Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 112

Dante walked alongside the edge of the army’s territory until he was far enough away from mage and the woman to remain unheard. Then, he similarly walked out of the camp, waiting until he was hidden from view before filling his legs with world essence and sprinting to the forest.

Once Dante made it to the forest, he cut in, moving back toward where the mage captain and the woman leading him should have entered the forest. His speed in doing so was somewhat unnecessary, it took around thirty minutes of remaining silent before he heard anything.

Dante peered out of the forest, watching the two figures that were moving at an abhorrent pace.

The mage captain slowed his steps, which practically brought him to a standstill. “Must you act like such a brute? It’s not like I did anything wrong.”

The woman silently pushed the whining mage captain forward. Due to the poor lighting and the distance he was viewing from, Dante couldn’t see the expression on her face, but judging from her body language she was quite frustrated.

The mage captain glanced back in a disgruntled manner before he continued to walk forward. “Wait until Jax hears about this.”

The woman spoke, and for the first time Dante heard what she said, likely because she didn’t feel a need to dampen the sound after leaving the camp. Much like the woman in general, her voice could only be described as unassuming. Nothing about it stood out. “He’s dead.”

The mage captain froze, no longer moving forward. He seemed shocked by the news. The woman didn’t stop though, she just continued to push him forward. The mage’s voice was full of surprise. “How?”

“How do you think?” Now he could be certain that the woman was frustrated, her tone made it clear enough.

The mood drastically changed, any resistance that the mage captain put up was gone. He now walked forward without being urged.

Dante watched the two walk past the tree he was perched on as they moved deeper into the forest. He didn’t move to immediately follow. Instead, he waited until he could barely hear their footsteps with his heightened senses before Blinking across the treetops.

He followed behind them at a steady pace, having no issue keeping up with the mana cost of Blink. The long journey gave him plenty of time to contemplate who these people were. Initially, he assumed that they were working for Captain Williams. After all, the captain had plenty of reason to get rid of the mage. That conclusion became increasingly unlikely though. Even if he ignored the conversation he overheard, there was no need to go so far into the forest to dispatch someone.

He thought that the highest probability was that they were part of the assassin’s guild, but that also shouldn’t be possible. Putting the matter of Victoria placing a boycott on the enemy army aside, he didn’t know what their objective could be. The mage carried a decent amount of influence, according to Jayden, but his presence in the war thus far was practically nonexistent. If the mage was an assassin, he had likely spent the past few months waiting for an opportunity to dispatch his target. And if that were the case, Dante was the most likely person to be targeted.

It was an hour later before the pair stopped moving, to Dante’s relief. He thought that they would never reach their destination. So much time had elapsed that the night was coming to an end. The sun had yet to peak over the horizon, but the sky was already starting to brighten.

The arrival at their destination was indicated by low hissing. It was an obvious warning hiss and seemed to come from three different sources. The noise was remarkably similar to the sound made by the blue bellied lizard he had killed with Victoria, yet far louder. He didn’t know what type of creature was making the noise, but it was massive, and there were three of them.

There was a sharp cracking noise that Dante couldn’t identify the cause of and everything went silent. Then a masculine voice he hadn’t heard before spoke up. “Where is the boy, don’t tell me you killed him?” The voice was gruff and gravelly. It was the kind of voice Dante heard from the most hardened veterans in his army.

Dante’s eyes narrowed after hearing the voice. If he was being targeted it would be best to hide and wait for Victoria’s return.

“Well,” the mage captain said with trepidation. “That’s not exactly the case. There were a few unforeseen complications.”

“Unforeseen complications?” The woman cut in. “Like what, becoming the captain of a mercenary group and fighting in a fucking war?”

Dante winced, he hadn’t heard anyone speak that venomously since Melisandre left.

“No,” the mage captain was indignant. “You don’t know what I’ve been through, that kid is a monster. If he didn’t think I was already dead… I don’t even dare to think of what the consequences would be.”

“If he thinks you are already dead, why were you staying in plain sight?” The woman interjected.

“I’m not stupid,” the mage said proudly. “When I made my initial move, I hid my appearance.” There was a brief pause. “Where is Tristen and Bannon?”

The gruff voice answered. “Dead.”

