Chapter: 371 Bonus - Hidden Monsters (Patreon)

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(This is the October Bonus for Transcendent and Archon patrons, granted to all others a little early so it is on theme.)

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The humans traveled in their boxes, pulled by dim witted, horned beasts and ringed by experts of profanity and near-sacred steel.

They tried to cross the land that was not theirs. They were not welcome, and they knew it. This explained their vigilance.

Their travels were always opposed, but despite that, they won through the opposition far more often than not.

Too often.

This time—this group would not succeed in their trespass.

This "caravan" would not reach its destination.

Night had fallen and the boxes had been drawn into a circle, the humans attempting to forge a shelter against the harsh world in which their very existence was a violation.

They were wise to be afraid and take precautions.

They were foolish to think they’d done enough to be safe.

A creature with no human name sank downward from a cloud-filled sky.

There was a guard on watch atop each box, and three more walking various patrolling patterns within and without the circle of the caravan.

The single Mage Protector was awake, scanning the surroundings with his power.

Unfortunately for those below, even as that man’s power swept over the slowly lowering form, it detected nothing.

Nothing is also what the guards saw when they glanced toward where the Mage had last been seen. His place was suddenly vacant, his mug steaming beside where he had been sitting.

Nothing was what the guards on the wagon tops saw when they looked about for those who had been patrolling. Though, the sharpest among them almost had time to notice the tracks through the snow that stopped suddenly, without obvious evidence of where the one who had made them had gone. She almost had time before—

Nothing was all that watched over the helpless mundanes in their false sense of security, asleep within their oh-so-flimsy boxes.

And moments later—

Nothing remained.

* * *

Mar-achi watched contentedly as rope-like hostility rose from the deep.

The human fishing boats had strayed to the edges of their annoyingly effective defenses, and a winter storm had miraculously come out of nowhere, drawing the struggling, disparate fleet out to sea.

As if by magic. His too slick lips pulled back in a smile, revealing an almost beak-like mouth.

That unexpected storm had drawn them out into the turbulent ocean, where humanity was ill equipped to survive.

There was nothing protecting them now save a bare handful of Mages.

None of any consequence, their blazing, forced open gates wastefully dumping power into the world and making it all the easier to find them.

The ships who carried such would be dragged down first.

Their city defenders would not detect the miniscule threads of power used to provoke the storm, because the storm, itself, wasn’t magic in the least, and Mar-achi had been careful.

After all, he was well-practiced at this game, having played it many times through the passing millennia.

The surface of the sea was already choppy as winds whipped and pulled, tore and flayed.

The sky was dark with heavy-laden clouds, only occasionally lit by green lightning.

The watchers in the city wouldn’t see what happened to these men.

All as planned.

It was in one of those flashes that humans finally noticed their own predicament. They were so unobservant. With a barest fraction of the power each of them naturally drew forth, the least talented Child could be safer and better informed.

The threat from below crystalized in their awareness.

Sea-serpents by the hundreds boiled up from the depths.

The greatest among the swarm were as large across as a man was tall, and there were more than a dozen of even those.

To their credit, the fishermen did not despair.

The creatures of the deep were known to them, and they were used to fighting them.

Serpent blood filled the water, clouding even the magicsight of the few Mages with the scattered fleet, but they beat back the onslaught with barely any losses.

Yes, grow confident.

One ship was unlucky enough to have two of the largest snakes focus on it at the same time, and that crew and vessel were lost.

Besides that, the humans seemed rather proud of the defense of their livelihood.

That is, until the waters turned to glass around them.

The storm still raged, but the water had locked in place, the ships at awkward angles as they’d been riding the waves.

Fishermen stumbled as they had leaned into the movements of their vessels, only for that to have suddenly halted mid-sway.

At the moment of their triumph, Mar-achi made himself known.

The Mages spun, feeling a swelling of his power as the octopus beast-man suddenly stood at the center of the stillness.

His voice was but a whisper, but it reached every ear. The power required was so miniscule, a lesser worker of power would have ignored the expenditure.

Mar-achi had never been so frivolous, and he cataloged his every drop of power as it was drawn in or used up.

“Surrender and serve the House of the Turbulent Ocean, or die in my wake.”

The Mages attacked.

The Mages died.

Seven ships—each having supported a Mage—were no longer upon the surface of the motionless seas.

Rain poured from the skies.

Green lightning flashed.

The Eskau spoke once more. “Surrender and live. We are merciful to those who serve us.”

Thus, Clevenhold lost a chunk of its fishing work-force, and not a single one of the storm tossed vessels returned to port.

Thus, the House of the Turbulent Ocean gained more than a hundred vestiges-to-be.

An excellent catch.

* * *

The roc circled high above the floating monstrosity in the dead of night.

All those bound to the earth were to be pitied, and those who broke free were to be lauded.

