Chapter 11

The night passed in uneasy quiet, the arcane light remained hovering in the air. It became less effective as the sun rose low on the horizon and mist curled around their camp. Thalora sat up in the hammock with a dramatic stretch and a yawn, awake at the crack of dawn. A half-broken biscuit abruptly landed on her lap, and the other half fell onto Talus's. 

"That's breakfast. Eat up, we'll need the energy," Crow instructed, chomping down on a ration of his own. 

"This is better than I expected from you, Crow. I take it you found it in my pack," Thalora replied, an eyebrow raised in suspicion. Talus ate it without a word, analysing the bland mixture of textures and flavours of the biscuit.

"Don't bother yourself with how I got it. It'll only shorten your lifespan," Crow retorted. He already had his boots back on and was standing in the shallow water, packing away the last of his hammock. "What I'd give to have a pair of stilts to walk in right now. Thalora, what kind of Magi can't fly across this shards-forsaken wetland?"

"The kind who has no choice but to rub shoulders with a lowlife like you, Crow," Thalora replied, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She silently peered over the side of her hammock at the water with revulsion. To her credit, the Magi slipped down without a word of complaint

Talus was the last to climb out of bed. He had been aware of Crow rummaging through Thalora's pack, but was too distracted with trying to reverse engineer how to construct a spell. With no success. He was still missing a key ingredient.

"What's the town we're heading to called, anyway?" Crow asked, trying to make small talk while the other two packed their gear.

"Blackroot. So-named for the gnarled, black veined trees that grow along the Gloam Mire's edge. Or so the locals say, I've yet to see one. The reason this marsh earned its name is so far more interesting. I read in a book once that it's called the Gloam Mire for the way the fading light of dusk lingers unnaturally in its waters, casting an eerie twilight even when the sky is clear. Do you see it? Because I don't," Thalora replied, emphasising her scathing finish with the snap-close of a pack buckle.

"Heh, ever the cynical skeptic, aren't you? Let's be on our way, I don't want to spend another night out here," Crow said, firmly shoving away a bloated corpse that drifted too close with his walking pole.

"You seem to look like you know where you're going. Lead the way, grave rat," Thalora said, gesturing in front of her. "By the way, Talus, you're going to have to get used to being called a grave rat, too. Grave rats aren't too respected around these parts. Don't get offended and just try to dodge out of the way if some scullery maid tries to empty the contents of her chamberpot in your direction."

"I'll have you know, it ain't had nothing to do with my profession," Crow interjected. He adjusted the straps of his pack before rolling his shoulders. "Gladdace was a close friend, and she was understandably upset when finding out I comforted her sister while she was ill. It was only a one-time occurrence. Okay. It may have happened twice, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped bringing it up."

"You had to have done more than that for the poor woman to risk splashing excrement on a Magi," Thalora said, yawning and giving Crow the side-eye. His body tensed at the accusation, unwilling to elaborate further. Thalora clucked her tongue, suggesting she already knew the answer. She turned to glance over her shoulder at Talus wadding along behind her. "Talus, don't turn out like him. He's a bad role model."

Talus said nothing, just continued to plod along while processing various possibilities for gaining access to Human magic. The group moved at a steady pace, cautiously weaving their way through the shallow marsh. 

The wetlands began to change. The air grew drier, the ground firmer, becoming pools of stagnant water that thinned out into narrow streams, and twisted reeds gave way to patches of cracked earth. The buzzing insects remained, persistent even as the landscape shifted towards dirt.

Suddenly Crow stopped in his tracks, a trail of muddy bootprints stringing out behind him. His hand instinctively drifted to rest on his knife hilt.

"There you go, Thalora, the tree you wanted to see so much," Crow said, his voice solemn.

"Brilliant. Now, why don't you see if you can get one of those men to allow us to have a closer look? I'm sure they'll be willing should you just ask nicely," Thalora sarcastically replied.

Ahead, half-hidden by low fog, figures emerged from the silhouette of a gnarled, leafless tree with blackened moss at its base. Talus counted a dozen men at a glance, indifferent to their arrival. They moved with the restless energy of desperate men, their mismatched armour and torn insignias marking them as deserters.

