised.
A whistle sounded over the field: a whistle warning allies. Theo instantly reversed gravity for himself and Nauda, sending them falling into the sky.
Beneath, Fiyu unleashed a devastating storm of bolts. They tore up the ground and sent many of the lesser soulcrafters tumbling backward along with their sled. Hauloe managed to stand, which might have proved fatal because it meant she absorbed more of the burning hail.
Yet somehow Delarde generated a sphere of cantae that deflected the bolts, then moved to shield Hauloe and the others. He took a step forward, blocking more of Fiyu's bolts, and glared at her until her cantae was exhausted. The field of grass had been devastated, but she had nothing left and he still stood confidently.
"Enough!" Esaire's sleigh emerged from the forest with the young noble standing atop it. Theo hadn't noticed him before, but thought there was roughly zero chance that he had just arrived. He had been observing, and judging from his smile, he'd seen what he wanted. "Well fought, Delarde, but they've defended their claim well enough."
"Hmph. Fine." Delarde jumped over to land in the sleigh,
still not showing the slightest weariness. "Keep your two miserable rainhorns."
As the other soulcrafters weakly struggled back to their feet, retrieving their sled and joining the others, Esaire turned to Theo with a smug smile. "You have interesting techniques, soulcrafter."
"Thank you." Theo feigned nonchalance, but he was fairly certain that Esaire had implied that he knew Theo wasn't an Archcrafter. "I thought the Armeau family wanted to buy rainhorns, not steal them."
"Ah, but anything stolen during the great hunt is fairly taken." Esaire folded his arms and smiled more broadly. "Especially when certain hunters seem inclined to sell to others. But tell me, how many has your little group hunted so far?"
"Counting these two, fifteen in total."
For the briefest moment, Esaire's smile twitched to irritation. He said nothing about how many they had gathered, but Theo was willing to bet that it was less than thirty, so he was winning a bet that Esaire had thought would be easy. Though they were outclassed in a fight, Theo thought this was about pride, a theory confirmed when Esaire dropped down into the front seat of his sleigh.
"You're not doing so badly, Bartolo aina Fithe. But I'll let you in on a little secret: tomorrow will be the last day of the hunt. We'll see who's most successful in the end."
With that, he drove the sleigh away, leaving some of his allies to limp after him in their damaged sled. Theo remained alert, just in case there was a further layer of deception, but they truly didn't want to continue the fight. Esaire might be confident in his victory, but if he'd watched the fight, he would know that he'd lose allies in the process, including Hauloe from the Tatian family.
In their absence, Fiyu slumped and sighed without saying anything. Nauda walked back to them, returning her broken fork to her pack. "He looked irritated when you gave the number. I take it he didn't expect us to have managed fifteen?"
"Actually, seventeen." Theo released the gravitational field he'd been holding most of the fight and two more rainhorns dropped from the sky, still bound in the Deuxan group's wrappings. "In all the confusion, it looks like they forgot a few things."
"Clever." Nauda grinned, then went to go retrieve the bodies and join them with the others. Fiyu smiled only briefly before coming alongside him with a somber expression.
"Am I foolish, Theo? Is it really just a game?" When she saw his glance, Fiyu continued. "If taking from others is merely part of the game, then I was wrong to be upset. But I don't think it was fair play. I think he would have taken more if he could."
Theo could only shake his head. "The truth is, all Deuxan society is a bit of a game, in that sense. They take rules like bloodprices very seriously, but all laws are meant to be bent or broken. You made the right decision with your show of strength. This could have gone much worse."
"Especially Esaire." Nauda returned to them bearing all four rainhorns. "I didn't get a perfect look at his soulhome, but it's well-built, and he seems to be a skilled soulcrafter. That aura to resist your techniques isn't some trivial addition: he taught them to soulcraft complex new cornerstones in very little time."
"So that's what it was... but I'm more worried about Delarde. Maybe the two of us together could have exhausted him, but I think I underestimated his soulhome."
"No, you just misunderstood it. I got a much better look while we were fighting, and it isn't what I expected." Nauda gave them both a grim smile and began sketching out a blueprint in the dirt. "He doesn't just have one chamber generating cantae, he has four on each floor. I couldn't get a clear view of all of them, but he had four different sources and at least one chamber dedicated to mixing and distributing all that cantae."
"That would mean he has so few rooms left..." Theo snapped his fingers as the strategy came together for him. "So he's made himself nearly inexhaustible, but he doesn't have anything in reserve. Some of these chambers must be for strength, speed, and so on, based on what we've seen. He might have a pike technique in reserve, but his design is inflexible. He could fight like that forever, but that's all he has."
"If we could hit him without all his defenses, he might go down quickly, but he's never going to run out of cantae. Not in a fight with us, anyway."
