Chapter 206 – Deception
The road toward Lord Belgar’s lands was much more twisty, so it took a bit longer for Seloryn's group to complete than what Siu's had to deal with. The noble's land, or what remained of it when passing by emptied-out logging sites and small villages, was much less flat. It was already rough as they passed the Watch, which stood much farther in the distance, only a tiny bright dot. The route they followed as per the maps the king had shown them soon narrowed several times until it was, at best, a wagon's width, running between rows of thick trees. Throughout their hurried journey, Nokoh led the others for most of the time, with Cho’Wa going way ahead, disappearing into the darkness while the others were, in actuality, kept following his nose.
“Anything?” Joren whispered when Nokoh slowed down once more, receiving news from his partner up ahead.
“He caught the scent of people.” He whispered, turning towards the others. “And he says there are way more of them than we expected..."
"A village? No," Joren muttered, recalling the image of the map. "We are close to where that manor was circled... Are we already there?"
"How far is he?" Seloryn asked.
"Only six kilometers," Nokoh answered quickly, pointing straight ahead of the group. "Should we try to find a way through the trees?"
"We may have to," Seloryn answered while she lifted her flute to her lips, and when she blew into it, the silvery instrument flickered once and then gave out the howl of a wolf, surprising Nokoh. As the long note finally died down, they heard a response a minute or so later; however, Seloryn knew it wasn't a response, but her own echo returning, making Nokoh shake his head and glance at her.
"I never knew you spoke wolfish."
"I don't." She rolled her eyes after putting her flute away. "But it's more natural to sound my flute like this than to let a musical note out. Even if I blew one that only Cho'Wa would hear and humans couldn't, there may be cultivators around who could perceive it. But this won't be strange. Even our brains tend to ignore noises that are natural to a location."
"So there are cultivators here..." Joren shrugged, picking up on her words.
"According to the resonance change I picked up from the echo? Yeah, there are, so make sure," She said, looking at Nokoh, "that Cho'Wa doesn't give away his status as a proper beast. This forest should only have regular wolves, and his size may ring some alarms even in cultivators."
"Don't worry." Nokoh nodded with a smile as they continued their trip. "He is a professional and knows how to stalk his prey."
Entering the forest and veering off the road, it took them about another hour to get to Lord Belgar's manor, with its own walls surrounding it. Apparently, the locals loved their hills, because the surprisingly large estate he had also sat on one, right between a small farmland and the rest of the forest the group was hiding in. After surveying the area for a few minutes, Seloryn marked in her head the smaller buildings spread around it, mostly stables, storehouses, maybe the servant quarters, a mill next to a granary, and several long sheds, filled with massive logs from the forest.
It wasn't hard to see at all, because bright lights and fires burned everywhere inside the walled land and around the houses. When they first saw it through the trees, Joren thought they torched the whole place, but no, it was well-lit and maintained, with guards patrolling the entrance and the walls, holding large lanterns in their hands.
“Well... I'll be damned,” Joren muttered while Nokoh lowered himself beside him. “Hostages or not, they totally occupied the area.”
"Cho'Wa says there are more than 200 different scents he picked up by just circling the whole thing."
"I would whistle, but I'll hold back from it," Joren exhaled, hiding a forced chuckle, looking at Seloryn, but she remained silent, her eyes totally fixed on the main gate.
Three armed men were standing there, and from what she could see, their equipment didn't match at all. As if they came from three different parts of the kingdom, which may only mean that they simply looted what they found on their way here. Or they were indeed from all over the place... That was when a man ran up to them from outside, emerging from the darkness.
"Good thing we got off the road," Nokoh muttered as the figure was way too fast to be a mortal.
"Did any of you catch any affinity on him?" Joren asked, but they just shook their heads.
"Cho'Wa says his scent was too weak to be in the Blood Resonance," Nokoh said, pointing to the opposite side of the forest, where Cho'Wa was prowling, invisible in the darkness.
They didn't even finish talking when another figure appeared, clearly another cultivator... then another, with a bundle under his arm. The more they watched, the more they counted, coming and leaving, many times with packets or whole backpacks given to them, disappearing in all directions, not always following the road but cutting through the snow.
“I guess we found the HQ, and those have to be messengers,” Joren whispered, while Seloryn nodded, agreeing with the notion, as that was her first thought too.
"Someone strong is coming... No... Multiple," Nokoh said suddenly, pointing towards the front gate. "Cho'Wa says that those four for sure are in the Blood Resonance."
It wasn't hard to see, thanks to the many torches and fires, as the men walking toward the gate surrounded a fifth figure, who, by Cho'Wa's nose, was a simple mortal. Simply by his clothing and the way he carried himself, he was for sure a noble of this land, because none of them would believe it was the leader of the occupiers here. No cultivator would dress like that, which meant it had to be Lord Belgar, but... he didn't look like he was in chains.
“Maybe they let him move around to keep him placated,” Joren said first as they watched them.
“Possible,” Seloryn answered, observing, sharpening her senses to their limits. At the same time, the man in the middle gestured toward the stables, and one of the armed men hurried in that direction before sending another toward a different building. “But that's still weird... They are very accommodating captors, wouldn't you say?”
