Chapter 112: Waiting in Stillness
Everything had gone still. The ice storm itself had stopped, but within a radius of nearly two hundred cubits, the world seemed frozen along with it. The Endless Bone Wall collapsed layer by layer, dissolving into black smoke that promptly froze solid in the air, nine layers deep. At the ninth layer, the wall still held its shape, but the cold had already crept through it. Evan shuddered violently despite himself, and frost had settled over the others' skin and faces.
Evan retched, coughing up a spray of black mist that froze almost instantly, tiny shards of ice glittering within it. The moment he finished, as if some signal had passed between them, the others began coughing up blood as well, each mouthful flecked with ice of varying size. Water Curtain had frozen solid, and Fire Barrier had gone out entirely. The cold hadn't struck their bodies directly — it had reached their lungs and organs from the inside.
Evan waved a hand, dispersing what remained of the bone wall. It felt like deep winter here, though outside the season was still autumn. Darkness swallowed everything — the magic lamps had all shattered — and within this entire building, only the six of them remained alive.
Evan looked over at a nearby block of ice — James, frozen mid-laugh, his face still twisted in that same wild grin, though nothing living remained behind his eyes.
At the moment the ice storm broke, Rose had already returned to the Order Keepers' headquarters. She sat alone in that great oak chair, no lamp lit in the hall, the door left standing open. In the dark, a powerful surge of water magic rippled through the air, coming from the direction of Hollingburton's outpost — and then vanished as quickly as it had come. She went still for a moment, understanding settling over her. Tears rose in her eyes and were burned away before they could fall. She knew James too well not to understand what that meant.
Then, quite suddenly, she began to laugh, and hummed a tune from her homeland under her breath — something about irises blooming before her eyes, about the one she loved who had already slipped away, asking the flowers why they bloomed so bright when love itself had proven so cruel. The tune came out cracked and mournful, though a smile stayed fixed on her face the whole time. Anyone who'd seen her in that moment would have felt a chill settle deep in their chest. But no one stood before her. Someone, somewhere, might have heard the song drift through the night — but no one came through the doors of that hall.
...
Evan and the others set about clearing the scene. Only the six of them had survived; the whole building had fallen within the spell's reach. The stables, at least, standing off to the rear-left of the main structure, had escaped the worst of it — the nightmares housed there were magical beasts with formidable resistance of their own, and had come through largely unaffected. Evan surveyed the wreckage with a wry look. "Thorough work. A building this size, and there's not so much as a rat left breathing in it. Ladies, gentlemen — we still have enemies out there in the dark. Close up, set the wards again, and let's get some rest. Good night, everyone."
They set to work, and within the hour, the place had been cleared and a fresh set of protective wards laid down. Everyone turned in for the night.
The next morning, they woke to find that the outpost's relative isolation had spared the surrounding houses any real harm — Hollingburton kept it well clear of neighbors. Still, two bodies turned up nearby at daybreak, dressed like gang scouts of some kind, clearly caught unprepared when the cold snap tore through the night. Fortunate, in its way, that the storm had broken out inside the building rather than in the open, or the damage might have spread much further.
They pulled James's ring free. Inside it sat gold coins and a handful of magical items, but no sign of the missing shipment — nothing but the Fallen Angel's Tear James had already consumed the night before. That left everyone with a headache. The man was dead, but the goods remained unaccounted for. A shipment that size wouldn't fit inside a single ring — so where had it been hidden? Jessica, in particular, grew anxious over it. Recovering those materials had been the whole reason she'd come.
Breakfast came without any servants to prepare it — even the bread had to be toasted by their own hands. Jaymes and Peter volunteered themselves as cooks, though the bread came out half-burnt and half-raw for their trouble, leaving both of them rather embarrassed. Evan didn't much mind either way — his sense of taste had only partly recovered, and fine distinctions in flavor still escaped him. The others made do as well.
"Professor Evan, where do you think James hid the shipment?" Jessica asked.
Evan set down his knife and fork, dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin, and answered politely. "Don't trouble yourself over it, Jessica. Worry doesn't suit a face as lovely as yours. I suspect there's one more person who knows where it went."
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Jessica considered this. "You mean Rose. James's lover?"
"Exactly her. That woman won't be easy to deal with. I've already crossed blades with her once — full Druid training, and dangerous with it. Better to wait until our reinforcements arrive." Evan clearly held some real caution toward Rose.
"He's right, Jessica," Lidis said, setting down her own utensils. "That woman is formidable. Slipping away clean after facing down both Professor Evan and me — that's no small feat. Without reinforcements, we shouldn't provoke her if we can help it."
Jessica nodded, seeing them both in agreement, and let the matter drop. Jaymes spoke up, curious. "So what do we do now, Professor?"
