MIRRI

  The call for a halt came as more of a relief than Mirri was willing to show her traveling companions. A winter in Second Bend had left her with little opportunity and less motivation to keep up regular sprinting or marching, and her options for sparring partners...

  Her initial attempts to keep up with her training had led to some less-than-subtle innuendos about perhaps 'grappling' later. Mostly from a series of provincial males she had left bruised either scale or ego-deep, depending on how well they got the hint the first time. A few had been polite and persistent enough to bother pretending patience.

  None had demonstrated any continual desire to spar for improvement alone, once it became clear her injuries had not lowered her standards.

  A Sister or two had made a pass of their own, until her more polite refusals there had become common enough knowledge to deflect those inquiries before they reached her.

  Preferences were preferences, after all.

  After that series of disappointments, her experience had been an eclectic mix of occasionally wrangling acolytes with more enthusiasm than training, and polite but infrequent drills at glacial paces with the more experienced local Rangers.

  Nothing she had been up to would have been more than a light warm-up for the champions of civilization she now found herself wingtip-to-wingtip with, and so Mirri had started to flag first under the blistering pace.

  The Venatrix herself was of course un-winded, and Mirri was fairly certain Sariel didn't breathe at all.

  The Seraph had spent much of their pre-dawn march in the air scouting anyway, only intermittently returning to check on their progress and 'whisper' reports to the Venatrix.

  Jealousy of the easy, uninterrupted flight enjoyed by Sanctum's representative would be unbecoming, so Mirri had quashed hers whenever those shining silvered wings had descended to the road in the dark.

  Sutai, her closest peer in the bunch, had no such reservations, and was at least as winded as Mirri when she spoke. The priestess from the Wastes had been almost as shy sharing her opinions with the titans around them as she had been flashing her sandy-toned scales in front of Viran.

  That was, not at all shy.

  Bold.

  Gratingly confident in herself, even.

  Her vocalizations as the Venatrix finally held up a closed fist for a stop only reinforced Mirri's first impressions.

  "Shiny-wings knows where the Wyrm nest is, we got directions from the Warden." The brash huntress started her complaint. "Why are we trudging through the dark before the sun when the Seraph could have the whole lair smelling like char before we even reach it?"

  Venatrix Mahira rounded on them both, but pointed the question to Mirri.

  "For one, because I am the one doing this favor for Isha, not Sanctum. And for second... Mirri, would you explain how things are done here? Why move as a group, even though Sariel or Isha might accomplish this in the span of an hour?"

  Mirri straightened her spine and her too-small spear at the attention, gazing up at amber eyes floating in the dark.

  The Venatrix had cut a dashing figure in the firelight of the temple courtyard, like a glimmering figure of legend bedecked in colorful garb, stepping off a stage to grace them for a moment. Now she was a silver spear, a pair of shining boots, and a wedge of Seraph Steel that looked nearly as heavy as Mirri strapped outside her arm.

  A nightmare's nightmare, patiently waiting to take Mirri's measure.

  "Normal procedure is to sweep the area on the surface of extant threats, so the fighting does not draw a crowd. Earth mages map the tunnels, then bait the lair to thin resistance before sweeping it as a group, while teams outside control any other exits."

  The tan priestess seemed unconvinced.

  "That'll give you a dozen cripples a nest, and a catastrophe eventually. How do you even get the volunteers?" Sutai seemed to scoff at the idea. "Do you pay mercenaries so regularly? Or call that Houndmistress character down from the north, pay a druid's due?"

  "We handle ourselves."

  Snapping was unbecoming, but mention of the Houndmistress had Mirri on edge. She smoothed her voice to finish.

  "Local Wards, sometimes from a few different villages, led by Rangers from nearby settlements." Mirri said as crisply as she could. "The serious wounds are fewer than you would think."

  Total control of a battlefield with half a dozen talented mages at the ready was usually more than enough to funnel mindless horrors into an encirclement. Villages with enough trained fighters didn't need to pay tithes to mercenaries to clean up their own fields. Dovin most often compared the process to pulling weeds from a garden.

  Endless, tedious work, best done with many hands available.

  Occasionally a contractor on the Long Road would need a favor, and volunteer their services in exchange, but Sutai knew that. She was subordinate to one of them right now, and it was how most of the world handled problems.

  "That's the how. Give us the why."

  The Venatrix sounded like she was withholding judgment, because of course she was.

  Any Ward past their Proving would have been able to give the same answer so far. Mirri was supposed to be demonstrating competence to fighters who were more than peers to her, not lecturing fresh-faced Wards on the basics.

