Page 28 of Of Scale and Blood

Once I’d called in the two other riders, Kerryn offered me a hand so I could mount up behind him. When Mac was similarly mounted, we made our way back to the rest of the squad, signaling ahead so that they knew it was us coming in.

“Guard post?” Damon asked.

I nodded and slid over the rump of Kerryn’s mount, dropping lightly to the ground. “Given the likelihood of there being others, we’ve more chance of getting close to that shield unseen on foot. The squad will hold here while you and I see what we can do about that shield.” I glanced up at Kerryn. “Call in the rest of the team and stay wary.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Damon dismounted, then handed his mount’s reins to Sora. “Shall I take lead?”

I nodded, and we moved out quickly. The odd sense of wrongness up ahead sharpened abruptly, and unease crawled across my skin. “Something’s happening.”

He nodded. “Feels like they’re refreshing their barrier spell, which suggests they haven’t linked it to the energy within the earth.”

“Why wouldn’t they do that? It would conserve the strength of their mages, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but Esan’s earth mages would be able to detect the unusual flow of energy through the ground.”

Fog stirs, came Kaia’s thought.See white ones.

Doing what?

Make small throwers.

The images accompanying the comment showed what initially looked like our ballistas, but where the arrow should have sat was some sort of metal tube—one that looked a little too much like a larger version of the ones the gilded riders used.

“According to Kaia, the fog dissipated briefly during the renewal; the Mareritt are making mobile weapons.”

“Which explains the construction sounds we’re hearing, though it’s a strange place to make any sort of siege weapon. It won’t be easy to haul them through this forest.” He motioned to the left. “The nearest pin lies that way.”

We cut to the left, moving quickly and silently through the trees. It was another dozen or so yards before the fog came into sight, and it was utterly solid. Sound might creep past but there was no seeing through it.

We followed its length until we came to an unnaturally sharp junction of two walls. Even someone with absolutely no knowledge of magic would have guessed this wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

Damon squatted a few feet away from its sharp point and brushed his fingers across the ground, his expression distracted yet intense. After several minutes, he glanced up at me. “There’s no taint of the gilded riders in this wall, no matter how it might seem from above or how foul it feels.”

“Which doesn’t discount the possibility of them working together.”

“The Mareritt are no more the type to share the spoils of victory than the gilded riders appear to be.”

“Perhaps not, but what if they have a trading relationship? I did find a golden feather on that Mareritten youth, remember, so they’ve obviously been here.”

“I suspect when we get past this wall, we’ll uncover the answer.” He drew his sword. “I’m going to slide the sword into the ground and under the pinning stone to push it slightly out of alignment. That should briefly alter the viscosity of the spell without rupturing it and give us a small window in which to slip through.”

“We can’t just destroy it, like we did the one in the blue vein?”

“Aside from the fact I have no idea what else is woven through the spell aside from the barrier threading, we also have no idea of their numbers or indeed what else lies inside.”

If fog break, Kaia said,I attack.No like white ones.

I passed the comment on to Damon, and he laughed softly. “Her chance will come, and sooner than any of us might want.”

Not soon enough, she grumbled in response.

“Ready?” he added.

I nodded and drew my sword, tension running through my limbs and flames briefly flickering across my free hand.

He thrust the sword at an angle into the soil, under the fog, then twisted the blade sideways a fraction. There was a soft clunk as metal met stone, then the wall shimmered, shifting in and out of existence. Damon grabbed my hand and pulled me into it. Tiny particles of moisture slid across my face, the sensation oddly unpleasant, feeling more like oil than water. I shuddered but resisted the temptation to raise the inner heat and burn the droplets from my skin. As Damon had said, we had no idea who or what lay beyond this barrier, and I was better off conserving every scrap of flame strength I had.

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