Chapter 24

The following morning, Adam left the camp at first light. It took some convincing, but Bjorn followed him. Flint didn’t like relying on Miss Lya’s charity for vegetables. Fortunately, his new friends didn’t either. Since the soil around the inner walls were soft and tillable, it was ideal for their fruit, vegetable and herb garden. The [Herbology] skill stone in her [Aura Node] would encourage all surrounding plant matter to grow quicker. Flint hoped it would solve their food issues.

Rubble from the surrounding collapsed structures and crumbling wall littered the area, though. Adam had sufficient strength to move them out of the way. Since snow dogs rose to popularity, pulling sleds across the frozen wastes, Bjorn was essential to the operation too. Besides, thanks to his recent upgrades, he had the brawn to spare. Once the ground was cleared, Twylip planned to grind the bones and offal of all their kills and mix it into the soil. Then she’d fill it with herbs and seeds from Miss Lya.

Flint felt bad that Adam still didn’t have his own promised smithy. It wasn’t too big a concern, though. They didn’t have access to any metals besides whatever they had collected off Winona’s former party. Adam had created crude knives out of it for all three of them. He didn’t have any practice with the strange material. If Winona was right about the fae targeting their settlement, they’d have more of the metal before long.

Adam and Twylip were proving themselves as valuable companions time and time again. Flint couldn’t be happier with their company. He, of course, wished there was more of them, but it was better than nothing. A second builder would be a perfect addition to their growing team.

Once the trio was out of sight, Flint freed Winona. He kept the manacles on, of course, but he let her walk around freely. She shot him a confused look.

“If you try anything, Maya will start by mauling your forearms,” Flint said. “I almost trust you not to do anything stupid, though.”

“Well, that’s foolish,” Winona laughed. She washed up while Flint got breakfast together for the two of them. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Company,” Flint answered. “I’ve never been comfortable connecting to fellow humans, but you’re easier to talk to. I’d like to learn more about the fae and this war going on.”

“What good will that do?” She asked after a quick dip in the pool. After Winona had dried herself, Flint replaced the protective layer around her wrists and ankles before reapplying the manacles. “I’ve told you before that you have no hope of victory.”

“Do the fae have no concept of hope?” Flint washed their food bowls and served them Adam’s sweetened porridge.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had that luxury.” Winona sighed, digging into her breakfast.

They ate in silence for a while before Flint spoke up again. “What happened to the rest of your kind? Are all the children of the moon gone?”

Winona laughed as Flint struggled to remember the name. “It’s just us daughters. We weren’t a race but more an order. The old high fae gifted their second daughters to the order to train. Not all high fae are born with their magic tied to a specific element. The order would train their daughters to harness the light of sun, moon, and stars to fuel their spells.” Winona’s eyes glazed over as she stared into the fire. “We protected the fae border and helped maintain the treatise with men. I was born of the order. My mother never told me the identity of my father, but given my arcane might, I’m sure he was high fae too.”

“What happened?” Flint asked. “Did the Iron Army destroy them?”

Winona shrugged. “Some of them did fall to your army, but I’m not sure. There was talk of my order getting too powerful. Threats were thrown around, and blood duels broke out. It will be two years ago, next month.” Orange danced in Winona’s eyes as her tears reflected the firelight. “The order sent me on a mission to investigate one of the tunnels in our territory. People around it were disappearing, and we needed to ensure no monster had broken through. It was just a tribe of zealous pucks. I captured them in a month before returning home.”

“It was all gone. The Wyld council claimed it was an attack by the Iron Council, but the evidence felt too convenient. I had my doubts and tried to investigate, but instead, they stripped me of my rank. Now I work for a brownie scoutmaster. His glare makes my stomach turn, and he keeps trying to get me alone, so I try to keep myself out on scouting excursions as much as I can.”

“I’m sorry,” Flint said. “I’ve never had that kind of bond with anyone besides the strays around the orphanage. Every time I lost one of them, I mourned. Eventually, I couldn’t stand seeing them treated and killed as pests anymore, so I joined the army and left.” He fell silent, realising what he had just said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to equate canine lives to your sisters in arms. It’s just the deepest connection I’ve ever had outside of Maya.”

“I understand.” Winona smiled at him gently. “You forget that at the end of the day, we fae are beings with nature. It’s common among my kind to find connections to the disk, its flora or fauna over your own kind. The order was like a family to me, but now they’re gone. I feel closer to the sun and moon than the people I fight with.”

