Chapter 276: 272: Interlopers

“Any scouts about?” Hart whispered to a nearby ranger.

The stocky woman was crouched behind a pine tree as she peered over the ridge at the encampment below.

“No, Champion, no scouts, but there’s sentries keeping watch.” She said in low tones, pointing to an oak rising on the north side of the camp where a small wooden platform was supported by several thick branches. A figure crouched on it, and the metal on their crossbow glinted in the grey light.

“They’ve also set posts there, there and there.” The ranger pointed at several platforms tucked into tall trees with sentries laying face down on them, watching their surroundings. “…and then there’s this one here.”

She nodded at the tree Hart was crouched behind; a towering thing with a dense canopy that was hard to see through from a distance.

Partly hidden by the umbrella of leaves and branches was another sentry’s platform.

This one was now occupied by a dead man and a Thameish ranger who’d taken the watcher’s place after a quick bit of knife work.

“And that’s all of them,” she said. “It’s strange they have no scouts about.”

“Or maybe they haven’t had time to send them out yet. It looks like they just got back.” Hart pointed to the centre of the camp. “Look down there.”

The ranger’s eyes followed the direction he was pointing in.

A group of people sat slumped around a dead fire in the middle of the camp, they looked worn out, like they’d just beaten their way through some rough countryside. The hilts of short swords glinted at their hips, and short bows hung from their backs.

Around them stood a grouping of large tents: the sort one might erect in a war camp.

“Bet you three hen’s eggs that those bastards down there were the ones the Chitterers were chasing,” Hart said. “Now…what’re they doing in Thameland in the first place?”

Hart had only seen a selachar a pair of times in all his life, but his sharp eyes recognized their grey skin and black eyes even from his distance on the bluff. Everyone below was a member of that sea-dwelling race and they definitely looked like the sort who’d come looking for a fight. Most were armed and cloaked in armour of leather and coral. Encircling the camp was an uneven ditch with sharpened stakes planted along the bottom; Hart noticed the tips of some were darkened by what looked like dried blood. Whether from monsters, animals or people, he couldn’t say, but he could say being speared like that was a helluva way to go. Between the ditch and the perimeter of the camp, a wooden fence topped with vicious looking trident shaped spikes had been erected. Equidistant holes were carved in the fence, and Hart watched warriors and archers peering through them.

“Murder holes,” he muttered. “They can spear or shoot anyone planning on a raid from the woods or bottleneck them at the entrances to their camp.”

There were three ways to reach the camp’ s interior: a dirt path from the north, one from the south and a small, rocky beach facing the sea. Several large boats guarded by a pair of grim looking sentries had been beached on the stony shore.

“Who do you think they are?” Hart asked. “Pirates?”

“Most likely, lord…” the ranger said. “Though they must not’ve been here long: they don’t look like they’ve gotten up to much looting, unless they’re holding all of it in one of those tents. What do we do?”

Hart thought the situation over for a moment.

This was a war zone, and the chances of armed folk coming to Thameland with good intentions was…low. He considered attacking first and asking questions later, but if these selachar turned out to be allies, then he’d never hear the end of it if he just gutted them.

‘Would feel like a great, big shit about it too,’ he thought. “Give ‘em one chance.”

“We surround ‘em and give ‘em one warning,” Hart said. “You can stay back in the woods while I step up first. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll break down the north gate, then shout a signal. That’ll be your sign to follow me in. Got it?”

“Right, Champion,” the ranger said. “I’ll tell the others.”

Clapping the woman on the shoulder—nearly causing her to lose balance—Hart split from the group and quietly circled to the north. With his Champion’s Mark enhanced by stealth from years spent as a mercenary, he made no sound as he moved around the trees, slipped onto a forest path north of the camp, and approached a bend behind a small hill.

Softly humming to himself, The Champion strung his enormous bow, loosened the massive sword slung on his back, and made sure his hip quiver was settled on his side. Then, he strolled casually toward the camp with his bow resting on his shoulder.

The instant he rounded the hill, a horn sounded from up ahead followed by shouting from inside the camp. Hart could hear selachar scrambling behind the fence.

“Hello!” he shouted, waving with his free hand. “Welcome to Thameland, outlanders! This is Hart Redfletcher, Champion of Uldar. I’m here to greet you! Now, your landing on the beach here—all quiet-like—makes me wonder if you might be up to no good. But, I thought rather than being hasty and jumping to conclusions, it might be better if I just walked up and asked. So, who’s your leader and what’re you doing here?”

