Chapter 25

  Once Hitasa and the hunters were settled outside the crater of the first {tear of God}, Dalex left Buddy to watch over them and then summoned two more {attack golems}. Dalex and Seventh waited at the entrance to the cave for them to arrive. They descended through the atmosphere without breaking the sound barrier, silently floating to a stop next to the human and the [android].

  While Dalex called for the {staff of storms}, Seventh did not manifest any weapons. He wondered how she would choose to fight if another swarm of mutts appeared. Before Dalex could ask, Seventh sent one of the {golems} into the cave and then followed after it. Dalex hurried to catch up and the second {golem} took up the place behind him, watching their backs.

  No mutts barred their entrance. When they reached the cliff face, the bodies of the mutts Hitasa and the hunters had killed were gone. Dalex and Seventh cast {fly} and lowered themselves into the pit, bracketed by the {attack golems}. The bottom of the cave, now several yards lower than it had been, came into sight. Dalex noticed movement on the ground.

  He cast {far sight}. A handful of mutts were in the process of dragging away the corpses of their dead packmates. A sporadic line of the creatures led Dalex’s eye to more tunnels in the cavern walls. There were at least four other entrances to the cavern that Dalex could see, and maybe more that he could not.

  The {attack golems} opened fire, killing a fair few of the scavenging mutts and driving the rest into the tunnels. Dalex and Seventh touched down and Dalex asked, “Why were they taking the corpses away? Do they care about their dead?”

  “Unlikely,” Seventh said. “There is a high chance that mutt bodies contain some amount of benefine. It would be prudent for the unknown faction to recover its losses.”

  Dalex examined the closest dead mutts with a sickening feeling in his stomach. “Don’t tell me we need to collect the corpses ourselves.”

  “No. Benefine refined and formatted by the unknown faction is unusable to us. We need the metal in its raw form.”

  Dalex scanned the chamber, looking for the telltale signs of {adamantine}, chief among them distorted light. With all of the messy mutt bodies and uneven light from the {attack golems}, he wasn’t sure if he would even spot the signs. He couldn’t hear the noise {adamantine} emitted either. It had been obvious with a thousand mutts hemming him in. Now that the living ones were gone, the dead mutts didn’t make a peep.

  “Is there any raw {adamantine} here?” Dalex asked. Seventh’s senses were probably sharper than his own.

  Seventh was silent for several seconds before concluding, “None within a mile. However, the tunnels branching away from this point are not natural. It is likely they were built by the mutts and connect to other caves in the region which might hold stores of benefine.” She paused as if in thought. “I will call for probes to explore the tunnels. It will take time, and they will require escorts.”

  The {void stalker} carried plenty of {exploration golems} that could follow the tunnels back to their source, but there weren’t enough {attack golems} to go around.

  “We still need the hunters,” Dalex said. “You must understand that. They know more about how the mutts behave than we do, and they have almost two decades of information about where the mutts have been and where they might be right now.”

  “I am forming a model of mutt behavior,” Seventh said. “But I do see the continued value of the hunter information network.”

  “They won’t work with us if they don’t trust us,” Dalex added. “And they definitely won’t help if they’re dead. Can I ask you to worry a little bit more about their safety? Hitasa, too. She trusts us the most right now, and she is a valuable source of information.”

  “If it does not jeopardize the mission to do so.”

  Dalex tried to keep his smile. “I would ask that you try, even if it might make the mission a little more difficult.”

  Seventh did not respond. Dalex supposed partial agreement would have to be enough, though he could never expressly rely on her to keep his new allies safe.

  They left one {attack golem} behind in hopes of denying the enemy access to their refined {adamantine} and then returned to the surface. Once outside again, Seventh called down what {golems} were available to begin scouring the tunnels. She and Dalex left them to their task and walked back to Hitasa and the hunters.

  When they arrived, Dava was awake. The other hunters sat close by him, making him drink water and examining his wounds. The plant matter that had covered his body was gone, and his exterior injures had been reduced to angry red welts. Whatever spell Hitasa had used to heal him, it hadn’t done as clean a job as Dalex’s {cure wounds}, but it had probably saved the beastkin’s life.

  Hitasa sat apart from the others, her features exhausted but alert enough that Dalex wasn’t worried. Now that she had paper to look forward to, maybe Dalex could press her about the issues plaguing her psyche without triggering another catatonic episode.

  “I did not expect to see you alive again,” Dava said when Dalex approached.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Oyuun said as much.”

  “How did you defeat three mutts on your own?” the beastkin asked. “And after such a great fall, no less.”

  “Three?” Dalex had momentarily forgotten that they hadn’t seen the full horde. “Oh, right.” He paused, not sure how much he should say. Would they believe the den of five mutts had actually been a thousand? And would it do them any good to know there were probably a lot more roaming around underground just a short distance from their home? “Well, it was tough, but I pulled through. Sorry I couldn’t help out more.”

  “I’m just glad we—” Dava began.

  Metsa interrupted him. “It was a lot more than three, wasn’t it?”

  Dalex froze. “What do you mean?”

  She touched an ear. “Even among elves, my hearing is excellent, and the howls I heard from down that cliff were like nothing I’ve ever imagined. You were down there fighting for several minutes before you called your explosive magic.”

  “Well, like I said, it was dicey battle.”

  “How many, Ser Dalex?” Metsa asked.

  “I heard it as well,” Hitasa added.

  Dalex gave them both a wan smile. “I’m not sure you want to know.”

