Reborn Raiders (The Weatherblight Saga Book 4)

by Edmund Hughes

  “Rin…” said Ari. “Ignore him.”

  Rin nodded slowly, and then slammed the point of her spear down through the man’s heart.

  “Rin!” Ari grabbed the weapon, but the damage had already been done. Rin gave him a sour look and took a step back.

  “He couldn’t have been trusted, chala,” said Rin. “He would have lied to us and undermined our safety if we’d taken him prisoner.”

  Azurelight flashed as Eva shifted forms. She stepped forward, getting right in Rin’s face.

  “That was not for you to decide,” said Eva. “You are not in charge, Rin.”

  “Neither are you,” said Rin. “I’d be careful who you choose to pick a fight with.”

  The tension was heavy enough to scratch with a fingernail, as though what was left over from the fight had primed both women for another. Ari stepped in between them and gently separated them with his hands, accidentally groping a few breasts in the process.

  “Eva, Rin,” he said. “We’re all on the same side. In the future, don’t execute prisoners without asking me first, Rin. We have no idea what use he might have served.”

  Rin rolled her eyes. “He deserved to die for what he said. For what he did!”

  “I know,” said Ari. “Which is why I’m not mad. Eva, we can’t start fighting amongst each other if we’re going to stay strong as a group. Think about how much Rin has lost, and how much she has gone through, if you can.”

  “I… will do my best, Aristial,” said Eva with a sigh.

  “Now,” said Ari. “Let’s loot some bodies.”

  CHAPTER 24

  There was a surprising amount that proved useful enough for Ari and the others to consider taking back with them. One of the rune sleds had been damaged during the fight beyond what Ari thought he could easily repair, but the other three were still in good shape, bringing the total number that they had at their disposal to four.

  They took the tents as well. Each one had a thin metal circle inside the canvas dome with a rune ward inscribed into the center. Triggering it caused the entire tent to collapse inward, a fact that Ari wished he’d known before doing so on the first one.

  There were four tents, and though they didn’t seem like they’d be immediately useful given how far along Etheria’s habitable spaces had been developed, he figured they could keep one or two and see if the others would fetch a fair price in Cliffhaven.

  They took some of the weapons, too, namely the bow and the longsword. Ari searched each of the bodies himself, taking every coin purse he found. The coinage was mostly silver, but there were a few gold ones in the purse of the leader, and Ari fully expected to be able to find a way to exchange them eventually.

  Dealing with the bodies was what took the majority of the time Ari and the others spent at the campsite after the battle. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the corpses to settle, but it wasn’t as though they could dig graves for so many in the same night. Ari found a small dip in between two hills nearby, and after using the rune sleds to ferry the bodies over, the three of them found rocks to cover them up with.

  “Animals will still be able to get at them, which is what we want,” said Ari. “This is more to keep any future scouts that Diya sends out from finding clear evidence of what happened.”

  “Their leader said that the Emperor already knows where we are, chala,” said Rin. “It’s pointless. We could have just left them.”

  “We don’t know for sure that the scouts were telling the truth,” said Ari.

  “Can we afford to assume that they weren’t?” asked Eva.

  “We can’t afford to assume anything,” said Ari. “Which is why we’ll keep being careful. And if we can, do some scouting of our own.”

  It was late in the evening when the three of them arrived back at Etheria. Ari saw Virgil’s silhouette stiffen as they approach, followed by a rousing of tree branches as he used his mystica.

  “It’s us, Virgil,” he called.

  “Oh!” said Virgil. “Sorry. I saw the sleds and I thought…”

  “The rune sleds belong to us now,” said Ari. “Spoils of victory and whatnot.”

  Virgil nodded slowly, but Ari could see the conflict in his expression. He relaxed and lowered the branches of the tree fence with his mystica, allowing the rune sleds to glide through.

  “They didn’t leave us with much choice,” said Ari. “I did try to talk to them, you know.”

  “It’s true,” said Eva. “He heard what you said, Virgil.”

  “Well.” Virgil shrugged and waved a hand. “I appreciate that. I do wish I could have been there, but I spoke with Kerys, and… I understand. I apologize for my outburst before.”

  “We’ve all been there,” said Ari, glancing at Rin. “It’s just about doing our best to make this work.”

  “Amber wanted you to come straight to her once you got back,” said Virgil. “She’s been in her room since she first heard about the scouting party.”

  “I’ll go see her, then,” said Ari. “Here. Have a rune sled.”

  He passed one to Virgil, who smiled and accepted it gratefully. Etheria’s main chamber was empty, and Ari assumed that Kerys had brought the children into the tower in case the scouts did end up making it past Virgil.

  Acrid smoke wafted out of Amber’s room as Ari entered. He found her hunched over her makeshift alchemy set, hard at work.

  “Durrien’s bedroll isn’t in here, anymore?” asked Ari.

  “He claims he didn’t like the smell,” said Amber. “I think it’s far more likely that he, ahem, needed a room of his own to entertain a visitor. Not that I’m one to gossip about such things.”

  She smirked at him over her shoulder. Ari drew in as close behind her as he dared and stared into the old cauldron she was slowly stirring.

