Eight 5.30: The Beginnings of a Plan

Broken Tooth died about fifty yards from the fortress’s walls. Peeking out through the stone, I saw him go down in a flash of light. The Ray of Hope turned out to be meant literally; their team leader could shoot lasers from between his hands.

Burns and cuts covered the bull moose’s body; arrows jutted from his sides. A huge chunk of his torso had been blown away, and his back right leg was mangled like it’d been run through a grinder. How he’d made it as far as he had was astonishing.

The fortress didn’t stand down, though, until all the nearby threats were put down. The commander waited for Arrows Oak and Willow to confirm their own kills before releasing the off-shift soldiers back to their rest.

Meanwhile, those based in the lower levels were ordered either outside to guard the perimeter or back to their barracks. They were to clear out the common spaces, which caused a ruckus since none of them had had to do that before.

Only once they’d complied did the reason become clear—the members of Ray of Hope and Light of the Moon worked together to drag the bull moose’s body into the fortress. They pulled it toward the area just ahead of the stairs leading up.

The ceiling opened along a seam, the stone pealing back to make a gap big enough for the body. Looking down through it was Sotwansein. With a gesture, he lifted the floor underneath the moose’s body up like it was an elevator, and when the platform came level with him, he got on board and had it continue through another gap that he created in the ceiling above him.

The Deer God and I followed and saw how he closed the holes after him. Witnessing his earth-manipulation skills in action, I was disappointed twice over. First, it appeared the stone was somehow keyed to him, so that he was the only one who could open and close the seams. And second, the elevator was located next to where the soldiers stood guard. Even if someone found a way to make use of it, the guards would immediately notice and put an end to the attempt.

###

We reconvened in the stronghold to share what we’d learned. I described the failsafe, while Fala talked about the silvered teams’ capabilities. The soldiers were outstanding fighters, well beyond the skill levels we typically saw—outclassing everyone except maybe people like Ithia and Silasenei.

Also, we learned that the high-level team names reflected the abilities of their leaders. For Ray of Hope, it was lasers. For Light of the Moon? She was specialized in healing and supporting her allies.

That night, Yuki recreated both the fight against Broken Tooth and the events inside the fortress, so that we could each see what we missed. The discussion afterward revolved on what to try next.

Obviously, the most promising lead was the failsafe, but we couldn’t plan around it if we didn’t know what it did. There were also Broken Tooth’s antlers, which were another mystery we’d need to unravel before it could be used.

My hope to use a secret delivery door to sneak into the fortress had been thrown into the trash bin.

###

The next morning, Fala dove into the stone to more thoroughly examine the fortress walls butting up against the mountain. The runes inside them didn’t appear until the failsafe was in a pre-activation state, but there was the chance she might learn something.

The Deer God and I did the same thing, but from inside the fortress. We also spent a long time inspecting the activation pillar beside the commander’s desk. None of us were enchanters, though, so the odds of us sussing out the failsafe’s effect were tiny. That didn’t keep us from trying, though.

Then, after about two hours of learning nothing new, the Deer God and I went downstairs to check on the Maltran researchers. The bull moose’s body had been deemed useless and sent to the mess hall, but the antlers had been moved to one of the meeting rooms on Baxta’s floor.

Researchers streamed in and out over the course of the day. They brought magical tools with them, cast spells, and spoke in a poetic, flowery language that was clearly meant to obfuscate the methodology for any non-artisans who might be listening in. They obviously had no idea the Deer God and I were eavesdropping, but a pair of soldiers had been stationed to guard the antlers.

The researchers worked into the evening. From one man’s complaints, we learned that the commander had ordered to them to spare no effort until “the mysteries hidden within the antlers were unraveled.”

Baxta’s new body was scheduled to arrive in fifteen days. It seemed that Sotwansein was feeling the pressure too.

###

Four days passed with none of us getting any rest, ultimately ending in the unhappy realization that the antlers were a dud. The commander came down from his office to hear the report directly, and in his frustration, he shattered the antlers with a fist made of stone.

The idea of getting some rest sounded so good.

The closest I’d personally come to it had been the times I’d spent in cold-water baths. The grounding they’d provided was starting to become a necessity. There’d been moments when I was forced to apply my will upon spirit and body to merge them back together.

