by Jay Boyce
She wasn’t the be-all and end-all, even if she was the traveler. She was suddenly glad she’d come out tonight. It was a lesson she hadn’t realized she needed. A necessary deflation of ego when she’d been getting a big head. She was merely glad it’d happened now and not at some critical juncture down the line.
“Of course. My name is Viscount Ethan Veno. To be honest, the guard patrols are lighter than normal right now because so many people have been diverted to the castle with the delegations here. I don’t know if the orcs knew that or not, but the cloud cover provided enough darkness that they were able to sneak up to the wall with their shadow magic. This happens every once in a while, and occasionally they make it in to raid the barracks before retreating. Those occasional successes seem to give them hope, so they keep doing it.”
Okay, so that told her a few things. One, because of the delegations, the guards on the castle had been significantly upped. It made sense, even if it wasn’t the safest thing for the capital. Were the delegations more of a threat than monsters? Or was it to protect them and avoid starting a war if something happened? It could easily be both. Two, this wasn’t out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t something they’d figured out how to prevent. Looking out over the wall, the darkness of the night was evident. It was why she’d come out here in the first place. There were lights on the walls, but they were basically only ruining the soldiers’ night vision. And with the wheat fields so close to the wall, it provided a ton of cover for the orcs to use. Three, orcs had attacked because they were aiming for supplies.
“What do they usually take when they’re successful?” Jade asked curiously. In her motive column, the loss of manpower didn’t outweigh anything they could take. Those orcs who’d been sent were trained warriors too, which is why they’d been able to establish pockets of resistance once they climbed the wall.
Looking thoughtful, Ethan took a moment before answering, “I’m not completely sure. It’s not my area of command. I know they generally take some captured guards, weapons, and medicinal supplies, but that’s all I can think of.”
Well, she could think of a number of reasons why they’d take those things. Perhaps they lacked healing talent, and they were required to gather something to heal a higher-up. Or maybe they used the captives for sport or a coming of age ritual. She didn’t know, there were too many possibilities, but… “How often do raids like this one happen? I know they send the hopeless raids too. What’s the frequency of each? How often do other creatures attack?”
Ethan was obviously trying to do the mental math of how frequently attacks occurred at the wall before he finally answered, “As far as I know, these orc raids happen maybe two or three times a year. The culling raids happen every few months. Mesmer raids usually happen about once a month,” he paused and she shrugged helplessly. It wasn’t totally her fault that they were attacking out of pattern. Well. Okay. Maybe it was. He went on, “The tialon generally don’t attack the walls, but they’ll go for any party that leaves the gates. Nothing else is really predictable. We’ll occasionally get a wandering ogoll tribe, and a few years back a group trespassed on the territory of a dragon clan, so they took it out on all the nearby cities for a few months.”
Jade was listening attentively until he got to the unfamiliar term of ogoll, and then she was utterly distracted by the fact that there were apparently dragon clans. She supposed she should have expected it, given that her dorm was called The Green Dragon and the academy was Dracona. And there were the glass figurines of the dragon and...phoenix. And something like sharks. It seemed she needed to go through the bestiary a bit more carefully, because she didn’t remember seeing them in the basic guide she’d been reading. You’d think that would be something important to know, considering they were generally apex predators or sacred beasts, if the wuxia novels she’d read were to be trusted.
Wait, had those been the flying things she’d seen when she was above the forest? She was suddenly glad she hadn’t attracted the attention of whatever they were. If they’d attacked multiple cities for months, she wasn’t keen to catch their attention, even if she really, really wanted to see them. Who wouldn’t? They were freaking DRAGONS! Visions of having a dragon mount danced through her head before she tossed them aside as potentially suicidal. She wanted to keep living, thanks very much.
“What are ogoll?” She finally came back down out of her fantasies and returned to the terms she didn’t understand. But really, if they were another beast, why hadn’t she heard of them either?
Ethan grunted. “Big, ugly things. They wander around in small tribes, but their regeneration makes them a pain to kill. Dumb as a rock, and they’ll eat just about anything.”
“Riiiiight.” Jade mentally labelled them as something between an ogre and a troll in her mind until proven otherwise. The name was even a mix of those, so why not? She was going to ask more questions, but realized they’d come to a doorway leading into a guard tower. Inside, people were moving with purpose, discussing different things, and some looking exasperated while they did paperwork. It looked like so much fun! Not.
“Jade, there you are.” Ammon greeted her as soon as she stepped in the room, and she smiled, walking over to him quickly. He took her hand, holding it up for a quick kiss. She was relieved that he’d forgone at least some of the formalities with her as he pulled her aside to what was obviously his public desk, where they had a bit more privacy from the room. “I have to say, I was surprised to hear you were at the wall tonight, but I’m glad you stopped by before we needed to call for reinforcements.”
She had to actively tamp down the small puff of pride at the thought that she’d been all the reinforcements they needed, mostly because she remembered she’d barely done anything. Smiling wryly, she shook her head and admitted, “I’m glad to help, but I honestly didn’t do much.”
