Chapter 201: Found You
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Chapter 201: Found You
Tala immediately helped to mobilize all units of the caravan guards, regardless of duty rotation. Together with the sergeants, they quickly organized a search-grid, sending the guards out in four groups of five, armed to the hilt. Each group also had flares to bring attention if the children were found or if backup was needed.
Ten more guards stayed back to guard the caravan with Mistress Odera, while all the passengers were made aware that they were to, under no circumstances, leave the space between the two wagons.
Blessedly, no one complained, and many were already huddled around the parents of the two missing boys: Jon and Tam.
The guards would be responsible for sweeping the grove directly around the wagons, and Tala with Terry and Marnin would check the countryside.
Marnin would take the larger swath, focusing east, west, and south, just in case. He was given this section partially because he could move faster in general with his given set of abilities and because with his lower magical weight, he could move faster without creating motive aura resonance.
The other reason he was sent in the more unlikely directions was simply that he was less well equipped for dealing with the creatures that would likely be involved.
Tala would be on Terry, and they were to sweep northward, in the most likely direction the children and bog hag went. Oh, stars provide its only one. One should only be able to have a few creatures under its thrall.
Tala looked to her friend, even as she popped two ending-seeds into her mouth. Lets go, Terry.
The terror bird flickered into place under her, growing in size until she was comfortably situated behind his neck. He crouched low and took off at a dead sprint, weaving through the trees.
Tala immediately saw a build up of a motive aura echo. A bit slower, Terry. She grimaced in frustration. Sorry.
He slowed down, and the resonance faded.
She almost asked him to go on ahead to look for the children on his own, but that would be incredibly dangerous, even for Terry.
The terror bird had no defense against the subtle nudges employed by a bog hag, and the creatures were all known to be able to weaken, or even fully suppress, the magical ability of many arcanous creatures.
That was theorized to be a cornerstone of their ability to enthrall those same beasts.
Terry was monumentally powerful, but they just didnt know to what extent he would be vulnerable.
It would not be safe for him to get close to them. They might just be able to remove much of his advantage. In the worst case, they might be able to enslave him, somehow. Now that would be a disaster.
Tala tried not to grind her teeth as she kept her focus tuned outward on the surrounding trees. Ending-berries in my mouth. Biting them unwittingly would be bad.
She moved the two bloodstars containing mirrors of perception for Alat around trees to either side to increase their field of view, just in case. The guards should be through here shortly, but shed feel the fool if she passed the boys by and didnt notice.
And what a blessing it would be to find the two hiding nearby.
Alat chimed in. -Their gates should be obvious, even through obscurement. But I agree, the wide field of view is still wise.-
They had no luck as they passed quickly through the trees. In fact, they found the first confirmation of the opposite just as they reached the edge of the grove.
A burn wolf howled before bounding up, lunging off of a tree to come at Tala from the side.
It was no bigger than a large dog but was much leaner in appearance. Its eyes glowed an ember red, and the tips of its fur were each a soft, luminescent yellow. Each hair was black despite the tip, and had an almost charcoal quality to their appearance. Even so, they still moved as fur would on a dog. The last thing that jumped out to Tala, upon quick inspection, was the trails of smoke rising from the lolling, fang-filled maw.
Tala drew Flow with her off-hand, holding it in a reverse grip.
She caught the leaping wolf with her right hand, while funneling power into Flow, shaping it into a glaive, which skewered the closest of the wolves closing in on them from the other side.
Large pack.
Her tungsten rod rotated and shot backward, catching another wolf mid-lunge like a bit in a horses mouth.
Terry, quick death.
Terry became a flickering storm.
Tala dropped to the ground, her mount gone.
She crushed the neck of the wolf that she had caught before tossing it aside, away from the trees.
Burn wolves had the habit of bursting into violent conflagrations, even after death, and she didnt want the caravan to find itself in the middle of a mini-forest fire.
She had time to twist, transform Flow into a sword, and cut down two more lunging forms before the conflict was over.
The tungsten rod hadnt slowed in its streaking path backwards, where it slammed the wolf it carried into a tree, then continued. First, unhinging the beasts jaw, then continued. It crushed flesh and bone, moving in an almost perfectly straight line until it impacted the tree, no part of the wolf remaining in its way.
The rod then jammed downward, embedding into the wolf corpse before flicking it away from the tree line.
With a blurring spin, the metal implement shed the gore it had picked up. Now clean, it stopped just as quickly, rigidly vertical once more. From there, it returned to its resting position at a more leisurely pace, resembling the speed of a thrown rock rather than a crossbow bolt.
In those brief seconds, Terry had slain more than two dozen of the beasts, knocking their bodies away from the tree-line.
