Negotiations had concluded in a miraculous success, putting an end to the threat of renewed hostilities, so the next priority was to escape the magma table together. The crystal forests of the giant steam-chamber had an enchanting, ethereal beauty, but Ivaldi was quite ready to never see them again in his life. For the Pharyes, deeper was better, but one could have too much of a good thing, as the intense heat and exhuasting humidity proved.
The chief aulogemscire wiped beading sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, then immediately regretted it as he felt the oily smear his work-leathers had left there. It made him shudder to feel the filth steeping his skin, but he couldn’t stop to go wash himself off until they were under way. Even then, the bath he longed for was impossible aboard a crawler.
“Chief?” Hylli asked. “Are you coming?”
“Oh! Of course, sorry… just got a little… distracted.”
“Stay focused, Counselor,” Uldmar said curtly. “You can rest when we’re under way.”
“And then you can go take a nice shower,” Hylli added, smiling.
Somehow his assistant always guessed what was on his mind.
He followed her through the corridors of the crawler and into the control room, where Sulis was already preparing to start the vehicle.
The naiad made for an unsettling sight in her true form, her body from the neck down splitting into a tangle of tentacles that filled the room from floor to ceiling, reaching out to multiple control panels simultaneously, such that the pharyes present were practically surrounded by her. Had she not been friendly it would have been frightful.
Captain Beyla was already operating the emergency escape hatch in the ceiling in fact, but not to flee – she was opening it so that Safkhet, perched atop the machine, could hear their conversations and provide translation.
The appearance of the human girl’s face in the opening a moment later made Ivaldi feel very small indeed, a sensation magnified by the sheer weight of her mana.
It was truly miraculous that his attempt at peacemaking had worked so well.
His hopes had been high, yet the surfacers had met them, both sides working together to build trust step by step and to help one another. There was much still at risk, and more which could easily go awry, especially when time came for their raid on Northastr, but the alternative was unthinkable – if the war was not stopped, thousands of innocent lives would be lost. Pharyes lives as well as harpy, ogre and beastfolk.
Not for the first time Ivaldi wondered what madness had possessed the Justicar in orchestrating his war on the surface.
A metallic thud reverberated through the crawler.
“Careful,” Beyla snapped.
Sulis needed no interpreter for the remark.
“That wasn’t your crawler. I have to break down some trees to turn here,” came her translated response.
Made up of many interchangeable, modular segments, the individual sections of crawlers were replaced frequently, with only the control and crew compartments being retained long term, to avoid the need for the crew to move all their belongings to new quarters too often. As a result the train of modules comprising a complete crawler was nameless, generally referred to by the name of the captain, or the construction code of the primary control module, but that didn’t mean that captains didn’t get attached to their charges.
“I hope you’ll be more gentle with PK-18-42 than you are with this one. Yours may be stolen, but I’ve had that command module for five years now, and I can’t just hijack a new one.”
Beyla spoke testily, eyes on the outputs on the gemstone panels as Sulis was slowly backing up towards her own vessel.
Ivaldi cringed at the bluntness of the older woman, while Hylli looked anxious and Uldmar and the second officer exchanged knowing looks.
Safkhet sounded uneasy translating the words, and there was a definite edge of anger to Sulis’ reply.
“I didn’t hijack my crawler and it isn’t stolen. I won’t break yours either. Not more than I already have,” was Sulis’ icy answer.
“Captain,” Uldmar interjected, as Beyla was opening her mouth to retort. “Sulis is our only way out of the pit your crawler is trapped in.”
Beyla paused, then took a breath, giving the larger woman a mirthless smile.
“And how exactly did you come to acquire a Pharyes crawler without stealing it?”
“Your people abandoned it. I saved it.”
Beyla shook her head as Safkhet spoke the words.
“That’s impossible. Even if the crew failed to lock the systems, you’d have no-one to show you how to work it.”
“I worked it out for myself.”
“That’s-”
“Amazing!” Ivaldi cut Beyla off with the words, his clutched palms already slick, and his filthy brow starting to smear down his forehead. “That’s amazing! She’s doing the work of an entire crew, without anyone to teach her!”
Ivaldi’s rising panic calmed as his words were related, and he learned that Naiads could in fact blush, Sulis showing him an oddly cute rise on her aquamarine cheeks, the yellow swirls brightening in reaction to the compliment.
A moment later came the gentle vibration as the two crawlers coupled, and then Sulis sent the signal to Beyla’s first officer, in the other control room, for them to start moving together.
