บท 73: To Each His Own
"The child, we should have taken him," a shadow walker insisted to his chief in Viqeesh, the shadow Walkers' tongue.
"And risk getting killed by his father, K'sal?" snapped the chief.
"But you are the strongest among us Chief Kotur, if one would follow the Imperials you would be par with a duke," answered K'sal.
"He is of fire, the weakness of our race, the Ibin. Besides, it is not our way to kill in direct confrontation we hide and strike. We are the Ibin! Also, you saw what the child did to S'shar. Magic so strong that it can disintegrate a body and shatter a magic crystal! S'shar cannot be guaranteed an afterlife after what happened." The chief looked directly at the eyes of his lieutenant. K'sal became uncomfortable as he shifted where he stood.
"I apologize my chieftain, It's just, he might be the Elderheart, and also we could study him, he seems to be the link so that we can use magic crystals and cores. We could have abducted him early."
"I know it is a loss K'sal, but we cannot do anything about it right now. For now, we must study and research. We are behind the times, we cannot fight Rex Imperium if we are stuck with what we have.
Their expansion is frightening and though they haven't moved in 300 years, I fear that they are growing restless and will seek new lands again. They have already driven us out of our ancestral home we have moved away from them, but they are a greedy race and people, they will surely attack again."
"If we took the child we might stand a chance, we would train him to fight against the Imperium!"
"Enough of this matter K'sal! For now, we learn, for now, we observe. Let the imperials fight against themselves and we conquer when they are divided we will seek the aid of other kingdoms when the time is ripe."
. . .
Duke Terros raced toward his domain on foot leaving his escort. Horses were too slow, he was a high ranked mage and he used magic to speed up his body. He needed to be far away from Anticourt, and so far only one witness actually saw him.
If his plan did succeed and the knight fell, he would be extricated from his problems except from the magic core payment. He needed to be seen in his domain immediately. He needed to talk to his patron so that he could borrow the missing balance. He could only pray that his patron could lend him such an amount.
It was no small matter to move the cores they were after all strictly regulated, but he knew that his benefactor could get that much, the only problem is if he would do so.
"I hope His Grace allows me to borrow or else our plans would be ruined. He needs all the manpower he can get for what he needs so I don't think he'll refuse," Terros said to himself as he ran.
. . .
Reitz, was stumped, he asked his council what to do with the new information. He finally found a lead on the assassination attempt two years prior. He wanted to report it to the Imperial tribunal, but he could not find any good evidence against Terros. He only caught the mercenaries Terros hired the night of the Anticourt raid. Terros was good. He stationed some powerful and loyal knights behind and killed the other soldiers who were in the personal guard and escaped.
He remembered the faces of the nobles when he arrived, they were so shocked to find out that the toddler in battle was actually his son. They kept apologizing to him for not helping out in the battle, which was a laugh, they were obviously neglecting duty. Reitz made it a law that Fulmen nobles were to help out in raids if they were in the vicinity. They kept on insisting that their attendants didn't bother to tell them. Which was impossible. If he wasn't so concerned about Ezra that time he would have taught them a lesson. Well he could
Reitz tried to look for any solid Evidence on Terros, but he kept on falling short. He could directly ask the Rex for an inquiry but with no proper evidence, the inquiry would backfire on him, he had to make sure that he had something on Terros.
"Is there nothing else?" asked a member of his council.
"No nothing. I'm afraid we just have to be wary of Terros in the future. He may be colluding with the Arcanists but we have no direct evidence. "
"Your Lordship, Do you know the magics of the Arcanists that were hired for your assassination?"
"Well they are called Shadow Walkers they're said to appear and disappear in the shadows the Demon Hunters told me that they are weak to fire."
"My Lord that is a frightening concept if they can appear and disappear in the shadows, how do we know they are not here listening to our conversation?" asked another council member as he furrowed his brows.
The door of Reitz's study burst open It was Aerwyna and Ezra.
"Aerwyna, my darling. I see you have brought Ezra, he is finally awake. Is he well?" Reitz looked at his son as he said this.
"Yes Lord Blackfyre, "Aerwyna answered formally. She did this because it was a habit of Reitz sometimes to talk about inappropriate things in public. "Our son has some information on Duke Terros, apparently there was something that Evan left out in the letter."
"Oh?" Reitz raised his eyebrow, "Tell me, Ezra,"
The council members were stunned, they had heard that Ezra was intelligent but this was out of their expectations. Reitz talked to him like Ezra was much older, they only heard the events at Anticourt from Reitz which was toned down and they had yet to hear the rumours from Anticourt. However, since it Ezra's prowess was already publicized, Reitz was okay with the early revelation.
"The duke is using Magic cores for deals with the Shadow Walkers and it was a lot, around 30000 magic cores. If the inquiry finds about the stones he's hoarding he is a dead man." Ezra declared. He didn't look at the reactions of the councillors and just stared at his father.
Everyone gasped.
"This is good proof. I must tell the Rex Immediately. Terros might find a way to cover it up." Reitz said with a satisfied smile. " Anything else of note my son?"
"Yes, I have studied the Shadow Walkers magic, and they seem to be able to turn into walking shadows, higher ranks can turn themselves invisible but they need minimal lighting to do this. If the lighting is sufficient they will find it hard to do any magic." Ezra answerd.
He had analyzed it already. They weren't actually jumping out of the shadows, they were manipulating light in such a way that it would make them look like they were a shadow. The shadow walker who killed Evan displayed phenomenal magic control so as to distort light in such a way that it would seem that the person looking at him was looking right through the shadow walker himself. It was a frightening skill indeed, but Ezra deduced that like their other skills it would need less light to do it.
"Oh, that is another weakness, very well you did good, I shall put more lighting in the castle then so that they can't speak easily," Reitz said thoughtfully. He then turned to Aerwyna " Please leave us for now, we will discuss matters of the empire."
"As you wish Lord Blackfyre." Aerwyna curtsied.
Ezra and his mother turned back to the exit.
"Father," Ezra looked back. "Bring justice to the Duke,"
"I will my son, I will," Reitz answered with a determined look.
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