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books-of-the-great-leviathan · 1 year

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Chapter 33- Azare

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"Saints," Ziva muttered. "I bloody hate pirates."

"Steady, Lapin," Azare told her. "If we're to be technical, they're privateers."

They wound together down the long cliff path toward one of the many smaller inlets that edged Valeris's coastline. It was hidden from the city proper by a crag of mountain, but close enough that Azare could still see the smoke rising from the burnpiles and grave-pyres that smoldered day in and day out, bruising the sky with a pall of ashes.

There were altogether too many bodies to burn, but Isabella had left her orders, and so they burned. To watch it, condone it, was agony, heresy- in Estara, to burn a body was to consign it to oblivion, given neither to Bellana's light nor tossed to the beasts chained at the bottom of the sea. Here in Lapide, it was the proper way, and he'd seen enough deaths to know a fast one by fire was hardly the worst way to go.

So many years he'd fought Lapide. On the deck of a ship it was easy to fight and hate, kill or be killed, give the order or watch his own soldiers turned to bloody corpses on the waves. Less easy when the dead clutched dolls, when he stood near a pyre and smelled the sweet char of burning flesh, stinging his eyes, clinging to his skin long after the last flames had guttered out.

Was it his death at Ziva's hands, some vital part of him transformed by resurrection that had made him see matters so? Or had the simple act of dying merely shifted his perspective? Margaux might have had an answer, in all her heretic theorizing. Or maybe he needed no answer. For the first time in a long time it was not the past that mattered most.

This inlet, a shining crescent of beach bitten into the cliffside, had been well-protected from the monster wave. Young cedars clung to the cliffs, filling the wind with their sweet and woody scent. This coastline had long in Lapide's history been a haven for smugglers and brigands, reavers and slavers, and now the inlet looked the part, full with ramshackle activity. A small fleet of ships were moored out in the clear turquoise shallows; amidst them swayed a black twin-masted brigantine, like a great ragged groak amongst songbirds.

Azare glanced back to the train of wagons that trundled down the path behind them, slow-going and cumbersome, their elk snorting and scuffing in protest. Half of the remaining Witchhunters accompanied them, keeping close watch on their precious cargo, but Azare and Ziva walked ahead, unarmed.

The Fishcutter rose and fell gently on the shallow waves, its anchor hooked deep into the seafloor, masts creaking and wreathed in seabirds. Captain Irene herself sat on the bowsprit, one boot heel braced on the orkwife figurehead's shoulder. She held a battered parasol in one hand and a pistol in the other.

As Azare and Ziva approached, she took aim, and fired. The crack echoed off the cliffside, seabirds squawking in its wake. The pathway cratered inches from Azare's toes. He stopped and lifted his hands, smiling up at Irene.

"You missed," he called.

"On the contrary, my dear, darling Witchhunter. I have you right where I want you." She twirled her parasol, leaning back with a grin. She must have scavenged the thing from the flooding. "Anyhow, you make a better target when you're standing still."

"I'm glad to see you survived the storm."

"Indeed so, Captain Azare, as am I." She made a grand gesture with her pistol. "Found myself a little pocket of paradise in which to batten down the hatches."

"And these other ships?" He glanced around at them, at the portly merchant cogs and sleek lateen-rigged dhows and humble fishing vessels, even a Rashi houseboat three stories tall and decorated with bright paint. Their crews mended sails or fished the shallows or bent busily at cookfires, alive and well instead of crushed and swamped beneath the tidal wave that had destroyed their harbor and fellow ships alike. "Did you lead them and their crews to the same salvation?"

Irene laughed. "Trying to wring a drop of decency out of me, Azare?"

"You can't blame me for trying."

"You'll have to try a lot harder than that."

Azare lowered his hands.

"How about this?" he asked. "As I'm sure you're aware, Queen Isabella is no longer in Valeris. She's taken her swiftest ship and gone after her brother. After the monster. I think we both know what she means to do from there."

"She's a vengeful sort of lass," Irene said. "Got to respect a girl for having a bit of initiative."

"You and I also know she can't be allowed to kill the Leviathan. Either part of it."

"Color me gobsmacked, Witchhunter. I thought you were the god-killing type."

"Once," Azare said. He paced closer. "That isn't what I want anymore."

He signaled to the closest wagon, and it drew nearer, wheels sunk deep into the path. Azare took a corner of the canvas tarp and flung it wide. Its contents seared brilliant sunspots into his eyes, a flare of gold struck off the stacks of queensheads within. Not just coin, but wealth: bolts of sapsilk and byssus, statuettes of amber that seemed to pulse like hearts in the sunlight. Buyani porcelain, priceless and antique, painted by revered masters three hundred years past. Pearls and storm-sapphires, snake-stones and blocks of milled grayamber. A gown of glimmering fish-skin, stitched for Lorenzo's queen on her wedding-day, so fine it seemed to be spun from the reflections of moonslight off waves. Estaran enamel dark as night, stolen from tombs deep in the Ibaris wasteland, claimed as prize by some ruthless Valere regent.

Irene blinked, and stood, dropping her parasol.

"Is that-" she began.

"Your payment," Azare said. He removed a coin and flicked it up to Irene. She caught it in midair. "As promised to you by Luca Valere, so I understand. You can check the other wagons. It should provide sufficient."

Irene turned the coin to and fro, running her thumb over the Valere hawk stamped into the gold. "This is from the royal treasury."

"It is."

"How by the whale did you convince Isabella Valere to part with this much of her precious kit, especially considering her frayed relationship with that pretty little brother of hers?"

"I didn't," Azare said.

"You rotten scum-of-a-thief. How'd you manage that?"

"We are the Royal Witchhunters of Estara, Captain," Azare told her. "We may be few, but I hand-picked these soldiers from the Witchhunter ranks myself. I'd rather have a few good men than an army of fools."

"Not to mention," Ziva cut in, "the City Guard is somewhat preoccupied at the moment."

Irene let out a snort. She shook the gold coin. "I half like you, Azare, I really do. You want to buy my ship, then? Sail her- where? To save our dear monster and the day in the doing?"

"No. I have my own ship for that. I want you to find the pirate lords and convince them to meet with me."

"You're bloody insane."

"Maybe. But these are troubled times. A little insanity becomes vital. I'd do it myself, but I doubt they'd listen."

"So while I go perform this impossible task, you- what? Swan off to go hunt down Luca Valere and pluck the Leviathan from his sister's grasp?"

"Not just Luca. Alois."

"Alois."

"My son."

