The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

WM [28] Snake In The Grass

Bjorn had to run as fast as he could around the raging forest fire that started because of his Plague Fire breath. He could put the fire out but it was all or nothing. The white flames that coursed with aetheric energy was the reason that the monsters were flooding the druid camp. It just so happened that the camp was in the direct path to the flames. He didn’t know how long he had run before he could finally see the town through the thick brush. 

Almost immediately after, Bjorn felt the bond getting closer to him at an accelerated rate. Between the time he felt Tanisha move and when she finally reached him was less than a minute. When he saw her riding on the back of a black tiger with horns, he knew how she moved so fast. He had to come to a sliding stop to keep from running into them. 

“Bjorn!” Tanisha and Joha yelled.

Tanisha hopped off of Joha’s back as they both surrounded him looking out for any attackers. When they didn’t see any Tanisha all but tackled Bjorn in a hug. She was shaking and her emotions were too all over the place for Bjorn to read. They stayed in a locked embrace for an unknown amount of time before Tanisha calmed down enough to finally speak.

“Big Man, are you okay?” Tanisha asked as she looked him over for injuries.

Bjorn could feel Tanisha's anger rise once she found the missing scales that hadn’t fully grown in from the many arrows that he pulled out. She was especially furious once she felt the missing scales on his heads. Her magic spiked as her aura started to absorb the ambient mana around them to further empower her.

Bjorn took the time to write furiously on the ground the few words he knew to explain quickly. Due to his limited vocabulary he didn’t know the word for werewolf or skinwalker so he improvised. Tanisha summoned an orb of water that shined a light only they would be able to see.

“Wolf men hunted me to a druid base covered in fleshwalk-man they created. All battle monsters at base?” Tanisha read Bjorn’s writing out loud. 

“Did you run into werewolves, skinwalkers, monsters and druids?” Joha asked.

Bjorn nodded his confirmation and circled the word base. It took fifteen minutes of questions, nods and poorly put together sentences before they could more or less understand what Bjorn was trying to tell them. He was able to lay out the events and even the location of the base because of the massive forest fire he started which was slowly crawling towards it thanks to the direction of the wind.

“Druids are making skinwalkers and there are at least seventeen werewolves out there fighting them.” Tanisha said. “What do we do? I could care less about the werewolves. No, that is a lie, I want to kill every one of them for what they were trying to do, but we have to save the wendigo and put the skinwalkers out of their misery.”

“We go back to town and tell the guards,” Joha said. “We came out here for Bjorn and we got him. We go out there and we will be caught in the middle of a three way battle against unknown odds and numbers. For all we know those druids have a battalion just out of sight. If the werewolves survive they’ll come to us.”

“Are you sure?” Tanisha asked.

“Positive. We still have those other two and I am sure at the very least they will want them back.” Joha said.

“We aren’t giving them back.” Tanisha said darkly as her gaze shifted to the remnants of battle that slowly healed across her familiar’s body. “They tried to kill me and Bjorn. Oh and Sabec set this up by the way. He is in town somewhere and we are going to find him and cut the head off the whole thing.”

“Sabec survived,” Joha asked with a puzzled expression.

“Yes, I was going to tell you at the inn but then I felt the bond weaken.” Tanisha said. “We are going to kill him.”

“I thinkー”

“Joha, you can’t talk me out of it. You don’t have a familiar so you can’t feel what I felt through the bond. Bjorn may look okay now, but I felt him die.” Her voice quivered, the raw emotion seeping into each word. “I felt him die, Joha. He suffered alone, scared and hurt and for what? He did nothing wrong! We did nothing wrong! 

“They don’t get to live after that, not after hurting my family. I had to swallow my feelings with Loki and Ingrid after what they did to Helina because of the First Princess but not with this. Not again! I am not going to let anyone take Bjorn or anyone else from me. I am not going to let them just hurt people I love and walk away unscathed. They will pay for what they’ve done, every single one of them.”

Joha was silent for a moment but his expression was unreadable. “Very well. They came after you and they’ll get the consequences of that choice. First we need to tell the town guard. If druids are out here creating skinwalkers and they have a sizable force there needs to be a major response. After that we are staying away from this whole thing. The skinwalkers and the druids are this town's problem. We will deal with Sabec and the werewolves. The last thing we need is someone hunting Bjorn.”

The group returned to the town but were stopped at the gate to enter. The guards were on high alert after the skinwalker sighting. The guard wizards used a magic light on their eyes and in their mouths at spear point before they were permitted to enter.

“We need to speak to the guard captain.” Joha said to the highest ranked guard at the gate. “We discovered where the skinwalkers are coming from.”

“You did what?” The snowfallen wendigo guard said with a raised eyebrow. “What do yah mean you discovered where they are coming from. They are skinwalkers and they come from wendigo that have betrayed their faith.”

“There is more going on.” Joha said.

“I know where another skinwalker in the city is most likely hiding.” Tanisha interjected.