It’d gotten to the point where I was infusing the water with my influence to help the process along—enhancing my spiritual well-being in addition to the physical. It was a lesson I’d learned in the aftermath of Slaughter’s Hollow.

The time was about a quarter after four in the afternoon, and I was soaking in a tub full of glowing water. My eyes were closed and my authority flexed to deepen my influence upon it. A fog filled every corner of the stronghold.

Fala and Yuki were exploring the mountain surrounding the fortress, while the Deer God was out getting something fresh and green to eat. None of the them knew of the difficulties I was having; I’d kept it from them.

A spike of excitement suddenly arose in both Fala and Yuki.

A moment later, from within the network, the hidden mind rushed toward me. ‘We figured it out!’

I’d had just enough time to tuck the worries about my soul out of the way. What? What is it?

‘The failsafe!’ Yuki said.

And Fala joined the conversation to say, ‘There are signs of an Earth-Touched working the mountainside above the fortress. The clues are not obvious, more like a hundred nudges spread across an eisqilm. But if you add them together, they shift the pressure within the ground—focusing it.’

“Interesting,” I said. “That sounds like a lot of work carefully done.”

‘It’s clever,’ Fala replied. ‘The pressure connects to a single shaft of gneiss.’

“Oh no they didn’t,” I said, my thoughts jumping ahead. I half got out of the tub in my excitement.

‘Oh yes, they did,’ Yuki replied.

“The failsafe collapses the mountain on top of the fortress?” I asked, making sure I was on the right track.

‘Not quite,’ Fala clarified. ‘The mountain falls on the area directly in front. A wide expanse from the looks of it.’

My disappointment sat me back in the tub. “It’s not a self-destruct? Just a way to crush anyone overwhelming the fortress’s defenses?”

The Deer God came forward in the network to say, ‘A trap can be set.’

Yuki’s attention circled me. ‘Yes, that’s right. Ollie/Eight, think. We can lure the silvered teams out of the fortress and collapse the mountain on them. If nothing else, we’ll have free reign inside to do what we need to do.’

I got out of the tub, so that I could pace. You’re thinking I can hide in the lower levels until the action starts. Then when the soldiers outside are buried under a landslide, I can either sneak in when in the guards investigate, or the rest of you can come down to meet me and we pincer them. We’d need to be able to trigger the failsafe, though. So far, everything else we’ve seen points to it being keyed to Sotwansein.

‘The shaft resists me,’ Fala sent, ‘but with time and the Deer God’s assistance, I believe I can break it. We wouldn’t need to use the pillar in the commander’s office. What worries me instead is that the failsafe assumes the fortress is under siege. If the besiegers have gotten through the gates, they would shelter in the lower levels as they begin their attack upward. It would be a clever trap to also drop the fortress on top of them along with burying the attackers outside under a landslide.’

But aren’t the lower levels walls reinforced like the rest of the fortress? I asked.

‘They have the same runes engraved into them,’ Yuki replied, ‘but…’

‘The runes are unempowered,’ the Deer God sent. ‘Not like the ones above.’

“They’re fake?” I asked, dumbfounded.

‘It seems so,’ the Deer God replied. The pace of his thinking seemed to accelerate as I sensed him reconsider his observations in light of this new information. ‘My thought was that the runes would be powered when necessary, but I was apparently being naïve.’

I shook my head. “They’d crush their own people…”

‘Not necessarily,’ Fala sent. ‘For the trap to work, they’d have to have lost control of the lower levels. All those soldiers would already be dead or captured.’ A moment later, she added, ‘The fake runes are likely meant to fool any besiegers into thinking they’re safe.’

My pacing took me from one stronghold wall to the other and back. If we put a plan together that involved triggering the failsafe, I’d have to be in the stairwell, ready to go, once the fortress fell. Maybe the guards would leave, since there’d no longer be a gate in need of guarding? Would they check with their alarm stones to make sure the area was clear before leaving?

I would in their place. It was best to assume that they would, too.

A plan was almost in reach, but it was fuzzy—the details too uncertain for my liking.

Apropos of nothing, Yuki asked, ‘Why is there so much fog in the stronghold?’

And I sensed the others shifting their attention to the question.

“Just experimenting with my authority,” I replied calmly. “Checking to see if I could nurture well-being beyond just the physical.”