This is too many. Bog hags dont usually control whole packs. Tala felt building concern for the boys, and the caravan as a whole.
-A coven? Bog hags have been known to function in family units, on occasion. When they do that, they can control larger groups of other creatures.-
Tala did not like anything that might imply, but it made sense. One bog hag would never venture this far from the northern swamps. A group, though? They just might be bold enough to try it.
Overhead, a circling shape drew her attention, though she didnt turn her head to look.
What do you think the chances are that that blade-wing falcon is just out for an evening flight?
-Low.-
Another servant of the hags?
-Even if not, its worth bringing down.-
Agreed. Tala locked onto the creature, without ever setting her eyes upon it.
As she jumped back onto Terrys back, and he took off once more, she activated her magics.
Crush.
The falcon overhead shrieked in surprise, already plummeting towards the earth.
Crush.
Even as the bird began flaring its own magic and straining its muscles, the second amplification hit home.
There was no recovering after that.
The large creature hit the ground with a meteoric impact, but Tala didnt divert her attention as she scanned the land around them, Terry moving northward as fast as he could without creating a resonance with his passenger.
We should look east, closer to the mountains. The thought came subtly, and she almost voiced it to Terry before she noticed that Terry was already moving in that direction.
-Tala.-
Yeah. I noticed. She shook her head. We have to keep going due north, as fast as we can. Keep northward, Terry.
Terry trilled and changed his course back.
She considered for a moment, then shook her head. They wouldnt have gone due north, we should scan to the west.
Again, she opened her mouth to speak, but Terry was already turning towards the west.
Straight north, Terry. Theyre trying to drive us off their trail.
Terry flinched, letting out a sound of his own that was disturbingly close to a whimper before he seemed to buckle down and increase his speed all the more.
Tala was a flaming beacon of resonant power as they crossed the last hundred yards.
The creatures that had been advancing on the trees turned at the sound of their masters calls, facing the new threat and charging, their own challenges added to the hags cries.
Terry leapt high in the last moments, then flickered away, engaging the closest enthralled creatures as Tala dropped on to the nearest hagonly to pass right through the illusion.
Enough! Tala threw her aura wide, filling it with as much of her magical weight as she could.
It felt like her body was slammed by a dozen sledgehammers, but she endured, wrenching control over the zone around her from her enemies.
The illusion shattered, and Tala was left facing ten bog hags, all with their hands raised in her direction.
Power slammed through her eyes, overwhelming the defenses there instantly and driving into her mind.
-Ive got this.- Alat took the brunt of the attack, which felt like a cold-chisel being driven into Talas orbital cavities. The alternate interface let out a pained, whining grunt, but her goal had been accomplished.
Talas mind was mostly uninhibited.
With fury in her eyes, Tala instantly saw which of the hags had the most power flowing through them.
Crush.
The central creature dropped to the ground, squealing in surprise. Like a gutted pig.
That lessened the strain on Alat, and together, they quickly targeted more, going for incapacitation on a wide scale before killing them.
Though, as Tala enacted Crush over and over again sweeping through her enemies, she sprinted towards their dropping forms.
Flow will end them before they can recover. In that vein, she threw the knife forward, sending power into it to reshape it into a sword even as it tumbled towards her enemies.
It beheaded the lead hag and was already being pulled back to her hand as the last of the hags collapsed under the influence of Talas Crush.
The thralls were going mad, and Tala had to slow her headlong rush to deal with frothing wolves, screeching terror birds, chittering spiders, and other creatures that had gotten around Terry to charge her.
In her other perspective, Tala could see Terry flickering through the mass of gathered foes, eviscerating them even as they sought to overwhelm him with the sheer volume of their power.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be working.
Tala didnt know if the savage intelligence of the hags was specifically directing the beasts or if they were just well coordinated in some other manner, but the arcanous creatures were filling the valley with hostile power to the point that Terry had very few places that he could go without immediately sustaining injuries.
Still, he wove and slashed, finding holes in the defense and filling the low ground with torrents of blood.
But he wasnt perfect.
Even at this distance, Tala could see burned feathers and cuts on her friends flesh.
He had taken more damage in the last minute than shed seen him take in total through the entirety of their time together.
She needed to help him, and the best way to do that was to end the threat of the hags. If the beasts were still fighting with their masters gone, Tala and Terry would have a bloody conflict to face together, but she needed the chief devils gone, first.
That in mind, she continued to hurtle Flow at the hags and call it back, killing at least one hag with each toss. As she did that, she had to fight the enthralled with her fists, feet, and bloodstars. She was even able to crack the ending-seeds and exhale dissolution power into two different foes as she fought forward. Maybe a second weapon wouldnt be a bad idea after all
Even as her advance was slowed by the tide of lesser creatures, she and Flow reaped a harvest of death among the hags. Those enemies fought futilely to return to their feet and died in the attempt.
