Lucas spent much of the remainder of the day helping out where he could. It was somewhat awkward since he had to rely on Wick or Valerie to actually talk to people and find out what needed doing, but with so few people remaining in the town there was plenty of work to go around and therefore not much attention paid to him. Mostly, he found himself carrying stuff from place to place. Not exactly strenuous labour.
It didn’t ease his guilt, but it occupied his mind a little.
Ser Deryk, the Skycloak assigned to keep watch over this area, seemed to be acting as the local leader since Taunton's mayor had gone south with the bulk of the civilian townsfolk. After the previous night’s incident, he’d decided to bring everyone remaining in the town inside the keep, no longer trusting in the safety ostensibly provided by the outer walls. The keep had room for a hundred, and less than half that number currently inhabited the town.
Thus, the town was abuzz with activity, everyone who lived outside the keep hauling their necessities inside, while those who already lived within it ventured out to help hasten the process. When Lucas and company had offered their assistance, that was where they’d been immediately directed.
The townsfolk were generally amiable enough, though there was a hardness to them. They were all well used dealing with questers if they weren’t questers themselves, and even a relatively notorious Skycloak like Valerie only raised a few eyebrows. One grizzled, leathery old man in a blacksmith’s apron even barked a reprimand at her for setting down his anvil in the wrong place.
They were all moving with calm efficiency for the most part, but one couldn’t miss the way many of them would occasionally look up at the sky with mistrust. These people were used to enjoying safety behind well-defended walls, and that assurance had been snatched away from them in the dead of night.
None of that distrust extended to Lucas. Why would it? They had no reason to believe a Star just returned from a quest to the north would have any means or motive to launch a beast so high and far. It felt wrong to accept their thankful nods and glances, as if this meagre help made up for his mistake, but revealing himself wasn’t on the table. He wouldn’t have done so even if it was. Regardless of his feelings of guilt or his prophetic importance, stoking an angry mob against himself didn’t sound like a smart idea.
So the sun crawled across the sky as Lucas lost himself in manual labour as best he could. There were a few moments where the drudgery of carrying stuff was broken when he was called upon to help with repairs a little, but for the most part his lot in life was as a pack mule.
He gave no complaints, even though he could see a lot of other stuff going on. For example, people armed and armoured were constantly heading outside the gates, ranging far away, and later coming back with heaving sacks that Lucas and other labourers would pick up and bring to the keep.
It seemed like Taunton was preparing for the eventuality that they wouldn’t be able to rely on the surrounding farmlands anymore, taking the incident at Elwyn’s farm as a sign. Sure enough, a few farming families trickled into the town throughout the afternoon, herding livestock with them. Elwyn greeted each one, and the farmer children ended up mingling together in a little gang that played around in one corner of the keep’s courtyard.
The livestock ended up stationed inside the town. Lucas wanted to feel indignant on the firesheep’s behalf, but the discrimination was understandable in this case.
There was guild activity going on, too. Inside the keep he overheard Aly awkwardly conversing with a bowmaster called Jeisyn, marking out the beast tracks she’d seen on a map. He was dressed in an outfit that could’ve been straight out of robin hood: green tunic, slightly darker green tight hose, and red pixie boots. He was just missing the feathered cap.
The obsidian bow with a carmine string that seemed to emanate a red mist hanging off one shoulder made the picture slightly more intimidating, though.
A few other people in similar outfits loitered around. Most of them seemed more interested in any signs of human activity out there. The guilds were mostly still sticking around because they didn’t know for sure whether or not they had members still out there in the wild, after all.
That was presumably why every warrior present gave Aly their undivided attention as she talked about the nine corpses she’d found with Lucas’ group; even Lucas himself stopped to listen as she described the carnage without even slightest tremor in her voice. They questioned her on the details of the bodies, and she recited what she’d seen with remarkable clarity; attire and hair and eyes and approximate heights and more. Lucas barely recalled a fraction of what she detailed, and it was enough to make him ill.
When she was finished with her report, Jeisyn spoke with a deep frown, “From those descriptions, I suspect that may have been Henry’s team and Simon’s team.”