These ground-born had built a wonder in the skies, pulling taint from the world to keep their creation within the lofty realms, but then, they had polluted it with those who drew corruption in.

The roc did not have deep enough thoughts to hate, it wasn’t even truly angry, but from the core of its being, it felt a need to bring them low.

Unfortunately, the flying city was too well defended for the roc to bring it crashing down, despite the great bird’s desire.

So, instead, the roc orbited the dwelling place of filth, keen eyes watching for—

There.

A gated was alone, exposed enough to the glorious sky.

With a graceful tilt of her wings, the roc swooped down.

Her wings were not as silent as that of the owl, but she managed.

After all, the reality of night this high was homogeneity of noise and movement.

When she plucked the gated from within the city, she did nothing so foolish as lift him screaming into the sky.

Her back talon pierced clean through his back and out his chest, killing the abomination with the single blow before she tossed the body over the side, even as she rolled to avoid the flickering, magic-wrought lightning sent to drive her away.

The city’s defenses were annoying persistent, after all.

More than that, they would now be keyed into the roc as a threat. If she took another this night she would be struck from the sky.

That was acceptable. She could return the next night to remove another stain, and her fellows of the feather would each take their due.

A few would die, usually those younger and less experienced, but it was good training for the rest, and in the end, sacrifices were to be expected when one purges disease.

* * *

Halinor had been a burnt-orange hue-man in life, proud of his heritage and his coloration for as long as he’d had thoughts that he could call his own.

He no longer did.

It had been uncounted years since he’d fallen to the overwhelming power of Death, sinking beneath the Tides.

Like so many before him, his death had been more of a beginning than an end, and he had come back to his feet, rising with the Tide.

At the time of his death, he’d been helping a dwarfish mining operation, and the crush of roiling bodies had destabilized the support structures, causing a collapse that trapped them all for…

Well, truthfully, he had no mind with which to count the centuries.

But that was coming to an end.

After long dormancy, the rhythmic sound of metal tools on rock began to ping through the unmoving mounds, trapped in long-forgotten tunnels.

Years, months, or perhaps only minutes passed before the sound of tools was joined by the feeling of nearby life.

That feeling started to overturn the lethargic dead.

Halinor’s fellows began twitching, shifting, and rolling off and over one another, trying to rise to their feet with long-stagnant muscles.

The flickers of Death’s power within them was more than sufficient to throw off the shackles of time—with a little bit of movement—and ensure they would be adequately functional if they were called upon, if the life drew close enough.

He remained where he’d slumped, entirely hidden within a crevice in one wall.

Despite that, his body did begin to ripple and undulate, flesh moving beneath the remains of his once beautiful red-orange skin, preparing him for action if the need arose.

There were shouts as the first small hole opened into their long sealed chamber, the difference in pressure causing a torrent of cursedly fresh air to howl through the once-still darkness.

A moment later, stone shifted almost as a unit, the feel of living magic powerful, as the passage was suddenly fully clear.

A tunnel now connected to theirs at an oblique angle.

Light sparkled off of the untapped wealth obvious within the surface of the walls, beginning seemingly from nowhere barely inside the newly opened space

The sheer volume and accessibility of the ores elicited gasps and mutterings of greed.

Light was absorbed and muddled by the rising Tide as it flowed forward on all-but-silent feet. That silence was only spoiled by limb or flesh falling free from rushing bodies after the too-long-absence of life.

The odd squelching elicited noises of confusion followed by screams of alarm as the living noticed the Tide.

“DEAD!!!!”

Halinor still didn’t move. The spark of Death within him bid him wait, bide his time.

The Tide did not need him to charge.

Whatever worker of power had opened the passage seemed unwilling to seal it again, instead creating a field of stone spikes around which the Tide flowed, almost unhindered.

This had been a large expedition, containing myriad races, and the outflow of dead was appropriately representative.

The miners were wholly unprepared for the onrush, and their deaths were as quick as they were gruesome.

The Tide grew.

Still, it was bare moments before the sounds of true resistance began to echo from further up the tunnel.

Sound came back down into the mine: unified voices, the heavy thump of weaponry on dead flesh, and almost no screams of the living.

Pity.

The Tide did not slow, and none returned, but it still was not long before the defensive line of the living had advanced well past where their comrades had fallen.

Broad, magic-laden shields were interlocked, the small army advancing in lock-step, leaving no room for Death to gain hold or move around them.

A few minutes more and they had advanced past Halinor’s crevice, letting his empty eyes behold the dwarf who was directing the advance.

The dwarf was a stunning example of the race with emerald skin and thread-of-silver hair.

In his hand blazed a sword of power that called to Halinor, called to the spark of Death within him.

The Tide needed him to claim that weapon.

He, along with dozens of others, moved from their places of rest.

Of hiding.

Of ambush.

