Alchimia Rex

“One, two, three…” Eli used her foot to etch a basic layout of the territory surrounding Sinco on the dirt. “...four, five, six.” She proceeded to separate it into sections and number each of them. None of the sectors reached too far out from the city, this was meant to be a light solo expedition, after all.

She produced a bone die from one of her many pockets and tossed it into her water cup. The Hound made a mental note of the number and proceeded to throw it four more times.

The maiden checked her inventory once more, fingers making a quick list of everything that was on her multi-pocketed dress and bag. She tested her hunting bow, counted her arrows, and reached up to caress her throat to remove her-

The collar wasn’t there.

A brief panic followed, the maiden looked around wildly. Had she already removed it? But it wasn’t in-

She let out a sigh of relief. No, she hadn’t worn a collar since waking that fateful day in the tribe. A melancholic smile reached her lips, a swirl of emotions surging out in every direction. Loss and bitter anger mixed with fulfillment and determination. The death of her family was a wound that she would carry to her dying breath.

She’d never had a chance to process the loss, by the time she’d woken from the curse they were gone for good. How could a mother grieve her child without a body? How would a wife grieve her husband without a goodbye? Revenge, it turned out, had been a great motivator. It kept her moving when the world felt as if it had lost all meaning. With Thorley gone, slayed like a beast in the very streets of the city, she’d turned her focus to the Lord and Lady.

Gratitude might not carry the same force as hate, but to anyone dying of thirst, muddied waters were no different to a fresh spring. As far as she was concerned, it was as good an excuse as any to gear up and scout the vicinity. Not like there was anyone else in the city capable of doing the job half as well as she could.

One last look at the map to confirm her route, and she proceeded to scuff it with her foot. She then began to make her way to the main gate.

A part of her wanted to stay by the Lady’s side, but the Hunter in her knew better.

They needed to keep a close eye on any movement near and around the city.

Wary eyes trailed after Eli; she could see many a maiden trying to avoid drawing her attention. Others put on hard faces and unwelcoming gates. It was hard to miss the animosity and contempt some of the citizens held for her. In their eyes she was not just a part of the militia, but also the right hand of the Lady.

She could almost smell it, how the city balanced on the edge of a knife.

The wildlings had been fought off and the famine had come to an end. Many were grateful to the Lord for these things. Others now took the opportunity to look upon the other “problems.” One of the most important people within the tiny city had died under the Lord’s roof. The Orc tribe moved about the city with impunity, acting with the same freedom only a human would be allowed. And most importantly, it was all but an open secret that Lord Rick stood in opposition to the kingdom. The citizens of Sinco might be easily persuaded to fight against wildlings and ferals, their survival was on the line after all. But to rebel against the kingdom was a different question entirely.

The city had seen an end to a petty Lord, who’s to say they wouldn’t open the gates if the kingdom came looking for the new Lord’s head?

Perhaps the festival could see an end to this, or maybe not, the anticipation was palpable. The end-of-summer festival was an important event, it marked when the season of growth would turn to the season of preparation.

Winter would be upon them, and the Frostcallers waited for none.

“Heading out?” The guard shifted in their post, standing straighter and giving her a look-over.

“Someone needs to keep an eye past the treeline.” Eli shrugged easily enough. “Flyers can only see so much, you need a nose in the dirt to know what’s really going on. Will be gone for two nights at most.”

“Your path?”

Eli shrugged. “Nothing set,” she lied.

Someone had betrayed her and her Hunter sisters to the Vampires. It was clear the Lord had been the one responsible, but someone under him must have been the one to share the necessary details. In the end, it was as the Lady had said: it is best to only share that which needs to be shared.

If something happened to her out in the wilderness, knowing what path she’d taken would only really make it easier to find her corpse. If there was one left at all.

“Tribe’s going to hunt the wildlings?”

“I don’t know, don’t really get told much.” She shrugged, another lie. She’d been around Rick enough to be rather certain he intended to finish them off before they had the chance to try a second time.