Irene narrowed her eyes, still fiddling with the gold. "Warms my black heart," she said, "to see a pa worrying so over his boy. It really does. But I'm not interested in your evangelizing. We've something good, here, me and my crew, and with Isabella Valere gone-"

She made an expansive gesture. "-Who knows? An enterprising woman like myself sees a niche, and wonders how it might be filled."

Azare tilted his head to the side. "So you don't want your gold?"

"Oh, believe me, Captain," Irene said. "I want my gold."

She signaled again, and the crags around Azare and the cluster of wagons burst into movement. Rifle barrels slid into view, fresh-oiled and glistening, and blunderbusses like small cannons, and the bristling bolts of crossbows, all aimed down at Azare and the wagons. Close range; they'd never miss. None of the Witchhunters moved; no hand reached for blade nor gun. Azare regarded Irene as she leveled her own pistol at him.

"Poor Witchhunter Severin, he isn't so smart," sang out a voice, and Azare saw Matteo climb into view amidst his fellow crewmen, lute in hand, plucking out a tune. "Leave us the gold or you'll be shot in the heart."

"Your singing is shit," Ziva called.

"Better than your chances of survival, sweet one."

"I'm prepared to be fair with you if it's decency you want," Irene called down. "Back away from the wagons and go up the path, and we'll let you all go. Make one wrong move, and the Witchhunter order will be well and truly extinct."

"Strange you should mention that." He spread his arms. "This isn't the whole Witchhunter order, recall. Only half."

"What?" She searched the cliffs. "Then where's the rest?"

Azare pointed past her, out the harbor mouth, toward the choppy waves of Bellana's Arm beyond- moreso, the shape visible some leagues off. Its sails glinted in the sunlight. "You see that ship waiting out there? You can look with your spyglass, I won't stop you. Go on."

Irene stared down at him, her jaw clenched, then flung her parasol aside. She extended her spyglass, keeping her pistol trained on him all the while, and peered out to sea.

"Recognize it?" Azare said. "A small twin-masted schooner, I should say, painted Witchhunter gray and flying no flags? That's the Mistfox, and you're right. Once, I took her past the Outer Sea and into the heart of the Great Blue, took her through storms and sleet to hunt and kill a god. She's armed to the bilge, Captain, with more spellfire than by all natural rights should be possible. We used four spellfire javelins on our hunting trip. We have two left. One should be enough, I think, to eat up your pretty ship, and you, too, should you fire on me."

"And you," Irene snarled.

"Then we'll be ashes together."

Her face contorted, her whaleglass eye a bright point against her dark skin. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a breath.

"You conniving, salt-tongued, squid-spined bastard," she told him. "I should skin the ginger scalp from you. I should hack out your guts and tan them into braces. I should pop out your eyes and swap in your cursed cuckolding bollocks and tattoo the tale of your trickery on your traitorous, murderous, maggot-mangled hide-"

She cut off her blistering stream of curses and shook, silent, seething. Then, without warning, she burst into laughter, deep and rollicking, a full-lunged cackle that went on for long seconds.

"Oh, I'm damned for sure," she managed after a while. She dabbed at her eyes, whaleglass and flesh alike. "Glowlands take you, Azare, you and your whole bloody lot. Fine. I'll find the lords and do my bloody best to convince them. This'll likely end with me in pieces, but your gold's good and I like the idea of using it to buy my own island too much to protest."

With a sweep of her hand called off her crew. Azare heard Ziva's exhale, glimpsed her hand slide from the hidden hilt of the pistol holstered under her waistcoat. She glanced at him and gave him a shrug, a smile playing around her full lips.

"Steady, Lapin," he told her, and she winked, and a sunburst flared in Azare's heart.

"The gold is yours," he told Irene. "When can you leave?"

She licked her thumb and stuck it with a theatrical flourish into the wind. "Soon as I can get these sails catching air."

"Good." Azare made to turn back to the wagons. "I'll send a couple Witchhunters with you, to keep you honest."

"I'd expect nothing less." She paused. "You care about them, don't you? Not just your boy. The Valere princess, too."

Azare looked back. She watched him from the bowsprit, her whaleglass eye glowing. He felt her regard on him like a knifepoint.

He faced her again.

"As much as I know you care about what happens here," he said. "The world, the Leviathan, whatever you like. It can never be the same, not after this, but it can be made again, made better. You care, even if you pretend you don't."

"That's true," Irene said. "Let us be called gentlemen of fortune, lads, and if not, let us be bones at the bottom of the sea. Don't mistake me, I fight for no kings. But if the world goes to the Hells, what have I left to exploit? What horizons to reach, what wealths and wonders to plunder?"

A ragged cheer went up from her crew, Matteo's lute adding to the cacophony. Irene grinned, sudden as a blow, and flung forth her arm toward them in a broad gesture. "I'll fight, Azare, to catch glory and make myself and my crew better for it. For what's the world with the loss of such fine gentlemen? Silent seas and empty skies, and not a song to fill them. I'll fight for that, and damn the rest."

Azare smiled in return. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding."

#tales of the great leviathan #grave of the great leviathan #fantasy fiction #original fiction #serial novel #chapter 33

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simpalert · 1 year

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ya know what, fuck it. dumps lore about bellanas play house here [a lil og story thing]

also gonna be linking crossover stuff [none of its in order]

snowe x bellanas 1 - snowe x bellannas 2 - snowe x bellannas 3 - snowex bellannas 4

snowe=@snowe-zolynn-rogers

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444names · 1 year

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imperial from tes, french and quenya names all with diacritics removed

