Draka

The rest of the daylight was spent doing two things. First we set up camp, with Mak and Val rigging up a simple sliding door for the hole in the wall of the house we’d be using. That should keep anything out that wasn’t a troll or some other absolute monster, and nothing short of a stone wall would stop one of those.

When that was done, and without discussing it beforehand, they started collecting bones. It started with Tam picking up a cracked femur. He looked sadly at the others, and without saying a word he put it down near the smashed well, then looked around and brought another. Then Herald joined him. Mak and Val were still busy rigging up the door, but they joined in when they were done.

Once they got started I just stayed out of their way, feeling awkward about not helping sooner. A shovel came out, and they all took turns digging a sad little mass grave for the pieces, holding a joint prayer to the Traveler, the Mercies and the Sorrows once it was filled in. I hadn’t even considered doing something like that. The bones themselves hadn’t bothered me, so while the others were busy setting up camp, I’d nominated myself for troll patrol, and that was where I stayed until they returned to the house.

Once the sun began to set I returned briefly to Piter’s Clearing and verified that there were now four trolls living there. I stuck around for a while and no extras showed up, so I was satisfied that Speedy and her boyfriend — or possibly son. It was a weird and disturbing situation — were truly gone.

We rose and set out from Sweet Creek well before sunrise. Hunting the last troupe of trolls had taught us well, and we were stronger now than we had been. We still planned to do this carefully. It took a little over half an hour to reach Piter’s Clearing now that the humans were moving without their full packs. We could have done it faster, but the biggest limit was how fast we could keep Stalwart moving, and he was not a fan of running.

Outside of Piter’s Clearing we hunkered down. We didn’t have to wait for long. Just like before, as the sun rose, so did the trolls. The four of them, appearing entirely unconcerned about their missing member, had their morning brawl and set out in different directions. We picked our quarry, waited, and followed.

We had decided to knock off the largest threat first. We were fresh, and Big Boy surprising us last time had an effect on all of us. It was best, we’d decided, to get rid of the male first. That way, any surprise would be less threatening. An unexpected troll was still a hell of a problem, but the females were at least a foot shorter and two hundred pounds lighter. If we could choose our problems, we’d choose the lesser ones.

What followed was three days of grim satisfaction. Tam and Val fought as well as ever, and with Mak’s mix bag of new strengths, Herald’s unmatched stealth and improved gear, and my increased size, we took the troupe apart. One by one, slowly and patiently, we hunted them down, harvesting their blood as best we could and avenging the two destroyed outlaw communities in the process. I ate well those days, only taking the best parts, though only Herald could stand to watch me. Even Mak got queasy once I tucked in. It was their loss. Troll was good eating!

We killed both of the last two trolls on the third day. With four dead, we simply ambushed the final one as she returned at sunset. Herald put all 6 of her enchanted arrows in the creature, the broadheads tearing her up inside and slowing her to the point where we could easily get her on the ground, and I gave her a faceful of venom. Then we just stood back and waited. Once she was dead we hoisted her into a tree and bled her like a pig, getting two full jars out of one troll and making seven and a half in total.

My family were all clearly satisfied with the results. They were happy with the fact that we’d gotten rid of a threat so close to the more settled parts of the forest, and that we’d avenged the dead of Piter’s Clearing and Sweet Creek. And, of course, that we’d gotten so much trolls’ blood to sell. But it was clear that the fate of the villages, something that could potentially happen to any village in the north, weighed on them. We had all seen the scattered bones, and they had all looked in the barn.

Our trip back was easier than the one there. The roads were much better, and we made it from Sweet Creek to the lake in one day. There I left them. I returned to my refugees to let them know that the trolls were gone and to check on my hoard, and spent the following four days escorting eight of them north to salvage what they could. Just because we hadn’t seen Speedy and her boyfriend didn’t mean that the area was safe.

There were a lot of tears and haunted faces. Of course there were. And they didn’t even give themselves time for proper funerals. I would have stayed with them, but they all agreed. This was not their home anymore, and they worried about the few people left behind at the mountain with the children.

They gathered what remains they found at Piter’s Landing in the barn, cleared it out of anything useful or valuable, filled it with scraps of wood, grass, and other fuel, and burned it to the ground. That would have to do.