  “You’re making another Weathersense Potion, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Amber. “I didn’t have any luck replanting either of the two hester blossoms, unfortunately. It means that this potion will be a bit stronger than normal, but also that we’ll need to keep searching for more of the plant.”

  A plume of pink sparks burst from the cauldron as Amber added another pinch of something, causing Ari to flinch back.

  “Well, I’ll be sure to save it for when I really need it,” he said.

  “I’m not making this right now for fun, Lord Aristial,” said Amber. “When you need it is right now. If the Sai have scouts within miles of our community, we need to have a better idea of their movements if we plan on continuing to sleep soundly through each night.”

  Amber rolled up the sleeves of her robe and started stirring with gusto. She was in her element, and Ari felt an odd sense of admiration at both her attitude and her appearance. Her red hair was still short, but she’d tied it up to keep it out of the way. He could see the bare skin of her chest in the section where her robe crossed in front, and couldn’t help but wonder if she had anything else on underneath.

  Amber frowned at him and pulled her robe a little further closed. She took a ladle and carefully transferred the potion she’d been making into a large vial, tilting the cauldron at an angle to get the last little bit.

  “Here,” she said. “Just take a small sip. No more than a single mouthful.”

  “That will be enough?” asked Ari.

  Amber nodded. “It should be.”

  Ari took a slow breath. He found a spot to sit down against the wall, remembering how painful the experience could be the few times he’d attempted it while standing up. Amber came to his side and sat on her knees, ready to take the vial from him for safekeeping while he entered the trance.

  “If anyone sees me while I’m, uh, unaware, reassure them that I’m okay,” said Ari.

  “I will,” said Amber.

  Ari licked his lips. He really didn’t like the taste of the Weathersense potion. He really, really didn’t like the recent frequency at which he’d been drinking disgusting liquids.

  “Also, tell Du
rrien to bring a bottle of his wine to have on standby,” he said.

  “What?”

  Ari took a sip and passed the vial to Amber with the last of his awareness. She hadn’t lied when she’d said that the potion was strong. It felt like he’d stepped into a raging, flooded river, instantly swept along into a cacophony of noise and jarring sensation.

  He could only see black, and then many different perspectives became available, all at once, competing for his attention. He had just enough wherewithal left to find it funny that his mind instantly sought out an analogy of having eaten foods with contrasting flavors on top of one another.

  It was a disorienting, drunken feeling. Different elements of the varieties of Weatherblight, some of which Ari doubted he’d encountered, all presented at once. He could feel the snapping claws of the scuttlers, the primitive wings of the vodakai, and the slithering tentacles of the fishers. It was all that, but at the same time, it wasn’t.

  What had always felt eerie about what the Weathersense potion allowed him to do was the fact that there was no real resistance to him. The Weatherblight were hollow of awareness and sensation, more like flesh golems than living creatures. He could see through their eyes, listen through their ears, and most importantly, move them as he pleased.

  Though, in order to take advantage of any of it, Ari first needed to regain his balance. He tried to do the equivalent of focusing on his breathing while feeling the bodies of thousands of different monsters, none of which actually seemed to need to breathe. He split the overlapping perspectives apart and carefully began to sort through what he had on hand.

  The Weatherblight were entirely limited to the parts of the land undergoing some type of weather event. It was an obvious fact, but one that added an element of random chance to the potion, limiting where Ari could flex his influence to the whims of the climate.

  He passed over a dozen different perspectives in as many seconds, scanning the world through the eyes of the flying vodakai, the water-bound lurkers, and the fishers in the rain. He was looking for an army, or scouts, or even just a large campsite that shouldn’t have been where it was. He quickly realized that he might have been overly optimistic in assuming that he could use the Weatherblight in such a fashion unless he already had an idea of what he was looking for, along with the weather’s favor.

  Central Dominion. Ari let his attention settle on the perspective of a fisher on the edge of a rainy island in the middle of the night. He could see the lights of the city, the restored capital of the reborn Saidican Empire, in the distance.

  What better place could there be to find the answers that he sought?

  CHAPTER 25

  Ari willed his fisher forward, letting himself enjoy the speed at which it could move across the rocky terrain. It relied on its tentacles as much as its arms and legs, pushing and pulling itself with insect-like efficiency.

  It was better to focus on the strangeness of the fisher’s movement rather than the city, which even from a distance left him in awe. The night sky was overcast, and Central Dominion gave off more light than anything else on the horizon.

  It was unnerving how much the city had changed from the last time he’d seen it. The ruins of the Saidican capital city had been cleaned and restored to an extent that he hardly believed possible in a month’s worth of time.

  The curving arch-towers near the city’s center gave off an impossible amount of light through their windows. It reminded Ari of the stalagmites down in the Hollow that had been left behind in some of the abandoned caverns, eventually serving as a canvas for thick patches of glow moss and light fronds.

  The arch-towers jutted up from the ground like massive, sparkling bridges, and though he knew that the light served a practical purpose, it was hard to look upon them and not think that the majestic presentation wasn’t intentional. Ari guided his fisher forward, and eventually forced its gaze toward the nearby area as he realized that that there were other outlets for his attention.

