Chương 18: [Watcher in the Woods]

Shai left the elders' hall and made her way back to where she saw Kael training earlier. The wolf-kin was still there, practising the same swing, resolute in his pursuit of improvement. He stopped mid-swing as he noticed her heading his way. Her purposeful approach made it clear she had a task for him.

"Kael. Tell Torren and Rika to take over training on my behalf. I have a mission from the elders. They'll know what to do." She looked at Kael's stance and continued, "Lower your posture more. You're swinging with your shoulders; a lower posture will let you drive the strike from your legs. Power doesn't come from the arms, Kael; it starts in the dirt and travels up through your hips." She reached out and pushed his shoulder slightly.

"It'll also help stop you being knocked off balance. Right now your weight is centred around your chest. If you sink into your heels, you'll be harder to move and a lot harder to beat." Kael nodded in thanks at the instruction. He lowered himself and swung the sword.

"Good. Keep at it. I should be back before nightfall." Shai turned and strode away. She had a mission to do, yes, but the elders' words pricked at her thoughts. The unknown gnawed at her curiosity, and despite her discipline, she found herself wanting answers more than anything.

Shai moved quickly through the forest, her steps quiet on the ground below. An amateur would break twigs or rustle leaves but Shai had been doing this a long time. She moved like a ghost, silent and swift, through the woods, making the journey of the few miles from Stonehall at a fast pace. She was vigilant even in these familiar surroundings; living this close to the border meant the threat of the Wilds was never far from her thoughts.

She knew the Verdant Reach was close, so she slowed down when the trees thinned before they ended completely. Ahead lay the open, grassy expanse and the coast just beyond it. She'd come here as a child, in the brief interludes between training sessions, running barefoot along the water's edge with other kids from the village. A place of freedom, however fleeting. Now, a town of impossible architecture spread where much of that grassland had been. Shai stopped at the treeline, taking in the sight.

There was no defensive wall, no patrols or watch towers. unfamiliar buildings rose from the earth, long structures of materials she couldn't immediately identify. Too many doors and windows for any singular building she'd ever seen. The only thought she had was of strange houses but they were so different from what she knew that her guess couldn't possibly be right. Some buildings appeared unfinished while others had sections of wall ending abruptly as if cut through by something violent.

Many looked damaged in ways that didn't match the weathering of time or deliberate construction. Nothing about it matched Empire doctrine or the careful way the realm built settlements. She watched for several minutes, processing what lay before her. The buildings defied understanding. Some were constructed from red brick, far too uniform and precise compared to the grey stone she knew. The bricks were all identical in size and shape, almost unnaturally so.

Others weren't brick at all, but covered in a pale, rough material she couldn't name. Some sections looked like they were made from an unusual yellow substance entirely. What troubled her most was that they seemed to be part of one long structure, not individual buildings, yet the materials changed along its length as if someone had assembled pieces from different places and forced them together. The roofing was equally strange, flat tiles, nothing like the peaked thatch or wooden shingles of Stonehall.

What struck her next were the windows. Every opening had glass, clear glass, so clear it was almost perfect. She'd seen coloured glass in churches, thick and wavering, but this was different. This was transparent. Flawless. The sheer quantity of it, perfected to this degree, suggested resources and knowledge she couldn't account for. And the road. Black stone—with yellow lines marking some kind of division. Not dirt or cobblestone, and the road was perfectly flat, uniformly so.

The effort required to achieve that uniformity spoke of knowledge and resources she couldn't place. The metal troubled her most. So much of it sitting on that road, in shapes she didn't recognize. They clearly weren't carriages or anything else she understood. For a settlement this new and exposed, to have that much metal just idle made no sense. Where were the guards? The armouries? The fortifications? Nothing about this followed any logic she knew. The absence of people made it worse. Nowhere to be seen.

There was no movement and no signs of life at all. A ghost town? Surely not, that was myth told to frighten children. Were the people hiding? Impossible. Too many to conceal before she saw them. Not fully inhabited then? But how had it appeared at all? This wasn't built in secret. Something this massive couldn't be constructed without the Empire knowing. Magic. It had to be. But magic of that magnitude? Moving an entire settlement would require power beyond any noble she knew of.

Something that significant would be known. Rumour of a person with that kind of power would have spread through every corner of the realm. She was stumped. So what did she do? Then the elders' words returned. A possible foothold. An expansion into the north. If that was the reason for this settlement's existence, there would be evidence. Scouts. They covered their tracks well, but she was better at uncovering them. There might be signs of reconnaissance into the Wilds beyond the border.

She turned and headed north, keeping the town in sight on her right. Heading deeper into the forest would keep her from any prying eyes as she followed the curve of the tree line to the northeast. From here she could search for tracks, for signs of scouts or reconnaissance. If there were answers, she would find them. Shai arrived in the forest north of the town, her golden eyes tracking across the forest floor as she walked.

