Chương 106: Chapter 2.43: The Hunted

Shout by shout, the serenity of the night was shattered. Suddenly Urania grasped Favius's arm. She pointed into the darkness.

"There." He squinted at a particular wing of the estate and saw tongues of flame erupt from what he knew was a pile set up in one of the open-roofed courtyards, whose interior design Marcus had deemed to be in dire need of upgrading. Panic and confusion mixed with more determined-sounding shouts. Brutus put his hand on Favius's shoulder.

"Let's go up to the roof." He gestured to a ladder and one by one the children scrambled up to gain a better view of the situation. As soon as Favius had the rough shingles of the gently slanted roof under him, he squinted at the building. Kinda hard to see against the night sky, but with the stars… Yes, there's definitely a plume of smoke. Well, no wonder with the shit that Serran said they'd be burning. Sirrana waved them over behind the ridge of the roof and they settled down packed like sardines.

Finally, Brutus climbed up the ladder at a leisurely pace and settled beside them. He shifted and unstrapped a long leather-wrapped package from his back.

"What's that?" asked Caliga next to him. Brutus smiled as he carefully unwound leather strips, revealing at first a quiver filled with arrows and… I want to call that a bow, but that feels more like part of a ballista. The bow's limbs were nearly as thick as the cultivator's forearms and its length exceeded the man's height.

"You know how to shoot that thing?" Urania's tone carried unbridled suspicion. Caliga and Sirrana swallowed down laughter, and Favius could see the amused glare in Brutus's eyes.

"Urania. Any Rhexioni youth will be trained in one of the many varieties of both the bow and the axe. Of course I can shoot this thing."

"Okay, but…" She paused for a moment before continuing, and even though Favius couldn't see her face, he felt the shit-eating grin.

"Can you actually hit something with it, though?" She yelped as Brutus slapped the back of her head.

"Don't push it too far, brat," he replied with mock anger.

"This is a greatbow," he continued, looking at Favius.

"A tool for sniping and sieges." Favius studied the massively oversized weapon. On Earth I would have treated this as something designed by someone who's never seen a real bow and only ever played fantasy games. But with this world having cultivators… He studied Brutus and recalled his movement during the fight with Sirrana. Hell, I don't want to know what happens to someone who gets hit with those javelin-sized arrows. As Brutus readied an arrow, Sirrana snapped her fingers.

"Children, pay attention. We are here to observe a target. Not to bicker about the virtues of archery." Favius shook his head and looked again at the estate. By now the billowing smoke was visibly backlit by the handful of fires. Barely dressed, panicky, and coughing people were being escorted out by the guards. Marcus stood to the side of the building screaming bloody murder and was likely swearing vengeance against whomever was responsible for this. Of course I can't hear him, but the golden glow in his eyes…

Favius snorted. This feels so real. Even knowing that we set this up, I'd almost buy it. Urania pointed at a bucket line into which most of the people rushing towards the main estate from the outer buildings were being corralled by a few guards. Sirrana laughed.

"Well, they are certainly fighting a fire. It's just not as out of control as it might seem. They are just wetting everything around the pyres the Majordomo set up." Favius nodded. Her tone is rather expectant, so I suppose there's a lesson here.

"But?" He asked, but Sirrana remained expectantly quiet. He studied the crowd for a moment.

"When attempting a deception, it's important to build it around the seed of truth?" he ventured. The assassin clicked her tongue.

"Indeed. But there are more principles to be discovered about the art of distraction here, children." Caliga shifted on the roof, pressing her chin against the ridgeline.

"Maybe that hiding your actions is less effective than distracting people from them."

"Yes," replied Sirrana, while her owl eyes remained locked on the estate.

"But it's more than that. A sufficient distraction hides the sins and failures that are inherent in any complex operation. After all, everyone will be talking about how the estate nearly burned down. And if your room still smells of smoke, are you really going to concern yourself with a few shuffled documents?" Favius hummed. Makes sense. It's one thing to notice inconsistencies when everything has been normal, but if you keep people off balance… He scratched the back of his head.

It's like if you want to bullshit people. You just keep talking and bombarding them with information. Whenever they start accepting or suggesting something, you lean into that particular line of bullshit, so in the end it's their own reasoning that defeats them. Sirrana chuckled.

