Part 1
"There are twenty-five... no, five more have crossbows," Wing murmured off the top of the cliff. "Beautiful positioning, excellent form, but they are surrounding the village single-file - probably because of their smaller numbers. I doubt they'll be any problem, seeing as we've got a hundred men in the bush."
"They don’t need any more people," Gwen replied.
Wing looked up. Gwen was very close to the edge of the edge of the cliff, right next to him. The high winds combed her hair, but she stood firm, resting her cane in front of her.
"I suppose you're right," Wing said after a pause, and looked back down to the forest. "Aside from probably two or three Naturals there, the natives are defenceless against the better-equipped and much more skilled bandits."
He paused again. Despite having quite a bit of experience, he had trouble telling where the bandits were. Only the occasional gleam of a blade in the moonlight gave them away. Noticing the crossbow wielders was pure luck - a gust of wind happened to blow the village's ritual fires toward Wing, and he could faintly make out five silhouettes perched in the canopies of the trees against the glow of the flames.
"Wing," Gwen said, backing away from the edge of the cliff. The winds were getting rougher. "Tell me what kinds of Naturals are in that village."
"Yes, one minute," Wing answered, wondering as to the purpose of the question. If anyone of interest was down there, they would definitely appear in the Sovereignty's registry. Given that all maps available to him merely acknowledge the village's existence without giving any more information, everything pointed to the fact that this was just another tribal settlement.
He reached into his robe for the inner breast pocket, producing a pair of metal-framed lens. The lens, porous with many capillaries, had a syringe-like glass capsule attached with a split transparent tube. A dark red liquid shimmered inside the capsule. Securing the lens to the scout's circlet Wing wore on his head, he slowly sank the syringe's piston inward.
At first, the world became segmented into many pieces - much like looking into a broken mirror on a black surface - as the capillaries filled with the liquid from the capsule. The liquid didn't even completely fill the capillaries when the outer edges of the lens began to blur out of existence. Before long, all that was left of the lens was the metal frame. The flames in the middle of the village vanished, and the moon was reduced to no more than a pale grey shadow on the sky. Instead, the world bathed in a uniform red mist.
Right away, Wing's previous guess proved itself to be correct. There were three auras - black clouds with streaks of red - located in a triangle around the place where the now-invisible fire burned.
"Let's see..." Wing mumbled while scanning the village. "There are three. The one farthest away from me... looks solid... earth? No... jagged edges, pronounced vertices. That one is ice-based. The one across the first one - they are sitting in a triangle around the ritual fire - is all over the place, swirling... unmistakably, flame-powered... explains the fire. The leader, maybe?... Interesting combination... I'd think... wouldn't get along... block. That's the last one, walls and blocks, very regular and symmetric... seen it before, but..."
"Like Eva's?"
Wing slapped his head in feigned exasperation.
"Ah, how could I forget? Yes, that's exactly where I saw it. So, in the end, we have a fire Natural, an ice Natural, and a force Natural. None of them are particularly powerful - the fire one might stand his ground against one of our Artificers, but the other ones aren't even worth mentioning. Explains why this place is barely noted on the map. Even then, considering there's about to be a raid on it, we might have to erase it completely."
"In that case," Gwen said, turning around. "We are leaving."
With a small sigh, Wing stood up and dusted himself off. She's doing the right thing, from a commander's point of view. There's no need to sacrifice any more troops - the Sovereignty's military is already spread thin between defending against Zhottite invasions and smaller organized raids from the natives. He took off the lens and carefully pulled the piston from the capsule out as far as it could go. The lens became visible again as the liquid retreated from the capillaries and back into the syringe. After putting the apparatus away, he approached Gwen.
"Do you--?"
"No, I’m fine." Gwen's tone was uncharacteristically casual. "It seems we will not draw swords tonight. I can handle myself."
"Very well," Wing said.
They walked in silence toward the wall of trees at the top of the hill. The Chopped Mound, they called this place; reasonably so, considering that it was really only half a hill. From one side, it looked like a normal mound, but from the forest, it appeared to be an inaccessible cliff. Some Sovereignty philosophers devoted time to discovering how the Chopped Mound came to be, but none were successful.
"General, if I may ask," Wing interrupted the relative silence, which was previously only broken by Gwen's cane tapping the ground in front of her. For the last few minutes, he wore a concerned expression. "Were you a scout before your… capture?"
"I began my career at the Sovereignty as a scout, yes. You were wondering how I knew Eva's aura." She replied, and then stopped, turning her head to Wing. "Why?"
“It’s probably nothing, but I thought I saw the ice Natural’s aura sparkling a little.”
“Sparkling?”
