Here is the final entry of a three part short story. In the Kristiansen Expedition, a young woman named Isabella Ward joins a fabled company of hunters in search of dangerous game. What Isabella finds surpasses her wildest hopes—if she can survive it.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
12th Fall, 58th year of the Company Calendar
Somewhere in the Viridian Coast
If she is right, then this is about to be the most lucrative posting in all of the Republics’ far flung interests. She just needs to get back to Rikeport alive.
Alive, and in sole possession of the secret they have all just witnessed.
“I will be taking command of this expedition now,” Isabella says, coming to a decision. She turns to find the six healthy members of the company staring at her with blank expressions. Estelle and Lucia, the two wounded women, have lapsed into merciful unconsciousness. Eight souls, nine counting her.
Far too many to keep a secret.
“The fuck you will,” Justin Sands finally mutters. “You can’t just take over–”
“I can, and I am,” Isabella interrupts. There’s no time left for subtlety; she has decided to simply try flushing her quarry from hiding. “I am an operative of the Special Detail, in service to the Republics, on assignment to uncover a Coven agent embedded within the Kristiansen Free Company.” She turns her gaze on Justin Sands. “The penalty for espionage is death, a sentence I will carry out here in the field. I accuse–”
She barely has time to notice Anetta Sepp slip a vial containing a thick sluggish liquid out from a hidden bandolier. Barely enough time, but enough. Isabella pulls a scale of blue out of a hidden pocket in her sleeve just as Anetta speaks an arcane keyword and flings the vial of liquid towards Isabella. Naphtha fire roars into the air as the blood in Anetta’s vial ignites once the final syllable of her keyword leaves her lips. The fire splashes against a blue half-globe that forms in the air around Isabella as she holds the scale out in front of her and speaks her own arcane phrase in response.
But naphtha is a hungry flame, and the shield does not extinguish it, but redirects it. Hannah is standing too close to Isabella, but not close enough to be afforded the protection of the scale, and as the fire splashes around the blue globe like a river bucking its course Hannah’s scream is cut out in a guttural sound of choking pain as she catches the diverted flow and her lungs burn inside her chest.
Anetta’s eyes widen in horror as Hannah burns, the hesitation costing her life. Isabella has already pulled free a petrified heart taken from the chest of one of the great black beasts, the size of it barely able to be gripped in one hand and having taken up the entirety of a pack that hung from her belt against her thigh. Isabella speaks the spell’s keyword. Anetta’s heart stops in her chest as the petrified black heart in Isabella's hand begins to beat. The woman crumples.
The others don’t understand what is happening. Lukas, the great towering man, pupiless eyes wide in confusion and rage, makes the first move. He has traveled with Anetta for months in this company, and while he never knew she had such power, he still called her a friend, and Isabella an outsider. He raises his carbine and fires for Isabella’s heart, a great roar pulling from his grieving chest.
Isabella is already in motion, swinging the scale between her and Lukas, the carbine rounds bouncing off the shield as she is obliged to drop the petrified heart to the ground in order to pull a vial of liquid from her other sleeve and spill it into the air while speaking the necessary spell-words. An arrow of green acid forms in the air and darts forward towards Lukas all too fast for any reaction. The towering man goes down like a felled tree, his chest cavity still burning as the acid etches into his dead flesh.
Tambo also does not understand what is going on, but makes a different choice than Lukas. He lets go of wounded Estelle’s hand, unconscious as she is, and takes off running, bounding down the ridge towards the fog, abandoning his weapons. When sorcery is in the air, wise men run.
Isabella curses. She can’t allow this secret out of her control, can’t allow someone to tell it to any who might listen. Taking precious seconds to carefully put away the petrified heart and blue scale–they are worth, as she has demonstrated, as much if not more than life itself–she pulls out a jeweled eye that once belonged to a large red. Its iris is vertical like a cats, and even turned to gemstone it holds a baleful glare. Tambo makes it to the fog. It swallows him whole like the promise of safety and obscurity granted by a child’s blanket. Isabella lifts the eye, directing its gaze to where Tambo has disappeared. Six missiles of red energy arc out from the eye and shoot forward much faster than a man can run. Isabella cannot see the result, but the arcane effects are known to her as the missiles tear through Tambo’s body just as he makes the creek.
She regrets his death, but this knowledge is too important.
There’s a thump from behind her, and she whirls around. Justin Sands is slumping to his knees, knife in hand, barely an arm’s length from her. Glass stands over him, the butt of his longrifle levered up where he just delivered a blow to the back of Justin’s head.
“Thank you, Mr. Glass,” Isabella says, swallowing back the little thrill of fear that has leapt into her throat. Careless, turning her back on Justin like that. There’s little her sorceries could do for her if a blade finds her heart. Glass, at least, seems to understand who he is dealing with in Isabella. That leaves just three members left to deal with.
Isabella turns her gaze to Joss, who is upon his knees next to the two wounded women, silently praying. Glass simply watches her impassively, rifle slung across his arms in a casual gesture–waiting for her lead.