"We wait. Reinforcements should arrive by tomorrow at the latest, possibly today. We do nothing in the meantime — just stay put in this building," Evan said with a smile.
"This town needs reinforcements?" Jaymes asked, unconvinced. "The few of us couldn't handle them ourselves? They're just a handful of gangs. Didn't you already wipe out two of them, Professor?"
"Not wiped out. Caught off guard, more like it," Evan said mildly. "These groups have roots that run deep. I only took out what they never expected me to reach — most of their actual strength wasn't even at their headquarters. As of yesterday, they still don't know who killed their leaders, and now they've lost their chain of command entirely. If I had to guess, after a day to regroup, word's likely already spread that I'm the one responsible. They may well come looking for revenge."
Evan wasn't wrong. Back the previous morning, members of the Burk Protectors had begun trickling into their headquarters, only to find the aftermath of a slaughter — several guards lying scattered about with their necks snapped, and deeper inside, a charred corpse burned beyond recognition, the air still thick with the smell of cooked flesh.
Several of them retched at the sight. Fortunate, at least, that it was still morning and none of them had eaten meat yet, or they might not have held it down. From the build alone, it had to be Holred — their leader. Who could have done this? Their first suspicion fell on Fiat, leader of the Gael Advance Corps, given the standing friction between the two gangs, and the hot-blooded among them wanted to march straight over for revenge.
Before they could set out, word arrived that Fiat himself was dead too — his own headquarters left in ruins, his body found in the cellar. The news left them reeling. What in the world was happening? Most of the Burk Protectors' rank and file were simple muscle, useful enough for a straightforward fight, but hopeless when it came to actually working out what had gone wrong.
As the day wore on, the gang's two rival lieutenants surfaced — Witescroft and Malmer, men who'd never gotten along, kept deliberately at odds by Holred himself as a check against either growing too powerful. With Holred dead, neither man's first thought was avenging their leader — it was claiming his position instead. The two factions squared off against each other, and the gang came within a hair of tearing itself apart in open conflict.
The chaos dragged on into the evening before the two sides finally struck a compromise: whichever of them avenged their leader first would inherit his seat. That settled things enough to let them turn to burying the dead, work that stretched deep into the night. They suspected Holred's death had something to do with the woman mage, Lidis, taken captive days earlier — but Holred had locked her away somewhere secret from the start, and none of them knew where.
None of them could decide what to do next. Hollingburton had crossed their minds, certainly, but James — the school's man stationed in town — was someone they knew well, a sixth-tier mage they'd always gotten along with easily enough. Even when they'd taken one of Hollingburton's own captive, he'd looked the other way. That left them stuck, unable to settle on a course of action.
The Gael Advance Corps found themselves in much the same bind, though they came closer to holding together. Their deputy, Wilbur, hadn't been at headquarters that night, and neither had most of the gang's members. When they found the wreckage the next morning, their first suspicion fell on the Burk Protectors. Wilbur stepped naturally into the role of acting leader and was preparing to send men to investigate their rivals' headquarters when word reached him first — Holred was already dead too.
Wilbur's thoughts went straight to Raight. Only Fiat's body had turned up in that cellar — Raight himself was gone. That could only mean Hollingburton was involved. He agonized over what to do. Avenge his leader, or not? He knew James represented Hollingburton in town, and the connection seemed obvious enough. Refusing to seek revenge would cost him the gang's respect — but pursuing it meant making an enemy of Hollingburton, which would make the Gael Advance Corps' position in Burk Town untenable. And James's closeness with Rose of the Order Keepers raised the possibility that she was tangled up in this too.
After turning it over at length, Wilbur decided to gather the bodies first, using the funeral rites as cover to watch and wait. He wanted to see how Witescroft and Malmer responded to Holred's death before committing to anything — their situation, he suspected, would prove far messier than his own.
Wilbur's caution was, in its way, the sensible course. He sent men to keep watch on both Hollingburton's outpost and the Order Keepers' movements. Unfortunately, against the larger forces already in motion, Wilbur had no idea his fate was already sealed.
By the time night had passed again, the man he'd sent to watch turned up dead in an alley, along with two members of a smaller gang, their bodies hacked into pieces in a scene almost too gruesome to look at — as if by some kind of blade, though something told him it hadn't been a blade at all. His thoughts went immediately to Rose, his expression shifting through a mix of unease and dread.
Just then, a messenger arrived from the Order Keepers, delivering only a few words: "The Order Keepers had no part in this. James died last night. Raight has already been rescued by Hollingburton. There are five or six of them at the outpost."
Wilbur understood at once. He thanked the messenger, and as the man withdrew, something grim and resolute settled over his face. Slowly, steadily, he gave the order. "Muster the men."