Beastborne: Voracious (Book 5) [Chapter 17]

Chapter 17

“He’s pushing himself too hard,” Noth told Mira. The girl folded her arms around herself and looked back over her shoulder at Hal in the cot.

Mira shook her head. This is something else. She had felt the snap in the air as if something was severed and a moment later Hal went rigid as a bowstring and collapsed.

She had to admit, though he clearly didn’t plan it, he had achieved the most dramatic effect possible. A small part of her gave Hal a little golf clap of appreciation for his knack for the dramatic.

Everybody had arrived in the glade and Hal was discussing what had just happened, what he was planning going forward, and then, just when he would have normally fielded questions, it happened.

What “it” was, nobody seemed to know. Even Noth, who was by far the closest person in Brightsong to Hal next to, perhaps, Ashera, didn’t have a clue what was going on.

This newly built cottage had been planned in relative secrecy to give Hal and Noth a place of their own without borrowing from the Ebon Star Tribe.

Not only because it didn’t look that great when you were the leader of a settlement and were taking the loan of another’s tent as your home, but because he deserved it.

“It would have made an excellent surprise,” Noth assured Mira, mistaking her frown for something else.

“Nah, it’s all good,” Mira told her, waving away her concern. The cottage was far more packed than it should be. It was only designed to house four people, but there were far more than that in here right now.

It was still cozy, if a bit cramped, but what could you do?

Their leader was knocked out cold and in front of everybody. There was naturally going to be a lot of worry and handwringing but Hal had chosen his advisors well. They were talking about what they could do rather than his condition.

Everybody trusted that he would be fine.

Not like this is his first time, Mira said, looking over at him.

It was a good thing it was yet sparsely decorated with all the people there. But the bed and chairs had been a nice touch. She needed to speak to Athagan about it. The dwarves had worked hard and in secret, which was no easy feat when Hal could have spoiled the whole thing by looking at the Settlement Menu at any point.

On a whim, she reached a tanned hand down and lifted his eyelid. There was more than one gasp within the cottage. As calm and collected as they were, that didn’t mean the council of Brightsong was indifferent.

They cared, and clearly were watching even as they planned to implement Hal’s nascent designs.

Hal’s normally sapphire-flame eyes were brown. Normal, ordinary brown. Which, on Aldim, meant that they were the most precious and rare thing in the world where everybody had anything but brown eyes.

Brown eyes were the mark of a Founder, after all, and Hal now looked the part as much as ever.

“His eyes,” Noth said softly, reaching forward and stroking his cheek tenderly. Mira turned away. It was an intimate touch, one that Mira wished she could give some space and privacy to.

But matters of state—such as they were—needed to be sorted out now that Hal was unconscious. How long he would be out was anybody’s guess and nobody wanted to be the one that broached the subject.

And yet everybody will mill about until somebody does. Nobody doubts Hal’s strength, but he’s been running himself ragged since the day I florkin’ met him. I don’t think this is that, but everybody else might and perhaps it would be for the best.

With so much time spent among Orrittam’s company, Mira could sense the dragon’s power within him, and more besides. It could be as simple as that… but she didn’t think so.

There was no reason his eyes, the result of Strain corrupting him, would change color. If anything, he’d adopt dragon eyes wouldn’t he?

That, more than anything, was what she had been checking for. The vertical slits that were iconic of their kind.

“I’d think of it as a good thing,” Mira told her softly. “I can’t imagine it was very fun if he got up in the middle of the night and started flashing blue light everywhere.” She chuckled. “Then again, he probably didn’t need a flashlight to see.”

Noth looked at her. “He does have Darkvision, so I don’t think he’d need one anyway. At least he’ll be pleased when he wakes up.”

“He didn’t like them?”

“No. It reminded him of his failure to control the Strain within him. He… has always insisted on putting the whole world upon his shoulders, and then he wonders why he gets a backache.”

“He’ll listen to you, won’t he?” Mira asked.

“About some things,” Noth agreed. She turned, flipping her dark hair over one shoulder. “About others? Never. He’s been like that since the day I fell in love with him, and I suspect he’ll be like that unto the very end.”

Just like somebody else I know, Mira thought.

For a moment, Mira’s mind cast back to Brookmoors and her best friend. Deklin was, in a lot of ways, like Hal. He put too much stock in his own power and his own actions, not in a way that made it seem as if nobody else was good enough, but that he didn’t want anybody else to suffer.

As if hogging all the world’s suffering would somehow make it a better place.

It was idiotic and filled to the brim with bravado, but it was also sweet. She missed Deklin terribly.

Thankfully, that was where their similarities ended. Deklin would have schemed up something truly dreadful for Rinbast and the other Founders.

They wouldn’t know what hit them, but then again, Deklin was a Magi. An exceptionally skilled—if incredibly lazy—one at that. He had a knack for exploiting weaknesses.

