He and the lovely Iriel'en lass who deigned to grant him her companionship evaded the influx of fire brigades who were in a near frenzy to prevent the flames from spreading to the port general and thus crippling the entire city. That was not a thing that had occurred to Ulric at the time of his planned arson, his old world being primarily a construct of metal, stone, and super polymers that were all non-flammable.
Having a look around, it should have at least crossed his mind that a city composed in large part of aged dry timber would be susceptible, and thus highly responsive towards, active structural fires. Another lesson learned, albeit not one that would have ultimately changed his calculus. If Trachn'ir didn't want him setting fire to it, they should have been a little more on their toes about preventing slavers from operating with seeming impunity. Most of the reason that these fires were necessary were related to the fact that he and his Shadow had that very goddamn day been accosted by two dozen armed dickbags in the employ of some shady flesh merchant who was making a killing and held some position of import. How import they would soon see. If the bastard wasn't upset yet they'd be positively frothing at the mouth come the morn. Pissing people off was something of a talent for Ulric and he considered this scorched Earth strategy to be some of his finest work, a proper Kansas city shuffle while the two of them prepared to cut this mysterious ring leader's throat.
Ulric had finally come to a realization about his discomfort with the recent spate of killings, when he'd had very little negative emotional or cognitive response to those events so long ago in the Ancient Glade and, later, against the Morion Lordling in their duel, to say nothing of that sonofabitching pyromancer. In the end, as was the case for much of life, it was simple: He was no longer responding. The difference between those events was that Ulric had been on the receiving end of an injustice in some form or other, was put in a position where violence was the necessary solution. Here and now? He was not simply defending himself, he had sought out conflict. Ulric was at war. His was not a righteous cause, he refused to allow himself to take that excuse. He'd left Irielhos on a mission of murderous vengeance. Vengeance for himself, vengeance for his allies and friends.
And so it was that all the deaths that followed that decision lay squarely upon his own shoulders, consequences of his own choices. Even these poor bastards he was currently educating in the art of "deconstructive politics", were a tangent resulting from his chosen path. In a way, Trachn'ir was suffering collateral damage as a result of the ill-fated interference with his mission by whoever the fuck he was making regret their life's choices.
If all had gone as planned, he and Taipan would be some three hundred or so kilometers to the North, approaching the realm of the plains folk. But, because an enemy these slavers had made of him, he had to stop and take the time to properly deal with the threat they presented lest he be putting an enemy on his heels as he traveled closer to Prespang, where the true enemy lay.
All of this was Ulric trying to wrap his brain around the fact that he was now not just some hermit in the woods, some poor, befuddled man coming to grips with a new world and a new life. Now, Ulric Einar [Lord of the Ancient Glade] was, more or less, a king leading an army of two against his nation's foes, intent on their destruction.
Ulric had always been fascinated by the history of his people, at their seemingly inevitable descent into conflict. He had also been completely baffled by the refusal of pre-collapse nations to refuse to acknowledge that they were aggressively taking action against one another, in a state of proxy war for generations, while refusing to admit or commit to the action and make proper end of things. It was demented. Ulric would not be playing any such soft games, he was playing by the old rules, the ones that dictated that your war was not over until you had run out of enemies and that, if they didn't come to you, you would go to them where they slept. They deserved no less for using the Bane.
The pair of them waited out the initial rush of crews, both official and civil made up of merchants desperate to protect their investments on a warehouse roof. From there, he and his Shadow made their way back to their newest room and turned in for the night. There was precious little of that left, maybe three or four hours before the predawn glow rose over Trachn'ir.
It would have stunned the him that had awoken naked on the litter beneath the canopy of [Godtrees] at how easily he slept following so much bloodshed.
When the pair rose from their bed in the hour following sunrise it was to a kicked anthill. The common room was jammed full of peoples huddled, the news having spread throughout the city. A declaration of heinous crimes against a fairly well-regarded, if not too powerful house of the city. A small battle fought, bodies in the streets and Where Were the Guards? A good question that one, and one that indicated that their adversary had some pull with the town's patrols, had made sure that their own people were free to work absent interference. Ulric wasn't the only one to reach that conclusion, he heard the same not-so-subtle suggestions of corruption bandied around the hearth as he took breakfast with his companion.