Rushing hydraulics went to work, power surging as the machines both pulled, and then in a moment they were moving as one, striding out of the trap and forward into the valley ahead.
“Impressive,” Beyla admitted. “I thought we’d have to decouple the trapped modules and abandon them. It seems you’re more than a simple crawler thief, Sulis.”
Ivaldi was praying silently that Safkhet had simply ignored the last words, but the girl seemed to be translating on autopilot at that point as she clung to the roof of the moving machine, and he could easily imagine her slavishly interpreting even the jibe.
Sulis laughed however, giving a menacing grin. “A lot more,” she answered.
Beyla grinned back.
“There’s nothing simple about what you must have had to do to get the systems working this smoothly. How were you able to bypass the security?”
“We thieves have our ways.”
It was Beyla’s turn to laugh.
“Don’t tell me it was some sleight of hand. You don’t even have any.”
“Sleight of spell.”
“Surface magic, was it? You’re telling me your spells were able to take over this crawler?”
“They helped,” Sulis affirmed.
“Do they let you do the work of a whole crew too?”
Beyla sounded fascinated now, but she wasn’t alone. Ivaldi and Hylli were hanging on the Naiad’s words too.
“They help. I also use my tentacles.”
An obvious answer, but Ivaldi wondered how the girl could control so many switches, dials and other inputs all at once with only two eyes to see everything and one mind to make sense of it all… just operating the legs would take the full attention of a normal pharyes pilot.
But no Pharyes could command dozens of prehensile limbs at once either.
With both crawlers free there was no time to chat any further. Beyla gave a respectful thanks to the naiad as they returned to her own vessel to make the necessary repairs that would get them under way.
A good shower and some clean clothes were getting closer.
After that, they would lay their plans to begin their resistance agianst the Justicar and his war.
~~~
Dazzling opalescence lit the Nacreous Hlidskjalf from within, the figure of King Jotunn wrapped in that ghostly radiance as though it were consuming him.
The light had once seemed thrilling to the justicar, but now Hreidmar saw a sinister character to the swirling colors. They never seemed to bring glad tidings in their flows and eddies.
Ebbing light left the form of the king clear once more, but what was revealed was a body withered and haggard by long years and great burdens. Too great, Hreidmar told himself. The King could not be allowed to sit the throne much longer.
That he remained, master of the Nacreous Hlidskjalf and monarch of the known depths, was proof of the King’s dedication, but also of his grave misfortune. There were none in the royal line fit to succeed him.
The first prince and princess had fallen in battle more than a century past when Fridrboer was lost, the province overrun and countless lives ended, including the heroic royal twins. The shame and pain of that dread wheel still burned in Hreidmar’s chest, as he knew it did king Jotunn’s.
The second prince had been a sickly child, attended by the finest laeknir from his birth. Spyrja who studied the art of healing, they were called upon from all corners of the kingdom to save the ailing prince. Dozens of laeknir had attempted all manner of techniques toward that end, from the traditional forms of herbalism to the dangerous and unpredictable practice of aulogemscis worked upon the living body, yet none could save him. He had not lived to see manhood, and the Queen had never recovered from that great woe.
The third prince, born decades later, had been heartier, but brash and foolish, emboldened by royal parents who were over-glad to have a child again, so late in their lives. As the future king he could do no wrong at court, his every minor triumph met with accolades and celebration, his every failure overlooked or excused by all.
Justicar Hreidmar was as guilty there as any. He had been too soft on the boy, allowing his loyalty and fondness towards King Jotunn to blunt his tongue and stay his hand as the young prince grew into an arrogant, thoughtless glory-hunter.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Kept from the borders and the endless wars against the hostile species of the depths, the prince had little means to gain accomplishments, despite his puissance with his royal Skidbladnir. Thirsting for further acclaim he had secretly taken up knattleikr, slipping away from the palace to compete as the ‘nameless hero’, and indeed to win many victories.
He had surely thought himself invulnerable, but the games were violent, dangerous contests, and the lightweight golems the contestants piloted were no Skidbladnir, sacrificing armor and protection in favor of speed and power.
Playing in a grand tournament arranged on the eve of his own father’s birthwheel, his machine had skidded on stray aulogemscic fluid and he had lost control, just as one of his opponents struck with her baton. Her aim had been to dislodge the ball from his grip. Instead she had instead pierced his cockpit.