Many fell from the ceiling, others poured from the walls, and a few even came up from where they had laid on the floor, unmoving and seemingly already overcome.

The dwarfs of the front line cried warnings, and their magics held for the moment, even if some of those that followed behind fell to bite, claw, or bodily tackle.

The lead-dwarf calmly commanded the renewed defense, striking down those dead that came near, the barest knick from the glorious blade sufficient to cause an entire body of the Tide to simply cease to exist.

Halinor charged on silent feet, coming from the dwarf's blindside.

The Tide needed him to land even the smallest of scratches.

For such a prize, they would sacrifice thousands to infuse a foothold within the dwarven commander and bring him into the fold of the onrushing Tide.

Halinor simply needed to establish that toehold.

He lunged, utterly silent as he sailed the last thirty feet, limbs tucked tight into his body so as to not catch his prey’s attention.

There was no reaction from the dwarven commander.

Halinor was going to land his blow.

His last perception was of a glimmer of green, followed by his entire body corroding all at once.

* * *

Anatalis’s body struggled as he chased down the fleeing doe.

He reveled in the difficulty, having bound himself into the physical form of a yearling pup.

It was the only means he had to still reasonably find a hunt worthy of his time, to chase prey worthy of pursuit.

It isn’t worth obliterating a section of the far north—beyond the moving-settlement-filled plains—just to have a little fun hunting one of the prey animal beast-gods.

So, he bounded after the mundane, fleeing deer through the southern edge of his current domain, near where it abutted that of the Forest Spirit’s region of influence.

He sprang off of the sides of great trees, and they didn’t even shift under his slight frame.

The wind in his fur, the feel of loamy soil and the crunch of fallen leaves and twigs beneath his paws… It was fantastic.

The doe was young and strong, capable of outrunning any normal wolf.

Anatalis wasn’t cheating, not with physical enhancements of any kind, but he had long ago learned how to push any body past its limits through sheer mental effort and determination.

Sure, this form would ‘die’ shortly after he brought down the prey, but that was inconsequential.

It took half an hour, and he was frustratingly close to his borders. If the doe turned fully south, he might actually need to call off pursuit in order to not violate the old treaties.

Blessedly, however, he finally caught up to the animal as it slowed, exhaustion setting in.

It was a primitive-human-like kill, the animal falling over dead from exhaustion as its last bursts of adrenaline were used up.

Still, Anatalis was on his paws, and his prey was no more.

A good run, a worthy prey-beast. He might even eat it, even though it would be tough and gamey due to the long run.

Waste not the sacrifice of the—

He saw the barest flicker, his vision mundane and unenhanced.

That flicker was all that preceded him bursting in a cloud of blood and gore, a Leshkin juggernaut’s spear quivering in the trunk behind where the small wolf had been standing.

The world warped and jaws reached from beyond the superficial, biting the offending Leshkin in half before Anatalis, himself, came back into existence near the ambusher.

In his normal shape, Anatalis’s shoulders were only the height of the tottering legs.

He had never seen size as a necessity for power.

His magic finished obliterating the Leshkin it had claimed, his own mouth clean and clear of the foul acidic substance Leshkin preferred for moving nutrients around their false bodies.

When the magical jaws had finished their work, he held the beast-souls that had combined to make the being that had ventured so many miles beyond its borders.

His voice rolled through the surroundings as he addressed the struggling beings of spirit. “Why are you so far beyond the line?”

There was no response, and he honestly didn’t expect one.

“Tell your princes that I am displeased with the recent violations. If humanity has advanced as I’ve hoped, we may have to join their side to end the Wars once and for all.”

That caused the eight balls of green not-fire to freeze in place.

“Yes. Mankind and canine, side by side, joined together in war. Do not test me, weeds. This is the last warning I will give.”

He yawned, allowing the souls to flash back toward the nearest birthing tree.

Anatalis knew where they all were. It would be the work of moments to turn them all to splinters, and the battle with the enraged Forest Spirit afterward would be a welcome reprieve from his centuries of lethargy.

Yes… maybe we will go to war, whether they violate the pact again or not… Something pulled at him, making him reconsider the idea. No. Humanity has yet to be up to being an equal with the Pack.

Still, they were growing.

A test, then. If they pass, maybe our fortunes can be aligned. I would love to set this duty aside, and rejoin worthy hunters in the field of battle.

It was decided, then, he would send a test to the humans. They had a city nearing its end. That would be a gathering point for their elites.

He would send a division of the Pack to test them.

Best give warning, or they may see it as true aggression. Humans were odd like that.

It was a bit laughable, as it was unlikely that humanity as a whole would be able to cause him more than passing inconvenience if they waged war on his forest, but it would be difficult for his lessers to fight alongside the humans if mankind saw wolves as true enemies.

A personal visit, then. I will explain what is to come.

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The End of Book 9

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