Book 3, Chapter 46

It only took me an hour to fly to the meeting point. We were using the same empty peak we’d used the last time we talked, though we hadn’t set a meeting time. I trusted Grandfather to sense when I arrived and respond accordingly.

After ten minutes of waiting, his projection appeared in front of me. The old bird’s small human shape looked haggard, probably an unconscious reflection of how Grandfather felt. I hadn’t been expecting the projection’s appearance to change, and it forcibly reminded me that though Grandfather wielded incredible power and was far, far beyond any other brakvaw in terms of magical knowledge, he was also still a far cry from the breadth of skills and knowledge a true archmage possessed.

It was either that, or the worn appearance was a bit of emotional manipulation meant to soften me up for this meeting. Somehow, I doubted that was the case.

“I see the brakvaw haven’t returned home,” I said to open up the conversation. Perhaps it was impatience to return to the task I’d been forced to put on hold, but I was in no mood for pleasantries.

“No,” Grandfather said sadly. “My every attempt to end this feud has met with failure. Worse, as more and more families leave, our numbers are shrinking even faster. Not all of them have gone over to those who are actively opposing our way of life here, but enough have independently left to establish their own homes, reverting back to our solitary way of life that I’m afraid our civilization is in its final years.”

“I was told that the group near Ghalin has killed seven humans so far,” I said.

“I do not know what this ‘Ghalin’ is. I assume a human settlement?”

“A few hundred miles that way,” I explained, gesturing southwest of us. “There’s one of your waypoints nearby, and from what I can tell, the brakvaw are spreading out around those paths and claiming territory.”

“Yes, I see. Those would be the group that left under Elder Blackbar’s care, one of the first to leave and some of the most aggressive and temperamental of our numbers.”

“He’s one of the ones who was running around behind your back?” I guessed.

“One of five, yes,” Grandfather said.

I’d killed one of those elders already, leaving just four left.

“And if the remaining ones died?”

I could feel the judgment in Grandfather’s tone as he spoke. “They have betrayed the cause we worked so many centuries for. I would not see them dead, but without their interference, I might actually have a chance to heal the rift in my people.”

“I see,” I said. “That does simplify things, then.”

“I asked you not to interfere.”

“And I haven’t,” I said. “But now there are seven people dead. Mages I personally trained are in Ghalin to fight back, and I’ll be honest with you, they’re not going to fight even a single brakvaw without taking casualties.”

Grandfather regarded me silently for a moment. “I would not have expected you to care,” he finally said.

“I have my reasons.”

“You always do.”

“If I hunt down these four elders, you’ll get the rest of your people in line?” I asked, ignoring his jab at me.

“I will certainly try,” Grandfather said, clearly unhappy about the idea. “Would it be possible to neutralize them without killing them?”

I shrugged. “Depends how good they are at magic. Depends if they’re alone or not. Depends on whether you have a good reason I should even try.”

“They are still my people, even if they have fractured our society.”

“Not a good reason,” I said. “Sometimes, when something is sick, you have to excise the poisoned flesh. These birds are the poison. Either cut them out or let them bring down everything you’ve worked to build.”

I understood Grandfather’s position, but it was hard to emphasize with it. We’d already had this discussion once before, and it was clear nothing had changed since then. He was still struggling to find a peaceful solution that probably didn’t exist.

“Give me names and descriptions,” I said. “Then go back to trying to reunite your flock. I’ll handle the rest.”

Grandfather’s shoulders slumped, a remarkably human expression of his frustration and exhaustion. Normally, his projection had decidedly bird-like movements, but some things were universal, it seemed. “Fine. At least make it quick for them. They have betrayed me, but I don’t want them to suffer for it.”

  *

It took about six hours of nonstop divinations to find the first elder, Blackbar. He was named for the distinctive streak of black across his beak, an unusual color pattern compared to most of his kin. Variations in feather colors were normal, but their beaks were generally either yellow or black, seemingly at random, as far as I could tell.

The nice thing about that was that it made it incredibly easy to be sure I was targeting the correct brakvaw. I paid particular attention to the beaks of every brakvaw I scried and didn’t find a single one besides the elder’s with any sort of color variation, so I was reasonably certain I’d found my target.

Thankfully, brakvaw weren’t magically inclined. They had a sharp sense for mana, but I could beat that. Divination spells were difficult to detect by default, and I knew more than a few tricks to hide mine even better. Elder Blackbar never gave a single indication that he was aware he was being spied on.

