by Jay Boyce
The monster glared at her, but finally hissed, “Yesssss, more will come. Our brethren will be avenged…”
She interrupted curtly, “When?”
It hissed at her, but her compulsion forced him to answer. “Ssssssoon. They will cut you into piecessssssss.”
“How many will come?” She was trying to speed this up, but the whole constant threats were annoying her.
“All of them… Releasssssssse me…” His voice took on a hypnotic quality, and she found herself reaching for her magic to let him go. Several of the men around her started to move towards the beast. With a quick gesture, a blade of wind flew forward, chopping off its head. The men seemed to come to, looking around in a bit of a daze before hastily taking a few steps back. She ignored the new red dot blinking in her vision.
“Good thing I captured more than one…” She muttered darkly to herself as she changed her wind wall so that only she was in there with the creatures, and the others wouldn’t be able to hear their voices. The men behind her looked a little relieved as they went back to searching the forest for enemies. At least now she knew that even as she could fight off their hypnotism, they could fight hers off too.
She repeated the process of waking up the next mesmer, quickly giving it the same orders before she started in on her questioning. “Where are your prisoners kept?”
“In the feeding pit.” It hissed angrily at her, and she realized this one was a woman, though with their disheveled appearances and ratty clothing, it was hard to tell. There was something about that clothing that was bothering her…
“Where’s the feeding pit? How do I find it?” She pushed aside her niggling doubts, wanting to get a straight answer.
“In the massssssster nesssssssst. You’ll find it when you’re taken there…” She grunted, beheading that one as it fought free of her compulsion.
With the third one, she tried to get straight to the point. “Which direction is the master nest?” The thing pointed to the west and she asked her next question. “Is the feeding pit underground?”
Ten minutes later, she’d gotten all the information she could out of the captured mesmer, beheading them all. The master nest was two nests to the west, and the feeding pit was hidden in a hollow tree in the center of the nest. The blackened trees were confirmed to be the markers of the nests, and the mesmer made homes both in the boughs, the trunk, as well as in the surrounding brush. The master nest was even better, because it was built on the ruins of an ancient city, so some of them had stone dwellings.
The last bit of information she’d gotten was that feedings happened right after sundown. Most of the mesmer fed only once a week from the feeding pit. She also knew there were ten people in the pit at the moment.
But that was it. She hadn’t been able to extract any more information from them before they broke free of her compulsion and refused to go back under, trying to compel her in return. She’d almost given in a second time, but barely managed to stop herself. Even with her advanced mental fortitude, she had to fight to maintain her own control.
She dropped the wall between her and her guards, shaking her head as she looked at the sky. Dusk was starting to fall. It wouldn’t be long before it was fully dark. She finally realized that the trees were what allowed the mesmer to be active during the day. Even though they could see, the light was tinted a dark green that made it seem as if it was dusk most of the time anyway, at least until real dusk fell and it deepened to almost pitch black.
Her instincts told her to go, to rescue them tonight, before the mesmer had warning. “What is it? Why do you look so conflicted?” Marcelle’s soft voice pulled her from her thoughts.
Jade gestured to the sky. “It’s going to be dark soon. If we use lights, we’ll be a giant target. The dark is when they’re strongest, and my fellacai don’t see extraordinarily well at night either, so we’d be without their protection. The feedings happen at sundown...we’ll be too late tonight, no matter what.”
Marcelle looked thoughtful, then sighed and nodded. “We have to go back, and quickly.”
Jade nodded, glaring in the direction of the master nest. “It means they’re going to be better prepared tomorrow too. They’ll be more alert, and possibly lay traps.”
Patting her shoulder, Marcelle spoke softly, “We’ll have to take that chance.”
“Okay. Let me fly up above the canopy one last time so I can get a lock on where we need to go tomorrow, then we’ll leave using a wind bubble. We need to be quick, and I’m going to need to rest after, but it’s the best way to leave them confused as to what happened.”
Marcelle nodded, and Jade jumped, the alteration of her gravity having become almost second nature to her at this point. Up the tree she went, passing her fellacai as she flew into the sky, able to see the brilliance of the setting sun turning the leaves orange and purple in its glow. She looked to the west, making sure she knew which clump of bad trees marked the master nest. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see how large the area was.
Absorbing the last of the fading light as quickly as she could, she dove down into the trees once more, collecting her fellacai on the way down. They clung to her hair as she reached the forest floor where her group was waiting, standing as tightly packed as they could. She smiled wearily, standing within an inch of them as they were lifted off of the ground. She raised them twenty feet into the air, then shot them forward like a wind bullet once more.
Traveling at high speeds through the air, the ground that took most of the afternoon to cover was traversed in a little under an hour. She didn’t let them touch the ground until they reached the boulder, creating a wind ramp straight into the secret tunnel. The guards posted in the hallway were startled, but they reacted quickly to welcome and usher them inside.
She closed the door behind her, staring at it for a moment.
Just how much was she willing to risk?
Chapter Seven – Motives
“Lady Jade, is everything okay?” She heard the hesitant voice from behind her and snapped out of her small stupor.
