At the age of two, a curse had been placed upon Daivad. It no longer surprised him, but it never ceased to frustrate him. For twenty-six years, everywhere Daivad went, he had people on his heels. First it had been the other kids at the Farm. Then people in the castle—both nobility and servants alike, even though he was the Royal Beast, the Night Prince. Then it was his fellow soldiers in the army. And after that, it was those from the work camps.
But nine times out of ten, it was Tobei.
And ten times out of nine, he would not fucking shut up.
It didn’t matter if Daivad wasn’t nice to him. It didn’t matter that he was, in fact, often quite mean to Tobei. It didn’t even matter that right now Tobei was so hungover he had to ride Kunin while lying facedown on the Wolf’s back. For twenty-six Mother-damned years, Tobei had been right there behind Daivad. Talking.
Daivad’s only tool against this, one that he’d honed over those twenty-six years, was his ability to tune Tobei out.
Their journey (Daivad’s journey. Which Tobei had turned into their journey. Against Daivad’s will.) wasn’t terribly long. At least it wouldn’t have been, if they kept the quick pace the Wolves were capable of. But no, for the whole first day they had to go slow or else Tobei got very whiny, and his whiny voice was much harder to tune out than his regular voice.
The next day was better. Tobei was still whiny (this time about the fact that Daivad hadn’t packed Tobei his own food. For a trip Daivad had planned on making alone.), but at least Daivad had gotten a few hours of sleep.
That morning after the “party,” Daivad had tried to sleep. But….
It’s rare I read a man so wrong.
He had to do something. Break something. Kill something. And if he didn’t get out of camp, he was afraid that something might be a something he’d regret.
He had thought about going after her. But he couldn’t. She would just look at him like that again.
So, instead, he headed to Duxon.
“Why Duxon?” Tobei asked for the thousandth time.
Daivad sighed. The terrain was rocky, mountainous—They were almost there, and he was going to have to explain eventually.
“The camp.”
There was a moment of silence. The first one he’d heard in the last two days. Tobei talked even when he was asleep.
“Alright,” Tobei said slowly. “And why alone?”
There was the rhythmic sound of pawsteps over a rocky river shore. They were very close—an hour, maybe less. This river cut its way right around the bluff that Duxon’s camp sat atop, just a few miles west of here. They’d be there in minutes if not for the rough terrain.
“Daaaaiiiivad?” Tobei sing-songed from behind him. He knew that broke through the filter on Daivad’s ears.
“To … look at it.”
Tobei snorted. “Sweet shit. What, you considering a summer home on this busted mountain? Because elsewise I can’t name a reason you’d armor Maxea up and ride two days to just look at a camp. For that matter, when have you ever laid eyes on a camp and not thought, ‘You’d look so much better burning.’”
Daivad said nothing.
Kunin’s pawbeats, just a pace behind Maxea’s, picked up half a second before the silver Wolf was suddenly blocking their path. A synchronized growl rolled off both Daivad and Maxea like they were a single beast, but Tobei didn’t have the sense to give Daivad the cowed look that Kunin gave Maxea.
Tobei’s long hair was carefully braided and tucked down the back of his cloak “to keep the wind from mussing it.” He sat tall astride Kunin, his shoulders back and spine erect, looking more princely than Daivad ever had. Or ever cared to.
“Why?” Tobei asked.
Irritation colored the growl bubbling out of Daivad, turning it much more sinister. He didn’t want to look too closely at this decision he’d made, at what it was he was avoiding. He just wanted to go do the one thing, the only thing he knew how to do. “Move, Tobeicus.”
There—Tobei’s face turned that deep, purplish-red it always got when he’d annoyed Daivad or Ben into using his real name. For a few seconds all he could do was sputter, until he finally got out, “Fuck you, Dai.”
The growl died in Daivad’s throat. He clenched his fists, trying to keep his claws from sliding out. Despising the fact that just one syllable bothered him so much in the first place.
The two men stared each other down for a few moments, their Wolves as tense as they were. Maxea had stopped her snarling and gone stiff, waiting.
But Tobei was always the first to cave. He did better holding his liquor than he did holding a grudge. He deflated, the purple color draining from his face, and said, “Sorry, brother. But I can’t be held responsible for what happens when you throw that name around.”
“Fine,” Daivad said. “Just move.”
“Fine,” Tobei replied. “Just name your plan—because I am sure it’s not ‘Taking a Camp Alone.’ Especially right after word just reached your ear that the queen is recruiting for the A.D.S.”
Daivad blinked. “The what?”
“Anti-Daivad Squad.”
Daivad had nothing to say.
