Chapter 51

Trying to get to Heaven

Femira winced as Drad placed a cold hand on her stomach. The bruises and scrapes inflicted by the giant crab pincers faded on her skin. She rubbed her hand over where the injuries had been and felt a tingly prickle. The wounds hadn’t disappeared but appeared to be almost entirely healed, the healing process having dramatically accelerated her body's natural healing.

“Take it easy tonight,” Drad said in his unusually high-pitched voice.

“Well, I’ve no plans to dance around the fire,” she grinned at him and he sheepishly avoided her gaze as she pulled back on her shirt. The royal bodyguards are so serious all the time.

It had been a pleasant surprise to her that Drad was an accomplished healer and carried a bloodstone with him. I suppose that’s why Landryn brought him. It’s not like the Prince needed any assistance in taking down the crabs, but having a healer on hand was just good planning. The rest of the team were an assistance but Femira didn’t doubt that Landryn could’ve taken all of the things solo if he’d needed to. He hadn’t even taken a single hit in the whole fight and had felled two of the creatures.

Kendrick was holding a broken arm close to his chest, having taken a blow on it from a crab claw. The five of them sat around a fire on the beach a few minutes walk from the ruined village—out of earshot of the squatters. They’d decided to heal up and regroup on the beach for the evening rather than pushing to the nearest inn which was a three hour ride away.

“I won’t be able to heal this,” Drad blew out a long breath, tentatively looking over Kendrick’s arm, “a few bruises and shallow cuts is fine… but this is broken.”

“I thought it might be,” Kendrick grimaced, pulling his arm back to his chest.

“There’ll be healers with enough skill to fix it up in Heraldport,” Drad reassured him, “or you could possibly wait until we get back to Epilas and leave it to the Palace healers.”

“You said that would risk the bone setting wrong by waiting,” Kendrick grumbled.

“It’s only a few more hours on the ferry,” Drad shrugged, “you’ll be fine.”

“Getting back to Epilas with haste is our priority,” Landryn put in, “we need to alert General Garld and the rest of the War Council on what we’ve found here.”

Femira’s ears perked up. Oh shit, he wants to go right back to Epilas! Garld has explicitly instructed her to keep the Prince occupied on the Tidewall for at least another week.

“Maybe we should reconsider that, sir,” Femira started. Kendrick and Drad gave her disapproving looks and Selyn rolled her eyes. She understood their reactions, Femira was a bloodshedder for only a few months and she didn’t exactly have the right to be questioning her commander’s authority. They also thought she was Annali Jahar—a woman who’d been married to a Prince—so they likely thought that she believed she was influential enough to have an input. Landryn didn’t look offended, and nodded for her to go on.

“These crabs… I think it’s pretty clear they destroyed the village, right?” He nodded again and she continued, “and considering one of them tried to eat me, we can assume that they ate the villagers. And there’s reports of more ruined villages up the coast…”

“That’s why we should return to Epilas, we need to send a force to clear out what is evidently a growing infestation,” Landryn replied.

“But we can take care of them,” she said not even feigning her enthusiasm for the prospect, “we were amazing! We killed the three of them without taking any losses and we didn’t even know what to expect. Now that we know what we’re looking for, we can prepare and attack with a tactical advantage.”

“It’s reckless,” Selyn scoffed, “and puts our Commander at risk.”

“He’s more than capable of killing those things than any of us,” Fermia rebuked, “you saw him fight them. If we come up with a few strategies, we can clear out all of the nests ourselves. I’m sure of it.”

“And if we die?” Selyn argued, “another group would be sent to look for us and face the same fate and without a forewarning.”

“We could send Kendrick back with word on what we’ve found,” Landryn pondered. Yes! I have him.

“We have a duty,” Femira said, deciding to lean on Landryn’s sense of obligation as a Prince of the realm, “how many innocent people could die if we waste two days heading back to Epilas and then more waiting for reinforcements.”

“The War Council would want to make it a local policing matter,” Landryn grimaced, “they would waste weeks deciding the best course of action…” The lock was already picked, now she just had to make off with the goods.

“We don’t know how fast these things reproduce,” she pressed, “how many more could there be in that time?” Landryn was nodding along with her. He actually looked impressed, “you’re really concerned for these people aren’t you?”

I couldn’t give six shits about ‘em

“Yes,” she replied, earnestly, “I do care.” Maybe she did care a little about them? She was mostly doing this because Garld had asked her to… but there was a part of her that felt bad for the people that had died. She’d been held by those pincers and she’d felt the terror when that crab had tried to eat her. It had been frightening but she had the skills to fight back. A lot of people couldn’t do that, and it was that feeling that excited her most. She could fight them. She wanted to fight them, she’d revelled in it. And the best part of it was that it hadn’t make her feel sick to her stomach about killing them.