Acarne Adarier Aduralba Aesterel Aevus Alactaridi Alauron Alcan Alendia Aligna Alleonius Alpina Amarier Amaris Amounil Anderme Andes Angulio Aquettus Arany Ardsmint Arindrius Asilil Asius Assea Astisian Ataminis Atian Atontius Atreld Audidan Augeon Aurohedrio Avesse Axille Balinque Banar Barius Bellana Belley Belloio Bendedge Benwenden Betinvex Bited Blinathis Bracato Briania Brodianus Brome Bruthan Buion Burca Cabenia Cadius Caecia Caele Calain Calaurius Caleociro Caleof Callus Canchan Candi Caphirre Caphori Captius Carcia Carion Carus Casanus Castilust Cense Chalvinie Chancelle Citus Cladfarius Clana Clander Clixtus Clomiered Coliele Colixus Coloof Comengdia Comenter Cossan Daller Dambro Deria Dessic Devinysi Diusk Dolun Doregur Dostarna Drent Druing Dulus Dustiond Eadors Eatitia Edestalan Elaentami Eldess Eldilen Elendume Elleo Emius Enirdia Entuma Eptia Erius Ertea Esahang Escuna Estarth Etius Etundus Eudil Fabers Fabestir Fabson Falburen Falius Falontur Falova Fandesne Fanien Fantatye Farryarsus Farstelle Fatcha Fatin Final Finanur Flaelvar Flaire Flogeme Flucilmo Folambrin Foria Forto Frianuscht Fronna Gaechar Gaudius Gavatar Gavria Gemmar Ginarde Gleyna Gratoul Guncaprana Handele Harcome Hards Harius Hastorius Hatiner Hedolan Hereles Heris Hermosto Hettic Hilin Hipius Hitiust Horna Hossynain Houia Howvalius Hrattus Hrine Hrinie Hugus Hyarde Ickwentius Iloger Imbarcel Imbarto Imono Inces Indil Indormore Initia Irius Irmere Iscedrier Isius Ismande Istia Jacia Jacquagrus Jeacatir Jeaurgiana Jeren Jeride Jessaelvo Jesta Jirinius Josaeudia Jucas Kirstarvie Krass Lacarand Laelde Lairatius Lator Laudent Leconde Lendece Lentia Letiling Licinius Ligus Limeanis Limegina Liste Liveren Lodoronia Loirbea Lotents Lundius Lupicennin Maccilanus Macolie Magil Mandius Manice Manna Manollimus Marasus Mardi Margesos Maruccus Mauguenyan Mendefta Menincie Mergio Metius Miele Miestar Miromelia Mirtius Mitius Mituria Miuser Monorus Motelinus Motinortas Murus Nabnus Nacalor Nagly Nalest Natumus Niandus Niefure Nientus Nolca Nosinan Notia Oamildo Obeas Ohienrius Olinus Ollaquesta Ondua Onick Onindre Onius Ontorma Oramaxiust Ordexius Ottorionee Pamis Pands Papolam Pards Pargia Patanine Patar Patchronis Pattata Paurcorien Peesdria Pelit Perius Pertiang Pioran Pirene Pisse Pistius Piulp Plaundius Plius Porne Pornia Pottel Prane Pricele Prius Prote Quenia Quitina Raccard Racia Raforil Ragin Ranuron Rasio Ratia Reals Rende Reniancus Renus Reyndius Rhers Riseren Risongwang Roade Roambarne Rolkirge Rondrie Rossellius Rotelex Ruliennia Rullisleo Saber Sador Salace Salannus Sauretio Scaren Scasseina Scelemiln Sebeius Seced Seius Senderpus Sephis Serian Sibarine Siligna Silivine Silmarne Singiving Skielia Skinia Skylvionte Sominwe Sondexim Sonus Soregentus Sossossius Souivie Soukonia Sperucaind Spiendenna Spius Stele Steras Stius Storone Strattinia Sulissonta Sulup Sundomee Suroges Suspiendo Sylvia Synerfle Taboria Taeruciry Tanar Tanconds Taregaecan Tarlaldo Tasseque Tasta Tellientia Terienta Tertarital Tesse Thang Thellaccus Therte Thier Tintinse Trimout Trixtiny Tulunce Turbaulis Turus Tyattius Tyenia Ulianne Ulnus Umanged Undius Unelus Valal Valiver Vallus Valma Valvus Vanca Vandre Vanth Vanus Vardexio Vardinas Vards Vartetwome Vaspus Vedmin Vence Veran Vianamaley Viango Vianius Videna Viendac Vingwell Viorack Vircalia Vivundur Vlius Vocto Vyhasine Walla Watius Westing Whode Woryartus Yafors Yandorine Yaran Yarius Yeanus Yelin Yernia Yvorome

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breezybeej · 17 days

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I don't make fic content lol what do you mean

[looks at my bellana and seven text posts]

See... Hahah... It's normal canon interactions...

#not on this blog.... on my other one....#trek

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healthstyle101 · 6 months

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Heavy rainfall triggers deadly flooding and landslides in Sri Lanka, leaving 6 dead

Heavy Rain Triggers Tragedy in Sri Lanka In a series of unfortunate events, heavy rain has unleashed chaos across Sri Lanka, resulting in floods, mudslides, and fallen trees. These calamities have already claimed the lives of at least six individuals and compelled authorities to take action, including the closure of schools in some areas. The ongoing heavy monsoon rains have relentlessly pounded this Indian Ocean nation for over a week, causing severe inundation of homes, fields, and roadways. Tragedy struck on a fateful Friday in Colombo, where a colossal tree crashed onto a moving bus, claiming the lives of five passengers and leaving five others injured. Dr. Rukshan Bellana, a representative from the capital's principal hospital, reported this grievous incident. Moreover, in the Galle district, approximately 80 miles south of Colombo, another fatality occurred when a rock tumbled onto a residence during a mudslide. The state-run Disaster Management Center documented these distressing incidents. The widespread impact of these floods and mudslides has been nothing short of devastating, with hundreds of homes in 12 districts suffering damage, affecting over 50,000 people. Among them, 1,473 families have been relocated to temporary shelters. The district of Matara, located along the coastline, has borne the brunt of this disaster, with the majority of its territory submerged for more than a week. In response to the rising waters and the looming threat of landslides, authorities have taken the precautionary measure of closing schools in Matara. Read the full article

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livornopress · 11 months

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Revocato il divieto di balneazione alla Bellana e Scalinata di Antignano, rimane in vigore alla Terrazza

Revocato il divieto preventivo di balneazione alla Bellana e alla Scalinata di Antignano Rimane in vigore il divieto alla Terrazza Mascagni Livorno, 9 giugno 2023 – È revocato da oggi, con ordinanza firmata dal Sindaco, il divieto temporaneo di balneazione riguardante la Bellana e la Scalinata di Antignano. Per questi due tratti di mare, infatti, è arrivato il via libera di Arpat dopo…

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rosegoldcas · 30 days

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Idk what is abt srar honestly. This is gonna make it worse lmao but I don’t love Elton John’s part 😞 I don’t love his voice on it

I don’t even mind that you don’t like Elton’s part, like it’s good but it is subpar for him and that’s fine to admit. Also I get the kinda hype whiplash you get from Rat A Tat to SRAR, but idk SRAR gets me hyped up in a different way. Idk how to explain it.

#Bellana ask #Bellana Tag #Bellana #fall out boy #fob #srar #save rock and roll

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loudalmondponypeanut · 1 year

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GIRLS BIRTHYAY!