Isabella bends down and retrieves Justin’s revolver. The man would have had better luck with the gun than the knife, but must have thought a blade was his better option after seeing her turn away the carbine shots from Lukas. She checks the cylinder, seeing it contains yet four shots. Justin himself is starting to come back around, pushing himself up onto his elbows. She fires one bullet into his brain. Glass does not so much as flinch, but Joss whimpers and redoubles his prayers, aloud now. Isabella kneels and goes through Justin’s packs, still strapped to his back. She really, really thought he was the Coven agent, but finds nothing out of the ordinary.
“I was wrong about Mr. Sands,” she says. “Anetta was the Coven agent I’ve been hunting.” She shakes her head, going over to Anetta. In her packs there are no signs she is a loyal agent of the Corelin Empire, of course, but there are numerous high quality spell components, which is damning enough. Only a Coven agent or a Special Detail operative would be so thoroughly unaffiliated with the two great superpowers of the world while simultaneously so loaded with extremely rare and expensive sorcerous materials.
“What… what do we do now?” asks Joss, with a quaver in his voice. Isabella looks over at the poor man, seeing in a moment that this is all too much for him. She rises, walking towards him. He is snapped, she thinks, he will spill all under even light questioning. He is no longer an asset, but a loose end. She can’t help another sigh of regret.
“Gods no, please…” he raises his hands in supplication. “I can keep a secret, I swear on all the gods, I won’t tell–”
A sharp report and Joss crumples. Two shots remaining in Isabella’s revolver. She wastes no time in using them. Estelle, she thinks, may have survived, but the scars she would bear and the pain she would live with… well this bullet is a mercy. There really is nothing that can be done for poor Lucia, and even if there were, Isabella can’t allow herself to be slowed down in caring for either woman. This new find is too important.
She leaves the now empty revolver by Lucia’s side, and turns to regard Glass, who is still impassively watching her, longrifle in his arms.
“My original mission was to locate and capture alive a Coven agent we suspected has been infiltrating our contractor companies. Given what we saw down in that valley, I’ve decided there is a much more pressing concern,” she says.
Glass calmly meets her gaze.
“I can’t trust a sending, Anetta may have marked me for listeners to intercept. Since I must deliver my information in person, I need to get back to Rikeport as quickly as possible. I find myself with a bit of a problem, mister Glass. On the one hand, this secret is invaluable–the Corelins would go to war to secure it. It would be madness of them to think that anything, even this, can reverse their decline, but they would nonetheless make the attempt. When looked at in that light, what is one more life when balanced against the hundreds of thousands that will die in a pointless war, if the taking of that life can preserve a secret and thus prevent said war?” She raises an eyebrow and Glass is unsure if the question is meant to be rhetorical or not. His only answer is to shift his weight, his expression taking on a glower. A man ready to accept his fate, his face says.
“And yet on the other hand, you are a mute,” she offers him a smile to show she means no offense, “and the pathfinder for this company. Well, I am in need of a path to Rikeport, mister Glass, the swiftest one possible.”
Glass looks briefly surprised, then glances out past Isabella, out towards the fog shrouded valley where the beast attacked them.
“Yes, well,” Isabella says, preparing a few more of her spell components for easy access. “Now that there’s no need for deception, I think we’re rather safe from the local wildlife. Glass. Tell me, how well can you keep a secret?” She smiles an easy smile. A smile that says she will suffer no insomnia nor spare a thought this evening for any of the lives she’s taken this day.
Glass looks towards the dead men and women. Nods towards them. Isabella takes his meaning.
“Good. Let us be very clear, mister Glass,” Isabella says, all faux warmth gone once again. “You had better keep this secret at least as well as the dead. Understood?”
She doesn’t wait for his nod of assent, but gathers what she needs–taking all of Anetta’s spell materials as well–and heads down towards the fog, a lightness in her step. She is young to be a Shareholder, but if she is smart about how she uses this secret she is going to be wealthy beyond her wildest ambitions.
The potential of this secret has her lightheaded with possibility. When enterprising contractors in the Hollows had first discovered a new color and then finally worked out a reliable means of hunting and harvesting the reds there, the inventions that followed had changed the world, had in fact led to the very creation and rise of the Republics and to the revolutions that burned so briefly yet intensely in the Corelin Empire. All sorcery flows from the beasts, from the harvest of their organs, and a new color–a new species–might open up any number of doors. Perhaps even new spells might be created, spells she herself might help design and attach her name to, spells that the Corelins would not know existed and not know how to prepare defenses against! Not to mention all the new machinery that could be devised, the wealth of being a patent holder and the prestige of invention, the engineering techniques that could be developed. The potential profits were incalculable. It wouldn’t do for the Coven to have even a suspicion of this day’s events, not until the Republics have secured all the necessary rights, done the necessary research. Not until Isabella can sell it to them.
She shivers with anticipation. Faith preserve her, today she has borne firsthand witness to a new breed of dragon. All that remains is to prepare and execute a hunt, a proper one, with a prepared company.
It will be a storied hunt, a legendary hunt, she thinks, with a grin. The hunt for the White Dragon.
👏👏👏 Great job! And the white dragon image is really cool!