“You mean to tell me they lost to three beasts that the wild girl and a three-man-team she’d never worked with before managed to handily defeat? I don’t believe it,” a bowmaiden spoke up, sounding strained.
“One of those three is a veteran of the frontlines,” another bowmaster pointed out nonchalantly. “Heard a story or two about her prowess, haven’t we?”
“Propaganda to buoy the populace’s morale,” the bowmaiden replied. “From what Aly described, I don’t believe those beasts were any higher than C-ranks. By the five Damnations, man, Isabelle is on Henry’s team! She alone could slay ten C-ranks with one arrow! I don’t believe for a moment that they lost their lives to three beasts.”
“Maybe there were more beasts involved?” said another bowmaster.
“I’ll point out we haven’t confirmed it was Henry and Simon’s teams,” said the first bowmaster who’d replied, still casual as you like.
They descended into bickering over the matter, and Lucas decided to get back to his task. As he was leaving, he heard Jeisyn sigh and say softly to Aly, “You realise I can’t let you venture back out into the countryside again in this situation?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Aly snapped back. “I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were. But you have a stubborn streak regarding your way of life, and I feel obligated to protect you from it,” Jeisyn replied, and then they were out of earshot.
As time went on, Lucas was amused to find himself rapidly improving at carrying stuff. Part of his training with Valerie so far had already, when possible, involved picking up and putting down heavy things for strength conditioning, but doing so with purpose saw him gaining an easier understanding of where to hold objects of various weights and sizes. He wasn’t suddenly the world’s foremost labourer, but he rose to competence remarkably quickly. Enough to not slow down Wick and Valerie too much, at least.
Wick tended to wander off to wherever his services were needed—a seven foot tall brick shithouse of a man drew more requests for help than Lucas’ average frame—but Valerie stuck to his side like a barnacle for the most part. Her sharp eyes were constantly scanning the people of Taunton, as if she expected a beasts might burst from one of their chests and attack at any moment.
She didn’t appreciate it when Lucas joked that the greatest danger of that happening came from him.
The only times she left Lucas alone were during lulls in work after extracting a promise from him that he’d stay put in the exact same spot with Wick watching over him. Each time, she stalked off for only a few minutes before returning, and never once commented on her findings. Each time, she seemed to return more terse in her speech and more tense in her bearing. She wouldn’t comment on that either.
It was in one of those moments where he was left alone with Wick in the keep’s courtyard that he had his first and only interaction with the local representative of the College of Wands. A mousy, frail-looking woman in a silver wizard-y robe styled similarly to Jyn’s but with white clouds instead of stars and an open hood showing the entirety of her pale, gaunt face, she seemed about ready to fall to the ground and fall asleep right there as she ambled up to them and rested a half-lidded gaze on Wick. Her eyes had no irises; instead, they looked like a hurricane captured within glass marbles.
“I received word back from the College,” she told him. Her voice was thin and breathy, and a little bit of wind stirred with every syllable. “Jyn Sakhelyan apparently vacated his position and his rights as a scholar quite some time ago, but your report is appreciated nonetheless.”
Wick nodded. “I expected as much. They’ll communicate the situation to his kin?”
“They will,” the wandmaiden said. She scrutinised him for a moment. “What was your commission, if I may ask? You didn’t stop by Taunton on your way north, so I have no record of it.”
“A matter our skycloak wanted to investigate,” Wick said. “I am not at liberty to discuss it.”
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“Hm. Valerie Vayon,” the wandmaiden mused. “What brings someone like that so far south, I wonder?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Ser Jeanne. Men with loose lips don’t get paid.”
“Men with loose lips die, you mean.”
“Dead men don’t get paid.”
Jeanne shook her head. “I didn’t know Sakhelyan personally, but from what I heard of him, he wasn’t the type to accept a northbound quest. It would have taken more than coin to convince him. Curious… But not enough for me to risk crossing someone like her.” Her pale stormcloud gaze turned to Lucas. “Ser James, wasn’t it? You’re feeling better, I trust?”
