PreCursive

  Now that we had horses, Hook wao push them harder in order to reach Elderwyck quicker. The normally more even-tempered dwarf seemed to have a strange dislike for the equines, even if it was a genuine boon for us to have them.

  I put a stop to that. There was no reason to push perfectly good horses to the brink of death, when most of the Noe Division apparently hadn’t even reached the twin cities. Hook grumbled about it, but didn’t put up too much of a fight. I think he knew how unreasonable he was being.

  Still, we didly move at a slow pa the way, to my chagrin. It turns out that I wasn’t quite as good at riding a horse as I was driving a wagon. I may not have been falling off all the time, but the saddle was rubbing me raw. I wasn’t quite bleeding, but it wasn’t pleasant.

  I knuckled down and bore it.

  At the pace that we were riding at, it took us ahree days to reach the territory that beloo Elderwyck. Along the way, Hook filled me in on the unique legal status that the city resided in, since we didn’t have much more to do than take out the occasional monster along the way.

  As I’d been told, the twin cities of Elderwyd Ttec beloo the Kingdom of Herztal and the Orcish Empire of Xilo. The Empire only owhe nd that the paratively smaller city of Ttec sat on, while the much rger Elderwyck beloo the Duchy of Elderwyck. This Duchy was ruled over by one of the majures of the Loyalist cause, and possibly one of the people who had arranged Grey’s kidnapping.

  Duke Quentin Olsen, of House Olsen.

  Apparently, this guy wasn’t quite the show that Duke Graden had been. And while he wasn’t as hated as Graden, he wasn’t liked either. Acc to Grey, the man was one of the most shrewd businessmen in the Kingdom. While he was no great Cultivathty Mage, he was still a force to be reed with because of his grip on Elderwyck.

  The city was the undisputed financial powerhouse of the entire Kingdom, outg even the capital. It was the rgest trading hub ial, and arguably one of the rgest on Vereden. To my sour surprise, I learhat Vittolia was one of the only tenders. No doubt propped up on the backs of thousands of sves.

  Damned Savoy.

  Anyway, the Duke had thrown his support in with the Loyalists pretty early on, as he had been one of the major manufacturers of the Sculpted. In the days before they had started to e to life, Quentin had seen a major opportunity to diversify his city’s holdings by iing ungodly amounts of gold into produ facilities. At its height before the Sed Initialization, Elderwyck had been produg as much as half of all Sculpted that were ience.

  Which meant that the city was absolutely stuffed to the gills with them, even to this day.

  This was a bit of a shoe.

  “Why didn’t they leave?” I asked Hook one night, baffled. “They have to know that the Uprising would take them in.”

  It was Sylvia who answered me, frowning into the small campfire we had lit. “They were not allowed to,” She said ominously. “Before the Uprising had even decred their iions to revolt, Elderwyck cmped down hard on their Sculpted popution. More than any other city in the Kingdom, my people are treated as little better than tools there. They are not aowledged as free-thinking individuals, and are given nhts. A Sculpted within the walls of Elderwyck has no more ability to speak for themselves than a broom does.”

  I frowned, growing a little ed. “Then…” I said slowly. “Is it safe for you to even go there? Wouldn’t all of your movements be strained by what you are?”

  Luckily, Sylvia didn’t take offe my words. Instead, she smiled slyly at me. “Oh, not to worry. I am an illusion specialist, after all. It shouldn’t be hard for me to craft a human-seemihat I maintain for long periods of time. The knowledge of Cultivation that Honoka gifted me was enough that I mahis much at least.”

  Suddenly, I wasn’t ed. Instead, I was very curious about what a human Sylvia would look like.

  Intensely so.

  Sylvia must have seen something on my face, as her smile took on a mischievous tint. She wi me.

  Across the fire from us, Hook rolled his eyes and grumbled into his dinner of cooked oats. “Ugh. Kids.”

  …………………………………………

  Hook told us that we were only about a day’s ride away from the city of Elderwyck by now. However, he told us that we were not going to be heading straight there. Instead, there was a meeting point being maintained a few miles out on a friendly farm.

  Half a day’s ride ter, we reached this farm.

  I initially didn’t pay much mind to it myself. My focus was more on leading my horse along the small side path that Hook was leading the three of us down. Once we had reached the farm, he had veered away from it and up into a small forested hill that overlooked it. Below us in the fields, I could see a number of Sculpted ‘workers’ tending to the crops.

  Fuck it, why mince words?

  Sves. Those were sves down there. Just because they weren’t huma mean the word didn’t apply. The familiar sight of people held against their will and w on a pntation threateo see that I hadn’t felt since I was in Marrowmist. As I felt the rings of my mind start to go cold and my lips curl, it felt like my focus on the world was narrowing.

  I was knocked out of my growing fury by the feeling of a hand shaking me by the shoulder.