The guard turned to her. “You do?”

“The apothecary is likely either a skinwalker or is dead.” Tanisha said. “She came to my stall once when I was selling potions. She was asking about ingredients that didn’t quite make any sense so she was probably just repeating things she heard. Her store had been closed for a while so I went to check it out to see if she needed help, but the guard that turned out to be a skinwalker was at the Apothecary Office and it turned me around.”

“You’re the one that was fighting that thing?” The guard said.

“I am.” Tanisha responded.

“I was there too after a while. It wouldn’t go down until whatever you did to it finally killed it.” The guard looked her up and down then to the others in her party. “Follow me, I will take you to the council meeting.”

Despite it being the middle of the night the streets were full of patrolling guards and monster hunters. Every available person with the skills to fight were out in force ensuring there weren’t more of those monsters lurking in the alleyways. They were taken to the Town Hall which was a bland brick square of a building reminiscent of the all practical design that the wendigo usually built. In this town where the buildings looked more human centric the clashing of style stuck out like an eyesore.

They were made to wait in the lobby as the guard continued into the meeting room ahead. Bjorn, always sensitive to the subtle changes in the environment, noted the air was thick with concentrated reinforcement enchantments. The building, despite its sterile appearance, was fortified to withstand artillery magic—a makeshift bunker, no doubt. Given the wide, open spaces inside, it seemed clear that defense was a significant purpose of the structure. 

After a few minutes, a male elven secretary, dressed in traditional wendigo robes, motioned them inside. The scene beyond the door was an odd juxtaposition of the old and the new. The only familiar face to Bjorn was Robert, the Jackrabbits’ registrar. Yet, Robert’s presence here spoke volumes. He was clearly more than a mere registrar. Everyone else were older wendigo men and women, five in total. 

The room was, to put it nicely, depressing even for wendigo design. It was bland and sterile to the point that it seemed the purpose was to make it as stark a contrast as possible to the town outside. This was the sanctum of wendigo ideals even while the world around it was being changed with the burgeoning ideas and cultures taking root. However, with Robert being here, even that was going to change one day.

Lavi was the start of something for the wendigo. Sigrun understood this; her push for alliances and innovation was a direct challenge to the old ways. Yuhia, for all its adherence to tradition, was at a crossroads. The room, with its forced austerity, symbolized an outdated worldview that was slowly being eroded by new thought and cooperation.

The council members sat at an oval wooden table with the mayor at the head. There were enough seats for up to ten people with additional seating along the wall. Alongside the council members was Robert and an armored nighthand man whose stern expression and straight no nonsense posture were a telltale sign of long military service. Although given the deep wrinkles and snow white hair and beard those days were behind him. 

The council members themselves were all wealthy looking wannabe snowfallen aristocrats. They all looked to be in different stages of annoyed and tired. It was the middle of the night and they were dragged from their homes for an emergency meeting. Each of them in gaudy jewelry and flamboyant robes that Bjorn had never seen a wendigo wear. 

The whole situation was like whiplash for Bjorn as so many different cultures were clashing all at once. The wendigo had a society that praised the strong above political acumen and even wealth. Although someone who is strong would have no problem gaining wealth. All members of the real nobility or royalty were incredibly powerful and they had to maintain that power to retain their position. It was the lack of power that got Tanisha kicked from her family. It was that same magical weakness that led to the downfall of the Nazem who many wendigo considered a fallen noble family long before they were declared traitors.

Bjorn looked over the levels and names of the Council Members; they were the weakest people in the room. Even taking their age into account which was definitely in the latter years for wendigo, they were terribly weak. The strongest by level was Robert who wasn’t even a council member but a representative from the Jackrabbits followed by Troels who was also the guard captain. Excluding them the highest level was ten and Bjorn could tell they had never had a day of hard labor in their long lives. Which is where the whiplash stemmed. If they weren’t anywhere near what the wendigo considered a good leader, why did they go so far as to maintain the facade with the look of the building just to flaunt their individual wealth anyway?

Identify

Name: Troels Liverwits
Species: Wendigo
Level: 66
Vocation: Fire Spear Forger (Retired)

Identify

Name: Gorm Troff
Species: Wendigo
Level: 8
Vocation: Noncombatant 

Identify

Name: Osman Goldwigs
Species: Wendigo
Level: 6
Vocation: Noncombatant 

Identify

Name: Kare Jerma
Species: Wendigo
Level:10
Vocation: Noncombatant 

Identify

Name: Rota Troff
Species: Wendigo
Level:5
Vocation: Noncombatant 

“Ah, Tanisha,” Robert said with a smile. “It is good to see you. I wish it were under better circumstances, but when they said there were two demons that had to speak to us about skinwalker allegations I was hoping it was you.”

“You know her?” Gorm said.

Gorm was the eldest in the room by appearance. He looked annoyed that they had to talk to demons. His body language gave off the impression that he wanted to dismiss them out right. It was only Robert’s friendly introduction which he was certainly hamming up that stopped the councilman from doing so.

