.
For the mortals, there was nothing but inky darkness around us, as the sky had acquired enough cloud cover to significantly cut down on the starlight. Even for me, it was a blend of fairy sight and vampire sight. Allia was looking vaguely in my direction, so I could tell she was only going off the sound of my voice.
“Can you tell what they are?”
“Not for certain. They’re using a [Dark Cloak],” I replied, uselessly shaking my head. That spell had a distant resemblance to the vampire cloak, without being a complete stealth. It merely made detection more difficult, and only worked in the dark. “I can only make out vague shapes. They’re moving but it doesn’t look like they’re headed toward us.”
I kept expanding my sense, to see if I could judge their destination.
“Are you sure it’s [Dark Cloak]?” Allie wondered. “There are monster skills that look very similar to that spell.”
Annoyed, I told her, “Keep quiet for a bit…”
No matter how hard I sensed, I couldn’t resolve a better view of them, beyond the vague shapes I could feel, but I soon identified their destination. They were traveling directly toward a tiny village about a half-mile away.
When they were almost directly in front of us, they froze in place.
“They stopped,” I reported. “They have probably noticed us.”
For several seconds the two groups stood like that, separated by about fifty paces. I took that time to let Allie know about the village.
Time stretched on in silence, until I suggested, “How about I go check it out?”
Allia nodded. “Please.”
Cloaking, I took off in the direction of the other group. It was just a short hop, so I was beside them in no time. Once I was close, my fairy sight could penetrate the low-grade cloaking spell, to see a group of lightly-armored girls armed with spears, a pair of elderly women, and a couple mountain goats.
For a while, they simply stood there, waiting. Finally, one of the older women whispered, “Are they still not moving?”
The other, a wolf-kin at the lead, held up a magician’s scepter– that’s a sort of mini-staff or oversized wand– and I felt a pulse spread out from her. It felt like a basic [Detect Presence] spell. She hadn’t chanted, so it was probably a spell she had been actively maintaining. Since she was probably the source of the [Dark Cloak] that was also active, she must be a fairly competent mage.
“They’re still in the same place,” she confirmed.
“If they know we’re here, why aren’t they coming after us?” one of the children whispered.
The first elder mused, “Do they know we’re here? They could have stopped for some other reason.”
The wolf-kin mage shook her head. “They’re not dismounted. They’re remaining on horseback, and they’re lined up on the path, waiting.”
“Doesn’t that mean they spotted us first and already halted, before you saw them?” the child asked. It sounded like an adolescent girl. “Like they’re hoping we haven’t seen them?”
“Is it possible… maybe they’re not Berado, Leader?” the mage asked.
After a short pause, the first woman stated, “It certainly doesn’t make sense for them to be Berado. The Berado don’t need to sneak around in the dark up here like that.”
“Unless they’re on the way to the village!” the mage countered.
“At night? Why would they bother with a night raid?”
“Nobody but the Berado ride horses around here!”
After another pause, the leader asked, “Flinne, are you willing to scout them?”
In response, a cat-kin girl moved out from the group, creeping toward the party. She had some kind of stealth skill that was different from the [Dark Cloak] that the mage was maintaining. My guess was [Prowl], a common racial skill among beast-kin. Brigitte is an expert at it.
It was amateur work, definitely not good enough to defeat my fairy sight, although it would have been good enough against ordinary soldiers.. I quietly drifted along behind her as she crept toward our party, feeling a little sorry for the kid who was trying her best.
Yes, kid. This girl wasn’t even twelve years old. Actually, I was certain that none of the armored girls were even in their teens.
Finally, once she changed course and began creeping along parallel to the group to reconnoiter us, I gave a silent sigh and moved up behind her. Summoning a light dose of [Command], I touched her back and said, “Freeze.”
The girl jolted and halted, letting out a breath that was just slightly short of a yelp of surprise.
Still keeping my voice soft, I said, “Dilorè, I’m sure you can hear me. Can you see this child?”
“I see her,” my cousin confirmed.
“I’m going to accompany her back, so we don’t make her companions panic. These guys are locals, and I’m certain they’re no threat to us. Let Allia know that I’m going to negotiate with them.”
I then told the child. “Fortunately for you, we aren’t your enemy. Let’s go back. I would like to talk to your leader.”
