Chương 27: Dasten Dagwel (4)

"If our enemies sleep peacefully, then we have failed to teach them proper caution." – Krizak Norval, Principal Policy Advisor to the Vazaag Dasten turned around and leaped into the darkness waiting outside. His jump from the window led him to land on the stable roof below, and he rolled across the wooden tiles before catching himself near the edge. A heartbeat later, a voice shouted from the manor window.

"Stone Spike." Dasten threw himself aside. A spike of stone erupted from the ground below and punched through the stable roof where he had been crouched a moment earlier, splintering wood with a sharp crack. Good. He had barely escaped. That was exactly how this needed to look. The armored guard dropped from the window into the yard rather than following directly onto the roof. Sensible. Earth weaves needed the ground, or at least enough solid material nearby to shape properly.

From the courtyard, he could attack far better than from a wooden room three floors up. Dasten scrambled to his feet and leapt to the next roof. Not too cleanly. Not too smoothly. Behind him, voices spilled from the open window. One guard shouted for the others to be called, while another yelled that the baron was dead. The Arkazaanian manaweaver didn't stay behind to wait for orders.

He came after Dasten at once, his speed making it obvious that he had more training than Dasten would have expected for a town like this. The civilian guards would have to follow from the ground; only the mana user had the skill to chase him across the rooftops. Dasten ran north across the rooftops.

The guard's free hand flicked through a short sequence of signs, and mud pellets slammed into tiles behind Dasten—not soft mud but compacted, mana-hardened clumps that hit hard enough to crack wood and throw splinters into the air. One struck the edge of a roof beside his foot and burst apart, making him stumble more than he needed to. Mellick was supposed to be scared now. So Dasten let himself look scared. He glanced back too often. Made one jump too short and had to catch the edge with his free hand.

Kicked loose a roof tile as he scrambled up. Twice he slashed his air-coated sword in the direction of the pursuing guard, sending ragged bursts of cutting wind across the space between them.

"Glory to Vamir!" he shouted in his Vamiri accent, the words tearing out like defiance. The first air slash went wide. The second struck a chimney and split loose a chunk of brick. The third forced the head guard to raise a rough slab of earth from the courtyard below, the wall rising just high enough to catch the attack before crumbling apart. Good. Let him see the air mana. Let him see the sword.

Let him see just enough ability to believe Mellick was dangerous, but not enough to question why he had survived this long. They crossed two more roofs that way. Dasten could have ended the chase at any moment. He could have doubled back and killed the man before the guard understood what had changed. He could have crossed half the town with Rush Step and vanished beyond the wall. But Mellick couldn't. So Dasten ran.

As he leapt across the rooftops with the Arkazaanian manaweaver pursuing him, Dasten thought about what he had noticed earlier. He had expected a rogue mana user in Firza, not an official Tarim from Arkazaan. The Duchy of Sartrene was Arkazaan's ally, so perhaps it shouldn't have surprised him too much, but usually, a minor baron in a small riverside town would have been lucky to even have Nourim-level protection. But there was a Tarim chasing him.

First the half-loaded barge with a D-rank manaweaver aboard it, and now this. Something else was happening in Sartrene besides the usual rice exports. It would have to be included in his mission report later. Near the northern edge of the town, Dasten slowed just enough for the mana user to finally close the distance. Let him think Mellick was getting tired by now. The man landed on the same roof with a heavy thud, sword drawn, his free hand already moving through the first sign of another earth weave.

Under the thin light of the crescent moon, Dasten caught only the angles of the man's face and the glint in his eyes.

"Stop right there, you bastard!" the guard snarled. Dasten leaped at him with a wild swing. The guard parried it easily and drove forward. Their blades struck once, twice, three times, steel ringing against steel in the night. Dasten gave ground, letting the man press him toward the edge of the roof. His own sword flickered with air mana, but the strikes were rough enough to fit the persona. Frightened. Angry. More desperate than skilled. The guard bought it. He stepped in too confidently.

Dasten let his foot slip on a loose tile, his balance seeming to break for a fraction of a moment. The guard lunged, thinking the opening was real. Dasten stumbled sideways instead of backward, letting the guard's blade pass close enough to sell the mistake. As he dropped low beside the man, his own sword swung down.