On the one hand, it felt like years since they had departed from the Stardust Café, and on the other hand it felt like hours. She didn’t lament not going with Deklin. The man wanted a vacation, and he was likely to get one.

Mira and Sylvie had both wanted adventure, and boy howdy, was Mira getting hers. She did wonder how that little scamp was getting up to, but with her own Komachi to keep her company… well, Sylvie would be fine. She was tough as nails, even if she looked like she might cry if she stubbed her toe.

Oddly enough, it was Deklin that Mira worried about the most.

Something made Mira snap out of her reverie. “Sorry, what was that?”

Noth smiled at her. “I said, the mage that Leis brought has woken up. I expect Hal would want to know about him. Would you mind?”

Mira opened her mouth to say she wanted to stay beside Hal in case he woke up, but realized that was precisely what Noth intended to do. After all, they were lovers, and though Mira loved to stir the pot, now wasn’t the time.

And she might get some useful information out of this mage, something she might be able to use to help Brightsong along.

Giving a friendly hug to Noth, she said, “He’ll be okay so long as you’re by his side.” She held Noth out at arm’s length and looked her sharply in the golden eyes. “Just make sure he’s well aware of it, okay?”

Noth’s answering giggle was music to Mira’s pointed ears.

When she looked back from the doorstep of the little cozy cottage, she saw the tension in Noth’s shoulders appeared to be mostly be gone. Good. It wasn’t much, but she hoped it helped.

Leis was waiting outside, tapping her foot impatiently, flanked by Angram. The elf’s ruby-red eyes flicked to Mira, then back to the door. “Just you?”

“Just me.”

“Let’s go then,” he told her. “I’m surprised we could get anybody to pull away from him. You know he’ll be fine, right?”

“Isn’t he always?” Mira replied with a smirk.

Angram snorted. “I’ve never seen a single thing that could keep him down. He’s been knocked down plenty, but I don’t think that man knows the meaning of the phrase ‘give up’. Even if the Grim Reaper himself took an interest, I don’t think he’d go down without a fight. Whatever’s going on, he’ll get the better of it, mark my words.”

“That’s an enviable amount of faith,” Mira said as they arrived at the temporary tent where the mage was being taken care of.

Buffrix waddled over on his too-large feet. “Buffrix is thanks-giving for hand-lending. This way.” He turned on his heels and flopped over toward the cot where a young man was sitting up and sipping a mug of something hot and strong, judging by the smell that hit her nose.

“Leis!” the mage looked over with a smile on his face. “You’re okay. Thank the gods. Listen, I need to—”

“You need to tell us what happened,” Mira told him firmly. She had already figured she’d be the bad cop. Angram was far too handsome and full of smiles to pull it off effectively.

Besides, she loved to play the bad cop. She and Deklin used to fight over the honor all the time.

“Go on,” Leis told him. She sat on the edge of his bed and faced Angram and Mira. “There are no secrets between us, Hamrin.”

“But they’re rebel—” After a brief swallow, Hamrin turned to them and unfolded the entire unfortunate tale. How he was only trying to help Leis to get here with dire news—news that they had already known, at least part of it—when they had been betrayed.

Rather than face the justice of the Tower—Rinbast’s Tower—Leis convinced Hamrin to come with her. But they hadn’t been able to get to Brightsong directly. It was shielded in a way that even his scroll was unable to penetrate, and so they slid off the umbrella of protection and landed out in the Shiverglades.

Neither of them were prepared for the brutal welcome they received, and that was roughly where Mira entered the story with the rest of the Rangers. She held up a hand. “I know the rest already. Trust me.”

Angram and her exchanged looks, with Mira making sure she looked skeptical. She had a good “resting bench face” at the best of times, and she dialed it up to 11 for Hamrin.

The young man, a Tower Mage of surprising skill, was sweating bullets despite the chill.

He must really think we’re going to kill him for trespassing or something. Or maybe he’s heard something about Brightsong from Rinbast and his cronies?

“What do you think we should do to you?” Mira asked.

Angram shot her a disgruntled look, but it was her job to undermine him at every turn. There was no other way to look like a bad cop.

“I…” Hamrin began, but Leis put a hand on his shoulder and he sighed. “I would appreciate it if I could be sent back to the Tower, but I do not expect that will be possible. You are rebels. Everybody knows that. You… could kill me. I suppose. Being a Tower Mage, I am—though I do not share his ideologies—tied to the Founder… err, that is to say, Rinbast.”

Mira watched the way he squirmed saying Rinbast’s name. Most people didn’t like to name their Founders. It was a weird quirk of Fallwreath. Mira never quite figured out why. It wasn’t like he enforced it or anything, but the man did know how to run a tight ship on fear.