“Mother Dark, Daivad,” Tobei said. “What, you think if you take a camp single-handed, she’ll forgive you for killing her pet?”
“I didn’t kill—,” Daivad stopped himself, ignored the flush up his neck and face. “The camp is exposed. The queen pulled hands from certain smaller camps to help with recruitment. I just want to see how exposed.”
“That doesn’t name the reason for the small apothecary in your bag.”
Daivad shifted quickly, signaling for Maxea to leap around Kunin before Tobei could block them again. “It’s just in case.”
“Sweet shit, Daivad,” Tobei called after him, but he didn’t push the subject further. For now.
Another half an hour of riding and one final turn around a large rock outcropping, and the camp came into view, just as the sun was settling onto its throne atop the Wailing Mountain. It was this same mountain range, just several hundred miles north, where the Earthbreakers had long ago carved their castle. However, where Broken Earth lay among lush greenery and rich soil cut by once bright blue rivers, this area had only dry, dusty stone. Everything was gray.
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Originally, Aran had hoped Duxon would serve as a mining camp, like Toll’s. Indeed, the deathly quiet, the absolute absence of life was heavily reminiscent of Toll. She’d been sure she would find Elleipsium ore here as well, the precious and vile metal of which her greed was nearly matched by her fear. A metal that killed magic. The ultimate weapon, shield, and threat, all in one.
But Duxon had been a failure. There was nothing precious on this mountain, but there was plenty that was dangerous. Doll had been at Duxon for a time, back when she’d first had her freedom taken from her. She said that though the camp’s walls had always been enough to keep any threats out (and more than enough to keep its prisoners in), she still had nightmares about the sounds she would hear every night. Horrifying screeches and wails that echoed over themselves around the mountain. Tremendous rumbling and roars. Like nothing she’d ever heard, before or since.
It made sense why Duxon would be one of the camps Aran pulled reinforcements from. It tended to defend itself. All Aran had to do was erect its walls in the first place, assign someone to maintain the runes that kept monsters out and prisoners in, and that was it. Because, according to Doll, no one ever bothered trying to escape, for fear of what lay in wait beyond the walls. And no one ever tried to break in, because why the hell would they want to?
But Daivad wanted to. If only because it would piss off the queen. Well, and because…
What, you think if you take a camp single-handed…?
Daivad quickly tossed that thought aside.
The camp sat atop a bluff, overlooking a thin river which must once have been powerful and deep. They found a spot a bit higher up the mountain and settled in for the night, to watch and wait. Daivad told Tobei he simply wanted to observe it, but they both knew that was a lie. He didn’t plan to head back to Silvax Forest with this camp still standing.
Despite Doll’s stories about the bone-chilling sounds she’d heard on this mountain, neither of the men were nervous about staying the night out in the open. Having two war-tested Great Wolves as your guard dogs gave a person quite a bit of security, as did surviving Silvax Forest every day. Of course, that didn’t mean Tobei was excited about sleeping on the side of a dead, rocky mountain with only his cloak as mattress and blanket. He bitched about it enough that Daivad finally gave Tobei his bedroll. Which Tobei then proceeded to complain about being too thin and smelling like sweaty balls, until Daivad threatened to throw him down the mountain.
Soon, the sun had set, and while Tobei tossed and turned and fantasized aloud about how much better he would sleep if he had his riseberry pipe, Daivad watched the camp below with the pair of enchanted binoculars he’d looted from the warden’s quarters of a previous work camp. They were fancy and gold-plated and had runes Daivad had never seen before etched into the side, which made Daivad pretty sure they had come from the lands to the far north that Aran was trying so hard to colonize. It had taken Daivad a year of fiddling with the binoculars and studying the runes before he’d discovered how to adjust the magnification, and another six months before he realized the lighting could be adjusted as well. Even here on a dark, cloudy night, Daivad could watch the few guards patrolling along the top of the camp walls.
And then, the sounds began.
Out of nowhere, a cacophony of shrieks erupted around them, cutting Tobei off mid-sentence and yanking him upright. The Wolves, who’d been previously gnawing on the bones of their day’s catch, leapt to their paws, the fur along their backs standing on end. Daivad glanced around, searching for the source of the screams, and saw … nothing.
The Wolves’ first instinct was always to run, but Daivad raised a hand and their training held them in place. Daivad quickly unfastened Maxea’s armor and removed it, then gestured for Tobei and Kunin to stay—they couldn’t risk Kunin’s bright pelt being seen by the guards in the camp below—but he climbed aboard Maxea and she bounded off to investigate. Maxea, he knew, would prefer that to sitting and waiting for something to attack them.
