Kima spat into the dirt, the sound muffled by her gas mask. The sight atop the cliff was a mess, a slaughterhouse of Hussar, prisoner rags, and corpses with yellow dove sigils all presided over by the black tendrils of a Zhenren as some of it dangled off the cliff.
"Damn it! Can't believe Syrion is making me do this," she grunted, her voice a mechanical rasp through the filters.
She squatted over the edge, her buff frame tense as she scanned the carnage, her purple hair dark red hair gently blowing in the wind.
Kima had a picture of a boy tucked into her belt, given to her by his mother via Syrion, but she didn't need to pull it out to know he wasn't among the dead here.
A soft thump behind her made her turn. A Hortes approached, its yellow feathers being in contrast to the red mists all around, which complemented by orange streaks and three vibrant red feathers on top its head that danced in the breeze.
"Easy, girl," Kima murmured, reaching out to massage the creature's neck. "It really is a horrible sight, isn't it, Chira? All of them, snuffed out just like that. Really makes you think."
Chira let out a low, mournful skree, then followed it with a sharper, more uppity trill, nudging Kima's hand.
Kima smiled beneath the mask. "Yeah. That won't ever happen to us. I'll make sure of it."
She hadn't been thrilled when Syrion called her. She was a professional, and babysitting a missing wagon trail felt beneath her. But the pay was undeniable, and more importantly, the path of the wagon was roughly en route to her real mission.
The one that actually mattered. The one she only had one shot at.
"Okay, girl. Let's head down," she said, her mask hissing as she pressurized the seal.
She mounted Chira, gripping the reins. Chira flapped her short, powerful wings and dashed off the cliff's edge. The wind whipped through Kima's strands of dreadlocked hair and snapped her black cloak back, briefly revealing the polished steel of her chest-plate and the embossed snake sigil coiled across her heart.
At the base of the cliff, Kima began her true investigation. She ignored the few corpses that had tumbled over the edge, none matched the boy.
Instead, her eyes caught a long, dark vertical trail on the cliff face. It looked as though someone, or something,had clawed their way down the rock.
"Attuned," she whispered.
She hopped off Chira and crouched in the mud. Human footprints. Small, but deep enough to show intent. They merged with multiple Hortes tracks leading away.
"Hmm. An Attuned was in the battle, Chira. They headed down, but they weren't alone. They rode off." She stood up, looking toward the horizon. "No corpse means the boy was taken. Whether it was the Stained Brothers or someone else... why keep him alive?"
Chira let out a short skree.
"Right. Questions for later."
They followed the tracks for a while, passing through a graveyard of ancient architecture. Stone pillars and arches were being swallowed by the earth, with the occasional armoured limb sticking out of the mud like a grisly signpost.
Faint blue Q Glyphs littered across the land, emitting a soft pale blue light in the mick.
Syrion said the kid was Attuned.
Kima thought, eyeing the glyphs.
Hope he's not stupid enough to try and absorb one of them…
She reached a cold campsite. Kneeling, she sifted through the grey ashes of the fire. "Resting. They were here a few days ago."
Back on Chira, she pushed the pace. She was moving at a speed that was driven by the dual pressure of finding the boy and meeting her own deadline.
She eventually reached a ruin site recently cleared by the Amphictony. But before she could inspect the gore, nature called. She scrambled off Chira, ducked behind a thicket of thorns, and relieved herself with a long sigh of relief.
"Ugh... been holding that since the cliff."
Composed, she investigated some more. The smell hit her first, the all too familiar smell of dried blood and the absence of life.
The scene was bizarre. Stained Brothers were scattered around an overturned pot, their faces a mask of horror. Blood had leaked from their eyes, noses, and ears, staining the ground black.
One man, wearing a hood, was riddled with stab wounds, while another lay face up, covered in dried vomit and gore.
"Yellow Doves again," she noted, checking the bodies.
None were Ryckel.
She spotted a shriveled remnant of a plant near the pot. She picked it up, sniffing and inspecting it carefully.
Half-shade.
"Poisoned," Kima realized, her eyebrows shooting up. "They ate the herb, started bleeding out, and then someone finished them off with a blade. No tracks of an external attacker... no blood trail for the boy..."
She looked at the single set of smaller footprints leading away from the carnage.
"Kid's a menace," she whispered, a hint of genuine respect in her voice. "Kidnapped, waits for his moment, poisons the whole lot of them, and then stabs them while they're puking their guts out. Damn."
She pulled a map from Chira's satchel, spreading it over the Hortes' flank. She traced the footprints' direction, then looked at the nearest landmark.
Kima suddenly barked a laugh, the sound echoing through the ruins.
"This is going good, Chira! Who knew?" she shouted, patting the bird's neck. "The boy didn't run into the wild to die. He went exactly where I'm heading!"
She pointed a finger at a dot on the map.
"He went to Lilliebore. Let's go see just who this Ryckel really is."
---The End of Chapter 29---