I thought I’d done a good job deflecting, but my reply seemed to spark further curiosity instead, especially in Fala and Yuki. Messages too soft to hear flew between them.

What’s this? Why do I get the feeling you two are collaborating on something?

‘Because we are,’ Yuki replied plainly.

I waited to see if they’d say more.

And eventually Fala added, ‘It’s too early to share; we don’t want to get your hopes up.’

My thoughts prickled. My loved ones were allowed to keep their own secrets, but I didn’t like that they felt they had to hide things from me, which I knew was hypocritical—one hundred percent, I did.

Before I could say anything, the Deer God sent, ‘I will return to the stronghold, so that my spirit can journey and my body be safe. Let us begin undermining the protections on the shaft straight away.’

Fala sent an acknowledgement, then added, ‘In the meantime, Yuki and I will re-examine the structures within the mountain to make sure our understanding is correct. Eight, can you keep an eye on the patrols while we’re working?’

Yes. I walked over to my clothes, so that I could dress.

The only way to come up with a crisp plan was to fill in the missing details. I’d do my part to continue gathering the necessary information. And since we didn’t know what we didn’t know, we’d collect everything we could.

###

I slipped up into the branches of a pine tree overlooking the mining compound’s gate. A cool breeze blew down from the top of the mountain, rustling my clothes. My seat swayed, but the motion was gentle, like I was being rocked. The tension I’d been holding in my neck and shoulders eased as I realized it was the first time I’d been outside the stronghold with my body in days.

Down below, the soldiers were getting ready for their shift change. I matched each one to the dossiers that Yuki had assembled for them—their strengths, weaknesses, and relationships with each other.

It was good we finally had the beginnings of a proper plan, one that actually had a chance of working. According to the last ETA reported to the commander, Baxta’s new body was due to arrive in eleven days. Time was starting to run out.

I’d been thinking we might need to leave the fortress to proactively ambush the convoy delivering the body. Hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary now. It’d be terrible to lose the element of surprise.

My thoughts circled, even as my eyes observed the soldiers’ movements. There were injuries lingering among them, and I marked those.

The Deer God and I had assembled dossiers on the silvered stationed in the upper fortress, but those weren’t nearly as comprehensive as Yuki’s. I’d yet to lay eyes on any of those soldiers in person, so my Talent Scout hadn’t been of help.

The next time one of those teams sortied, though, I planned to follow after them. Not having an inventory of their talents was making me feel… skittish wasn’t the right word. Nor was nervous. Uncertain, perhaps.

The spirits of the trees took note of travelers moving along the road, which was anomalous because the fortress didn’t get visitors. To date, we’d only seen the patrols coming and going. Them, and the one time a courier had delivered provisions.

I frowned as I caught sight of that same courier walking toward the fortress, joined by the soldier team that had previously accompanied him, as well as a new second team.

Why the change in schedule? And what was he carrying this time that warranted the extra protection?

My heart sped, as my mind jumped to the idea that the reports estimating the arrival date of Baxta’s body were a ruse. A distraction from the real delivery that was happening right now, right in front of me.

Neither the courier nor the soldiers seemed overly anxious, though. What I saw in their spirits was the normal relief of having arrived safely at a destination after crossing through the wilderness.

I felt Yuki join me, my alarm having drawn their attention. They looked through my eyes, and then shared the images with Fala. The three of us watched as the soldiers guarding at the gate met those arriving along the road with distrust. They hadn’t been expecting a delivery. This was a surprise to them, too.

Papers came out and were exchanged. A message was sent to the signals room and a runner was dispatched to report on the situation in person.

From what I’d gathered with Owl’s Ears, the courier had been ordered to make a special delivery. He didn’t know the contents, but the manifest listed an assortment of fine foods—spices, fruits, and meats that I knew were possible to get but had never seen in person.

The teams escorting him handled the pressure well. They were only moderately nervous with the fortress’s armaments pointed at them.

Fake invoice? I wondered.

‘The courier is too calm,’ Fala observed. ‘If the backpack’s contents are other than what’s listed, he’s an incredible actor.’

‘The backpack is like the Hoarder’s Pocket,’ Yuki said. ‘He’d know what’s inside, unless the “package” was sealed in something else like a crate.’

‘There’s nothing to stop a dead body from being stored,’ Fala sent. ‘It’s just meat.’

