Chapter 5 – Part 6

On the first day of the month of Vult, Bresbin found himself in a snow-dusted forest of tall pine trees. A wind bit at him, causing him to draw his coat tighter about himself. By now he was used to the jumping sensation of traveling through plants, but the sudden change in weather caught him off-guard.

It had been a brisk autumn day when they’d left Ama’Shay and arrived near Eldeen’s southern border. They’d spent three days traveling, checks old places. Bresbin had remained on guard, but the sites had not been disturbed. The closest they’d come to any real danger was a viper that had nearly bitten him, but Pienna had convinced it to slither on.

Now, they had arisen shortly after sunrise, and after a cold, quick breakfast, she had taken him and the overgrown cat through the plants again. As before, there was a heaving, a joining of warmth and life that lasted a split-second, and then a jumping sensation. The end result may have been the same as an Orien teleporter, but the effect felt quite different.

Now they were in this place. Higher altitude, taller trees, and a half-inch of snow on the ground. Ground that was broken by little more than game trails.

“This is a place with no people again, lady?” Bresbin asked carefully. She was sharp, this one, and he could not be complacent that his demeanor was accepted. The less he said the better. But he had to know where he was.

“With very few, really,” she sighed, absently-minded stroking her panther’s neck. The great cat rumbled its approval. “We’re still in the Eldeen, if in its most distant part. If that set of trees wasn’t in the way, you’d see the western edge of the Icehorn Mountains.” She cast a spell into her panther, and it bared its teeth in eagerness. “One dwells here, and she is not someone who I seek willingly. Nor is she someone to be ignored.”

“She is dangerous?” Bresbin asked, already with an arrow at the ready.

“Very,” Pienna said. “But she is not the one I fear, I fear the ones who sometimes some for her counsel.”

She did not elaborate, and Bresbin asked no more. He wanted to, but he knew it would not fit the meek persona, so silent he was.

The druidess snapped her fingers once, and Missy darted ahead to scout. The great cat was larger than a pony, but made less noise than a chipmunk. Bresbin made less noise than a falling snowflake. For her part, Pienna stepped lightly for a human, even if her steps were thunderous, but her druid powers prevented her from leaving marks in the snow. The only footprints were Missy’s and Bresbin’s.

The goblin stuck to stepping on rocks and tree roots whenever he could, and gritted his teeth.

Missy halted and let forth a low growl. She then bounded forward, and Pienna waved at Bresbin to hurry and follow.

It was a half-minute after they broke into a dead run, if that, that Bresbin smelled the smoke as well. A second later and he was following Pienna into a clearing with bodies and destruction.

Bresbin spun around, eyes darting, looking for a target for his arrow. He took in the hut, fallen off its stilts. The blood on the ground, some of it under the snow, some of it on top of the rocks. The marking that showed more bodies had fallen, and then been dragged off. Burnt spots on tree trunks where spells had missed their mark. The stilt feet that had been carved to look like chicken feet, and someone had hacked one of them in half.

There was a body in the remains of the hut. Humanoid, but of a make Bresbin could not pick out. Not that much of it was left. Pienna kneeled by the body, not touching it, merely examining the marks. Missy turned this way and that, nostrils flaring, teeth bared.

“Torture marks,” Pienna said quietly. Bresbin came up behind her, trying to see the remains of the face. He thought he could make out horns on its head, albeit small ones.

“What was he?” the goblin asked.

“She,” the druidess corrected gently. “She was a tiefling, a devotee to trickery, a malicious and cantankerous spirit who loved to cheat those who courted her. She was a diviner of great skill and powerful magic who could not be surprised, and was more than capable of holding her own. She was much wasted potential and could have done much good in her life.” Pienna swallowed. “But she did not deserve this.”

Bresbin examined the marks again. Maybe a day old. The body was at best twenty-four hours dead and there were no scavengers about, not even insects. Something had marked this place.

Bresbin turned around again, looking for a foe. Beside him, Pienna chanted softly. The goblin did a soft perimeter scan, moving quickly about the area. Missy joined him, the big cat looking for something to tear apart.

Pienna continued with her spells. Long minutes passed.

“Come,” the druidess said, standing. The panther bounded to her side in an eyeblink.

“What has the Lady learned?” the goblin asked, catching up to the great cat to stand by the human woman.

“I’ve talked to trees, wind spirits, and the rocks themselves,” she said. “The Chamber came by, and shortly after that a tiger-man and his fodder.”

The Chamber? Bresbin thought. He caught himself before voicing it. The Dark Lanterns had heard of a group calling itself the Chamber, but knew not what it portended. Clearly this woman did. He would have to ask about it later, when his curiosity would not be unseemly. So much of this job is patience. “Are there more about?” the goblin asked, playing the part of the frightened retainer.

“No,” she said. “He was here with men of metal and stone. Warforged. She set on them with fire and trickery, but her spells did not touch the tiger-man, for he is one of the fiends. They questioned her for nearly a day entire, but she had no answers for them.”

“What questions?” Bresbin asked.

“I know not,” she said. “The spells I used, they are limited by what the listeners understood. One thing I know is this. The fiends of the Demon Wastes do not enter the Eldeen lightly, for the might of Oalian gives them pause. What was it that they needed from her? What information did they expect her to give that they could not get in their own lands?”

They must not trust the information that they have been getting, Bresbin thought, but did not say. The goblin pursed his lips, and watched Pienna’s face. She looked like a woman crushed, whose hopes were gone.

A woman who was vulnerable.

The time was now. “Sister of nature,” Bresbin said gently. “May Brezzy be told all now?”

She stared at him with great, wet eyes. “Bresbin’s life is already at great risk. I do not care to cause more death.”

Be reached his hands out and took hers. His green fingers, long and dirty, grasped her light human ones, medium-length, clean and smelling faintly of rosewater. “Bresbin will die someday, and Bresbin hopes to know what part he played.”

A long moment passed. He itched to say more, but did not. He was a patient hunter, and he waited for his prey.

She finally blinked, then nodded. “Yes, I will tell you. I will tell you everything. But not here. Not in this place of death.”