The guard glanced at her more pointedly. “Lady’s condition also a mystery?”

Eli stared down at the maiden, taking a full moment to focus on her. She was a younger Doggirl, but the scent wasn’t familiar, clearly someone from the militia but not one of Rick’s. “Ask that again.”

“What?”

She stepped closer, hands on her hips. “Ask your question again, pup.”

Her jaw set. “You were one of us.”

“I never stopped. Who’s in charge of you?” She asked coolly.

With a loud snort, the maiden made a gesture at the opposite side of the gate. “That’d be Aba.”

“Good. Be seeing you, pup.” She walked through the gate, taking a quick glance around until she found Aba.

The Centaur had been in the middle of one of her many meal-breaks, munching on some greens and keeping herself busy staring at the farms. The maiden gave a glance at Eli, acknowledging her as the older maiden approached. “Something to share?”

“What happened to Talo?”

“Fucked up during training, cleaning latrines.” The maiden replied with a shrug. “You know you don’t have the authority here.”

“I’m not here to give orders,” she lied, earning a scowl from the brown-eyed fellow. “Just keep an eye out. People like to know who goes in and out of the city.”

“Mhm,” the other dismissed, keeping her gaze on the Elves as they tended to the crops.

Eli shrugged. “The Lady doesn’t have anyone to ride if she needs to head out. Perhaps I can remind her of this.”

“I’ll think about it. Will the Hunters come back?”

The Hound shook her head. "If the Lord calls for their return, I'll be first to step up."

“I see.” The maiden didn’t look back, brows furrowing in thought. “You have a job to do, right?” That marked the end of the conversation, a flick of the maiden’s equine tail dismissing her.

That she did. She waved goodbye and made a mental note to look for a different Centaur and see if she could get them to show interest. Aba wasn’t the brightest out there, the girl thought she could keep going as she was without getting involved in the city’s politics. Unfortunately for her, she was one of many bonded to Rick, marking her as a potential target for anyone looking for trouble.

It was another job the Lady had given them: to consolidate everyone bonded to the Lord. A line had to be drawn. Those who did not support him or didn't see the wisdom of his ways needed to have their bonds broken and be sold off. Preferably to another city or village.

Rick could not be allowed to be harmed. The most important way to ensure his safety was to vet those closest to him first and work their way outward. It was this same mindset that Eli and her sisters were applying to his laboratory. The Lady might not have been conscious to issue the command, but everyone had agreed she would’ve sought to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands.

With the distractions out of the way, she turned her attention to the forest.

The hill sloped upwards, the signs of the attack were mostly gone, washed out by the rain that’d poured down on Sinco for nearly a week. Why the Lord had insisted on keeping the deluge for that long was anyone’s guess, but Eli suspected it’d been to drain as much water from the clouds above as possible. The sunny warmth was sure to uplift the tribe’s mood.

Setting down a rhythm, she took measure of herself once she’d reached the edge of the forest. Eli breathed in, trying to catch as many scents as she could find. Nothing stood out to her, not a soul had moved through this place after the rains. The only exceptions were hints of boars and small animals.

Removing her dress and stuffing it into her bag, the Hound proceeded past the treeline, ears sharp and knife ready for a fight. Slowly she walked, one step at a time, slower than even a casual walk, eyes darting every which way.

Nothing.

Her pace crept upwards, turning into a power walk, and then a jog. The Hunter would make a point to stop at random times without rhyme or reason, stretching out her senses in every direction.

Still nothing.

Minutes turned to hours, and her progress into the forest had steadied. She’d made a lot of sound and encountered no threats. Now she turned to sneaking, pulling the shadows and cloaking herself in them, urging the darkness to remove her scent, remove her sounds, remove her presence. She didn’t dive into the shadows, however, as that would defeat the purpose of her mission.

The world within the darkness made it harder to detect things occurring where the light dwelt.

But that ability to better detect her surroundings made the tranquility eerie. In all her years the forest had never felt this empty. Even after a rush, there would always be ferals scattered about. Mostly those that’d been smart enough to hide, or powerful enough to win. Now however, there was a deathly stillness to it all.

