~
Sofya was not surprised to find the that the Imperial checkpoint was abandoned. Emperor Lapidus had set various temporary encampments on the roads leading into the Great Forest to prevent the Leshin from removing gold and other valuable minerals from human lands during the transition, but now there was no reason to maintain them. In fact, Imperial troops in the borderlands had been reduced to the minimum, because the locals resented their presence. Very few of the western houses were pledged to Emperor Lapidus and he personally controlled no lands beyond the Great Plains. Even though the Empire had liberated them from the Leshin, the people, especially outside of the cities, saw Lapidus and his allies as new invaders rather than defenders of the Human realm.
As the hired carriage pulled up to the abandoned site, Sofya surveyed the area. They were not far from the forest, but most of the nearby trees had been cut down to construct a small guard cabin along the road. Even from a distance, Sofya could tell that the cabin, hastily constructed to give the guards a warm place to sleep, was already falling apart. The road itself branched off into a dirt-paved lot where, months ago, carriages departing human territory would be searched for contraband.
“This really the place?” the driver asked. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much out here.”
“You should probably stick around,” Sofya replied. “Hopefully this won’t take long.”
“You’ll pay the idling rates?”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Sofya hopped out of the carriage and immediately headed towards the dirt lot. Heremon paid the driver and hurried behind her. “Do you believe you’ll be able to find anything here?”
“I could feel the energy from that carriage back in Vodotsk,” she replied. “I have to think there’s also a trace of it here.”
With only a few months of experience, Sofya still didn’t know how to fully control her magic. Her enchantments were unstable. She never knew which elements she would be able to summon. And the soft, intangible threads of Fey energy she could use to track and detect magic were often elusive.
“You know, if an Imperial soldier took the arm, it could be anywhere in the East by now,” Heremon said. “Probably thought it would make a nice trophy.”
“If it is actually the arm of the ir-Dyeun prophet, the soldier’s right. That’s a hell of a keepsake.”
Sofya knelt down in the lot where the carriages were inspected. She placed her hand on the ground and closed her eyes. “The arm was here. Briefly. I’m sure of it.”
“Where does that leave us? Either it made it to the border and it is lost somewhere in Leshin territory or it didn’t and it is somewhere in the East. There were dozens of soldiers who came through this checkpoint. Any one of them could have taken it.”
“Why are you always so pessimistic?” Sofya asked. “I’m not even done looking around.”
While she outwardly tried to remain cheerful, Sofya knew that Heremon was likely right. Finding a list of all the soldiers stationed at the checkpoint wouldn’t be difficult, but by now they were scattered to the winds. The Empire generally preferred to station soldiers away from their home, as an assurance that they would be loyal to the Emperor rather than local houses. Unless they had a reason to stay in the Vodotsk region after the war, a soldier who took the arm would be hundreds of miles away by now.
“What are you looking for now?” Heremon asked.
Sofya stood up and headed for the empty guard cabin. “So, let’s say a soldier steals the arm. He doesn’t know what it is but he knows the Leshin were trying to sneak it past the checkpoint, so it’s valuable. He probably stashes it in his bunk for a while, right?”
“Fair point.”
“And the arm probably stays in his bunk at least a day. Maybe more. That’s longer than it would have ever been in the carriage lot. So if I can feel its history there… I should be able to feel it in the cabin, too.”
As Sofya approached the cabin, she realized that it was in worse shape than she assumed. What initially looked like weather damage and general disrepair from a distance turned out to be clear intentional destruction. The door had been broken open. The windows were shattered. What remained of the roof was burnt and blackened by fire.
“Guess we’re not the first people to rifle through this place,” Sofya said.
Stepping through the doorway, Sofya surveyed the cabin. The beds were torn apart. One of them was stained with a streak of dried blood.
“What in Dyeun’s name happened here?” Heremon asked. “I don’t think this place was abandoned. It looks like it was attacked.”
“I better be able to sense something in here, because anything of use is long gone.”
“I… I wouldn’t be so sure,” Heremon muttered. “Take a look at some of these markings.”
Sofya glanced around the cabin. “What, like this one of a man pissing on the Lapidus sigil? Surprising detail on the anatomy. Whoever drew this should probably be an artist instead of a hooligan.”
“IKV?” Heremon asked, examining the far wall. “What does that mean? There are a lot of inscriptions with those letters.”
“That would be the Independent Kingdom of Vodotsk,” Sofya replied. “A bunch of locals and soldiers from surrounding areas who tried to kick out the Empire just after they liberated the county from the Leshin.”
“Are they still around?”
Sofya laughed. “I suspect they were crushed. The Empire held back the Leshin for years. What could a bunch of rebels and mercenaries do? Then again, Vodotsk is still technically independent, isn’t it? So who knows? Maybe they won after all.”
Heremon raised an eyebrow. “They did manage to take this outpost.”
“So we have a lead!” Sofya exclaimed. “And one that might mean the arm is still within reach. If this outpost fell while the arm was still here—either officially in the Empire’s custody or being squirreled away by a soldier—then it was probably taken by the IKV.”
“This seems like a stretch, Sofya. See if you can sense anything here. That way we’ll know that the Arm was at least taken out of the carriage and didn’t make it to Leshin territory.”
Sofya found the single chair in the room that hadn’t been torn to pieces and sat down. She held out her hands and tried to find a remnant of the magical energy stored in the arm. “Hmm… It’s almost–”
Before she could finish her sentence, a blinding pain shot through Sofya’s head. She closed her eyes but that wasn’t enough to give her relief. The darkness of her vision was flooded with images of flashing steel and fresh blood, dripping down the walls of the shack.
“Something… Something definitely happened here. The guards were massacred. Cut down in their beds as they slept. I don’t know if I can sense anything through that.”
“What do you see?”
“I’m not sure. Masked men with swords. Blood. It all happened so fast. Then they tore the place apart. They were looking for something.”
Heremon leaned in and put his hands on Sofya’s shoulders. He could tell she was in pain but he didn’t dare use healing magic to dull it. Not yet. That would interfere with her vision and she’d never ask him to do that. “What was it? Were they looking for the arm?”
“No. Maybe. I can’t tell. What would they want with a Leshin relic?”
“We know it’s worth a lot to a museum. And even more to the ir-Dyeun. Are you sure that the attackers were Human? Could they be Leshin radicals?”
“Their ears are covered but they aren’t using magic,” Sofya replied. “I think they’re Human. I’m pretty sure of it.”
Sofya tensed up. The vision was fading but the pain was getting worse. “Is there anything else you see?” Heremon asked. “Especially about the arm. Did they take the arm?”
“They took everything. Gold, clothes, weapons, anything they could carry. If the Arm was here, they took it.”
“That’s what we needed to know. I’m pulling you out now.”
Heremon took a deep breath. His hands
grew warm on Sofya’s shoulders as he channeled a simple pain relief spell. Sofya felt her back begin to numb, then her neck, and finally the pain in her head subsided. With it, the vision disappeared. Sofya opened her eyes and Heremon removed his hands from her shoulders.
“Thank you,” Sofya said. “But I still can’t be sure the arm was even here to begin with.”
“I think we can be fairly certain that it was,” Heremon replied. “That attack happened months ago. Unless there was a powerful magical energy present, the trauma experienced in this room would have surely faded by now. Your vision wouldn’t have been possible. But the pain and fear of the attack was anchored here and tied to the room by a concentration of Fey energy.”
“So we’re on the right track?” Sofya asked. She stood up and her head began to swim, still affected by the vision, Heremon’s spell, or both.
“Yes. We just need to figure out who attacked this outpost.”