Chương 27

Control and timing. Everything else is for show.

"Those were cadmium ophidians." Adhira adjusted her stance as the massive red snake opened its maw and hissed. Branching horns across its snout rattled.

"Tide-Touched at best. But this…This is a beauty!" Harker did not agree.

"That's a creeping coralsnout. Except it's five times the size it should be."

"Wave-Warped, at least!" She looked at him, silver eyes dancing. Her grin was wild.

"It's perfect!" Perfect? The coralsnout Aberrant opened its maw and a sound like a hundred women screaming issued from its quivering throat. Trees shook, branches snapping from the force of it, before the crimson serpent lunged. Adhira leapt to meet it. Laughing. Her axe and the coralsnout's head met in a shower of blinding sparks. The creature bucked, heaving the girl up into the air and Adhira was flung into the trees.

She smashed through a branch and sprawled against a second, but was back on her feet in a blink.

"Harker! Join in! Stab it in the eyes!"

"I'm just fine back here," he said, barely louder than the clash of their bodies. The massive serpent was hindered by all the trunks, but that didn't stop the top third of its body as it whipped its head about, fangs driving toward Adhira's small form. He had no interest in getting involved in that. Adhira drove her axe down, smashing into the branching horns across its face. The serpent caught the blow, keeping the edge from its scales, but even so it was forced down to smash into a rocky outcropping.

The coralsnout hissed again, but this time there was a warbling quality to it. Water sprang from its scales, briefly wreathing its entire length in brilliant, blue-green liquid. The Water pooled, congealing into terrible, human-like arms all across its serpentine belly. Adhira laughed.

"Disgusting!" The coralsnout moved. The hands latched onto tree, root, and rock to hurl its bulk forward and Adhira was driven back. She swung, her axe carving glittering arcs in the air where it caught the sunlight, but it parried her attacks with its horns.

"Torpor!" It happened too fast to catch, but a wave of Water rolled from Adhira, soaking into the serpent the moment her axe made contact. Nothing seemed to happen, however.

"Torpor!" Again and again, Adhira struck glancing blows. Each time, another wave of Water sank into the Aberrant's scales. After the fifth hit, Harker noticed an effect. It's slowing down. The Aberrant's conjured hands weren't quite so agile anymore, slamming heavily into trees and forcing the big serpent to twist its body in order to avoid Adhira's attacks. She's gonna kill it all by herself. Just a matter of time.

"Bulwark!" Where Adhira ran, a wall of earth lifted up, pitching the serpent's ghastly hands out of balance. It stumbled, winding to recover, but she was already on top of it. Her axe bit hard into its side, spraying dark blood across the underbrush. Blue blood, huh? Harker stood back and fished Miriam's notebook out of his pack. There were a number of entries on local beasts and common Aberrants in the area, and he could have sworn he saw… Yes. Coralsnouts are here.

Coralsnouts have strong scales that, when ground into powder, can be added to a poultice to draw out most venoms. Their coral-like horns are also potent reagents, useful in the production of cures for muscle fatigue. The blue blood they contain is an excellent base for its venom, which can be combined to produce a potent poison, if only I can get it to work. Useful. Not to mention, as an Aberrant its reservoir would be worth a great deal of coin.

Adhira hurled past Harker, making him jump as she plowed through a small tree trunk. He risked a look back the way she'd come, but the coralsnout was nowhere to be seen.

"Salted serpent!" came her curse, tinged with frustration for the first time. Wood had splintered in all directions, the trunk having fallen sideways, but Adhira was already getting back on her feet. Her silvered armor was scuffed, but Water gleamed across its wave patterns. An infusion? Harker put away his notebook.

"I believe your fun just ran off."

"It can't have gotten far." She cracked her neck and the sound was sharp and loud.

"I cut open its back." Adhira tromped forward, clearly intent on hunting the thing down, but a dozen steps later she was left spinning in circles.

"Where'd it go?" She kicked at the thin underbrush.

"There's no trace of it." Harker got the impression she wasn't used to tracking her meals—it made sense, she was a noble from far bigger islands than his—and he stepped forward.

"Sovereign Sight." His tributary felt a lot better than it had before he'd had his Stature twice improved, but he still winced as Water rolled through him. He found nothing within three feet, even as he walked the battlefield where it had last stood on those creepy hands. Harker looked up. Could it have…? In order to check, he had to try something new. He released his Talent, waiting for a moment for his small reservoir to refill. Adhira looked around, unsure of what he was staring at.

