Chương 74: [BOOK 2] Chapter 74: Behind Enemy Lines

High up the slope of some unnamed mountain north of what used to be Cianán's Walk, Miriam stayed absolutely still. She could feel snow collecting on her horns and resisted the urge to shake it off like a goat. Staying still was the hardest thing she could do right now. The willpower it took to remain in the moment was intense. There was a spot in the treeline above her that her eyes kept wanting to go to, to daze thinking about.

Two weeks after escaping Cianán's Walk had seen a marked deterioration in her ability to function normally. She was constantly rotating her different fórsa natures throughout her body to just keep awake. So a scouting mission to track enemy movements was probably the worst job she could have taken. She had insisted on it anyway. If she succumbed to the detachment that kept trying to pull her away and allowed it to tug her towards its own ends, she would never be able to stop.

She would march through the pass below her in a fugue state, not recognizing any dangers that might befall her. Dangers like the Shorinu earthwork that was being constructed in the pass.

"I can't believe Shorinu is moving through the First Ring," Róise had said excitedly when they'd first spotted the activity on their way over the mountain.

"Why is that good?" Miriam asked.

"It means that they're trying to consolidate their position in Innushi, but for some reason they can't do it through the Second Ring." Róise had been positively giddy.

"This is all a part of the plan Máirín shared with me right before we left. The fight was going to start in the Second Ring. Take back the Second Ring lands outward of Shirren. If we can hold that, then their corridors for resupplying Shirren become extremely fragile. We cut off Shirren from Shorinu support and the city's as good as ours!"

"So they're going to flank the Second Ring defenders," Miriam had said.

"Ok. This must be an advance scouting party. These fortifications they're building would do nothing for an army of any real size."

"And we have to go straight through them," Cormac said, a worried expression on his face. The pass through the mountains was the only path to getting Miriam to the Second Ring that didn't involve weeks of backtracking and circumventing. She didn't have that kind of time. Miriam had seen enough. Four hours waiting crouched in a tree was enough for anyone, even a dryad.

She leaped off the branch she was holding and trailed her fingers through the trunk on the way down, using her ability to make any wood malleable to rake furrows into the tree that slowed her descent and then healed up again instantly, leaving no trace. Cormac, Miriam and Sol were waiting for her back at the camp.

"There's only fifteen of them," Miriam explained.

"I heard something about the main forces coming through in two days. The leader was very concerned that they were behind schedule."

"So it's today then," Róise said, bloodlust clear in her eyes. Miriam and Cormac shared a concerned expression, but they said nothing. This was why they had gone to Cianán's Walk in the first place. The power they had earned there, all four of them, should make fifteen Second Ring troops a walk in the park. Róise had refused to believe they would waste Thirds on something like this sort of duty.

"Any fórsa natures you noticed?" Sol asked. He was always interested in finding new fórsa types to absorb and convert into material, though lately he'd been unusually aggressive about it. Miriam guessed Róise's enthusiasm was rubbing off.

"Earth," Miriam said.

"Obviously. I don't know enough about Earth Nature to identify any Adept Classes. I did see one soldier light a fire with fórsa."

"Fire Nature?" Cormac said, surprised.

"That's likely a Third."

"It might not be," Róise dismissed.

"I don't understand," Miriam said.

"Why is a Fire Nature a Third?"

"Well, it doesn't have to be. Róise is right about that. But you know that cultivating fórsa natures usually involves you being inundated with it. You need to be in a place that has it in abundance. You can't just sit next to a campfire for a month and claim a Fire Nature. In this entire quadrant, there is really only one place that routinely churns out Fire Natures - a semi-dormant volcano in the Third Ring of Shorinu." Cormac shrugged.

"Chances are high he's a Third."

"And we're Fourths!" Róise snapped.

"For us, taking Shirren back starts today." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Hey," Cormac said, putting one hand on her shoulder.

"I've got your back. Always. You know that. I just want us to go in there clear-eyed."

"I'm as clear as I can get," Róise said, but she put her hand over his reassuringly. The advance troops had not been there long. The trees around the earthwork barricade were only half-cleared, which gave Róise plenty of cover to sneak close enough to activate Seven Drunken Nights. Technically, if they were all Seconds, Róise could have mesmerized almost all of them at once, due to their power discrepancy. Unfortunately only six were within range before she would have had to chase them out into the open.

They each dropped their shovels and started to stumble around, besotted grins on their faces. Black threads only Cormac could see wrapped around each of their legs. Each stumble somehow led them into uncleared areas of land, where Róise waited with two sharp fórsa blades. Miriam had thought the advantage Róise and Cormac had sought to earn at Cianán's Walk was overblown. How much more dominant could two Fourths be than two Thirds?