Only the rare animal would perturb it. A hog here, a bird there, some rodents scurrying under the roots…

Eli wasn’t sure what that would mean in the long run. A rush drained the feral population; it meant they wouldn’t be as much of a problem for the following years. But with it emptied this much? There were bound to be larger consequences in some way, ferals were a scourge to settlements, but they were also a part of the ecosystem.

She’d heard of how some places had found themselves surrounded by lush green jungles within a generation, all because of the right combination of ferals existing nearby. And how the eradication of those ferals brought about a return to the former state. Would something like that happen here? She wasn’t even sure how far this ‘silence’ extended.

Maybe it went all the way to the Deep Woods.

The thought of that place made her shudder. The Deep Woods were not a place she’d dare enter without very good reason; she imagined that if the wildlings ran off over there, then they were not going to be a problem for much longer.

Eli made her way through the first two sectors for her route, stopping to eat when the time for such presented itself. She didn’t hunt anything while moving about, not wanting the blood to potentially draw attention.

It was on her second day that she stumbled on to something noteworthy.

The scent of a corpse.

Unmistakable in its pungent potency, it drew Eli’s attention and route in a specific direction. The Hunter knew better than to rush in, corpses were a rarity to be encountered, hogs typically made quick work of those. And there had been hogs within and around the forest, which rang bells of caution.

Whenever something didn’t fit, then it was likely because it was part of a trap. The feral curse, for all its cruelty that robbed one of their mind and intellect, was sometimes cruller still because it left some. Just enough to turn the maiden into something far more dangerous.

The maddened feral Hound that lashed out at anything that moved wasn’t what killed you. It was the feral Ursine waiting to drop on you from above.

Carefully she continued her approach, systematically ruling out potential venues of ambush. She carefully shifted her location relative to the source of the scent to catch other possible smells. She used her darkness to quietly climb up some of the trees and inspect the surroundings from several angles. Only when she was satisfied that either the attacker was as paranoid as she was or didn't exist at all did she proceed further.

The scent of rotting flesh gained a new quality to it, a sickeningly sweet fruity undertone. Rotten plantlife, though of what sort she couldn’t tell. It took her a moment to fully understand what she was looking at once she got close enough.

A body, consumed within the withered husk of a tree sprout. The tiny plant, a meager two feet in height, was blackened, sloughing off, half-dissolved by its own decomposition or something else.

Twenty years as a Hunter, and not once had Eli seen such a thing. The closest she’d seen of this sort had been the result from a spurned Elf farmer unleashing vengeance on her lover. The maiden had put charged seeds in her partner’s meal and watched the human’s slow demise as the plant grew from inside shortly after.

Was this the result of some maiden with plant-related powers?

She took a small sample of the corpse and the dying plant, carefully placing the samples in glass vials. She made sure not to disturb it further and made a mental note of its location.

As she continued her route, she found more such corpses. Each and every one of them having died in much the same ways, and adorned by the same blackened dead plant. First five, then ten, then thirty. The further she ventured from Sinco, the more frequent their numbers.

The fact that all of them were at the same level of decomposition was a sign they’d all died within relatively the same timeframe. Though Eli had a hard time figuring out whether they’d died before the attack on the city or after it. Perhaps this was what happened to those infected by the plant, without something else, they’d eventually be overcome and die.

She wasn’t going to bet on that, however.

Still, there wasn’t any sign of any activity, the wildlings had clearly turned tail deeper. This felt important enough to merit going back and report. Surely the pink-haired girl clinging to the Lord’s side would find use out of it.

Eli chuckled at herself. The healer, though skilled in the games the Lady played, was too young to understand the long game.

Rick was to rule this land. Such was the ultimate goal of the Lady, an objective Eli wholeheartedly agreed with. Not least of which because she was the oldest of the Lady’s servants, matronage was right around the corner for her. In just a few years, she would be the mother to a lineage of kings.

And the healer’s little games would be brought to an end.