46 – Landslide
Asquith came to visit me the day after my cows arrived, and I was alerted to his presence by Smoke’s low growls. “Peace,” I told him, motioning the hellcat into a crouch. “Doubt it’s anything too bad.”Even if he did annoy me.
I made my way for the fence, Smoke following at my heels, and found Asquith leaning on one fencepost. He was smiling at me, beaming with excitement.
“Morning, my good man.”
“Morning,” I brusquely greeted.
“I had heard you bought some cattle recently.”
An annoyed sigh rose in my throat, and I looked over my shoulder to the barn. “Seems people in the village will gossip over any old shit. Aye, two cows.”
He nodded at me. “If you don’t mind my asking, what do you intend to do with them?”
I shrugged. “Milk, mostly. But I’ve got the wood to make a churn for butter. They’re still a bit young but there’s another farmer, Shen, who is willing to let his bull breed them when they’re old enough.” Had to take that step for them to start producing milk, though I didn’t plan on keeping any calves they had.
“Ah.” Asquith smiled knowingly, a twinkle in his eyes. “I thought as much. And I imagine, by now, you know that the locals are squeamish about dairy?”
“I’m aware.”
“It’s an odd thing, really. Milk and cheese and butter are primarily enjoyed by us in the western lands. But in the far south and, indeed here out east, it seems dairy never grew popular.”
“Fascinating,” I said, fixing him with a deadpan look.
I felt a very small twitch in the corner of my right eye, and I fought down a familiar urge to crush the annoying man’s head like an eggshell. Oddly enough I felt a little bit of pride in myself, for it had been weeks since I last felt such an urge.
“We had a few easterners working at my old trading company, actually. Cathayans, I believe, who handled a good deal of clerical work. But they couldn’t eat dairy. Did terrible things to the gut, and it would likely be the same thing here. Easterners haven’t built up the same... tolerance that we have.”
I frowned to myself. I supposed he had a point, that could be an issue. Smoke didn’t have issues with milk but he was a spirit beast, so such things probably didn’t bother him.Maybe cultivators as a whole were immune.
“Fortunately... I happen to have an alchemical solution to that!” He grinned broadly at me.
I kept my own expression flat as I stared back at him. “Your alchemy has a tendency to explode from my experience.” It was clear the man’s eyebrows were drawn on.
Asquith chuckled faintly at me. “The pill furnace is a tricky mistress, I will admit, but I am still a master when it comes to potions and reagents. And a few drops of a relatively easy to brew potion in a bucket of milk is enough to make dairy entirely edible to those who find it inedible.”
I frowned to myself. Well... maybe it couldn’t hurt. Still, I was wary about letting the man nearer to my life. So far he’d done little to dissuade me of the notion that he was little more than a harmless fool. But that was how spies got you, wasn’t it? They got close to you, acted unassuming.
And then, once you guard was dropped...
He had a point all the same. Maybe dairy was bad for the locals, and it wouldn’t reflect well on me if I started selling anything that made them ill.
Worse, it could get Mikan in trouble if they bought it from her store.
Smoke was looking up at me, slowly blinking his slitted eyes. “You trust him?”
Asquith blinked in surprise. “Crivens! A talking cat!” He trailed off into a small laugh. “Good heavens, but the east is a strange place. I only ever saw talking birds back on Ilgard. Although an old chum of mine said that there are talking hyenas in the southlands.”
“He’s what the locals call a spirit beast. No, I don’t know much about it.” I shrugged. “He’s reliable, and he won’t harm you if you don’t give him a reason to.”
As to Smoke’s question... well, what the hell? I’d at least try his solution out, see if there was any value in what he was suggesting.
“Oh, and don’t worry. I can give you a few bottles of the dairy solution for free. What good are neighbours if they are not willing to share from time to time, eh?”
“Mm.” I set my jaw in consideration. Never trust any man rife with generosity.
“That’s awful nice of y-”A horrible chill ran down my spine, the familiar sensation of a wellspring of power entering the periphery of my senses. A foul, choking and oppressive presence that made Inumi seem utterly insignficant.
My eyes snapped to the horizon. It wasn’t Novos, I knew that at once. His presence was... unique.
Still, this thing was... wicked, strong, and the presence alone sent chills down my spine.
The sky on the horizon was soon bathed in shades of red and orange, a meteor cleaving through the air and slicing clean through the clouds as it made a beeline right for the tip of Mount Gruai. A corona of fire blazed around it, at least fifty meters across.
Asquith stared at it with a slackened jaw, anxious beads of sweat swiftly forming upon his brow. “Good... heavens...” he murmured.
The blazing comet struck... something in the air, a hemisphere of folded air. A magical barrier that shuddered as great tides of fire exploded along the rim of it and sent great tremors racing along the expanse of the mountain range. The barrier itself heaved, blazed white hot at the point of impact... and then sagged inward, collapsing in on itself.
I stared, unblinking at the sight, a cold dread filling me more and more by the second. Great chunks of rock broke from the face of the mountain, tumbling down into the veritable sea of fog by the base.
That blazing comet was trailed from behind by... what appeared at first to be a writhing cloud of darkness. But as I focused on it, straining my vision, I could see that it was a writhing swarm containing hundreds upon hundreds of winged figures.
An army... a damned army, flying straight for the top of the mountain. Flashes of light rose from the peak, striking the swarm with great explosions of force that killed several of them at a time. Yet any hole that was made in their number was quickly closed back up.
There just seemed to be... no end to the flock.
“Oh my goodness,” Asquith said breathlessly. “We... we need to... we should get the guards! Th-the army, we should-”
“Stay here,” I said gruffly. “You and Smoke both. They’re not coming to Tiode, at least. But we can’t guarantee they won’t... If they do, there may be nowhere safe to run to.”
I hopped the fence and started toward the mountain, clenching my fist as I walked. This was bound to be one of my dumber ideas. But I was willing to bet those bastards would find their way to Tiode if they weren’t dealt with.
“F-Father?” Smoke asked anxiously.
“H-have you lost your mind?” Asquith asked, aghast.
“I just...” I huffed. “I’m going to do some scouting. That’s all.”
Oh, how I wish that were true. I pressed on toward the mountain, fixated on that distant peak, as more flashes lit up the once placid sky.
I’d had some quiet weeks, at least...