“Badgers and Wolverines draw a lot of power from the ground. Taking one out on land is like taking a Shark out at sea... ‘cept Sharks don’t get to burrow, they don’t have claws, they don’t have musk glands, and they don’t have some damn lethal Earth Magic,” Elder Oscar Schwartz said grimly. “Full disclosure, lads. I ain’t never hunted a Badger King, nor has anyone alive in the Guild. The biggest thing we’ve seen in fifty years is a Wolverine Duke raiding across the St. Lawrence into New England, and that hunt took us a good two weeks to finish, fighting the damn thing every single day.” He eyed the KIA boys speculatively. “We didn’t have anyone throwing off quite the vibes of you boys, but we had four times as many people for that one. We ended up losing a third of the team, more than everyone here right now.”
That was a cold dash of water in the face. Briggs, however, was unmoved. “I reviewed the records of all the Wolverine Hunts going back as far as the Guild has records. I fully agree with how dangerous this is. That’s why I invited Coralost’s Sage along.” He inclined his head at me as the Wolverine Hunters all perked up, not having heard a Sage was with Coralost. “Lady Fae is coming with us.”
To say they were shocked as they turned to look at me was an understatement. “A Sage?” gasped Amelia Schwartz, the old woman acclaimed as one of the best Air-wielding Archmages in the state, if not the country.
I pulsed my Aura just once, barely. They all swayed as they whitened reflexively.
There was no faking it. I was definitely a Sage!
“Typeless Mages only have the one Element,” I reminded the shocked Wolverine Hunters. “Imagine how much more quickly you might have advanced with only one Element and access to the Refactory Towers.”
On reflex, they all turned to look at the white towers at the corners and center of the Coralost Compound. All members of the Wolverine Hunters were allowed to Meditate in there for twenty-four hours a month, which they usually did in twelve-hour shifts two weeks apart. A Seven-Stars Elemental Formation meant, in addition to the Heavy Mana, a x49 increase in speed of Mana absorption, so that one ‘day’ of Meditating was equal to a month and half of doing so alone... and doing so alone was still worth at least five times normal speed!
It didn’t cost them a dime. Briggs just awarded it to anyone worthy of being called a Wolverine Hunter after that help with the snatch-teams, and he and the Guild had been buddies ever since.
“Still, a Sage at your age...” Amelia murmured, shaking her head in disbelief. “How old are you? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
“I will be twenty-four in a couple of months,” I confirmed, and all the mages there just rolled their eyes and groaned. “It’s like there’s a reason the Beast Emperors talk to me, or something.”
Their eyes went to the Tokens hanging from my Staff, and they could only agree. Nor were there any disparaging looks at me wielding a Staff, as they all had Wands or Rods in holstered sheaths of their own, and most of the younger mages owned Grit firearms for ‘special circumstances’, too!
“We’ve got supplies in our Pockets enough for a month,” Elder Oscar told us, his words prompting his people there to pick up their packs. They only looked to be traveling light. “We’re ready to go right now, if you’ve a way there.” He looked expectant after what he’d been told by Briggs.
I nodded, and tapped Noble’s foot to the ground next to me. A silvery archway, gleaming with the power of Void Magic, spun into being there and opened out into someplace else, the sky already dark and with stars out, oddly leafed and bulbous-wooded trees visible around that were not found in America. “Let’s condense a twelve-hour flight down to a few steps, shall we?” I ushered them through.
The KIA boys didn’t hesitate whatsoever, the eight of them striding right for the Portal and on through as if it were all old hat, which it was. The Wolverine Hunters looked at one another, their eyes gleaming at the new magic, and hurriedly filed through after them.
Following them were the ten women of the SAR Team, who had very loudly cried out that they weren’t going to be left out on something this fun. The fact eight of them had hooked up with the KIA guys certainly couldn’t be a coincidence, right?
None of them were Michigan natives, either. They’d all come from villages and small towns now under Coralost protection, along the shores of Central and South America, and they were all Typeless Mages and Wizards, so that they would have the full array of spells needed to go in, grab people, keep them alive, and get them out of danger. They were Support Casters of the most dangerous sort, and they took their jobs very seriously.
Some of my best Markspace students, as it were, bright White and Yellow, leaning on Silver and Gold. They’d all had their eyes set on members of the KIA Team after violent rescues of their families and homes. Coralost had given them the chance to become strong enough to do that job, and to pursue the men they wanted.
It was working, too. Sannina was the first Typeless member of the Phoenix Mages, Blessed by Fire Phoenix himself with the Healing Fire. That it also required a Blessing by the Ice Phoenix was something not known outside the Phoenix Mages. She and Red had been an item for some time, although they were holding off marriage until after the Great Floodbreaker Ritual was performed.
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“Where are we?” Elder Oscar asked, looking around at the sky and surrounding trees. It was a bright night out, and with expanded senses from being a mage, nobody had problems seeing or sensing the area out, finding nothing hostile around, only a fairly wide river to the west of them.
“Five miles east of Ovan near the Mvoung River.” Everybody jumped as they realized Sama Rantha was in the middle of us, and nobody had seen her until the moment the Holo came up from Tremble on her belt.
