Bjorn arrived back at the settlement after scouring the island for another hour or two. Though, Ruhak was all he had found by the time the sun fully rose.
Since finding him in the mines, the Hikupti had been far more quiet than what Bjorn was used to from him.
Taya was patting down dirt, drawing his attention to the fact that all the bodies were missing. She must have buried them. It was a nice gesture. But what’s more, burying all those bodies in just a few hours was really an incredible feat, regardless of the grim circumstances.
Sitting on the steps to the storehouse, was a petite pale-skinned woman with brown hair. She was wearing a Sarfan man’s clothes rather than rags. Though it was possible Taya let her change.
“Bjorn! Who’s this?” Taya asked in Koini. She was particularly better at that language, which was to be expected. Koini was far more prevalent than Ascomanni.
“Ruhak. A fellow miner from Hikuptah,” Bjorn said.
“Name’s Taya!” she said to Ruhak. "Don’t forget it!”
Ruhak stepped back, off put by her energetic nature. "Er...alright.”
Put off? Maybe Bjorn was right and Ruhak really had been forcing himself to be all outgoing and whatnot.
Bjorn peered past her. "Who came to you?”
“My name is Cecile,” the woman said softly, rising from the storeroom stairs with a grace that shined through her movements, despite her very clear nervousness and disorientation. "I’m a doctor from Sarfait and a battlefield medic.”
“Did you come here with the guards?” Bjorn asked.
Cecile lifted her shirt slightly to reveal Plague Scars that wrapped around her lower torso and ribs. "Unfortunately, no.”
Bjorn nodded.
“You all speak Koini?”
He whirled around to his captive.
“Please, let me go!” the Nikan soldier cried.
Taya groaned. "Ugh, now we can understand him.”
“He’d be willing to tell you anything he has of worth if you interrogated him,” Cecile said. "He’s not a soldier. Not a professional one, at least.”
Bjorn frowned, "How can you tell?”
Cecile shrugged, "I’m good at reading people.” The Sarfan was soft spoken, but confident.
“S-she’s right!” the Nikan soldier said. "I’m just an engineer! I was forced to join the army! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!”
“Quit whining!” Taya shouted. "If you’re going to betray your country, at least do it without whimpering and hold your head high like a man!”
“You said you were going to build a boat, right?” Ruhak asked. A bit of the pep in his step had returned within these few minutes. "I’ll handle the interrogation. You take Miss Claymore there and start working. The sooner we get off this island, the better. If another boat comes with people to drop off and sees that we’re the only ones still alive, only bad things could happen.”
Bjorn nodded, "Taya?”
“That’s fine with me,” the Sklaveni nodded and followed him into the woods.
They walked in silence for a bit before the quiet was broken.
"Is it true that every Ascommani knows how to build boat? I mean, I know you can, but what about others?” Taya asked, in Ascomanni once again.
“Why’d you switch back?” Bjorn asked.
“Can’t practice your language if I never speak it.”
“Fair enough. And yes, we all can. My father taught me to build a boat when I was nine. It was a bit earlier than other boys, but we all can put a longship together in a pinch. Though, I wouldn’t trust my boat building with anyone other than a master unless it wasn a absolute emergency. Like this,” Bjorn said, his eyes staring off to the trees around them.
He needed a sturdy oak, that was straight enough to be a keel. His eyes landed on the perfect candidate. It wasn’t too thick to cut down, but wide enough to be carved into a keel and stern.
And there was a second right next to it that would be good enough for planking.
Bjorn pointed to the other tree and tossed Taya one of his axes. "Go cut down that one.”
Taya took the axe and nodded, "Right.”
Bjorn drew his war axe and started to work at the tree he intended to use for a keel. His axes were made more for combat than for wood cutting, but the taper was gradual enough to do the job.
Almost twenty minutes or so later, Bjorn shoved the tree over. A minute after, Taya called out a warning to him before her tree nearly squashed him flat.
“We’re going to build a snekkja, so we’re going to need about eight more of these,” Bjorn said. "Look for trunks as straight as possible. I can’t cut planks from anything too curved. I’ll start on shaping the keel.”
“You’re leaving me out here to cut down trees?” Taya asked.
“Yes,” Bjorn nodded before grabbing hold of his log.
“You know, I could bring those logs back far faster than you could,” she said.