Trachn'ir was a peaceful trade city, it was a place of merchants, of wealth changing hands, not a charnel house. The citizenry were outraged that their communal tranquility had been broken and were not quiet about their dissatisfaction with the City Council, the top brass that called the shots for this key mercantile metropolis of Celestin. Taipan informed Ulric over their oats and ham, probably the cut of meat, not the actual animal, that the Greater Houses of Celestin would turn their eyes to events now and they would not be gentle in extracting answers.
All of this meant that the agent that was coordinating the movements of this cartel would now have vise grips on their metaphorical balls. They had to respond publicly, had to use their office to pull strings quickly, before things spiraled out of their control, as if they hadn't already. It was the fault of such to believe that they held all within their power though and Ulric was glad to disabuse them of those errant notions.
Taipan advised that the pair of them lay low, that they avoid moving around the city for the day overmuch, merely canvassing the immediate vicinity of their rented room to take the pulse of events and to allow the rampant gossip to inform them as to the disposition of their enemy's forces. Her judgment, as was so frequently the case in these affairs, was impeccable. Before Midsunsrise, they learned that the Minister of Trade of Trachn'ir, a rising star of the political hierarchy of the city, had declared that these were the actions of agents of Prespang, a pair of conspirators consisting of a human with tattoos and an Iriel'en exile, fomenting discord to weaken the city for an eventual invasion in the coming years. Never mind that any kind of action along those lines meant that the Orlethrem would long since have lost their war to have so deep an incursion into their lands, it was a play on the heady anxiety of Elven peoples dreading another war and would prove effective if left unchecked.
By playing their hand, Ulric and his Shadow now had a target, a prime candidate for the title of "Asshole in Charge". This was exactly the sort of official that could manipulate shipping records, hide or obfuscate large amounts of money moving through the city, and have the kinds of contacts that would facilitate the movement of peoples and ships all the long way from this tributary river down the Zelus and to Prosper herself. In other words, all the ingredients for a slaver pie.
Taipan was shocked to find out that the Minister of Trade was of Ogran stock. Ograns were large, physically imposing brutes known for short tempers and being incapable of functioning in larger numbers due to their hostility. They almost exclusively lived in nomadic, though fiercely territorial tribal communities. The hulking blue dude Ulric had burned to death in the canopy had been an Ogran. The reason for Taipan's incredulity was that this particular Ogran had gained a reputation for even disposition and calm, rational, if aggressively precise, discourse. He'd risen up through the ranks from a port guard to a manager of the docks, to a partner in a trade vessel, and from there had made such money as to fund a meteoric rise through the ranks of the city's political infrastructure, aided by what was widely considered to be a keen wit and utterly implacable maneuvering amongst his peers.
This was all common knowledge, it took his Shadow less than two hours of subtle questioning to extract the intelligence they needed from distracted Celestin who could barely keep their eyes out of her deliberately overemphasized cleavage to think about what they were saying or who they were saying it to. Ulric was rather less effective in his methods but still managed to obtain confirmation on most of these pieces of information while buying locally manufactured perfumes and selling the remaining Scrimshaw Taipan whiled away her quiet hours with, when she wasn't discussing tactics, showing him dirty fighting tricks, or making love.
"Which leads me to my next point Taipan, what are we going to do about it?" Ulric asked his partner, leaning on his forearms over the table at which they sat.
They had taken cover in some kind of eatery promising spiced goulash and pickled vegetables, both of which turned out to be not at all falsely advertised as worth every Eld Knight. The midmorning rush of people granted the pair of them almost complete anonymity, there were at least six other similar groupings within the two dozen or so tables, if not so many couples.
Taipan noisily slurped down the last of her bowl's broth, unashamedly belching to announce the completion of her meal. Ulric was used to her culinary savagery by now, the Iriel'en had a fairly rough manner with regards to table culture. They ate with their hands, they slurped from bowls, and they took great pleasure in enjoying the full measure of their food. His mother would have been mortified to attend an Iriel'en dinner party.
After a satisfied sigh, the young Elf held Ulric's gaze and smiled her dangerous smile.
"We are going to hang this Ogran by his guts, Glade Chief." Taipan answered.
While he appreciated her enthusiasm, Ulric was thinking more along the lines of a step-by-step process, rather than an endpoint.
"Yes, good, let the hate flow through you Taipan." Ulric coached, leading his Shadow down the Way.
"But. How are we going to get to him? Our pals yesterday knew for whom to be looking, even if we did spend a few hours waving flags to bring them in. I wasn't expecting a small army to be involved with this little detour. How many other goombas are we going to have to stomp before we piss off the local law enforcement?" He questioned.