Turning, she smiled at the man. “Not really, but there’s not much to do about it right now.” He grimaced a little, nodding. She patted him on the shoulder as she walked past, trying to keep up her smile, even if it felt more like a grimace.
As she entered the big common room, her eyes were drawn to the makeshift table once more. Marcelle was already there setting up the mirrors to contact those back in Caoi. The others were either cleaning up or preparing food. It looked like they were cooking some of the ape meat over a magical fire, which was a good thing, considering that it didn’t produce smoke.
Her babies flew off to explore the place, leaving her alone. Walking over to the cold room she’d created, she indeed found that one of the apes was skinned and cut apart. With a wave of her hand, she deposited the two beithiche there as well, wanting to clear up the space in her ring.
Absently, she reached into that space, using up most of her remaining energy to make it larger. The two beasts made it decently crowded on top of everything else she had in there. She hadn’t even had room to bring back a mesmer body to study.
With a sigh, she realized she was delaying her return to the main room, so therefore she forced herself to get moving once more. Walking over, she dropped into the seat next to Marcelle which one of the men hastily pulled out for her as she approached. She heard a soft gasp as she came into view of the mirror, and glanced up to find their majesties staring at her in something akin to horror.
“Jade, are you alright?” Ashanna’s voice was filled with worry as she studied Jade through the mirror.
A little puzzled at the strong reaction, Jade shrugged. “I’m fine. Why?”
Marcelle coughed into her hand, then reached over, pulling one of the not-currently-in-use mirrors and handing it to Jade so she could look at herself. Staring back at her was a pale creature, dark circles beneath her eyes. She was splattered with blood, and there were dirt and sweat streaks
faintly visible. Her hair was sticking up in odd directions from her braid, and there were several twigs and leaves that’d gotten in there somehow. In short, she looked like a hot mess.
Growling with annoyance, she called on her water and blood magic, cleaning the blood, sweat, and dirt from her body and leaving it in perfect little balls on the table next to her. The leaves were pulled from her hair, which she finger combed back into some semblance of normality. The whole process took maybe thirty seconds, at which point she put the mirror down and realized everyone was watching her transformation. She shrugged, smiling wearily at the mirror as she asked, “Better?”
“You’re much less alarming now, yes. It appears you had an eventful day.” King Derrick was smiling kindly at her as he responded.
She sighed, nodding as she glanced at Marcelle, “Eventful is one way to put it.”
He chucked a little grimly. “I figured as much when you ran out on us earlier.” Oh yeah, right. She’d basically hung up mid-call when Andy was in trouble. She’d totally forgotten about that. Marcelle must’ve checked back in while she was taking a nap before they left again and let him know what happened.
“Sorry about that.” She smiled apologetically at them, but Ashanna quickly waved her hands.
“Don’t worry about that. Marcelle was telling us you found a nest?”
Jade paused to think about it before shaking her head. “Actually, we didn’t reach the nest. We fought two groups that came from it, but we never stepped foot in the nest itself. We did kill sixteen mesmer, but I’ve no idea how many were in the nest to begin with.” She never had gotten a straight answer when she asked for specific numbers. Shaking off those thoughts, she began again. “However, we did receive information on where the captives are being kept, and we’ll go to that nest tomorrow.” Provided they hadn’t already been moved, that was.
“I see. Well, please keep us updated.” King Derrick asked her politely, and she nodded, standing to walk away, since his words were as good as a dismissal. She could tell he wanted to talk more with Marcelle, so she removed herself, making her way towards the cooking station.
“Ah, Lady Jade! Do you want to try the oreither?” She paused, staring at Garrik for a moment before comprehension dawned. She’d never gotten the name of the monkey-ape thing that she’d killed earlier. She nodded, and Garrik quickly cut a length of meat that was crispy golden off of the turning spit. He grabbed a bowl from the stack next to him, plating the meat and handing it to Jade.
She smirked mischievously at him, feeling a little more like her old self. “You realize if you give me portions that size, I’m going to have to come back about twenty times before I’m full, right?”
“I don’t think you could fit twenty of those in your stomach if you tried. You’re way too tiny.” She laughed as she turned around to face a shameless Matthew, who was standing behind her and grinning with several other men. His next point made sense, however. “Besides, you’ve probably never eaten a true forest creature. The mana density is much higher than what we normally eat in the city.”
Regarding her meat with renewed interest, she grabbed a blanket from her ring and spread it out on the ground, plopping down to sit on it not three feet from the magical fire. Garrik laughed softly as he asked, “Lady Jade, what are you doing?”
She grinned up at him and the others, sticking her tongue out. “Sitting down to eat. Now the rest of you get meat and sit down too! I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of you, so now’s as good a time as any!” There were chuckles from the men, but they obediently moved to help Garrik carve off more pieces of meat and put them in bowls, folding down to sit on the blanket with her, though their armor made it slightly more uncomfortable for them, she could tell. She gestured to the armor. “You could take that off, you know. It’s very unlikely that we’ll be attacked in here.”
