Unbound

The raiders were long gone by the time Felix arrived. It was less a matter of speed than the raiders’ own Skill—they seemed to have disappeared into the undergrowth with very little sign. Thankfully, Vess had her Gaze of the Unseen Hunter.

“It was developed as a way to hunt monsters,” she had said, a certain heat in her voice. “But tonight men shall suffice.”

Tracking them by the faintest traces of Mana they had left on the moss and logs, their party sped across leagues of swampland. In addition to Vess, Evie and Pit came with Felix while the rest stayed behind. The raiders seemed to stick between the dragon statues of the Gloaming Way—they were clearly familiar with the swamp and its wards and were unwilling to risk its confusion-inducing magic.

It quickly became apparent that the raiders were more like hunters. Traces of monsters preceded the tracks they followed, hoof-prints it looked like, and they were large. Not Pit sized, but certainly bigger than a horse. These creatures seemed to lead the raiders on quite the chase, weaving in and out of the Gloaming Way wards.

An hour later, Felix came to a stop right where the swamp began to give way to rising, drier patches of land. Evie, Vess, and Pit followed close behind. In addition to Abyssal Skein coating their bodies, a copse of trees hid him and the others, each one only wrist-thick but three dozen strong.

“There, behind the creeping vines,” Pit said.

“I see them,” Vess said, her voice tight. Felix could feel the anger radiating off her, like heat from a stove.

“Why’d you call them raiders, Pit?” Felix asked.

Pit shrugged. ‘It’s what they called themselves. ‘Remember, we’re raiders,’ they said.”

There were five of them, all Human and male, just as Pit and Hallow had described, and they were beyond dirty. Muck and grime covered them, head to foot, relieved only by the mismatched pieces of rusted armor worn over thick, padded cloth. Two bore swords. The other three all had bows and they were intensely focused. Not far away, a pack of deer-like monsters stood among the mossy stones, so still that their pelts faded into the background. Quite literally; their edges blurred with some sort of concealment magic.

While Abyssal Skein hid their voices as well as their forms, the raiders had no such Skills at their disposal. Their voices were quiet, but with focus every one of Felix’s party could make out their words as if they were being spoken directly into their ears.

“Think this’ll be enough?”

“Has to be. We haven’t caught nothin’ in three days, and my belly is hurtfully empty.”

“You? I don’t care about you. I care about keepin’ those kids quiet. I told you takin’ them with us was a bad idea.”

“It was the only way, or did you want all of us dead in those villages? Now take your shots and don’t miss, or you’ll have to answer to the boss.”

Three separate throats swallowed nervously, and their bows lifted up behind the vines. Soft, subtle magic worked across their arrows, each one clearly being prepped with a Skill as they took aim at the herd.

They released.

The first sank into the meaty rump of one monster, but the others immediately scattered. Arrows snapped and shattered against the rocks. The injured creature tried to run too, bleating pitifully, but two arrows punched through its chest. It fell limp to the earth, dead, and started to smoke.

“Move! Quick-like!”

“I am!”

Two of the archers rushed out of their hiding spot directly for the deer-beast. One pulled a curved dagger from his waist and slashed it across the monster’s neck, loosing a torrent of blood as a separate sort of power spread from the cut. The smoke cut off, stopped by the enchantments on the dagger until they could skin it properly.

“Siva’s Grace but this thing is bigger than an Avum!”

“Lift with your backs, nitwit! Or is all that Strength you got useless?”

“Shut it!”

Without its magic the thing was huge, at least the size of a moose back home, and the men struggled with lifting its corpse, but they did it. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, the duo disappeared back into the brush. Felix sensed them go, watching as the other three that remained behind carefully studied the swamp around them, clearly hunting for threats.

They didn’t sense him at all.

“They are raiders. We need to take them down, now,” Vess said, standing up from her crouch. She bent, making to jump, but Felix put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing? They said they have child hostages, Felix.”

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“I know, but we need to know where they’re going.” The anger that boiled off Vess’ Spirit was so potent that Felix was reluctant to take his hand off for fear that she’d fly off alone. He tried to meet her eyes but she was fixated on the distance, tracking the raiders. “Evie, follow them. Don’t get spotted and don’t engage. We need to know where they’re going.”

“On it.” Evie shot upward into the tree branches and was gone.

Felix gently turned Vess’ head until she would meet his eyes. “We need to get back to the others.”

She jerked her chin in something resembling acknowledgment. “Right. We must prepare.” She ground the butt of her partisan into the dirt. “And then we end them.”

The moment Felix landed among the Eidolons, he began talking.

“Everyone get moving. Top speed, Eagin.”

The stone man saluted. “Aye, my Lord.”

