Sword and Snow

Two days later, Avuri and I were wandering around Bastion, trying to dig up any information we could on the demonic sect.

As promised, Vale had flown us to the city the day after that dinner. He had been as speedy as promised too, and we arrived early the following morning. He dropped us a short way from the city, so as to not cause any panic with his dragon form, and we were able to make our way to the city from there quickly. Avuri and I wasted no time getting straight work.

It was late in the evening. We had spent all day jumping between hotspots of caravanner and Cultivator activity. Unfortunately for us, bars and restaurants weren’t as busy during the day, so we had to wait until early evening to make any real headway. As people slowly filtered in throughout the dinner rush, though, we finally were starting to make some progress - however small.

By the end of dinner, we had smatterings of information, but nothing concrete. People were too afraid to broach the subject of the demonic Cultivators, likely out of fear of angering them somehow.

It wasn’t until later into the night when the booze was brought out in force that we finally started making real progress.

With liquor loosening tongues, some of the traveling Cultivators that were regularly hired as caravan guards were willing to talk. And they were boisterous about it too, a few of them raucously retelling stories of their heroism in fighting off the demonic attacks. Whether any of them told the truth was hard to tell, but some of them offered more harrowing stories of kidnapping and murder that felt more real.

The haunted, harrowed looks on faces during the retellings made them easy to believe.

Later that night, Avuri and I took out the Dying Lands map in our Inn room to try to plot the stories and locations on it based on the details people remembered. As we tried to match descriptions and details from the stories to locations on the map, I scratched my head with the pencil.

“This isn’t getting us very far.” I muttered, staring over the map. “There were a few stories that had distinct enough features for us to place along the road, but not many.” I glared at the smattering of X’s on the map.

“Well, at least they’re grouped up?” Avuri said consolingly. “While it’s certainly less examples than we wanted, the ones that we could map out definitely paint a picture.”

I dropped the pencil beside the map, leaned back in my chair, and groaned. Avuri was right; most of the incidents with traceable locations were focused around a particular area on the road.

Frustrated, I scratched my head violently with my hands, messing up my hair. “You’re right, but I don’t know what we can do with that! The stories that were easily pinpointed were so easy because they’re the obvious place to be ambushed.”

Sure enough, the stories had indicated the caravans were attacked a few hours from the city. There was a stretch of road that ran between two large outcroppings of stone, basically in a valley. It was so distinct, in fact, that it was likely that the land had a natural large hill of stone there, that had been carved out for the road to move through it.

It was such an obvious point to lay a trap or ambush, that I had trouble believing that it was where they were getting attacked.

“Maybe luck is actually just on our side, and this really is just a group of novice bandits with a decently strong Cultivator following obvious tricks.” Avuri said, hopefully.

“As much as I would love that to be the case, they wouldn’t be getting away with attacking such well defended caravans if they weren’t both smart and strong.” I sighed. “I’ll admit, they could be using the obvious high ground. Clearly, despite all of this, the caravans are still traveling that route, after all. Why they wouldn’t just go around is beyond me, but here we are.”

Avuri snorted. “Too stubborn to change routes. Guards wanting to prove their strength. Saving time and money. Blah, blah, blah. Take your pick.” She said acidly.

I just groaned again. “I hate that you’re probably right.”

Avuri walked over to stand behind my chair, the top of my head basically touching her belly. She looked down at me with a small smile. “For what it’s worth, my caravan passed through there too. It definitely was an obvious ambush waiting to happen, but everyone was very blasé about the whole thing.”

“Of course no one takes the danger seriously.” I chuckled darkly. “There was no shortage of Cultivators willing to attest that they’d seen such an attack, several of which even looked haunted by it all. But everyone else will just take the ‘It’ll never happen to me!’ approach.”

“I got the impression that the Cultivators that looked bothered by it weren’t getting rehired, either.”

“Of course not.” I said bitterly. “They had a run-in with demonic Cultivators. No one wants them anywhere near them anymore. They’re tainted.” I spit out the last word, disgusted. “That kinda bullshit is one of the reasons I chose such a remote place to settle. If I take in kids that were used by demonic Cultivators, villages would shun them. Cities would look down on them. Doubly or triply so if they’re adopted.”

Avuri ran her fingers through my hair comfortingly, combing it back out after I messed it all up. “I understand.” she murmured softly. “In the end, that’s why we’re here after all, right? To try to put an end to these attacks altogether?”

“If we can manage that somehow, yes.” I muttered. “If there’s a larger sect at work here, though, it’s going to be very difficult.”

Avuri laughed then, trying to work some levity back into the room. “I would honestly be surprised if any of the demonic Cultivators out here put up as much of a fight as Vale did in those last few training days.”

