Broken Lands

Chapter 315 – Fire Feathers

Meadow stepped out through the archway into summer from winter. It was nice to leave the icy stillness behind, but she didn’t welcome the rest of what came from stepping through the gate. To most, the group gathered there, slowly passing through one team at a time, was quiet. To Meadow, they were almost shouting their presence with their noise, their smell, and even their very presence.

She might not be able to see as far as the Nightowl Strix, but Meadow had far more than sight going for her. Right now, that meant that she knew exactly where the Shade was, now that she was on the same side of the link-gate. She waved at a few of the people she knew as she made her way over to him, then stopped, carefully within his line of sight.

“...after the Blue Brotherhood. We’ll know soon enough - ah, there she is. Meadow!” Arak Shade smiled as he looked up at her. “You know what we’re facing, then?”

“A Hunger,” Meadow answered heavily. She knew just how bad that was for a first encounter. She also knew that it wasn’t an omen about the expedition until after they finished the first zone. If it went poorly, everyone would be on edge, and fighting a Hunger often went poorly. If it went well, on the other hand, they’d be in a good place to move forward. It was her job to make sure they had the information necessary for that to happen. “We’ve identified wolves and bears, so far. I have to give Strix and, uh, what’s her name. The one with blonde hair and horns.”

“The elf? You mean Coatl,” the Shade supplied.

“Yeah, her. They noticed the ice bears and saw the eyes. I came back after setting Jace to tell them about the Hunger.” Meadow hated it when she forgot someone’s name, even when it was just an Arena title. She definitely needed to learn the names of that team.

And to think she’d wondered why the Shade put her team through the link-gate first. It wasn’t normal; they were usually a scout team for later in the day, when people were tired. A Hunger was justification enough, but that couldn’t be the whole reason; even the Shade didn’t know what was in a zone before anyone entered. It was far more likely that he wanted Meadow’s team to mentor the Flying Stars. He had to see something she didn’t; they were Arena darlings, but that wasn’t the same thing as being good on an expedition.

The sheer distance they could see was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. At least they didn’t seem as overly proud as many of the top Arena teams; they were willing to listen. It was a start.

“Eh, unfortunate.” Arak Shade didn’t seem to react as if it was anything worse than dropping something. “Waves, then, you think? Are they team-sized or do we need a fortification?”

“Teams, maybe double teams,” Meadow stated, thinking about the number of bears and wolves she’d seen. “Any more than that and we risk upsetting the Hunger. You’re thinking we do the long fight to get people warmed up, then?”

Meadow didn’t think she liked that. The long fight was fine in a forest or on the plains, where you could really rest between waves, but Meadow hated doing the long fight in snow. The cold and the effort wore at you in a way that fighting in a forest didn’t. Only sand in a hot desert was worse. A single mass engagement where they baited the Hunger into attacking them with its full forces and desperately tried to kill the Hunger before it killed anyone on their side was more her style. 

At least, in the snow. On different terrain against a different wave-leader, she’d choose other tactics. This early in the expedition, taking the waves as they came was probably the best choice; after all, they could still mass against the Hunger if something went wrong. She just hated fighting in the snow.

“Yeah, there are a couple of teams that have never been on an expedition before; double teams will be the perfect way for them to start getting used to fighting with others who aren’t in their team.” The Shade paused and gave Meadow a considering look. “The Flying Stars are one of them. Is Rockfist willing to work with them?”

Meadow snorted. “I know that’s why you sent us through first. You were hoping for something like this, weren’t you?”

The Shade shrugged, but the grin on his face told a different story. “I wasn’t sure it would happen during the first zone, but this is convenient. I want your honest assessment of them; are they good enough for a full expedition slot or not? They’re only second upgrade, but they’re unusually flexible; if they make it through to the third, I’d like to see how far they can get. Have you heard about the young woman who can pick almost any magical lock?”

Meadow wanted to ask if the Shade was thinking about recruiting the Flying Stars, but this was far too public a location for the question. It was just as likely that he wanted to prevent the Blade from recruiting them or that he had some other plan, and none of those should be spoken of in public. She shook her head without voicing her thoughts. “I haven’t.”

The Shade actually looked a little disappointed at her negative answer. “Ah. Well, that’s Coatl. I want you to keep an eye out for anything we might be able to get through with her. You know what I mean.”

Meadow nodded; she did. Sometimes the locked-off areas were obvious, but most of the time they were hidden. No one knew how to get through a locked link-gate in a link, but most locked doors in a zone could either be bashed through or unlocked by finding a key hidden somewhere in the zone. Of course, if you tried to beat down the door first and didn’t succeed … sometimes the key didn’t work.

