Chương 68: Suspicions Raised

The behavior of feybeasts around treebeds was beginning to change. The beasts were now far more aggressive. Something more than just the predator and prey dynamics every time a beast got hungry. No. As Squirt made her way around the Wylds, she witnessed constant skirmishes between feybeasts, territorial disputes with no clear winner, random bouts of hostility escalated from their general neutrality when not hunting. Times were becoming dangerous.

Squirt knew that sometime soon the tentative peace found in the treebeds would rupture, and the beasts would turn on each other. They would fight and feast until it was a frenzy, the resulting massive monster, something normally only seen in the depths of winter. And without the Guard coordinating efforts, something not done until winter, it would rampage around the entire territory. Things were simply too far along. And it was only midsummer. This was impossible.

Even with Skye airships dumping fey into the Wylds, this was an entire territory away and had regular hunters. No. Something else was going on here. What, she didn't know beyond gut instinct that everything was wrong. Without evidence, Squirt didn't report it, but her increased agitation as they moved on from Leaf's village was evident to them all. The second village needed little convincing as they were within a day of Leaf's village, and news between the two traveled quickly and often.

They eagerly accepted the assistance and never even questioned it. After that, it was another five days before they made it to the next village, Squirt heading further into the Wylds in search of evidence she failed to find. Frustration after frustration compounded. Meaning that when they finally arrived in the next village, Squirt's patience was all but gone.

"No," sneered the village chief, her thin eyes narrowing further in obvious contempt. Anvanil floundered under her gaze, repeating nervously, "No?" She scoffed, the lines on her face dignifying her otherwise pinched features with stern condescension.

"You are Capital dogs. Your traps were shit, and you know nothing of our people. That you would even suggest such a thing, gods, I pity your mother." I pity your mother. A shortening of a longer insult: I pity that your mother was granted the blessing of birth only to end up with you. Anvanil shrank back.

"… but Madame Chief, you—""I want you gone from this village before sundown, understood?"

"But—why—""Out!" Squirt grabbed Anvanil's elbow, bowed to the chief, turned, and walked away, dragging Anvanil with her. This meeting had been a private one, meaning that she was condemning her entire village without them knowing, but their arrival had drawn a crowd. Squirt stepped out, stopping at the entrance to the village chief's house to give them all a challenging glare.

Then she spoke quickly, bitterly, and with clear enunciation, "We had offered to help establish Red Lantern Peppers as feybeast deterrents, but your chief said no. We're taking our skills elsewhere. If anyone here dies from a feybeast surge, that's on her, since it reduced the feybeast count by 95% five days south, and we would have done it freely." Fear and rage began to mix on the other villagers' faces. Several glared at the chief standing behind Squirt, while others shared her contempt for Squirt and Anvanil.

The woman hissed, her eyes flashing the slitted amber of a feline shifter, and she reached out a hand to strike Squirt, her nails extending into claws. Pakos, standing at her side and roughly equivalent to the size of a large dog, suddenly grew to be twice his size as he caught the woman's hand in his mouth, growling. Two of his now six tails wrapped around Squirt, and he curled both protectively and possessively around her.

Anvanil, who had been shrinking back like a wilting flower, stood tall with courage Squirt had never seen in him before as he announced to the others, "The Hunt has blessed this huntress with Her own hound and Her mark. Be very careful who you offend." Whispers of disbelieving outrage were followed with the name, "Athereon," spoken with reverence. One loud, angry, "A greenling?" followed by a flurry of shushes. Squirt allowed Pakos to hide her in his fur so none of them could see how pale she was.

No one had referred to her as anything but huntress. She'd stopped wearing the headband because in the daylight hours, the mark was barely visible, and it was simply too warm here. The headband always made her head so itchy she could barely concentrate, and she was starting to wonder if it was some kind of curse that made her allergic to covering it. Even her hood became itchy if worn in the sunlight while speaking to villagers, and like Leaf, most just considered her a devout worshiper.

So, she had stopped trying to hide it. Gods. Please no. She had said that to protect them, telling them the secret so they could always enact it on their own with time and proper care. Now? Now, they had the beginnings of a riot. Half the village looked a combination of horrified, terrified, and wrathful all at once. The other half shared the same contempt as their chief.

Both sides were heated and beginning to argue with each other, shouting over the top of each other until it became a crowded mess of dialogue too overrun to be heard. Panic wormed its way into Squirt's heart. This? This she wasn't cut out for. She couldn't do anything here. Fuck, she shouldn't have done anything to begin with. Jul's voice rang over the entire crowd along with the heat of flames warm enough to evaporate the sweat off their skin, silencing the small village immediately.

"Enough! Cease this. Take the blessing she has granted you and enact it your own way. She has given you the tools you need to enact her design. Turning on each other solves nothing. We have given you the tool—what you do with it is your own business. Should it be unacceptable, board the next merchant train and head to another village. We will be giving this offer to them all on behalf of Lord Norland. Perhaps there will be another village that shares your views."