"Are you a tracker, Harker? Can you tell where it went?" He lifted a finger, but his focus was elsewhere. This was a new way to release his Talent, one that he'd conceptualized but hadn't actually attempted. Harker had no clue if it would even work.

"Sovereign Sight," he whispered, and pulsed the Water through his palm. Like a ripple in a pond, shallow rings rolled out from him. They spread outward quickly and dissipated only an inch from his body. Information came back, sparse and blurry, like his vision right after waking. Further then. There was a movement involved in manifesting one's Talent, though it was entirely inward.

A clench and release of his reservoir and tributary that goaded his Water forth even as some other uncertain element transmuted it into Talent. The details were unclear to him—something neither his mother nor anyone else could ever explain. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. He did the same now, only Harker limited his release and hauled back on the clench harder than ever.

Each pulse happened in the brief instants before he clenched again, rolling outward to five inches. Then eight. A full foot. The sensory details it picked up were just as limited as before and those mysterious muscles burned within him, but there was zero disorientation. He pushed even further. Two feet. Three feet. Each activation was spending only a fraction of the Water his Talent usually commanded, but there was no dazed confusion inundating his mind. Four feet.

Dizziness stole across his senses for a moment, but it passed just as swiftly. Five feet. His max limit before blacking out, this sent his head spinning. Harker thrust a hand out, bracing himself against a tree trunk to keep from keeling over. But he didn't black out. Progress. If I can keep doing this, maybe— Harker jerked his head back as something crawled across his skin. No. There's nothing. It's… above? A trace of Water, almost evaporated, cooling against the back just over four feet above him. A handprint.

"You seem—are you alright?" Adhira asked, coming up beside him. Harker straightened, scanning the trees ahead.

"This way." He led the way into the forest. Adhira followed close behind, her axe hefted on one shoulder, eager to put it to use. Yet the path was quiet, no doubt scared away by the battle, and Harker followed the trail. There was no disturbance to the underbrush, but at every second tree, Harker pulsed his talent. He found handprints on every one. The serpent had crawled across the trees. Twenty minutes later, they found the den.

It was a gash in the forest floor, easily hidden by the swell of the earth and crowding of roots. Once they'd passed over it, the opening was obvious. A wide mouth cut through stone and dirt, big enough for even the Aberrant. Adhira pulled her axe off her should and gripped it with both hands.

"How'd you do that?"

"Woodcraft, mostly."

"Huh. I should learn those someday, but I'm more of a city girl myself." She patted him on the back and Harker tensed.

"That was well done." She hefted her axe.

"Now it's my turn." Harker grabbed her wrist. She paused, and he froze for a moment before removing his hand.

"Not like that. I have a better idea." Tucked above and behind the den's opening, Harker made eye contact with Adhira and lifted the necklace from Miriam. A scourge stone, designed to repel Aberrants. Hidden behind the nearest bole of a tree, Adhira gave a firm nod. Water rolled out from his left palm, soaking the scourge stone and a thick streamer of smoke poured off of it.

"Disgusting," Stillwater whispered from a safe distance away.

"Throw it, fool!" Harker spun it above his head from its leather band before whipping it downward and into the den's opening. It launched, a clean toss, and only the distant plink of its landing suggested its depth. They waited, but not for long. Soon, smoke billowed out of the den's mouth in an acrid yellow fog that clung together like cotton on the stem.

"I hear something," Adhira whispered. The noises intensified—a papery slither that rushed like the approaching edge of a waterfall. Harker raised his hand. A crimson blur sped out of the tunnel, and Harker dropped his hand. Adhira swung her axe, but the coralsnout was wily. It twisted aside, catching her blade across the antlers on its nose. The strike rebounded with a clang. The wider-spread trees gave the creature more room to maneuver, but that meant its conjured hands were largely ineffective.

Still, it was fast. Its fangs struck at her three times in rapid succession, forcing Adhira to evade behind tree trunks that snapped between the serpent's onslaught. It slithered after her, doing all it could to avoid the smoke that still poured from its den.

"Torpor!" Adhira pressed her attack, slowing the creature down hit by hit and driving it toward its den again. Every chop broke its scales and drenched the forest in blue blood until the dirt had turned into a slick mud. Yet the creature never once halted.