Once they were done gathering what they could, and I’d seen them past the tributaries of the river and on their way home, I turned back north. The Need was always there, calling me north, and now I was here, and I had time to do something about it.

From the air I tried to actually listen to the Need. I’d been trying to do that for days now, ever since we came north. I wanted to make sure that there were no other nests nearby, but I’d usually been busy with something else. Now I could focus.

The Need was drawing me somewhere. Last time, when I’d followed Speedy, it had changed from a general draw towards the north into a pressure with a general direction to it as I got within some unknown distance from the Nest Heart, and then into a specific sense of location when I got close enough. Now I cruised, keeping my speed just fast enough to stay aloft with minimal effort, and I tried to feel that pressure.

I didn’t. But after a long while of focusing on nothing else, other than making sure I didn’t accidentally crash into a tree or something, I noticed that what I felt wasn’t one single draw. It was a multitude of little threads, hundreds, perhaps thousands, all pulling me in their own direction. It just so happened that the average direction of all those little pulls was due north. Because, I reasoned, the north was where Nest Hearts could easily spawn.

Well, then. I landed in a massively tall tree, three hundred feet at least, a real king or queen of the forest that towered even above the already giant specimens that grew around it. There I settled in and tried to find one of those threads that pulled harder than the others. The more settled I got, the more I focused, the better I was able to distinguish between them. The directions I felt were not very specific. Not all of them were north, either. I felt some very weak draws from the west, or from the mountains, and even a few from the south.

That was concerning. I’d have to see if I needed to do anything about that. But it was a problem for a later day, because after sitting in that tree for hours I'd finally picked a thread to follow.

I turned towards it and opened my eyes. I was facing east-northeast, the sea glittering in the failing light. I leapt from the tall tree and followed the thread, focusing on it and nothing else, adjusting my heading whenever it felt like my hold on the thread was slipping.

I was flying north-northeast by the time I felt the pressure. Only this time I was flying, going far faster than I had been when I was following Speedy, and the feeling changed from draw to pressure to location in no more than two minutes.

Once I knew where to look it was obvious. There was no glade this time, but even in the long shadows of the mountains I could see the deep, swirling darkness among the trees, and I went straight for it. The closer I got, the more excited I became. The thought of drinking in the substance of the Heart, of finally sating that need, scratching that itch after two weeks of doing my best to ignore it, was overwhelming.

The leafwork of the canopy was open enough to see the darkness through, but the branches were too dense to pass comfortably. I didn’t let that stop me. Like I’d done when I first brought Kira to Karakan, I Shifted in the air, catching the high branches of one of the taller trees and making my way down below to where I could see the ground.

There was a village there. A village of goblins. It was a very crude little village, of lean-tos and hide tents, but it was a village, far too large to be called a mere camp. The inhabitants were sitting or laying around, eating, talking, and laughing. Settling in for the evening, basically.

I felt a little bad for a second. The goblins I’d met together with Herald had been reasonable, and these ones didn’t seem like the horrid little monsters of Earth’s stories, either. But I also remembered what Jekrie had said, about goblins that made no bargains, that took all that they could. And they had the Heart, and I wanted it. I wanted it so bad that I could taste it.

I shifted and dropped.

There was a camp-wide twitch, there was silence, and then there was pandemonium. Most of them fled screaming into the forest. Some stood rooted to the ground, staring in wonder or in terror. Some few picked up weapons that they pointed at me uncertainly, but a growl and a hiss made them think better, and they backed off.

“Can any of you speak Trade?” I asked them. That was what the leader of the goblins I’d met — Nalleeka, I thought — had called Karakani. “Answer me!” I demanded when none of them spoke, but there was no sign of understanding or recognition on any of their faces. Nalleeka had learned the language from somewhere. Clearly, none of these had, and as wondrous as my very first advancement was, it only let me speak all human languages. What the goblins spoke might as well have been Martian to me.

Since none of them had the courage to approach me, I walked up to the Heart. That got some nervous chattering from the remaining goblins. The Heart was near the center of the camp, by a large central firepit, and it swirled and twisted just as beautifully as the last one had. I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t hold back. I reached out, put my hand inside it, and drew it in.

