Traps, Tricks, and Beasts [Book 2 Complete][Fantasy, Adventure, Underdog]

Squirt followed Pakos silently through the forest underbrush at his urging for stealth. Whatever was happening south of them, he had some kind of instinctive draw towards it that had him somewhat more cautious than usual.

She scowled. Damnit, was this another damn task by the Hunt?

Not exactly, mother dearest.

She glared at the hound. He knew how much calling her mother irritated the hell out of her. He’d been cuter as a puppy, but he’d only really been one for little more than a week, so mother didn’t apply.

Nonsense. You incubated my egg as well as any goose.

She considered strangling him again.

Remind me to tell father dearest how he’s so very pretty.

She balked and then almost snarled, realizing he had just referred to the pest as father—

The tease humming along the bond abruptly stopped, and she forced her focus back to the Wylds around them. Pakos slowed, pulling the moon’s shadow over them both as they practically crawled forward. After a minute, she could hear the distant murmurs of voices.

Then she passed through some kind of shield and felt the power of those present.

I can go no further.

She nodded. He had stopped just before the shield, letting her step through it unaccompanied.

Sneaking forward and tugging her cloak around her, she managed to creep up right to the edge of some kind of encampment. In the center were a large group of roughly thirty young fey, all in their teen years at varying stages, their eyes wide in fear, their fine clothes sullied with dirt and no small amount of blood.

Surrounding them were a group of tall, absurdly beautiful fey, their skin tones ranging from dark to white, but all sharing the same grayish tinge.

One sniffed the air, and she caught sight of red eyes.

When they spoke, they spoke in shadow tongue.

One asked the sniffer something, who replied, clearly deciding to brush off anything he smelled.

Squirt scowled. Damnit. Vampires. She didn’t speak shadow tongue and only managed to get a few words here and there. Regardless, it was clear the children were hostages for something. And based on the power scale of those here? It was something big.

The dead eyes of the children she had found in the Skye ship wreckage flashed through her eyes.

Why were the Shadowlands folk here? The Shadowlands were their own continent far to the south, across the southern seas.

One of them barked out in accented Common, “Alright, bed down. We move at dawn.”

One of the kids, either brave or stupid, it was hard to tell, asked nervously, “Where are you taking us?”

Squirt stiffened as the air turned deadly. Several of the vampires hissed. The shadows grew and stretched.

Then a shadowfell slowly formed from the darkness and Squirt’s blood went cold. They were in their normal shape, and their tendrils were long enough to surround the entire group, making it abundantly clear there was nowhere to run. They hissed as they spoke, their head cocked over their shoulder and too large eyes as emotionless as their tone. “My apologies, children. I had business in the shadow. Sleep now. Tomorrow, we journey to retrieve a stolen crown and right a wrong a millennium in the making. Be good, and you will be safe.” Then they grinned, the normally reassuring expression doing nothing but instilling further fear. “Be bad, and you go as your instructor. We hunger still.”

Several of the teens started weeping quietly, comforted by each other.

The fell chuckled darkly as they faded back into the darkness of the shadow plane, their tendrils almost brushing Squirt in her hiding spot. She let out a silent, shaky breath of relief as the children organized themselves into huddles. Their movement allowed her to note that they all wore manacles of some kind. Based on how quality their clothes would have once been and the distinct lack of power coming from any of them, she could guess their usage.

She waited long enough for everyone to settle before quietly extracting herself, swallowing thickly.

Right on the edge of the boundary, a tug on her bond with Pakos had her freezing in place. Sweat began dripping down her brow, her eyes wide with terror, as a loose tendril moved along the ground to feel for intruders and escapees.

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Squirt cast her gaze around, noting other places along the boundary where the tendrils climbed up tree trunks and over branches, dipping in and out of shadow so it was difficult to tell not only where they began or ended, but also where they were headed next.

The fell had said they had been attending to some business. She could only assume that when she first arrived, they were not keeping watch on the boundaries.

She bit her lip and retreated back a few feet where it was safer, grimacing as she did. With the plethora of tendrils, she wasn’t even sure she could get out. It would be a risk regardless.

Plus, even if she safely crossed the boundary, she might not be able to get back in. With shadowfell and vampires working together, even Zhadin wouldn’t be able to covertly scout the group, meaning that if she left there might not be a way to keep an eye on things.

Pakos would be able to get a message to others for her, but since the only one he could speak to would be her, he would be limited to miming.

Stepping back further into the darkness, she found a hollow log with a small patch of moonlight coming down from a hole in the top. Unstrapping her sword and stowing it in her pouch, she wiggled her way inside, ignoring the disturbed bugs and spiders that crawled over her until she was just before the patch of light. Keeping her movements as slow and silent as absolutely possible, she pulled out her journal and a charcoal pen. Untying a couple of pages, she used one to make a map of the area with the guards and the hostages, then wrote up a brief summary of everything she had witnessed and estimated power levels of those involved.