Sip-sip hooray! Happy birthday to Karina & Danielle, as well as to the rp-ers who play them here, namely: Lil-Sissy Mereena, Ibu Melanie, Bellana, Haine, Maydelle, Riley, Arby, Kairynna, Ibu Cupet, Keliza, Kimberly, Requelme, Caitya, Flornn, Ganuri, Cathrine, Annetha, Lofarina, Porsha, Michaela, Kezia, Patricia, Lovushka, Abernathy, and other users that i can't mention one by one.

𖤓 : May you be blessed with a lot more candles to blow out. Go shawty! Enjoy your special-day<3

❀ ◦ 🪞 ♡

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hotspotu2022 · 2 years

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due-to-financial-difficulties-father-and-daughter-of-the-same-family-committed-suicide-by-falling-under-the-train

Father and daughter of one family fell under the train due to financial problems* Two died after being hit by a train near Bhudevi Peta railway gate, Gajapatinagaram, Vizianagaram district, Bellana Taudu (36) and Bellana Shravani (13) of Lingalavalasa village died due to financial problems. The police are investigating the case

#Breaking News #Latest News #Flash News #Andhra pradesh News #Today news Updates

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historiasdehernas · 2 years

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Sonhos de Areia: Episódio 1, 2 e 3

Aventura: Bem-Vindos a Zoror!

Episódio 1: O Ladrão feérico.

Os personagens começam sua aventura no Oasis de Zoror, uma cidade governada pelo Sultão Iusuke e com uma forte divisão de castas. Os nobres e ricos vivem dentro das muralhas e tem acesso ilimitado a água limpa, enquanto as pessoas de fora se contentam com a fome e a sede.

O grupo se conhece na Biblioteca de Otth, um templo do deus do conhecimento com missionários estrangeiros vindos das Terras-do-Rei, um continente longínquo depois do Mar de Hera, com uma estrutura muito precária e simples, onde cada um dos personagens estava por sua próprias razões. La um missionário chamado Ronaldo os ajuda como pode em suas tarefas. Na biblioteca há também um acólito de Segil (O Deus do Sol) chamado Vitt ensinando um meio-orc adolescente chamado Ugo a ler.

Algumas coisas estranhas começam a acontecer; desenhos surgindo do nada, livros caindo e pinturas em seus corpos. Depois de um tempo um raio multicolorido cega todos na biblioteca e muitos itens saem flutuando porta a fora, incluindo coisas dos personagens e um livro do Missionário Ronaldo.

Os heróis começam a perseguir os itens pela cidade de Zoror, ao dobrarem em uma ruela eles acabam esbarrando em alguns bandidos, que usam isso como desculpa para tentar roubar o grupo. Após lidar com os bandidos os heróis escalam algumas casas e continuam sua perseguição pelos telhados de Zoror.

Depois de alguns saltos eles são levados até um a estranha árvore em uma praça no Bairro dos Maltrapilhos, uma região periférica da cidade onde vivem os moradores de rua. La um dragão-fada de escamas verdes se revela, ele se apresenta como Frinent, ele diz que rouba itens pelo Oasis para que o chefe dos moradores de rua, Hunil, troque os itens por água para os maltrapilhos.

Frinent os devolve suas coisas somente depois de ouvir uma boa piada de Paimon e o dragão fada ainda os conta que uma meia-ogra tem roubado os itens de Hunil. Frinent pede ajuda para afugentar ela e o grupo aceita ajudar.

�� Os personagens então se dirigem para a taverna Dedo do Gigante onde a mulher costuma beber, lá eles bebem uma cerveja viscosa e descobrem quem é a meia-ogra, o nome dela é Turnena, tem uma aparência terrível mas uma força impressionante. Mira puxa briga com a mulher depois de algumas palavras e o grupo apanha muito antes de derruba-la com a ajuda dos mendigos locais.

Depois disso Paimon volta para falar com Frinent que o agradece e dá os outros itens da árvore. Enquanto isso o restante do grupo se dirige para estalagens diferentes (Cão Sarnento e Bellana).

Pela manhã o grupo se reencontra na Cão Sarnento e enquanto conversam eles são interrompidos por Vitt, que diz nervoso que Ugo foi capturado por gnolls e que precisa da ajuda deles para resgatar o menino.

Episódio 2: As hienas de Yeenoghu

Os heróis saem correndo da estalagem do Cão Sarnento acompanhando Vitt até o Bairro da Esperança, um bairro projetado pela antiga Padixá Ulta para ser um centro de ressocialização mas acabou se tornando um lugar de criminosos e assassinos após a morte da Padixá. O acólito conta que foi ali que os gnolls levaram o meio-orc e o grupo começa a procurar por pistas sobre o paradeiro de Ugo.

Eles descobrem que ele foi levado para os esgotos de Zoror, um complexo de túneis construídos em uma ruína antiga. O Escolhido do Sol percebe o símbolo de uma presa verde-escura na carroça dos Gnolls, ele sabe que esse é o símbolo de Yeenoghu, o Devorador de Sóis, um dos lordes demoníacos do Inferno.

Descendo pelos esgotos eles percebem sua complexidade e perigos, mas conseguem achar o Covil dos Gnolls. Os heróis chegam a uma câmara subterrânea escura, que tem um único feixe de luz descendo sobre um altar sujo de carniça e ossos assim como o resto do lugar. No altar amarrado está Ugo e a seu lado um gnoll de pelo amarelo-queimado e uma crista vermelha. Ele está esperando o meio-dia para sacrificar o meio-orc como forma de sacrilégio a Segil.

Os heróis são pegos de surpresa enquanto tentam resgatar Ugo por gnolls com arcos, a batalha é acirrada mas eles conseguem salvar o garoto. Durante o combate o gnoll líder consegue arrancar um pedaço do Escolhido do Sol e dizer “Yeenoghu ira devorar o sol e os monstros se deleitarão sob o sol vermelho”, depois disso ele tenta escapar mas é pego pelos heróis.

Enquanto o Escolhido do Sol pulveriza o corpo do gnoll líder, Paimon encontra uma pérola negra no altar de sacrifício. Vitt então pede que os heróis o acompanhem até o Bairro das Presas, um bairro recém criado pela chegada de uma tribo orc que migrou do Oasis de Kanda, para falar com o pai de Ugo e depois irem até o Templo de Segil falar com seu mestre Martinel.

No Bairro das Presas eles conhecem a comunidade de orcs refugiados de Kanda, um Oasis próximo ao deserto das tribos que está sofrendo ataques de Hordas Demoníacas, lá eles são apresentados a Zandro, o pai de Ugo e o braço direito do líder dos orcs Oorte, ele e seu chefe são devotos de Haras, a deusa da guerra, e fazem de tudo para manter seu povo protegido. Zandro os entrega alguns bons litros de água limpa e os agradece por terem salvado Ugo, ele ainda pergunta se algum deles sabe magia pois quer que o jovem meio-orc tenha os músculos de um orc, a inteligência de seu pai e um pouco de magia para conseguir sobreviver ao futuro.