More importantly, however, Meadow could guess what the Shade was thinking about. There was a locked link-gate deep in the Maze that had been found several times. No one had ever managed to get through it, but there were people who wanted to. It was the only gate anyone had ever seen marked with the Broken Lord’s sigil, the Broken Sword. 

The Blade wanted to get through it. She said she wanted to free the Broken Lord. Whether that was her true motivation or she simply wanted whatever prize was hidden behind the link-gate was hard to say, but either way, Meadow did not want her to succeed.

The Broken Lord was almost certainly not behind that link-gate. If he was, he didn’t want people to disturb him; after all, no one had ever reported a Quest to open the gate and there were generally one or two Quests from the Broken Lord every year in Mazehold. It seemed far more likely that the Broken Lord did not want the link-gate opened, no matter what was behind it.

The Blade didn’t listen to anyone’s arguments on the matter, so they’d learned to be quiet about it. It didn’t help that none of the Blade’s true inner circle ever chose to disagree with her; instead, it was the outer circle that saw the inconsistencies. Something was hidden, but no one who wasn’t Hallowed by the Broken Lord was ever going to be allowed to see what it was.

Meadow nodded confidently. “I do. I’ll keep an eye out. I want to see her ability for myself, and who’s going to turn down an extra reward?” She waited a single beat, then turned the conversation back to more immediate matters. “We have enough distance for everyone to get through the gate, even with the mess I saw on the way in.”

Arak Shade snorted and shook his head. “I’d better get back to handling that. It’s good that we don’t all have to pile in, but you’ll have to set things up early on. If I’m not through in time, Rockfist and the Stars can take the first wave; Shimmering Steel and Wooden Relic will take the second wave. Head on back through; this is going to take longer than I’d like.”

Meadow nodded, then slipped quietly past the line of teams waiting to get through the link-gate. It was a mess, but that was unfortunately normal for the beginning of an expedition. In a tenday, they’d all know who was supposed to be where, but for now it took three times as long as it should have.

Even with that delay, everyone was through the gate before the first wave came far enough down the mountain to matter. The Shade didn’t change his orders; this was supposed to be nothing more than an initial practice fight to learn about each other. Two teams should absolutely rip through the first wave, especially since Rockfist was entirely third upgrade. 

The time was more than fine with Meadow. It gave them time to figure out what they were doing and even more time to answer questions. She didn’t know why they asked many of the questions they did, but Meadow definitely approved of the fact that they did ask questions rather than simply assuming what ice beasts were like.

She also approved of the fact that they introduced themselves again and told the team to use their actual names because they’d respond better to them than they did to the Arena names. She did not approve of the fact that one of them was named Jaycen when Rockfist already had a Jace. Fortunately, he had a nickname that he’d respond to; she was just going to have to remember to call him Jax. That was different enough.

The first wave was larger than Meadow expected. She’d expected either the wolves or the bears, but both came together. The defenders’ plan was relatively simple; Sophia and Meadow would try to counter the bears’ snow control while the others killed the beasts. The Flying Stars tried to propose having Dav take over one of the ice-spells, but Meadow shot that down before Rockfist had to get involved. Fighting ice with ice was a bad move in an icy environment like this; there were too many ice-beasts. Other than that, they were going to stick to the normal expedition assignments. It would be good practice.

The only real oddity during the preparation time was that Sophia seemed to keep stacks of feathers in her backpack. Some of them were red and others seemed to be both blue and red. Meadow recognized the red ones as the feathers of a fire-aligned skyeagle, everything from down to major flight feathers. All of the blue and red ones looked like flight feathers, but Meadow wasn’t certain what bird they were from. She couldn’t remember any with that coloration, much less one with feathers that glowed softly the way those did. 

The feathers apparently had something to do with how Sophia was going to gather heat in the area to help counteract the snow. Meadow didn’t know the details, but she didn’t need to; all she needed to know was that there would be fire for her to draw from. It changed how she was going to handle the bears and might even give her some options against the wolves.

The fight opened as expected, with the ranged attackers concentrating their fire on a few of the ice statues until they broke as the wave rushed towards them. There was no “right” answer on which was more dangerous, so team Rockfist concentrated on bears while the Flying Stars killed wolves. The bears were slightly tougher, so it was no real surprise that only four bears died as five wolves did.

The surprise came when they were close enough for Sophia to decide it was time to start her countermeasures. Meadow had already started to grow her bushes and vines; her preparation always took a little longer.

Sophia disappeared and the feathers she’d set out began floating in the air. Meadow could feel the warmth they emitted; it was like standing near a fire.