“Yes.” Wing paid attention to Gwen’s expression – or, at least, what he could see of it from behind her blindfold-mask. She didn’t look very bothered. “I think something might be wrong with my Donovan Glass, but I thought I saw small strands jumping off the ice Natural and vanishing in the air. But they were not strands in the sense that they were nearly one-dimensional – no, they were not like that; rather, they had volume. Almost like fibres of some kind actually.”
“Fibres,” Gwen repeated with a tone of concern. “It would be best if you looked down there again. But this time, do it from a different place.”
After returning to the edge and setting up the Donovan Glass, Wing carefully strafed sideways, while looking at the source of the sparks. It wasn’t long until he stood back up and returned to Gwen.
“I’m not sure if you were looking for this, General,” he said. “I couldn’t identify it. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The fibres – it’s an aura. A bandit’s aura.”
Part 2
Pound, crash, pound, crash. It sounded like the dillies were making noise just for the sheer fun of it. No sense of notes, no harmony, no pace, no anything. Of course, to expect coherent music from savages is like to request an operatic choir from pigs. Personally, I think we're doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery. Getting paid handsomely for the three dilly Naturals doesn't hurt either, although I would've debated with myself coming here if we were only being paid for this. Fortunately, this particular dilly village is nice and stocked up with supplies. Beats overpaying those Zhottite gluttons for food - they're always too happy to take back the gold they paid us.
"Ein - we're ready," I heard Hannibal's hoarse whisper right next to me. "The crossbows are high, the swords are low, the stabbers are close. We counted fifty-two dillies, most jumping, smashing rocks, and hooing around the bonfire."
I looked into the center of the village. Just as Hannibal said - bunch of dillies were dancing around the fire in the middle, with three sitting cross-legged closer to the flames than the rest. There were whitestone lines on the ground, connecting the three. Bet dillies felt real proud of themselves when they figured out how to use whitestone to paint their weak excuse for art, the cliff overhead showing most of their expositions. Birds, horses, hummingbirds…
The three important-looking dillies in the middle, it seemed, were the Naturals. That one - the one with the blue ribbon on his fat arm - that'll be the first one that I'll put to sleep. As the Zhotts told me, there was a fire, ice, and force Natural here. The ice one would be the hardest to take down, seeing as few blades cut through those frost shields of theirs. Once he's unconscious, he won't matter; the other two will probably panic and show me a nice display of fireworks, giving me a pretty good idea as to what they can do.
"Have two crossbows aim at two Naturals - the two that aren't that one in front of us. If they start, hit the lower body only, do not kill them under any circumstances," I whispered back. "I'll get the fat one. The stabbers will pick off the out-wanderers, two crossbows can take down the dillies right next to my fatty. The last crossbow should watch anyone that sees me and put them down. The swords will only move if the dillies are expanding from the village. As soon as I bag my dilly, tell all lows to get down to the ground, and all highs to hold on to the branches."
I saw a nod from Hannibal with the corner of my eye, and began closing in on the ice Natural. The portly savage was smashing stone-headed clubs on a drum in front of him, as were the other two. Seemed really into it, too. That's good - his attention was low, and he shouldn't give the wire much trouble when it's on him. The fire hid the Naturals from each other's fields of view. Using the flames to my advantage, I crept along the walls of a wooden hut closer to him, while preparing the green-coloured wire. This was the best purchase I made from the Zhotts - I have never regretted a single silver I spent on it, not once (although I refuse to call it by their name. It's quite rude).
Without coming out from my cover too far, I tossed the Green - tied into a lasso loop - right in between two dillies passing by the Natural. The loop successfully landed on the Natural's neck. He certainly noticed the instrument of his quickly approaching coma, but didn't give it much thought - just brushed it off his neck, likely thinking it an artefact of the surrounding flora. But the loose wire stayed secure on his throat. I carefully fed the wire forward a little bit, to get it low to the ground - wouldn't want a dilly tripping on it and alerting everyone around him. Now that it was out of the way, I made my way back to the bush, favourably noting that several out-wandering dillies were already suffering from a mild case of capital dismemberment in the tall grass. Good work, stabbers. Very good.
Having placed myself more or less out of sight, I returned to my previous hideout in the forest. Hannibal was already back, grinning at me.
"They didn't start," he said. "And the crossbows, with all their trigger-happy fingers, managed not to shoot a dilly anyway. I'd imagine you already saw the fine works of Groth and Rudd generously painting the ground red, eh?"
"Everyone is a part of the team," I replied. "Everyone knows what they're doing. This is good. Now, if you don't mind..."
"Of course," Hannibal said and grabbed on to the Green. We nodded thrice in unison, counting down - and, with an eye-popping effort, pulled the wire.