  I blinked, and the world beyond the sves below me came into focus once more. Following the hand to its source, I found Sylvia staring back at me with sharp eyes, with her mount Charlie docilely standing behind her.

  “Not here, Nathan,” She hissed to me, briefly cutting her eyes down to her fellow Sculpted. Dragging them back up to me, she gave me a short, sharp shake of her head. “You ot do anything for them now. We ot afford it.”

  Over her shoulder, I saw that Hook had stopped to watch us as well. Though his face was bnk, his eyes were calg.

  I wasn’t sure I liked the look in them.

  I squashed the almost unnatural rage that was even still roiling around in my rings. She was right.

  Later, though. When we were doh Elderwyck…

  I o show I uood, keeping my eyes forward. With o lingering gnce, she turned back arouured for Hook to keep moving. The master of the Noe Division turned his bad resumed leading us through this brush without a word.

  I…was really missing Fade, right about now. That wolf had a way of keeping me calm.

  I shook it off, ao the rear of our procession.

  Before long, Hook had led us to a small, rown clearing withihicket. Standing in the ter of it was peared to be a rge, dipidated barn. Its rge front doors hunt open and stuck eternally, while the windows creaked ominously to and fro in the wind. At one point in time, this relic might have been painted in a beautiful sky blue paint.

  Now, it was only faded and fotten.

  I didn’t see anyone in this clearing, despite the fact that Hook had told us we were supposed to meet other Division assets here. Still, he stopped before we reached the treeline, unwilling to step into it just yet. From where we were, we could only barely see through the trees. The aged dwarf visibly sed the clearing with a dising eye, frowning as he did so.

  “Masks on,” He said abruptly, already reag for his own stored in a pouch at his waist. I was startled, but did as he said, while Sylvia did the same o me. I tly gd we had tied the horses up to a tree some distance behind us, while we scoped out our destination. Was something wrong?

  I asked him, in as low a voice as I could manage.

  “I don’t know,” He murmured back. “It’s just…a feeling. Something feels off. Acc to reports, this rendezvous site was secure up to a few days ago. Whisper, you circle left. Hangman, right. See what you find. I’m going in.” At that, Hook pletely faded from view. I couldn’t see, smell, or hear even the fairace of him.

  As Sylvia, or rather Whisper, faded into an illusionary cloak and slunk off to the left, I cast Thorn Cloak. Doing my best to remaihy, I crept through the trees on the right, cirg around the clearing as best I could. Eventually, I cmbered up a tree swiftly and silently to get a better look. As I reached the back of the clearing, I frow what I saw.

  The other side of the barn looked to have been through a battle. There were rge gashes in the wooden walls, while the doors looked to have been shattered pletely. The dirt leading up it and even what was in front of the barn was visibly disturbed, looking to have been shuffled around vigorously. I was dearly tempted to approa order to get a better look, but I figured Hook would have been pissed.

  I managed not to jump wheree branch I was crouched o slightly and Sylvia’s voice whispered in my right ear. “Anything else on your side?”

  I shook my head minutely. “No, just…this.”

  The cloaked form of Sylvia was quiet for a moment. “This looks…”

  “Like it was assaulted,” I finished for her, in a low tone. “I’m not sure how safe it is to stay here.”

  “It’s not,” Hook’s voice said grimly, from a nearby branch. “There were bodies ihis site is burned.”

  Bodies?

  “Were they with us?”

  “Luckily, no. It looks to have been a Loyalist assault squad,” Hook replied, slight relief audible in his tone. “Dusk was supposed to meet us here, and it looks like they didn’t mao get the drop on her. She appears to have taken them out and then erased some Division traces here. She looks to have been in a rush, though. I estimate this might have happened just yesterday, from the traces left. But we o go, now. I…might have lit a fire in the barn to cover it up better.”

  Wait, what?

  Sure enough, I could see slight wisps of smoke starting to curl through the windows of the ruined barn. It would only take minutes before the ehing was engulfed in fme. As swiftly as we dared, we circled back around the clearing and back towards our waiting horses. Once we reached where we had tied them to on the main trail, we abandoned our efforts at stealth in favor of climbing on their backs and urging them on.

  ed through the woods as quickly as we could, in order to put distaween us and the burned site.

  Literally and figuratively.

  I couldn’t help but curse to myself as I g to Marquis’s bad the world blurred around me. We hadn’t even started trying to infiltrate Elderwyck, and we were already fag roadblocks.

  What ? Was the damn hoing to roll over Elderwyck before we could eve ihe walls?

  Well…

  Better not tempt fate.

  ………………………………..

  Hook led us through and out of the woods, setting a brutal pa…ponyback, in his case. Poppy was surprisingly fast and strong for such a paratively smaller creature, pared to Sylvia and I’s mount. We must have ridden for at least half an hour, until we were ba a much rger road than the small forest trail we had been on.

  The road itself was…way more surprising than I expected it to be.