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1.3
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Hemlock woke up with a start.
Hand gripping the linen of his shirt as he gasped for air, the feeling of being crushed under the influence of the Beast fresh in his mind as he took in hurried breathes, the comforting sensation of mana doing little to calm him as his vision nearly faded to black before he managed to, somehow, claw his way back to consciousness.
‘What… happened?’
He tried to recall.
The fight had been going well.
Between his distractions and whatever form of martial skill his human friend possessed, the two of them were doing the impossible, stonewalling a massive mana beast by themselves. He remembered the human’s call for backup, and the sensation of trying to shape his next spell before a familiar lightheadedness took over.
And his world faded to black.
Given that he wasn’t dead, Hemlock had to assume they had, in fact, succeeded and that the reinforcements called by Basil managed to get to them before the creature’s domain completely overwhelmed them.
‘How unpleasant.’
Looking around, Hemlock took stock of his situation.
He’d been laid to rest on a makeshift bed, a simple sheet laid over a soft mount of dirt mixed with leaves. The light of the sun peeked through the flap of the tent, a small table had been set up to the side, jugs of water, alcohol and small boxes containing herbs of various types and sizes.
A makeshift hospit, perhaps?
He certainly felt like a patient if the unpleasant pulling sensation on his chest was anything to go by.
Had he been the only one hurt?
The guards probably built a temporary outpost around the destroyed one after they drove away the mana beast. That he could breath so easily now meant that the creature was either dead or driven away, its influence no longer capable of restricting their access to the mana they needed to live.
Even so.
‘That was insanity.’
Never before had Hemlock thought himself a warrior. He just didn’t think he had the temperament for it, or the patience needed to run endless drills in preparation for a fight in a distant frontier. But the very real threat of the mana beast, and his own desperate plan to hold it in place pointed otherwise.
He certainly didn’t feel bored now.
Wasn’t that ironic?
The flap of the tent parted with a rustle of cloth, a familiar head of unkempt light blue hair popping in as Basil walked in, carrying with him a plate of simple rations, nearly dropping them when the boy noticed the senior elf was in fact awake.
“H-Hemlock! You’re up!”
The elder elf smiled lightly.
“For a given definition, yes. My legs aren’t cooperating at present.”
“O-Oh! Should I call for the physician or-” Basil started.
“I’m just tired, don’t worry.” He waved him off, content to stay off his feet while his body finished waking up. Staying that long inside the beast’s domain had been risky, and being deprived of mana for that long must have put him in a short coma while it tried to maintain what little there was left.
That he woke up this soon as nothing short of miraculous.
Speaking of which.
“How long have I been asleep?”
Basil set the plate on his lap, taking a set besides him.
“It’s been… a day? Things have gotten pretty busy outside, I don’t think anyone’s gotten a wink of sleep since the Beast fled.” The boy looked like he hadn’t gotten a wink, his clothes were dirty with mud and there were a few bandaged cuts on his hands, hastily patched together with lightly stained bandages.
“You didn’t go home?”
He looked sheepish.
“I… got carried away. Didn’t want to leave until I knew you two were okay. And the Captain would only let those who made themselves useful stay to set up camp.”
“The Captain is here?”
That was a surprise.
Aspen was nothing if not a stickler for rules and protocol, having written the protocols for Pineskeep’s Guard nearly a hundred years ago. The woman didn’t take vacations, nor had she ever missed a single day of work for as long as Hemlock remembered, often getting into… explosive arguments with the Governor over her policies.
For her to be here.
Well, Hemlock couldn’t think of a reason why.
But at least that meant they were in good hands.
“What about Ghoti? Did he… make it out?”
Basil nodded, much to his relief.
“We didn’t know if his condition would affect yours, so they took him to another tent while you recovered. Last I heard, he was still asleep. There weren’t any other casualties, but the Captain wanted to make sure there weren’t any more Beasts around before we went back to the village.”
The reasoning was sound, in theory.
Stolen story; please report.
“Did anything else happen while I was asleep?”
He wouldn’t be moving away time soon, so the least he could do was keep himself informed.
“There isn’t much. The Captain came in straight from the village with the village guards, they shot at the beast until it left. She’s had people running from one side of the forest to the other, sending messages to let everyone know. She’s taking this very seriously.”
As she very well should.
Over the past day, there had been two attacks by Mana Beasts. Two more than there had been over the past century. Hemlock could scarcely remember the times when the Wood Clan’s territory had been small enough that attacks by those creatures were considered commonplace.
Now, there were two of them here.
Without any explanation as to how or why.
‘We were lucky.’ Hemlock decided. Had they found out about the creatures any later, that monstrous bird would have dragged its way to the village and turned their home into a wasteland. It wasn’t a certainty, but the damage would have been much worse if they hadn’t ran into the beasts and sent back a message.