The force of the snapping Green sent us flying into the bush, but we were too far away - and drowned out by the noise of the drums - for anyone to notice. The Natural forcefully fell backwards, knocking his drum on his head, struggling to get the loop of Green off his throat. After gagging for a few seconds, he stilled - just in time for other dillies to arrive. As he stopped resisting, the Green loosened up and fell off. If we dared to drag a Natural's corpse to the Zhotts, I think our partnership could be effectively considered over (and that’s putting it lightly – what I mean when I say that is “heads will roll”).
A few dillies tried to wake the Natural up - to no avail, of course. Loss of consciousness by asphyxiation doesn't wear off this quickly. Some of the women cried. The other Naturals also gathered around their fallen comrade.
“What say you, gentlemen?” I addressed Hannibal as well as Rudd, who just came back. His dagger was positively glistening with fresh blood. “We’ll take down one more Natural, and I’m pretty sure we can rush them. Otherwise, the dillies are going to start worrying about those over there.” I nodded toward the corpses in the grass.
“I’m in,” Rudd was the first to reply. “A little hungry, too. I’d almost go as far as to suggest rushing them now, but seeing as they’re all alert (especially the Naturals), I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Then it’s decided,” I announced. “I’m going to bag the force user, and we can charge them.”
For the most part, it was actually quite easy to tell which Naturals had what power just by looking at them – in fact, one could make conclusions even if one has never encountered that kind of Natural before. Ice users carried much extra weight to protect themselves from cold; their ability to conjure frost shields around them effectively killed any reason to dodge projectiles. Even a fireball rarely punched through a well-powered ice wall. Fire casters were rather like one of the two Naturals carrying the third one to a medicine hut – lanky for efficient blood cooling as well as tanned for flare protection, and quite muscular to dodge well: although packing a strong punch, they couldn’t defend themselves with their power alone. Seeing as they’re Naturals – people who are born with and who die with their ability and their ability alone – they have a lifetime to adapt to their gift.
Unfortunately, the dillies smartened up. They stopped their inane ritual – maybe because they finally figured that ten of them were missing, or maybe because they couldn’t continue banging their drums without the third Natural. Didn’t look like it was the former, as they all headed back to their huts, with the majority of them going to the medicine hut to attend to the fainted chubby. I used the opportunity to retrieve my loop of Green and reattach it to the rest of the spool. Meanwhile… the force Natural. It was the one that was not lanky; a woman, unsurprisingly. About three quarters of force users belonged to the fairer sex.
It was only another five minutes when she and the other Natural left the healing hut. They said something to each other before parting ways; being dillies, probably something about appeasing their hummingbird god by sacrificing dragonflies – you know, their chief competitor size-wise. Really, what kind of culture worships something like a hummingbird? Why do they even need Naturals in the first place?
Sneaking around and behind the huts, I quickly passed the Natural. It would be unwise to let her enter her house – if she had a trace of a brain, she would likely close off the doorway with a fraction of her power. Fraction as it may be, it was plenty enough to stop a normal man (or a normal weapon) from entering. Finding a nice spot in the shadow, I waited for her to come closer.
I didn’t have to wait too long. Her hut was in front of the one I was hiding in, the door facing me. Just as she turned her back at me, I threw a well-aimed rock at the back of her head. Letting out somewhat of a yelp, the dilly fell over. Maybe I need to stuff her deeper into the hut; make it look like she hurt herself. No one should know that I’m –
In retrospect, it was really good that I stayed close to the ground. If I did not, I would be a talking torso right now, for at that moment in time, a great sickle of flames swept right over me. Half of the force Natural’s shanty was gone; the other was burning. My hair got caught in the turbulence and was also set aflame. Although quite embarrassing, sticking my head into the nearest puddle of filth was better than being bald. Damn… how did he see me?
The booming gibberish of the fire Natural smoked the dillies from their meagre residences like a torch in a beehive. The dillies swarmed me with a surprising nimbleness. I was the focal point of a good twenty very pointy spears. The fire Natural – whom I took to be the tribe leader – began barking something at me. I didn’t really catch most of it, because… well, because the serpent began to wake up.
Here I was, shaking, dripping with a semi-liquid concoction of water, feces, and earth. And to think that my bleached hair so beautifully stood out moments ago. Maybe that’s why he saw me? I don’t really remember the rest of my train of thought. Motions started to blur, and I felt my blades slide out of their sheath. He was about halfway awake when I heard the Serpent’s Horn roll over the canopies of the trees and crawl up the great cliff overhead. The rest of the band noticed me and my state, I guess. Good Hannibal. Good boy, so very good. The horn just pushed me further into oblivion, and the last thing I remember – a little while after losing memory of my sight – is inhuman howling, likely coming out of my own chest.