Lucas glanced at Wick, and the shieldmaster gave him a subtle nod. After looking around to make sure there wasn’t anyone in earshot to potentially hear a different language pass his lips, Lucas said, “Yeah. Things up north were… We had a tough time.”
“It’s a cruel world we live in,” Jeanne said. “But there’s plenty of beauty in it still. Have heart.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Lucas said.
The wandmaiden nodded to herself and crossed her arms within her voluminous silver sleeves. “You should talk to Ser Marsh, Taunton’s liaison to the Guild of Stars. Among the many skills he’s adequate at, many have found his ability to provide a listening ear to be his most useful.” She looked at Wick. “Ser Loren wishes to speak with you, when you have time.”
Lucas had no intention of bearing his worries to a stranger, but figured it would be interesting to talk to an experienced Star anyway. Since both Loren and Marsh could be found in the guildhall, their trio decided to head there once Valerie had returned. It was a long, two-story wooden building squatting beneath the southernmost of the five stone walls of the keep, and it saw almost as much activity as the keep proper.
At peak times, it often acted as the administrative centre of the town more than the main keep itself did; keeping on top of the needs of several hundred questers at once made it a busy place. Now, it was largely quiet. The vast majority of questers had headed for Harwyck, leaving behind the local guild leaders to keep things running and a relative handful of warriors to ensure the town wasn’t left undefended.
Its double doors opened onto a large reception area taken up by five desks arranged in a row at the back wall. It was a sparsely decorated room, with only five adornments on the back wall denoting what faction each table represented. The rest of the floorspace would typically have been taken up by questers waiting their turn to speak to the people manning the desks. There was no one here at present, but sitting at the desk before a large kite shield was a stocky woman with chin-length auburn hair and wearing eye-searing golden armour with an open-faced helm. Her green eyes fixed on Wick the moment their party entered.
“Ser Wick. Good,” she said. She was surprisingly soft-spoken, considering the steady confidence in her gaze. “You still intend to leave for Dawnguard tomorrow, yes?”
The other man in the room looked up from the documents he was reading through on his desk. The man who had to be Marsh looked like he could’ve been another bowmaster, with his black tunic and hose. But the sword propped against his chair, the shield resting on his desk, and the wand holding his long black hair up in a bun told another story.
The five-pointed star painted onto the wall behind him was another clue, if the rest of it hadn’t made his identity obvious.
“We do,” Wick said with a nod.
“Would you be willing to accept a commission to take some things with you and deliver them to the Guild of Shields?” Loren asked.
“Absolutely,” Wick said.
If looks could kill, Valerie’s cold stare would have committed the nine familial exterminations on Wick at that moment. “We will be moving with the utmost possible haste,” she said. “We cannot afford to be distracted.”
“It won’t be so much of a distraction,” Loren said. “Just a few personal belongings of mine that I don’t want to see lost.”
“I’ll see it done,” Wick said. He slanted a side-on look at Valerie. “The burden will be on me alone, Skycloak.”
“So be it,” Valerie said.
Loren led Wick away deeper into the guildhall through a side door, leaving Lucas and Valerie to approach Marsh. Lucas didn’t have the first clue what he was going to talk to the man about until he was at the man’s desk and a question came to him. Valerie had already given him approval to talk to the man.
“Could you tell me about the people who lost their lives last night?” he asked.
The Star blinked at him. “I can,” he said slowly. “But what brought this on? Are you searching for someone among the dead, perhaps?”
“Not particularly,” Lucas said. “I just feel like I should remember them, in some way.”
“Noble of you.” Marsh looked between him and Valerie for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, first there was—”
A distant shout echoed from outside, cutting Marsh off mid-sentence. The three of them went still and silent, listening as more people took up the call in reply. The voices mingled together, and Lucas couldn’t make out the bulk of what they were saying. But he didn’t need to. The tinge of fear to the voices was unmistakable, and really he only needed to hear one word.
“Beast!”
After a moment of hesitation, Marsh gathered up his weapons and leapt over his table, sprinting for the door. Loren came barreling out of the side room a second later, Wick hot on her heels. Valerie just watched Lucas, only moving when he did. She stuck to his shadow as he belatedly chased after the others.
