Chapter 37

Jito was recovered by noon the next day. At least he was recovered enough to keep up, if not in fighting condition. I wasn’t sure if my session with Myta the night before had quite the effect I wanted, but at least it had the effect that she’d wanted. She seemed a bit more relaxed at least, and the one time I’d praised her with a ‘good girl’ out of sight of the others showed that at least some of my commands stayed with her. I admit, causing her to swoon with nothing but a couple of words was a stroke to my ego.

The other hunters returned near noon as well, reporting similar findings to Denu. At that point I saw no real alternative, I needed to go examine the warded areas myself.

“Why is it so important that you take the lead, master? Just feeling a need to run headlong into potential danger?” Myta asked me.

“If there are sorcerous traps laid, or clues to be found, I am the only one with the skills to identify them.” I replied. “You learn quickly, but you don’t have the experience I do with such things.”

She snorted, smirking just a little. “You can look through me easily enough, and my aspect is better for getting out of harm’s way. I’d rather have you in a safer spot in any case. No one else here has more than the most basic healing skills.”

I couldn’t fault her logic, though it galled me a little to let others take the risk on my behalf. I grinned however, as a sudden thought struck me.

“What?” She asked, seeing my expression.

“”I think that’s the first time you’ve argued with me, and you were correct. Well done, my flame.” I leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Good girl.”

Myta went rigid, letting out a sound like a hoarse hiccup as the wave of pleasure took her by surprise. She steadied herself by grabbing my shoulder as she swayed for a moment, then let out a shuddering breath.

“Wicked master,” she murmured, glancing around quickly to see if any of our companions had seen. “I think that was stronger than earlier. Did you do something different?”

“No, but it’s been less than a day.” I mused. “The changes probably just haven’t finished yet.”

“So it might get even stronger?” Her voice rose in pitch a little, sounding mildly panicked. But there was a smile on her lips. “Best not do that when I’m fighting then.

“I won’t.”

We headed to the warded area, and I was firmly in the middle of the group. Myta led the way, and Ket trailed behind. For once the spirit was keeping us apprised of her position, and she’d told us that, while she couldn’t find her way into the warded area on her own, she would be able to follow us.

I’d suspected for some time that the leopard had some kind of spiritual tether attached to me. How else could she communicate with me over long distances? And despite my inability to find any such link this all but assured me I was correct. Whatever the link was, she must be certain that it would guide her through the ward’s interference.

As Myta had suggested, I followed her senses as she passed through the sorcerous barrier. It wasn’t as though I were there, precisely, I was sorting through her impressions second hand. I couldn’t really ’look’ at anything she wasn’t already paying attention to already, but my vas was observant, and I could also nudge her where needed.

She and the rest of the vanguard swept through the area quickly, so I wasn’t waiting long in any case. As Denu had already told us, there was nothing obviously out of place, no signs of recent habitation. I did find traces of sorcery, however. Traces that were tantalizingly familiar.

“I think I know what this is, though I hope I’m wrong.” I said to Myta. “Just give me a few minutes to confirm, and have your men keep their guard up.”

She nodded, and gave out some terse instructions, infected by my tense mood. I closed my eyes to better focus on the mana around me, tracing out the edge of the warded area. As I’d feared, it was perfectly round.

Almost all wards were spherical, extending from a central point that was some form of enchanted object. But wards weren’t generally static things. They flexed and rippled at their edges like curtains caught in a gentle breeze, yielding to stronger flows of mana before directing them away. I only knew one kind of ward that didn’t show this effect, and they weren’t created by anyone living.

Myta gave me a worried look as I cursed aloud, but followed silently when I made my way to the exact center of the area. There was a large boulder, sitting at the edge of a small clearing. It was covered in moss, and looked natural enough at a glance, but I knew better.

“They’re hiding in a ruin of the ancients.” I said to my vas, as well as the small group that had tagged along after me.

“There’s an entrance here,” I pointed to a spot in the ground. “We can use this stone to open it.”

Look of curiosity and understanding passed across the faces of the group, in nearly equal measure.

“You have experience with the ruins of the ancients?” Hati asked the question they were all thinking, and I grimaced at letting loose one more secret.