Less than two minutes after Terry had flickered away, Tala slew the last hag, and it was as if a wave of something passed through the assembled arcanous creatures.
They froze in place en masse for one horrifying instant, then with shrieks, and chitters, and yowls, and bellows, the animals scattered in every direction, save towards the trees. There were already noises of charging men and women coming from that direction.
Exhausted, Tala turned back towards the rocky rise on which shed seen the two boys, even as Terry flickered to her shoulder. The terror bird was favoring one leg, smoke rising from still smoldering feathers around several burned patches of flesh.
Well get you seen to as soon as we can. But her mind was on the low hillock as she raced over.
She already knew what shed find, but she refused to let it sink in.
As soon as she could clearly see what lay atop the rise, she slowed, color draining from her face, and her chest tightening.
The two boys lay stretched out, their shirts stripped from them, their throats slit.
Shed known as soon as shed seen them. Theyd had no gates.
Now, their bodies lay before her, dead for too short a time to even have cooled off.
Even so, there was no blood around them, indicating theyd been killed elsewhere and brought here.
They were killed as soon as they were taken, werent they It wasnt a question, but Alat answered anyways.
-So it would seem.-
* * *
She was joined by a host of guards and Marnin shortly thereafter, and she updated them on what had happened.
The boys bodies were already in Kit, and the pouch had never felt heavier.
It was a long trek back to the caravan.
The sobs and wails of the boys parents, when Tala had presented them with the bodies along with her regrets, would haunt her nightmares for years.
The clearing was somber that night as everyone was faced with the stark reality of the dangers that they were all too aware of, even if just in concept.
Mistress Odera tended to Terrys injuries, and sat in consoling silence with Tala for the entire time.
Tala was grateful for the womans presence, even more so that she didnt press. Instead of talking, Tala wrote up her reports, and passed them to Mistress Odera before volunteering to take the first shift on watch.
She couldnt imagine sleeping, with her mind still filled with images of those dead boys.
The older Mage asked if she wanted to talk, but Tala had asked to wait until morning. I need time to process this.
The woman had smiled sadly, then nodded, granting the request of first watch.
They discussed the need to move the caravan, due to Talas aura resonance, but they both agreed that it was such a short burst that it shouldnt be an issue, not this close to Arconaven.
That city was less than a dozen miles away, after all.
Theyd almost made it
Tala sat up, late into the night, watching over the caravan.
Just as midnight was approaching, and with it the end of Talas shift, a form appeared beside her, seemingly from out of thin air.
Tala had no time to react as Revered power seized her without effort, locking her in place physically and magically. The air was practically drowning in the deep blue of her foes aura.
Fear gripped her down to her soul. Alat was gone, frozen just as Talas mind and magic were. Her bloodstars couldnt move, her very soul was under someone elses power.
A too-white grin spread across the arcanes face, satisfaction as plain in his features as the blood-red of his eyes.
Within the stillness of both body and mind, Tala heard a horrifyingly familiar voice, the tone somehow bringing to mind images of blood, Found you.
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Chapter 201: Found You
Tala immediately helped to mobilize all units of the caravan guards, regardless of duty rotation. Together with the sergeants, they quickly organized a search-grid, sending the guards out in four groups of five, armed to the hilt. Each group also had flares to bring attention if the children were found or if backup was needed.
Ten more guards stayed back to guard the caravan with Mistress Odera, while all the passengers were made aware that they were to, under no circumstances, leave the space between the two wagons.
Blessedly, no one complained, and many were already huddled around the parents of the two missing boys: Jon and Tam.
The guards would be responsible for sweeping the grove directly around the wagons, and Tala with Terry and Marnin would check the countryside.
Marnin would take the larger swath, focusing east, west, and south, just in case. He was given this section partially because he could move faster in general with his given set of abilities and because with his lower magical weight, he could move faster without creating motive aura resonance.
The other reason he was sent in the more unlikely directions was simply that he was less well equipped for dealing with the creatures that would likely be involved.
Tala would be on Terry, and they were to sweep northward, in the most likely direction the children and bog hag went. Oh, stars provide its only one. One should only be able to have a few creatures under its thrall.
Tala looked to her friend, even as she popped two ending-seeds into her mouth. Lets go, Terry.
The terror bird flickered into place under her, growing in size until she was comfortably situated behind his neck. He crouched low and took off at a dead sprint, weaving through the trees.
Tala immediately saw a build up of a motive aura echo. A bit slower, Terry. She grimaced in frustration. Sorry.