The sound of scrambling continued as two selachar abruptly pushed the north gate shut. Hart made note of the sentries in the trees: each one shouldered crossbows aimed at him.

“Look, I know violence is the answer to many problems, but I don’t see why we need to resort to it so quick! Come on, who’s your leader? Let’s get a little parley going. Maybe we don’t need to come to blow-”

“Leave!” a voice barked.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, leave! Leave now or we will kill you!”

Hart let out an ugly, barking laugh. “You? Kill me? Listen friend, lots of things have tried: the sort of things that’d give you nightmares for the rest of your lives. You’re not scaring me.”

Thnk.

A crossbow bolt kicked up a cloud of dirt in front of his armoured foot. Hart looked down casually.

“That was your first and only warning!” the voice shouted. “We have seen things that cause terror as well, Thamelander! Retreat now or face the consequences!”

Hart shook his head.

“For one, I can’t let just anyone go running around the countryside without telling me what they’re doing. If you’re here to help, just say so, no need for all this flexing. Two…well, that’s a bigger problem. Y’see, you just fired on a Hero of Uldar while he’s in the middle of his fancy holy duties. That’s an instant death sentence around these parts, no questions asked. So why don’t we-”

Thwp.

Hart’s hand shot up, snatching a bolt as it flew toward his chest. There was a moment of stunned silence from the sentry who’d shot at him.

“Ah, well made, this is.” Hart examined the crossbow bolt. “Shame to see it wasted. I’d love to give it back to you, but it’s a wee bit too small for my bow-”

His hands blurred, dropping the crossbow bolt, nocking an arrow on his bowstring and pulling it back in one fluid motion.

“-so here, take one of mine!”

Thwang!

A thick arrow shot from his massive bow with the force of a ballista bolt, cutting through the air and blasting the sentry straight through the chest. The selachar flew from the tree from the impact, plummeting to the earth even as Hart nocked his bow and fired several more times in under a pair of heartbeats.

Before the first had even hit the ground, arrows slammed into more sentries with horrifying accuracy, flinging them from their perches. He lowered his aim toward the fence, his large eyes focusing on the murder holes and those archers who’d begun firing at him.

Fwip!

An arrow whizzed past his shoulder.

Thwump!

His giant arrows shot forth in rapid succession.

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Thwump!

Thwump!

Thwump!

Thwump!

Archer after archer dropped as he skewered them through their own murder holes and he kept firing until his quiver was empty. Quickly dropping his bow, Hart charged, drawing his hive queen-claw sword and churning the earth, speeding toward the gate in a blur.

He dropped his right shoulder and…

Crash!

Burst through the flimsy wooden barrier as if it were a nest of dried twigs.

Whooosh!

Screams and streams of red erupted as he cleaved his way straight-through the enemy.

“Now!” Hart’s roar echoed through the forest. “Get stuck in, mates!”

An unified shout answered from the trees as his knights and rangers came galloping down the forest path, lowering lances and firing arrows. With a mad laugh, Uldar’s Champion kept cutting through the interlopers who threw themselves forward without restraint. There was a desperation to their movements, like something was driving them toward the thicket of enemy blades.

Snarling through his visor, Hart just did what he had done most of his life: cut down the opponents in front of him. It was almost soothing in a way…simply shutting out the whole world and letting the impact of his sword on bodies travel up his arms.

Then—almost as suddenly as it had started—it was done.

He blinked to find himself standing among the dead, with his rangers and knights spreading out, exploring the camp.

“Ach, easier to fold than wet leaves,” Hart snorted, cleaning his blade and stepping over fallen bodies. “If this is all you had in you, you shouldn’t’ve started a fight in the first place. But it seems strange…folk usually surrender after you cut down half their buddies-”

“Champion! Champion!” one of the rangers cried from the front flap of a tent. “You need to see this!

Hart made his way over and stood among his warriors, some had their heads bowed. The tent had been abandoned—likely every living soul had rushed out to defend the camp—but what they’d left behind was something from a horror story. Meat, limbs, organs and entrails hung from hooks all around the tent’s inner perimeter, like a barbaric abattoir.

One look at some of the body parts told him that what he was seeing wasn’t something as common as a regular slaughterhouse.

“Those…those look human,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Well punch me in the head, what kind of sick bastards were these?”

He looked over at the centre of the tent.

A blood-stained altar had been erected there, carved from a single block of basalt. In the middle was a deep indentation…like a bowl to hold blood from sacrifices. Strange symbols were carved, ringing the bowl in a circle, and Hart had fought enough wizards in his time to recognize sigils of magic when he saw them.