Depois dessa conversa eles se dirigem até o Templo de Segil, uma torre alta e sem teto com uma estátua de Segil e muitos vidrais espelhados, lá eles conhecem o clérigo-mestre Martinel, um tabaxi de pelos laranjas bonitos e lisos mas com uma voz muito rouca, ele saúda o Escolhido do Sol e os ajuda como pode. Ele ainda oferece um trabalho para que possa ajudar Paimon e o então apelidado Sol a verem os livros dos Arquivistas, mas para isso eles precisaram roubar uma carroça de água suja da Guilda Salamandra, um grupo criminoso que está levando água para Morgi, um vilarejo próximo a Zoror. Se fizerem isso ele dará ao grupo 600 moedas de ouro e conseguirá pedir um favor aos Arquivistas, ele fala que essa carroça sairá durante a noite em dois dias e que eles devem estar de prontidão no Portão Sudoeste. O grupo então começa a se preparar e planejar seu roubo a carroça.

Episódio 3: Assalto em Movimento

Antes do amanhecer o grupo escala o Templo de Segil para ter um vislumbre melhor do Oasis dentro das muralhas, após isso eles se preparam para o assalto em dois dias. Paimon começa a alimentar os maltrapilhos com o dinheiro que tinha enquanto os fala sobre a água que trará, isso chama a atenção da DA (Distribuição de Água) um grupo militar responsável por manter a água sobre “controle”, muitos moradores de rua apanham e três são enforcados na Árvore da Chuva, é então que o feiticeiro conhece o “Sultão” Hunil que é o chefe dos mendigos, ele ajuda Paimon a se manter na encolha e o avisa sobre os perigos do que estava fazendo.

Enquanto Sol e Tokoyo descansam na Estalagem do Longo ‘A’ Braço no Bairro das Presas, Mira vai conhecer a integrante do Rugido do Dragão, uma ordem revolucionária que luta pela libertação de todos os escravizados, ela trabalha no Bairro das Espadas, chamado assim por ser um local militarizado e com muitas forjas, a integrante da Rugido do Dragão se chama Celina, é uma tabaxi amarela com bolinhas pretas, ela é uma artificer capaz de criar itens mágicos e ex-integrante da Firma, uma empresa de itens mágicos tecnomânticos que acabou após a morte de seu chefe Balthor. Celina a conta que o Rugido do Dragão não é muito ativa em Zoror e sua principal tarefa é impedir que escravizados vão parar na Arena e que alguns consigam fugir.

Então os heróis se dirigem para o Portão Sudoeste onde encontram o grupo de bandidos montados em avestruzes e uma carroça puxada por um rinoceronte com uma perna mecânica. Sol tenta enganar os bandidos mas acaba não dando certo e ume perseguição começa enquanto eles disparam em direção ao deserto.

A batalha em movimento é intensa, para todos menos Mira é difícil manter o passo com os avestruzes. Após derrotarem os bandidos e roubarem a carroça, os heróis vão até o Bairro dos Maltrapilhos onde se escondem no porão secreto de Hunil. Lá eles acabam descobrindo que Tokoyo na realidade é Tokoyo Aikyo, a filha de Liyana Aikyo chefe da DA, isso os assusta mas eles decidem confiar na garota. O grupo decide por ir para o Oasis de Calaena onde Mira ficou sabendo por Celina que será o próximo lugar de ação da Rugido do Dragão.

Durante a parte da manhã enquanto estão saindo para falar com Martinel e receber suas recompensas, Paimon e Sol são atacados por um dos Cobradores de Tagar, o chefe da Guilda Salamandra, o atacante é um bugbear que os dá uma surra antes de Mira e Tokoyo chegarem.

O bugbear acaba fugindo e o grupo decide por juntar suas coisas e sair da cidade o mais rápido possível, enquanto Tokoyo vai ao portão sudoeste com a carroça e rinoceronte roubados, Mira compra suprimentos, Paimon e Sol vão falar com Martinel. Ele os paga o valor combinado mas não os ajuda com os Arquivistas por terem distribuído a água para os maltrapilhos, isso poderia levar a DA até ele então o tabaxi não cumpre sua proposta.

Com tudo arrumado os personagens partem para a estrada juntos de Frinent, o dragão-fada e Bark, nome que deram ao rinoceronte com a perna mecânica. Durante a viagem eles encontram alguns perigos do deserto e compartilham suas histórias, em algum momento Tokoyo escuta uma mensagem telepática de um homem chamado Everis dizendo que sua mãe está a procurando.

Depois de quinze dias o grupo chega até uma selva densa no meio do deserto em meio a uma chuva constante, pelos cálculos eles parecem estar chegando em Fanalis, um vilarejo de servos do dragão azul ancião Encar, mas são emboscados por um grupo de draconatos camuflados e um combate começa.

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formerlyroyal · 2 years

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I can never get enough of their breathing. I love it and you get sprayed half the time, doesn’t stink bc they don’t feed there.

*disclaimer: good pics and videos aren’t always possible with my excitement

#Bellana #grey whales #baja california

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books-of-the-great-leviathan · 1 year

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Chapter 32- Alois

***

There was a big difference, he decided on the fifth day out, between ranging through the wilderness on elk-back and tromping through it on foot, in muggy late-summer heat, battling not just sweat but clouds of stinging, biting gnats that wanted nothing more than to drain him of his fluids. Niive, noticing his misery, had chewed a mouthful of bluish moss and spat out the resultant goo onto his bites, and that eased the itching.

When he tried to say thank you, she tossed her head and strode off, hair glimmering in the swirl of cool breeze she'd summoned.

"I was growing weary of your endless moaning," she'd called back, and Alois, heaving his pack higher on his shoulder, stifled a smile.

Then he slapped a gnat on his wrist before it bit down.

Cereza led them like a bird tied to a string, pulling her toward some distant unknown. She sometimes seemed no longer in control of her body, her limbs; she walked like a dreamer, her eyes closed, her lips fluttering. Her path took them along the aqueduct- it snaked beside them, rising and falling and crumbling away for long stretches before looming from the forest gloom again, pale and overgrown with vegetation. Like its shadow raced the little stream, coursing down from some hidden mountain source.