The slash tore into the back of the guard's thigh, deep enough to keep him from chasing across the rooftops again, but rough enough to look like desperate luck rather than the cold precision of a SABLE captain. The guard yelled and crashed to one knee, his sword scraping across the roof as he tried to catch himself. A lucky strike. That was what the guard would think. That was what he would tell the others. Dasten didn't stay to finish him. Mellick wasn't here to prove himself against a stronger mana user.

He just wanted to escape with his life. Dasten kicked away from the roof, leapt to the next house, and kept moving north. Behind him, the wounded guard cursed and shouted for the others. He could still give directions when the other men eventually arrived for help, but he wouldn't be jumping across rooftops for a while. That bought Dasten the time he needed. Two more jumps took him to the inner edge of the town wall. The palisade loomed ahead, dark against the night sky.

Dasten landed on the last rooftop, sprang again, and caught the top of the wall with one hand. He hauled himself up with enough effort to be believable, letting his boots scrape against the wood and leave the right kind of marks on the palisade, then dropped down the other side into the darkness beyond Firza. No one would follow him immediately. The Arkazaanian manaweaver had seen him flee north. Soon he would send men after him through the gate or over the wall.

They would search the fields and roads in that direction, thinking the Vamiri intruder had fled for his life after barely surviving the chase. Dasten turned east instead. Toward the bridge. He kept low as he ran along the outside of Firza's palisade, following the curve of the wall toward the river. Before long, the wooden bridge came into view, the same one he had crossed earlier that evening while wearing the face of a tired Vamiri farmer.

Only a thin sliver of moon hung in the sky, leaving the riverbank dark enough for his purposes. The oil lamps near the town gate gave off a weak glow behind him, but the gates themselves had already been closed for the night. No one had organized a proper pursuit yet. The wounded Arkazaanian manaweaver had seen Mellick escape over the northern wall, but by the time he found help and sent guards in that direction, Dasten would already be somewhere else.

He reached the wooden bridge and slipped beneath it, where the shadows were thickest. The Rubarin flowed ahead, the darkness making it look even vaster than it already was, while carrying the faint smell of river mud and wet wood. The bridge rose high enough above the water for barges to pass beneath, supported by thick wooden pillars driven deep near the banks and reinforced along the length of the structure.

It was far stronger than an ordinary village bridge, but strength didn't matter much when a man knew where to break it. Before doing that, however, Mellick needed to leave one more sign. A large dock sign stood not far from the bridge entrance, facing the dirt path that led from the town gate to the river. It was large enough for what he needed, and far better than the bridge rails.

The bridge would plunge into the river soon enough, but the dock sign would remain on land for every guard, dock worker, and investigator to see. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Dasten took out the brush and red ink again. In the near darkness, the letters wouldn't be beautiful. They didn't need to be. He painted by memory and by feel, keeping the strokes large, rough, and angry. By the time he stepped back, two rough lines stood across the dock sign in red.

REMEMBER THE HANDS THAT BUILT YOUR DOCKS VAMIR WATCHES That would work. He put the brush and ink away, then sent a pulse of mana into a storage rune on his thigh. Two dozen thin paper tags appeared in his hand, each one covered in a dense pattern of explosive runes. They were drawn on mana-conducting paper, the kind that could hold a dangerous amount of mana and release it all at once when the pattern collapsed. They were far too costly for an ordinary migrant farmer. That was the point.

The rune tags wouldn't leave any evidence of their use behind, but they didn't need to. The damage itself would tell the story well enough. A failed mana trainee like Mellick could not have prepared this kind of sabotage without help. Someone had supplied him. Someone with resources, reach, and reason to hurt Sartrene. That conclusion would push suspicion even harder toward Vamir. A bitter Vamiri migrant with old loyalties was one thing.

A bitter Vamiri migrant with supplies coming from across the border was better. Dasten climbed further down the riverbank and moved beneath the bridge. He didn't need to swim yet. The first supports stood close enough to the bank that he could reach them by moving along the muddy slope beneath the bridge, one hand occasionally pressing against the wood to steady himself.

He stuck two explosive rune tags against the nearest thick pillar, fed them enough mana to wake the pattern, and moved on before the runes began drinking too greedily from him. They would explode only after the delay built into the rune ran out. Enough time to finish the work. He crossed to the next support, boots sinking into wet mud near the waterline, and placed another tag there. The third went on a brace higher up, where the collapse would tear more of the bridge frame apart.

