[The Twining] 27. Drayavin (Patreon)

Legacy’s words were resonant, insistent.

Pyre of Lumina Eldrassin’s Severed Divinity. A kindling spark overstepped and was devoured by a blistering inferno. Disembodied, she watches in agony as the flames come for everything she loved. Her spirit will dissipate only after the ashes cool.

Isen stared at the pyre in shocked confusion. So far, only a few items had triggered the blessing of Legacy—the Compass of Legacy itself, the boat moored outside it, and the divine dagger. All remarkable objects.

All evidence he’d seen pointed to Shevenar being a normal town in the Elven Lands. Given the value of tier-three monster materials, Isen assumed very few people ever reached that tier, let alone tier four.

Isen averted his gaze, then glanced at Talis. “Who made the fire?”

The half elf shrugged a shoulder. “A mage, probably.”

Even if there was a powerful master traveling from town to town lighting the pyres, Lumina Eldrassin—whom he assumed to be the queen—had only died recently. Isen didn’t know anything about the political situation of Eldrassin, but he knew that whenever an important noble died in Dawnbreak, affairs descended into chaos. If the capital was in turmoil, who would bother sending a powerful mage to create funeral pyres in some symbolic gesture?

“How powerful of a mage, do you think?”

“Look down into the pit,” Talis said. “The fire’s burning mage chips, pellets of dried, compressed plant matter. A mage would just need to ignite the reaction. Even a tier one mage could manage it.”

So, then—if the fire wasn’t special, why did it prompt Legacy’s description?

Because it isn’t the fire that’s special, but something else lurking within it, Isen thought. The queen’s severed divinity. If only he knew what that was.

Suddenly, a low horn filled the town, the bass buzzing in Isen’s chest. It was accompanied by a slightly dissonant overtone that sounded two octaves higher. It was the sound a wine glass made when circled by a finger.

While the chilling music lingered, it seemed as though the entire world held its breath. Everyone in the square froze, sharing in a singular moment of pure disbelief and terror.

Then came the shouts and screaming. Several people ran away, calling to their companions and making frantic gestures. One woman dropped everything she was carrying; rather than gathering up the assortment of papers that had scattered on the stone, she turned and sprinted, holding her long skirt with both hands, not looking back.

Whatever this was, Isen didn’t think it was a routine alarm. From what Isen had seen in the nearby forests, monsters must be a constant threat in these parts. But if this horn was just signaling the arrival of a monster horde, he didn’t think the people would respond with such fear—the half elves were all cultivators, even if only in the hollow formation stage.

His experience growing up in Goldbounty wasn’t helpful. Goldbounty had occasional monster breaks, but normal people weren’t informed of them; often the only sign was the procession of soldiers from the barracks.

Isen’s eyes returned to the flames which seemed to shift, transforming into the blazing ruin of Goldbounty in the wake of the cultivator woman’s hubris, summoning tribulation lightning to cleave the Twining. How powerful was she really? Third tier? He hadn’t paid much attention to her ears, but he thought she was human.

Talis grabbed Isen’s arm, jerking him from his thoughts. “We need to go back to the inn.” He gave Druinala a knowing look, and the scout ran off. In the already empty streets, she was gone in seconds. Talis’s expression was grim. “I’ve never heard the horn before now, but all elves know to fear it.”

Isen stared intently into Talis’s eyes. “What does the horn mean?”

“It’s the signal for a drayavin raid. The drayavin are tainted, mutated. Monstrous, but not monsters—though they keep monsters as company and lords.”

“Why did Druinala go ahead?”

“To do our job,” Talis stated as he pulled Isen forward, taking off at a rapid clip. Isen kept up, but his shorter legs weren’t doing him any favors. “Protecting the caravan.”

They were nearly to the inn—Isen could see the sign, the icon of a hearth with a scrawl of elvish lettering underneath. “Shouldn’t we run, or prepare to fight?”

“Run where?” Talis asked. “The merchants wouldn’t survive a journey beyond the walls and into the wilds, even with all five of us defending them—not if the horn’s blown.” He grasped the door of the inn, pulling hard, but it refused to open. “Hey!” he cried, banging hard. He called something out in elvish, then added in common, “I have a child! Let us in!”

Isen snorted—“child” made him sound like a five-year-old—but sure enough, the door swung ajar.

As Isen and Talis ducked inside, the door slammed shut. An older woman tried to reset the lock mechanism with shaking hands. The atmosphere in the inn was suffocating. The curtains had all been drawn and everyone was quiet. Half the people on the first floor held knives, ones obviously intended for cooking and dining. A few blades looked wide and exceptionally sharp, like meat cleavers, but most were serrated and thin, little more than stilettos. The former might help, but Isen doubted the quality of the metal was good enough to penetrate monster hide.

But he also knew how a weapon in hand could serve as a comfort. When he’d fallen into the depths, he’d treated his small, mundane knife like it was the only thing standing between life and death. Whether it could hurt monsters or not never crossed his mind.

But even the most mundane blade can deal a critical blow, if striking the right place, he thought. Not monster hide, but vulnerabilities, like the eyes or inside the mouth. Still, damaging those spots with short weapons like knives was far easier said than done. Isen had only managed it against the divine bear because Ros had been its primary focus, and due to its weakened state coming out of hibernation.

Hopefully, whatever the drayavin were, they were the equivalent of tier one and two monsters. Isen and five caravan guards wouldn’t be nearly enough to handle a tier three threat.

But surely, in Shevenar, there should be at least one tier three cultivator? Isen thought. Perhaps a tier three mage?