Landryn wore a thoughtful expression on his face, his hand rubbing at the short growth of stubble on his jawline. He was quiet for a moment and just when Femira had decided to press a little further he looked up at each of them around the camp.

“There’s something I’ve been holding back,” he revealed, “I’ve seen these things before.” Now that was a surprise. If any of the others were startled by that knowledge, they didn’t show it. They’re all soldiers, I guess they’re used to only being told what they need to know. As a thief, not knowing all the information on a job could mean the difference between keeping your hand or not.

“What we fought are called kraglings. They’re a type of Fomori,” he said the word with a level of gravitas that was lost on Femira as she’d not heard either of these terms of before. Drad and Kendrick by contrast had furrowed brows in concern and Selyn was agape in outright disbelief.

“The Fomori?” Selyn choked, “but they—they were all destroyed?!”

“No,” Landryn replied, “driven away, but not destroyed.”

“Sorry,” Femira spoke up, “but I’m a bit lost here, what’s a Fomori?”

“The temples in Keiran do not teach of the Fomor?” Landryn asked her in surprise. Ah fuck. She’d always thought it would be some religious crap that would catch her out.

Femira had little interest in the temples in Altarea, except for when they would occasionally hand out food to the children that lived on the street. It was always stale bread and mouldy cheese. But when you’d not eaten in a few days, you don’t tend to be picky. The food wasn’t free either, you had to listen to them prattle on about their weird gods and demons.

“Perhaps the temples in Keiran, we call them something different?” she shrugged nonchalantly. Good ole reliable language barrier. She could only fall back on it so much, but it had gotten her out of more than a few tightspots in her Annali guise.

“The Fomori are demons,” Drad clarified for her, “they were all destroyed before the Age of the Sorcerer Kings.” He spoke like priest—a the man was also a healer. Maybe there was some connection there?

“In Reldon, this was true,” Landryn said to Drad, “but they weren’t eradicated entirely, only driven off our lands. I have read journals from my ancestor, Queen Elyina. There were records of them even as recently as her time.”

“So you’ve seen Fomori before?” Femira asked, she wasn’t interested in a history lesson and wanted to drive the topic back.

“Yes,” Landryn confessed, “it was before Garld and I formed the bloodshedders. I was not commander then. Border patrols to the north near Athlin had reported sightings of a large spider-like creatures.”—All sounds pretty familiar—“after a few days we found the carcass of one of them. We didn’t know what managed to kill the thing but we weren’t confident that any standard runewielder would be capable enough.”

“Was it the same as the crabs?” Femira probed, “the kraglings?”

“Bigger,” he admitted, “but yes. It was the same.”

“How much bigger?” Kendrick followed up.

“Three—perhaps four—times as large,” Landryn guessed.

“How did you know it was a Fomori?” Drad asked and there was definitive scepticism in his regard.

“The description in Elyina’s journals fits… for the kraglings, at least,” Landryn divulged freely, clearly unperturbed by their reluctance to accept his word on the matter. “There are many in the War Council that do not believe this… Or at least, they do not believe it to be a threat.”

“So what do we know about them?” Femira pressed, “how can we use this to our advantage?”

“For kraglings, we know that they are invasive with animal-like intelligence, driven more by instinct than design. They will likely have an alpha—a matriarch—that directs the spread. Possibly even creates the nests itself.”

“So we find the alpha and we stop the spread?” Femira affirmed.

“In theory, yes.”

“Then that’s what we should do!” Femira could feel the excitement in her rising. The prospect of hunting and fighting more of the kraglings filled her with a passion. Pushing her skills and abilities to the limits and with no human collateral damage.

Landryn looked to Kendrick, “in the morning,” he instructed, “you’ll ride for Heraldport and take the ferry to Epilas. Make a report to General Garld and tell him that I am requesting reinforcements to clear out the infestation.” Kendrick nodded dutifully in response.

“What if the other nests are larger?” Selyn asked Femira with distrust. Femira noticed how the woman purposefully didn’t question Landryn, instead focusing her disagreement with Femira.

“As Annali said,” Landryn interjected, “we know what we’re dealing with now. We can strategise.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I do not mean to question your authority or your foresight, but you were aware that we would be fighting these, no?”

“The kraglings have not been sighted in these lands in centuries. Frankly, I wasn’t certain that we would actually find any. It was a hunch.”

“So then where did they come from?” Selyn asked.