They'd essentially taken advantage of their Victim in Waiting's desire to keep things under wraps, letting that entity spend resources keeping the Trachn'ir guardsmen out of their hair. Now that he'd gone public, he'd no doubt be trying to leverage his position to get to them, starting by that description.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"Later, Ulric, we blend well with the populace but we should not linger in public view. It would appear my disguise remains intact, our enemy have not seen my skin and lived to tell of it, but they are most certainly working with an accurate description of your person. I believe that our foes have mistaken me for a local paramour and business partner, which, I suppose, isn't so far wrong, but they have dismissed me as a source of threat, if not as a potential source of leverage."
Nodding his agreement, the pair separated briefly to make their way back to the inn, the same one this time as they didn't want to be too obvious about their moving around the city. Ulric had conceded that point to his Shadow, accepting the need to not so obviously be joined at the hip. They frequently maintained a separation along parallel streets or at a staggered distance to make potential tails work harder. Ulric had insisted on a warning signal though and the Elf agreed it made good sense. Taipan did not carry her bow in public, it was too obvious a tell, but she kept a small explosive device, the Iriel'en equivalent of a flash bang, that would serve as her warning that they were in trouble. As for himself, Ulric had told her she just needed to find the source of the thunder to track him.
Having obtained the gist of what they were dealing with, Ulric and Taipan retired to their room to continue their scheming.
Over a strong tea, Taipan laid out her strategy, "We do nothing directly Ulric. Already we have wounded our enemy, already we have bloodied him and set poison to fester in his veins." She explained.
Ulric groaned at this, already he was unspeakably tired of the city, and wanted to be on their way North. But he couldn't argue with the experience of his partner, Taipan hadn't led them astray yet, outside of a few edge cases, and those were more a matter of style than actual mistaken strategy.
The Huntress smiled at his consternation, she shared his misapprehension about being cooped up within the city. Which was why she had decided that their best move would be to get out of it for a few days, while their enemy tried to staunch the bleeding. Besides, she needed to complete the rituals for attuning her core to the flows of the Lowlands forests, her painfully slow regeneration, coupled with the intense struggle of the previous night had left her tapped.
"We will leave the city today, this afternoon, and let our enemy form the noose with his own hands. If indeed it is this Ogran Councilor who has erred in making himself our enemy, as I suspect, then this past night's result will be the final straw. An Ogran cannot help but be goaded to violence by this kind of insult." Predicted Taipan.
***************Elsewhere*********************
The Trade Minister Heralt Gedrun stood amongst the wreckage of his office, covered in blood. His assistant had made the mistake of being present when news arrived of the catch team's failure. A shame. A waste of budding talent. A dreadful mess. Savaging the corpse had vented the initial fury he'd experienced and he would soon have to pay for renovations, as well as a cleaner to dispose of the remains.
Thick four-fingered hands rubbed at the Ogran's temples as it struggled to contain its rage. Minister Gedrun busied himself stripping down and using the ruined clothes to wipe up the worst of the blood covering its powerful body. Once that had been done he opened the small banded hardwood chest in the corner of his office that held a change of clothes for just this sort of distraction. Growling under his breath loudly enough to lightly stir the water in an incredibly fortunate vase, he almost shouted orders to his recently murdered assistant before remembering that the corpse was cooling in the middle of his office. Bother.
Striding from his ruined office, Trade Minister Gedrun penned another missive to his contact to Prosper, Lord Morion of the Great House Morion. There would be a penalty, this time. All he could hope to do was to mitigate the fallout and salvage this disaster with the successful capture of the Brownie and her partner. Profits be damned, the both of them would wear slave collars for what they had cost him.
Already rumors were spreading like fungal spores about the bloody message and there were not a few that had not recognized the well-known hand of the Ogran, once a point of staunch pride. A bare few dozen of his people could even write and he had a penmanship that beggared scribes. Scarcely could he even stop from entering another rage when he allowed his thoughts to entertain the revelation that the Celestin brat, and now another of his catch team captains had kept the damned letters of orders. He'd told them never to do that. Always burn the letters, always. He'd said it so frequently it might as well have been his seal. And, despite that, two different catch team leaders had failed to follow instructions, before they'd gotten themselves slain like cattle. Two had been captured and interrogated, though they'd been picked up on charges of smuggling. Already he'd seen to silencing them, yet another loose end that had cost dear. His tentative control slipped at that recollection.