  Pushing through her doubts and cursing the distraction she had made of her pride, Mirri pointed herself back at the real question.

  "Because relying on singular fighters leaves you exposed, if they fall. And just ripping an oversized apex predator or a Bane gone silver out of the ecosystem just tears a hole for the next one to slip into, unless you eradicate the entire set. Everything." Mirri stressed the last word. "The mana's still in the soil, so the nest needs to be purged thoroughly and burned, or it will just eat itself back into having an apex threat, and mutate besides. Trusting the task to just four like this would be gross negligence, except for—"

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Mirri hesitated, unsure how detailed she should be, or how best to describe their circumstances.

  "—The part where we have a Seraph to do the heavy lifting, and we're mostly here for the mother Wyrm." Mahira took the pause for an invitation, though her voice was warmer this time as she took up the reins of conversation. "The scouting reports your mother had say she's too big for a circle of spears, if she gets active. With thousands of Arrivals about to flood the countryside, she's past due to be put down, and your people are... otherwise occupied."

  The trailing phrase was a polite way of saying half the Rangers in the midlands were up north instead, desperately helping Ranger Lemmos weed the garden, now that uncle was gone.

  The same winds that blessed Tenashki blessed the wildlife, gone silver and otherwise, and the north was more exposed to them. With the leavings from the Teeth's fighting pits trickling out of the cracks, leaving the northern wilds uncleansed for just a year would see them infest the soil in a way that took decades to fix.

  An impossible task, with a scavenger already lurking, ready to fill the power gap so far from her mother's influence if the north felt abandoned for even a moment.

  Practicality reigned supreme, closer to the ends of the Roads.

  Wind rattled the branches above them, and Mirri pulsed a bit of mana through her armor to stave off the oncoming chill. Better to have the plates charged before they arrived at the nest, to give her mana reserves time to recover. Sluggishness from the cold would get her killed, fighting in a den, and she would need reserves to keep herself moving while they swept for Arrivals afterwards.

  If they were still out by the time the storm broke, every bit of efficiency would count.

  "Thank you for helping fill the gap." Mirri said, trying not to sound too eager-to-please.

  Or give away that she was talking about both today's hunt and, potentially, the Highlands. It would be impolite to assume the arrangement was a sure thing.

  "It's my pleasure." Came the reply.

  She failed to discern any clues from the Venatrix's body language in the dark, and amber eyes disappeared moments before the Seraph came crashing through the canopy. Sariel landed in the dirt beside the Roads like a fencepost, straight-legged, with wings already folded.

  And burrowed nearly a quarter of a length into the dirt, by the time they came to a stop.

  Apparently the temple roof had been treated gently, by Seraph standards.

  Trying to listen in on their consultation would be foolish, and so while the Venatrix exchanged information with a peer, Mirri was left to the company of her... contemporary.

  "It must be nice to live somewhere you can actually burn the silver out of the wilderness." Sutai said. "Usually too many bodies stack up doing that, make the problem worse."

  Mirri shrugged, willing to mend that perch. The priestess at least seemed to be considering what she had heard.

  "We do our best. Can't burn every corpse." She hedged. "People get lost, or fall afoul of wildlife that wasn't silver before it ate them."

  Sutai snorted, as if somehow amused at the idea of innocents going 'missing'.

  "If success looks like no monsters at all, I could get used to what you call failure. Tenashki was always just a tale for the dying, to me." The priestess dipped her head and shuffled her wings to hold them low and tight. "But here I am, and so far it even looks half-true."

  The hopeful tone, combined with the rapid pivot to demure behavior had the stench of theater about it, but Mirri had every reason not to play the villainous role she had just been unwittingly cast in.

  Especially in front of the Venatrix, and a Seraph.

  "If this is half, it was all true this time last year. We went from three Wardens to one. It just hurts to admit that things are even this bad." Mirri said, keeping her backpedaling as true as possible. "I'm sorry I—"

  "It's fine. There are just things I don't know about paradise, yet. I can take orders without having my wings stroked about it." Sutai got a mischievous-looking grin on her face in the shafts of starlight breaking through the trees. "Unless you're interested. I'm starting to get the impression I'll be under your command anyways, if I stay. Though I think you'd have to take turns with your cousin. He's quite charming, when he stutters."

  Mirri stiffened at every implication there.

  The most polite denial was to say the visiting priestess could do whatever she wanted without Mirri's involvement, but that was the trap. There was no chance Sutai was actually making a pass at her.

