Heir of the Gods

Ch. 54: The Art of the Hunt

Calix let out a huff of frustration and pushed back from his desk, rubbing his aching eyes. Tarquin glanced up from his own reading and the soft murmurs from his guards—his witch-hunters—quieted. He could feel their worried gazes on him.

They were running out of time.

A fortnight had passed since Calix had come across the death-maiden bathing in the forest. Two weeks he had spent combing through reports, desperately trying to unearth a plan of attack. To find some way to train his men—to give them some sort of foothold in what seemed to be an impossible battle.

He rubbed his hands down his face, looking around the tent. Everyone watched him with expectant eyes. That expectation forced him to begin the same circular conversation they'd been having for the past three days.

"The Narrow Valley is still the best place to start?"

Petran—their tracking expert—answered, because he knew he was supposed to. "Yes, sir. We've scouted all the other land in the same mile-radius. There's no sign."

"Fresh signs have been found around the river?" Tarquin asked—because he always did.

"Every time," Petran confirmed, sounding as frustrated as Calix felt. "But it always goes cold."

"Here," Valerius said, tapping his pencil against the map he had been modifying with Petran's help. The tip of the charcoal was trained on a dot that had been labeled Cairn.

Calix scowled at the scribbled word. The Cairn was at the valley's north-most end, a stack of glittering white stones as tall as three of Calix. Any trail Petran managed to find always, always disappeared at its base.

"The snow turns to ice around it," Tullus said listlessly, hunched in his chair at a small table beside the tent's entrance. A scarf wrapped around his throat muffled his voice.

"But nothing appears in the snow on the other side." Petran leaned back against one of the sturdy tent posts. "It's just"—he flicked his fingers in the air—"gone. They disappear."

"So, in infuriating conclusion, all we know is we have to go north, along a valley just begging for an ambush." Tarquin rested his folded arms on the desk, dropping his head to them.

"To fight a creature we...still don't know how to fight," Tullus added.

Sighs rustled through the tent as each man returned to his work, the quiet broken only by Petran and Valerius murmuring over the map and the snores of Valerius' dog, Maximus. He lay sprawled beside Valerius where he and Petran sat side-by-side on the floor.

Calix pursed his lips, tapping his fingers on the heavily annotated reports spread out before him. His own messy handwriting was crowded in beside Tarquin's elegant scrawl and Tullus' neat letters. He read a few of the notes, hoping for a bolt of inspiration.

Robes—ceremonial? No need for armor.

Black hair—uncommon for the Brunian peoples.

They carry no weapons (unconfirmed).

Reports all say the black mist goes where they direct.

He stared at that last note, written in Tarquin's hand. The mist was what killed people. The maidens had some sort of control over it. Calix had come back to that note over and over, feeling its importance, but unable to articulate why.

Annoyed by how it took up his attention without presenting any answers, Calix stuffed the report at the bottom of a different stack of papers.

Finding the maidens wouldn't be the hard part. As Petran had established, they seemed to frequent the stream Calix and Tullus had discovered. The problem was what they were supposed to do after they found one.