Bjorn pursed his lips, "Great. You can carry this back for me.”
“That’s not what I-”
“I insist. It’s probably been months since you’ve had a good workout,” Bjorn dropped the log.
Taya sighed, her Plague Scars beginning to glow violet again. She picked up the entirety of the felled tree with one hand as though it was a stick.
“You’ve still yet to really explain to me how all this works,” Bjorn said. "There’s got to be something more than just ‘oh, Shedim did it.’”
“I’m...bonded, I suppose, to special kind of Shedim called an Elder Shedim, who uses its power to make me stronger, faster and tougher than everyone else.”
“And can I do that too?”
“Not this exactly. Every Elder Shedim is unique. More often than not, their forms have been misidentified as gods in our past. Figuring out your abilities comes from first manifesting your Shedim in its spiritual form or just waiting to be under a highly stressful situation.”
“You say they resemble gods,” Bjorn said. "That have anything to do with the raven I saw last night?”
“Depends on what ravens mean to you, Bjorn,” Taya shifted her grip on the tree, but it still, somehow, wasn’t giving her any trouble.
“Death and war, mostly. Associated with the Maidens of the White Sea and the Seer of Blackest Nights. They carry the dead up the Great Hall when they meet their fate.”
“Hm...maybe your Shedim is this Seer of Blackest Nights,” Taya muttered.
“So...the Shedim don’t resemble gods, they are gods?”
“No, no. They aren’t gods. Our cultures just thought they were,” Taya said. "I mean I don’t blame them, since immortality and magic powers normally translate to god. But then again, the people who claim to perceive these gods are always high on some kind of concoction of drugs, so I wouldn’t put my full trust in them.”
That comment was clearly aimed at Ascomanni seers.
“Our seers aren’t-” Bjorn huffed. "Just go take the logs.”
“You trying to end the conversation just means I’m right!” Taya called out as she dragged the two trees with her. Bjorn scoffed and returned to the camp to start on the keel.
Taya gathered a total of seventeen trees that day and had dragged them back to the settlement.
Bjorn spent the late morning and, after a nap, the afternoon stripping each log of its bark with his utu.
Taya and Ruhak were helping with axes as Cecile made fire and started to scavenge for medical supplies.
Their captive remained tied to a post.
“So, what’d you get out of our Nikan friend?” Bjorn asked, hammering the handle of his utu with his sword hilt like a hammer and chisel.
“Well, his name is Liao Peng and he’s what’s called an Adept. He was drafted about three years ag-”
“I meant about the attack, not his life story,” Bjorn cut him off.
“Right. I think he rambles to cope with panic,” Ruhak muttered sheepishly. "Uh...the attack, he didn’t know too much about. Being a footsoldier and all, he only gets his orders. But there was someone or multiple someones here that they were supposed to kill according to rumors. They were also told to just kill as many as they could.”
Taya pursed her lips, "None of you have symptoms, yes?”
“If I had symptoms, I’d have died a long time ago,” Ruhak said.
“I’ve experienced none,” Cecile said. "But what exactly makes us worth killing?”
“Shedim Mastery, right? That’s what you told me last night,” Bjorn said.
Taya nodded.
“Shedim...Mastery?” Cecile asked.
“The Plague’s true nature. It is simply the force that bestows this kind of magic unto us gone berserk,” Taya said. "Those who can’t handle its power get symptoms and eventually die.”
Cecile frowned, "What kind of disease goes berserk and gives magic?”
“The Plague is not a disease, it's a trial of sorts. Those without symptoms have earned themselves the ability to use a type of magic,” Taya explained. "The unpredictable nature and inherent power of the abilities makes us dangerous to anyone who’s planning to say...conquer the world.”
Everyone present frowned.
“Nikan can’t conquer the world,” Ruhak said. "No empire has that much power.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try,” Taya said. "When I was last home, the Nikan were fighting with the eastern Sklavenis. So if nothing else, their reach is absurdly long.”
“Then we’ll figure out what’s going on once we get off the island,” Bjorn said.
Once they completed the boat, they’d be free. But who was to say if the world Bjorn saw would be the same as the one he left? If they could spare ten ships for a little middle-of-nowhere island for a potential threat, what kinds of forces did the Nikan have access to for their true campaigns?
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