He slowed down, and the resonance faded.
She almost asked him to go on ahead to look for the children on his own, but that would be incredibly dangerous, even for Terry.
The terror bird had no defense against the subtle nudges employed by a bog hag, and the creatures were all known to be able to weaken, or even fully suppress, the magical ability of many arcanous creatures.
That was theorized to be a cornerstone of their ability to enthrall those same beasts.
Terry was monumentally powerful, but they just didnt know to what extent he would be vulnerable.
It would not be safe for him to get close to them. They might just be able to remove much of his advantage. In the worst case, they might be able to enslave him, somehow. Now that would be a disaster.
Tala tried not to grind her teeth as she kept her focus tuned outward on the surrounding trees. Ending-berries in my mouth. Biting them unwittingly would be bad.
She moved the two bloodstars containing mirrors of perception for Alat around trees to either side to increase their field of view, just in case. The guards should be through here shortly, but shed feel the fool if she passed the boys by and didnt notice.
And what a blessing it would be to find the two hiding nearby.
Alat chimed in. -Their gates should be obvious, even through obscurement. But I agree, the wide field of view is still wise.-
They had no luck as they passed quickly through the trees. In fact, they found the first confirmation of the opposite just as they reached the edge of the grove.
A burn wolf howled before bounding up, lunging off of a tree to come at Tala from the side.
It was no bigger than a large dog but was much leaner in appearance. Its eyes glowed an ember red, and the tips of its fur were each a soft, luminescent yellow. Each hair was black despite the tip, and had an almost charcoal quality to their appearance. Even so, they still moved as fur would on a dog. The last thing that jumped out to Tala, upon quick inspection, was the trails of smoke rising from the lolling, fang-filled maw.
Tala drew Flow with her off-hand, holding it in a reverse grip.
She caught the leaping wolf with her right hand, while funneling power into Flow, shaping it into a glaive, which skewered the closest of the wolves closing in on them from the other side.
Large pack.
Her tungsten rod rotated and shot backward, catching another wolf mid-lunge like a bit in a horses mouth.
Terry, quick death.
Terry became a flickering storm.
Tala dropped to the ground, her mount gone.
She crushed the neck of the wolf that she had caught before tossing it aside, away from the trees.
Burn wolves had the habit of bursting into violent conflagrations, even after death, and she didnt want the caravan to find itself in the middle of a mini-forest fire.
She had time to twist, transform Flow into a sword, and cut down two more lunging forms before the conflict was over.
The tungsten rod hadnt slowed in its streaking path backwards, where it slammed the wolf it carried into a tree, then continued. First, unhinging the beasts jaw, then continued. It crushed flesh and bone, moving in an almost perfectly straight line until it impacted the tree, no part of the wolf remaining in its way.
The rod then jammed downward, embedding into the wolf corpse before flicking it away from the tree line.
With a blurring spin, the metal implement shed the gore it had picked up. Now clean, it stopped just as quickly, rigidly vertical once more. From there, it returned to its resting position at a more leisurely pace, resembling the speed of a thrown rock rather than a crossbow bolt.
In those brief seconds, Terry had slain more than two dozen of the beasts, knocking their bodies away from the tree-line.
This is too many. Bog hags dont usually control whole packs. Tala felt building concern for the boys, and the caravan as a whole.
-A coven? Bog hags have been known to function in family units, on occasion. When they do that, they can control larger groups of other creatures.-
Tala did not like anything that might imply, but it made sense. One bog hag would never venture this far from the northern swamps. A group, though? They just might be bold enough to try it.
Overhead, a circling shape drew her attention, though she didnt turn her head to look.
What do you think the chances are that that blade-wing falcon is just out for an evening flight?
-Low.-
Another servant of the hags?
-Even if not, its worth bringing down.-
Agreed. Tala locked onto the creature, without ever setting her eyes upon it.
As she jumped back onto Terrys back, and he took off once more, she activated her magics.
Crush.
The falcon overhead shrieked in surprise, already plummeting towards the earth.
Crush.
Even as the bird began flaring its own magic and straining its muscles, the second amplification hit home.
There was no recovering after that.
The large creature hit the ground with a meteoric impact, but Tala didnt divert her attention as she scanned the land around them, Terry moving northward as fast as he could without creating a resonance with his passenger.
We should look east, closer to the mountains. The thought came subtly, and she almost voiced it to Terry before she noticed that Terry was already moving in that direction.
-Tala.-
Yeah. I noticed. She shook her head. We have to keep going due north, as fast as we can. Keep northward, Terry.
Terry trilled and changed his course back.
She considered for a moment, then shook her head. They wouldnt have gone due north, we should scan to the west.