She looked over her shoulder, then asked, “Why can’t I see you?”
“I’m very, very good at hiding. Will you walk or shall I toss you over my shoulder and carry you?”
She chose to walk. I remained in Cloak as we returned to her group. Her ears were drooping just like an unhappy Ceria.
Still feeling sorry for her, I told her, “Your [Prowl] was actually not bad, kiddo. You just ran up against a pair of eyes that you never stood a chance against.”
When we were close, I called out. “I have your child with me, but she’s not my hostage. I’m letting her go to you now.”
With that, I gave the girl a gentle nudge in the back. She hustled back to her party.
I continued, “We aren’t your enemy. I’m assuming you are traveling to the village ahead. We would like to visit your village, if you will allow it.”
“How do you know it’s our village?” the leader wondered, with an edge of suspicion in her voice.
“Nobody puts a raiding party together with a couple old ladies and a pack of kids,” I said with a dour tone. “Nor would they use mountain goats for their war horses. And I heard you guys calling it just ‘the village’ earlier, instead of naming it. I don’t know why you’re sneaking around in the dark with a stealth spell, but you’re on your way home from somewhere.”
I waited for additional questions. After hearing none, I told her, “I let your girl see enough of us to know we aren’t the Berado. We’re an adventurer party, and we’re on our way back to the mountains. We came down to your valley without knowing about the war situation. We’re trying to get back out as fast as possible, without tangling with the invaders.”
“And you’re bringing that trouble to our village?” the leader asked sharply.
“We just want directions to a safe place to camp and the quickest route back into the mountains,” I assured her. “We don’t want the Berado to corner us in your village either.”
“Might as well let them use the barn,” the mage commented. It was in a low voice which she probably thought I couldn’t hear. “It’s too late for them to make it into the hills before morning. If we don’t hide them, the Berado will spot them on the road and might accuse us of sheltering them anyway.”
Thus we ended up in the aforementioned barn, a structure with a high peaked roof in a small cluster of similarly built houses. It was empty, except for a small amount of hay and the scattered evidence of former occupation by more farm animals than the two mountain goats. Our exhausted horses, with the [Persistence] spell ended, started bedding down immediately. The mortals took seats and began unlimbering gear.
With the light of the magic lanterns that began coming out of various packs, we could see our new acquaintances, consisting of two seniors and five kids, who had become busy unloading the bags strapped to the backs of the two goats. Another senior woman and a few more pre-adolescent girls entered as well. The newcomers were all humans, while the travelers, except the leader, had all been beast kindred.
“I’m Fol,” the leader stated, “With my son gone, I’m currently the one in charge. He’s still the chief, so they’ve been calling me ‘Leader’.”
Allia answered. “I take it that the Berado have taken your men and women? It’s hardly normal to send grandmothers and grandchildren outside in the middle of the night.”
“Including any boy old enough to lift a shovel, and any girl old enough to sleep with,” the village leader agreed. “You understand our situation well. What you see is what’s left of our village, except for the younger children sleeping. You won’t find much in the way of supplies here. The outsiders have already dragged off most of them, along with our livestock except these two beasties.”
“Fortunately, we’re already stocked with supplies,” Allia told her.
“What were you doing out there, in the middle of the night?” I wondered.
“We went to the forest to collect mountain vegetables and meat from our traps,” she said with a dark tone. “Fortunately, Melis can do the heavy work with magic, and the beast-kin girls can move at night. The Berado might see that they missed a couple girls and a couple animals if we went in the daytime.”
Shocked, I took another look at the children. They included two girls around twelve years old. They both looked away from my eyes, embarrassed by the topic.
Old enough to sleep with? I wanted to ask, You’re kidding, right? They take girls this young?
But I didn’t ask that, because, no matter how revolting I found it, intellectually, I knew she wasn’t kidding.
“Would you like us to help carry your little ones to another village?” Allia asked. “Somewhere with more resources? Our horses should be able to manage a fair amount. Or perhaps you have wagons they could pull…”
“The outsiders took our wagons, to carry away our supplies,” Fol said. “And the other villages are in the same shape as us. The bastards have stripped the whole plateau bare.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Dilorè ventured, “Why are they taking your people, Miss Fol?”
I think everyone’s head snapped to attention with the leader’s answer.
“To work in their damned mine.”
