“Unbelievable,” Cleasby muttered. “They’ve gone straight to the dig site.” They had no reason to believe they were in danger, he realized, so their excitement had gotten the better of them. “No one can be quite as stupid as a genius.”
“Oh, the irony hearing you say that,” Thornbury declared.
“Thorny can fill you in, Rains. Secure this position. I want everyone accounted for, and then I want you to lock this place down. I’m going after them.”
Rains kicked at the boot with the severed foot in it. “No one should go anywhere by themselves, including us.”
“I’ll watch him.” Acosta came down the steps. “Besides, I feel like seeing these ruins that have caused such a fuss.”
Rains gave the mercenary a very suspicious glare but moved aside to let Acosta pass. Cleasby led him away, braced for drama.
The path toward the mine was well used and easy to see from the fort’s entrance, so it must have been too much of a temptation for the professor to bear waiting even another minute. Cleasby walked after them. There were three sets of fresh footprints in the mud leading up the side of the mountain. Given that two sets were normal size and the third was enormous, Cleasby determined that Wynn had ordered the ogrun Raus to go with them.
“They will be safe,” Acosta assured him. “I’ve met Raus before. He’s a good fighter, even used to be a trencher in your beloved Cygnaran Army.”
“Oh?” There weren’t that many ogrun in the army, and most of them wound up as trenchers. He’d only spoken to Raus briefly, but the ogrun had struck him as competent and professional. Those were the traits you needed if you expected to live to retirement in the infantry. “He never mentioned it.”
“Probably because he deserted in Llael, fled, changed his name, and now works with his hands instead of a gun.” Acosta paused. “Does this offend you?”
“Desertion is incredibly dishonorable.”
“Ah. Then forget I said anything. I must have mistaken this ogrun for a different one. Yet, who are you to say when someone has had his fill of war? Should that not be every man’s choice to make for himself?”
“That’s not how it works. You never abandon your brothers.” Cleasby felt like a hypocrite as soon as the words left his mouth, but then he realized Acosta was simply baiting him. Having philosophical arguments with a murderous Thamarite was as frustrating as chasing down obstinate nobles, but at least the conversation was taking his mind off their tense situation while they walked. “As if you believe anyone can ever get tired of fighting.”
“I may not understand it, but I can see it happens to other, lesser men. I am addicted to mastering combat like the weak are drawn to drink or games of chance—or as your professor lusts after new discoveries.”
“Addicts can’t see clearly because their desire overrides their sense,” Cleasby grumbled as he climbed.
“Which is why I make so many friends, like you and Madigan before you—both so blessed when it comes to finding conflict, and by so doing, helping me achieve my destiny.”
“You’re implying that my fulfilling my sworn duty is somehow enabling your nefarious ends? Well, you’re going to be out of luck soon. My term of enlistment ends in a couple of months. I’m done.”
“What? Don’t be silly, Cleasby. You may have deluded yourself into thinking otherwise, but you are still one of those obnoxious, righteous hero types. Men such as you are too busy looking for wrongs to right to ever allow themselves peace. You are incapable of putting yourself ahead of others. Come to think of it, we are very different in that respect.”
“Honestly, I’m tired of people counting on me.” Truth be told, it felt good to tell that to someone, even if Acosta was insane. “One mistake, one bad call, and men die. Sometimes, even when I do everything right, they still die. I’m worn as thin as my marching boots. It might not faze you, but when I lay my head down at night, every soldier I’ve ever let down haunts me. Better men than I can ever be look to me for answers. Then they do what I tell them, somehow believing I’m right the whole time. I can see it in their faces—they actually think I know what I’m doing. I swear their faith is heavier than this armor.”
“You only feel this way because you have not had a good enough war recently. It has given your doubts time to fester. In the midst of battle, you do not have these questions, do you?”
“No.” Cleasby hadn’t ever really thought about it that way. “Never at the time.”