They were headed upslope and into the foothills, the mountains drawing closer day by day. Alois took it in wide-eyed, wishing he could somehow gather and preserve the sights around him like bottled specimens in spirit, to be returned to, in full sensory splendor, after they were gone to him. For all the Lapidaean mountains' annoyances, the landscape was beautiful, wholly distinct from barren Estara. Here all was lush, all was green and gold and deep bark-red, abundant moss lending a brushstroke softness to the fortress boulders looming amidst the forest. Shadows were blue and deep as wells. The trees here were unlike any he had elsewhere seen, so massive that to be amongst them was like walking between slumbering giants. Their hush seemed a holy thing, profound as any he'd experienced in Bellana's cathedral, back in Pavaloir.

"These are some big trees," he said, running his hand over a rough crust of bark. They'd passed a few that could comfortably house the Tower's entire throne room within. The cones littering the forest floor were huge as elk heads. It seemed impossible such a thing could grow and live at all.

Luca had laughed. "Big indeed. I suspect no one's taken an axe to these giants since the Sundered Empire, or before. These aren't even the largest or oldest I've seen up in these mountains, not by a long shot."

"You've come here before?"

"I used to do work for the magisters at the Academy. Looking for reagents, surveying, collecting samples, observing wildlife and plant growth."

"Cooing over flowers, you mean," Cereza sang back.

Luca smiled. "I suppose I wanted to become Grand Magister one day. Or maybe be lost up here, and not come back until centuries had passed, and my beard was past my knees, and all had turned to dust, like some enchanted troubadour in a cradle song."

"Lapra," Alois said suddenly.

"Come again?"

"That's the word for trees in Old Estaran. That's what gave Lapide its name. Daval taught me that in one of his history lessons." He tipped back his head, letting the sunlight fall dense and golden over his face. "To see this place for the first time must have felt like a dream."

"You'll make a linguist yet," Luca said, sounding impressed. Alois flushed, but Luca had already gone on, singing some taberna song off-key.

Alois knew what he meant by enchantment. There was power here, but it wasn't mighty, no lightning bolt nor vengeful goddess. Sometimes the group's conversations died, and they walked in silence for hours at a time. Alois was overcome with a feeling close to tears, close to ecstasy, wavering always in between. When he did, he felt himself flinch inside, an instant of panic- would someone see? Would his father know? It always faded, though, as he let himself calm again, as he reminded himself there was no one here who would be ashamed of him. Daval was dead, however strong his ghost. These ancient trees, who had lived through so many wars and so much silence, watched him, and then he moved on.

Eventually, the aqueduct ended in a soaring incomplete half-arch, the rest crumbled away into nothingness. The stream remained, sometimes no more than a trickle, sometimes a torrent spraying down a rockslide, all rapids and icy spume. When the treeline thinned Alois glimpsed of the ocean, cobalt-blue and seamed with whitecaps.

Cereza steered them away from the roads, and slowly their ascent steepened, taking them ever higher into the mountains. Valeris was visible for a few days, its spires glinting in the sunlight, before the foothills claimed it. Here, the only signs of civilization were the occasional trails of smoke from some croft on the lower hill or a distant fishing village clinging to the rocky coastline, patches of yellow that meant lillem groves, shimmering with pollinator beetles.

Once, Luca hushed their conversation and held his finger to his mouth, staring off into the shadows between the trees. Something huge moved back there, snapping twigs and stripping the vast ferns of their fronds: a massive low-slung beast with a broad, flat tail and humped back bristling with quills of white-banded black, saber fangs flashing as it curled its tongue around the next mouthful of vegetation. Cereza let out a silent laugh, while Sirin knelt next to Luca, arms folded over her knees. Luca himself watched the creature with the same kind of rapt wonder with which he watched Sirin, and only stirred when Alois crept close.

"It's a mogo-beast," he whispered. "Precious rare. See those quills? Each full of enough venom to stun a wild gholiant."

"Does it see us?"

"Doubt it. But it smells us, I'm sure."

"...Smells us?"

"They eat plants and cedar-bark, not islanders. See the tusks? Cantankerous beastie, but it won't attack, not if we let it be."

Alois didn't move. He stood there, silent, watching the creature as it moved on, leaving a stripe of broken ferns in its wake, vanishing once more into the deep gloom of the forest.

Hours passed, sun-drenched and sticky, relieved only by the wind off the sea. They were winding along the spine of a ridge, one side sweeping upward into a mountain flank, the other a sheer fall of white cliff struck blinding by the sunlight, when Alois stumbled. His vision darkened, like a moth-nest veiling his eyes.

He put out a hand against a tree, heart racing, his breath tightening in his throat. Calm down, he urged himself. Breathe.

"Need me to chew you more moss, Belmont?" Niive called.

"Give me a moment," Alois muttered.

"Or I could carry you, if you'd prefer."

"I said wait," Alois snarled.

He went to the cliffside and stood, staring out over the edge, into the vast emptiness. Birds drifted on the wind- not gulls, but forest birds he couldn't name, vast-winged and fantastically-crested, riding the air currents like a ship rides swells. He made himself breathe, made himself close his eyes to come back to his own body, not be swept away on a wave of his own terror. He heard voices murmuring behind him, then a scuff of boots against dirt, and a presence. Alois opened his eyes again as a shadow fell over him. Luca stood near him on the cliff, staring out to sea, his eyes narrowed, his expression grim.

Alois followed his gaze, and cold plunged through him like an axe stroke. Darkness massed at the horizon, the waves there vast ship-breakers, towering like hills. Blue light shone through them, and as lightning speared the storm, Alois glimpsed the warp-slither of the Leviathan's long body beneath the ocean surface.

It was out there, swimming, matching their pace. Following them.

"Drink?" Luca said after a moment.

"Yes."

He passed Alois the canteen. Alois took a swig.

"I wish this weren't water," he said.

"A man after my own heart."

They watched the Leviathan. "Strange," Alois said, after a while. "Isn't it."

"Yes, I'd say that out there is rather strange."

"Not that. Well, yes, that, but...strange we're standing here sweating our skin off and not standing in Pavaloir's Cathedral of Bellana, bound by blood as brothers."

"Ah."

"I know...I know it was all a lie," Alois said. "But I didn't want it to be. Maybe if I had wanted peace less, maybe I'd have seen into my father's schemes, maybe..."

He shook his head. "I suppose that doesn't matter so much anymore. It's over. It's done."

Luca nodded, his gray eyes narrowed against the sunlight. "You know," he said. "I thought you'd be an almighty ponce."

Alois laughed mid-swig, snorting water. He flung his hand up to catch it. "A what, now?"

"I figured you'd be arrogant, dreadful. Strutting about like you were planning the annexation of Lapide yourself. Believe me, the reality is a great relief."

"I figured you'd be crouching around a sacrificial altar, muttering to the pagan gods and waving witch-feathers."