The mage uttered a curse. “This was a Goddess dammed suicide mission. And how exactly am I being blamed for acting with caution? At least I’ve kept an eye on my target, we can still go get him.”

“For all the good that does us,” the woman shot back. “Julien is long gone. Left over a month ago.”

The mage groaned upon receiving the news. “Why didn’t you two already head back? Rohan is going to be angry enough from Jax’s death as it is. If he gets this news late…”

“We’ve spent the past month in this damn forest waiting for you!” The woman was practically seething.

The mage spoke meekly. “You could have just come and got-”

“And risk alerting the Aldrasa?! Are you out of your mind?” Judging by the sound of her voice, the woman was close to becoming violent. “If she wasn’t there I would have dragged your ass out of that camp a month ago.”

Aldrasa was likely an assassin title or something similar that referred to Victoria. He didn’t know how they would have identified Victoria as one without at least getting near her though. It was apparent that Victoria’s recent departure was the reason that this woman had finally made her move though.

“It wasn’t exactly my idea to get close to her, she arrived after I did. The only thing I could do was maintain a low profile and keep an eye on my target.” The mage sounded as though he had been wronged. “So…” He spoke carefully. “What are we going to do now?”

“What do you mean?” The woman’s words became ever so slightly sharper.

“What I mean,” the mage said conspiratorially, “is that we would be better off dead than returning to Rohan with the way this mission turned out. Why not just stay? Live the easy life for once. It wouldn’t be a stretch for them to think us dead. After all, we did lose three people.”

There was a long stretch of silence, and although Dante couldn’t see what was happening, he had a feeling that the mage’s proposal wasn’t well received.

“Is that a joke?” The gruff voice’s tone was completely flat.

“How could it be a joke?” The mage was incredulous. “Failing the mission was bad enough, but losing Jax is another matter altogether. Even I have cause for concern. I can’t imagine how the two of you could be any better off. What sounds better, Cyrus, a taste of the easy life, or a few years of punishment at the hands of Marcus?”

This time after the mage spoke there was no silence, just the sudden sound of turbulent, roaring fire that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Dante was still trying to make out what the sound was when it came to a sudden stop.

The woman sucked in a sharp breath that was clearly audible, despite the distance. “I know he was annoying, but did you have to kill him? If his uncle finds out…”

“He wont. Get this cleaned up.” The gruff voice briefly paused before turning accusatory. “I can’t believe you made me waste a month waiting for this trash.”

“We couldn’t just leave him,” the woman sulked. “The Goddess only knows how much trouble he would’ve gotten into if the Aldrasa hadn’t been nearby.”

There was a grunt of agreement.

“Still,” the woman spoke as though she was in the process of completing some menial task. “You could have let me know you were going to kill him. We already waited a month, stretching things out for a few more hours, or days, wouldn’t have made such a large difference.”

Dante made a mental note not to get too close to these two in the future. Killing someone for a small suggestion was bad enough, but the woman sounded borderline psychotic.

“All done.”

She wasn’t answered, but the creatures that growled when they first arrived seemed to come back to life. He could hear low rumbling and the flapping of wings as something stretched out and prepared to depart.

There was more flapping, then commanding shouts from both the man and the woman as the creatures leapt out of the treetops.

Dante peered out of the trees from a distance, watching the three massive lizards spread their wings in the poor lighting. Dante sucked in a large breath. Even from a distance, the green wyrms were clearly identifiable. He knew that there were people used them as mounts, but seeing them in person for the first time was somewhat surreal.

When it came to their ability to fly, green wyrms were much like raptors. Perhaps slightly faster if they were older, but also losing out when it came to the duration at which they could fly. Green wyrms were vastly superior offensively though. Their status as a fourth-tier creature alone was enough to let him know how terrifying they were, and the fact that they often turned on their riders made them creatures that were seldom sought after as a mount.

Dante waited a few minutes after their figures disappeared on the horizon. Then, after making sure they weren’t coming back, moved to the clearing where they had been only moments ago.

The first thing that drew his eyes was the section of scorched earth. Not only was it still extremely hot, but some of the rock underneath looked as though it had melted. Whatever skill that person used was ridiculously powerful.

