The hunters made no contact with their prey during the first day, though Kosh’s team kept them on the right trail. That was to be expected, with the one-day head start the escapees had. They were running north — for what, no one could say. The only thing there was the edge of the Splinter, and not even the Wayfarer could tell Ana if there was anything they could do there.
Though I didn’t know the Sentinel could mess with Delves the way he did, so expect the unexpected, the goddess warned unhelpfully.
They stopped at sunset, raising their tents in a glade by firelight and resting only as long as it took for the sky to begin to lighten. Everybody got as much sleep as they needed, and no more; those with a high Willpower divided the watches between them, leaving those whose Attribute was lower to rest.
Since Ana could make do with less than two hours of sleep, that meant that she spent a lot of time sitting outside the camp proper, near her Party’s tents, staring into the dark forest. Her high Perception could only do so much for her sight, and her night vision wasn’t much better than it had been back on Earth, but her Keen Hearing Enhancement more than made up for it. The higher her Perception got, the more the Enhancement amazed her. When it was new, months before, she’d been able to hear one person’s heartbeat if she focused and there weren’t too many distractions. Now, in the silence of the night, she could hear the individual heartbeats of the people sleeping in the tents behind her. She could follow the movements of rodents in the leaf cover on the forest floor, and the flights of bats and nocturnal birds between the trees. She could tell who was having a troubled night’s sleep, and which pairs — and one trio — were using the night and the relative privacy of the tents for something other than rest. She couldn’t blame them. For all they knew they might walk into an ambush tomorrow and have the earth swallow them. If blowing off some steam would let them rest more easily, well… Ana would probably be doing the same for Messy if she were there.
She couldn’t help but shake her head at the thought. Even more so at her resurgent awareness of Messy’s absence. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been during her Delve with Kaira and the others — knowing that what she felt was real helped. It was different now that she could be sure that her suffering was her own, and not just something the System forced her to feel.
It still sucked. She looked forward to the day, hopefully soon, that Messy could join her again.
Kosh came to find her during the darkest part of the night, after the moon dropped behind the trees but before even a hint of twilight hit the sky. “We’re moving out again,” the Pathfinder told her. “With any luck we’ll get eyes on them today.”
“They can’t be moving fast,” Ana said. “Half of them are Stolen or social-Classers, and most of the rest are mages. I doubt a single one of them can move near as fast as you.”
“Yeah,” Kosh agreed with great satisfaction. “And unless they want to leave people behind, they’ll only be moving as fast as the slowest of them. Although… I mean, what if they do? Callous fuckers may just ditch the slowpokes.”
“I expect they will,” Ana agreed.
”Yeah. So what do you want us to do if we catch anyone lagging behind?”
“I don’t want any prisoners,” Ana said, her voice flat. When Kosh didn’t reply, she asked, “Will that be a problem?”
“Well…” Kosh looked away, shrinking under Ana’s stare. “I mean— some of them, they’re traitors, right, but they’re people we know. I’m not sure—”
“If none of you can do it, bring them somewhere close to the main group, and come get me.”
Kosh’s throat bobbed at the finality in Ana’s words.
“Understood?”
“Yes, Marshal,” Kosh said meekly.
“Good. Now get going. The sooner we catch these shitstains, the sooner everyone back home can feel safe again.”
With a nod, the woman slipped back into the camp. Even to Ana’s hearing her movement was almost silent, and if Ana hadn’t been listening for it, she wouldn’t have noticed the small Party of scouts vanishing into the forest.
Ana was proven right when they found the first body around noon. One of the Stolen; Ana recognized him from Eria’s failed ambush. He’s been struck by two arrows, then decapitated. Kosh and her people weren’t going to risk leaving any revenants in their wake.
“Looks like they’re not afraid to leave people behind,” Kaira commented.
“They never expected people like him to survive, anyway,” Ana said, staring down at the body with cold satisfaction. All the imprisoned Stolen had confessed to being part of the group who beat Messy. What had this particular guy done? Was he the one who broke her nose? Her ribs? Had he split her lips or lacerated her liver with his kicks?
She was aware of her aura shifting, becoming cold, sharp and turbulent, and clamped down on it as best she could as she continued, “He was a tool, supposed to die fighting us or when the Splinter collapsed. You think they even hesitated to leave him on his own?”
“I don’t know, Ana,” Kaira said hesitantly. “Some of the traitors… they were good people, you know?”
“You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m not saying they’re innocent. Just, you know. Tirella, the Baker, she used to throw in an extra roll for me whenever I went by her shop. Stuff like that.”
“And yet she did nothing while Trig held a blade to Messy’s throat, and tried to force me to commit suicide by proxy.”