"Harker! Stab it!" Adhira feinted for its jaw and the coralsnout slithered back, away from its den—and straight into her second swing. The axe smashed into it, sending the coralsnout falling back. Its wagon-sized head crashed into the earth just in front of him, but Harker kept his knives in their sheaths. Instead, he flared his Talent to his three-foot range. Immediately he ran into resistance as the creature's physiology fought back and the coralsnout got back up.

"Not so fast!" Harker scrambled forward, jumping onto its skull.

"Sovereign Sight!" His Talent rolled out again, and this time the Aberrants resistance folded. It's flesh opened up to him and Harker was sudden immersed in a sea of swirling rivers. Glittering blue-green light surged all around him, marking the body of the serpent, but nowhere as strong as at the base of its skull.

"Adhira!" he said, pointing.

"Here!" The Aberrant bucked, hurling him from its back. Harker landed on the ground, his breath driven from his lungs—but he could see Adhira.

"Bulwark!" A wall lifted beneath her feet, hurling her upward to sail over the creature's snapping jaws. She slung her axe, its momentum flipping her forward before the twin blades bit brutally into the Aberrant's skull. Something cracked, loud as thunder, and a gush of water spiraled up into the air before dropping. The serpent did the same, falling limp onto the forest floor.

"That…stopped it almost instantly." Adhira wrenched her axe free and peered into the wound. Her eyes widened.

"How did you know its reservoir was right there?" Harker sat up, his breath short but coming easily again.

"Coralsnouts…are common creatures around here, and this Aberrant wasn't strong enough to move its reservoir." He spat, and it came out a little red. Concerning.

"So you guessed?" Harker shrugged. Adhira laughed.

"Good enough for me!" She slung her axe over her shoulder again.

"We should probably burn this." Harker shoved himself to his feet, injuries ignored.

"No! I can harvest a lot of its pieces. They'd sell well in the next town we visit."

"It's all villages between us and Baphir, and you won't sell anything this nice outside a city. Can you carry things that far?" Harker frowned.

"I'll only take what's important then."

"Be my guest, then. Just so long as you save some of the meat. Aberrants can make excellent steaks, especially if they're full of refined water." She smacked her lips.

"I'll… see what I can do." Harker took some time harvesting the scales of the coralsnout. Miriam's notebook spoke a bit on how to remove them, but it wasn't a particularly complex process. Using his knife, he severed it at the base where it anchored into the creature's refined flesh. It was like cutting hardwood, but with enough sawing, he was able to pop them free. Sadly, very few of them were in usable condition.

Many were smashed up by Adhira's attacks and those that weren't had been corroded, no doubt by exposure to the Sea. Harker skipped over the creature's internal organs. They no doubt had some great use and could be sold for an obscene amount of money, but Harker had neither the ability to preserve their quality, nor the strength to lug them around. Instead, he focused on the most value for his effort. Using the opening made by Adhira's axe, he sliced into the flesh just beneath its skull.

Pulsing his Talent, he easily found the edges of the aberrant's reservoir and cut it free. Unlike with humans, Aberrant reservoirs weren't fleshy. Instead, they were ossified, turned into polished chambers of bone, layered over one another in a complex network filled with refined Water. It had already lost quite a bit due to Adhira's finishing blow, but enough remained that it sloshed in his hands as he pulled it free of the corpse.

The refined Water within was more potent than anything he carried inside himself, and even the bone had its uses. Most importantly, all of it would sell for a truly wild amount of coin. In the end, Harker got twenty full scales, two vials of blue blood, one of its venom sacs, and a fist-sized low-grade reservoir. He stored them all away in jars and vials, sealing them where he could before nestling them into his full pack.

He had to fight to keep the grin from his face as he clambered down to the den, where Adhira stood, her axe set at her side. The smoke from the scourge stone had long since faded and the inside looked warm and dry.

"Seems big enough for the both of us," she said with a nod before starting forward.

"Let's go." Harker hung back, eyeing the opening.

"You really think we'll find anything in there?" Adhira pointed up toward the corpse.

"That thing was at least Wave-Warped. Might have even been Sea-Maddened. You know how much exposure it needs to get like that?" Harker didn't.

"A great deal more than should be here, this low on the mountain. That means it's either a tidepool as deep as a cistern, or—" Harker swallowed.

"A natural treasure."

"Aberrants pick their haunts for a reason," she gave him a conspiratorial grin.

"You wanna go treasure hunting?"