NOVEL NEXT BECMI Chapter 131 – A Letter of Blood and Souls
The grim letter with its calligraphy of jet and blood, the pages some form of paper so white they would make fresh fallen snow envious, began easily enough.
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My Lord Regent of the Halls under the Mountains of the North,
I congratulate you and your people on your deliverance and your freedom. Their ransoming of you to the Beast-folk has done a great deal to restore shaken belief in dwarven treaties in the North, and the period of peace that has come with the withdrawal of the Khirifi from the west should help settle matters down for a certain amount of time.
Still, it is not a time to remain resting, and the clans of the Rockborn in particular have reason to be active.
When I prevailed upon the mage-smiths and artificers of the Rockborn to strike the coins that would be your ransom, I prevailed upon them to do so with subtle designs and changes to them.
These changes have already begun to bear fruit.
To wit, Lord Regent, the blood coins of your ransom are tracking devices.
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Himmelstern Karrackheim stared at those words on the letter before him.
Tracking devices. The ransom of his life and those of his guards was a tool, meant to be used against the beast-folk?
Suddenly the Regent realized he was not playing the same game as that deadly elf-maid.
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The specific metals, anointed with drops of dwarven blood, are cast and set with a specific pattern that allows those who know that pattern to follow them with great ease with scrying magic, and this is especially true for dwarf-mages.
In addition, every single coin has been numbered, all 82,050 of them that are now in the hands of the beast-folk. That means a single coin can be chosen out of any of them, and followed on its own.
Every single coin can be tracked, and that means they can be recovered… or they can simply be followed.
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The Regent of the Halls was no mage, but the potential of this move was astounding.
And she was clearly alluding to the fact that they had paid the gold, and were capable of, nay, EXPECTED to go out and get the blood-price back!
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First of all, the blood-gold is being scattered through the tribes of the beast-folk, being used as payment among them, traded back and forth like any or all stolen coins. The hole in them makes them easy to strap onto thongs and carry around as trophies, in addition.
Where the beast-folk go, the coins will go. If you watch for coins in the wild, you will find the beast-folk bearing them.
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The Regent's large hands tensed. Finding a way to sense the location of blood-coins nearby would alert them to the presence of the savages, and they could track them to their hidden holes, find their safe places, take the battle to them-!
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In addition, the coins will be used to pay traitors and the greedy who dare to deal with the beast-folk, identifying who is trading with and supplying them, and likely where and when such deals are occurring. That information will also be useful.
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With the guilty parties inheriting axes to the skull for their perfidy, Regent Karrackheim both fumed and smiled darkly.
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The next stage of securing the North involves dealing with the beast-folk en masse. This is a much, much greater problem than you know.
You have been gone a time and have not attended any meetings of the Regent's Council, so you may not know that I and my Free Company are from the future of another timeline, some four thousand years in the future.
We know what the beast-folk evolve into, the havoc they wreak, the costs in blood and gold they inflict on all those they cross and can do battle with, including the lives and families of many of those who follow me.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
This is the time and the place to halt one of the great Evils, and not coincidentally secure the future of your own people at the same time.
But I am not calling for a great mustering of armies to strike down a foe. That will not happen, due to the nature of where they live and where they come from.
I am looking for a gathering of heroes, of grim folk of skill, purpose, and commitment, that will take up this fight and bring it to the beast-folk and the powers that thrive on the chaos and death they create.
I intend to scourge the plague of the beast-folk from the world, if at all possible. If not possible, then I intend to cripple them so thoroughly that they never become the threat to good and free folk in the future that they are in my own time. In the future, their numbers are far, far too great, and they have too many Immortal protectors to eliminate them all.
Here, in this time, it can be done, and generations be spared the horrors they will inflict upon them.
So, what I request is this:
Send us your hunters and warriors of skill and stealth, grim of mind and set of purpose. They must be able to stalk in the shadows and kill chest-to-chest, and they must believe in what we are doing.
The glory will all be among our own. The wealth and spoils will be minimal – these are savages and primitives. The blood will be great, the slaughter will be ruthless, and the effort it will take to do this will occupy years.