For the supports farther out, he had to step onto the river itself, using mana to hold his feet against the surface just long enough to reach the wood. Walking on water wasn't beyond what Mellick could plausibly know. Difficult, yes. Costly too, for someone of his level. But not impossible for a desperate, angry man with enough training to be dangerous—especially if someone had prepared him for this night.

He planted the last of the bridge charges near the western bank, then after taking a quick look at the town gates—still closed—he returned toward the dock. The dock was a secondary target, but it seemed he still had time. The collapsed bridge would block the river. Destroying the dock as well would slow any attempt to clear the debris and restore the riverine route.

Luckily, there were no barges moored there tonight, and the workers had returned inside the town after sunset as usual, leaving the wooden piers empty and quiet under the moonlight. Dasten moved quickly. A few more rune tags appeared from storage, smaller than the ones placed under the bridge. He fixed one beneath the main loading platform and another at the base of a pier support, feeding both with enough mana to set the delayed release. The dock didn't need to be destroyed completely.

It only needed to burn, break, and create more confusion. Once he was finished, he crossed the river again. This time, he didn't bother conserving mana. Mellick had just planted enough explosive runes to tear apart a bridge, and a man at his level would care far more about putting distance between himself and the blast than efficiency. Dasten stepped onto the river and hurried across its dark surface toward the east. He reached the far bank, climbed up from the river, and moved to the cover of the nearest tree.

Hidden behind the trunk and the low brush around it, he waited. Firza still hadn't fully realized what was happening. It will change soon enough. He didn't have to wait long. The first explosion tore through the night with a flash of fire beneath the bridge. A heartbeat later, another support burst apart, followed by a third and fourth in quick succession. Flame and splinters leapt upward as the old structure groaned, the sound carrying across the river like a dying giant. Then the bridge cracked.

A long section sagged first, as if trying to hold itself together through stubbornness alone. Then the center gave way. Wood snapped, ropes tore, and nearly half the bridge collapsed into the Rubarin with a roar of water and debris. The dock followed moments later, one of its piers bursting apart as flames crawled along the loading platform. By then, Firza was well awake. Bells began ringing inside the town, and the gates soon opened as guards, dock workers, and half-dressed townsfolk spilled out toward the river.

Most of them stopped well away from the burning dock and the ruined bridge, shouting over one another as flames licked across splintered wood. A few noticed the dock sign and began pointing at the red words painted across it, their voices rising even louder as others turned to look. Dasten allowed himself a quiet chuckle. Well, now they knew for sure that Mellick had escaped the town. Dasten watched without moving as the last of the explosions tore through the bridge.

Within minutes, most of the bridge's span had crashed into the river. In the light of the numerous fires, he saw broken beams floating on the surface while heavier parts sank where the water was shallower, forming a jagged obstruction across the channel. Any barge traveling north from Sartrene City toward Arkazaan would have to stop here until the wreckage was cleared. That would take weeks at least. Perhaps longer, if the dock damage slowed the work. The effects would cascade quickly.

Firza was only one river town along the Rubarin, but this mighty river was Sartrene's lifeline, and this bridge now lay across it like some giant's corpse. Grain barges traveling north would pile up behind the obstruction. Some captains with pre-agreed contracts to Arkazaan would wait, cursing their luck and counting their losses. Others, especially the independent ones, would look for anyone willing to buy before their cargo spoiled or their crews grew restless. Zofinar might benefit from that.

The poor country to the east relied on Firza as a minor transshipment hub, since its rocky terrain made grain precious there. Once word reached them, they would send buyers quickly. Bargemen trapped south of the blockage would rather sell cheap than return downstream with fully loaded decks. Vamir might buy part of the unexpected surplus as well, taking advantage of the misery of the small fertile duchy it had coveted for years. Arkazaan, on the other hand, would suffer. Not starve, hopefully.

The blockage would only be temporary—this river was far too important to leave obstructed for long—and the Rubarin didn't freeze in winter the way the northern part of the continent did. Once the river was cleared, grain would start moving again. Still, the next month would be lean for Arkazaan, especially with winter coming soon. Food prices would rise, and common people would feel it first, as they always did. Dasten didn't like that part.

He had killed enough people in his life to know when regret was useful and when it was indulgence. But harming civilians through hunger and fear had never sat well with him. Unfortunately, Korsivir hadn't survived this long by refusing ugly work. All the evidence would point toward Vamir. The witnesses. The painted declarations. Mellick's face. His accent. The use of air mana. The explosive runes that suggested foreign support.