The four men exchanged glances, and the youngest of them, who looked to be only a few years out of Dracona at best, answered. “I understand you have confidence in what you’ve created, but unfortunately, it hasn’t been tested through a night yet, so I think most of us are more comfortable being ready just in case.” He ran a hand nervously through his short black hair, his striking blue eyes looking down, basically at anything but her.
She blinked for a moment, then shook her head. “Of course, I didn’t even think about that. Sorry, I must be more tired than I thought. Please, eat up. Although, I would like to know your names.” She led by example, taking a bite out of her meat, having carved off a small piece with one of her knives. She was basically doubling them as her utensils like all the others. Only Garrik had used a long prong with his knife to carve, probably since he was taking it directly from the fire.
Planning on questioning them further, she basically forgot everything else as the meat entered her mouth. She hummed in pure pleasure as it practically melted along her taste buds. Even before she swallowed, she could feel her energy levels going up, transferred from the delicious morsel. “So good…” She mumbled as she swallowed and quickly shoved another piece in her mouth.
Muffled laughter rang in her ears, and she looked up to find everyone nearby looking at her and struggling to hold in their guffaws at her antics. Still, her gaze was drawn to the beast being roasted on a spit. It was only one of seven, and it looked like only maybe a fourth of it was on the spit at the moment. They were huge beasts, after all. Plus she had the two invisible panther things that were also decently large. She did some quick mental calculations on how much meat that was, deciding that she needed to keep some on her at all times, especially at night. This could help solve some of her energy issues!
“I have a feeling our supply of that meat just got a lot lower.” The grizzled man next to her made his keen observation with a low chuckle, having noticed the calculating look on her face as she stared at the meat. She looked over at him a little sheepishly as he grinned. “It’s only fair, since you killed the beasts.”
She shook her head. “I have major depletion issues. I keep having to drain light or eat massive amounts of food in order to keep my energy up. It would be wonderful to not have to do that, or to have a better option at night.” Having said that, she immediately grinned and took another large bite, savoring the mana-filled taste. The men around her laughed again, and she enjoyed the sound. It’d been so grim on this trip; a moment to mentally relax and enjoy life was exactly what they all needed. She smiled at him as she quickly swallowed. “So, tell me about yourself.”
He grinned at her, age lines showing up more prominently as he did so, which made her realize he was a lot older than she’d originally guessed. She’d thought he was probably in his forties, but despite not having a single gray hair sprinkled throughout the black, his light blue eyes seemed to have seen ages pass by. “I’m Baron Harrison Stewart. I’ve got five children grown, but you’ve actually met my youngest.” He gestured to the side of the room, and she noticed the young man who’d been hit by the mesmer during their last skirmish talking to one of the other men. Now that she was looking, their coloring was almost exactly the same.
Harrison went on in a quiet voice so that only those in their small group could hear. “My son volunteered for the mission, which fairly terrified my wife, but Samuel’s always been strong willed. Instead of trying to stop him, I decided I’d come as well and make sure he returned home.” He smiled at his son one more time before turning back to his food and nodding to Jade. “That’s how you ended up with an old man like me on your team.”
Laying a hand on his shoulder, Jade smiled softly at him. “No, that’s how I was lucky enough to get a veteran with lots of experience on my team.” He nodded at her, and she looked down at her bowl, realizing she’d finished the first bit of meat she’d been given. Looking up at Garrik, she grinned and held her bowl out with both hands. “Please sir, I want some more.” She affected her best doe eyes as she did so, which had the group chuckling again.
Garrik took the bowl, shaking his head as he gri
nned. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you more.”
He proceeded to start cutting another slice for her as she murmured under her breath, “It’s always yes, never yeah.” She grinned innocently at him as he raised a brow, seeming to be asking what she mumbled. She made innocent eyes at him and he sighed, handing her bowl back. It had twice the amount of meat in it than before, and she chirped happily, “Thanks!” He shook his head ruefully and went back to grilling the meat. Turning back to the group, she gestured to the man next to Harrison. “So, what’s your story? How’d you end up with this group?”
She quickly popped another piece of meat into her mouth, savoring it as she waited for his answer. He was studying his meat, so she took the moment to try and figure out why he looked so familiar. His standard brown military buzz cut was something many of the guards sported. He looked to be in his late twenties, but it wasn’t until he met her gaze and she got a clear look at his dark green eyes that she made the connection.
He confirmed her suspicions when he spoke. “My name is Daniel Whitaker. You’ve also met some of my family as well: my cousin Glen and my grandfather, Ammon.” When he realized she was nodding in easy acceptance, he smiled a little grimly. “They both speak very highly of you. Glen tried to volunteer, but he was rejected because he’s still in the academy. Grandpa tried to convince Marcelle to let him take her place as well, but she was adamant about coming herself, and they couldn’t send both commanders. Since neither of them could come, I volunteered in their place. You saved my grandfather, and our family always repays a debt. After today, though...I can see why they had confidence that you could succeed where we’ve failed over the years.”
The mood turned a bit more somber with that statement, and she replied morosely, “We haven’t exactly succeeded yet.”