“You see? When you must, you act decisively and do what you need to win! I have served with many armies and met more foolish young officers than I can count. They think only of their names and their medals. You think of your men first and yourself seldom, if at all. This is a concept utterly foreign to me. I am my own army, but if I were a mere soldier, I would be able to tolerate officers such as you. And the peacock officers? Them, I would stab in the back at the first opportunity.”
“Thanks.” It was a strange feeling, receiving a compliment from Acosta. “I think.”
“Your path is very different from mine, but Madigan taught you well.”
“I’m still not changing my mind.”
“Eh, you will, but if you should happen to retire, I have made sure to accumulate friends like you in many lands. One kingdom’s worth of conflict is insufficient for my needs. Otherwise I might be in danger of becoming bored.”
Cleasby chuckled. “Raus became a laborer, and I’m going back to being a scholar. What happens if you ever get your fill of war?”
Acosta grinned. “That can only happen once I’ve learned all the mysteries of conflict and have grown skilled enough to defeat any opponent.”
“No offense, but it’s doubtful you’ll live that long.”
“Possibly. But just imagine if I do.”
Cleasby would rather not and instead focused on the footprints. They were catching up. The path was well maintained and the going was quick. They began passing test holes bored into the dark rock and larger shafts supported by logs. According to the information gathered by Horner, they’d begun digging at this out-of-the-way location because of some promising gold deposits. So far, Cleasby had seen no other signs of a battle and no clues to the whereabouts of the missing miners. The rain had obliterated any older tracks.
Because the ogrun was nearly eight feet tall, they spotted Raus first, standing in front of a cleft in the rock. The professor was pointing inside and giving instructions about where to dig next. Pickett was down on his hands and knees examining something. As Cleasby got closer, he saw it was an actual wall of stone, carved from the mountain, so old, weathered, and covered in plant life that it had been perfectly camouflaged. Most of the wall was still obscured, but parts of it had been cleared away, revealing badly eroded carvings of curves, hooks, and crescents.
“Hello, lieutenant! We’ve found it!” the Professor exclaimed. He was positively giddy, even bouncing around a bit, like a child who’d just been given a present to unwrap. “I can’t believe it! This is even more extraordinary than I imagined. Since Rathleagh left, they’ve opened whole other sections. This is the entrance to an entire complex!”
“Fascinating as that is, your Lordship, the miners are missing.”
“Except for the ones we found in pieces,” Acosta added.
“What?” It took a moment for that to sink in. “Drat.” The professor looked longingly at the entrance to the ruins. “But we just got here.”
“I knew something felt strange.” The ogrun spit on the ground. “There’s a darkness on this mountain. I’d best get back to my men.”
“Hold on. Is there any immediate danger, lieutenant?”
“I’ll feel better pondering that question while in the shadow of my warjack, your Lordship.”
“Cleasby is right.” Pickett stood up. He’d been reading the carvings along the ground of the entrance. “This is making me nervous. We’d better go back, professor.”
“This will only take a few minutes. I just need to see something in the first cha
mber. Your men are protecting the others, and we’re safe here with you, lieutenant.” Baron Wynn shoved his way past his assistant. “I’ve come all this way, I’m not leaving without at least confirming my suspicions about this place.”
Cleasby didn’t know what suspicions the professor was talking about, but before he could ask, the old man had gone inside. Pickett gave Cleasby an apologetic look and shrugged. Frustrated and grinding his teeth, Cleasby went after the professor.
Acosta called after him. “I’m already a criminal in this country. I would be glad to hit your nobleman over the head and place him in a sack.”
“I’ll carry that sack back down the mountain,” the ogrun volunteered.
Pickett moved out of Cleasby’s path. “I tried to talk him into listening to you, but he’d heed no—”
“I know.” Cleasby was focused on getting his charge to safety, even if that meant dragging him from the ruin by his beard. The entrance was huge, big enough to get a light ’jack through, though Headhunter probably wouldn’t fit. A yellowish light activated inside; the professor had apparently brought along a bright alchemical lantern. “Professor! We need to go back.”
“I only need a moment,” he shouted back.