I shuddered as memories sprang to mind, unbidden, of Vale terrorizing us in the last two days of training. He had gone well beyond our level in power, and had truly overwhelmed us more than once. It was a frightening experience, but certainly one that would give us an edge.

It was no different than training with a weapon with extra weight, only to then be able to swing the regular weighted weapon with ease.

At least in theory.

Avuri patted my cheek then and stepped away. “We should sleep and get a good night’s rest. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to truly rest without a day of training hanging over our heads.”

“Right, right.” I said, sitting up straight again to start putting away the map and utensils. “We’re likely to be here for a few days gathering information. May as well be as rested as we can be.”

As I stood, I saw Avuri looking at the two large beds with her arms crossed. Either one could fit us both comfortably on its own.

“The question is,” She said, a grin audible in her voice, “do we share a bed, or sleep separately?”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to answer one way or the other yet. “Did you have a preference?” I said, continuing to clean off the table.

“I do.” Avuri responded flatly. “You don’t?”

“Never said that, did I?” I said, fishing through my pockets. “Why don’t we flip a coin to decide?”

Avuri turned and leveled a flat stare at me. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” I shot back, holding up a coin. “Let’s say…heads, we share a bed. Tails, we share a bed.”

Avuri opened her mouth, I thought to yell at me, before what I said clicked. Then she laughed. I smiled, the sound of her giggling absolutely music to my ears.

“Sure. Go ahead and flip.” She said, between bits of laughter.

I flipped the coin. With just a touch of Qi, I took control of the flip, and with as little interference as I could manage, made the coin land standing up. As Avuri looked on with mild disbelief, I was pretty sure that I had successfully gotten away with my trick without her noticing.

She bounced over to me and we both peered at the coin, confused.

“So uh…” She said, staring at the coin. We glanced at one another for a moment. But before I could say anything to tease her, Avuri slapped the coin down flat with a big grin. “Tails. Looks like we share a bed.”

I chuckled. “Sure does. The one on the left there should be the furthest from the morning sun.” I said, pointing to the bed that was furthest from the window. With it positioned away from the West-facing window, it would avoid the morning light as long as possible.

Avuri grinned in delight. “Perfect. Let’s both wash off and get to bed.”

And we did so. We kept our promise to hold off on any potential physical activities until this whole mess was over, and instead just cuddled up together to sleep.

Evidently we both found comfort in the proximity, as we both slept in the following morning - far later than either of us had in months.

Three days later, we were left with a conundrum.

We had gathered as much information about the sect as we could. We had even taken to just asking around the city, and it was likely going to get us in trouble soon. If the demonic sect had anyone in the city as spies or scouts, they likely would have us marked by now.

Avuri and I still didn’t really have enough information to make a move with. The stories were too scattered, although many did certainly center around that one ambush spot. As we continued researching, it seemed more and more likely that around there would be our best bet, even though there were surely lies mixed in with the stories we heard.

I had truly hoped that while we were here, at least one caravan would enter the city with a concrete story or an attack. We hadn’t heard of any such attack in the three days we were gathering information.

On that fourth day, though, I got my wish. It didn’t take long for me to regret wanting it.

While we were moving between two common lunch gathering spots, shouting came from the main gate. Avuri and I both stopped to look at one another before we dashed off to the gates.

There was a caravan limping its way to the gate. It was a large train of carts pulled by a few animals, but they had clearly been waylaid.

Most of the carts were damaged. A few had arrows sticking out of them. They all looked like they had been lit with fire; one was even still smoking. A few yokes were empty, with single animals struggling to pull a cart meant for two.

But worst of all were the faces. As I looked from person to person, I saw several injuries. Expressions ran from empty and defeated to horrified or sobbing.

Avuri let out a shaky breath and grabbed my hand with a small tug. She was staring at one particular wagon in the back that had escaped my notice. But as the one in front of it wheeled away, I saw letters scratched across the side of the last wagon in the procession.

Whoever is asking about us? Stop.

I let out a hiss of anger as I felt it all start to boil. Rage slowly worked its way up from the bottom of my stomach, and I felt it start to cloud my judgment.

Avuri’s hand squeezing mine kept me grounded. The rage faded into the background a bit. Still present, but not in control.

My eyes scanned the group of survivors again, and landed on a couple who were yelling at one of the guards for the city. They were far away, but not so far that a Cultivator’s hearing couldn’t make out what they were yelling about.

“I’m telling you, damn it! They took our children! All of the kids! Do something about it!”

I didn’t hear much after that as my blood pounded in my ears.

“We move. Now.”