Chapter 43
Our rest was interrupted by some kind of disturbance in the camp. Nothing serious enough for men to be calling the alarm, but there were plenty of raised voices. I groaned and got up quickly, with Myta doing the same beside me.
"Report." She ordered, approaching the ruckus. Though at least everyone was being relatively quiet about their distress. Voices were being raised in tone, rather than volume.
"Mytan," unsurprisingly it was Hati who spoke. "The goods we looted from the Pure have been raided, and all the scouts are missing."
"What is missing?" My vas asked, not missing a beat.
"Some spirits and opium resin. Not even that much of either." Hati didn't add anything else, but I could tell that she wanted to. It was pretty obvious, however. Someone had made off with a small helping of intoxicants, looking to have a relaxing time away from camp. It likely wasn't sabotage, but the fact that the scouts were missing wasn't a good sign. Also, two adult men disappearing with one young girl? When Myta had already described problems between them? It painted a potentially dangerous picture.
"Are there any signs of where they might have gone?" Myta asked, to a general shaking of heads. The scouts were all our main trackers, excluding Ket, and the spirit was watching the movements of the Pure.
"Let me try something." I said. Denu had one of the strongest bonds to us out of the entire group. Only Jito had exceeded it. My previous attempt to track my vasra had ended in a splitting headache, but perhaps I might find more luck when under real pressure.
Myta nodded, but I was already turning inward, focusing on my spiritual gaze. I found the bond easily enough, now that I knew what to look for. A tiny thread of anima, wrapped around Myta's bond to me, hazy from its passage through the Radiant Sea. Once again, I tried to shift my gaze to the sea, and once again attempting to trace its passage brought on a splitting headache.
The girl seemed to be miles from me, but somehow she also seemed to be standing right next to Myta, and the faint impressions of mana around her were more confusing than helpful. The sudden piercing pain in my head caused me to stagger.
"Master!" My vas caught me, preventing me from falling. The burst of pain didn't linger for long this time, at least, and I sent her a wave of reassurance. Then, I was struck by my own idiocy. I had been aware of Myta's location and state for so long that the sense of it didn't even register as unusual to me anymore. I didn't need to trace the bond, I needed to use it. To connect with it as I did with my vas.
I fumbled at it for a bit. My connection to Myta had been fluid, natural. So I had no real feeling for how I utilized our bond. It was simply something I did. I examined my own mind, trying to locate that same kind sense I had of my vas, but looking for something that didn't come from her. I found nothing, but I was undeterred, certain this was the right path forward. I just needed to find the bonds I had, that were separate from hers.
But, were they separate? These bonds only came to me through Myta. Again I focused, not on my own mental state, but on that of my flame. And there I found them, all of my vasra, most of them in some state of nervous anxiety. But there was one, stronger than most others, whose mind rang with panic and rage.
"I found Denu," I said aloud. Closing my eyes I focused on the sense. "She's not... too far. Distance is hard to judge. In that direction."
When I opened my eyes, I was pointing at a blank wall, and my heart sank. But Hati stepped forward.
"There's two rooms I think that could be. I'll lead us." No one argued. It had become clear that the sergeant's spatial awareness in the tunnels was nothing short of uncanny. It didn't quite rise to the level of sorcery, but was certainly a spiritual talent. We set out immediately; myself, Myta, and Hati. Jito joined us as well, without prompting, but my flame directed everyone else to stay behind.
The path we took was winding and indirect, but Hati never hesitated. In just a few minutes we heard the sounds of a fight. Not the clash of blades, but two men shouting, and a woman's scream. Myta burst into motion, and I barely managed to veil us in time. I broke into a run to keep her within my presence, just barely managing it as her speed was so much greater than my own.
The hunters, whose names I'd never learned, and Denu were positioned in a compromising scene. The girl was collapsed again the wall. Holding her rent clothes together. I could sense that her mind and spirit had been muddled with opium smoke. One hunter stood defensively in front of her, while the other stared at us, a scrap of cloth fluttering from his nerveless fingers. Both men were clearly heavily intoxicated, and for the most part the situation seemed clear.
With a snarl, the aggressive hunter fumbled out his knife. I didn't have a clue what he was thinking, but then I guessed that very little thinking had gone on here. He lunged at Myta, and she knocked his clumsy blow aside, destroying his hand with a burst of flame.
"Guta, restrain yourself, or you'll join your brother. Explain what happened here." Myta's voice was deathly calm, but I could feel her by burning hatred.
"We were just off to have a good time," the man stammered. I could tell he was on the edge of doing something foolish, his shock was obvious. "We just wanted to have a quick drink and a smoke. A little something to take the edge off, that's all. But the girl found us, followed us. She started to shout, but she got dizzy.'
"Opium smoke in the air," I confirmed. "Denu is small, and has no tolerance. It would have hit her hard."
"When she fell, Futa grabbed her, he was... we were angry. The girl had been asking us questions and following us around. But now she was yelling at us, threatening us. We were just out here to take the edge off, I swear." He paused for a long moment, and I thought he might be unwilling to continue, but then something shifted in his gaze, turned inward.