Again, she opened her mouth to speak, but Terry was already turning towards the west.
Straight north, Terry. Theyre trying to drive us off their trail.
Terry flinched, letting out a sound of his own that was disturbingly close to a whimper before he seemed to buckle down and increase his speed all the more.
Tala was a flaming beacon of resonant power as they crossed the last hundred yards.
The creatures that had been advancing on the trees turned at the sound of their masters calls, facing the new threat and charging, their own challenges added to the hags cries.
Terry leapt high in the last moments, then flickered away, engaging the closest enthralled creatures as Tala dropped on to the nearest hagonly to pass right through the illusion.
Enough! Tala threw her aura wide, filling it with as much of her magical weight as she could.
It felt like her body was slammed by a dozen sledgehammers, but she endured, wrenching control over the zone around her from her enemies.
The illusion shattered, and Tala was left facing ten bog hags, all with their hands raised in her direction.
Power slammed through her eyes, overwhelming the defenses there instantly and driving into her mind.
-Ive got this.- Alat took the brunt of the attack, which felt like a cold-chisel being driven into Talas orbital cavities. The alternate interface let out a pained, whining grunt, but her goal had been accomplished.
Talas mind was mostly uninhibited.
With fury in her eyes, Tala instantly saw which of the hags had the most power flowing through them.
Crush.
The central creature dropped to the ground, squealing in surprise. Like a gutted pig.
That lessened the strain on Alat, and together, they quickly targeted more, going for incapacitation on a wide scale before killing them.
Though, as Tala enacted Crush over and over again sweeping through her enemies, she sprinted towards their dropping forms.
Flow will end them before they can recover. In that vein, she threw the knife forward, sending power into it to reshape it into a sword even as it tumbled towards her enemies.
It beheaded the lead hag and was already being pulled back to her hand as the last of the hags collapsed under the influence of Talas Crush.
The thralls were going mad, and Tala had to slow her headlong rush to deal with frothing wolves, screeching terror birds, chittering spiders, and other creatures that had gotten around Terry to charge her.
In her other perspective, Tala could see Terry flickering through the mass of gathered foes, eviscerating them even as they sought to overwhelm him with the sheer volume of their power.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be working.
Tala didnt know if the savage intelligence of the hags was specifically directing the beasts or if they were just well coordinated in some other manner, but the arcanous creatures were filling the valley with hostile power to the point that Terry had very few places that he could go without immediately sustaining injuries.
Still, he wove and slashed, finding holes in the defense and filling the low ground with torrents of blood.
But he wasnt perfect.
Even at this distance, Tala could see burned feathers and cuts on her friends flesh.
He had taken more damage in the last minute than shed seen him take in total through the entirety of their time together.
She needed to help him, and the best way to do that was to end the threat of the hags. If the beasts were still fighting with their masters gone, Tala and Terry would have a bloody conflict to face together, but she needed the chief devils gone, first.
That in mind, she continued to hurtle Flow at the hags and call it back, killing at least one hag with each toss. As she did that, she had to fight the enthralled with her fists, feet, and bloodstars. She was even able to crack the ending-seeds and exhale dissolution power into two different foes as she fought forward. Maybe a second weapon wouldnt be a bad idea after all
Even as her advance was slowed by the tide of lesser creatures, she and Flow reaped a harvest of death among the hags. Those enemies fought futilely to return to their feet and died in the attempt.
Less than two minutes after Terry had flickered away, Tala slew the last hag, and it was as if a wave of something passed through the assembled arcanous creatures.
They froze in place en masse for one horrifying instant, then with shrieks, and chitters, and yowls, and bellows, the animals scattered in every direction, save towards the trees. There were already noises of charging men and women coming from that direction.
Exhausted, Tala turned back towards the rocky rise on which shed seen the two boys, even as Terry flickered to her shoulder. The terror bird was favoring one leg, smoke rising from still smoldering feathers around several burned patches of flesh.
Well get you seen to as soon as we can. But her mind was on the low hillock as she raced over.
She already knew what shed find, but she refused to let it sink in.
As soon as she could clearly see what lay atop the rise, she slowed, color draining from her face, and her chest tightening.
The two boys lay stretched out, their shirts stripped from them, their throats slit.
Shed known as soon as shed seen them. Theyd had no gates.
Now, their bodies lay before her, dead for too short a time to even have cooled off.
Even so, there was no blood around them, indicating theyd been killed elsewhere and brought here.
They were killed as soon as they were taken, werent they It wasnt a question, but Alat answered anyways.
-So it would seem.-
* * *
She was joined by a host of guards and Marnin shortly thereafter, and she updated them on what had happened.