Briggs came through last, reached up, and pinched off the Portal, instantly dissipating it. The mages watching had thoughtful expressions at that casual display of magic-nulling. “We decided to skip the political welcoming party and the sabotage that was likely going to happen if we greeted the President at Libreville,” Briggs said grimly. “Since we’re getting paid through the Hunters Association, there’s no need to help them cut a few throats while we do the job. Sama, what have you got for us?”
Everyone drifted closer as her Holo changed to a series of papers being removed from desk drawers and trash bins, and readouts of private emails and texts. “The Sage is definitely involved with someone, and this is not a random happening. Ivindo and Haut are the provinces most affected by this event, and both of them are full of tribes who do not support the Sage. If they were completely wiped away, it wouldn’t affect his strength at all, save to secure his grasp on the rest of the country.
“Who he is working with isn’t quite clear, as there are only names and phone numbers, nothing naming them.
“It is worthwhile to point out that the Church of Light has been almost completely abandoned here, and the few churches that remain have almost no attendance save their priests, while Sage Ojibwae has no contact with them whatsoever. As you can see, the reports are ferocious, appalling, and being completely suppressed by the President as to their real results.”
The reports indicated that a massive slaughter was taking place across those provinces. King Magogo was devouring every animal he came across, Human and non, using his Kingly Aura to suppress them and literally leaving them unable to flee. He had depopulated massive swaths of land and even the rivers of anything living, and the Beasts were fleeing Him as much as the Humans, although few could outrun him.
“The last report was that he was heading toward Franceville, and had completely devoured his way through Akieni and Ngouini. The estimates are that he’s eaten over twenty thousand Humans, and who knows how many Beasts.”
Even the Wolverine Hunters swore. “That... how can it eat that much?” broke in one of the younger Hunters. “I mean, a King is big, but...”
“It just breaks them down that much faster, and craps and pisses on the run,” Elder Oscar said grimly. “So, we’ve a hundred miles or so to find it? That won’t take long.”
“Even less than you think.” Sama nodded at me, and I sat down in midair. A gentle force pushed everyone back from me as I sank into semi-Meditation and reached out and down, into the weave of the Manafield, and the life force of the continents and world that backed it all...
-------
Elder Oscar elbowed Briggs at the waist. “What’s she doing, lad?” he asked the huge man, who was standing there with his thick arms crossed on his massive chest.
“Communing with Nature. She’s going to reach out to the spirit of the continent and ask it for some help. Finding a rampaging King-class Beast is trivial.”
“That sounds like a very useful skill,” his wife piped up alertly. “Sure could have used it tracking these bastards in the past!”
“Normally the world wouldn’t get involved in something like this, so, no, it probably wouldn’t have worked in your prior hunts, Amelia,” Briggs corrected her gently. “The world has no innate favoritism for Beasts or us, we’re all Her children. But this is a King on a rampage, something is wrong, and so it shouldn’t be an issue to get the Land’s help.”
Sama’s still-gleaming Holo changed, a view of their current location drawing everyone’s eyes, and then rapidly exploding to the southeast. Forests, streams, rivers, roads, villages, and herds of animals scrolled by rapidly, the miles flowing past, and converged on something happening.
The ghostly show of King Magogo eating a pride of Lions.
The Great Cats weren’t all that big, the largest of them perhaps Commander-size, but the massive Honey Badger mauled the defiant Commander of the pride almost absently, tearing it apart with implacable claws and scattering the pieces before energetically rampaging through the rest of the prostrate pride and butchering them mercilessly.
Then ghostly eyes glanced in their direction, there was a surge of darkness, and the view abruptly terminated.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Lady Fae as a misty white fire lit up all around her, and golden fire seemed to ignite inside her bones. She opened her silver eyes, which were radiating Light, and slowly bent off to the side.
The bloody vomit she expelled was burning white and electrum over the blackened crimson as it fell to the rough grasses there, smoking and burning the plants even as it was consumed.
“Ah, fuck,” the Mick said softly, but everyone heard it. Eyes glanced at Briggs, whose mouth turned down in a ferocious scowl from its set line.
“What’s going on, Lady Fae?” he asked quietly.
“Magogo has been corrupted by an ungodly amount of Undead Mana. He’s just alive enough to not be called Undead himself. Everything he’s devouring is likely forming an undead army he can expel to serve him, Commander,” Lady Fae answered softly, spitting out another stream of black stuff that ignited as it left her lips. More fires ignited on her face, and they realized the same stuff was dripping from her eyes, nose, and ears!
Everyone shuffled uneasily. This had just gone from bad to very worse. A King Badger was one thing. An Undead King Badger?! That was two or three times more dangerous!
“Well, now we know why it’s on a rampage,” Sama’s voice shocked them all out of their disbelief with her droll tone. “That was, what, twenty miles from Franceville?” Franceville was the only Warded city in the whole of the Haut Province, and everyone fleeing King Magogo was going there.
“Is that city’s Ward even rated for Undead?” Red asked quickly. “That usually requires some specific tinkering...”
“Lady Fae, get us to Franceville,” Sama ordered calmly. “And then bring in the Undead Hunters.”