"An interesting way to put it. But indeed, that is a favorite tactic of my Nuntiatoris colleagues." Favius snorted.

"Or any fool pretending to cultivate the charismatic path," added Brutus. Sirrana grinned broadly as she nodded.

"But enough of that. Tonight we are predators. We are observing our prey. Remember how the goats scattered yet kept recohering?" She gestured at the bucket line and the crowds of corralled guests, retainers, and slaves near it.

"Note how they move, how they seek comfort in unity against the terror and darkness. Children," she called out.

"If you desired to hunt this crowd, on whom should the first arrow Ovinius Kestrelo releases land?" The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Caliga gasped and Urania glared to the side, but Favius instantly replied.

"Depends on our objectives. But it would either be Marcus, Hefnus, or Serran, wouldn't it?" Just after he finished, Urania added, "I think Antonius would also have to go."

"Good, good," replied Sirrana in a raspy voice. Favius looked to the side and ice ran down his spine as he saw the intensity in Sirrana's one good eye, while the other one glowed ominously milky-white.

"Now, just your intuitive responses. Tell me the order in which you would eliminate them and if you would kill or cripple them." Favius's thoughts began moving, yet he clamped down on them.

"Kill Marcus, kill Hefnus, then cripple both Serran and Antonius." Urania responded with less hesitation.

"Kill all of them." Caliga looked from side to side and flinched back after meeting Urania's eyes, before crawling down the far slope of the roof a bit. Favius frowned. Well, being stared at by five owl eyes and overhearing a casual discussion of how they would murder the people you've grown up with… It would be more worrying if she wasn't reacting badly.

"Why?" pushed Sirrana and moved closer in, almost close enough to touch her face to Urania's. She swallowed.

"It's quick and decisive. There is no one who could lead them. They will scatter, become vulnerable as long as…" She swallowed and looked at Caliga. But Sirrana snapped her fingers.

"Focus," she hissed. Urania stuttered, then continued.

"You just keep them off balance. And if they were prey, we could hunt them down."

"They are prey and we will hunt them down," whispered Sirrana, and something in her voice drew Favius in.

"You chose to kill your father and the captain of his guard, yet leave his trusted lieutenants alive. Why do such a thing?" Brutus snorted behind Favius, but it somehow sounded distant. He took in a long breath.

"We humans aren't like goats." Sirrana nodded sharply and he looked at Urania.

"Both Hefnus and Marcus have abilities that might allow them to control chaos, but while Serran and Antonius are great administrators…" He sniffed.

"…I cannot see them rallying a defense against an assault."

"That still doesn't explain why they wouldn't be better off dead," interjected Sirrana, her voice almost gentle. Intimate. Favius swallowed as the answer spilled from his lips.

"Because if they are all dead, someone I don't know about, like a veteran Decurii, might be able to claim leadership and rally everyone. But if someone like Serran is injured, their effort will be focused on getting orders from him and saving his life." Sirrana nodded, and Favius dimly noticed how Brutus had moved over and steadied Caliga's back with his hand.

"Good, good. Neither of you were wrong," said Sirrana. She first addressed Urania.

"You thought in terms of ambush, overwhelming terror, and maintaining it. You…" She glanced at Favius.

"… thought in the manner of a stalking predator. Injure and exploit the inattention. Neither approach is wrong and there is no obvious approach for how an eagle-owl might solve this problem. Therefore we must study the nature of predators as a whole." Favius swallowed as Sirrana settled back. Caliga and Brutus returned. Yet he noticed that his older sister was now lying on the far side of the Magnicultor. This is fucking disturbing.

Even if she's not doing anything to us, she has this strange charisma pulling us into her exercises. He sniffed. Maybe all that visualization and artistic discussion of how a predator would think by purely acting on instinct has already had an effect on me. He shook his head and refocused on Hefnus's performance. The man stood near the entrance and was ordering men about calmly. He was the polar opposite of Marcus's golden-eyed ranting. Buckets were rushed up the bucket line and Favius smiled.

Despite all the chaos, it's only the trusted guards inside the building. All the civilians have been removed. Several minutes passed and people let out cries of panic and amazement as flames licked up into the sky as yet another one of the pyres in an inner courtyard was ignited. Brutus whistled.

"Damn, they should have eased up on the oil on that one." Sirrana chuckled, yet Favius couldn't smile along with their usual humor.