His death brought a year of mourning upon the Pharyes, and a time of great uncertainty. Their King was old now, and yet he was without heir once more, with no clear and peaceful line of succession agreed on by the nobles. Such a state of affairs could only mean one thing; a civil war.
Thus, for the sake of the kingdom the King and Queen had swallowed their grief once more, and despite their ages, tried once again to conceive. The laeknir were summoned again, and the Queen given every possible treatment.
Against all expectations it had been announced two years later that the royal couple were once more expecting a child, securing the succession again, and great celebrations had been prepared to welcome the birth of the future monarch.
The celebrations had become an awful sham as tragedy struck the royal family once again.
The Queen had been too old. Too infirm for the burden of birth.
The laeknir had informed the King of the awful choice he faced; they could not save both his wife and his daughter. Only one could survive the ordeal.
Force to decide between the love of his life, and his duty to the kingdom, King Jotunn had chosen his duty.
It had broken him.
The young princess Njorun lived, but in the care of wetnurses and maids. Her father could not look upon her without seeing his late Queen and despairing, while rumors circulated in the palace that he secretly despised the child for taking his consort from him.
Hreidmar doubted the latter, but whatever the truth might be the king had sent the princess away as soon as she came of age. She had for some years now been consigned to rule over the populous yet distant town of Brudfe, isolated from the court and nobility.
Even if she were capable of succeeding the throne, she would soon have other problems to deal with. The Justicar had extensive plans for the overpopulated territory of Brudfe after all.
But that left none worthy of succeeding the king….
“Justicar?”
The weak, weary voice shattered Hreidmar’s contemplation.
“Excuse me. You have news from Southtown?”
Alone together as they were, Hreidmar could dispense with honorifics.
The King gave a shallow nod in response, looking older than ever.
“The Priestess spoke truthfully it would seem… only the Stormqueen could have wrought such destruction at Southtown and… penetrated our forces so easily.”
“I’ll divert more forces from the reserves being reactivated,” the Justicar answered quickly. “That will delay moving on the Eyrie, but if the empress and marshal are together below Southtown then we cannot allow their escape back to the surface – nor risk them striking the mines. This is our best opportunity to kill them both and break the power of the royal line. Once they’re dead, only the Priestess herself will be in our way.”
The king gave an unhappy nod.
“Such violence, so much betrayal and death…,” he murmured. “I see it still, when I close my eyes… that darkness… coming closer to me…. Writhing… in my mind….”
The Justicar shifted uncomfortably as he stood before his king.
“We do only what is necessary for the survival of our kingdom and our people,” Hreidmar reminded him. “Once the Stormqueen is dead and the Eyrie fallen the surfacers will no longer be able to resist us. We can begin the resettlement plans immediately. I have already begun preparations to move sooner than anticipated.”
“Yes, assuredly so…. Yet that awful shaking, was it three wheels past? Can it be… we are already too late?”
“Four wheels now, and there have been no further disturbances,” Hreidmar answered, voice firm. “We have already accelerated the time frame as much as is feasible. Whatever the true cause may be, the shockwave may prove a boon – the Priestess would never have risked the Eyrie in this manner prior to the event.”
“Nothing… nothing further…,” muttered King Jotunn, as if trying to convince himself.
Hreidmar was uncertain that the King had heard a word of what his Justicar had said.
“But this attack on the Eyrie… could it be a trap?” the frail man asked.
Anxiety whitened his decrepit hands as they grasped the throne beneath him, his eyes focusing on the other man once more.
“For her to propose a direct attack on her own capital… does the Priestess truly believe my Varangians shall retreat at her command?”
“Certainly not. But she is arrogant, as all her kind are, and truly believes that her people are the chosen children of their goddess. The Harpies cannot conceive of their own defeat, and so they will lose everything, despite her tricks and treachery. She has no idea the numbers we command, now that Southtown’s mines are ours. Every wheel more golems are restored to operation and more crawler-loads of gemstones reach our people. Nothing can stop us.”
~~~
“It’s really hopeless then?” Gastores asked, shoulders slumping as he sat atop a giant crate in the crawler’s hold.
Everyone injured in the fighting had been treated, the crawlers unstuck and coupled together, Sulis persuaded to entrust her machine to the Pharyes crew (temporarily of course), and the combatants had taken the time to clean up after the battle and get some food and drink. Now we had gathered together to work on our plan for the attack on Northastr.