It struck him just how outlandish such assumptions would be in Dawnbreak. The threats from the Twining were very real and could even include a tier three monster like Ros, yet he doubted any of the soldiers stationed in Goldbounty were that level. Not that he’d known about tiers and cultivation then, but he just couldn’t see it. If there were really such a powerful figure running around Goldbounty, wouldn’t people have known?

If any tier three humans—or even a tier four—existed in the Kingdom of Dawnbreak, the simple truth was that they were too valuable to bother themselves with the border hinterlands. Or maybe they only helped when they had no other choice, like during a terrible monster outbreak.

“Where’s Druinala?” Isen whispered.

Talis nearly jumped at the question. “Probably upstairs, with the merchants. They would be in their rooms.” As though shaking off a malaise, the half elf headed for the stairs. Isen followed him closely, wary around so many jumpy people holding knives—especially when all were cultivators. Even the old woman who’d opened the door was probably dangerous with a weapon in hand. Isen wasn’t a monster—he had no illusions that his bare skin would fully stop a stab.

“Should we bar the windows, barricade the doors?” Isen asked.

“That won’t stop the drayavin—it’ll only signal that there are people inside. The best strategy is to be silent and hope they go elsewhere.” Talis then called out something in elvish; a moment later, an alto voice echoed in the hallway. Isen had difficulty distinguishing where the muffled voice came from, but the half elf had no such issue, his ears perking up. He darted down the hall and knocked on a door. The thick wood opened to reveal the entire cadre of merchants all squeezed into one room. A group in the center were embroiled in an argument.

Isen just settled against the wall, finding a small, unoccupied space between the bed and dresser. He opened his pack, removed the cleaned red tunic, and pulled it over his head. The misshapen material fit snugly, but not uncomfortably, over the simple linen shirt. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Only Talis and Druinala were better equipped with actual armor.

Speaking of—the two caravan guards were whispering in hushed voices with the merchants, having interrupted the original conversation. Isen wanted to ask Talis what was going on, but it would seemingly have to wait.

Isen felt inward for the sixth sense. The scent of danger was pervasive, but not acute, so he closed his eyes and cultivated.

He didn’t know how long had passed, but when his eyes snapped open, the argument was over, though the mood was sullen. People spoke in stifled voices. His eyes fixed on a girl probably a few years younger than himself. She had delicate pointed ears and a button nose, her eyes slightly slanted, giving her an almost kitten-like appearance in profile.

The world seemed to slow as she pulled the curtain aside for a peek outside. It was twilight, the last trace of the sun falling over the horizon. He’d been cultivating longer than he thought.

Isen’s hair raised along his arms, his stomach dropping. Danger.

Suddenly, the window smashed inward. A flash of scales and claws tore into the girl’s side and flung her across the room. Isen heard a sickening smack of flesh against the wall. Even before he could discern what the assailant was, an arrow plunged into its head.

It fell to the ground and the caravan members all jumped back. Some held hands to their mouths to keep from screaming. Those who forgot themselves and began to cry out had their mouths smothered by those nearby.

Silence wasn’t just desirable, then—it was a necessity.

Isen’s gaze snapped to the broken window and the gust of wind that teased the curtain. The sense of terrible danger and dread was only mounting. He turned to Druinala on the far side of the room, bow drawn and ready to fire, muscles rippling in her shoulder and arm. Talis knelt by the felled intruder and drew his short sword across its neck, confirming the kill.

The intruder was humanoid, but grotesque, with patches of misshapen, differently sized scales patterning its body. It was clearly male, with bulging biceps and meaty fingers, half equipped with savage black claws, the others rounded and humanlike. The man’s face was a horror—one eye was slitted and yellow, the other normal, and the mouth was a mess of jagged teeth and scaly lips, opening too wide, like someone had slashed his face in half. A thick, lizard-like tail extended from his lower back, but it seemed… deformed, half covered in normal skin and ringed by bone spurs, and oddly jagged, like it had been broken multiple times and healed back together.

The blood on the man’s neck bled red, but there were small eddies of gray twisted within, tainting the blood’s purity.

Tainted ones. Mutants.

Isen instinctively recoiled. Ros said humans and animals didn’t become monsters, though monsters could rise from their corpses. But the last lesson Ros had given him was that humans could mutate if they drank the blood of living monsters. He’d said that the mutation would be uncontrollable and often detrimental. Isen could see it—having two mismatched eyes, mismatched hands, and even a bizarre, off-balance tail clearly hadn’t done the intruder any favors.

But these people were terrified, and it wasn’t because these mutants were weak.

They’re stronger because of their mutations, in the short run, Isen figured. Why else would anyone embark upon such a path without the promise of some gains?

He tried to imagine something like the lizard man attempting to break through to the next tier, though. Advancing was harder the more impurities someone had—and Isen would be shocked if mutations didn’t count.

Isen didn’t understand it. Power or not, it just seemed so… repulsive. Who would choose such a path when there were other options? Or maybe, he thought, they didn’t choose at all.

Isen was jarred from his thoughts by the stifled sobs of two figures, assumedly the girl’s parents. The girl was unconscious in a heap where she’d impacted the wall, smearing red on the brocade wallpaper. Her parents were peeling the shredded clothes from her ribs. A few others looked like they were trying to help but seemed unsure of what to do. One grabbed at the bedsheet and began tearing off pieces.

A harsh screech echoed above, coming from the roof. Isen flinched and turned back to the window. Druinala called out a hushed command; Talis and Sorina argued, until finally the merchant woman hissed something and everyone froze, even the parents wrapping a torn section of bedsheet around the bleeding girl’s waist.

Whatever was said caused the parents to burst into tears. Most members of the caravan revealed a mix of sympathetic but helpless expressions.

“Isen,” Talis growled, his voice barely audible, “grab the girl. We need to evacuate.”