Medi ignored her and handed her pack back to her before the two of them returned to the trail. As they made their way into less rocky terrain Medi spoke up, “L’Vira is a strange place. We aren’t going there to help their people. We have offered it many times and they flatly refuse any aid.”
Maria inquired, “Why?”
“They claim they deserve to waste away. None of the town’s people has ever revealed what great crime they committed but they believe it was enough to merit their extinction. The Three are certain that their time is short. If our village was not there to distract the invaders the D’Vyre would have long thrown themselves on their blades.”
Maria shifted uncomfortably and asked, “I hate to say this but if they have this dogmatic belief that they deserve to die why haven’t they all taken their lives by now?”
Medi gave her a look over her shoulder and replied, “Many believe that the highest gift the goddesses gave us is life. The L’Virans are very zealous in their faith. The town itself was the center of the Earth Goddesses faith for centuries. Now it is just a ruin.”
Maria wondered at the connection between this L’Vira and the ruin she had found. She inquired, “Are there no Vyre in L’vira?”
Medi shook her head but did not turn back as she said, “All Vyre succumbed to a plague decades ago.”
“Like, all of them? The entire race?,” Maria asked with concern.
“As far as I know. There were Vyre everywhere in the Expanse decades ago. The invaders would have been sent packing easily if the Vyre still lived. My,” the warrior stuttered but kept on, “my father said there are massive empty Vyre cities to the west. The D’Vyre refuse to live there. I have heard a lot of different theories from the D’Vyre I’ve met. Some say they are haunted by vengeful Vyre spirits. Others say that Noctis blooded dwell there now. My father believed that they were just empty and those who avoided them were just superstitious.”
Maria watched Medi’s back as they walked and asked, “This plague didn’t spread to anyone else? It was just the Vyre?”
Medi nodded, “As far as I know.”
After a long moment the grath warrior added, “The most important thing for you to remember is that these D’Vyre don’t want your help.”
Maria considered the comment but did not respond, falling into her own thoughts.
–
An hour later the two of them emerged onto an overgrown and overgrown trail of what appeared to be shaped wood. Closer inspection showed that it was actually petrified. She wondered how they sourced all of the ancient wood but rather than ask Medi she settled on ‘magic’ as being the answer.
Beyond what appeared to be a gate made of similar material was the picture of a beautiful village in steep decline. There were a series of short and circular brown buildings covered in vines throughout the small valley. Trees were growing up through the streets around them. It was beginning to be hard to pick out the buildings as time marched on and reclaimed it. Above them a number of decaying buildings filled the upper boughs of the tallest trees in the valley. Although light filled some of the grounded rooms only one of the towering trees had any light in its windows.
Tall figures shuffled amongst the buildings. Most wore dark and worn clothing huddled and hunched with as little skin visible as possible. As they neared the buildings one of the figures shuffled out to meet them. They pulled back their hood to reveal the sallow and extremely pale features of a D’Vyre. Like most of his kind he had long pointed ears and slender lithe frame with sharp features and lime green pupiless eyes. He was not as tall or stooped as his Vyre progenitors. He had a series of black blocky tattoos up his neck in the shape of some kind of draconic creature.
The man’s eyes were heavy and half closed. The smile he mustered was meager as he raised a long fingered hand and rasped in a husky voice, “Hail Mediana. No Totomac today?”
The woman shook her head as she rummaged in her pack and he continued, “It is almost certain to be for the best. He did not make the best impression on the elder on your last visit.”
Medi did not respond as she pulled out a pair of small leather bags and handed them to the man. He grimaced at them and nodded before looking at Maria and asking, “Who is this?”
The grath warrior glanced at Maria with a cold expression as she said, “Just another warrior learning the patrol. If you could shift the beads we will leave your village with all speed.”
A few of the other L’Virans had started to move in and study them with interest. Most all wore their hoods up but none of them spoke. There were no children amongst them.
Maria noticed several of the D’Vyre fidgeting, their body language nervous and stressed. She looked over to see Medi giving her a pointed glare and she shrugged in response.
