Riordan’s patience had frayed almost to the point of snapping by the time the agents were ready to move on. He understood that they were doing their job, both in investigating the situation and in preventing further issues. He couldn’t fault them for that, which was why he’d led them here and waited for them to work.
He just really hoped that their jobs were all that they were doing.
It was a relief that none of them were spirit mages, because that meant they couldn’t directly interfere with the greater spirit. However, Riordan did not know enough about the other affinities to know what else they could do. Place an anchor to navigate or bypass the protections? Manipulate the magic of the spirit or set up anti-magic barriers to restrict it? Mess with its mind?
Okay, that last one was very unlikely. A spirit’s mind was alien and tied into its power and existence. Even a spirit mage speaking to a greater spirit had to be careful not to get crushed like a bug. A mental mage had different protections, ones which might have fatal gaps.
Regardless, Riordan was grumpy to the point of growling silence by the point they moved on. Exiting the clearing was easier than entering, which made Riordan wonder if the spirit had hijacked the death mages’ spell that prevented random people from wandering into the area when it was building its defenses. That didn’t mean it was entirely easy.
They made a human chain again just in case. The wandering steps meant that something was messing with their senses, but it wasn’t as thick this time. They appeared able to see reality to some degree as well, slowing people down to take cautious steps.
Riordan’s own attention was divided between guiding the mess of them through the barrier and looking for more landmarks. He’d figured out the most likely direction based on his memories of that night, smells, triangulation with the tree and the cabin, and traces of passage. Three men and a dog, one of them carrying another man, all running through the woods created more disturbance than a single fleeing person, even after a longer time.
Badgers weren’t scent hounds, but Riordan’s sense of smell was still better than human. His eyesight was sharper as well. He managed to find enough traces to track what he thought was the correct trail.
Shortly, Riordan reached evidence that he was definitely on the right track.
“Ugh, what’s that smell?” Maudy whined. “It reminds me of a skunk, though not quite as bad.”
“Badgers can do a stink bomb trick. It stopped their dog from being able to track after that,” Riordan said with grim satisfaction, even though he knew his trail was going to get harder from here.
When he finally reached the creek, locating the spot in the dense undergrowth on its shores where he’d entered before, and got ready to climb in, the agents following him pulled up short.
“Is this really necessary?” Heeren asked, looking at the muddy stinking creek water.
Riordan rolled his eyes at her. “I was trying to break my trail and make it hard to track me when I ran through here. And no, I don’t just know where I ended up stashing his body, but it wasn’t far past where I finally climbed out of the river and dug shelter for the night. So I’m going to follow my path as close as I can. You don’t have to follow. I don’t actually need your help, though I would appreciate assistance in preserving Daniel’s body.”
“Now, there’s no need to make a fuss,” De la Fuente interjected, stepping up next to his fellow agent. “Just give me a moment and I can make this less unpleasant.”
Riordan had never seen an enchanter at work, but he was fucking impressed. De la Fuente pulled out a leather folio thing that opened up to show a bunch of vials of liquid and a few other tools, clearly his traveling mage kit. Taking out a little pen thing topped with a shiny crystal and two of the vials, he began to draw symbols on Heeren’s clothing in what Riordan realized was liquified magical essence, muttering the whole time in chanting cadence. The symbols meant nothing to Riordan, clearly from some proprietary symbol set or language, but he thought the magic was material and force.
“This will repel water and dirt away from you,” De la Fuente explained after he finished up with Heeren’s clothing. “Since this is just drawn on, it’ll fade after a while, which will be good if you ever want to wash the outfit again.”
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“What, I can’t just keep wearing it without it getting dirty?” Heeren asked.
“Not unless you want to be swimming in everything besides dirt that gets on your clothing, which, I assure you, you do not want. I can make clothing that never needs cleaning, but it is a much more involved process and I charge accordingly.” De la Fuente’s smile was blindingly white, especially against his rich brown skin, and a bit sharp.