A footprint would have been obvious to her trained eye, the soft earth bearing the weight of a human body. She would have seen the snapped branches too, the way undergrowth was pushed aside by someone moving regardless of how careful they were trying to be rather than the gentle parting that animals left behind. She found none of it. The absence of any human sign meant the town wasn't pushing north into the Wilds. Whatever their purpose in appearing here, expansion into dangerous territory wasn't part of it.

The elders' concern about a northern foothold held no weight. So what were they doing? The sound cut through her thoughts before she could pursue the question further. Human voices, carried on the wind, accompanied by the unmistakable noise of movement. Not careful or quiet but casual noise, made by people who apparently had no concept of danger. Shai's ears twitched forward, responding to the sound instinctively.

She rose to her feet and moved toward it, staying low within the treeline, her hand resting on the hilt of one of her sabres out of habit. Through the branches, she saw them clearly. Five humans climbing over a hastily constructed barricade, moving from the direction of the puzzling town toward the open plain and the forest beyond. They moved with the carelessness of people completely unaware they were being observed, laughing and talking as they walked. Humans. At least that answered one question.

They were from the Boundborn Empire, not some external threat she couldn't categorize. But the answer only raised more questions in its place, each one stacking on top of the last. Shai moved quickly to a suitable tree and climbed without hesitation, clambering with speed and dexterity. She settled into the branches where she could see without being seen, positioning herself with a clear view of the grassland below. From her vantage point, she got her first real look at them.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The clothing struck her immediately. She'd never seen anything like it before. The colours alone were impossibly vibrant, dyes so rich and uniform that they had to be expensive beyond measure. Who spent resources like that on everyday wear? And the boots on some of them were white, pristine white leather, something she couldn't fathom. Who dyed leather that colour? Who would stand in a muddy field wearing white boots?

The garments themselves were irregular too. Some wore hooded cloaks, but not like any cloak she knew. They seemed to be part of the shirt itself, a single garment rather than layered pieces. And the trousers. They had pockets. Dozens of them, it seemed, positioned all over the legs. What purpose did that serve? What kind of material were they even made from? She'd never seen cloth cut and constructed in such a way. More than the clothing, though, it was how they moved that caught her attention.

They walked across the grassland with no awareness of their surroundings, no attention to potential threats. Their posture was loose and comfortable, the way civilians moved through safe towns, not the controlled alertness of trained fighters. Yet their bodies themselves were built solidly, muscle and strength evident even from a distance. They were constructed like warriors, but they moved like people who'd never seen a day of combat training in their lives.

As they moved closer to their chosen practice spot, her ears picked up fragments of their conversation. Her hearing was sharp, one of the advantages of her beast-kin heritage, and even at this distance, carried words reached her clearly.

"Right then," one of them said, his voice carrying across the field.

"What's everyone actually planning to try?" Another voice answered, discussing something called a "Spark spell." The words were Empire Common, but they spoke it with an accent she couldn't quite place. Not local. Not from the core either. As they settled into their practice area and began their discussion in earnest, more of their conversation became audible. She heard references to spells being cast, to magic being tested.

One of them mentioned an odd term, 'Nitro-sell-something,' that meant absolutely nothing to her. Another mentioned "science class," a phrase that had no equivalent in her experience. They began talking about casting combat magic. Fire, lightning, ice and some other spells that sounded familiar. She heard the names clearly as they discussed what each wanted to attempt. But the way they spoke about it, casual and uncertain, like they were discovering magic for the first time... And there were no guards with them.

Five people casting combat magic and no one watching their flanks. No one positioned to protect them while they channelled spells. She couldn't think of a single noble house that would allow mages into the field unguarded even if this was for practice. It was a violation of basic protocol. These men definitely weren't trained mages either. Mages conscripted by nobles were drilled relentlessly from childhood.

You didn't invest in sponsoring a child and their family without giving them training, you didn't send untrained soldiers into the field. Yet these men were too old to be recent conscripts, and they spoke as if they were still figuring out what magic even was. They weren't nobles either. No pompous bearing or arrogance. They joked with each other like common soldiers, laid back and at ease in a way that no noble she'd ever encountered would allow themselves to be.

The possibility they were noble brats could make sense, their lack of awareness and their strange clothes could be signs of that but then again there were no guards. The lack of them would be even weirder if these men were the scions of rich houses. So what were they? As they spread out across the grassland to begin their practice, Shai settled deeper into the branches to watch. The bizarre words kept coming. Weird references to "League," to "stats," to something called "Star wars."

Each unfamiliar term added to the growing tangle of confusion. They spoke as if these things were obvious, concepts everyone should understand, yet nothing about them made sense within her frame of knowledge. She watched one of them attempt to fire his lightning spell, saw it refuse to do what he wanted. Another cast fire over and over, each time looking weaker than the last, frustration mounting until he bent over, clearly ill.

A third cast ice spells what must have been thirty times, clearly focused but getting nowhere. One tried to change his shield's shape, casting the same flat barrier again and again without success. The last one cast an unfamiliar fog spell, trying desperately to control its spread, never managing it. They were incompetent. Absolutely incompetent at magic.