The boys bodies were already in Kit, and the pouch had never felt heavier.
It was a long trek back to the caravan.
The sobs and wails of the boys parents, when Tala had presented them with the bodies along with her regrets, would haunt her nightmares for years.
The clearing was somber that night as everyone was faced with the stark reality of the dangers that they were all too aware of, even if just in concept.
Mistress Odera tended to Terrys injuries, and sat in consoling silence with Tala for the entire time.
Tala was grateful for the womans presence, even more so that she didnt press. Instead of talking, Tala wrote up her reports, and passed them to Mistress Odera before volunteering to take the first shift on watch.
She couldnt imagine sleeping, with her mind still filled with images of those dead boys.
The older Mage asked if she wanted to talk, but Tala had asked to wait until morning. I need time to process this.
The woman had smiled sadly, then nodded, granting the request of first watch.
They discussed the need to move the caravan, due to Talas aura resonance, but they both agreed that it was such a short burst that it shouldnt be an issue, not this close to Arconaven.
That city was less than a dozen miles away, after all.
Theyd almost made it
Tala sat up, late into the night, watching over the caravan.
Just as midnight was approaching, and with it the end of Talas shift, a form appeared beside her, seemingly from out of thin air.
Tala had no time to react as Revered power seized her without effort, locking her in place physically and magically. The air was practically drowning in the deep blue of her foes aura.
Fear gripped her down to her soul. Alat was gone, frozen just as Talas mind and magic were. Her bloodstars couldnt move, her very soul was under someone elses power.
A too-white grin spread across the arcanes face, satisfaction as plain in his features as the blood-red of his eyes.
Within the stillness of both body and mind, Tala heard a horrifyingly familiar voice, the tone somehow bringing to mind images of blood, Found you.
Chapter 201: Found YouTala immediately helped to mobilize all units of the caravan guards, regardless of duty rotation. Together with the sergeants, they quickly organized a search-grid, sending the guards out in four groups of five, armed to the hilt. Each group also had flares to bring attention if the children were found or if backup was needed.Ten more guards stayed back to guard the caravan with Mistress Odera, while all the passengers were made aware that they were to, under no circumstances, leave the space between the two wagons.Blessedly, no one complained, and many were already huddled around the parents of the two missing boys: Jon and Tam.The guards would be responsible for sweeping the grove directly around the wagons, and Tala with Terry and Marnin would check the countryside.Marnin would take the larger swath, focusing east, west, and south, just in case. He was given this section partially because he could move faster in general with his given set of abilities and because with his lower magical weight, he could move faster without creating motive aura resonance.The other reason he was sent in the more unlikely directions was simply that he was less well equipped for dealing with the creatures that would likely be involved.Tala would be on Terry, and they were to sweep northward, in the most likely direction the children and bog hag went. Oh, stars provide its only one. One should only be able to have a few creatures under its thrall.Tala looked to her friend, even as she popped two ending-seeds into her mouth. Lets go, Terry.The terror bird flickered into place under her, growing in size until she was comfortably situated behind his neck. He crouched low and took off at a dead sprint, weaving through the trees.Tala immediately saw a build up of a motive aura echo. A bit slower, Terry. She grimaced in frustration. Sorry.He slowed down, and the resonance faded.She almost asked him to go on ahead to look for the children on his own, but that would be incredibly dangerous, even for Terry.The terror bird had no defense against the subtle nudges employed by a bog hag, and the creatures were all known to be able to weaken, or even fully suppress, the magical ability of many arcanous creatures.That was theorized to be a cornerstone of their ability to enthrall those same beasts.Terry was monumentally powerful, but they just didnt know to what extent he would be vulnerable.It would not be safe for him to get close to them. They might just be able to remove much of his advantage. In the worst case, they might be able to enslave him, somehow. Now that would be a disaster.Tala tried not to grind her teeth as she kept her focus tuned outward on the surrounding trees. Ending-berries in my mouth. Biting them unwittingly would be bad.She moved the two bloodstars containing mirrors of perception for Alat around trees to either side to increase their field of view, just in case. The guards should be through here shortly, but shed feel the fool if she passed the boys by and didnt notice.And what a blessing it would be to find the two hiding nearby.Alat chimed in. -Their gates should be obvious, even through obscurement. But I agree, the wide field of view is still wise.