The situation would be tricky, as they had hostages whose powers were bound. Lord Prince Ranin wouldn’t just be able to crush the party with their force. Having someone on the inside who could pass messages would be invaluable.

Finished, she carefully folded the two pages against two blank ones to limit the amount of smudging, then pulled out the short, fat throwing arrow with a hollow center. Tucking the leather into the center, she then carefully extracted herself and returned to where Pakos sat waiting.

Taking the oversized dart, she waited for a gap in the tendrils and tossed it. Pakos caught it in his mouth, then asked, To who?

Anvanil, she passed back. He can get a message to Lord Prince Ranin.

Pakos hesitated.

She glared.

Without missing another beat, he turned and took off through the forest.

Squirt crept back to the hollow log. Her sword and other weapons that would have made the squeeze into the log impossible were safely stowed away, strangely enough making them faster to access than if they were belted in this confined space, though she kept the armor on. The hollow center would be too small for a shadow walker to cross the boundaries between their planes, and more than likely, they wouldn’t bother checking inside it. Just in case, as she crawled herself inside, she sent up a silent prayer that she not be found by either fey or feybeast.

Then again, knowing her luck….

She scowled. Left in just her armor with no real weapons beyond a dagger and belt knife, it was possible to explain her appearance away without letting on that she was actually a member of the Guard. Hell, even the weapons could be explained if necessary.

The only thing that she wouldn’t be able to explain was the gods damn mark on her forehead. If the Hunt was so gods damn invested in her, then she could stand for Squirt to cover up the damn mark. Rubbing some dirt into her face and hair, she hid it and her scent by mixing it with the available earth.

That finished, she settled down to nap while she waited.

Ranin settled down to nurse a drink as he stared endlessly at the map. The scouts had so far reported nothing out of the ordinary beyond the feybeasts already being too far along in their evolutions. The ship had been unfamiliar to the locals, who were familiar with the occasional smugglers that came through. None of them had seen those on board, really, and Lord Norland had not sensed intruders crossing the boundary.

That didn’t mean they hadn’t. Indeed, the airships were one way of circumventing the wards by flying above and over them.

Tomorrow they would be setting out to cull a few more treebeds. Annabelle had reached out to the nearby title holders of Everwinter, Gloomwood, Glynland, and Everspring. None of them had noted anything, either.

Just beyond the thin walls of the command tent, he could hear the revelry of the villagers and soldiers celebrating one last night together, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to get himself to join in. Something was nagging at him still.

The vector to attack Norland didn’t make any sense for Skye. It wouldn’t bring them any closer to the Capital district. Norland was inherently one of the more difficult territories to live in, being so far north, and winters here were brutal. There was no political point for Skye to capture this territory when Riverlands would be ripe for the taking already, and they didn’t really share a border.

Unless the Skyian king was planning on simply blocking in Everwinter, but again, that didn’t make sense strategically. It would be easier to take Everwinter than Norland, and that would give them a strong foothold in the Fer’ich valley.

Ranin!

The voice of Anvanil jolted him out of his thoughts. He stood so quickly he almost dumped the drink out onto the ground, panic gripping him. Please, not Athereon. Not again.

Mystva has found a den of shadow folk who have taken a group of some thirty odd young fey hostage a day’s ride south of you. They are bedded down for the night. She’s included a report on their power levels, and they are led by a shadowfell strong enough to rival Titled Gloomwood.

All the pieces fell into place.

Norland wasn’t the target—Gloomwood was. Skye must have allied with the Shadowlands. Until now, Titled Gloomwood had been too far removed from the Shadowlands to be targeted and had ruled Gloomwood for over a thousand years uninterrupted. They were the oldest of all the territory holders, having arrived from the Shadowlands seeking asylum well over a thousand years ago, long enough for their power to make what was once Hillwood into Gloomwood. They had retained their stronghold by remaining staunchly neutral to every ruler of Fer’ich and keeping entirely to themselves.

Awaiting your orders, my lord prince.

Ranin’s attention snapped back to present. Hostages. They had hostages. Young fey? Thirty young fey? What village would—

Oh. Gods. The summer camp. The same summer camp Lord Norland’s allo-grandchild and her friends had come from. The camp holding progeny of some of the most powerful fey in the country, meant to teach them about the Outskirts before their powers fully unlocked at twenty-five and they were no longer able to.

An idea instituted by Annabelle.

Fuck.

He quickly exited the tent and grabbed the nearest guard. “Get me Lord Norland—now.”

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