In the end, they watched for nearly half an hour as the Lord toured the defenses, and the more they looked, the worse the situation got, because it turned out this supposed hostage, Lord Belgar, was actually directing the regular forces personally around his manor. Besides the cultivators, every regular soldier or servant bowed and did as he instructed them to do. Was he really a hostage when armed men listened to his orders like this? The answer became clear when they caught an arriving cultivator, who walked up and reported to him...
“We have to get closer,” Seloryn spoke up while Joren threw a look at her.
“Closer? A few meters, and the moment we get out of the treeline, we will be in the light."
“I want to hear them.” She whispered. "Stay here, I'll be enough... Nokoh, tell Cho'Wa to warn me with a howl if someone is getting towards me. When I focus, I lose my peripheral senses."
“Got it." He nodded, and she was off, sneaking through the trees and the deep snow that sometimes reached above her ankle.
Using a slight slope between the manor and forest to remain below the line of sight from the walls. Getting into the open, she slid down while blowing into her flute. The closest patrol on the walls suddenly heard a weird noise from somewhere behind them, surprising them as they turned around and tried to find the source, which of course was nowhere to be seen. It gave her enough time to get even closer, right up to a section of the wall, where its shadow kept her hidden. As long as nobody was going to lean over the edge and hold up a lantern, that is. Crawling through the snow, she got into position and raised the flute again, closing her eyes and focusing as she activated her breathing technique. Instead of blowing into it, though, she held it up and let the wind blow through its holes, yet her essence kept it silent. Instead of producing sound as she breathed slowly, she gathered the vibrations racing through the air, filtering out what she needed until she caught a snippet of information worth hearing, then grabbed it with her essence.
“...before dawn... road remains clear... another group...”
It was spotty, like muffled sounds from another room, forcing Seloryn to shed more of her senses and listen more clearly, sacrificing any mobility she still had.
“Very... Good... Yes... Valasiy still has no idea...”
Seloryn's face twitched a little, trying to focus her essence even more, spreading it as thinly as possible, not wanting to alert the guards around the 'hostage,' as he was talking with one of them. A commander? Or the leader of this mess?
“His messengers aren't reaching far enough anymore, as planned. Don't be impatient, Lord Belgar. Just a few more weeks, and we can start moving on the capital. Just do as instructed until then.”
"Naturally, Honored Kostac," Belgar answered, "I am at your disposal, as a subordinate must. Don't worry, when the city of Sumeck realizes why this is happening, they will open the doors for you and betray the betrayer. And after order is restored..."
“The Pavilion made its promise.” The man, named Kostac, answered, making Seloryn's eyebrow twitch... The Pavilion? Stormglass Pavilion? “When Valasiy is removed for his treachery, Hilltop will need a king who understands his place and restores the order before more chaos ensues.”
“I understand it, Honored Kostac; believe me! And... I beg of you. As I said so many times, I didn't know that King Valasiy turned against your orders. I am loyal to the laws of this land, not to its monarch! If the king has betrayed the Pavilion, who was always so generous and ready to protect us from rogue cultivators, then he betrayed Hilltop itself. We can't survive other ways! I am on your side, you know that.”
"You do show ample remorse and willingness to help. So we will remember that." The voice answered in a kind tone, yet Seloryn felt something else in those words... There was a type of deception she was way too familiar with, reminding her of a certain smiling bastard. She had heard and believed such words and voices before, and she knew when someone was fake.
“I will not let this kingdom be.... destroyed because one old man.... was too proud... Honored Kostac.” Sadly, the voices started to fade, their words cutting out.
"I... watch... for... understand?" The cultivator then answered with something too quietly for Seloryn to catch as they already began heading away from her position, back towards the manor.
"Of... course!" Belgar answered in a loud and happy tone, “When the traitor is gone.... I... restore order. I swear... bloodline!”
Seloryn slowly pulled the flute back down, dispersing her essence, taking a few deep breaths, wiping the sweat from her forehead before it could freeze. After opening her eyes and carefully leaving, crawling and climbing back to the others, she said nothing at first, just stared at the manor for a while. Could Stormglass be behind this? Could it really be? Naturally, Stormglass could change leadership among its own vassals as it saw fit. But... they wouldn't go about it like this, in such a roundabout way. Not with how they were being investigated; this was the worst possible time for something like this.
“This is a bad theater,” Seloryn whispered suddenly, making both Nokoh and Joren look at her.
“What? What did you hear?”
“Actually, a lot," She shrugged, retelling it to the two, adding her own belief at the end, "Someone wants people here to believe Stormglass is doing this.”
“Or wants enough evidence pointing toward them,” Nokoh concluded very quickly, making Seloryn nod.
“We need more proof,” Joren said, biting his lip, "I don't know what the others may find, but the more we have to send back to the sect, the bigger extra reward we can ask for."
"You are your half-brother sometimes, you know that?" Nokoh said with a chortle, making Joren grimace at him.
"We already have it." Seloryn snorted, but with a smile, waving her flute once, and the voices she heard began repeating what she had picked up before. "I can store it for a day, unless I record something over it... Let's get back to Sumeck, and I can imprint it on an empty tablet or something."
"If they have anything like that," Joren warned her, making Seloryn flinch for the first time.
"They at least have to have some CC, no?" She looked at the two. "We are away from home, I get that, but..."
"I wouldn't bet on it," Joren said with a shrug, making Seloryn's face turn even uglier.