“Let’s pack up whatever we can…these weren’t ordinary pirates,” Hart said. “We’ve got to tell the others about this.”

“Has Uldar’s wisdom completely abandoned your senses, Drestra?” Merzhin asked, his voice quiet but far from calm.

The three Heroes had stepped out of the fae realm through the fairy circle and into an empty clearing. The portal within the circle of mushrooms vanished behind them and they’d moved with speed into the woods until they felt sure they’d had privacy. Words and emotion boiled up in both The Chosen and Saint, until they finally became too much for them to hold in any longer.

Drestra turned toward Merzhin, her eyes hard. “There are other sources of wisdom in the world besides Uldar, Merzhin, and I don’t think my actions were unwise. What I do think was unwise is you both nearly picking a fight with a fae lord in his own realm. Fighting our way out of their lands would have been hard enough, but engaging a fae lord directly? That would have been suicide.”

“Aye, that you’re right about.” Cedric rubbed the back of his head somewhat ashamed. “Kinda lost me head there. Talk about just handin’ little kids over to him like we’d be handin’ out apples took me off guard. Got me blood boilin’. You’ve got the right of it, Drestra. Best thing to do’s refuse after his moon passes. Bah!” Cedric snorted. “Thought it was a good idea to ally with ‘im. Wit’ the Moonguard an’ Brigadiers on our side, we’d have way more power to hit The Ravener with. Bloody shame it didn’t work out.”

Silence followed his words.

Then Merzhin began to chuckle, his high-pitched voice cutting Cedric’s nerves. “Friend, I’m afraid our Sage has no intention of refusing him. Have I guessed right, Drestra?”

Cedric slowly looked over and found the witch’s reptilian eyes staring at him.

“I think it’s madness to refuse,” she said.

The Chosen blinked. “What? Y’want to hand over wee ones to him?”

“That is exactly what we should do.” The Sage took a step toward him. “We would have command of his forces in return for giving orphans a better life than they would have otherwise. It only makes sense.”

Cedric shook his head. “You’re out of your mind. You’d make slaves of the wee ones! Take them away from their people!”

“And is that so bad?” Drestra asked. “My foster mother was not of ‘my people’. None of Crymlyn Swamp were. But I’ve grown up happy and well there. Fostering is no death sentence: it can be ill and it can be good. And there’s tales of humans growing up in the fae realms, growing into heroes of their own right.”

“Aye, an’ plenty o’ other tales end with: an’ then the babe ended up in a redcap’s belly. The end. So, no. We can’t be doin’ this.”

“I agree,” Merzhin said. “We cannot allow any of Uldar’s children to grow up away from his light. It would be like planting a sapling beneath the earth and expecting it to thrive.”

Drestra rolled her eyes. “You two shouldn’t have started this if you weren’t willing to even consider the choice. We’ve led men and women to their deaths. We’ve nearly lost our lives a dozen times. Is this so bad? Children growing up in a fae realm?”

“It’d be like sellin’ folk as slaves.” Cedric shook his head. “To bargain people like chattel, it don’t sit right with me.”

“It’s an ugly looking choice,” Drestra said. “But it’s one that’ll lead to less suffering and more safety for everyone. Consider it at least-”

“It is a shame.” Merzhin shook his head. “Uldar would be so disappointed by even us considering this. We might even meet with his divine punishment if we consider this grim choice—which really is no choice at all—too much. His path dictates that we spurn the poisoned offers that tempt us.”

“Or what?!” Drestra snapped. “He’d voice his displeasure? Come down and complain? That would be a nice change! I don’t even worship him and he drags me into this conflict! Not even a word of encouragement or guidance! Nothing!”

“You have closed your ears to him,” Merzhin said. “Which is why you do not hear his benediction.”

“Oh really?” The Sage stepped toward The Saint, towering over the shorter young man. “And tell me…what has he said to you? You do all this talking about Uldar, but what instructions has he actually given you, oh ‘holy saint’?”

Merzhin’s eyes hardened. “His words are-”

“Am I interrupting something?” Hart’s voice came from the trees. The Heroes startled as the big man strode out of the dark woods with a corpse slung over his shoulder. “I could bloody hear you from a hundred paces away. Look, you can tell me all about how things went with King Fairy later, but you all should see this.”

He held up the body of a selachar warrior with one hand, and a wood and crystalline symbol with the other. “I think we had a bloody cult brewing on our shores.”

Cedric’s eyes looked at the body then drifted to the symbol.

It was one he didn’t recognize.

A strange shape. A crystalline polyhedron with rhombic sides.

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