A moment later as Medi was watching the representative toss yet another bead into the second pouch the warrior grumbled, “You’ve lost a lot in a week.”
Meanwhile, Maria noted with interest that almost all of the D’Vyre clothing not only looked worn and poorly cared for but seemed to be covered in grime and in some cases blood where they had been injured by scrapes and cuts.
She spoke up as Medi and the representative discussed the counting of the beads, “Medi told me some about your people.”
Her fellow traveler gave her another hard look that she ignored as she continued, “If you are all just waiting for the end, why is it that all of you look exhausted and injured? Are you guys doing a lot of hard labor?”
Medi narrowed her eyes at her and said, “It’s none of our business,” she glanced past her and growled, “calm down.”
She gave the warrior a hard look with squinted eyes. She had been getting angry. It was clear that someone was exploiting these people but, how did she know? She looked over her shoulder again and saw nothing. How the hell are they reading her like that?
The D’Vyre representative glanced upward with concern before turning back to Medi and handing over the bags. His voice was calm and cold, “We don’t require any aid at this time hunter. Please move on.”
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Medi gave him a long look and Maria took the opportunity to look up toward the massive trees that filled the small village. There were figures only briefly visible amongst the high limbs. She tried not to recoil or react but her natural fear of what she saw made it difficult.
The creature she saw, however briefly, looked like a horse sized spider but it was somehow malformed in a way that she wasn’t able to identify before it vanished into the darkness on the other side of a branch.
She looked to the representative and to Medi who seemed unsure. The tall D’Vyre looked down at her with a cold flat expression. After a moment she gave a tight smile and reached over her shoulder to grab a series of headless arrows from her quiver as she said, “Here’s the thing. I am kind of new to all of this. I honestly couldn’t give two shits about whether you weirdos want to waste away and die here in this village.”
She knelt and drove the rough arrows into the dirt at her feet, using the movement to channel coat into the heads of the arrows. She stood as she continued, “I do have some moral convictions though. I am not a fan of slavers. So, are they willing to talk about why they are doing this?”
The corner of the D’Vyre’s mouth twitched upward as he asked, “Who?”
Maria’s mouth curled further into a knowing smile, “That’s their first chance. They don’t get a second one.”
Medi glanced upward and hissed, “This isn’t our problem.”
Maria looked up and saw several figures descending the trees and grimaced at the horrifying sight. They were less spider-like and more akin to scorpions with massive segmented black bodies with a series of razor sharp legs running the length. Extending from the rear of the creature in lieu of a tail was the arched and curled purple skinned body of a Vyre except its eyes were entirely black and its mouth was full of massive saber-like teeth. At the end of its thick muscled arms were a pair of scorpion-like pincers with a weaving black tentacle between them.
The D’Vyre simply parted as the massive creatures thundered to the ground churning through dark ground with their heavy spear-like legs as they moved toward the two grath.
Maria whispered to Medi, “Can these things be reasoned with?”
The grath shook her head, “Reason with a Shok? They will either kill us or enslave us, and if you are looking to free the D’Vyre that isn’t going to happen.”
Maria cursed and snatched her arrows up as she turned to run, “That is unfortunate.”
She turned with a stone headed arrow drawn and fired it into the body of the first onrushing insect hybrid. It screeched and snapped the arrow off its shoulder with a claw as he charged forward.
Medi, meanwhile, had rushed into direct conflict with a female Shok. Her brief training sessions with the grath hunter were not a testament to her true skill. The spear spun, deflecting the much larger claws and spear-like legs of the massive creature despite their size difference. Waves of compressed air flew off the edge of her spear causing shallow cuts to blossom on the hybrid creature’s flesh. She weaved in when she could bounding over the larger creature’s body with impressive acrobatic ability.
Maria took the opportunity to fire an arrow into the creature hounding Medi and the arrow sank into its thick arm. She turned and pulled another arrow quickly and fired it into the Shok bearing down on her with it’s massive maw of teeth open in a roar. She dropped her bow and yanked her hammer out of its loop as she charged toward the creature.