Yet they kept trying, kept pushing through clear signs of exhaustion and nausea, like they were learning something fundamental rather than failing at basic technique. And when they gathered back together, they theorized about "mana pools" and "experience" and something called "levelling up." Mana pools she understood, the concept of a mage's reserves, the energy they drew from; however, the way they spoke about it felt wrong somehow.

Like they were discussing something they'd read about rather than actually understood. And the rest of it, these strange concepts and half-formed ideas, made no sense at all. The mystery deepened with every moment she watched them. Who were these people? Where did they come from? What were they doing here, casting magic like children, dressed in clothes that made no sense, speaking in half-understood references to things that didn't exist? Her tail twitched as her curiosity grew.

She'd come here to observe and report. She'd come here to gather information. But the more she watched, the more questions she had and the more she needed to know. A sound cut through her thoughts. Not the casual noise of the five men below, but something else. Something moving through the forest behind her. Shai turned, hand on her sword, ready for an ambush. Through the trees, she caught movement. A goblin, its mottled grey-green flesh covered in wounds, frothing at the mouth.

It was clearly injured, limping slightly, but moving with the desperate hunger of a predator that had caught a scent. The goblin wasn't heading for her, it was moving toward the clearing and the five men waiting there. Her mind raced through the options. She could drop down and remove it quickly, her blades making short work of a wounded creature. But that could reveal her. They'd know she was here and she'd lose any advantage of further observation. Or she could let it pass. Let it reach them. See what they did.

But they wouldn't survive. She'd watched them practice. She'd seen their inability first-hand. A healthy goblin would slaughter them as they were, this one was wounded and angry, but was still likely too much for them. Her brow furrowed as the goblin drew closer, moving steadily toward the clearing below. The mission came first. She was here to gather intelligence, not to protect strangers. Not to risk everything because she didn't want them to be hurt.

But they laughed with each other the way she laughed with her friends. The way the guard laughed together. There was something in that camaraderie that felt familiar, that felt like people worth her protection. That was what she did. She protected. But she couldn't afford that sentiment. Not here and not now. The goblin was nearly at the edge of the Verdant Reach. Shai made her decision. She would let it pass. She would watch.

Maybe these men were hiding something, maybe this was a test, some kind of ruse to see who would emerge from the forest. Maybe they knew she was here. She could always intervene if it went too far. She was strong enough, fast enough to clear the distance. If they truly needed her, she could reach them. She watched as the goblin broke through the treeline and they froze. Watched panic ripple through the group and for one moment she nearly moved, her muscles tensing, ready to drop down and run, to help them fight.

But then they grouped. They came together, and they steadied. A moment later, the tall one, with the lightning magic, kicked out and the goblin went flying. Quite the kick for someone scared of such a small creature. That moment changed the outcome of the fight. They were still terrified and still clumsy but they moved as one now, protecting each other, striking out when the goblin was focused elsewhere. It was messy, inefficient, full of moments where a single basic manoeuvre would have ended it quickly.

But they didn't have that training. They didn't know the fundamentals. Still, they fought. And they won. It took longer than it should have. They took more risks than was safe, nearly getting hurt multiple times. But when the goblin finally fell, it was because they refused to break and leave their friends. Because they kept pushing despite exhaustion and fear and the certain knowledge that they had no idea what they were doing. Shai watched them stand afterward, shaking, traumatized by what they'd done.

One of them was sick. Another was frozen, staring at his hands. They were broken by the violence in a way trained soldiers weren't. Good people, she thought. Untrained and terrified, but good. Then the one in the centre, the one who had kicked the goblin early in the fight, held out his hand toward the corpse. Shai leaned forward, watching. The goblin vanished. It didn't dissolve. It simply ceased to exist, like it had been pulled into some kind of storage. But that was impossible.

Shai knew about storage magic, it was a must have for traders. She even had her own storage pouch enchanted into her cloak. No matter what though, putting a living thing into storage, even if it had died, was impossible. People worked around this by butchering animals first, that's how hunters prepared and stored their kills. A full corpse though? The man checked his hands, confused, saying something about putting it in inventory. That confirmed it.

That was impossible and was the final item on her list of things she couldn't make sense of. That was the moment that settled it. Her feet moved before her mind fully caught up. She dropped from the tree silently, her boots touching the ground without a sound. She straightened and walked out of the treeline toward them, moving with the confidence of someone who had nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

Even as in the back of her mind the elders' warning of nobles and what they wanted for someone who looked like her came to the surface. Regardless, she moved forward. If she went back to the elders with all of this, they'd have more questions than answers. She needed more. She needed to understand what these people were, where they'd come from, how they were doing any of this. The elders would understand. They had to. She stepped out into the clearing, her golden eyes bright, her tail swaying slightly behind her.

She could see it in how they moved, in how they reacted, they were shocked at the sight of her but they were not a threat, not to her. Not to Stonehall. Asking them directly was far better than trying to piece together the answers herself.

"Well," she said, her voice cutting through the shocked silence, "that was quite interesting."