“I’m taking over road-making duties for the last leg of this trip. I want to reach the end of this valley by dawn.”

Beef and Hallow sat up, both of them worried. “What happened out there?”

“These raiders have hostages. Children from local villages from the sounds of things,” Felix explained.

“Seriously? Who does that?”

“Vile criminals,” Vess said, angrily adjusting her damaged armor. “Raiders were once a terrible issue for the people of my Territory, but my grandfather eliminated the threat they posed. I do not understand how they have returned…but I refuse to let my people suffer when I can stop it.”

She picked up her pack and stormed off toward Yin.

“Those kids are probably from her dad’s villages,” Felix explained quietly.

“Oh,” Beef said in a small voice. Hallow patted him comfortingly on the cheek. “Oh no.”

Archie paled as he stepped up. “Kids? Why did they take kids?”

Harn grunted. “Any number of reasons: ransom or cheap labor come to mind. But it could just as well be a way for them to keep soldiers at bay. Steal someone folks care about and they’ll be much more reluctant to unleash their full might on you. Might hit a kid, that way.”

Archie and Beef, despite their many differences, had the exact same horrified expression on their faces. “That’s disgusting,” the Delven finally said.

“I might be wrong, but it tracks. Either way, sounds like we need to find out. If folks are hurt, we can fix that.” Harn looked longingly at his axes, both of which were hanging from the shoulders of an Eidolon. “And if the raider’s ain’t, we can fix that too.”

“We’ll know soon. Evie is tracking them back to their hideout now. We just need to catch up, which is why I’m doing the building from now on. I don’t want to waste any more time than necessary.”

Beef straightened up. “Right. Go for it.”

Felix considered the road behind them. Each span was painstakingly constructed by his teen friend, and it looked considerably more stable than his first attempts. “Beef, your new Skill…can you take things apart?”

“I can take apart the stuff I built, but not like…I can’t tear a monster apart like you can.”

“Good. Destroy the road.”

“What!” Beef covered his mouth before whispering. “What? Why?”

“This was always the plan. We can’t leave evidence behind. If you can deconstruct your chitin, then this should be simple.”

“Simple? That’s miles of road.”

“You can pull power from the decomposing swamp. Besides, it’s all connected.”

“No it isn’t. I stopped whenever we could walk over those little islands. Even if I could break it all down, the process would stop at the first chunk of mossy rock.”

“No, Beef. Listen to me. Listen.” Felix’s arm crackled with lightning, and in his vision millions of faint blue lines appeared in all directions. “I know you can’t see them, but can you hear them?”

Beef swallowed but closed his eyes. His bull ears twitched. “I–I can’t. It’s just bugs and birds out there.”

Felix cut off his Adamant Discord. “Try. And listen with your Affinity while you do it.”

Beef knelt down on the ground and laid his hands on top of his rough, chitin pathway. Blackened-green and brown Mana flowed from his hands, allowing his thick fingers to sink into the hard surface like water. Rippled spread, but only a few inches.

“I feel it, the entropy around me,” Beef said. His voice was thick with effort. “I can break this.”

“All of it? All at once?” Felix asked.

“I—” More Mana poured from his hands and the base of his skull, surrounding his horns like a corona of dark light. “I think—”

The road behind them began to break apart, sublimating from a solid to ephemeral wisps. It started slow, crumbling only a few inches, then began to pick up. Felix watched, not only Beef, but the connections all around him. Lightning danced across his arms and eyes as Adamant Discord revealed those blue lines. Those connections were more than physical; they existed on a conceptual level as well. If he were touching something, Felix could grasp his connection to that thing…but it also worked if he had touched it in the past, or it meant a great deal to him, or had something to do with his powers. Connections were strange and seemed intrinsically tied to significance. Near as he could figure, they were some combination of the Corporeal, Cognitive, and Ethereal Realms. Everything Felix had heard or read claimed that the Realms were entirely separate, but he’d had been through enough Dark Passages to know that wasn’t the case.

Things were a lot more fluid than people knew.

A deep tolling bell rippled across the air, drawing Felix’s attention back to his friend. The pathway had half-vanished, but now it ripped itself apart all at once, burning away to smoke like a fuse on a bomb. Felix traced it as far as his vision allowed, and nothing remained.

“I did it,” Beef said in a small, quiet voice.

“You did.” Felix helped the kid back to his feet. “Got it all?”

“I think so, yeah.” There was wonder on the Minotaur’s face. “I felt it. That thing you said. For a second, it was like all the scattered bits I made were just one big whole. And I gained two levels in the Skill!”

“Hell yeah.” Felix slapped Beef on the back. “Go get Hallow and I’ll round up the rest. Time to see if the Eidolons can run.”

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