-They had no luck as they passed quickly through the trees. In fact, they found the first confirmation of the opposite just as they reached the edge of the grove.A burn wolf howled before bounding up, lunging off of a tree to come at Tala from the side.It was no bigger than a large dog but was much leaner in appearance. Its eyes glowed an ember red, and the tips of its fur were each a soft, luminescent yellow. Each hair was black despite the tip, and had an almost charcoal quality to their appearance. Even so, they still moved as fur would on a dog. The last thing that jumped out to Tala, upon quick inspection, was the trails of smoke rising from the lolling, fang-filled maw.Tala drew Flow with her off-hand, holding it in a reverse grip.She caught the leaping wolf with her right hand, while funneling power into Flow, shaping it into a glaive, which skewered the closest of the wolves closing in on them from the other side.Large pack.Her tungsten rod rotated and shot backward, catching another wolf mid-lunge like a bit in a horses mouth.Terry, quick death.Terry became a flickering storm.Tala dropped to the ground, her mount gone.She crushed the neck of the wolf that she had caught before tossing it aside, away from the trees.Burn wolves had the habit of bursting into violent conflagrations, even after death, and she didnt want the caravan to find itself in the middle of a mini-forest fire.She had time to twist, transform Flow into a sword, and cut down two more lunging forms before the conflict was over.The tungsten rod hadnt slowed in its streaking path backwards, where it slammed the wolf it carried into a tree, then continued. First, unhinging the beasts jaw, then continued. It crushed flesh and bone, moving in an almost perfectly straight line until it impacted the tree, no part of the wolf remaining in its way.The rod then jammed downward, embedding into the wolf corpse before flicking it away from the tree line.With a blurring spin, the metal implement shed the gore it had picked up. Now clean, it stopped just as quickly, rigidly vertical once more. From there, it returned to its resting position at a more leisurely pace, resembling the speed of a thrown rock rather than a crossbow bolt.In those brief seconds, Terry had slain more than two dozen of the beasts, knocking their bodies away from the tree-line.This is too many. Bog hags dont usually control whole packs. Tala felt building concern for the boys, and the caravan as a whole.-A coven? Bog hags have been known to function in family units, on occasion. When they do that, they can control larger groups of other creatures.-Tala did not like anything that might imply, but it made sense. One bog hag would never venture this far from the northern swamps. A group, though? They just might be bold enough to try it.Overhead, a circling shape drew her attention, though she didnt turn her head to look.What do you think the chances are that that blade-wing falcon is just out for an evening flight?-Low.-Another servant of the hags?-Even if not, its worth bringing down.-Agreed. Tala locked onto the creature, without ever setting her eyes upon it.As she jumped back onto Terrys back, and he took off once more, she activated her magics.Crush.The falcon overhead shrieked in surprise, already plummeting towards the earth.Crush.Even as the bird began flaring its own magic and straining its muscles, the second amplification hit home.There was no recovering after that.The large creature hit the ground with a meteoric impact, but Tala didnt divert her attention as she scanned the land around them, Terry moving northward as fast as he could without creating a resonance with his passenger.We should look east, closer to the mountains. The thought came subtly, and she almost voiced it to Terry before she noticed that Terry was already moving in that direction.-Tala.-Yeah. I noticed. She shook her head. We have to keep going due north, as fast as we can. Keep northward, Terry.Terry trilled and changed his course back.She considered for a moment, then shook her head. They wouldnt have gone due north, we should scan to the west.Again, she opened her mouth to speak, but Terry was already turning towards the west.Straight north, Terry. Theyre trying to drive us off their trail.Terry flinched, letting out a sound of his own that was disturbingly close to a whimper before he seemed to buckle down and increase his speed all the more.Tala was a flaming beacon of resonant power as they crossed the last hundred yards.The creatures that had been advancing on the trees turned at the sound of their masters calls, facing the new threat and charging, their own challenges added to the hags cries.Terry leapt high in the last moments, then flickered away, engaging the closest enthralled creatures as Tala dropped on to the nearest hagonly to pass right through the illusion.Enough! Tala threw her aura wide, filling it with as much of her magical weight as she could.It felt like her body was slammed by a dozen sledgehammers, but she endured, wrenching control over the zone around her from her enemies.The illusion shattered, and Tala was left facing ten bog hags, all with their hands raised in her direction.Power slammed through her eyes, overwhelming the defenses there instantly and driving into her mind.-Ive got this.