  It was raining in Central Dominion, but not pouring, and certainly not anything close to a true storm. The streets in the outskirts of the city ran by buildings that were still ruined or had just barely begun the process of being restored.

  There were other fishers around, but not many. Central Dominion had paved streets, which discouraged the spawning of fishers by preventing the rain from striking the soil directly. One of the fishers Ari could detect had veered deeper into the city than the others, and he turned his attention toward its perspective in time to see another factor of the area’s safety.

  The fisher was moving around mindlessly, and it was only out of the corner of its field of view that Ari could see the danger approaching. A wheel-less metal wagon was gliding toward the monster, levitating a few inches above the street much in the same way Ari’s rune sled did.

  The metal wagon was completely closed off outside of a few thin window slits in front and along its sides. It slowed as it passed by the fisher. Ari didn’t control the monster directly, and felt it immediately stepping forward to investigate and potentially find prey.

  Light flashed as a lightning spell streaked out from one of the window slits, striking the fisher full-on in the chest. Ari felt the pain as though he’d been hit by the spell himself and had no doubt that his physical, human body had screamed from the shock.

  The fisher fell to the ground. Ari watched as the side panel of the rune wagon slid open, and a Sai guard with a short sword quickly dispatched the stunned monster before moving on.

  Ari took a breath and focused his attention back on the fisher he’d originally been controlling. He’d have to be careful given how few the light rain had spawned for him to work with. It was an ingenious setup, one that required a level of manpower, magic, and enchanting that Etheria wasn’t even close to approaching.

  That unwanted sense of appreciation for the scale of Central Dominion only intensified as Ari willed his fisher deeper into the city. The outskirts were still ruined, but a serious amount of work had gone into restoring the interior of the city. The streets had been cleaned. Crystal glass had been replaced in the once broken, open windows.

  The people, if what Ari could see through the quick glimpses the fisher allowed him into the occupied buildings, were comfortable and unafraid, even during the rain. It was dark enough outside that Ari doubted he needed to be worried about being seen as long as he avoided the rune wagons.

  Through the window of a small, single-story house, Ari saw a Sai man sitting in a chair in front of a fireplace populated by the same enchanted, purple flame that the cooking pit in the arena had showcased. A Ravarian girl no older than Selene stood next to the chair, hands folded in front of her, still as a statue.

  Master and slave. Ari had to suppress his anger as he willed the fisher onward, both in regard to the situation and his inability to do anything about it. He took a closer look at the street ahead of him, his attention slowly turning upward, toward the glowing towers ahead.

  Ari recognized one of them as being the main tower in which Diya had invited him into and been operating out of during his initial foray into the city. He pushed the fisher toward it, slowing as he came within sight of the tower’s base. There were a half-dozen guards outside, Sai equipped with shields, longswords, and chainmail.

  The sight of them, along with everything else he’d witnessed, only seemed to drive the frustration and borderline despair Ari had been feeling that much deeper. The Sai were on a different level than the other races of the surface. The sophistication of their magic, enchanting, and construction capabilities made it seem inevitable that they’d become the dominant power in the region, or perhaps even already were.

  One of the guards turned in the direction of Ari’s fisher. He pulled it to the side, ducking into an alleyway behind a multilevel building. He could hear laughter and thumping coming from inside, though the noise sounded thin and tinny, if also louder than normal.

  Reaching his awareness outward, Ari found two more fishers that
were relatively close by and directed them into the city. He wasn’t worried about whether one of the rune wagons would happen upon them, as he could always force them to climb to safety onto the roofs of the buildings.

  Even if they were forced into combat, they weren’t a finite resource that Ari was worried about using up. The sip of Weathersense potion he’d taken was more valuable than the lives of a hundred of the unthinking, respawning monsters. Worth more than any number of them, as far as he was concerned.

  Ari positioned the two fishers on either side of Diya’s tower, inching them forward until they were just within sight of the guards. He waited until one of the men unsheathed his sword and started forward, then began to play the game in earnest.

  It was a simple matter of luring the guards away. The eagerness with which they pursued the fisher, all of them leaving their posts without a second thought, almost made Ari think of the way the Weatherblight pursued their targets. Within a minute, and after sacrificing one of the fishers as a distraction, the way was clear.

  Ari sent his main fisher forward at a dead sprint, and he didn’t stop as he reached the tower’s entrance. Trying to force his way inside would only be a waste of time. Instead, Ari had his fisher climb the exterior, using its tentacles to carefully pull itself along the uniform windowsills of each level.

  He felt like he had before when standing outside the home in the outskirts. Each window was a world unto itself, a view into a home within the tower not unlike how the living caverns were subdivided into nooks back in the Hollow.

  Ari saw two Sai children, likely brother and sister, chasing each other around a common room. The next window up showed him a plump woman feeding strips of dried meat to what looked like a tame wolf pup, with a nice sheen brushed into its grey fur.

  He carefully stayed out of direct sight of the next window up, where a Sai man had a woman in a translucent nightgown pressed against the crystal glass in an erotic embrace. He climbed further up with the fisher, catching more glimpses into the domestic world of the Saidican Empire.