Even Deklin at his worst was never stupid enough to do that.

Goad people with fear long enough and you’ve lost a powerful tool that should only be used sparingly and with the lightest touch. Numb people to fear, use it all the time, and they’ll forget about everything else.

Which, perhaps in Rinbast’s case, that was useful. Mira didn’t know the upper echelons of how the politics worked here, but she was ready to bet cold hard [Sparks] that he was screwing himself in the long run.

The problem with fear was that as soon as people forgot what it was like to live in peace and prosperity without looking over their shoulder for the bogeyman, they began to rebel in a hundred small ways.

Those ways eventually give way to greater rebellions, and then you’ve got to double-down on the fear and fascism until that becomes the new normal.

And that’s the rub. Mira knew firsthand from her visits to various other Worldshards how it would end from there. People, no matter what race, are remarkably resilient. They can adapt to just about anything, and when something becomes normal and rote no matter how horrible, it loses its sting.

With proper attention, the worst of the worst can probably keep it going, but it becomes a game of spinning ever more razor-lined plates until eventually something topples and they get cut to ribbons.

It’s never pretty, but it is always satisfying.

Her role in most of those events was always as a destabilizing element, a plate-toppler as it were.

And she could see a lesser degree of fascism in Fallwreath ripe for change.

People would resist to begin with because, for reasons that always eluded the Magi, they didn’t like change, even if that change was nothing but good. But the first moment they experience some of those forgotten freedoms, it would be game over.

Rinbast’s house of cards would come tumbling down.

Of course, you also had to be able to back up such change with power. If Hal lacked the power to defend his ideals, then there was no hope.

“I assume,” Mira said after the few moments it took her to think, “that you already know nobody is going to be coming to save you.”

Hamrin looked at Leis and then at his bed sheets. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me ‘ma’am’ again and I’ll ram my spear so far up your backside that you’ll never be able to bend over again,” Mira snapped. She cleared her throat and went on a little less acerbically. “We could use more mages. Leis has said you’re not exactly inwith the other Tower mages. Anything you could tell us would help us immensely, and I’m sure I’d talk to the Founder—the real one—and make sure you were kept safe.”

Angram took out some [Strips of Jerky] and handed them over to Hamrin. “Here, you look like you could use something with a bit more bite to it.”

“Thanks,” Hamrin said, chewing on a piece without bothering to check it for poisons.

Not that Mira figured he would. He was already at their mercy. If they were going to kill him, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do.

“He’s a very accomplished mage,” Leis put in. “We’ve known each other for a long time. He’s not a bad person. But the Tower has its ways of getting its claws into you.”

Hamrin nodded along, but didn’t look happy about it. Something was off.

Mira tensed as Hamrin chewed more viciously on the jerky, as if it had personally offended him. For every bit of praise that Leis heaped onto him in order to make him look useful, the more miserable and angry the young man got until he finally had run out of jerky and couldn’t handle it anymore.

“I’m not a secret weapon!” he finally yelled out, stunning the tent to silence. Even Buffrix looked over curiously. His big green floppy ears—well, one floppy ear—perked up.

“What do you mean?” Mira asked slowly.

“Leis is a very kind person, but she… and by she, I mean, I may have… slightly misrepresented myself.”

“Meaning?” Angram said curiously. “You are a Tower Mage?”

“Yes, I am a Tower Mage….” Hamrin looked wretched enough that even Mira wanted to give him a hug. “But you don’t understand. Tower Mages are just… they’re symbols of excellence, not battle prowess. Not all Tower Mages are like the Archmage, okay? I… wanted Leis to be proud of me and when she came asking for a favor, I… well, I made it seem like I could do it, but I couldn’t!”

Leis frowned and looked around the tent. “But you got us here, Hamrin. I don’t understand.”

“I’m not a battle mage!” he wailed, and the admittance seemed to break the poor man. He sobbed gently, and in his watery purple eyes, Mira could see that he thought the admittance was going to cost him his life.

Maybe I should dial back the bad cop a little bit….

“I’m sorry, Leis,” Hamrin said softly. “I… I’m just a lowly F-Class Mage.”

“F-Class?” she asked. “I didn’t know they ranked you… I thought you were the top of your cohort?”

“F-Class means non-combatant,” Hamrin explained. “The Tower rates every mage from S-Class to F-Class based on their combat ability, prowess, and magical skill. I am at the top of my F-Class cohort… but if you were to put me in the middle of a battlefield, I wouldn’t last five seconds.”

Mira gasped as she caught on. “You stole some scrolls and used them to do the spellwork, didn’t you?”

Hamrin hung his head. “Yes.”

“So, if you can’t fight… what can you do?”

“I’ll show you.” Hamrin slid off the bed and, after a look for permission, headed out into Brightsong with the others trailing curiously after him.