“Yes, I do, and my grandson has told me good things about her,” Robert said. “She is the alchemist that was in town for the past few days. I believe she was set up at the Jackrabbits camp today.”

“She is also the first one to encounter the skinwalker and survive.” Troels the man in the armor added. He sounded every bit like a military man that never left service. “I got a report that a demon that looked almost like a wendigo managed to fight it off before help arrived. She poisoned it with something that caused its body to rot while the guards attacked it.” His gaze fell upon Tanisha sharply scrutinizing her. “I was then told you fled after it was killed, was later seen running and yelling for help, broke into an inn and left to bleeding werewolves in black chains no one has been able to break. Would you care to explain yourselves?” 

Bjorn looked up to Tanisha when he heard that she fought a skinwalker while he was hunting. When he was getting attacked he was so focused on escaping he didn’t have the mental faculties to also monitor the bond to know Tanisha was also in trouble. He felt bad not knowing that she could have been killed too.

“So, they are trouble makers then. Why are we listening to demons anyway?” Rota said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She was the only councilwoman in the group. “She probably found the skinwalker by accident and once she realized there was no more fun to be had, she terrorized other people for Forest Father knows what reason.”

“My thoughts exactly” Gorm said with a nod of his head. “I suggest that you both pay for damages to the inn and release whomever you have captured. We will just fine them for disturbing the peace andー”

“What are you talking about? Did you all not hear me state that this young woman was instrumental in finding and even killing a skinwalker that snuck into our town.” Troels said with a sharp exhale. “A skinwalker, that mind you, even managed to kill one of our guards and paraded around with his face under our noses. ”

“I will also state that she is a registered monster hunter with the Jackrabbits.” Robert said with a smirk.

Bjorn picked up that demons did not have the best reputation with the council for some reason, but to dismiss them without at least listening to them was idiotic. Robert and Troels seemed to be on their side. There was some political game being played that none of Bjorn’s group was privy to which could put them in a bad spot. What he did know was that Tanisha was a bundle of raw nerves right now and the longer they spent there the angrier she got at the charade in front of them.

“You were the one that brought up all of her crimes.” Gorm stated. “Are we not supposed to punish those that break the law in our fair city? Monster hunter or not that does not make her or anyone else above common decency or the law. She is a merchant so six gold will be fair.”

Trolls blinked in disbelief. “Councilmen Gorm, I reported only what I have been told. I sought clarification from the young woman for her actions. I assumed that the council would want to gain insight into why she acted the way she did after the encounter with the skinwalker.”

Rota opened her mouth to say something but closed it when Tanisha spoke up.

“The apothecary is either dead or a skinwalker too.” Tanisha said with a cold edge to her words. “There is a druid base south of the city capturing wendigo and releasing skinwalkers to terrorize the domain.” There was an audible gasp in the room but Tanisha continued. “I will pay for the damage caused to the inn but those werewolves attacked me and my family and will not be released. If there is a problem with that, we will leave the town tonight to handle our business elsewhere.”

“There’s a what?”  Osman, the roundest wendigo Bjorn had ever seen said as he nearly fell back out of his seat.

Tanisha continued as all eyes turned to her. “There is also a monster horde out there and two massive forest fires both caused by magical effects. With that I believe we are done right, Joha? We told them. I think you were right about staying out of this though.”

“Yeah, what they do now is up to them.” Joha agreed. “We will pay our fines to the guard outside and make our leave.”

The group turned to walk out of the room.

“Wait.” Kare, the mayor and man at the head of the table spoke for the first time. “Please, pardon the rudeness displayed by some members of this council. If what you are saying is true we need more information.”

“Are the werewolves involved with the druids?” Troels asked.

Tanisha turned around, “I will tell you everything only after any accusations or fines levied against myself or Joha are forgiven. I will pay the inn owners for the door but will not be releasing the werewolves that attempted to kill me and my familiar.”

“I think that is fair.” Robert nodded.

“Agreed.” Troels said.

“You can’t just withhold that information from the town.” Rota said as she slammed her hand on the table. “That would be a matter of national security. You would be endangering the lives of everyone in this domain. We will not negotiate with someone like you. You will tell us everything you know orー”

“Rota, silence.” Kare said with enough force to quiet the room. “Are you trying to frighten a demoness? You know that wont work. As mayor of his town I accept your proposal, all fines are removed if you pay the inn owners for damages and we will leave the confinement and judgment of those that attempted to kill you in your hands. In exchange we want the information you have on the druids, skinwalkers and monster horde.”

**** Authors Note****

We’re taking a one-week break after this chapter. The next chapter will be released on the 23rd, and we’ll resume our normal schedule after that. I’m currently working on two additional books set in the same universe as Scalebound Sage, and I’ll be using this week to find a new editor and prepare the second drafts of this story and the other books. If you enjoy this book, you might like the other two as well!

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- Book one in the Scalebound Series.

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