The hold of a single module of the crawler was too small for everyone of course, so we were limited to the participants at the negotiations plus a few more people from each side, but with how large the ogres and some of the harpies were, the chamber still felt rather cramped. Aellope wouldn’t even have been able to fit inside it at all… unless perhaps she had contorted herself rather well….
Captain Beyla interrupted my musings about just how flexible the Stormqueen might be however, as I realized I needed to keep translating or else the discussion would grind to a halt.
“Loading that many people onto crawlers can’t be done without the whole fortress noticing us,” she was saying, “as soon as we start releasing prisoners the alarm will be raised. Even with four Valkyries, all our operable Skidbladnir and Lady Safkhet, this is Northastr we’re talking about.”
I saw the other captain, Berenike, nodding with a grim understanding, her tail curling anxiously.
“She’s right,” Berenike said, after I’d related the speech. “If this Northastr is as big and strategically important as she says there could be hundreds of their Skidbladnir, and probably thousands of golems. Up against a force like that we’d be overwhelmed before we got out the gate.”
“It’s as the captain says.”
“We have to find a way to get everyone onto crawlers without the guards noticing.” Beyla said.
“A diversion then? Another group attacking from the outside, just like we did against you!” Gastores suggested brightly.
“That only worked because you already outnumbered us,” Idavoll reminded him irritably. “If we’d had our heirloom Skidbladnir for the battle you’d never have survived….”
I ignored the provocative latter statement, relating only the… not unreasonable point about the issue of numbers.
Yadar gave an artistic sigh as I spoke.
“This isss true, we cannot call upon reinforcementsss within the confiness of the Underworld. Our plan mussst make use only of those resssources to hand.”
“Let’s flood the fortress,” Sulis suggested, with the kind of simplistic, dangerous sincerity that made me believe she really could, and would do it.
“Unthinkable!” Uldmar snarled. “Even if there were a river close enough to use, you would have me drown my own people, as well as many of yours?! This is a rescue not a slaughter!”
The naiad glared at him as he spoke, but on hearing the meaning it seemed she took his point.
“We already know how we’re getting inside, so we just need to find way to get all the prisoners into crawlers,” Gastores reminded them.
“We even sure they got enough crawlers there to start with?” Patch asked.
“Oh, there will be enough,” Beyla assured her. “Northastr has active docks and constant traffic thanks to the war, but there are also hundreds of crawler modules in storage – gemstone shortages forced us to stop running them. The hard part is just getting everyone aboard them, and coupling them together.”
“Which we have no idea how to do…,” I said, sighing as I summed up the past half-hour of debate, first in Cycloan, then Pharynx.
“Well we can’t just give up,” Gastores insisted. “We have to-”
Twin crystalline chimes pierced the compartment, making the beastfolk wince at the high, reverberant notes.
All around us the crawler thrummed, power surging as gemstones flared with essence and fluid circuits pumped. Through the superstructure of the module I heard the sounds of weapons firing, launching metal spears and arcing tongues of fire and lightning.
“That’s the call to combat stations,” Beyla announced over the immediate hubbub of confusion and dismay. “It’s probably no more than a few hunting monsters.”
I had barely translated the first few words of her statement when the sound repeated, and the intercom blared to life.
“Captain! They’re back!”
“Who?” Beyla demanded.
“The Formorians!”
“Again?!”
“More this time, lots more! There are scores of them pouring down the tunnel ahead, too many for the golems to handle! We have to sortie!”
“Understood. Send the golems forward to hold them off.”
Beyla turned to the open space behind her, as composed and calm as ever.
“It seems we’re going to be fighting alongside one another sooner than expected. Captain Berenike, if you would direct your forces as you see fit? Lord Uldmar, please summon your entourage to their Skidbladnir. I’m going to the control room.”
Waiting not a moment for response, the aging captain marched from the cargo bay and up the stairs with the force of a far younger woman.
With Berenike’s encouragement those able to fight were quickly gathered at the doors of the cargo bays, while the few pilots hurried off to the docks and their waiting war machines.
I had just time enough to notice the dirty look Patch was giving me before the doors hissed open.
The muted sounds of warfare were thunderous then, roaring flame and crackling electricity coming from right above us as the crawler’s crew laid down a blanket of fire to drive stray enemies back and allow us to sally.
I saw more than a few hesitant faces around me, but as horrid as the Formorians were, I’d faced worse since, and more than once – and I was thoroughly sick of monstrous and gruesome creatures trying to kill me.