- Alat took the brunt of the attack, which felt like a cold-chisel being driven into Talas orbital cavities. The alternate interface let out a pained, whining grunt, but her goal had been accomplished.Talas mind was mostly uninhibited.With fury in her eyes, Tala instantly saw which of the hags had the most power flowing through them.Crush.The central creature dropped to the ground, squealing in surprise. Like a gutted pig.That lessened the strain on Alat, and together, they quickly targeted more, going for incapacitation on a wide scale before killing them.Though, as Tala enacted Crush over and over again sweeping through her enemies, she sprinted towards their dropping forms.Flow will end them before they can recover. In that vein, she threw the knife forward, sending power into it to reshape it into a sword even as it tumbled towards her enemies.It beheaded the lead hag and was already being pulled back to her hand as the last of the hags collapsed under the influence of Talas Crush.The thralls were going mad, and Tala had to slow her headlong rush to deal with frothing wolves, screeching terror birds, chittering spiders, and other creatures that had gotten around Terry to charge her.In her other perspective, Tala could see Terry flickering through the mass of gathered foes, eviscerating them even as they sought to overwhelm him with the sheer volume of their power.Unfortunately, it seemed to be working.Tala didnt know if the savage intelligence of the hags was specifically directing the beasts or if they were just well coordinated in some other manner, but the arcanous creatures were filling the valley with hostile power to the point that Terry had very few places that he could go without immediately sustaining injuries.Still, he wove and slashed, finding holes in the defense and filling the low ground with torrents of blood.But he wasnt perfect.Even at this distance, Tala could see burned feathers and cuts on her friends flesh.He had taken more damage in the last minute than shed seen him take in total through the entirety of their time together.She needed to help him, and the best way to do that was to end the threat of the hags. If the beasts were still fighting with their masters gone, Tala and Terry would have a bloody conflict to face together, but she needed the chief devils gone, first.That in mind, she continued to hurtle Flow at the hags and call it back, killing at least one hag with each toss. As she did that, she had to fight the enthralled with her fists, feet, and bloodstars. She was even able to crack the ending-seeds and exhale dissolution power into two different foes as she fought forward. Maybe a second weapon wouldnt be a bad idea after allEven as her advance was slowed by the tide of lesser creatures, she and Flow reaped a harvest of death among the hags. Those enemies fought futilely to return to their feet and died in the attempt.Less than two minutes after Terry had flickered away, Tala slew the last hag, and it was as if a wave of something passed through the assembled arcanous creatures.They froze in place en masse for one horrifying instant, then with shrieks, and chitters, and yowls, and bellows, the animals scattered in every direction, save towards the trees. There were already noises of charging men and women coming from that direction.Exhausted, Tala turned back towards the rocky rise on which shed seen the two boys, even as Terry flickered to her shoulder. The terror bird was favoring one leg, smoke rising from still smoldering feathers around several burned patches of flesh.Well get you seen to as soon as we can. But her mind was on the low hillock as she raced over.She already knew what shed find, but she refused to let it sink in.As soon as she could clearly see what lay atop the rise, she slowed, color draining from her face, and her chest tightening.The two boys lay stretched out, their shirts stripped from them, their throats slit.Shed known as soon as shed seen them. Theyd had no gates.Now, their bodies lay before her, dead for too short a time to even have cooled off.Even so, there was no blood around them, indicating theyd been killed elsewhere and brought here.They were killed as soon as they were taken, werent they It wasnt a question, but Alat answered anyways.-So it would seem.-* * *She was joined by a host of guards and Marnin shortly thereafter, and she updated them on what had happened.The boys bodies were already in Kit, and the pouch had never felt heavier.It was a long trek back to the caravan.The sobs and wails of the boys parents, when Tala had presented them with the bodies along with her regrets, would haunt her nightmares for years.The clearing was somber that night as everyone was faced with the stark reality of the dangers that they were all too aware of, even if just in concept.Mistress Odera tended to Terrys injuries, and sat in consoling silence with Tala for the entire time.Tala was grateful for the womans presence, even more so that she didnt press. Instead of talking, Tala wrote up her reports, and passed them to Mistress Odera before volunteering to take the first shift on watch.She couldnt imagine sleeping, with her mind still filled with images of those dead boys.The older Mage asked if she wanted to talk, but Tala had asked to wait until morning. I need time to process this.The woman had smiled sadly, then nodded, granting the request of first watch.They discussed the need to move the caravan, due to Talas aura resonance, but they both agreed that it was such a short burst that it shouldnt be an issue, not this close to Arconaven.That city was less than a dozen miles away, after all.Theyd almost made itTala sat up, late into the night, watching over the caravan.Just as midnight was approaching, and with it the end of Talas shift, a form appeared beside her, seemingly from out of thin air.Tala had no time to react as Revered power seized her without effort, locking her in place physically and magically. The air was practically drowning in the deep blue of her foes aura.Fear gripped her down to her soul. Alat was gone, frozen just as Talas mind and magic were. Her bloodstars couldnt move, her very soul was under someone elses power.A too-white grin spread across the arcanes face, satisfaction as plain in his features as the blood-red of his eyes.Within the stillness of both body and mind, Tala heard a horrifyingly familiar voice, the tone somehow bringing to mind images of blood, Found you.
