[YF] Chapter 256: Beith Eight

With permission from the Mercenary Order leaders, Remus leads Leal and I out of the chamber after my elders. A bunch of unsettled looking politicians remain. Though, amongst them, there are those that appear as if they expected such an outcome. Imiha and Listis primarily.

“We’ll be heading out immediately, Solvei,” Yalun says, pulling my attention away from the poor, trapped nation leaders. “If you ever need me, blanket the sky with your fire and come flying. I don’t care how much you need to burn through. I’ll be moving on a cycle between here and the other grand elders, so I’ll notice eventually.” She gives a short embrace that I don’t have the time to return before she’s running after my other elders, who are already racing out of the palace.

I could burn the sky until she noticed… but I feel it’d probably be easier to have a few volans go searching for her. Well, it’s an option.

Considering their usual disposition, I’m surprised my elders are acting as hurriedly as they are. Whether it’s the haste of the Vanguard Champion dashing out ahead, or that they truly feel the urgency of the situation, I’m glad they’re taking this so seriously.

Almost the moment Leal and I are alone with Remus, he visibly slumps in relief. “You have no idea happy I am that today has turned out how it has.”

“With all the nation leaders being confined?” I ask, glancing back.

Remus laughs. A sound I realise I haven’t heard in well over a year. “No. I’m relieved none of those… representatives decided to insult your grand elders so greatly that the pact nations were doomed before even the Henosis could reach us.” He lets out a deep breath before continuing to lead us through the corridors of the palace. “I’ve met with your tribes a long time ago; I know how isolationist your kind tends to be. There’s little chance they would have come, if not for you, I am sure.”

I open my mouth to protest, but it’s not like I can deny it. Even if my grand elders had decided to seek the help of outside nations following the events of the growing ocean, If I hadn’t needled them to leave earlier, it would have been years before they arrived here. Long after the war. Long after the pact nations was gone.

Instead, Leal speaks. “The grand elders were surprisingly welcoming into their home.”

“I was given the opportunity, but unfortunately couldn’t make the distance. Regardless, being welcoming to a few outsiders you know won’t stay long, and coming all this way to assist another nation are two entirely different things,” Remus says. “Until today, there remained doubt in my mind that they would come. No matter how many times I’d been told otherwise. I hate leaving lives to uncertainties.”

We walk out into a courtyard beneath the grey sky and Remus turns his eyes on us. Serious, but back to that normal, happy expression of his. “So, we are to save the world from Armageddon? Is there something you need to do first? Now that the war has begun and my efforts will be decided whether I’m here or not, I believe it’s time we got the team back together. What do you think?”

“I’d love that,” I admit. “But aren’t they needed for the war?”

“For the addition of five Inner Circle equivalent warriors, the Order won’t care what resources we take. Though, until we have a clearer idea of what we can do to stop this Armageddon, I hesitate to take more from the war effort than just our team.”

“Well, before that, it’ll be best if I get the Riparian’s treasure from the bottom of the pit Kalma made,” I say. “Unless you still have your connections to bring us before someone who could help us decipher the inscriptions we found?”

Remus scratches his head with his tentacle. “Well, I could. But I’m not sure it would be the wisest option. Best to stick to retrieving that orb of Solon’s. And how perfect; the rest of the team are stationed there.”

Remus tries to grin at us, but he doesn’t have the chance. I’ve already wrapped both him and Leal in my dispersed form, and carry us into the sky, rapidly twisting my form to that of a large falcon once more.

“Oh, wow.” Remus exclaims, looking down at my flames wrapping his body without burning. “I knew you were close to reaching the threshold when I first found you, but I never thought you would surpass it this decade. I had my suspicions about what one of the áed or áinfean could do once they reached it, but complete discoupling from a physical body is impressive. You’d have to be one of the fastest growth stories in history.”

“One of?” Leal questions, sounding amused. “Not the fastest?”

I pointedly make a set of physical eyes to glare at her.

“A former Henosis Emperor was famed for his rapid growth after rising to power in his early teens. Went from unenhanced to one of the nation’s strongest in only a year or two.”

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“Assassination,” Leal says, apparently knowing of the story too.

“Well, yes.” Remus pauses for a moment. “He was what we call a bloater; someone with more enhancement then they have the skill or talent to use. All of the Empire’s resources were directed to improving the young Emperor, and it only painted a target on his back.”

I blast through the air as I listen to Remus. Kalma’s Pit is somewhere west of here. I don’t know the exact location, but the scarred landscape should be easy enough to spot once we pass it.

“When you gain that much strength without earning it yourself, you only reveal yourself as an easy target for the true elite that will push all sorts of boundaries to increase their enhancement. I’m sure plenty of those representatives thought the same of you until you showed you could compete with their strongest,” Remus says, glancing back over the castle disappearing in the distance. “Considering the boy was also the leader of the Empire I have no doubt the Order allowed the Inner Circle to take him out.”

“Do you know who?” Leal seems surprised. Maybe the version she’d heard lacked that detail.

Unfortunately, Remus only shakes his torso in denial. “Nobody does. Anyone you ask will say it was our Mercenary Order, but if anybody does know, they aren’t about to come out and say.”