I might have gotten a little carried away with the war-cry as I charged out, but while I felt silly running forward bare-handed, I was heartened to see Berenike take wing just behind me. From another compartment Nefret soared out, already chanting a spell, and behind them were ogres, beastfolk and even Yadar the naga.
Though they were slower to emerge, the Skidbladnir of Uldmar’s squad were right behind us too, and as we grouped up in the long, wide channel Berenike called on them to follow her lead.
Perhaps Beyla was shouting in their ears over their gemstone communicators, for the nobles seemed to obey despite so recently being at odds with us. Together our combined forces made for the line of golems ahead down the giant magma-tube we had been traversing.
The monstrous enemies were as alien as ever, despite how much more of the Underworld I’d seen. Ghoulish and skeletal of face, with undulating centipedal bodies lined with horns and far, far too many arms, they clutched chitinous weapons and shields. Yet distressing as they were to behold, facing them at the head of so many friends and… not quite enemies… they felt far less dreadful.
Stopped at the forward line of golems, the formorian attackers were thrown into complete disarray by the sudden emergence of so large and potent a defense force.
They had been rapidly overwhelming the Triskelion–led automaton forces, but they seemed to have no idea how to fight a combined group of Skidbladnir, Valkyries and ogres.
I could have waded into the battle, but I was in no hurry to get anywhere near a formorian ever again. Instead I took advantage of the cover of my allies to incant the magic I’d learned from the Harpies, expelling the largest and broadest blasts of fire I could conjure from my hands. Each send flocks of the pallid creatures scuttling for cover. My mana seemed to be moving more easily than it had in the past, and far from being reduced as I’d feared during my grueling escape through Vitrgraf, it seemed more abundant than ever – my spells surprised even me with their potency and scale, almost hitting a number of golems ahead before I could adjust. It was lucky that the machines were unmanned.
Our enemies were quite obviously alive and intelligent however, and as much as I loathed the hissing and clicking, the clouds of noxious vapors and their skin-crawling insectoid ambulation, I found myself shying away from actually engulfing them in my plumes of flame. They were still living, intelligent creatures, capable of coexisting peacefully with at least one other species, and the thought of watching them burn to death was chilling.
The thought of being the one to do it to them made me feel slightly sick. Having almost died in fire, magma and living molten obsidian, I wouldn’t wish such an end upon anyone or anything. Back in the hive it had been me or them, and at Grand Chasm it had been… I had been so angry, so afraid that I’d lost myself for a time….
But now things were less dire – despite my hesitation the enemies were soon retreating in disarray, falling back into the branching tunnels ahead like cockroaches fleeing the light, carrying or dragging their wounded, abandoning the dead where they fell.
We’d won, and as far as I could tell it was without fatality on our side.
I even managed to keep Patch’s clothes clean.
~~~
Few of the enemies had actually fallen, and the valuable golems had suffered their own losses, even if the harm to our living members was limited to flesh-wounds and a few broken bones, but it seemed the victory was meaningful beyond its material gains.
The magic of the surfacers had left a deep impression on the Pharyes.
Despite not… actually hitting anything… my own flame attacks had been quiet effective at driving the enemy away, if I said so myself, but the Pharyes were well accustomed to the use of fire in warfare. What had stirred them more were the artful flowing tendrils of water Sulis had unleashed to save a young Pharyes nobleman from being dragged off by his formorian attackers, and the shields of ice Nefret had conjured to protect the man and his damaged Skidbladnir.
It was also the first time the Pharyes and the surfacers had fought together. At least, against other people. That seemed worthy of some celebration, and as soon as the healers were done patching up the injured there began an impromptu party. Mushroom wine and thollr sap were passed around the cargo bays, while Lord Hlesey climbed atop a storage crate and led a rousing song to the ‘maiden of victory’, Sulis.
The man still believed Sulis to have saved his vision, so it was understandable that she was the star in his eyes, but she had thoroughly earned the accolades with all else she’d done for us, even if the man was under a misapprehension.
Fortunately the naiad in question couldn’t understand the salacious lyrics, but it was hard for her to miss the rapturous performance that his lordship directed towards her. Hlesey was a startlingly skilled vocalist, with a gift for performance that reminded me of a crooner singing an Earth love-ballad. I would have been intensely uncomfortable to hear the haughty noble extol my virtues, physical as well as spiritual, and to feel his probing, rapacious eyes on my body, but the naiad seemed no more than mildly amused. Perhaps to her it was like the crush of a schoolchild on a kindly and nurturing teacher.