A few minutes passed while the Trade Minister vented his wrath on a cabinet, rending it to scrap wood before he was capable of appearing in public with the decorum he had cultivated publicly.
The concern now was that he had used up his local resources. Four teams were feeding the carrion crows. All of his available manpower had been exhausted and he would have to send for a more…specific…form of assistance. Lord Morion had deep pockets and cultivated extensive contacts all over the continent. He also stood to lose a very important source of income via the entire Southern Celestin capture and sale of slaves.
Gedrun considered briefly whether or not he'd be assassinated for his failings but discarded that thought immediately. He'd be censured, but not disposed of, he was too valuable. Morion would have to spend another decade installing another candidate to restore the reach and cover he'd established for their cartel. Although, Sav'ris Morion had made his House's rise on the ability to play a long game, creating a foundation for future movements a score of years in advance. Still, no, there was too much uncertainty in the future wars for the savvy Lord to wish to destabilize his grip on Trachn'ir or the profits owning its Trade Minister would bring. Having convinced himself of his safety and usefulness, Trade Minister Gedrun paid a Sil Drake to expedite his missive by [Courier Hawk], no more would he accept the delay of the frozen river runs. This needed to end, now, before he lost his grip on the situation completely.
That done, the Ogran turned to marshaling his political contacts and hemorrhaging coin to begin damage control, before his Celestin rivals managed to gain enough traction to bring these matters up in Council. He also had to post a listing for a new assistant, one with quicker feet, if possible.
*************Outside Trachn'ir*****************
Apparently, he and Taipan weren't the only ones leaving the city after the events of last night. Something of a small exodus was on, in spite of the cold season. It stood to reason. Who would want to hang around when there was, to all evidence, a small war brewing within the city?
At the gates, the two were passed without second glance in and amongst the steady passage of those unwilling to hang around awaiting the fallout from the burning of a minor House and the frankly horrifying implications of the scattered documents, several of which had gotten into circulation amongst the townfolk even as the guards had attempted to police whatever copies they could.
With the snow underfoot and the looming branches of these smaller cousins of their Deep Woods giants overhead, Ulric was immediately comforted. As much as he felt better leaving the walls of the city behind though, his Aes'r companion was doubly so. She drew deep breaths, like a prisoner tasting sweet freedom after incarceration, her ears twitching to reveal her excitement.
She had said something about needing an "attunement" to recover her mana. He was pretty sure he remembered Brighteyes saying something about this; there was a fundamental difference between Elves and Humans with regard to their magical physiology. When he prompted her, she recounted for Ulric how Aes'r cores operated.
"The cores of the different races are not all the same, though there are some similarities between the children of the earth and the children of the heavens. Jormun and Valin, the Humans and the Beastkin, have cores that draw in mana as a man breathes air. They take in the diffuse mana of the environment and concentrate it, and, as such, are able to consistently regenerate their mana with little variation or limitation on where they travel, albeit with a slower rate." Taipan explained cheerfully, her steps light upon the snow as she led them away from the beaten track of the trade road.
"It is an oddity of your core Ulric, that you regenerate mana so quickly despite your age. Your core was quickened in the dense magic beneath the boughs of the Elder trees, in the [Forest of the Forgotten]. This can imbue a person's core with a high natural ability to act as a conduit for mana but runs the risk of their burning out in mana sickness. It is done by particularly ambitious Houses, to raise their offspring to greater heights, accepting that about four in ten of them will die to the exposure. But I digress."
The Huntress went silent and hopped over a fallen truck easily and Ulric jumped to the top of it, catching his balance a moment on the slick snow, before joining her along what appeared to be a game trail leading deeper into the bush.
She led them into the frosted tangle of some kind of evergreen, a copse of something akin to fir trees, where the dense cluster of branches actually produced a space free from snowpack. They descended some two or so meters to the ground below in what would be a near to invisible hollow. Here Taipan dropped her pack and stretched back arched with arms high over head, interlaced fingers pointing her palms to the sky. She then sat cross-legged on the ground and continued her instruction, though quieter than before. Clearly, she wanted their location to remain somewhat hidden.