“So that’s why so many leaders remain unenhanced despite having the influence to have resources brought to them?” I ask. “They don’t want to become more of an international target than they are?”

Remus nods. “The current Empress and Emperor have little enhancement of their own, but that hardly means they are vulnerable. That isn’t to say there aren’t influential people — both in the Empire and our pact nations — that empower themselves, but it is almost exclusively for an ideal they wish to pursue. Those who would use the inheritance ritual to extend their life know well enough it is more likely to cut it short.”

It’s quite the strange disparity between the áed’s culture and those in the centre of the continent. Maybe its because we’ve not had any direct opponents to worry about in the wasteland, or our tendency to have everyone learn to fight, but I couldn’t imagine our grand elders being weaker than the tribe elders.

After a couple hours of flying, we finally reach Kalma’s Pit.

It is just as wide as before — enough that a Titan could probably climb its way out — but many of the mountains that ringed the ledge are gone. The Collapse was not kind to already unstable earth. With how the pit slopes from its vertical climb right to the edge of a new city, It is clear where those mountains disappeared.

The city is bustling. Word of war has obviously already reached here, or they too might have experienced the attacks on the rail network.

Remus directs us to the northern lip of the Pit, where a large building stands right on the ledge of the cliff. It almost certainly wasn’t built to be that close, but that doesn’t seem to faze the mercenaries flocking around it.

My unhidden blaze attracts many eyes as I land on the ceiling. The many volans flying in concert telling all that my burning form is not, in fact, some attacking beast. Remus said many of the mercenaries stationed here had been shipped off to the eastern border, but there are still plenty around. Is this hole really such a threat? I didn’t think there would be that many beasts able to climb the distance to the top.

As I reform my body, I follow Remus and Leal down the stairs. My dohrni teammate questions a few of the mercenaries we pass, and soon we find ourselves in an otherwise undecorated briefing room except for the large open balcony.

Sitting there, across from us, is the rest of the team I’ve not seen in so long. Bunny appears unchanged. Her slouched posture snaps to alert the moment we walk through the door. She still holds that long halberd of her father’s, but her bag of weapons is there at her feet.

Jav seems to have already been looking our way before we even stumbled through the doors. A new wingsuit taking place of the old. Inscriptions run all over the fabric, but not to such a degree as Jeriece’s. I catch his eyes flicking between Leal and the áed-inscription altered snowsuit he gifted me so long ago.

But it’s Grímr that I struggle to look away from. The portian in a large alicanto body has that harsh appearance he always takes on during the Ember Moon. He no longer has that gold or green sheen to his feathers; they are crimson. A colour like blood paints the jagged saw-blade feathers that twitch with a barely suppressed need to buzz and tear. His tail is a heavy flail of metal. Each spike easily long enough to pierce clear through my chest. Two rows of teeth are immediately obvious as my friend opens his beak. Predatory, and in constant motion; those fangs would tear flesh without even biting down.

Despite all that, it’s the sinister glow in his eyes that I focus on more than anything else. It makes Grímr’s usual, placid gaze vicious and predatory.

“Doe, good to see you again,” Remus says, and I turn to the vaguely familiar khirig standing before my team. “Sorry, but I’m here with an official exemption. You’ll have to find a replacement for whatever you need done.”

The woman frowns. She opens her mouth to protest, here eyes shifting between Leal and myself, but decides decides against it. Without a word, she turns and strides out of the room. Only when she’s gone do I remember where I saw her. She’s the one that first tried to tell me that protecting my friends from people like that mill owner was wrong.

“What happened, Grímr?” I ask without thinking. It’s obvious that the permanent Ember Moon has affected his body, but I hadn’t thought he would stay this way.

“Don’t worry about me,” He says. His voice like rusted metal scraping against a humming saw. “It took some effort, but I learned to control it.” He grins, but it is no longer the warm, comforting smile I remember, but the ravenous snarl of a predator.

Leal steps back slightly at my side, but I only find the image jarring, considering Grímr’s personality. With how much he usually hates being feared by the other races, I’d have thought he would abandon a body so fear-inducing.

“I know everyone would love to catch up, but we don’t have a wealth of time at our disposal,” Remus interrupts before we can actually make any greetings. “We can do that after Solvei has dived for Solon’s orb.”

“The riparian orb at the bottom of the pit?” Grímr questions, rising to his feet in the high-ceiling room that appears almost made for him. “I’ll go with her.”

“You know how deep that pit is, Grímr. She’ll be quicker by herself.” Remus steps up besides the large bird and pats him on his folded wing… before pulling his tentacle away as the jagged feathers start to uncontrollably vibrate. “Besides, she’s always been good at surviving. I think you’ll be surprised just how much better she is now.”

“We are going somewhere?” Jav asks. “And something tells me it isn’t to the front lines.”

“Riparia,” Remus says simply, his eyes preemptively sliding to Bunny.

Her reaction is instant. She leaps to her feat, like her namesake, an excited grin already plastered across her face.

Right.

She still wants that weapon.

… I wonder what her reaction will be to my mum’s spear?

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Hey guys, remember to check out the audiobook version of book 1. Shiromi has done a great job narrating it.

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