Taboo Online

Red Hound gave the capture signal.

Thalen saw it.

For one heartbeat, he had a clean opening. A broken length of his blade lay within reach, still sharp enough to enter beneath the decay wielder’s ribs.

His gaze dropped to it.

Then he kicked the fragment away.

Thalen caught her forearm below the elbow and forced her palm outward. His other hand locked above her wrist, keeping her fingers away from his armor.

A responder closed a ceramic restraint around her forearm.

The decay wielder slammed her free hand against the floor.

Rot spread toward the central root mass.

Lauren felt the surviving fragments recoil.

"The dead channels are carrying it inward," she said. "Cut the brown sections before they reach the silver flow."

Red Hound relayed the positions she marked.

Responders used ceramic cutters on the dead branches Lauren identified, avoiding the silver channels that still carried healthy mana.

One corrupted connection separated, then another. The central fragments pulled away from the spreading decay.

The Ashline unit’s resonance field stuttered.

The decay wielder twisted hard enough to drag the first responder off balance and reached toward the exposed skin beneath Thalen’s jaw.

Truth Behind Motion caught the attempt.

"High right," Luke warned.

Red Hound flashed the danger signal.

Thalen dropped his chin and turned his shoulder into her reach. Her fingertips scraped across white wood instead of skin, and brown rot spread over the outer plate.

Two more responders reached her from opposite sides.

Ceramic shells closed around both hands, forcing her fingers apart and suspending her palms where they could touch neither the floor nor the restraints. The woman thrashed once, and brown veins spread across the inside of the right shell before the lining pushed them back.

Only when both indicators turned green did the rear team secure her arms and waist.

A suppression collar closed at the base of her neck.

Thalen kept his grip until Red Hound gave the clear signal. Then he released her forearm and stepped away.

The decay wielder glared at him over one shoulder. "Your Queen taught you obedience well."

Thalen could not understand the words.

Lauren could, but she did not translate them. His ruined blade lay in pieces near his feet, and rot covered one gauntlet, yet he had followed Aelira’s order when revenge would have been easier.

Red Hound touched one fist to his chest, repeating the Rootkeeper gesture he had seen at North Basin.

Thalen answered the same way.

Behind them, the Ashline unit released a low metallic whine as the final corrupted cable separated from the living roots.

Its resonance field collapsed.

The captive remained inside the greenhouse while Red Hound opened the live channel to North Basin.

The liaison beside Aelira displayed the target image, the capture pictogram, and the marker confirming that the woman was alive.

Thalen stepped into view and gave the formal Rootkeeper acknowledgment.

The Queen inclined her head.

Only after the liaison confirmed that Aelira had received the notice did Red Hound authorize the transport team to move the captive.

The decay wielder left in a separate armored vehicle with both hands sealed inside ceramic containment shells. Thalen watched until the doors closed but made no attempt to approach her again.

Rhea sat on the edge of an empty planting bed while a medic checked the brace beneath her armor.

"You used the panel once," the medic said.

"Once was enough."

"Your shoulder disagrees."

"It usually does."

The answer sounded tired rather than defiant. When the medic told her to keep the arm supported for the trip back, Rhea complied.

Luke returned to the field chair before the weakness in his legs could make the decision for him. The small act still irritated him, but not enough to pretend he could walk the entire complex after Shaw’s warning.

Lauren remained beside the central root mass while the evidence teams disconnected the Ashline unit.

It contained forty-three pieces of living wood from Lethariel.

Seventeen carried no remaining pulse and were already dead.

Nine more had no stable living channel Lauren could detect, though she refused to declare them lost before the Thornmenders examined them.

The remaining seventeen still carried a weak silver-green current.

A Bureau technician approached with a cutting tool.

Lauren caught his wrist before he touched the nearest clamp.

"That one is still carrying pressure into the living section."

He stopped. "Which comes off first?"

"The two outer clamps on the left, then the dead branch beneath them. Leave the center alone until the tension drops."

The technicians worked slowly.

Lauren did not command the fragments or force them to move. She identified the dark clamps, dead branches, and corrupted wires obstructing their surviving channels. Once those pieces were removed, the living roots loosened from the frame on their own.

One thin fragment curled away from the black metal and settled into the prepared containment bed. Another followed.

"They can be moved," Lauren said. "Carefully."

Red Hound ordered a protected transport prepared for North Basin.

Thalen crouched near the salvaged roots while the Thornmender transport was assembled. He did not touch them. He simply kept watch as though they were wounded survivors waiting to be carried home.

A Bureau analyst removed a narrow black device from the Ashline frame.

It resembled the thread needle recovered from the transit tunnel, except several branching filaments filled its transparent core.

The analyst sealed it inside a passive reader.

The device pulsed.

A city map opened across her tablet.

One point appeared near Southbank. Another answered near East Harbor. More followed across transit tunnels, utility buildings, rooftops, and abandoned warehouses.

"How many?" Red Hound asked.

"Seventeen."

A final point appeared near the city center, remained visible for less than a second, and vanished before the reader could fix its position.

Luke leaned forward. "What was that one?"

"I don’t know. It answered, then cut the connection."

Lauren turned her covered face toward the map. "The masked woman knows we found the network."

The hammer wielder and decay wielder were both in custody, their equipment had been seized, and the surviving pieces of Lethariel were on their way back to the Heartroot. The masked woman still had eyes spread across the city, but now the Bureau could see where most of them were.

Red Hound closed the map.

"We don’t chase seventeen sites one at a time. We learn how they speak to each other, then make the entire network answer at once."

Luke glanced at Lauren.

For the first time, the masked woman had left them a map back to her.