Hopefully this would be the last of it.
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“I want temporary outposts built here and here. There will be a set rotation of all guards in a daily rotation, all guards are to move in groups, and all outposts must report once every few hours.”
Captain Aspen tapped the map with a finger.
“We will put together two advanced groups, scouting and tracking. I want to know where that abomination is at all times. I want to know how big it is down to the centimeter, I want to know where it is going, I want to know if its capable of multiplying or if there are more like it.”
The camp was a hive of activity.
Guards moved from tent to tent, carrying supplies and gear as they milled back and forth between the ruins of the outpost and the clearing that was created by battle against the Mana Beast. There was a nervous energy in the air, unlike the usual, the Guards were no longer going through the motions but experiencing the first incident to reach their territory in over a century.
Who knows what would have become of them if not for the woman at the head of the table.
She was decisive, her commands blunt and to the point as the volunteers and her own long-time subordinates milled about. Groups left the temporary outpost, messenger birds flitting off into the distance in swarms, carrying the new orders and reports on the occurred battle.
“Captain, we have a message from the Governor’s office!”
She rounded on the courier, who was holding a small bird construct.
“Stash it in my quarters, I’ll respond after the next round of checks.”
To her side, another man ran in with a slightly torn piece of parchment.
“Captain, we’ve found the Storage of the outpost. Some of it was lost in the fighting, but we wrote down what was salvaged.”
Nodded, she tapped the growing pile of documents on top of her desk.
“Prepare a batch of messengers, request the same from all active outposts. Has someone retrieved the map on the inactive buildings? Prepare a list of previous volunteer guards and forward it to the main office.”
The last time Pineskeep had been under threat by the Mana Beast was over a hundred years ago.
And during that time countless lives were lost to them as the Clans belonging to what would be known as the Greenhold fought back and drove them further away from their villages and cities, creating the shared territory which had lasted centuries.
Back then, she’d been only a recruit.
Eager to bleed and die for her family and clan. Little but a hapless child sheltered under the wings of heroes she could never measure up to or hope to reach. Their magic was truly legendary, and the battles they waged against the beasts would have made even a hardened soldier lose heart and shudder.
Aspen still remembered it.
So she refused to sit idly and do nothing.
She trained, she grew and eventually became Pinekeep’s head of security. It wasn’t a glorious post where she would command troops to rain death upon the monsters who threatened her home from across their borders. It was her hometown, her people, the ones she wanted to look after.
‘This could threaten everything we have built.’
It might be an overreaction.
It might be that these were isolated, coincidental cases.
In fact, she would rather they be. Making her preparations a colossal waste of time and resources on a glorified hunt rather than indulging the possibility that it might be something serious.
“Captain, the Physician is requesting your presence.”
She stopped.
“I’ll see to it. Make preparations for the first set of patrols.”
A few hours ago, when Jasmine had come to her with information regarding the appearence of a Mana Beast and a supposed outsider, Aspen had only thought it might have been the girl’s overzealous need to outperform her co-workers. Something she was prone to do ever since she worked under Aspen’s command.
There was no reason to cast suspicion upon a visitor.
The reports on the man were sparse at best, and all signs pointed to him being allied with one of her fellow elves. Which didn’t change the fact that upon finding him, three of her subordinates had to be carried away before they lost consciousness, and she had to keep two others from making an attempt on the man’s life.
‘Such a strong reaction to one’s presence is unheard of.’ Coming to the conclusion that others might react the same way once the rest of her troops set about building their camp, Aspen had the man stashed away inside the ruined outpost, away from unreliable eyes and ears.
If soldiers she personally trained reacted like that…
It didn’t bear any thought as to how an unprepared civilian might do.
“I will be inside. Anything happens…”
“We’ll send for you.”
She nodded at her aides. Smart elves, they would be able to keep this camp running when she returned to Pineskeep. There were just too many unknowns for her to stay away from the main office for too long, and once coordination between the new outposts and the patrols was established, she would make sure the process went smoothly.
But to do that, she needed information.
She needed resources.
And she needed manpower.
It would be impossible to convince the governor without a first hand account of the incident, and that would be impossible with two out of the three witnesses unconscious after pulling off a desperate last stand.
It gave her troops time to mobilize, and for that reason alone she would write them off her list of suspects.
But she still needed a full report.
“Captain.” The men she’d left standing guard at the ruined outpost saluted her.
“At ease.”
They seemed… uneasy. Tense.
She had them carry the mysterious stranger that Basil had spoken of, forewarning them as to the… unique presence that the man in armor had. Something they had never experienced before, and another question to ask now that he was awake.
Aspen sneezed.
What a bewildering effect.