They burst out into the cool evening air and ran for the staircase that led to the top of the stone walls surrounding the keep. It seemed half the remaining questers in the town had had the same idea; a half dozen or so warriors were barrelling up the steps ahead of them, and a dozen more were already running along the crenelations, heading towards the eastern side of the wall where Ser Deryk stood out in his white armour and blue cloak.
As he and Valerie mounted the steps at the back of the group, a strange feeling overcame him. Emotion, and one he immediately recognised as not his own. It took him far too long to realise what it was and where it was coming from—he was almost to the top of the stairs when it hit him, and he turned his attention within.
Jamie? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?
The monstercat was going mad within Lucas’ soul, thrashing and hissing and crying out. He was practically scrabbling all over the place in a mad frenzy, like a tiger trying to batter its way out of a cage—clearly the monstercat’s emotions had overtaken it, because Jamie was the one with control of whether he was inside of Lucas’ soul or not. If he wanted to get out, he was the only one that could facilitate his exit. Lucas tried to nudge at his heart’s flame, but Jamie’s fury rendered it unusable.
Lucas didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to comfort the abomination bonded to his very soul, and he hadn’t the first clue why it was so enraged in the first place. Jamie had never shown such a reaction to beasts before. Nothing he tried could even get his soulbonded companion’s attention. He was utterly frenzied.
As they reached the top of the wall and started their run around to where all the commotion was, Lucas seized his pure mana and cast out his plant sense. It was somewhat of a long shot, but there wasn’t much else he could think to do; it was hardly as if he could seek help from someone else regarding the monstercat, so he sought clues in his environment. His floramantic sense reached out and touched on the nearest plant; a small weed growing at the base of the wall they were running along.
The plant bone connected to the dorsal fin of the weed, which itself was feeding into the rotational helix that bridged the gap between liver and apple. Green teeth chomped a red box containing fourteen fox bulbs which would pupate into an amalgamation of leaves and retinae. Mouths could hear everything, everywhere, all the breathing and flowing and warming and movementing and collapsing and and and
eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes looking looking looking looking looking seeing seeing seeing seeing seeing knowing knowing knowing knowing knowing eating eating eating eating eating
Lucas stumbled. He immediately drew his mana back from the plant, but it was too late. Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong.
“Valerie,” he wheezed. His heart was suddenly thundering like he’d sprinted a marathon without a drop of water—and he hurt on a spiritual level, like a monster had raked icy claws through his soul. Jamie was howling. So loud it threatened to split Lucas’ skull open. His mana pathways shuddered from how abruptly he’d cut himself off from the mana he’d pushed outside himself to sense with. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and he gasped like he was drowning on land. His body trembled so violently that he would have collapsed if he hadn’t already been leaning against the wall.
Valerie was at his side in an instant, holding him up and swiftly looking him over. “What is it?” she whispered, but with the way her eyes widened, darting over his form, she seemed to have come to her own conclusion. Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment, and her grip on his upper arm grew so tight he worried she might snap through his humerus. “Your mana…” she finally managed to croak out, horror suffusing her voice.
Then she seemed to stop herself, going utterly still. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she drew in a shuddering breath. Her free hand stole beneath her robe and withdrew her moonlight pendant, which she swiftly clasped around Lucas’ neck.
The world turned to a pencil sketch, all colour vanishing save for the holy white light of the full moon hanging in the grayscale sky. Lucas stared at it, transfixed. It was impossible to think of anything but its celestial radiance. Nothing else could possibly be worthy of his attention. Even his soul itself was entranced, his mana drawn towards the majesty of the moon. It embraced him like a beloved child, and he felt safe and warm in its hold.
Just beyond its brilliant light, Lucas could just about make out the face of a familiar woman.
“It saw me,” he told her wondrously.
The woman’s eyes were like twin moons themselves, and he found himself being pulled into them. “From this moment until I tell you otherwise, you are not to stray an inch from my side for any reason. You will follow any order I give the moment I give it. You will trust no one but me. Do you understand?”
He nodded. There was no room for disobedience.
The woman drew in a deep breath, then bellowed a single word at the top of her lungs.
“DEMON!”