Human servitors who abandoned their Monarch. An atrocity no Fae would ever dare commit. Duplicious and cunning, even now. With their lack of unity, it is a small wonder how they ever succeeded in creating the shard towers. What I have learned from interacting with Crow and the Magi Thalora has done little to change my mind.

One of them, a broad-shouldered man with a scar splitting his cheek, noticed their group first. He elbowed a companion and gestured toward them, who nudged the guy next to him, and so on, until the rest turned to look at them. They were all hollow-eyed and starving with a predatory gleam in their gaze. Crow let out a slow breath. 

"No getting out of this one, lad. We'll have to fight our way out. At least we have a chance with Thalora here. But twelve men against three, I don't like our odds," Crow's voice was quiet, edged with resignation. He drew the dagger at his hip and fumbled behind him to unhitch a salvaged sword strapped to his pack. "They look hungry. We should have brought some food to serve. Too bad we only have steel left to share."

"Hungry, you say? We can't cook without flame," Thalora said, rolling her shoulders with a manic cackle. She immediately raised one clawed hand, fingers curling in a deliberate, practiced motion. A pulse of Mana answered, coalescing into geometric patterns. A floating cube of interlinked red and orange ethereal shapes forming above her palm. The structure pulsed in time with her heartbeat, radiating heat outward in waves. "Heh, I hope that I don't scorch anyone. It's been an age since I had to roast on my own."

She slashed her hand through the air. The cube fractured, its shapes shifting. A spinning, illusory square burst outward, flaring red as it rotated, releasing a sweeping arc of fire. The air ignited in its wake, the spell unfurling into a thin but potent veil of flame, a controlled wall rather than a wild inferno.

The flames crackled with deep, distorted bass growls, each flickering ember warping the air around it. The sound was low and guttural, layered with an undercurrent of chaotic reverberation, as if the spell itself touched upon something far more ancient and mysterious. 

I can almost decipher what the Mana is trying to convey. I believe it's a set of instructions for the spell to operate. Humans have stolen our way of communicating through the Ether and imitated it to impose their intent into spells. But it's poorly shaped, crude and ineffective, like they've taken a mosaic of recordings to clip together and convert into something audible they can comprehend. The disorganised sound does not originate from the Human caster. Instead, it is projected by the construction of the spell itself. I am disappointed Humanity discarded the beauty and freedom of the Ether's miracles and replaced it with… this absurd abomination.

Beneath the fire, interlinked orange shapes spread across the damp ground, reinforcing the existing spell with pulsing, rhythmic thuds, ringing like a hammer to lock the barrier into place. The heat wasn't intended to burn the ambushers, it was purely defensive and only meant to make them think it might.

Thalora smirked as the deserters hesitated, flexing her fingers to direct the wall of flames to her will. The hovering embers responded instantly, drawn into lazy spirals around her hand, each movement punctuated by the heavy, industrial hum of molten power shifting in front of her.

Talus tilted his head slightly, quietly observing Thalora's spell. He wasn't sure if there banter before was supposed to be humour, bravado, or a mix of both. He reached up without any urgency, deftly undoing a strap on his overladen pack and drawing the stowed sword. In his grip, the polished metal mirrored the reflection of twilight trapped in the sporadic wetland pools, its outline faintly honed by the shifting glow of Thalora's fire.

He hefted the sword, testing the weight, his posture completely relaxed and unconcerned. Crow gave his familiar movements a furtive glance, clammy hands adjusting on the leather bindings of his dual-wielded weapons. 

"You, uh, do know how to use that, don't you, lad?" Crow asked, uncertain what he should expect from the strange youth he found among the dead. Talus didn't immediately answer. Instead, he studied the approaching deserters with an expression that was neither worried nor eager, merely watching. The uncanny expression on his pale, handsome face unsettled Crow in a way nothing ever had before.

"We shall see," Talus finally replied, his soft voice punctuated by an alien smile forming across his lips. Crow suppressed a shudder and subconsciously edged slightly closer towards Thalora, feeling the scorch of her barrier singe the hairs of his arms.