After the chaos inspired by Tecal Iltzin and her hanran, Phyrn’s chosen had struggled to find an establishment that was actually open for business. They had not been able to sit in at a tavern or restaurant to eat a proper hot meal, but they had been able to stock up on food they could pick at while back on the road. They had also taken some time to reorganise their belongings, given all the new space they had in which to do so, before heading out into…

The Ijiak Open: a deceptively mundane region of grassy, arid earth, the true depth of this plain cannot be seen with the naked eye. It could, however, be felt by those sensitive to it, and Emilie was the first to shiver at the peculiar permeation in the air. “How can it be both… warm and cold at the same time?”

“Feels mild to me,” Krey shrugged.

Pippy and Livia exchanged a glance, nodded at each other. “We feel it too,” Livia spoke for the both of them.

“Oooh,” Krey hummed, “I know what you’re talking about now. Yes, I can feel it just on the periphery of my senses; this stretch of land is deeply stained with old magics.”

Emilie shivered again, but, this time it wasn’t simply from the thick mana in the air. “Old magics…? How old?”

“Hmm…” Krey stroked his chin. “I can’t recall off the top of my head. Very old, in any case. Please, My Lady, do not let your imagination run away with you and spook you.”

“I am not ‘spooked’,” Emilie snipped. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something that made her face light up. “And I am not imagining! Look!” She pointed off the road, and approaching them was an entire herd of mighty stags. They were not just any stags, though; they were arietes. Each of them had antlers made purely of a different precious stone— sapphire, amethyst, emerald, ruby, quartz, jade, lapis lazuli, onyx. They were a galloping menagerie of fearsome gems, and they cut straight across the path of Phyrn’s chosen… and came to a halt in their way. They stood abreast across the road, forming a blockade. The one with antlers of sapphire stepped forward, reared up onto its hind legs, and let out an impossible whistle that the adventurers felt in their very souls. It formed words in their minds like a waking dream; it was communing with them.

Tread no farther on this path, mortal children of flesh and cloth.

Face the trials of thine own ilk on the longer way round; do not provoke Her wroth.

Emilie went to speak for the group, but Krey threw his hand out to the side in front of her. “Please, My Lady… allow me. Yours is communion with the gods… but these are my signet— my kindred spirits.”

Emilie nearly objected, but she couldn't refuse the logic of his words. She nodded, and so did Livia and Pippy when Krey looked around at them.

“Thank you.” He stepped forward and cleared his throat, making sure to speak clearly and with utmost respect to the mystical beasts he had the honour of addressing. “Arietes, please, we tread this path at the behest of one of our makers. We must make haste, and have no time for diversions.”

The arietes all whistled this time, and now all their minds were filled with a chorus of voices instead of just the one.

Thine is the mantle we bestowed, but another way even thee should desire.

For thy power doth pale in comparison to ours; thou will not withstand Her ire.

Krey drew his sword and raised it skyward. “Then join us, and whatever this ‘Her’ you warn of is, we shall face it together!”

Our light hath wained with the passing of time; we have never known the embrace of sleep.

She, however, has slumbered for thousands of years, and now with renewed strength returns to creep.

If we cannot deter thee, then we shall fulfil our oath as thee would thine.

We shall race ‘cross the fields, lay by night in the heathers.

We shall blister with speed, as light and silent as a bird-o’-prey’s feathers.

“Thank you.” Krey sheathed his sword and bowed deeply, his right fist over his heart and his left across his back.

Emilie’s mind had been racing all the while, and when Krey returned to them, she had to speak. “Krey… the arietes cannot possibly mean what I think they mean… can they?”

“I don’t know, but I would trust them with my life without hesitation, so I have no choice but to believe what they’re saying.”

“What, what, what?” Pippy bounced into the conversation. “What’re they talking about, hmm hmm hmm? Who’s the what’s the who and what now?”

Livia put a hand on Pippy’s shoulder, and the battlecaster’s excited bobbing began to slow. “I think I know. You told me a campfire story not long after we first met… the story of the arietes and the hirquus.”

Krey grimaced and nodded. “The arietes have no other nemesis. They tolerate no evil, and fear no evil… but if they did fear an evil, it would be that one.”

“The hirquus are extinct,” Emilie bedamned. “Between the arietes and the Decakon, none of those foul wretches could have escaped death.”

Livia was dragged into the depths of her own mind when Emilie spoke. She thought back to the adherents of Sage Cid the Red who had come to her village, promised to protect them, sworn their very lives to the cause of defeating the scourge that spread through their land. She remembered the look on the face of one of them as he was swallowed whole by the inky black. Her mouth twisted down, and her eyes glassed over. Her voice was coarse, cutting through the discussion not with volume, but with gravitas. “I will forgive your ignorance just this once, My Lady, as you have not witnessed the true extent of evil’s adamance. I have. I know I don’t understand what the hirquus are specifically, but I do know this: a warning of coming evil cannot be ignored. No matter how ridiculous their claim might sound… we must listen to the arietes. We must!” she stamped her foot, a petramantic quake rippling through the ground from under her. It sent shivers up the spines of her comrades, and the knives her glare shot dissuaded their own stares.

Pippy dared to speak next. “I… I know exactly what you’re talking about, Livia. I have no idea what a hair cuss is, but if something as beautiful and important as those stags thinks it’s worth investigating, then I say we go too.”

“There is simply no need,” Emilie insisted, her hands balling into fists. She turned on the arietes. “O’ Arietes, I am aware that you rose for the very purpose of defeating the hirquus, but that purpose has passed. The hirquus are dead, you saw to that. The gods saw to that.”

It’s true the gods laboured to make this world so great…

But no being is infallible; even we have made mistakes.

The hierophant was a saintly figure, incapable of debasing herself with a sound such as a snarl… however, the voice she spoke with next might have been comparable to such an unworthy sound. “Have you no faith?”

“My Lady, please,” Krey pleaded, reaching out to her. “Your Holiness.” His voice dropped. He stepped close to her, having to tilt his head down to maintain eye contact. “Your conviction is most admirable, and I know it is because

“I…” Emilie’s lips trembled. “I understand. You are right, of course… it’s just…” Her face threatened to drain of colour, but her complexion was made rosier when Sir Zoubor lowered down on one knee in front of her and took her hand. She was almost startled by this, and her eyes widened even more when he held the back of her hand to his forehead.

“You are not alone in your fears, My Lady… I, too, shudder at the thought of what we might face up ahead… that such a thing might still exist in our time. But we do not stand alone; we have our friends, and the very protectors who once delivered us from evil long ago. If there’s even a chance that a hirquus still lives…”

Emilie raised her other hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. “You speak true, Sir Knight. Very well… I suppose, if there’s even a chance…”

Krey stood and smiled at her. “Thank you, Your Holiness.”