  “Tell us,” Dava said, his voice serious. “We are Gaia’s first line of defense. We must understand our enemy.”

  After a sigh, Dalex said, “Seventh estimates I killed somewhere between seven and eight hundred mutts today. There’s a chance maybe as many as that fled after the {tear of God}, but it’s impossible to say for sure. It’s a mess down there.”

  Hitasa and the hunters were silent for several seconds, then Oyuun let out a cackling laugh. “He’s selling more dog’s breath. There aren’t that many mutts this side of the Misties. We would know if there were. Hell, we’d all be mutt shit by now.”

  Both Dava and Staja looked equally skeptical. Maybe Dalex should have kept the number closer to their expectations. Twenty mutts would have been alarming enough.

  “I believe him,” Metsa said. “I understand your doubts, Oyuun, but you don’t have ears like mine. The sound was terrifying. It was all I could do to focus on the three mutts in front of us.”

  The group was silent for some time, no longer as much from disbelief as from fear. Dalex could see it in their faces. All of them felt the mutts surging in great rivers beneath them, to what purpose they could not guess.

  Dava looked up at Dalex. “Truly? More than a thousand?”

  “Easily.”

  “And you killed eight hundred of them?”

  “More or less.”

  “Who are you?”

  Dalex blew out his breath and spread his arms. “I’m Dalex of the Expedition 7.”

  ***

  As the group returned to camp, packed their things, and made for the Welcome Waters still moored a mile downriver, Hitasa tried and failed to focus on the idea that more than a thousand mutts had been hiding so close to Batulan-bar. All she could think about was paper and what she would write on it, along with the occasional intrusion of the memory of Dava and Metsa’s conversation when they thought all hope was lost.

  Your people need you.

  What is my cause without its backbone?

  What did they mean? Hitasa thought she knew, but she couldn’t be sure.

  With Dava still recovering, it took them an hour to reach the river boat. The crew welcomed them aboard with a barrage of questions, mostly to do with what the two ground shaking explosions had been. They had also heard some echoes of the two dragon roars, though they rightly guessed the noise had come from Dava’s word of power. After all, it had been publicized directly to them.

  Dava gave the crew a brief rundown of the incident, explaining that there had been more mutts than expected, but not quantifying exactly how many. He and the other hunters had come to the conclusion that it would be better to wait to make that information public until Dalex could identify just how much danger the mutts posed. Hitasa wasn’t sure exactly how he would verify that, but he said he was working on it.

  After today, she didn’t think she would doubt his capabilities ever again. She had not seen him among the mutt horde, but she had been witness to his god’s tears and had heard some semblance of the chaos Metsa described. Whoever Dalex really was, he was powerful. With any luck, he was also worthy of trust.

  The journey back down the river to Batulan-bar was smooth and easy. Traveling with the current made rowers unnecessary. That and a healthy tailwind meant they arrived within five hours.

  Before they were within sight of the city, Hitasa managed to get Metsa alone for a few minutes. The elf matron greeted her warmly and asked what she needed.

  Hitasa answered, “What you said in the cave: you told Dava you couldn’t go on in the cause without him. I want to know more. What cause? Who are you?”

  Metsa’s expression did not change, but her eyes shifted left and right, looking for listeners.

  “Do not worry,” Hitasa said. “I would not ask if I feared we would be overheard.”

  Adopting a sweet smile, Metsa said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. You must have misheard. The battle with the mutts was so chaotic, and you were out of sorts.”

  “I did not mishear. I will not give you away to the humans. Not even Dalex has to know. But. I. Must.”

  The smile slipped an inch. “You are too desperate, girl. Do you think a few words of power make you special? Forget what you heard.”

  “My name is Hitasa of the Perhethion. My brother was Sitoa of the Perhethion.” She took a deep breath. “I. Must. Know.”

  Metsa stared at her for several seconds, her features impossible to read. Finally, she said, “Perhaps just the right amount of desperate, then.” She looked across the deck at the setting sun and then back to Hitasa. “Come to the lodge the day after tomorrow. Do not bring Dalex or Seventh.” She paused once more then finished by adding, “Measure your expectations.”

  She walked away from Hitasa, and Hitasa let her go. Her heart was racing. I’m not alone. I’m not alone. It slipped out under her breath, “I’m not alone.”

  ***

  The Welcome Waters pulled into the same dock it had departed from the day before. The crew tied down the moorings and dropped the boarding ramp well after dark. The hunters departed for the lodge or their separate homes. Hitasa, Dalex, and Seventh stopped at the bottom of the ramp.

  “Seventh and I have to see to something outside the city,” Dalex said. “Hitasa, you should return to the inn. Dava agreed to cover our expenses for at least one more night. I’ll see about getting us some money tomorrow so we don’t have to rely on him anymore for shelter.”

  Hitasa nodded. She was curious about what Dalex still needed to do after sundown, but she was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. A bed at the inn sounded as sweet as the branches of a canvas tree.

  They parted ways and Hitasa stumbled back to the inn, picturing the words and sentences in her mind on fine brown sheets of paper and wondering just what Metsa was doing that required so much secrecy. Her mind ran wild with possibilities.

  She opened the door and walked into the empty tavern beneath the inn. It was quiet, and she didn’t fully recognize that as strange until she reached the middle of the common room and stopped.

  But it wasn’t truly empty. A lone man sat at a table to her right.

  Castreier waved congenially and said, “Hitasa! I was beginning to think I picked the wrong watering hole.”

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