Well beaten game paths of roots and hard-packed soil had long ago given way to steep, exposed terrain. Keubroc had to tread carefully over rocks and loose sand. He was in his element on the field of battle, not on glorified piles of stony rubble. Too often he would have slid into a messy death had he not been clinging on to boulders and grabbing twisted tree branches that stuck out in seemingly random intervals. He was glad at least that the waxing major moon set the treacherous hillside aglow so he could find life-saving outcroppings and holds in the rocks. The city woman, Reiba, must not have been struggling, since she maintained her distance, but as to how, Keubroc could only guess.
The woman still hid far too much to be trusted, and in honest moments with himself, Keubroc suspected she would hurt the cause more than help it, with her rash behavior. White Feather had placed far too much trust in her, and he surmised he might end up with a knife in the back for his efforts.
In love, sorcery or with the arrow or blade, a woman trusted is a man betrayed. Keubroc thought of the old adage to himself, but not without mentally noting that whatever her politics, Reiba was making herself useful at the moment. But this creature, this gegleth, he could not make sense of. He couldn't even begin to fathom how long these creatures had been co-opted by the Empire, nor what information they might be giving to her wisdom. It worried him. He'd had to find a way to inform White Feather or at least someone else of the Hawks of Chosen. But White Feather chose the time and place to meet him, not the other way around, and few Hawks gave freely their true names. Keubroc had no idea who else might be his ally, and who his enemy.
What he was sure of was that the former Lady Archne was not. At least, though it appeared their goals might align, whomever her friends were, they weren't the Hawks. Keubroc had visited Reiba at the Archne Estate to find out if she might join their ranks. Even now, after all they had been through with Vaughn, he couldn't give White Feather a clear answer.
She's a very smart whore, isn't she. Reiba had taken to those throwing daggers he gave her very quickly. And for a woman who had never stepped out of Eirdred, she was adapting to the new environment quite well.
But she could also be very stupid. Impulsive even. He did not know much of women for sale, but he found it difficult to comprehend how she had managed to be so successful in that life. Seduction is normally thought of as a subtle art, yet he'd not seen a moment of discretion from her. She would not have lasted long in battle. he thought, harking back to his memories of the Three-Pronged War. The gegleth must have gotten suspicious because one night it had left a primitive pit trap in its wake. The injury she sustained when she fell in was minor, but it was enough for her to chase down the gegleth and put a gash on the creature's face. Keubroc had caught up and stopped her, yelling at the blueish bug-man to run away and seek safety. Now instead of heading in the direction of Pho-Boteth, a relatively flat journey, the creature veered due west and up the imposing ridge of sky scraping mountains.
It had been her idea to split up and maintain at least the illusion that Keubroc chased Reiba, and not the creature. It was a good idea, if only he could trust her. Somehow, she could follow the gegleth's travel path. That was a mystery still needing to be solved if he did find a need to remove her.
He was still considering the woman when he heard the struggle.
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The sound of heavy panting - a product of the steep climb and the thin mountain air - was soon accompanied by a tired face, to the surprise of only the gegleth. In unison, their heads covered in blue-black chiffon shifted slightly to face Keubroc, by habit, as their visual senses told them no more about the visitor than they already knew. The light of the waxing major moon illuminated the pair, but Keubroc found no recognition in their covered faces.
Reiba, daggers, one in each hand, crouched like a coiled spring. From her side sprouted a small throwing dagger and a small blossom of blood, and Keubroc realized that her stance was merely for show. The next blow would be the last, and she would have little means to defend herself. She faced the male of the pair though Keubroc's arrival had stayed both of their hands for the moment.
"The other is here!" Anita screeched in an even high pitch in fluid Yibouhese that bore an uncustomary coarse accent, baring her teeth in aggression.
"They can see!" Reiba said to Keubroc forcefully, "They are not blind!"
Frozen still, he coughed out to Reiba in the tongue they both knew, Eirdren, "Where is the creature?"
"He is in one of those ruins. Don't underestimate these two. We need to get through them to get the creature."
Though their eyes were hidden beneath their headscarves, he made a gesture of open palms all the same. He lay his short blade down, slowly, and the steel clinked against the bare rock.
"What are you doing!?" Reiba yelled, her voice incredulous with a feeling of betrayal.