The interior of the place was in far better shape than the exterior. Cleasby paused to take in the sheer number of carvings. In the entry hall alone, every single fitted stone told a story. Some had been eroded away by dripping water, but hundreds more remained. There was so much knowledge here.
The professor had already gone around the corner. “This won’t take long, Cleasby. I only have to check one thing.”
There was a grunt and a thud. The light source suddenly dropped and bounced across the floor. The professor must have tripped and fallen or banged his head on something. Serves him right, Cleasby thought. “Are you hurt?”
He stepped around the corner. This chamber was much larger. The lantern was on the ground, casting its yellow beam at an odd angle. Professor Wynn suddenly lurched forward into the light, wide-eyed and fearful. Someone had seized him from behind.
“Unhand me!” He quit struggling when a knife was placed against his throat. The attacker forced Wynn around, using him as a human shield. The knife caught the light as it shifted—it was a huge hunting knife, lightly pressed under the right side of Wynn’s jawbone, against the artery. The professor gasped and stood on the tips of his toes. “Ah!”
“Stop!” Cleasby shouted. He took a step toward them.
“Come any closer and I slit his throat.” Surprisingly, the attacker was a woman. She was so dirty that it was hard to make out any of her features except for her eyes, which were blue, full of fear, and rapidly flicking back and forth, searching for danger. “Not another step.”
Cleasby lifted both hands to show they were empty. His glaive was hanging over his shoulder. “Let him go.”
“Sorry, Cleasby,” Baron Wynn croaked.
“Shut up!” the woman shouted. The professor flinched as the knife moved against his skin. Her hand was shaking badly. Her appearance suggested she was wild, erratic, and out of control.
“Remain calm.” Cleasby’s advice wasn’t intended for the woman alone but also for the professor—and for Cleasby himself.
“How do I know you’re not with them?”
Them? He needed to tread cautiously. The woman appeared to be in terrible shape, but the big knife wasn’t. Even from here it looked sharp enough to slice right through the professor’s neck. Her hair was matted with dried blood. What was visible of her face peeked over her hostage’s shoulder and was damp with sweat. She was ill, he guessed, and was likely suffering from a fever, given her erratic behavior and appearance.
“They tried to kill me, just like they killed my patrol, but I got away.”
Patrol? “I’m Lieutenant Cleasby. Cygnaran Army.”
“The army?” There was a note of hope in her quivering voice. “Which unit?”
“6th of the 47th Storm Knights. We’re here to help.” He realized he was still standing in the shadows; she couldn’t see him very well. “Let me step into the light so you can see my armor.”
For just a moment, the knife moved away from the professor’s neck—but then the others came blundering into the chamber.
“What’s going on in here?” Pickett asked.
The woman seemed to be calming until she saw the hulking form of Raus. “You’re with the monsters!” She pulled back on the professor’s collar, dragging him deeper into the chamber. “I’ll cut his throat! I’ll do it!”
Pickett drew his repeater. “Professor!”
“Hold your fire!” Cleasby shouted. He doubted Pickett was a good enough shot. “Wait, ma’am. Please.” There was no way to know what kinds of hallucinations were going through her fevered mind. “That’s not a monster. He’s just an ogrun.”
“Hello,” Raus said cautiously.
“Just an ogrun?” she demanded suspiciously, but she calmed just a bit.
“Yes, a friendly one at that, come all the way out here to dig holes for the army,” Raus said. It was remarkable to Cleasby that someone so large with such a deep voice could somehow manage to be soothing. “If you stab that old human in the neck, I won’t get paid.”
Acosta had silently entered the room and was shifting around to the side while she was focused on the others. Cleasby hoped to solve this without violence, but he couldn’t risk saying anything to Acosta without setting her off again.
Cleasby slowly walked in front of the dropped lantern until it illuminated his storm armor. “See? Cygnaran Army. Like I said, we’re here to help.”
She blinked quickly, as if she were having a hard time focusing on him. “Praise Morrow. It’s true.” She took a deep breath, then moved the hunting knife away from the professor’s neck and let go of his collar. “We have to get out of here. They’ll kill us all.”