But she had just seen them kill six enemies in the span of three verses from Róise's Folksong Adept class without even alerting the other nine. Perhaps they could have a real impact on this war. It was her and Sol's turn. Past the earthwork was a makeshift camp where the other troops were taking a meal, each with a ceramic bowl refilled at a central cauldron of stew. There were an additional four there, all distracted with their food.

Neither of them had any attacks that would be effective on a large number of targets at once - Miriam made a note to add that to her to-do list - so they moved in, coordinated and quiet. Sol loaded up his fórsalock pistols with two spheres of Róise's Seven Drunken Nights. He couldn't perform any techniques that required sustained streams of fórsa, but two doses should combine to generate about fifteen seconds of the first verse.

Sol's technique-spheres hit the cauldron in the middle of the crowd of soldiers, and for just a few moments, they all went slack-jawed. Miriam pulled four narrow, sharpened trees from the ground in succession - a lower-powered version of Tree Rising. The last soldier started to come out of his stupor right before a thin tree cracked through the frosted ground and speared him through the throat. Five more unaccounted for. Róise and Cormac joined them as they snuck quietly through the camp.

They needed to check the tents. Miriam found one soldier asleep cradling what she assumed had been a hidden bottle of wine. A touch to his ankle and she activated her Blight technique Liquefactive Necrosis. The sleeping man began to choke, grasping at his chest as the tissue in his lungs festered and dissolved.

"Guys," Róise said quietly.

"I found something interesting." They all followed the sound of her voice to an opening in the mountain. Not a natural cave; stairs led downward into a dark only marred by a few torches still burning brightly.

"Think our missing four went down there?" Róise asked.

"It would be odd for this to be in their camp solely by coincidence," Sol said.

"Perhaps whatever is down here was their true goal after all."

"We could just walk past," Cormac said. Róise glared at him.

"Hear me out, Róise. Our goal is to get Miriam to the Second Ring, then get to Shirren. Four more dead men doesn't help us do that when there is no one left barring our way." Róise's face contorted in anger, but she seemed to calm herself.

"Cormac. I meant what I said before. The resistance, for us, starts here. Below us here are enemies that we can't afford to have at our backs. Every sword we leave for Shorinu is one they can bring against us in Shirren. We're not trying to escape anything anymore. This is war."

"I've seen war," Miriam said gently.

"Seen them, been involved with them. Watched from afar while my children died in them. It's understandable that anyone would be reluctant to see the people they care about charge headlong into one." Róise studied Miriam's face.

"The wars you saw. Were they worth fighting?"

"Not a one." The pixie nodded, her jaw set.

"That's the difference then." Róise whirled on her heel and stalked down the stairs into the hole.

"Thank you, Miriam," Cormac said.

"I know I'm not helping her with my hesitation, but it's there nonetheless. I can't say she's wrong." Miriam shook her head.

"She might be right. But we don't have to like it." From the depths of the tunnel came a panicked shout.

"Cormac!" Cormac flew down the stairs with all the speed of his Fourth Ring body, air blasting Miriam in the face as he moved. Miriam and Sol followed after as fast as they could. The chamber below was full of mining equipment that seemed to be at least a century old. There was a pile of busted mine carts in one corner along with discarded pickaxes and shovels.

At the far end was a tunnel that had clearly been sealed off, stuffed full of boulders and detritus that seemed to have been dug out recently, revealing the real impediment: what looked like a slab of rough cold iron. One Sidhe was cowering in a corner, trying to make himself as small as possible. The other three grinned at the newcomers, teeth shining white among faces covered with dust.

"And here I thought this job was going to be boring!" one of them said.

"I think they're Fifths," Róise said urgently.

"All of them!"

"Fifths?" Miriam asked.

"Why would Shorinu send Fifths for advance troop work?" The one who had spoken raised an eyebrow.

"We don't work for the government, lady. We're contracted with a private concern. Not that it's any concern of yours!" He chortled at his own joke.

"Oh, there's been a misunderstanding then," Cormac chimed in.

"Clearly we were fed some incorrect information. We'll leave you to your business, boys, and be on our way." One of the other men scoffed.

"You think we're just going to let you go?"

"Back up the stairs, quickly!" Cormac urged. They all edged backwards, trying to not startle the situation into all-out conflict.

"Nah, nah, nah. You're down here, you must have killed all those poor Seconds upstairs," the third man said.

"Our boss isn't the sort of man who lets these sorts of things slide, is he, Cowal?"

"Indeed not," Cowal said lightly, but they could hear his hand tightening on his pickaxe.

"Mr. Séarlait is not one to forgive trespassers against him." Róise froze from where she had just taken one slow step up the stairs. The world began to sway.

"Shit," Cormac said.