The goblins’ voices grew steadily more unhappy as they realized what I was doing. As I stripped layer after layer of shadowy streamers off the Heart, some of them even mustered the courage to approach me, screaming angrily, but none dared to get close enough that either of us could hurt the other. Unless I spat venom at them, of course, but as long as they didn’t try to stop me I saw no reason to. And it was hard to pay attention to them, anyway, with a little sun forming around my heart, burning my soul so good. One did get a little close for comfort, but in my mercy I only wrapped it up in its own shadow, which was enough for it to run screeching off into the trees.

The beam of light fixing the Heart to the earth winked out. The final shreds of darkness vanished into me, and I felt it all collapse into a little ball around my heart.

Oh, right. In my excitement I’d forgotten the last part.

The ball exploded.

When I woke, the Need was gone.

So were all the goblins. As I came back to my senses I could hear them screeching in the distance, and I thought I might be able to smell some hiding nearby. That might just have been the camp, though. I’d been so eager that I’d been unforgivably careless, but I’d been lucky. I was pretty sure that I had only been out for a minute at most, but that would have been more than long enough for some goblin warrior to drive a spear through my eye, if they had the minerals to get that close.

I would not make the same mistake again. I needed to be protected when this happened, or I needed to resist whatever knocked me out, to be strong enough to stay awake. And to learn that, I would need practice.

Or I could make sure to exterminate whatever I took the heart from, Instinct whispered as my shadow danced, wild and free. If there were no threat around, a little nap wouldn’t matter.

I stood up, and Mercies, I felt good. The feeling of fullness, of strength and vigor, of being more, was back. I took one look around the camp. The explosion didn’t seem to have done anything except scare everyone off, but I was thankful enough for that.

I Shifted, climbed to the top of the tree, and made my way into the air.

The Need was gone, but when I focused I could still feel the threads that would lead me to other Hearts. They felt fainter. Perhaps they were just harder to focus on, now that I was satisfied. But they were there, and I was glad for it. Happily, none of them seemed to quite overlap with my hoard, the closest being in the mountains many miles to the north of my nest. I’d have to keep checking, though. If a nest popped up anywhere close to my mountain I wanted to know as early as possible, before there was a risk of some little gremlin bastard getting its grubby mitts on my treasure.

I headed for Karakan, taking the long way around so that I could check on the salvage team. I found them easily enough, camped in a gully but easily visible from the air with the fire they had going. After making sure that they were safe I continued south-east to the city, and when I got there I didn’t bother with the sewers, going straight to the garden and from there on to the inn.

It was Mak who came to let me in. Of course it was. I could feel her rushing down to the cellar, and she practically threw the door open.

“Thanks,” I said. “Trouble sleeping again?”

“Forget about sleep! Thank the Mercies you’re here!” she said, relief dripping off her. She stepped out of the way to let me in. “I was working my way up to going back out to find you!”

“What happened?”

She let me in, then quickly closed and barred the door before speaking. “Sempralia wants to meet you, is what happened! And Ardek stumbled in here two nights ago, beaten half to death with a message from the Blossom, and before you do anything—” she rushed to say as outrage flared in me, “— I don’t think she ordered it!”

“Explain,” I commanded. I was almost shaking. My shadow was going wild, straining to go back out, and I was holding back from ordering Mak to open the door so that I could go and do something terrible. They had hurt one of mine. My servant. Someone had to pay for that, and I had told Kesra what would happen. I needed to make good on my threat, or I’d look weak. They’d think that they could do whatever they wanted, and the next time they might go after the actual family.

Oh, I wanted so very badly to send a message. And if I ordered Mak to open that door for me, she would. No matter what she herself wanted or thought best, she’d do what I told her to. I’d been careful the last few weeks not to tell her to do anything that she wouldn’t want to anyway, to frame things as requests rather than commands, but in that moment… But no. I’d asked her to tell me when I was being crazy, and to help me if I was giving Instinct too much control at the wrong time. I especially needed to trust her and the others when it came to judging others. If I didn’t listen to her now, what was the point?

“It doesn’t make sense,” she hurried on. “The message is almost conciliatory. Posturing bullshit, yeah, but if you read between the lines I think you’ve scared her, so why would she try to provoke you? No. It doesn’t make sense. Unless the bitch is unstable, which we can’t assume that she isn’t.”