"The children of the heavens, the Aes'r and the Svartalfin, are not able to so freely draw mana from the air. Our cores require a more direct harmonization with the natural flows of mana within the land, but, when our cores are attuned, they are as the roots of the trees, drinking deeply of the magic of the land. As a result, in lands to which our cores are attuned, an Aes'r has nearly thrice the mana regeneration of even your ridiculous core, Glade Chief. We are effectively immune to mana exhaustion. This is one of the reasons that invading forces have never been able to prosecute an effective war upon Orlethrem. Our soldiers, scouts, and mages are, by far, able to outsustain our enemy." Concluded the seated woman, her almond eyes closing.
"I have been forced to use most of my reserves since we entered Celestin and it would be unwise to continue in such a state. You need the services of your Shadow at her fullest strength. So, for the next few hours, I will require you to guard my person while I allow my own core to reach harmony with the flows of this land. It takes concentration and stillness, to join myself with the natural movements within the Roots of the land, so I cannot keep watch. Are you prepared?" She asked.
Ulric gave her a thumbs up, "Do your thing, my minion, nothing will enter this place that does not first go through me." He promised.
She smiled though she muttered something along the lines of "we'll see who is minioning who" when he began a slow patrol of the hidden clearing.
His Shadow hadn't been exaggerating, he spent the better part of three hours walking slow circles round the frozen hollow. The dense cover of evergreen branches blocked substantial amounts of the Twins' light giving the place a dim atmosphere, even if the smell of the trees lent their hiding place a citrusy hint. Ulric was already in a better place for being away from the press of walls, this little nook of the woods was far less claustrophobic to his senses. Other than his padded tread and the occasional song of distant birds, there was silence upon the land.
Ulric began to take note of a somewhat odd sensation, his core's endless cycle had begun to hum with a distinct rhythm. There was a sort of…pull…to the air. Frowning he looked around, trying to orient. Gently he used his Elementalist skill to pulse his core's mana, using his own being as a tuning fork to sound the magic of the land. Through this feedback he turned to the source of the draw: the seated Huntress.
Whatever Taipan was doing was creating some kind of current, a vacuum that drew in the mana around her with surprising potency. He'd never felt that before. He concentrated his senses and was stunned to "see" with his intuition that the analogy of Aes'r cores being more akin to a tree wasn't at all misleading. He could feel small tendrils extended from her to the ground below, as if spreading roots that tied into the subtle flows of the mana that saturated and cycled through the land.
It was something of a revelation. The Elves tapped the dragon pulse, the mythical conduits of energy that sustained the natural world. In this world, those were much more literal than the stories of his magically inert, or at least dormant, planet. Like a sapling growing up from the roots of its forebear, Taipan's connection enriched herself and grew in strength. When she opened her eyes, she was joined completely to the flows of the land and, now that Ulric knew what to look for, he found that he could sort of track her by the extent to which she drew upon it, filling her reserves rapidly.
Rising, the Elf declared with confidence "It is done. We may return to the city or we can make camp for the night here in this hollow."
Ulric instantly voted "Hollow!" and the pair of them made an early camp. Having stocked up on supplies, including a dutch oven and wok, both of some sort of extremely lightweight metal, the Human man decided to splurge on a rather complex meal of stir-fried meat and fresh vegetables, along with a rice-like grain, all done in a fragrant nut oil. Separately Taipan made some kind of dish of roasted bird, its meat dark, greasy, and rich, akin to duck, wrapped in the thin fatty loin of some animal that had been smoked in a fruit-bearing tree's wood. Ulric's mouth dropped when she unwrapped this delicacy from its wax paper sheath.
Now this was a surprise. His Shadow had gone out and obtained apple-smoked bacon! She briefly held skewers of the bacon-wrapped duck over the fire to roast, obtaining a crisp, and the lightest of char, before stuffing them into the Dutch oven to complete their cooking. Ulric had to wipe the drool from his mouth several times.
Ulric declared his undying worship for the finder of bacon and Taipan accepted his praise with grace, bequeathing upon him the first dibs of the poppers. He could have wept when the savory flavors of meat hit his palette.
His own stir fry consisted the bulk of their eating for the rest of the day but those little morsels the Elf beauty made were most definitely the peak of his culinary experience in recent weeks.
Out here, in the peace of their hideaway, feeding each other succulent little treats and leaning together while their campfire crackled and popped Ulric could just about forget why they'd come so far. Just as well. Peaceful moments would come more rarely now and thus possessed a greater value for their scarcity. He squeezed his partner's hand and she returned with pressure of her own. They passed the evening in near total silence and found their bed early to rest before returning to the battlefield tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Trachn'ir would need to find itself a new Trade Minister.