Ammon shrugged nonchalantly. “Not much was needed. The orcs only got as far as they did because of surprise, a surprise which you and your fellacai returned to them, allowing my men to regain control.” Huh. So okay, maybe it wasn’t necessarily her handling one spot, but the fact that she’d sent her fellacai down the line to help the whole thing in general. She smiled softly, reached up to gently stroke her babies as she mentally praised them for doing a good job.
“I’m glad we were here to help, then.” Sometimes, it was the little things that turned the tide, and then competent people took care of the rest. She could live with that. With a slight frown, she realized she’d gone from not wanting to fight at all to trying to be a hero. When had that happened? It must have been somewhere in between all the personal attacks she’d received and the royal kids being taken. She hadn’t wanted to fight, but the fight kept coming to her. She didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, but it was probably necessary to survive here.
Ammon was contemplating her as he asked quietly, “Why were you here tonight?”
Shrugging a little helplessly, she replied, “I needed some fresh air, so I was flying around above the city when I noticed the commotion.” He nodded, and she asked curiously, “Actually, on my way over I was thinking about Marcelle. Have you talked to her today?” When he shook his head, she asked, “Do you mind if I call her quickly to check up? When I was talking to Ethan on the way over, it got me thinking about whether this was genuinely a coincidence or not.”
He was frowning now too, and gestured for her to go ahead. She quickly flicked a mirror into her palm from her ring, calling Marcelle. She and Ammon were seriously at the top of people she called frequently. If her mirrors held a speed dial or recently called list, they’d be on it. After a few seconds, a sweaty-faced Marcelle answered the call, panting slightly. Jade instantly asked, “Is everything okay?”
Marcelle looked confused for a moment before nodding as she laughed. “Everything is fine, Jade. I was doing my nightly exercises when you called. Forgive my appearance.” Jade silently heaved a sigh of relief.
Still, she felt compelled to ask, “Okay, that�
�s good. I was just checking up on you, wanted to know if you’d noticed anything unusual? Any mesmer movement?”
Marcelle shook her head. “Everything has been very quiet here, but we haven’t left the base other than a few small scouting forays during the day. The area has been...I guess I would say oddly quiet. More so than usual.”
Jade frowned, but nodded. “All right. I just wanted to check. Do you have anything to tell Ammon?” She looked at Ammon, raising a brow in silent question if he had anything to say to Marcelle either.
“Ammon’s there?” When Jade nodded and passed the mirror over to Ammon, he faced it toward himself and Marcelle greeted him immediately. Ammon briefly described the raid that occured, summarizing it for her and letting her know they’d be sending a party out as soon as the delegations left. She assured him they’d be fine until then, and then hung up as Ammon passed the mirror back. It was all very efficient and Jade watched silently, an uneasy expression on her face as she thought about the forest.
“Is something wrong?” Ammon asked softly.
She frowned, then nodded reluctantly. “I’ve got a bad feeling about the quiet. One second.” Calling on her magic, he watched curiously as she began to open illusory windows in the air in front of them. Each window opened up onto a vista of the forest, some from the branches, some from above the canopy, one opened onto an area of the forest that was pure charcoal, and another opened underground in the mesmer feeding chamber. In every single window, the forest was completely still, save for a few tiny animals in two of the windows.
The two of them studied the scrying windows, and finally Ammon asked, “What are you looking for?”
Jade closed those windows, opening more in different places she’d been to. Everything was quiet, and finally she frowned, letting them all close before popping a piece of meat into her mouth. She chewed it slowly, swallowing before she finally said in a very quiet voice, “Something is wrong. Where are the mesmer? Where are the larger beasts? We should’ve been able to see some movement from something, but it’s as if every predator has...vanished into thin air from that section of the woods.”
She opened one window into the burned clearing again, closer to the ground this time. She noticed something she’d missed before: the remains of ash-covered bodies. There were marks where some of the bodies had obviously been moved, but there were still quite a few left. She thought aloud, “The last time I left mesmer bodies, they were gathering them when I went back. It looks like they started to do so here too, but then...why did they stop halfway?”
Ammon’s expression turned grave as he studied the charred scene, staring incredulously at her for a moment when he thought she wasn’t looking, as he realized that she’d been the one who’d burned down that section of the forest and killed the mesmer there. He seemed to realize a little of the magnitude of what she’d done when he saw the sheer amount of ash-covered bodies that were still present.
“I’ll talk to their majesties about it, but there’s not much we can do with the fact that we don’t know where they went.” He spoke softly, and she nodded.
Thinking of the others who’d been in the forest, she realized she hadn’t followed up at all. “How are the guards I brought back? Have there been any problems there?”
Ammon shook his head, and she knew he’d probably been getting regular reports on them. “Nothing wrong, as far as we can tell. They have nightmares when they sleep, and some of them are restless and asked to be put back on duty, but that’s pretty normal after what they’ve been through.”
It was. It sounded like some form of PTSD. She’d give them a few more days and then take a look at them to see if it’d gotten any better or if there was something else she could do. Maybe a week, so she could keep siphoning their magic back up to normal. Looking out over the assembled officers who were casting surreptitious glances at them this whole time, she frowned as she started thinking aloud again, “The orcs shouldn’t have been able to get onto the wall tonight.”