The only complication to the whole operation was that he had a mate he shared his nest with. If not for her—I was assuming the mate was a her since I still couldn’t tell a male and a female brakvaw apart—I could have simply flown to the perch he’d built his new home on, slew him in his sleep, and flew off. Now I’d either have to deal with both of them or go through the effort of separating the two.

Since mana was very rarely a concern, I had a few options. The first was to magically induce sleep into Blackbar’s mate so that she wouldn’t wake while I killed my target. That could work, but I had some concerns about the spell lasting on a target so big. Even without mage training, it was often easy for huge creatures to shake off enchantments like that.

I could kill them both, but that would be wasted effort and it likely wouldn’t make anyone happy. If I swooped in, killed Blackbar, and fled, I could probably outrun pursuit, but that would be sloppy and had a chance to backfire on me.

No, the best option would be to separate my target from the rest of the flock, and I knew exactly how to do it. Instead of attacking Elder Blackbar in his nest, I left him in peace for the night and spent some time finding my other three targets. That took me most of the next day, but by the time the sun was setting on my second day of work, I was ready to begin my attack.

  *

The brakvaw were following the mana currents between their waypoints as they spread out in small groups, which made it easy to find them since they never seemed to venture more than ten or twenty miles from those paths. Since I knew where they were settling, it was easy to find an isolated spot far away from their new territories.

I choose a plateau so deep into the mountains that I doubted any human had ever set foot on it. Once I’d swept it with my magic to confirm there were no monsters lurking nearby, I cast stone shape and created a giant ritual circle, complete with a ward set up designed to imprison whatever was inside it. A second, small set of wards were created to draw mana out of the prisoner, and finally, in the center of it all, once it was fed enough mana, an enchantment would project a beam of cutting light through the circle, where it would bounce off the wards and strike the victim from every direction.

I powered the outer wards with my own mana, then begin the process of summoning Elder Blackbar. It took me five minutes to weave the spell together, and cost my entire mana core and then some simply due to the brakvaw’s sheer size, but the magic went off without a hitch.

When it grabbed hold of Blackbar, he woke with a start. I saw him flail about blindly in my scrying spell, but then the summon dragged him to my location and dropped him right in the middle of the circle. His mate merely shifted in her sleep.

The mana draining ward kicked on and started trying to pull from Blackbar. Any competent mage could have easily resisted the intrusion, and I wasn’t completely sure that Blackbar would succumb to it, but if the ward failed in its job, I’d just have to kill him myself. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done so.

Surprised he might have been, but the old bird was quick to react. The moment he saw me, he let out a splitting caw laced with mana that no doubt would have rattled my organs in my chest if the ward trapping him hadn’t suppressed the attack. I wondered briefly if that was a common form of magic to all brakvaw, or if there was a connection between Blackbar and the elder who’d first attacked me months ago.

“It’s useless to try to break free,” I told the giant bird. “I prepared this binding circle specifically for you.”

“You,” Blackbar spat out like a curse. “Trespasser. Defiler. Thief of secrets.”

“I have been all of those things at various times in my life, yes,” I said. “And likely will again.”

Somehow, it seemed like Blackbar hadn’t noticed the mana syphon stealing from him. Or maybe he did notice, but didn’t know what to do about it. I’d expected him to attack the runes etched into the stone, not that it would have done him any good, but all his focus was on me.

“I’ll keep your corpse intact so none question that you are truly dead,” the elder promised.

“Oooh. Scary. Well, I’m right here. Come and get me.”

Screeching again—a normal one, this time—the elder flared his wings against the invisible walls of the binding circle. I had no doubt those wings could crush bone, maybe even crack rock, but against my magic, they were a child drumming his heels on the floor while having a tantrum. The elder’s beak flashed in the dark as it dragged across the ward, but there was no physical way to overpower the trap, at least not while I was standing right here to keep the flow of mana going strong.

Whether due to ignorance of incompetence, I’d never know, but the mana syphon finished draining all the mana it needed unimpeded and promptly fed it into the enchantment tied to it. The night lit up as a thousand bars of light flashed through the interior of the ward. They struck from every conceivable direction at once, there and gone like a bolt of lightning.

Elder Blackbar simply fell apart into a pile of slightly charred and smoking meat, blood and viscous material pouring out of him in a wave that would have washed over me were it not for the ward keeping it all trapped. I took a few steps back and floated up into the air, then released the containment ward while I gathered up the remaining mana in the brakvaw’s core. There was no sense in letting it go to waste.

A monumental effort of telekinesis swept the elder’s remains out of the summoning circle, which was then scoured clean with a great gout of fire. After inspecting the wards to ensure nothing had been damaged, not that it should have been possible, I settled back into place and began my second summoning ritual of the night.