“This type of ruin, specifically. The ancients were not one people, it’s just the term we use for dead civilizations, who had knowledge beyond our own. I recognize this type of ward and entrance.”

“If they’re in there,” Cato started, “why not just drop a few trees over the entrance? Or can we disable it some other way?”

“That’s half of a good plan,” I nodded in approval. Myta was the one who understood immediately.

“They’re connected underground, aren’t they?” She asked, but didn’t wait for my confirmation. “There’s two other warded areas nearby, and those are just the ones we know about. If they’re connected, sealing one entrance won't do much.”

“That’s… how would you even build tunnels like that? And why?” The sergeant shook her head in disbelief, but I just shrugged.

“I don’t know, that’s why they’re ancients.”

“So, we need to seal two entrances as best we can, and then follow an unknown **** into an unmapped warren, and try to distract them from leaving.” My flame stated it matter-of-factly, not sugar coating the situation. “What can you tell us about the interior?”

“It depends on how similar they are.” I replied. “I’ve only been through one other ruin of this type, so there’s no telling how similar they will be. The entrances were identical though.

“The ruin I visited was extensive, like an underground warren. The tunnels would branch and recombine without any clear pattern, and there were traps. Easily sensed by a sorcerer, but deadly. The walls can’t be breached, we never found anything that would damage them, and the entryways would appear in clusters. Just like these.” I went on for some time, describing my past experiences as the company organized to block and trap the entrance, directed by Cato. He had apparently inherited at least a portion of his father’s skill.

We finished the day by performing a second round of spirit tempering on our first batch of volunteers. It was a risk, but our situation called for risks. All those who had gone through the first ritual successfully now held enough mana for at least three more nodes to be purified. Hati and Denu had their entire spirit bodies refined. We treated seven people, more than we’d planned for in that first, disastrous attempt.

Our next day was a repeat of the same, traveling to the second warded site, blockading the entrance, then strengthening more of our fighters. That was all we could afford to do. Over half of our people had been through the ritual twice, and we even lit large bonfires to restore Myta’s mana as quickly as possible.

I debated myself for awhile, withdrawing to attend to the rest of the company would put us on better footing. But most of those who remained had only been able to purify a single node in the first round. Pushing them further would take days more, and the Pure might uncover our interference at any moment. We opted to do without, resting up for a dawn ****.

Ket was willing to serve as our scout, even though the walls of the ruin blocked her ethereal passage, and muddled her senses. Those with only mundane sight would be unable to perceive her at all, and even most sorcerers would need to be actively searching to spot her cloaked movements. I triggered the door, a disc of stone that rose from the forest floor, floating to one side. Not a single clod of dirt fell away from it, some magic holding the disturbed humus in place. Neither did the soil spill down into the sloping tunnel it revealed.

In a flash, the spirit leopard was gone, and our group began to quietly follow. There was little point in waiting too long, as there was no immediate greeting party, and our descent was required. Ket moved quickly, and she’d let us know as soon as she found anything of note.

The tunnel concerned me, looking a bit different than the other such ruin I’d been in. It had the same, rounded configuration, and the same slick walls that reminded me of glazed pottery. Translucent near the surface, but opaque within. The differences however, were stark, and I wondered how much of my information would still be applicable.

Instead of brilliant white, the walls were a fleshy tan color, with dark veins of red-brown running through. There was still light coming from the ceiling, its sources somehow embedded beneath the surface. But these lights flickered, and their color shifted, making the walls seem to shift and undulate.

An impression that was only enhanced by the fact that all the surfaces were uneven. Running a hand over the surface revealed the waves in the stone, and more than a few people scuffed their feet or stumbled across a gentle, but unseen irregularity in the path.

When the tunnel opened up into a nearly circular chamber, I breathed a sigh of relief. Here at last we saw signs of a camp. Marks of a fire, discarded waste, and on the walls there were charcoal marks that were clearly trail signs.

Myta held up a palmful of flame to illuminate them better, these marks could provide us some invaluable information. But before she could do more than glance at them, the deathly quiet was shattered by inhuman shrieks.