“Don’t worry. It’s over.”
“Yes.” Acosta had gotten close enough that he slugged her in the side of the head with one metal-clad fist. She collapsed in a heap. Her knife went skidding across the floor. “It is.”
“Damn it, Acosta. I had her talked down. She was surrendering.”
The Ordsman spread his hands apologetically. “Be thankful I didn’t cut her head off, as was my initial inclination.”
Pickett rushed to his mentor’s side. “Are you all right, professor?”
“Fine, I’m fine.” Wynn touched his neck and then looked at his hand, checking for blood. It was clean. “This lunatic took me by surprise.” He looked down and asked hesitantly, “Is she dead?”
Cleasby knelt down. The woman was still breathing, but Acosta had knocked her senseless. He removed one gauntlet and touched her forehead. As he’d suspected, she was burning with fever. No wonder she’d been so erratic. She had on a dark cloak, tattered and stained with blood; the bandages wrapped around her forearms suggested most of the blood was probably her own. It was dried now, but he suspected some of the wounds had become infected. He opened the cloak and discovered the uniform of a Cygnaran Ranger beneath it.
“She’s alive.”
“What was she babbling about?” Pickett asked.
Monsters.
PART II: THE LEADERS
Andras Caradoc had sounded the war horns. The piercing noise had echoed through the mountains, had been heard in other isolated villages, and repeated until his call for help had been carried up and down the Wyrmwalls.
The call would not be denied. Many had forgotten the old ways, but those of the clan who had taken on the skins, they remembered where they came from. They would answer. The horn was reserved for dire emergencies. It would not take long for more warriors to reach Caradoc, and then the blue soldiers would be driven from the sacred place.
But the blackclads arrived first.
There was a circle of stones within the village that had been there since before the Clamorgan had learned to count time. It was believed that only the druids knew how to use these stones. Ot
hers could travel through the stones, but only when guided by a druid. Caradoc’s own warriors were often summoned through the stones, sent to faraway places to fight, and then brought back when their services were no longer required.
The hooded man who appeared in the middle of their village that afternoon was a Wayfarer, one of the Circle messengers’ most gifted at traveling through the stones. Caradoc knew the druid as soon as he arrived because he was the one who smelled like desert. He was thin and dark skinned, hailing from a distant people far to the east, but the Wilding happened everywhere and did not care about lines on a map. The druid was called Zamir the Sun Caller, and he had come to the village in the past to summon Caradoc’s warriors to fight on the Stormlord’s behalf.
The village was quiet. Even the youngsters knew not to make a sound when one of the blackclads came. It was the leader’s responsibility to hear the Wayfarer’s message, even when he knew it would not be good news. So, Caradoc left his wives and children in their home and went to speak to the druid.
Zamir did not waste time on pleasantries. “You have blown the horn, Caradoc. Why?”
“It is a matter for our tribe alone. It does not concern the rest of the Circle.”
“It is not for you to decide what concerns the Stormlord,” Zamir snapped.
Like all druids, Zamir was powerful, but Caradoc knew he could still tear the little man apart. Caradoc tolerated such insolence only because he had entered a pact to obey Zamir’s master, so he ensured his tone left no doubt that he would not tolerate insult, “Outsiders are destroying the birthplace of the first. We can’t rest until this blasphemy is stopped. They must be killed.”
“It has come to our attention that you have been killing many Cygnarans here recently. Perhaps too many.”
“There is no such thing.”
“I would agree in principle, but your zealotry endangers our plans.”
“I’m chief here. I decided what is best.”
Zamir scowled. “Your pride blinds you, Caradoc. Too many deaths in one place cannot be blamed on the wilderness alone. Arouse their insatiable curiosity and the Cygnarans will send more patrols, more armies, and more machines until you have no way to hide what you really are. Draw enough attention and Cygnar will crush you and drive your people from these mountains. The Stormlord will not have his plans interrupted because of your petty feuds.”
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