  No, she wanted Mirri's permission to go after Viran, and was using a trick to get it.

  "Not something I would ask of you." Mirri managed through seething panic of several different types. "And Viran is going to be very busy, this coming season especially."

  Telling her Viran was still grieving wouldn't be smart. The last thing he needed right now was a wily distraction knowing just where to sink hooks into his hearts.

  "Oh I wouldn't mind a bit of a wait. With that much food on the plate, half the fun is playing with it." Sutai said. "As long as it's still yours, in the end."

  Mirri was having trouble believing the brazenly lying priestess had ever left a morsel untouched for long. She would have to warn Dovin, and keep an eye on Viran.

  An incredible rush of air followed the flash of silver in the edges of Mirri's vision, as Sariel took to the skies again. Normally pressing so much mana into the air for a takeoff was rude, in company, but Mirri couldn't imagine anyone bold enough to reprimand a Seraph for such a small thing.

  Well, maybe her mother.

  Mahira seemed accustomed to the behavior, with her flight sash already drawn prior to the disturbance.

  "Sariel's found the lair entrance." The Venatrix said. "Eat and walk if you're hungry, we'll turn off the roads soon, and we'll want to move fast, then."

  Mirri's appetite was thin at the moment, but the excuse of a busy jaw was welcome. Bought her time to think.

  They must be closer in experience than she thought, if Sutai assumed she would be placed subordinate to Mirri. Or assumed that Mirri would have subordinates. She wasn't nearly ready for a command of her own. Especially with a potential apprenticeship closer than the horizon.

  Not that she knew the plan for certain. Perhaps she and Viran could be assigned under Dovin, and help with the load on his shoulders.

  Dried trail rations stuck in her teeth, but even with all the extra time, she found herself no closer to an answer by the time the pemmican disappeared. Too much of her future, the valley's future, rested on whether the Venatrix took a liking to her today.

  She would have to keep her reactions under control, no matter the prodding she was faced with.

  Everything within her control had to go perfectly.

  "Call out if you start to fall behind, or notice something." Mahira said over her shoulder. "And be careful in the dark."

  Then the Venatrix stepped off the roads, into a cleared lane of crushed underbrush that stretched into the woods, and threw her wings wide, bounding away.

  Mirri cursed her hesitation as Sutai bounded after the huntress. Spreading her own wings, she followed, measuring her mana carefully against the distance between them all, careful not to overtake either of her traveling companions.

  Twigs occasionally snapped as one of them landed hard, and leaves rustled off to the sides as they disturbed the local wildlife, but no fangs stretched out of the emptiness. Mirri at least avoided stumbling as she kept up with the loping Venatrix.

  Hurtling between the trees and over the underbrush in the night was a certain kind of exhilarating. Nothing like gliding off the Spire, but the wind on her face felt the same for a few moments at a time. The movement helped keep her warm, too.

  The veil of night, and being in the rear, would hide her membranes well enough for now, but Mirri was under no illusions. Sutai would prod at her scars next, given the chance. Maybe even the title, depending on who they had talked to on their way through the city.

  That darkness was eventually broken by screaming bursts of light from a clearing up ahead. The Seraph had begun baiting the lair already.

  A boiling palmful of flames was wrapped in the Venatrix's claws, throwing dancing lights and long shadows through the trees.

  "Sutai." The Venatrix said with the air of command about her. "You'll accompany Sariel down the main tunnel. Ensure they are not buried, if the tunnels collapse. Mirri, we will clear any side paths. Take a moment to prepare any tools you need."

  It was more than a fortuitous arrangement. It was another test.

  Another opportunity to show competence.

  Mirri nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and reached for the pouch on the small of her back, looking about for a suitable rock on the forest floor.

  The stench of charred flesh had reached Mirri's nostrils as they slowed.

  It took holding her breath for a few more moments, but she managed not to vomit while she convinced herself that the smell was all wrong, just a trick of her mind. The smoke tasted acrid and leathery, a sure sign of scales in the fire.

  Only monsters were burning, in the mouth of the den.

  Sargon of Akkad was a historical figure who ruled in the 23rd and 24th centuries BCE, and is credited with creating the first 'Empire' as we know the term, uniting 34 Sumerian city-states by force with an army reportedly comprised of 5400 men, a staggering number at the time.

  At the time of writing, the smallest branch of the U.S. Military, the U.S. Space Force, is comprised of between 10,000 and 11,000 individuals.

  Next chapter on Monday!

  I now have a that is five chapters ahead of Royal Road.