Chapter 32 – Due Diligence

Pots clattered, copper jingled, and ale vases sloshed.

Tove drew from his pipe, the scent of bittervine wafting through the caravan. Behind him, a dozen traders trudged.

“Keep off that orange muck,” he shouted.

Affirmations and disgusted grunts answered. Men shot glances at the orange sand and dirt mix, where dead trunks and winding roots lay in heaps.

To his right, Gray was poking at a soil cavity with a large stick.

“Any idea what you think it is?” asked Gray. Despite his age, the old woodsman was sharp and agile as ever.

“Some kind of sickness. I don’t like it. Makes me feel… wrong. And it smells like something you’d find in a forge. Iron.”

Gray nodded. “Aye. You think the village…” he trailed off, glancing at the other traders.

“No. Maren’s clan is just beyond that ridge. The taint seems to be holding just east of it.”

“Almost coming from the pass…” mumbled Gray thoughtfully.

Looking down, Tove double-checked that he remembered the new cooking goods.

He reached into his overstuffed peddler’s bag, digging through wares and trinkets until he uncovered the copper pans and bowls. They were sturdy stuff. He’d smuggled them from The Leagues on the west. That fact wouldn’t go over well, not with clans people. Their isolation mindset wouldn’t tolerate it. But, they wouldn’t ask. Never did.

The exiles weren’t dumb. They knew, but as long as no one said anything, everyone believed what they wanted and lived a little easier for it.

Hopefully Maren and her folk had a good harvest of Gloomcap. The precious stuff was hard to come by, and the demand for it had grown ravenous. The Leagues wanted all the caps they could get their hands on. And maybe they’ll know more about this orange, tainted muck and dying forest.

So far, no other clans from the northwest had spoken of it.

Still. The smiling faces of green folk, thrilled to see Tove’s caravan, lightened his mood. Some sweet to wash away the bitter.

Western clans were the least populated. Most had tended to head westward. Only recently had more people begun migrating this way. But that isolation came with hospitality.

That being the case, they typically thanked trade with food. Good food, too. Last time, it was a simmering stew of roast with savory herbs and spices. Many of which were only harvested and grown out here.

Thoughts of tender meat were still fresh in his mind when the village came into view. Tove was relieved.

I knew it! That disgusting, tainted muck hadn’t reached the —

“No. No, no, no, no! My god…” he rasped in disbelief.

He’d expected a gathering of busy people, hard at work before dusk. Instead, he found only smoke. And it wasn’t from cooking. It was from carnage.

The ground was littered in a smoldering, grey ash. It was evidence enough of flames that petered out days ago. Around, the bodies lay. More than twenty of them, all in various states of death and butchery.

Several men vomited and retched.

“What happened?” asked Gray, wiping his mouth clean.

“The forest didn’t have to taint these folk. Something else found them first,” Tove muttered.

Gesturing the group to follow, he crept into the village. Booted feet crunched softly on charred terrain. Not from taint, but ash.

Bodies weren’t the only victim of whatever came of Maren’s clan. Everything, from structures, supplies, and camp was… defiled.

To his right, a burlap tent was caved in. Piles of buried lumber to his left. And more demolition beyond.

My god.

***

“Tove.” Gray knelt, a rucksack in his grip.

Squatting down, his leader snagged it. He didn’t try to stop him. The look in the young man’s eyes had gone very, very cold.

“This… this is Valdren. I know that crest.”

“From your time in the militia there?” asked Gray. He’d known Tove a long time. Been the one to find that industrious young man. Always with more ideas than coin.

Only now, a crimson rage marred that idealistic face. An expression deep with a burgeoning fury.

“They… did this?” he hissed. “Gray. The forest’s sickness. I think… I think it was them. Valdren’s up to something. And they’ve planted it right here, on the corpses of our brethren.” Tove shook his head, words spilling out like blood. “I bet Maren’s people found out what they were up to, confronted those bastards, and were slain for it.”

Around, others were finding more of the same. Broken spears, armor, and gear that all reeked of Valdren troops.

By the time the traders had finished their investigation, they hadn’t found any concrete answers as to the motivation. But Tove held strong in his theory.

Gray looked over, concerned for his friend. Tove’s body carried a rage like that of the clan’s ashes. Hot, smoldering, and deathly gray.

I haven’t seen Tove like that in a long, long time.

Gray, however, was as confused as he was disturbed. He decided to say as much.

“Why would they do this? Valdren never had any goodwill for us greenfolk, but why would they want to kill the forest? Let alone butcher the innocent people in it? It doesn’t make sense. And this isn’t even the closest clan to the pass. There are a few others further south.”

“Like the ones we just came from,” replied Niva. Her yellow eyes narrowed, staring at Tove expectantly.

“Aye. But they were fine. All of them. We’d have heard if something like this happened elsewhere,” replied Gray.

There were a few grunts at that.

Tove wasn’t swayed. His mind was made up. “I don’t know what Valdren’s game is. But I’ll tell you this. It only takes one man to order an atrocity. And when that man’s in command, men listen. Believe me. I’d know.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

No one replied after that. Several here knew of Tove’s past. And those that didn’t had picked up enough not to ask.

“Alright. Plans changed. We make east for The Wardens. Just to make sure we don’t get into any trouble, we stay to the outskirts of any dead forest and that… infection Valdren spread.”

Gray wanted to speak up. To ask why the bodies weren’t just killed, but butchered. Why entire limbs were missing? Why soldiers would leave their rucksacks? How Valdren could have even managed to kill a forest? Why none of this made any logical sense?

But he didn’t. Instead, he shouldered his pack, grit his teeth, and followed. When you worked with Tove, that was the way. He ordered, you listened.

The terrible irony of that wasn’t lost on the woodsman.

***

Fervor was starting to drop. Kairon was fairly certain that was due to the lack of housing for his newest imps. In a few days, he planned to remedy that with a new camp.

What really bothered him was that last line.

Sigils: 1

I’ve invested heavily to get this single sigil. But all I have to show for it is the tick on my interface…

Peering again at the floating dark sequence, Kairon pursed his lips. He had a theory as to what the sigil should be doing. But it wasn’t working.

The city lord stared at the scripture written into the pole of the stockpile. Squatting down, he ran one claw over the wooden demarcation.

If I could learn to translate this, I’d know how this functions. How you store resources. How you connect with my city interface. And, more importantly, how I could exploit that.

Possibility such as modifying rituals, buildings, and demonic craft flowed through his mind. But right now, he had no idea what even a single symbol actually meant. And that was an issue.

He studied the violent lines of demonic text, humming softly. A hypothesis in his mind floated. Like the dark sigil, it waited. Just asking to be implemented.