Kaira’s cheeks puffed as she blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah. She didn’t,” she said. Though, by her body language she wasn’t so much agreeing as she was accepting that Ana wouldn’t change her mind about the traitors.
Honestly, it wasn’t that Ana refused to entertain the idea that some of the people they were hunting were essentially decent — she just didn’t care. Everyone they were after was a threat. They’d shown themselves willing to hurt Ana, to hurt Messy and the other people who mattered to her. Some of them had done so already, others had stood in silent support — to her they were all just as guilty, and their sentence had been made clear before she and her hunters left the outpost.
Perhaps some of them had redeemable qualities. Ana didn’t care. If they weren’t making it out of this forest alive either way, why waste time and energy thinking about them? If they needed to die so that Ana — and everyone else — could have a few weeks or months of peace, why even attempt to feel an empathy for them that was entirely foreign to her? They’d taken enough from her. She wasn’t going to give them any more of her limited emotional energy than she absolutely had to.
If anything, and if she were to be entirely honest with herself, she was looking forward to the moment they caught up with the bastards. Not because she’d enjoy killing them. She wouldn’t, except possibly a few select cases — Karti and the Stolen came to mind. Maybe Eria. Mostly, though, she just wanted this to be over.
She’d be leaving in less than two months, and she had little idea of what to expect outside of the Splinter. For all she knew the Summerlands would be either coming for her or waiting on the other side of the Waystone, in this Ellsthal place the Wayfarer had mentioned. She needed to be prepared for that. She needed contingency plans, and she needed, at the very least, to get to Level 20. And on the assumption that she survived past the end of the cycle, she needed to build up some capital; she had barely any money, and outside of this Splinter, a place that practically worshipped her, she shouldn’t expect any handouts.
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Just thinking about it was exhausting. She just wanted to have the choice of a few weeks of peace. She’d had a taste. A little over two weeks of just living, of having a routine she could fall into, and it had been wonderful. She had no idea when she’d get the opportunity again.
Goddess, she thought, letting herself really feel the weariness of the last three months. I just want my PJs and my goddamn hot chocolate.
The goddess didn’t respond.
All those thoughts came and passed in a handful of seconds, and Kaira was still waiting for her to continue the conversation. And with Ana stopped, the whole line had drifted to a halt and were standing around wondering if they were taking a break or moving on.
“Irry,” Ana asked softly, “can you do this? You did alright at the white obelisk.”
“They were—” Kaira started, then dropped her voice until she was barely speaking, and only Ana could hear. “Those fuckers were in the middle of trying to kill us all. I had no problem taking them out, and I won’t now. Same for the invaders. But our neighbors?”
Ana nodded. That was fair. “I’ll tell you the same I told Kosh. If you can’t do it, just find me. I’ll take care of it. No questions, no judgment.”
Kaira looked her in the eyes and then, without warning, threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around Ana’s neck. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I just might.”
“Incoming! Fucking incoming! Revenants!”
The distant voice that pierced the stillness of the forest belonged to Darr, one of Kosh’s Party. Ana immediately repeated the call — she knew most of her hunters didn’t have hearing anywhere near as sensitive as her own.
“Incoming revenants! Get ready to fight!” her own voice boomed out, and packs immediately started hitting the ground, swords leaving their scabbards and the limbs of crossbows creaking as they were spanned. “Forward! Onto the height!” she called out, referring to the ten-foot ridge ahead of them that blocked their sight of what was coming. Then she drew her weapon from its loop on her belt, grasped her shield firmly, and led by example.
Darr kept calling, and Ana could soon discern other voices calling with him, far to the right and left. By the way the volume of their alarm increased they were approaching quickly, and as Ana crested the ridge she could pick out four figures running toward her among the trees — along with what was following them.
From her new vantage points she could see and identify three sapient revenants. And though it didn’t make sense, though that wasn’t how revenants and demons were supposed to work — they weren’t supposed to gang up outside of Delves — she’d bet anything that there were three more coming their way, hot on the scouts’ heels.
Ana Inspected them, and wasn’t at all surprised by what she saw. [Revenant of Gabriella Pérez (Threat: Serious)]. [Revenant of Frederick Sakyi (Threat: Moderate)]. [Revenant of Martin Deppert (Threat: Serious)]. Ana didn’t know them, but those were Earth names.
“Goddamn Binders,” she muttered, then called out, “Human revenants! Moderate or Serious to Level 18! Backliners fire at will, but watch our scouts! Take ‘em out before they reach us! Frontliners, screen the back line!”
From the small height, the back line had all the margin they needed to let loose without worrying about either the front line or the approaching scouts. Arrows and bolts flew first, snapping and hissing through the air almost too fast for the eye to track. Some hit trees; some simply missed and continued past their targets, either due to poor aim or the revenants’ unpredictable, jerky movements. But some struck home.