Theo and Nauda regarded each other seriously, no obvious solution to the problem presenting itself. Fiyu had stood beside them, listening quietly, but now finally ventured a thought. "Perhaps a better strategy is evasion? They will likely not try something like this again, at least not today. If we hunt enough rainhorns, we can simply leave."
"You're right, Fiyu." Nauda smiled at her warmly, starting to raise a hand and then awkwardly patting Theo instead. "It's a cruel game, but they're still treating it like a game. We just need to play better and avoid them."
That was a good thought to get them back to hunting, so Theo joined the others as they headed further in search of more rainhorns. Internally, however, he wasn't so confident. Esaire had taken the matter personally, and while it was no blood vendetta, he wouldn't let it go so easily.
Chapter 22
By the end of the day, they had a total of seven rainhorns. Without the two they had stolen from Delarde's group, it would have been much worse hunting than the previous day, even going into less hunted territory. While they returned to the city, Theo heard rumors that the court was going to trigger some kind of effect to flush out hiding rainhorns for the last day of the hunt.
Once they entered city limits, Theo let the others get ready for the evening while he went to sell what they'd hunted. This time he went to one of the Armeau family merchants, intending to extend an olive branch that might deflect a little hostility. He was given a doubled increased price, and politely tried to decline it, but equally politely accepted it in the end. Esaire might be angry that he was losing the wager so far, but his family needed contributions more than money.
Most importantly, they now had over 2000 Silver Crowns, which was a small fortune for first tier soulcrafters. Even if they did poorly on the final day, they had enough to purchase a reliable vehicle with enough left over for their travels. On top of that, they had kept the three best sets of antlers for themselves, though he wasn't completely sure how he'd use his.
Though it would be good to discuss strategy, when Theo returned to meet the others, he realized that it wasn't time for that yet. They'd joined a feast in a neutral courtyard and purchased some of the rainhorn meat, clearly desiring a rest. Considering that a major conflict was still possible, they needed to be at their best, so he decided not to press the issue.
Senka was with them, chomping one of the pieces of meat. Of course she was. The little brat disappeared most of the time, then showed up again when it was time to eat something, or just to annoy him. He'd tried using her to hunt rainhorns on the second day, but she'd been more than useless.
"You got the doubled price, didn't you?" Nauda smiled when he approached, uncovering a plate of steaming rainhorn venison.
"Yeah, I did. So we already have what we need."
"I figured that we would, so I ordered a version of the dish specially prepared for soulcrafters. They added spices and greens - uh, silvers - to improve the cantae generation. It's not extraordinary, but it certainly tastes good."
"We have enough even with that purchase, so good choice." Accepting that they didn't want to discuss strategy at the moment, Theo just sat down to eat alongside them.
For a time they ate in silence, just relishing the food. It really was remarkably savory, and the additions helped it slip right into his soulhome. He'd organize it later, for the moment focusing on the conversation. Some of it was about hunting, or when they might return to Tatian, but for the most part they simply enjoyed one another's company.
Since they had been silent during most of the hunts, Nauda and Fiyu took the opportunity to ask questions they'd apparently been holding back. Nauda said that there were places on Tatian where animals naturally wandered into villages when they were about to die, offering themselves up. He thought he'd heard corroborating st
ories of that, but was more interested in where she had learned to hunt. Fiyu was the only one to answer that question, explaining about stalking animals in the Moonscape along with her relative.
This was one area where they completely surpassed him, because Theo had concentrated on other skills during his time on Earth. He had developed basic survival skills, but he knew that his life in the Nine Worlds would ultimately come down to soulcrafting. Though he'd taken strong first steps, he remained at the mercy of far too many soulcrafters, much less Vistgil.
After the first course, a cheerful peasant delivered strangely cloth-wrapped items that Nauda had apparently ordered. The rough outer cloth contained a mix of different types of meat, heavily spiced - not really a sublime material at all, but when he picked out the pieces, he found them delicious.
"I've done a few favors for the villagers," Nauda explained, "and they suggested we try these. You can't live on sublime foods alone, so I thought this was a good time to try them."
"It is too spicy." Fiyu's face was flushed, but she kept returning to pull another piece into her mouth.
"Yummy, yummy!" Senka chimed in cheerfully, talking through a full mouth. Theo abruptly realized that she wasn't eating the meat out of its container, she was chewing straight through the cloth. He just stared, while Nauda reached over to extricate it from her grip.
"Senka, you're not supposed to eat that part..."
"Don't take Senka's yummies!"
The two of them squabbled over the wrap, which made Fiyu laugh and Theo roll his eyes. It would have been a better meal with just the three of them, but he could put up with the imp for now. After he'd ascended far enough, he would need to do experiments on inter-world travel, and having another outsider to test might provide useful data. Especially an expendable outsider.