But while her heart remained unmoved by the soulful performance, it was having more impact on Gastores. The ogre glared irritably at the blond singer throughout the song, and didn’t seem to fully relax until Hlesey had been displaced from his perch by another of the nobles, taking over to give a far less impressive rendition of some sort of traditional Pharyes opera.
As a result of the festivities, discussions of how to handle the Northastr issue took a back seat, at least for a little while.
Even captains Beyla and Berenike were looking happy about the results, even if neither participated in the drinking.
“Just make sure your people don’t have too much, that wine’s strong stuff,” Beyla said, as she sipped what looked like plain water from her cup. “No more than one portion each, if they’re anything like pharyes.”
I was eagerly taking care of my third refill of the dark, rich alcohol, but I dutifully related the warning to Berenike all the same.
“One portion isn’t as standard a measure on the surface as it is down here,” Berenike remarked. “But I’ll keep my eyes on them. We need to be ready, those formorians could be back any time.”
Beyla nodded slowly.
“But why are they down here at all? That’s what I don’t get.”
“It… it is very strange,” Ivaldi said, speaking up from behind me, perched atop another crate in the corner. “According to our reports, Formorian activity below the magma table was neigh unheard of prior to the Vitrgraf disaster. Certainly things could have, well, changed since then, but I can’t conceive of any reason why they should come all the way down here. The environment is even more inhospitable towards their kind than ours.”
Even as I was translating his words, I had a growing sense of unease, memories of my earlier misadventures coming back to me, and pulling up the hem of the shirt I wore, I studied my flank to confirm my suspicions were true.
Somehow, after all I’d been through, even being eaten alive by magma monsters, that damnable death brand was still adhering to my flesh.
“Uh… so…. I think that maybe I have an idea, about what might be attracting them down here.”
As I spoke in each language in turn all eyes turned to me, leaving me to give my sheepish explanation to the group.
“Soooo…. When I first got to the Underworld I kind of… got into a fight with the Formorians… and they spat some sort of curse-sludge on me that I couldn’t wash off, it’s like a death mark or brand or something. Apparently it doesn’t burn off either, because, well, it’s still there now…. And they were using it to hunt me before. The mycoth said they’ll never stop chasing anyone marked with this thing.”
“And you didn’t think to bring this up sooner?!” Beyla demanded.
She was glaring up at me just as my math professor had done at especially dissatisfactory students, and the uncomfortable similarity made me squirm.
“Well I thought that I lost them going through the Dweomer ruins… and almost going through a dragon’s digestive tract….”
“Goddess, what in the world have you been doing, Safkhet?!” Berenike asked, feathers standing on end in shock.
“How can anyone ‘forget’ ‘bout getting marked for death?!” Patch said, giving me a withering look in which I saw whatever credit I’d earned with her rapidly slipping away.
“A-a lot was happening! Did I mention a dragon ate me? Because I mean it did, and I think I should get some leeway for having to deal with that! Besides, even if they were tracking me in the ruins somehow I figured they’d lost my trail when I escaped through the magma lake… and fought my way past the kajatora in the mine… and got captured…. It’s ridiculous that they’re still coming after me, just for breaking a few eggs!”
“You’ve been though a lot,” Berenike said softly, placing her wing around my shoulder.
Somehow the sensation of those soft, friendly feathers against my cheek was too much in that moment, and I felt big, heavy tears pushing their way out of my eyes.
“I-I’m really sorry I didn’t warn everyone sooner, and… got people hurt because of my stupidity…. I just… it was all overwhelming, and I couldn’t keep track of everything. A lot of it still doesn’t feel real….”
Berenike pulled me against her downy chest as I cried, while Beyla was quick to backpedal.
“Don’t worry about it, Safkhet. No-one died, and the injuries will be fixed in a few days according to your healers.”
Despite my disarray, I didn’t miss the note of alarm in her voice, as though she feared that if I grew instable I might explode or lash out.
I couldn’t entirely blame her for that given our history thus far. I’d almost killed her at Vitrgraf.
Patch seemed utterly disinterested in the histrionics however. She was beaming in fact, even as the others looked grave or sympathetic.
“I don’t like that expression,” Gastores remarked, eying the beastfolk woman anxiously. “That’s the expression you get when you’re gonna suggest something really dangerous.”
“’Cause I am,” the vulpine said triumphantly.
“I know how we’re gonna break outta Northastr!”