“That… I can’t answer,” he replied. Can’t or won’t?

“How were they driven from Reldon before?” Drad asked. Looks like she would get that history lesson after all.

“You all know of Queen Elyina, I’m sure?” Landryn asked the group, although the question was clearly meant for Femira who was the only non-Reldoni among them. All Reldoni knew of their founding Queen.

“Of course,” Femira replied flippantly, “she conquered half the continent.”

“Not as much as that,” Landryn smirked, “but all that is now Reldon, Rien, Athlin, Altarea and parts of Rubane were all under her protection—”

“—I wouldn’t consider being conquered being under someone’s protection.”

“She wasn’t a conqueror,” Landryn defended, “I know the histories they teach you in Keiran would likely paint her as a tyrant, subjugating all of the neighbouring Kingdoms but it wasn’t like that.”

Femira didn’t learn any of that Keiran, in truth she didn’t remember much at all from her early years in Keiran. Her knowledge of Elyina had come from stories, and they’d always depicted her as a conqueror.

Landryn didn’t seem offended by Femira’s input and continued on, “Elyina was a liberator, the warring Sorcerer Kings had thrown the continent into centuries of darkness… famine, disease and death. Elyina was a saviour, one-by-one she challenged each of the Sorcerer Kings and defeated them in battle. Elyina forged our nation from the ashes of their reign.” Yeah, that’s how the storytellers told it too. Doesn’t make it any less a fanciful story.

“What does this have to do with the Kraglings?” Femira asked.

“The Sorcerer Kings were the original masters of the soulstones. They wielded that power for centuries, some led armies of monsters—the Fomori among them. Elyina and her army of runewielders destroyed them. They marched through the lands and drove off all the monsters into the far reaches of the world.”

“Places like the Black Sands,” Drad added and Landryn nodded.

“We know that the Black Sands is still infested. However, the northern lands of Athlin are the barrier between Reldon and there… I don’t think these Kraglings came from the Black Sands. I believe they came from the east… something out there drove them back to our shores for the first time in three hundred years.”

“If Rien, Athlin and Altarea were all once part of Reldon,” Femira mused, “what happened?”

“Greed, jealousy… war,” Landryn admitted, “Athlin was the first to secede, they had never really accepted Elyina’s rule and still held on to their God King’s return… they still do. Altarea, as you know, went under a mutiny with the highborn living there joining with pirate factions and overthrowing the appointed Highlord. And Rien was a similar story to that. My great grandfather made a lot of mistakes in his rule. He ruled aggressively and had many enemies. Ultimately, it was his mistakes that caused Elyina’s nation to splinter as it has.”

“And your father is different?” Femira asked. She didn’t know much about King Abhran but much of what she’d heard painted him in a similar light. The others shifted uncomfortably at the question and Landryn didn’t answer, remaining silent and pensively looking into the fire.

Femira realised that she had stumbled into an awkward topic and after a few moments, Selyn informed them she was getting some rest and that she would take the later watch. Each of their horses had been packed with a sleeping roll and standard military issue tent. Femira had been surprised that Landryn’s was the same as theirs, nothing fancy about it or that designated him as being any different. That was likely the intention though. He didn’t want to be recognised on this mission.

Kendrick retired soon after, leaving Drad on first watch and Femira and Landryn still sitting around the fire.

“You did well today,” Landryn told her, “not many would have faced such a creature with as much… enthusiasm.”

“I won’t lie,” she admitted, “I enjoyed it.” She felt a grin pulling at her face, after the battle with Altareans at Inish Head, she’d been left rattled. She still felt queasy at the thought of her knife going into that stormguard’s eye and she found herself disappointed by that. What was she training for if not to fight? But after the fight with the Kraglings, she felt exhilarated.

This! This was what she was supposed to be doing with her skills, fighting and killing monsters. It was terrifying, yes, but it was also exciting and didn’t come with any pesky guilt or nausea. Landryn seemed to understand and was smiling at her, “so did I,” he admitted, “I know it’s part of my responsibility as a Prince to protect people, but I’m not supposed to be doing it like this; I’m supposed to be in command rooms and in court… out here, though,” he looked over to the ruins of the village, “it’s tangible… it’s real. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Does that make any sense?”

“It does… I’ve done a lot of shady shit in my life,” she said earnestly, “might be nice to do something actually good.” Landryn’s eyes narrowed in mild suspicion and inwardly, she chastised herself for letting her true self slip out again.

“It’s going to be dangerous,” he continued, “I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m just trying to get to heaven before they shut the door,” she grinned at him. It was something her brother used to say to her before they did something reckless.