Squirt closed her eyes, really hoping that the goddess wasn't about to smite this entire village just because someone took a swipe at her. Right? She wouldn't. Once was more than enough, right? Pakos disagreed. Squirt paled. Her stomach churned. Reluctance followed disgruntlement. He shrank down to his normal size and sighed, seemingly sad he wouldn't get to enact the goddess's judgement. She glared at him. Next time she was leaving him at home. He smugly replied, Not possible, then tugged on the bond meaningfully.

Fuck it, next time she was staying out in the gods damned woods. At this point they had catalogued enough treebeds that Lord Prince Ranin and Lord Norland were headed to the first one already. Squirt's group spent another three days heading further into the Wylds, charting more of the territory. During a surge, Anvanil enacted the ritual, allowing Squirt to study the feybeasts in close detail. It was a skill she had picked up from the Sia-bitch, actually, as she had used Squirt to enact it herself.

It took time, but with enough of it, she could hold materials in her bare hands and slowly feed it bits of magic, learning its composition. Sensing it. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. A lot of enchantments could be supported by components, but most did not use them as regularly as Squirt as the components were only there to support the magic involved, much like feystones.

Most enchanters rarely used any materials beyond those used to make and then bind the rearranged molecules into their new order. Raw materials like iron, salt, glass, or wire. The closer to the desired shape the materials already were, the simpler the feat of enchanting, making enchanting premade items like swords or shields was something any enchanter could do easily enough. If that were the case, what they needed depended mostly on the specific spell they were enchanting.

Different things could be done in different ways, after all, though some elements were better than others at certain tasks. Illusions could be created simply through pretty much any element except for wind, but wind and water were the best for producing sound. Causing things to heat like Squirt's stoves most often used fire, though it was possible with lightning or wind. Most enchanters in the world specialized in skills related to their inherent magic.

Someone who was born as a day fey would train themselves in using light magic to enchant, which meant the limits of light magic would be their own. Those with multiple could expand their range. Anvanil, blessed in both autumn and spring, could create an enchantment relying on those two magics without any additional components. And like most enchanters, he'd stopped there. Pissants. Squirt used it all.

Feystones and earth tree leaves to make up for sheer lack of power, components to help edge in certain directions or imbue specific effects, and an absolute lack of shits to give about the stigma of it within "proper" circles. Not that she was ever invited to those circles. This lack of shits to give meant she also didn't give a shit about what the others thought of her as she sat there, holding a body part and just slowly manipulating it in her hands while staring off into space.

Worth it for the properties she discovered. Properties like a shadow whale-wolf's tail blade could retain its slice ability after death, or that fiend hounds were a mix of fire, earth, and time. In camp, she would fall asleep seated by the fire, writing out runic equations with gleaming, tired eyes. And, on one particularly productive night where she actually enchanted, maniacal laughter. She remained safely in her tent, her wings mostly hidden from prying eyes. Everyone but Pakos, who hardly counted.

Pakos could apparently now manipulate his size as he wanted with enough moonlight strengthening his magic. He was in a shrunken size, only about as tall as her hip to guard the entrance to the tent, and perked up at her laughter. With a somewhat evil grin, she held up a crafted arrow. Will it fly? He asked. She grinned more evilly. Yes. Yes, it would. He shared her excitement with a yip. They passed two more villages as they did a long, wide loop to the first treebed where they would be meeting Lord Prince Ranin.

Both times, Squirt made the executive decision to stay out in the forests with the beasts rather than deal with riots. Of the two, one was filled with contempt and refused their solution with disdain, while the other welcomed them. It was at this second village that Squirt finally learned why. As she met the woodworkers on the edge of the forest to direct their work, one of them elbowed the other and said, "I bet this fall his lordship is going to have interesting things to say about our yields this year."

Jul, who was sticking next to her as someone with loads more charisma, caught onto the same thing Squirt did.

"Oh? Like what?" The first shrugged while the other dug the wax out of his ear, eyeing it before he said, "The crops'll be spicy. Those pepper leak into the grounds. Growing lettuce? It'll be spicy lettuce. Carrots? Spicy carrots." He shrugged as he flicked the wax away.

"Some places think it's a bad omen, but me da always said he grew lettuce at the base of the trees since it don't need as much sun. I've missed the taste meself." His companion turned to him as he stretched.

"How long your da been gone?"

"Some eight-hun."

"Tha's right. He die young." The man shrugged.

"Went out for the lettuce and never came back. We knew it was dangerous, but it was me ma's favorite snack, so he said it was always worth the risk." A snort.

"I'd say it wasn't. Left ya before your first century. Ya know she was probably sucking his—""I don' wanna hear it—there are some lines ya just don' cross."

"Fair. So cut back the first three lengths?"

"Yeah, I'll box 'em." They then set to work after that odd exchange with such familiarity, it was clear they had been doing this for centuries together, moving as a unit into one readying to cut the trees, and the other to process them. Over time, cutting the same stump off every time it tried to regrow would eventually kill it, though it might take anywhere from ten to fifty years to do.

She gave Jul a pointed look that took him a second to catch on to, but he finally cleared his throat and called out, "So what's the—" he glanced to her, and she mouthed the word he then repeated, "—omen, uh, related to the peppers?"