They weren't enough. Revenants were by definition already dead, and didn’t bleed. But they did throw off the balance of the revenants that took hits, making them stumble and spacing them out slightly.
Shortly after the first volley of mundane attacks, Kaira, Deni, and Jancia opened up. One of the two searing bolts of plasma that tore downrange blasted a chunk out of a tree, which slowly toppled with an echoing, splintering crack. The other took a revenant in the side; it kept coming, spilling entrails all the way.
Jancia took a different approach with her attacks. Instead of the sustained beam she'd demonstrated to Ana, capable of cutting a hole through solid rock given time, or the wide, strobing flash she’d used to blind charging changelings or the Sentinel’s mages, she swept low and slow, aiming to cut tendons and ligaments in knees and ankles. It wasn't terribly effective against the revenants, unfortunately; they were unnaturally resistant to damage in general, and didn't seem to follow basic rules of anatomy such as “joints need proper support.”
What it did very effectively was to set their clothing on fire, making them eminently visible to the shorter-ranged mages who let loose as soon as they thought it was worth the attempt. What they lacked in accurate range, they made up for in stopping power. Light and plasma were good at setting fires and blowing chunks out of things, but they didn't have much mass. A sizable rock or a ball of ice travelling at fifty or sixty feet per second, though? They may not destroy a revenant outright, but they stopped them in their tracks, sending them stumbling, spinning, and tumbling to the ground.
Ana itched to move up and finish them off. Her bonuses hadn’t kicked in yet, and she yearned for the rush to take away the fatigue and the frustration, leaving only the rush of life-and-death in their wake. But she forced herself to hold back. She was trying to take Kaira’s words to heart. It didn't matter that the revenants were battered and spaced out, or how easy it would be; Ana didn't have to do everything herself. She didn't have to take any extra risks, not when she had three dozen Delvers with her eager to do their part. No matter how much she wanted to.
The retreating scouts passed through the gaps the frontliners had left them, and the back line really opened up. The revenants didn't stand a chance; the archers saved their arrows, but the mages pounded them literally into the dirt. If one managed to so much as get to its knees it instantly got focused on until the surrounding ground was churned, steaming mud with chunks of what had once been a person mixed in.
Not the most efficient use of mana, perhaps, Ana thought. But none of her Delvers got hurt, and that was what counted. As for the revenants, they barely even needed to check for notifications in the end; if any of those things were still animate once the mages stopped they would have just had to dig the deepest hole they could and dumped it in there, because she wasn’t wasting any more time or effort on something that was clearly unkillable. But between the three Parties they tallied up six unique names, all of them unquestionably hailing from Earth. And despite doing nothing but look inspiring, Ana even got four Least Crystals and four Shards out of her standing around. More than she deserved as far as she was concerned, but she wasn’t going to complain about free Crystals.
And besides, her real reward lay in knowing that every one of the bastards who’d laid hands on Messy was dead. She might not have gotten to do it herself, but there was some vicious satisfaction in knowing that they’d been betrayed by the people they must have seen as their saviors. It would have to do.
Unfortunately, even that satisfaction was short-lived.
“Split?” Darr’s voice cut through the sudden silence, and Ana turned to see him looking around behind the formed up Parties. “Kosh? Has anyone seen Split and Kosh?”
“They were right behind us by the stream,” one of the women from Kosh’s Party said. “And they’re still alive. I just checked the Party list. They wouldn't have taken a different route, would they?”
“Would Kosh have split off while falling back to the main force?” the other woman from Kosh’s Party asked, her tone flat.
“That was fucking, what’s-it, rhetorical, Yna,” the first one snapped. “Of course she wouldn't! So where are they?”
“Ladies, stop bickering,” Ana said, and the two immediately fell silent and turned to listen. “Scouts, whoever’s second in command, take the Party and backtrack the way you retreated. We’ll follow you. Priority right now is to find Kosh and Split. We’ll make up for lost time by increasing our pace for a while afterward. Move out!”
The four remaining scouts nodded almost as one. The only one who hadn’t spoken, an elfin man who was as anonymous to Ana as most of Kosh’s group, gestured to the others and led them back the way they'd come.
“The rest of you, good job! Now get your packs, double time. Let's not let the scouts get too damn far ahead of us!”
Soon they were walking carefully past the remains of the revenants, and through the devastation that was all that was left of the forest around there. The churned, wet soil was a real hazard, threatening to steal boots and break ankles with every step. Soon, though, they were past, and Ana brought them to a light jog. Omda and two other Rangers from the main parties quickly took point, just like they had before the revenants, making sure that the small force stayed on the right track.
They hadn’t gone long — ten minutes at most — when they found Yna waiting for them, alone and looking far too grim for Ana’s liking.
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