Fresh, nasty sounds followed the first. Sounds of ripping flesh and snapping bone, and then more shrieks. But no matter where Daivad and Maxea went—up the mountain, down the mountain, around the camp—the sounds haunted them, their source invisible. When Daivad returned to their little campsite, Kunin was panting and pacing a nervous circle around and around Tobei, who sat with his knees clamped over his ears, humming to himself. His head snapped up when Daivad jumped off of Maxea, but Daivad could only shrug at him.
“All these years, I thought Doll’s stories were fluffed up,” Tobei mumbled.
Each time they began to get used to a particular sound, it would switch to something newly disturbing. From shriek to scream to rip to roar. Daivad tried to focus on watching the camp, but it wasn’t easy. None of them would sleep tonight.
Tobei seemed to take the sounds especially badly. He quickly drained the last flask of whiskey he’d brought, resumed his head-between-knees posture, and began humming once again. Though Daivad kept his gaze on the camp, he heard Tobei unscrew his flask again and again, like he was hoping this time he wouldn’t find it dry.
Once again, guilt curdled in Daivad’s belly at the image of Tobei, his oldest friend and favorite curse, who would destroy himself to make the people around him smile, slumped in the infirmary’s storeroom, reeking of whiskey and shame. Daivad should know how to help him. He and Ben had tried a thousand times, but they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing.
Tobei gave up on humming—it apparently wasn’t enough to drown out the torturous wailing around them. He switched instead to talking, telling any story he could think of.
Daivad was worried. He and Ben knew Tobei was hurting—that grinning mask he wore didn’t hide everything, not from the men who knew him best. Tobei had cut the smile a bit too wide, and it sometimes let slip a cracked voice or an aching word. The eyeholes that let Tobei see out let Daivad see in just as well. But what to do with what he saw behind the mask, Daivad didn’t know. He didn’t know how to heal—he’d only ever known how to break. The events two nights ago proved that.
So break was what he would do.
By the time the sky was beginning to lighten once more, Daivad had his plan—and a helpless, sleepless night’s worth of frustration to work out. As soon as the wailings of this Wailing Mountain died out and Daivad was sure whatever was making them had slithered back into its Mother-forsaken hole for the day, they would move.
Destroying the camp would be light work. It sat on the edge of a rocky bluff, after all, and as much as he might hate it, Daivad was an Earthbreaker. He’d proven that time and time again.
The challenge came with leveling the camp without harming any of its prisoners. He doubted more than a few dozen lived within those enormous stone walls, considering how few guards patrolled atop them. The runes cut into the sides of the walls would double any magic that met them—and send it right back at its user. He recognized the handiwork of Lady Cuppedia, one of Aran’s close counsel. If he threw his magic at any of the walls, his own body would take all the damage twice over.
That was of no concern. The walls might look imposing, and the runes cut into their sides might make them untouchable, but the trouble with structure runes was they lost all power once the structure was compromised. And the trouble with walls so great was that they demanded firm foundation to hold up their own bulk.
Finally, the mountain went quiet.
Though the guards atop the walls were in full armor and their helmets hid most of their faces, Daivad could see the relief flow through them at the silence. Perfect. He’d move in just as they were letting their guard down, preparing for the end of the long night shift.
Daivad kicked Tobei, interrupting his latest story.
“...And she said—Ow! What?” Tobei pulled his head from between his knees, and for the briefest of moments, Daivad saw his face before he’d remembered to pull on his grinning mask.
He immediately regretted the kick.
Daivad asked, “Ready?”
Tobei stared up at him. “Shouldn’t we let the beasts crawl back in their beds?”
“They have.”
“They—” Tobei blinked, then glanced around. The mask slipped again, but then Tobei had his smile on. “Ah, I was so deep in the song of my own sweet voice I hadn’t heard the silence. Alright. How many?”
Daivad hesitated. Tobei wasn’t well. He should say … something. Why didn’t he know how to help?
“What, did you forget to count?” Tobei teased like they were back at camp, sitting around a table in Doll’s kitchen. Like he didn’t stink of anxious sweat.
Daivad let it go because he didn’t know what else to do. “A dozen on the wall armed with rifles, probably another dozen inside with the prisoners, and four at the gate.”
“That’s all?”
“I named it Exposed.”
“You didn’t,” Tobei stood and pressed his hands into the back of his hips, trying to stretch the night on the mountainside out of his back. “Belle named—”
Tobei caught himself too late.
Daivad ignored this. “You ready or not?”
Tobei shook himself out, sending a wave of eager adrenaline scent to cut through the soured anxiety that had hung on him a moment before. Apparently Daivad wasn’t the only one looking for distraction in the promise of violence. Tobei bounced a little, and then said, “Alright. Let’s ride, brother.”