When we are done, the beast-folk will be broken forever, or they will be extinct.
Respectfully yours,
The Lady Edge
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Himmelstern set the letters carefully down on the table to the side, having to make an effort to tear his eyes from them.
He heard a dirge when he looked at the letters. Those streaks of red were blood, the blood of uncounted beast-folk who were going to die. The blackness of the ink against the white was like the whisper of souls escaping corpses and heading off to the netherworld.
There was going to be blood, and there was going to be death.
"She has called for clerics of extreme faith and devotion to accompany the warriors who will be carrying this fight, Lord Regent," the Great Jordie, most eminent of the Clerics of the North, informed him as their eyes met. "She speaks of slaughter, and for some reason the deaths of all of the Khirifi seem small next to what she is contemplating.
"She does not want soldiers. She wants exceptional men and women who are going to be wading in blood and gore, making war in a manner which has never been done before.
"I imagine she saw that you have no love of the beast-folk, and thought you might want to get this anger off of your chest.
"By the time she is done, there will be nothing left for you to be angry at."
Regent Himmelstern Karrackheim thought on that for a long, deep moment.
"Where are we meeting?"
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It was not a small meeting, but word of it was quiet. It passed from mouth to mouth only, once those who received the letters spread the word.
And so they came to the city of Darkmoor, and to the Thisbean Inn. They saw its expanded back yard, with even a pool there, and they gathered to listen.
There were humans from both the Kingdom of Darkmoor and the Duchy of Elb, elves from both major tribes and many clans lured by the prospect of killing off more of the beast-folk who endangered them all, dwarves extremely interested in vengeance and spoiling for a fight outside the currently peaceful borders from their treaty, and even adventurous hyn who thought this might the most exciting thing they would ever get involved in their lives, if the words of one Oswald Brandybuck were any indication.
They came at the call of the elfin mage who had destroyed the Khirifi that had been an existential threat for two generations or more.
Of the true nobles and heroes of Darkmoor, who had carried it through a generation of war, few showed up. Most were humans, and nobles, rulers who had their own lands and people to care for, and they needed to remain behind to keep everything stable and ready in case of something else happening.
The Elder of the Elves in the North, Waynder Equavus, was a notable exception to those rulers. Elves had a looser government structure to begin with, and to the surprise of all the other attendants, elves outnumbered every other race at the meeting.
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"Skarvald is not coming?" Ketcher Kociba, King Antius' spymaster, tagged 'the Catcher', asked me as the attendees, nearly fourscore in number, settled into the floating Disks waiting for the meeting to begin.
The dark-haired Mealyn elves were the most isolationist, secluding themselves in a corner near their cousins in the Ceruil and talking little with others. Dwarves, hyn, and humans were in little pockets, dickering back and forth with those they knew, the fair-haired Ceruil keeping an easy grace and serenity about themselves that kept order there without trying.
My Free Company, Belle de facto leading them, were chatting here and there. Their common badges and futuristic style united them in other's eyes as much as their easy acceptance of one another.
"While on the surface this might seem to be his ideal escapade, I only had to mention that there was no pay to speak of and the amount of loot was going to be minimal, coming from beast-folk as it was. For some reason, the idea of spending so much time underground for no plunder did not appeal to him. I understand he's heading off to the Duchy of Peaks to be a pain to their cults of pleasure and the like."
"Without battles to fight, he becomes a great liability to keep around, but he's been unusually restrained for him these past couple of months… although I understand some of the more unctuous of the cities who have enjoyed his visits are quite glad to see him go."
"Barbarians will go barbar," I said without judgment. "Ribbit, ribbit."
The Catcher smirked. "If one of his actual enemies discovers how that was done, assassins will come to hunt him down. He is also avoiding Interdicted towns and fortifications now…"
"Then he's not a fool and has realized the debts he's piled up for his behavior actually do exist." I glanced about. "It's about time for me to begin. Enjoy the show, Master Catcher."
"Lady Edge," he said politely, bowing gracefully and retreating to where some of his own agents were attending. A couple were being dispatched to come with us, to file their own report instead of rely upon mine… and watch those involved.