“You’re not much of a fighter at all,” Flint replied, chuckling. “I can see it in your eyes, Winona. You don’t want war.”

“I don’t. I’d rather be free, but that’s not the disk we live in. You’re naïve trying to stay out of this mess. It’s important to pick a side and make a stand. I don’t know about the Iron Council, but we don’t want to eradicate humans. We just want to stop their mad expansion into our lands and destruction of the disk.”

“Humans aren’t destroying the disk!”

“They always have!” Winona’s pitch and volume doubled as she spoke. “Your kind could never live in harmony with the wild but thought it necessary to tame it. Humans cut down forests to make their homes and plant their fields. Then they reproduce and what they had isn’t enough, so they destroy more to keep growing. Your people are destructive by nature. Now, your love of iron pollutes the air and water. We tried to put up with it when the villages along our borders got sick. They had to move deeper into the wild, but the Iron army took that as an excuse to expand.”

“I know they—we’re not perfect,” Flint replied. “We’re not all the same, though. Most of us want to live in peace and quiet. Our apothecaries and alchemists have invented means to keep our numbers from uncontrollably increasing. Not everyone uses them yet, but they exist.” Despite Winona’s glare, Flint smiled and kept his tone friendly. They were having a discussion, not a debate. “Most of us are satisfied living in our villages and towns, keeping to ourselves and not killing each other. It’s the Iron Council—”

“At least before them, you were fighting each other more than us.” Winona snorted. She wiped her eyes and smiled. “I know not all humans are the same. In fact, after meeting you and your friends—even though you’re not fully human—my beliefs were confirmed. That doesn’t change the state of the world, though. Just wishing for peace won’t make the war go away. The age of heroes and champions are gone. Our only choice is to fight, win and end this chaos.”

Flint sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to disagree on that front. From what you’ve told me, the high fae isn’t much better than the Iron Council. They’re just as power-hungry. Your side might not be polluting the disk, but they’re willing to kill innocents to find artifacts that might help them win the war. I’ve heard the phrase collateral damage from my superiors one too many times, and I despise it.” He pushed himself onto his feet and dusted off his clothes. “The Iron Council abandoned this fort and village. The Wyld want to rip through it for the hope of probably non-existent power. As long as I breathe, neither of them are going to get their way. This is a safe haven free of war.”

“You’re an idealistic fool,” Winona stated, shaking her head. “The war will arrive at your doorstep sooner or later. You can prepare for it all you want, but it won’t change the fact that there is too few of you. Perhaps if you had a good supply line and a small contingency of soldiers trained for a siege, you’d have a chance. However, as things are now, you have no future. Not all of the Heartstone’s life quests work out, you know. Sometimes, taking the class and moving on is the smarter choice. The stone gives you that option. Hence class quests exist for your kind too.”

The discussion wasn’t going anywhere, so Flint didn’t fuel it further. Instead, he took Winona’s chains in one hand and a cup in the other before setting off uphill. Maya walked by his side as he walked along the cliff, listening to the stone.

For the moat to function, it needed a source of water. Flint needed a source and outlet for it to work. He had seen trolls in action, and facing them again terrified him. So, Flint didn’t just plan on adding one water barricade halfway down the slope but another outside the outer defences too. Even though the life quest didn’t explicitly request such an addition, he believed it would be essential for their security. A narrow bridge would create an additional bottleneck and slow the stupid creatures.

Flint intended to final investigate the local sewer system and feed the first moat into it. That would carry the water out of the walls and then provide the second deterrent. Flint found what he was looking for halfway between the Heartstone and the fort. He would’ve preferred it closer to the camp, but he didn’t just hear water but found a buried drain cover leading to the sewer network.

It took an hour for him to mark the area where he’d be digging and pinpoint the water source, but he couldn’t be happier with the progress. There weren’t too many buildings in the site’s way. He wouldn’t have to clear a lot of rubble and only planned to dig ten feet deep and twice as wide. Just as Flint was about to start digging, Maya went stiff. She pointed her head to the sky and sniffed.

“What is it, girl?” He asked, but he only got an image of the outer walls and a jumble of colours. “Lead the way.” He smacked Maya’s bottom, and she went off running downhill.

“Is it the Wyld?” Winona’s back stiffened as she looked downhill. The buildings in the way obscured the view of the pass.

“I don’t know,” Flint answered. “C’mon, let’s go find out. Then they took off downhill at a jog.”