It helped that Vamir had always wanted Sartrene's fertile farmlands, and everyone knew it. Sartrene couldn't possibly resist a Vamiri invasion on its own, so it had allied with the mighty Kingdom of Arkazaan, which depended heavily on the grain that moved along this river. It wouldn't take much for mistrust to start growing between the two larger powers. With luck, Vamir and Arkazaan would spend the winter watching each other instead of looking west toward his homeland. That was what tonight was meant to achieve.

The Kingdom of Varrenia—and in turn, the city of Korsivir—was surrounded by rivals and enemies on too many sides. If those enemies ever stood together, the city would pay for it in blood, just as it had during the First Great Continental War. So Korsivir did what it believed necessary to survive. It kept hostile powers wary of one another. It nudged old grudges back to the surface before they could be forgotten. And whenever possible, it made sure every neighbor had someone else to watch for besides Korsivir.

It was not noble. It was not clean. But in a world where strength wrote the rules, this was the price of survival. Dasten exhaled slowly. He didn't enjoy killing innocents or hurting people who had no say in the decisions made above them. But if Korsivir needed him to do it, he didn't ask questions. He stepped back into the shadow of the tree and formed a few hand signs. Not the full sequence. Only enough to unravel what he had already cast.

The Mirage loosened, and the face of Mellick began to fall away, taking with it the constant pull on his mana reserves. A few breaths later, Dasten Dagwel stood in the darkness again. Blond hair. Different face. Different posture. No trace of the Vamiri farmer except the damp clothes and mud he had chosen to keep for now. He turned east and began to run. For the first stretch, he made sure to leave a trail that could be found. Boot marks in soft ground. Broken reeds. A snapped branch near the river path.

Not too obvious, but obvious enough for men who wanted to believe they were chasing Mellick toward Vamir. After a couple of hours, he would end that trail near a pond or a smaller stream, somewhere the marks could vanish naturally. Only after that would he stop pretending. Once he stopped limiting himself to Mellick's capabilities, there would be no more footprints, no broken branches, no careless signs for anyone to follow.

He would turn north, put some real distance between himself and Firza, and would only cross the Rubarin back toward the west when he was certain no pursuers were close enough to pick up his trail. That Arkazaanian manaweaver might still try to follow despite the leg wound. Or he might send others to pursue Mellick. Either way, Dasten wouldn't make the mistake of dismissing Firza's response just because it was a small town. Overconfidence was the fastest way for people to die in this line of work.

Until he crossed back into Varrenia, he had to take every precaution he could think of. He knew that Arkazaanian patrols were often seen in Sartrene, watching the river routes to make sure grain reached their kingdom safely. If he ran into one while still inside Sartrene's borders, he would still have to avoid or mislead them. But once he reached Varrenian territory, the regular border patrols from Korsivir would make pursuit much harder for anyone from Arkazaan.

Not impossible—nothing was impossible for a good enough mana user. But unlikely enough that he could take it easy from there. In total, it would still be nearly a week of running before he reached Korsivir. Long enough to enjoy the meat buns waiting in his storage rune, and long enough to think about the new life waiting for him at the end of this journey. He smiled at the thought of those meat buns. A small reward for another mission completed successfully— his last mission as a SABLE captain.

After this, a new phase of his life would begin. As an Instructor. Of children. The thought should have annoyed him more than it actually did. Maybe it was only because he was tired. Maybe because thinking about fresh academy graduates was easier than thinking about the baron's blood, the woman's terrified eyes, or the people who would go hungry in Arkazaan because of the bridge he had just burnt behind him. He wondered who the Vazaag would assign to him.

Knowing the old man, it would almost certainly be three pompous little clan kids. One did not pull a SABLE captain off active duty only to give him an ordinary squad. If the Vazaag wanted him teaching fresh Nourim, there had to be a good reason. Perhaps it would even be enjoyable. Not that he had any intention of making it easy for them. Dasten had no idea how to be soft with new manaweavers who still needed to be taught the basics of survival.

But there would be a certain pleasure in showing them just how little they knew about the world. How weak they were. How much stronger they had to become before Korsivir could trust them with missions beyond its walls. Those poor little Nourim... He almost laughed as he ran east through the darkness. They had no idea what was waiting for them.