"Eh? Oh. Some old bardic tale. Moral o' the story is—" he took a beat to swing his ax with his muscles fully pumped up, followed by another in quick succession, "—they grew them red peppers in their fields an' the birds shat on the king, killin' him ugly like, and the town was necked." Necked, meaning beheaded. Guilt made Squirt wince. Ah. No wonder those two towns were offended.

"We a bit more open-minded 'ere." He kicked out a perfect angled piece, then aimed his hit up again.

"'Sides… I miss the taste of tha' lettuce." He hit, and the tree cracked noisily before it toppled over, taking two others down with it in a straight line. Then he grinned at her awestruck, envious expression.

"There're always them who cares too much about image." He winked. Squirt was really not cut out for this peopling business. She had enough fey trying to flirt with her and didn't need another. Still, she remained in a sober mood the rest of the day while they finished overseeing the day's construction. As the sun began to set and the workers returned home, Jul pulled her aside with a simple gesture of invitation.

Wary but appreciative that it was both subtle and something she could refuse, she followed him around the treeline, perfectly in sight of the village but out of hearing range for most.

"You alright, huntress?" he murmured, conscious to keep his voice barely audible. He didn't look at her, instead pretending to scan the area, but Squirt could tell he was being an attentive listener. She scowled, her eyes down on the ground.

"… I made a snap judgement in the moment instead of listening. If I'd known it was offensive, I…" What? What would she have done differently, knowing it had been offensive? Jul waited a while before responding, letting her process her thoughts herself.

"For what it's worth… I thought it was a good thing, speaking when you did." He gave her a soft smile.

"I thought it was rather brave, if I'm honest." She studied him out of the corner of her eye.

"It was stupid," she eventually said.

"That doesn't mean it wasn't a good thing." She gave him a sidelong glance. He grimaced and shrugged.

"I was always taught that it is the job of the other person to call out and explain what is offensive." Squirt muttered, "Not in my experience. Your sister was hardly the first to have me whipped and beaten for an imagined slight." Then bit her tongue for letting those words just slip out like that. Well. Shit. They were out there, nothing else to do but commit to it now.

"Yeah, well… I always thought she was awful. It's nice to finally get validation for that." Squirt stopped in her tracks before slowly tracing her eyes up to his burnt orange ones. He grimaced, dropping his eyes briefly before looking away, a tightness to his jaw. Eventually he shrugged, his eyes down as he turned to keep walking, and he said, "She was a brat.

I tried to get her to learn the sword once and she purposely fell and started sobbing, claiming I'd been beating her and that she was afraid to be left alone with me. My mother was rarely around in those days, and those left behind in the keep doted on her endlessly, spoiling her rotten." Squirt absorbed this as they continued, watching the last of the villagers make it back to the safety of the village. It was a surprisingly peaceful walk. He didn't engage in any other conversation, letting Squirt's mind drift.

Finally, words tumbled out of her mouth.

"Something is wrong in these forests, but I don't know what."

Jul had to use every ounce of his self-discipline to channel Lord Everwinter's calm and not stop in shock that she was confiding in him of all people. Her tone somewhat dreamy, she continued, "The feybeasts are too advanced. More so than Everwinter. A few prominent stronger beings, sure, but the average is too high, even if Skye airships had made it over here. This isn't bleed-over from Everwinter. This is something else."

Concentrating with every ounce of his effort to keep his cadence and manner controlled and calm, he thought over her assertion, including the epiphany of the cause for her increased agitation.

"… what could it be?"

"I don't know. But how many airships of their own citizens can they drop before the people decide enough is enough?" Jul's eyes lit up.

"We haven't come upon any crash sites, nor have we seen any airships." Squirt nodded.

"And even considering that Everwinter tackled the problem sooner than here, the spread of highly advanced feybeast evolutions is too wide. I'd expect a few places, especially close to the border, to suffer from the same issue, but we've circled the heart of Norland now. It hasn't matter how far east we traveled—""The beasts have been pretty uniform across the board, which points to some other strategy at work," his eyes were practically glittering now as he thought over the problem.

Squirt considered him, letting him absorb the words before returning her eyes forward and saying, "I can't find any evidence." He gave her a confused look.

"For what?"

"That something's wrong." This only confused him further.

"What are you talking about? You just gave me evidence. Solid evidence." She stopped to give him a hard stare. Realizing the mix-up, Jul said, "The feybeasts being too uniformly high leveled. That's evidence, huntress." She scowled." I know it is, but—""It's not your job to convince them, huntress." He puffed out his chest and gave her a confident smile.

"That's my job, as the hunter representative." His sheer charisma combined with that ridiculous title surprised an amused snort out of Squirt, and suddenly the weight she'd been carrying lifted. Nothing had changed. She'd found nothing more concrete than a bad feeling and a uniformly too powerful set of feybeasts in the territory. She had still acted thoughtlessly towards the local people.

He didn't say anything else, but he never lost the bright, smug grin on his face as they made their way into the village walls before the sun finished setting.