She’d tried in the past to store living things in the Hoarder’s Pocket, but those experiments had all failed. Nothing could be contained that was sentient or spiritually aware.

Earlier in our surveillance we’d wondered if the courier’s backpack worked the same way, and Yuki had raided a memory from one of the soldiers that had confirmed it was so. That soldier had had the same wondering and asked about it.

Now, I worried that I should’ve done more with that information. What that would’ve been, I didn’t know, but something.

So far, all the soldiers at the gate were under Level 10. If I could somehow snatch the backpack, could I stick it in the Hoarder’s Pocket and run? That’d give our presence away to the Maltrans, but—

‘Wouldn’t the time and space magics disrupt each other?’ Yuki asked, interrupting my thoughts.

Fala hesitated. ‘One is a talent, and the other is an enchanted item. We don’t know how they will interact. It’s not worth the risk.’

You think there’ll be an explosion or something? I asked.

‘My suspicion is that they would simply repel each other,’ she replied.

The Deer God must’ve flown back to his body, because he joined the conversation. ‘Remember that our goal is to destroy this facility and the secrets it contains. We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted.’

‘It’s not a distraction if we can stop Baxta from reviving,’ Yuki said. ‘He knows everything the Maltrans know and more. Much more and much worse.’

No, hold on, I thought. The Deer God’s right. If we can keep from giving away our presence, we should. Let’s follow the courier inside and see for ourselves what’s inside the backpack. If it is Baxta, then he’s still meat and will stay that way until the Maltrans can complete their ritual. That’ll give us time to steal the now-exposed body.

‘That will give away our presence,’ The Deer God pointed out.

Can’t be helped, I thought, because Yuki is also right. We can’t let the Maltrans have Baxta.

‘Then hurry,’ the Deer God sent. ‘Bring your body back to the stronghold, so that our spirits may journey.’

###

The courier waited in the upper-level mess hall’s larder; sweat beaded the back of his neck. This would be his first time meeting the fortress’s commander. In the past, he’d only dealt with the cooks and the quartermaster.

The soldiers who’d accompanied him on the journey were being isolated in the lower levels. He’d come up here on his own, escorted by Hall’s Glory. They made him nervous, so his eyes roved across the meat drying on hooks and the bins full of vegetables, taking satisfaction in being the one who’d brought most of those supplies here. He distracted himself by wondering about all the fresh moose meat.

Sotwansein and Kolwei arrived together. Immediately, Hall’s Glory handed the shipping manifest to the commander, so that he could examine it directly, which he did, his eyes flicking down the page. The result was a raised brow, followed by a frown—a most serious and severe frown.

“Is there perhaps a letter?” Sotwansein asked.

The courier gulped and gestured toward his backpack. The space around his hand flickered, and an instant later, he held a scroll case made of unadorned bone and sealed with wax. Kolwei reached for it, but Sotwansein moved ahead of him to take it himself.

Carefully, the commander cut through the wax and popped the seal. He tilted the case, and gold dust spilled out onto his hand. His breath caught, and he completely upturned the case, letting the gold just slip through his fingers.

A rolled-up letter tied with a length of white ribbon fell into his waiting hand. The ribbon unwound on it own, and a pale light shown in the air above it. Instantly, everyone in the room dropped to their knees, all except for Sotwansein who disappeared from view, like a veil had fallen over him. I thought it might be an isolation spell rather than a teleport, something like Hollow Night.

Neither the courier nor those guarding him dared to move. If my body were here, I’d be holding my breath. As it was, my curiosity burned. Just what was going on?

The moment stretched and minutes passed. Eventually, the veil lifted and Sotwansein came back into view. The expression on his face was complicated—a mixture of excitement and nerves, as if he were a young man going to prom.

He actually patted the courier on the shoulder. “You’ve done well.” Then he turned to Kolwei. “See him housed for the next two… no, three weeks. No, summon all the team leaders. All of them. We have orders. We must get ready…” Sotwansein went quiet, his eyes down as he apparently thought deeply about what he’d just read.

“Sir?” Kolwei asked. “Why these sudden orders?”

Sotwansein looked up. His voice was fraught with emotion as he said, “The empress, our eternal zasha, Sister Moon is coming, coming here to observe our work and witness the return of Baxta.”