He enchanted his own clothing next before turning to offer it to anyone else. Riordan could see that the liquid in the vials wasn’t going to cover them all and just turned to wade into the river. His clothing was cheap and serviceable. If a bit of water and mud ruined them, it wasn’t the end of the world, even though Norris would likely be exasperated with him.
Maudy followed with a shrug and a moment later, so did Mark. And then Ahlgren turned down the offer of enchanting his own clothing.
“I’m just going to track all of you from the shore,” Ahlgren explained. “Have fun wading. Come on, Morrish. You are with me.”
Quinn blinked, wide-eyed, as Ahlgren started leading the way up the hill, but it was the look on Heeren’s face that really set Riordan off. She looked like she had swallowed a lemon. Riordan’s laughter bounced off the gently rolling hills around the creek.
In the end, Heeren and De la Fuente followed the shifters into the creek. They had already done the enchantments and probably preferred to keep a closer eye on Riordan in case he did something death mage-like. Or whatever. The water of the creek bent around them a few inches from their bodies, but they still had to deal with the poor uneven footing on the creek bed.
Riordan just shook his head and slogged on ahead. They could do whatever they wanted. Riordan was determined not to care. If he cared too much and let them get under his skin, he was the one who would lose.
Instead, he focused his attention on remembering that hellish slog, tired, battered, Daniel’s cooling corpse slung over his shoulders, trying to remember where he had left the creek.
It took a few false starts, Riordan exiting at different possible places and determining it wasn’t correct before he located the real place. From there, he found the hill that rose out of the swampy lower terrain and the two burrows he had dug. Both had collapsed at this point. One from the poor sandy soil and a bit of time and the other because Riordan had collapsed it to preserve and hide a body. To his relief, it didn’t look like anything had dug it up.
He knelt on the ground in front of the collapsed burrow, emotions swirling inside of him and unsure how to proceed.
Riordan had tried not to remember the night he was hung on the tree on an emotional level. He recalled facts and details, but now, having retraced that journey to this end, his compartmentalization failed him. Just like Riordan had failed Daniel that night.
Damn it. When he’d met Daniel, the young man was alive and friendly and vivacious. Maybe Riordan couldn’t have prevented them being targeted and attacked, but he should have been able to win against two fucking humans.
He’d lost his edge and that had cost a good man his life way too early. Riordan knew better than to make some sort of oath of never letting it happen again; life wasn’t kind enough to let him control that. Still, he could make a promise to himself to train seriously this time and to never take his friends for granted.
“Riordan?”
Quinn’s voice broke his introspective trance. Riordan looked up at the cluster of people who were watching him. Damn it. He hated having his emotions on display like this. They were not all his friends here and didn’t deserve to see his regrets.
As Riordan’s expression grew blank and hard, Quinn stepped up beside him and gestured at the disturbed dirt that indicated the collapsed burrow. “Is he buried here?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?” Quinn asked quietly.
They had all read the reports. Well, maybe not the new agents, since they had a lot of data to get through in a short time and Riordan’s initial flight wasn’t that important anymore compared to what came later, but Riordan had told all of it to the pack. Mark had even taken notes during that first meeting, dutifully recording every word so that they could sift through them for clues about the mystery attackers. And Quinn and Ahlgren had the initial reports.
Quinn wasn’t asking because he didn’t know the facts. He was asking because he wanted to know what Riordan was fixating on.
“I buried him here,” Riordan said flatly, “Just in case I could never come back. This unmarked patch of dirt would become his grave, a poor end to a damn good man. I took his necklace as a physical representation and I buried him.”
“You were running for your life, Riordan, possibly with a death mage on your tail. And you could have hardly gone walking through towns and yards carrying him.”
“That doesn’t mean I like it. He deserves better. He deserves far better than this end and--” Riordan cut off and shook his head.
He didn’t want to explain more than that. He just stared at the unmarked patch of dirt and thought about how stupid death could be and how lonely and desolate and just fucking wrong.
Quinn laid a gentle hand on Riordan’s shoulder, the gesture intended to soothe. Riordan let him do it, but said nothing.
“We’ll get him out for you, Riordan. I promise.”