I forced my anger down, then moved, deliberately putting some distance between myself and the door and sitting down by the stairs. “If you don't think the Blossom ordered it, then who?”

“One of her minions. Maybe…” she swallowed. “Maybe that little shit Tarkarran? Maybe someone else who was supposed to bring us the message and recognised Ardek? The fact that they left him alive at all… They must be furious that he’s still alive, and working with us. If they wanted to provoke you it would make more sense to just kill him and dump him here with a letter.”

“What about his minions? Those friends of his that he recruited? Was anyone else hurt?”

“All fine, as far as I know. They weren't even around. Some guys he didn’t recognise cornered him, kicked the shit out of him and told him to bring us a message.”

I laid down, hearing my claws scrape against the stone floor as I flexed them, slowly bleeding my anger out where it couldn’t cause permanent consequences. “And he’s all right now, yeah?”

“Don’t worry, sister.” Mak’s voice was soothing as she sat down next to me. “Kira and me, we healed him right up. He’s fine.”

“Want to tell me the message? Or would you rather have him do it?”

“Well… he’s the one who suffered for it. Might as well let him tell you.”

“All right. And Sempralia? That’s the Lady Justice you met, yeah?”

Mak heaved a long sigh. “Yeah. That’s her. Simple enough. We got a letter, with a seal and everything, while we all were out killing trolls. I could read it to you.”

“Just summarize it.”

“Right. Apparently, the Lady Justice has decided that she wants to meet you. That’s it. No reason given, no hint of what she might want to talk about. She wants to meet you. Wants us to suggest a time and place. And, while you certainly can refuse…”

“You’d rather I didn’t?”

“I beg you to do as she asks! I still don’t know if she’s any kind of ally, or just someone who’s treated us fairly, but I am desperate not to make an enemy of her. We just got somewhere! We’re a Family, we’ve got this inn, which could secure our futures for generations! If we anger, or even just annoy a Councillor…”

She went on for a while, speaking as she let me into the strongroom. I’d decided almost immediately to do it. Like Mak said, it would be crazy to upset one of the most powerful people in the city, and there was no reason I could see to refuse, as long as I could choose a place where there was no risk of an ambush or a surprise attack. But I let Mak finish. From the way she went on she had obviously been thinking about this, preparing her pitch. And there was something about how earnest and anxious she was that was, quite frankly, adorable.

“Please, Draka?” she finished. “Would you do this for us? Just meet with her?”

I couldn’t tell from her expression how well I’d kept my emotions in check, but I made a show of considering her arguments. Perhaps it was patronizing, in a way, but I wanted her to feel that I was listening to her. And, honestly, she’d made some good arguments. We had done, and would continue to do, some things that were very much illegal, and having a councilor with a grudge against us, especially one who was a notorious stickler for the law, was a guaranteed way to have those illegal acts exposed sooner or later. And that was besides the many small ways Sempralia could make my family’s lives difficult, no matter how carefully they followed the law. On the other hand, if someone like the Lady Justice had a good impression of us, of me, that could be a real blessing. Hell, I might even be able to gain legal recognition!

Or perhaps not. Hundreds of years of prejudice probably wouldn’t be that easy to overcome. But that was no reason not to try, and a girl could dream.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said finally, to Mak’s undisguised relief. “Can you pick a place and a time? You know what I need.”

She thought for a split second, then nodded. “I can do that. I’ll send a reply to the Lady Justice in the morning, and let you know when everything’s decided, yeah?”

“I knew I could rely on you. Now, that message from the dead woman. I don’t know what she could possibly have to say that would interest me, unless she’s offering to turn herself over to us, but I’d like to hear it. Is Ardek around?”

“He might be asleep, but I think so. Should I get him for you?”

“Please. And Mak?”

“Yes?”

“Get some sleep, would you? I know it’s hard, but you’re still obviously not sleeping enough. Hell, you’re welcome to come down here and stay with me if it helps. I don’t mind it. It’s nice, and I need you in good shape, yeah?”

She looked at me in surprise then turned to leave, but I saw her smile as she did. On the other side of the door she stopped and turned around, and said, “I might take you up on that.” Then she was gone.