Luca grinned. "You're not far off."

Alois laughed again. It felt good: a loosening of the fist that seemed forever clenched in his chest. "Your particular witch doesn't seem to like me very much."

"I think she's jealous."

"Jealous? What by all Saints would she have to be jealous of?"

Luca gave him a sidelong look. "Take your pick," he said. "For an immortal creature she's not particularly rational. You'd look and her and Cereza and think my sister the one awestruck, but I think it's the other way round. Cereza's cannier than she lets on. Worse, too. She can be unbelievably vexing in matters of the heart."

"What?" Alois spluttered, in the midst of taking another drink from the canteen. At this rate there wouldn't be any water left.

"One time I caught her kissing the daughter of some visiting foreign dignitary in a broom cupboard. It was by the skin of my teeth I prevented an international scandal."

It took a moment for Alois to realize he was joking- about the scandal, at least. He tried to imagine Cereza flirting her way into a broom cupboard, and couldn't. It was difficult to reconcile that girl with the girl he'd met first in the throne room of Valeris Palace, dressed in blue and seed pearls, pretty as the flowering tree that was her namesake. How little he knew her. How little he would have known her, had they been married as planned. As little as his father had known his mother at their own wedding, two strangers bound together for a cause.

She isn't bound to you anymore, he told himself. It stung a little.

"I never told you," Luca went on. "I didn't believe you, before, when you said you had nothing to do with Cereza's curse. I wish I had."

"I think you made it up to me by saving her life."

Together, he and Luca stood, watching the monster at the horizon as it swam round and round, wreathed in lightning. At last, Luca glanced up at the sinking sun and sighed.

"We'd best get a move on," he said, and with a last smile at Alois, retreated back to the group. Alois took a moment longer, taking in the cliffside, the country below, the glimpse of coastline and field. It would be good, he thought, to vanish, like Luca had said- to wait until the weary hurts of the world had spun themselves into dust. But he couldn't live that way. He couldn't abandon it.

Besides, he didn't have to be alone in it anymore.

He took a last drink of water and rejoined the others.

***

"That's it," Luca announced as he rummaged through his pack. He produced the object in question: a twist of touga jerky. "That's the last of it."

"That's it?" Cereza echoed. "Are you serious?"

"Unless you're stockpiling jerky in your skirts, there's nowhere for more to be, my darling." He tossed both pack and jerky to the moss. "Here, you lot fight over it."

They had come to the end of their already-meager provisions from Lapide, and while they'd scavenged all the tubers and berries and tortoise eggs they could, such things had a tendency to spoil in the muggy heat of the day. Alois sat on a nearby rock, his stomach snarling, not wanting to be the first to reach for the jerky.

"Give it to Puppy," Cereza suggested. No one protested. Alois watched as Luca fed the last of the jerky to the little creature, bit by bit.

Sirin signed something.

"Have you seen any animals in these woods?" Luca said.

She signed again, sharper.

"Fine, fine," Luca said. "Just don't draw any attention to yourself, all right?"

"I'll go try to find food," Alois said, standing and making for the edge of the clearing. They'd stopped at a bend in the stream, where the water pooled and stood still, shadowed by an overhanging thicket of thorn bushes and bitter-smelling mudlily, their blossoms white with delicate starbursts of pink at their centers. "I can...I don't know, catch fish, or...dig for roots..."

"Have you ever dug for a root in your life?" Cereza said.

"How difficult can it be?"

She stood, too, dusting off her skirts. "I'll come with you. You might need some protection." She patted the oyster knife at her belt.

"Don't go too far," Luca called.

"Stop worrying over me!" Cereza yelled back.

"Never!"

She smiled and shook her head, the forest shadows closing over it, dousing the brightness of her blonde hair. Alois stuck his hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet- so he wouldn't trip over hidden roots, he told himself.

They walked in silence for a while, picking at the bushes, nosing under ferns, as if someone might have stashed a banquet under there. Alois found a cluster of berries clinging to a bush, but they were overripe and oozing, much-abused by the birds.

"I'm not that hungry yet," Cereza said.

He poked at a remarkable growth of shelf fungus sprouting from a cedar. "You fancy this is poisonous?"

"Almost certainly." She smiled. "I'm glad we're out here together. I...I wanted to talk to you alone."

"Me, too."

They fell silent again, not making eye contact. They hadn't spoken much since leaving Valeris- first out of shock, the disaster rendering them numb and mute, attuned to little more than escape and survival. Afterward she was occupied with leading them, or with Niive, or joking with Luca, her voice always a little too bright.

Now it wasn't. Her face looked older in the shadows, her eyes dark-socketed, wisps of hair straggling from her braid.

You had chances, Alois admonished himself. You're just too much of a coward to approach her. Now he'd manufactured a chance, and he was reduced to monosyllables.

They kicked on, coming to another, smaller clearing. Here, the break in the canopy had come at the cost of a cedar, huge as the collapse of a temple. The great fallen tree lay angled, one end lifted on its roots, the undergrowth already begun to swallow it back into the earth. Shafts of sun reached down from above, green and full of cyclones of insects. A small rill bubbled up from the crater beneath the fallen cedar's roots, plashing through the glade and filling it with drifts of mud lilies.

Alois stopped, marveling. Cereza wasn't nearly so reverent. She moved past him and scrambled onto the log, standing balanced on its lower end. The sunlight fell across her, suffusing her. The fine hairs on her arms seemed gilt.

She faced the mountains, their peaks visible above the trees. Alois felt a chill. What did she see? What did she feel like, to have a shard of the Leviathan's power inside her, to be within the shadow of the divine?

"See any food from up there?" he asked.

"Oh. No."

Alois shifted his weight. "What...what happened to you, out there? Really? Are you witchborn, like Sirin?"

"I don't think so. I don't think this is my power." She lifted her hands, turning them over. "I'm more like...a lens, and this- my dreams, my visions- they're the light. All I do is focus, amplify."

"And this? Now?"

"It's a pull, Alois. More than that. It's like I've walked here before. Like I've been here before. It's me, and it's not me. It's my eyes, but not my sight." She shook her head. "I can barely make sense of it myself."

"It takes a lot of faith to trust in it like that."

"Faith in myself, mostly. Without me, where do the dreams have to go?" She smiled a crooked smile down at him. "They'd be lost in the dark without me."

"I wish I could be as confident as you."

She looked away. "As do I, Alois Belmont."

He pointed at her knife. "You're good with that thing."

"Oh. Yes. Your- er. Captain Azare showed me a thing or two on our journey to Lapide."

"You can say my father. I know."