"Indeed, let's hope that your Father doesn't need to renovate more of the roof than he intended." The smoke billowed more thickly than in the beginning, and Favius noticed with dismay how several women had collapsed and were crying. I keep thinking that this is my home and all of them are servants. But this is not really a family home, is it? He swallowed. This entire estate. Well, the complex within the walls has what? A thousand people? And many of them…

He looked at Serran, who was making a show out of calming Marcus down. Have served this familia here for generations. It's their home as well. They continued watching in silence as the minutes dragged into almost half an hour. One by one the flames sputtered out, yet the smoke kept billowing. Sirrana and Brutus made occasional observations, and Sirrana quizzed them on how the people were behaving and reacting. Favius only half paid attention to his answers. Some people reacted with apathy, others desperation.

Others took action and were directly funneled into the bucket line where they would help without hindering the objective.

"Still can't believe this is enough time," murmured Urania finally. But Sirrana sniffed.

"If they were searching the entire estate for evidence without prior preparation, doing all of this in less than an hour would be impossible." Favius continued in an almost detached voice.

"But we prepared. We knew whom to go after first and who would be a secondary target." Brutus nodded.

"Indeed. After all, while Marcus does want to hunt down spies, this is primarily about those associated with Hesnia's faction." Sirrana snorted.

"And I don't think…" She looked over Brutus's back at Caliga, who had simply lain there in silence since the hunting discussion.

"…the, as you put it so aptly, dumb cunt you call your mother, was sneaky enough to place…" She snorted.

"…any hidden assets." Brutus nodded.

"How would you have acted in her position?" Sirrana snorted.

"First of all, I'm Infiltratoris, not Nuntiatoris."

"But?" Urania interjected, her tone clearly interested, and Favius shook his head. She's really gotten into the spycraft thing with her mission to hand Hesnia the fake soap recipe. He smirked, remembering his own contribution.

"But if I was in her position, the wife of a high noble, I would simply make an effort to become indispensable to my husband." She shook her head.

"After all, merely because he has mistresses for the purpose of creating heirs does not mean that the wife loses her position. In fact…" She continued after a while.

"…any wife that loses out to her husband's mistress, that does not remove her from the estate shortly after birth and replace her with a nursemaid, was never suited to become the wife of a true aristocrat anyway." Favius shook his head. That's so fucking callous and cruel, but also entirely logical. He let out a breath and was about to comment, but suddenly Brutus tensed.

"Sirrana. The grove at the back of the estate. Do you…" Favius narrowed his eyes and scanned the trees where he had lost a snowball battle against the others near the end of winter.

"What's there?" he murmured. He felt a brief pulse of paralysis and Sirrana nodded.

"Someone is sneaking towards the estate." Brutus grinned and tested his bow. Favius sensed the smell of ozone as soon as he pulled it back, and the cultivator squinted alongside the nasty arrow. Favius shook his head as he noticed the head. That's a diagonally cut pipe section. Is that a fucking hollow-point arrow? He shivered as he considered what the thing would do to a person if someone of Brutus's strength shot it. But Sirrana raised a hand.

"No. He is waiting. Looking." Her head remained on the target that still eluded Favius and, by the frustrated noises, both of his sisters as Sirrana continued.

"I don't think you need to make a gory mess tonight, Ovinius Kestrelo. Unless his cultivation is extraordinarily hidden, he is a mortal, yes?" Brutus closed his eyes and the spicy smell grew more intense while the greatbow was still waiting to be drawn.

"Agreed. What do you suggest, Nyctara Negero?" Her eyes fell first on Favius, whose heartbeat sped up inexplicably.

"Favius, Caliga. Get over here." The two of them scuttled over the ridge and Urania raised an eyebrow, but Sirrana shook her head.

"Not you, girl. You're not one to walk the martial path." She grinned at the two of them.

"You have your blades with you, don't you?" Caliga nodded eagerly and drew a long single-edged bronze dagger, and Favius produced a two-edged one made of iron. It was long and skinny, and a gift from Brutus.

"Excellent. Here's a little quest for you young cultivators. Young…" She glanced at Favius.

"…predators." Sirrana gestured towards the dark forest and the figure that the two senior cultivators were convinced was there.

"Catch us some prey."