Ammon sighed, nodding. “Unfortunately, with their shadow magic and the cloud cover, there’s not much we can do about it. It’s not like we can post the light orbs down below. We tried, and they were quickly destroyed. It’s a waste of resources.”
She nodded slowly, thinking it over. “Maybe, maybe not. Remember how I taught the light and metal mages how to light up the bars for the mesmer trap?” At his nod, she went on, “What we need is to have the light mages work with earth mages to light up the rocks at the bottom of the wall as brightly as they can. Just the surface layer, mind you. The rock isn’t something they can destroy easily, unlike the glass. That will help to illuminate them when they get close, but for distance, you need a lighthouse...or maybe a bunch of spotlights.”
“Lighthouse? Spotlight?” Ammon repeated the words curiously, and she shook her head.
“Sorry, terms from my world. Basically a concentrated light beam…” Seeing that he still looked confused, she pulled out some metal from her ring and one of the glass orbs. Fashioning the shiny metal into a very thin tube, she supercharged the light orb before mounting it at one end of the tube. She’d never studied spotlights, but to her happiness, it worked like a charm to create a mini high-powered flashlight that she handed to Ammon.
He studied it curiously, before nodding in excitement. “We could easily make quite a few of these! I’ll have the mages start on them tomorrow.” He was muttering about how he could use them, obviously lost in thoughts of implementing her latest stolen abomination of a creation. Seriously, she’d just slapdashed a super ugly flashlight, but if it worked, it worked.
She did feel compelled to add, “While the metal works, mirrors would probably be a better lining to make it more powerful.” Or at least, she thought they would? Shrugging, she stood, and he quickly stood with her as she leaned forward, kissing his grizzled cheek as she smiled a little sadly, “I’d better get back before Camille sends someone looking for me. But if you can, please have any illusion mages who’ve been to the woods check to see if they can spot anything moving in there.”
“I will. Thank you, Jade. Be safe going back. Do you need an escort?” He was quick to offer even as she shook her head.
“No, I’m going to fly back. No need to pull anyone off the wall. Are you coming to the ball tomorrow?” At his nod, she smiled. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good night, and make sure you get some rest, okay?” He looked tired, if excited with the new possibilities she’d opened and a little apprehensive about her warnings. So many emotions.
Waving to the other people in the office, she stepped outside, calling up her wind bubble and jumping into the inky sky.
Chapter Thirty-Nine – Stories
Jade flew through the night sky, avoiding patches of rain as her little ones fluttered around in her bubble. Watching them, she was reminded of the fact that she’d never gotten back to Eamonn since that morning, as she hadn’t been sure what her schedule would be like the next day. The niggling feeling that something was coming was still there, but she took a moment to pause in the sky as she flicked out her mirror to make the call.
It was several moments before Eamonn answered, and she was once again subjected to the view of his bedroom, obviously having woken him up at the other end of the day now. Wincing, she immediately apologized, “Sorry for waking you up again.”
His crazy white hair was all over the place as he shook his head and greeted her, “As you should be! The queen got back to me this afternoon, but it takes you until this late at night to call me back?” He stared at her sternly and she wilted until he chuckled mischievously and shook his head. “You’re calling to tell me you’re free in the afternoon, aren’t you?” Seeing the blank look on her face at his correct guess, he chuckled again. “The queen told me of the day’s planned events, so I knew that’s when you’d have time. I’ve already gotten it arranged. Good of you to call, albeit late, but everything is already arranged.”
“Oh, I...okay. I guess I’ll see you tomor
row then?” Her voice was a little hesitant and still guilty. She hadn’t meant to forget to call him, but she’d been running around basically nonstop today. Except for when she’d lost track of time in her workshop, or when she was waiting in the Rose Room, and...okay, there was really no excuse. She’d totally spaced.
Nodding imperiously, Eamonn replied, “Indeed. Come to the Contractual Classroom after your lunch. Now I’m going back to sleep. Good night!” The last was said forcefully as he hung up on her. She stared at the mirror in her hand before shaking her head ruefully and putting it away. He was a bit of a mad professor, but she couldn’t help but like the querulous old man. He was unapologetically himself. Glancing at her watch, it wasn’t even ten yet, but she supposed normal people probably went to sleep at regular times, especially if they were old.
Still hovering in the sky, she looked around, then sighed and resumed her journey back to the castle. The niggling feeling in the back of her mind that something bad was looming on the horizon was there, but as she didn’t know what she could do about it right then, there was no point in worrying about it. One person could only do so much, after all.
Approaching the castle in the darkness, she searched for the tiny blue orb of light she’d left on the balcony, only to realize that she had no need to search for it: there were quite a few light orbs all concentrated in one spot. She winced as she realized it meant someone came looking for her while she’d been gone, because every one of those lights was in the hands of a guard.
It was also utterly destroying their night vision, since she was only about thirty feet away from them before they finally noticed her. She saw panic flit across their faces momentarily before they realized it was her and not some creature. As she swooped in and alighted softly in the middle of them, she asked curiously, “Did you need something?”