Cereza nodded, too quickly.

"He grew fond of you, I think," Alois went on.

"Yes, well," she said archly, walking heel to toe up the fallen log with her arms spread like wings. "I'm easy to grow fond of."

"Yes," Alois said. "You are."

She stopped above him, staring down. One heartbeat, two. She knelt, hugging her knees to her chest, her expression subdued.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"What for?"

"Us. It all went so wrong."

"That is hardly your fault."

"No. But can anyone apologize enough for it?" She paused again. "I didn't want to marry you. But I would have. And...Alois, I think I would have been happy. It would be easy, to be happy with you."

"I-" Alois began. He thought of Luca standing by him in the sunlight. "I don't- Cereza, I don't mean to give you insult-"

"Enough of the formal Lapidaean, Alois. Say what you want to say."

"Yes. Yes." He drew a short breath, heat creeping up his neck. "If I were to marry, it would be another...sort."

"What sort?"

Alois paused. Then- "A sort like Luca."

Cereza gave a guffaw that was half a shriek, loud enough that a pair of birds burst from a nearby tree and went clattering off. Alois winced, but after a moment he realized, with a strange wash of relief, that she wasn't laughing at his feelings, but how he'd conveyed them.

"Luca?" she echoed. She laughed again, tossing her head back. "Luca...specifically?"

"No. Not- stop laughing."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just imagining you and- I'm sorry. Please go on." "Not just- not just Luca."

"Another man, then? So find one." A thought seemed to occur to her. "Or do they not like that in Estara?"

"There's nothing in Bellana's books against it. Simply...if I am to be king, I would need heirs." He let out a short breath. "We each in Estara have our part to play."

Cereza gave a flick of her hand. "Many Lapidaean regents got around it. Creatively. Spectacularly."

"It's not so simple as that. My father and mother were such terribly-matched people," Alois said. "So terribly-matched it might've split Estara in two."

"Didn't it?" Cereza said softly.

Alois managed a laugh. She really was right, and it really was a bit funny. "Didn't it," he agreed, with feeling. "I never want their misery inflicted on another, especially not you. I can see how you and Niive are together. She's...beautiful, she's-"

"She's a terror," Cereza said. "But I think I need that. We're very alike, you know."

"Very alike," Alois echoed. And he was not. For a moment he felt the familiar pang of shame- a bastard, a blinded thing, cursed by Bellana, no true Belmont at all. But what use was that? He was the same man he'd been before, no matter his name and the chains that came with it. There was nothing to be ashamed of. He did not need to be ashamed of himself.

He met Cereza's eyes, the gray of stormclouds. "I would have been happy with you, too."

She gave him a soft smile. "Then let's be miserable apart."

Cereza stretched out her hands, and he took them, and she slid down the log and into his arms. Her skin was cool and soft, her hands bunching in his curls. For a moment he held all of her to all of him, her hair tickling his throat, her feet dangling inches above the ground. Then he let her go. She slid down him and alit.

"Here," Alois said, plucking a nearby mud lily. He threaded it into her braid, by the long black feather she kept woven there. "It suits you."

She turned her head this way and that, preening. "You suppose we can eat it?" she said, and he laughed with her.

A snarl rippled from behind them.

Alois whirled. Cereza gasped, reaching for her knife. An animal paced toward them, out from a hollow underneath the fallen tree. A den. Alois recognized the beast in an instant: brush-tailed and long-bodied, its head slung low, its ears flat back against its skull. Short spike horns jutted before its ears, gleaming like jet. Its sleek summer pelt was black, too, rippling with faint spots, its eyes pale blue and fixed on him.

It let out another snarl, baring sharp cuspids. A fellfox. He smelled its sharp, musky scent as it paced closer, footfall silent on the moss.

"Oh," Alois breathed. His heart hammered. Fellfoxes were vicious creatures, all the more reason they were Estara's sigil. If only Daval were here- he'd find the prospect of one killing Alois hilarious. "Saints- Cereza, the knife-"

"No." She pointed. Several sets of round blue eyes stared back at them from deeper in the den. "It's protecting its kits."

"It'll feed us to its kits if you don't-"

The fellfox lunged with a yowl; its teeth clashed shut inches from Alois's face. He stumbled, falling hard to his hands and knees. "Cereza!" he cried, but his voice died in his throat. All he could do was stare.

Cereza stood before the fellfox, her hands by her sides, staring into its eyes. The fellfox stared back, its gaze bright, its teeth still bared. It didn't attack. Why didn't it attack? Alois took a sharp breath, and tasted it: the bitter tang of magic. He felt it, then, its pulse coursing through him from Cereza.

Her lips fluttered. The fellfox gave a softer snarl and paced back- one step, then two, its head lowered, its bristled fur relaxing. It turned and trotted off, slipping into its den without another glance. Cereza let out her breath, staring after it with huge eyes.

Alois scrambled to his feet. "How," he panted, "did you do that?"

"I...I'm not sure," she said. "I felt its anger. How dare we threaten its kits? It felt like...like one of my dreams. So I refocused it. To not harm us. To go back to its kits. And it did." She shook her head with a nervous laugh. "That's it."

"Whatever you did, it was-" Alois started.

He cut off. Voices echoed through the trees, alongside the sound of clanging metal.

Alois looked up, but didn't see the others approaching. The sound came from the wrong direction, anyhow- ahead, not behind. Alois stepped past Cereza, moving toward them. He heard her follow, her knife a glint of steel in her hand. They crept toward the treeline, which ended in a fall of jagged boulders. The rocks plunged down, an abrupt descent into a spreading meadow of wildflowers and windswept grass and road. It threaded down the mountainside: a narrow dirt track cut into the meadow, and on it were people.

"Hells," Cereza whispered, but Alois held up his hand, quieting her. The people looked like farmers, dressed in roughspun: a pair of young women driving a snuffling touga between them. It wore a bell- that was what made the clanging sound- and a yoke laden down with baskets.

"Look at that," Alois whispered, and pointed. The touga's baskets were full of fruit, knobby-skinned and bright yellow. "Food. You don't suppose-"

"I do suppose," Cereza said. "There's a village nearby."

Alois chewed his lip. "We can't stop. Suppose Isabella's soldiers are there, searching for us. Suppose-"

"No." Cereza looked at him. The sunlight fell in her eyes, and they were bright, their gray ghostly, touched with the same faraway brightness that had filled them in the hidden library's depths. "No. We have to stop."

She caught his wrist and held it, tight. "This is where the trail ends. This place is what we came to find."

#grave of the great leviathan #tales of the great leviathan #fantasy fiction #original fiction #serial novel #chapter 32

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