He did notice that it was only at this moment that the female relaxed, ever so slightly, but he said bluntly, "We both serve her Wisdom. I see no cause for violence." he responded in Yibouhese.
Davin and Anita cocked their heads to each other in confusion, as if to simultaneously defer to each other to make sense of the situation. If Reiba understood the language of Her Wisdom, she did not appear to absorb his words and remained in her hobbled defensive stance.
"Capture this woman. She is responsible for the death of Vaughn bei'thal and will stand before the Light of Heaven for her crimes." he ordered, mustering the commanding spirit he once embodied in warfare.
"What benefits the empire is to have her live. You say you know this woman, then you know the trouble she has caused. We cannot get answers of her crimes from the dead, but alive? That is is a far more useful proposition."
"We do not know you." she said, practically sniffing the air around them, searching for a familiar scent.
"You do not need to." he did not so much ignore the question as recognize that his answer would not have satisfied them anyway. His name was a mere collection of sounds holding no meaning. But he had the sense that there were a collection of sounds they did long to hear. More importantly, hands still open, he reached into his pack and produces a sack of linen cloth, the same sack that had once held the provisions of the dead bei'thal.
Keubroc was gratified in a slight tilt of the heads of the man and woman before him. "This we know." Anita snatched the sack from the SecondSword and sniffed it, taking in the scent of cheese, acorn pancakes, and Vaughn bei'thal.
Her face perked up, like a dog hearing its master's call from far away. "You say he is dead?" Anita asked methodically as if reading off a mundane list of banal questions.
"I was witness to the deed. He is dead."
"Then he cannot command us anymore." replied Anita without emotion. "And you are not bei'thal, but you have said their title." She drew a small dagger. "Davin, remind me of our first mission."
"Unseen, unheard, unfelt. And to those who do, unmerciful."
"This is disobedience," Keubroc yelled, but he made no move towards his weapon. His heart beat threatened to leap out of his chest, but he suppressed it with a calming exhale. "Your master, Vaughn bei'thal, pursued this woman to bring her before the Light, and you will make his effort be in vain? You are defective bei if you cannot follow simple orders."
"You do not command us. Only the bei'thal." Anita gritted her teeth in a display of of agression, but Keubroc kept his gaze at her strong and resolute.
"For failing your master, will be flayed, striped of everything, bare to your soul, your own masters will crush what is left of you to make fodder for beasts. You know this."
"This has already come to pass. Your threats mean nothing." she responded, but nevertheless she stayed her hand, "You do not smell like bei'thal."
"Not yet."
Anita froze, caught in a quandary where the tools she needed to decide friend from foe were stripped form her long ago. Tension hung thickly on the cold night air and a slight breeze through the abandoned village produced a whistling noise that reminded Keubroc how inhospitable this place was. After a long pause that could easily be misinterpreted by others for deep thinking, she finally re-sheathed her dagger. "Very well. We will not kill the one who sounds like bei'thal. We will let him finish his service to Vaughn bei'thal."
"I'm not sure." Davin responded softly, but his hands moved to the knives slung around his waist and tapped them gently. "The man must die. The woman must die."
Unexpected words from Davin caused Anita to turn to her partner, "You are not sure?" she repeated with an echo of accusation that was interrupted by the sound of crushed pebbles beneath the clawed feet of the gegleth. He slowly tiptoed out of the abandoned house he had been hiding in.
"Tkkt tkkt," his antennae rubbed together, drawing attention to himself from Keubroc's intense, darkly lined sandy brown eyes. His voice, much more composed now, flowed smoothly with a measure of confident charm in Yibouhese. "The Archne is dangerous. It should be done to not trust the Archne. The Archne is not to be trusted. Such a female even the drones would not take. But the Nüdwuob was friend to the bei'thal Vaughn."
"Return to your hiding insect," Anita venomously spouted, "When it is safe, we shall call for you. You have the same duty as we."
"This one has no fear, for the others have already seen." he said, but he retreated nonetheless.
Keubroc used the opportunity to command the conversation once more. "I shall take the prisoner, I shall take the creature, and if you desire further orders from our masters, then we will travel together to Pho-Boteth, where the bei'thal will direct you bei. For that is what you are, isn't it? Bei?"
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