From what he had heard, he was quite certain that the mage was dead, but there was no indication of that from the patch of burnt ground. No corpse, no ash, and no burnt items that might have indicated a person had previously died there. The woman had likely cleaned hidden any evidence of the murder.

Judging by the fact they had waited for the mage for a month, and by the woman’s response after he died, he could be pretty sure that the mage had a somewhat extraordinary status. In other words, he had excellent material to blackmail them. Unfortunately, the only name he knew was Cyrus, and he would only be able to recognize the woman.

Dante looked around the clearing. Nothing else really caught his notice. There was a firepit and a lot of wyrm feces, but otherwise it was quite empty.

He headed back toward his army’s encampment, finding the entire situation he had just witnessed to be completely interesting. Especially after the pleasant surprise of not being the target they were talking about. He found that being a bystander was thoroughly enjoyable. It did make him wonder who the mage’s target was. After all, it was someone in his army.

One very annoying person was the most obvious suspect.

After making it out of the forest, he stumbled upon a pleasing development. Captain Williams made his move.

Dante’s eyes were immediately drawn to where Captain Lawrence’s mercenary group was confronting Captain Kloss’, as it seemed to have sparked the ensuing madness. Those two groups were at a complete standstill, and although there appeared to be tension between the two groups, there seemed to be more confusion than hostility. Next to them was Captain Williams, his mercenary group was cutting the two groups off from the section of the camp that Captain Kinton controlled. All of his mercenaries and subsidiary mercenary groups had weapons drawn as they lined up. From what he could tell, they were going to fight with Captain Kinton soon.

Unfortunately for Captain Kinton, the two dead captains hadn’t told their men that they intended to align with him. And even if they did, the new captains would likely have their own ambitions. So, all Captain Williams needed to do was keep them sequestered until the fighting started.

Dante took advantage of the chaos to squeeze through the army. Then he spent a few minutes convincing his men to let him in, avoiding quite a few arrows from both sides in the process.

Almost immediately after entering the camp Jayden rushed over to greet him, pushing away the combatants surrounding him with weapons drawn. “Dear brother, so good to see you doing well. I presume that you were successful?”

As soon as the combatants heard ‘dear brother’ they all frowned. Then they looked at each other, then shifted their eyes to him. They all knew that Jayden only addressed one person like that. The combatants quickly sheathed their weapons before saluting with a unified “sir!”

Dante waved them all off, grabbing Jayden by the shoulder and leading him away. “Could you stop calling me that?”

Jayden actually seemed to consider it, taking a moment before answering. “No.”

Dante rubbed his face, removing the light layer of dirt that helped mask his features. “Things did go well. The mage captain was quite troublesome though, what made you single him out?” He studied Jayden carefully as he waited for a reply. The mage had said that his target thought him dead, which was likely true if Jayden was the target. From what he knew of Jayden, he would have ruthlessly eliminated the mage as quickly as possible if he knew of the mage’s existence, not waited months.

But if Jayden somehow knew about the mage and then sent him, that was another matter altogether. That would have been complete manipulation. He didn’t know what he would do if that were the case, but he would need to get rid of Jayden at the very least.

“The way he interacted with the other captains was strange.” Jayden shrugged. “Even those of higher rank deferred to him. So, after he aligned to Captain Kinton I decided that he was an unnecessary variable.”

Dante nodded as they continued to walk toward his command tent in silence. Then, when they arrived, he turned to Jayden and asked a question in an offhanded manner. “I never asked. How did you get conscripted into Warlord Vidal’s army?”

“Conscripted?” Jayden scoffed. “If anything, I conscripted him. Some hooligan in a mask was following me, so I used Warlord Vidal’s troops to eliminate him.”

“Why would anyone want to kill you?” Dante said in a sarcastic manner.

“Dear brother, next time someone in a mask is shooting bolts of lightning at me, I’ll be sure to ask why.” Jayden said with equal sarcasm.

Dante instructed Jayden to notify him if there were any major changes before going into his tent. He had all of his preliminary questions answered. Victoria would be a massive help in finding the truth of the matter when she returned.

He slumped into his bed, looking sullenly at the fox that was already wrapped in the expensive furs he used as blankets. Both he and Shade had a love for sleep, but only one of them was constantly deprived of it, which was so unfair.