One of its legs skittered across her arm through her reflexive layer of stone armor and into the flesh beneath. As it thundered over her she swung the pick side of the hammer in between the segments in the beast’s hide. The pick was lodged into its hide and she was dragged along with it. The beast continued to gallop forward for several steps. It spoke in a harsh grating whisper, “Are you stuck little bug? Let me get you free.”
She felt it flex all of its bladed legs and bared her teeth as she flicked out a finger and caused a spike of stone to heave up out of the ground beneath it. The Shok didn’t realize its mistake until it drove the stone spike into its body when it slammed its huge body into the ground beneath it.
Maria rolled away from the gout of dark fluids that gushed out of the wound with her hammer in hand. She turned and let the hammer fly toward the beast’s head as she charged toward her bow.
Nearby Medi had dispatched the first of her foes and was weaving her spear in a duel with the third of the Shoks, a slender male. Maria heard the sound of myriad sharp legs tearing through the stone ground in pursuit.
She rolled and grabbed her bow from the ground spinning to fire another arrow at the creature. At this range the arrow couldn’t truly miss. It impacted around the towering beast’s shoulder and it paid the strike little heed. It bounded in close to her and snapped out an arm claws flexed open and tendril whipping about. She dodged beneath it and then rolled away from a second that drove into the ground with a crunch. The tentacle between the now lodged claw writhed out and wrapped around her legs. It yanked her back toward the claw as the beast pulled it free from the ground.
As she was lifted from the ground she grabbed an arrow from the quiver on her back and fixed it on the bow. The rest of the arrows tumbled free as she was held upside down and dragged between the teeth of the claw. Upside down she aimed as best as she could manage and then let the arrow fly. It flew into the beast’s neck with a heavy thunk. The monster let out a gurgling cry as the claw closed in tight and crunched into her body around her reflexive Stoneflesh arte.
The bow fell from her hands and she futilely gripped the toothed edge of the claw to try and wedge it open. Her fingers slipped in the blood and she cursed as she lost her grip.
Faintly she heard the sound of a voice nearby and she turned to see a D’Vyre who was readying to toss her something. She thrust out a hand and the tossed dagger flew past her and was tumbling to the ground when her tail snapped out and grabbed it. The teeth were digging in deeper as the Shok growled in triumph, its voice gurgling from the throat wound, “Such a tiny thing. Barely worth a meal.”
Her tail flipped the dagger up and she caught it. With the last of her strength she heaved the rusty blade toward the huge black eye of the leering creature. The beast’s eye burst as the blade plunged in. It shrieked and dropped her to the stones as it tumbled backward and rolled across the stony ground.
She hissed through bloody teeth and curled into the fetal position as she watched Medi walk up and use her spear to impale the dying Shok’s throat and pin it to the stones.
Maria channeled a small amount of healing into her sides as Medi yanked her spear free and stalked over to her, looking down with a sigh, “How many times did I say that we aren’t here to help these people?”
Maria coughed and took a deep pained breath, “You think there are more than three?”
The warrior considered her for a long moment and said, “If there are then they are fools for not finishing us off.”
The female D’Vyre who had thrown her the dagger spoke up from the shadow of a nearby building, “There were only three.”
A number of the more brave villagers had gathered as Medi kneeled and studied her wounds. An ancient old man’s voice was a gravelly growl, “They were forcing us to dig caves for them below the village. They threatened to attack other villages if we didn’t help them. Our lives are one thing, but we could not see harm come to others.”
Maria gave her warrior companion a cocky smile.
The grath woman gave her a withering look and then turned to the D’Vyre, “Do you have medical supplies?”
An ancient woman hobbled forward and knelt beside Maria. The runes on her nails flashed with green energy as she pressed her hands softly to her injuries. Warmth shot through her sides and she could feel an itchy sensation as the wounds knitted closed.
Feeling fully restored Maria took Medi’s hand and stood. She noticed the younger liaison who had traded beads with Medi upon their arrival having a whispered conversation with two of the hooded D’Vyre. He seemed deflated as he walked away from them and strode up to say, “Please accept our hospitality and stay the night in the village.”
The man’s narrowed eyes and snide tone showed his view on the offer.
