Chapter 41 - To The Warren

With the new party assembled, Violetta and Lady Hilda finished speaking with the Vice Quartermaster Fehn while she tried to introduce herself to the Kithe who understood her to be a scholar. With names like Cookie and Cake, the ominous black robed short Mahn was making her a bit nervous. Something about them stirred up that vengeful and murderous feelings like when she had first seen Violetta. Was it their connections to divine beings that made these feelings or was it just herself. It could not be just her imagination, but Sig and Locke did not provoke these feelings in her. Lady Hilde had earned the rage by probing her mind while she was unconscious. She had done something to interfere in her head, but the first peaceful sleep that she could remember in so many moons had a way of being an acceptable trade off.

Fehn handed her a short sword that was manageable at least. Insisting that even a Gobbo needed a proper weapon out in the wilderness. She had thanked him, and they were departing, climbing up the hill when Lady Hilda took her leave. As a group of six, the journey itself began awkwardly as each one of them had their own pace. The Kithe were not used to traveling at a comparative run to the steady march of Sig and Lock, or Violetta for that matter. Her own footsteps as a Gobbo, particularly walking upright and not hunched over as still making her way through tunnels put her at the same pace as the Kithe.

Focusing on their hard pace, Violetta offered breaks though it all worked out to being about the same as setting their pace to that of the Kithe and meandering about at a steady walk. Finding the appropriate pacing took until midday and by then they were complaining of hunger. Such fragile and weak creatures! She thought that they must be even more formidable than Mahn, seeing as the physically weaker the more impressive their equipment and wits were to compensate.

"This karst land is interesting." Cookie scratched her cheek as she stared at the stream, "The water is so pure and the soil so rich."

Cake made her way over and looked in her direction, "Raeyn. Why is this water so pure?"

She did not know anything else, and having never left the warren before this, she had no explanation to give them other than a simple, "It has been like that. Though the fine soil and sedimentary rock naturally clean the water. Much of the water flows from underground, but that is why the caverns are everywhere. The water flowing down from the mountains is limited, but this stream is a fraction of what flows under our feet."

Cake seemed to accept it with a simple agreement, "Yes. A scholar indeed."

Cookie pouted and shook her head, "Don’t be like that. The earth is my speciality."

They stopped to enjoy a drink before moving on. As the sun started to dip in the east, they continued on with some small talk between them. Violetta had begun to explain what had happened on her first outing in the land.

"After taming Raeyn, I took her into the depths of the cavern, and we stumbled across this vast crystalline room. Huge quartz crystals larger than myself lined the room and it looked like an altar to some divine being, even large baths. There was no way in, so we continued down the path and only then the torch began to falter. It was there that I found Raeyn to be trustworthy as she held my hand on the way back out."

"Love?" Cookie snickered, "Two priestesses who should be killing one another found love in the da-"

Cake smacked Cookie upside the head with a quick whip of her arm, "I am listening, rocks for brains! Go on, please."

Violetta paused for a moment to glance at her, "Let’s not dwell on it."

"Wait," Sig bit now, "You mean that you and her are in love or that you should be killing one another?"

"Killing one another." Cake clarified before Violetta had the chance, "Having four different priestesses do anything together like this shows the dire circumstances facing us. Unless your divine patron truly agrees with another, then a powerful murderous urge surges in you when coming in contact with another. Experienced as we are, we can manage, but the stronger a priestess is the more potent the desire to kill. It is not just that Raeyn is a Gobbo, but that she is especially revolting to my senses shows her power."

"Though I did not want to kill either of you, so that means you are weak?" She countered.

"Raeyn!?" Violetta crossed her arms and glared at her, "Do you really think nothing of them?"

"Why should I?" She did not understand.

"Cookie and Cake are actually incredibly powerful priestesses and I wanted to strangle both of them like brats in the crib. I still am terrified of their awful power; it radiates out and even a divine like Maelyn urges me to defend myself from them. You have Belos, one of the most ‘passionate’ whose priestesses have been known to fly into possessed rage. It is one reason worship of Belos is forbidden. When you met me, you seemed so innocent and curious. I knew you were powerful from that alone. Even before I stuck your finger in my mouth, I knew the burn was a fresh mark from Belos."

Locke gulped and asked, "You put her finger in…. her mouth? Are you sure?"

"Men." Cookie covered her mouth as she laughed, "Raeyn, you have not been around other priestesses much then. I wanted to roast you alive when I first saw you. By all means you are at least my equal, if not greater than me to inspire such vivid dreaming."

"I wanted to eat her up." Cake licked her lips as she relished in the memory, "I wanted to bathe in her blood and suck the marrow from her bones. Wear her skull as a crown and make a new bag of her skin. Oh, yes, Gobbo flesh tans especially well with all of their natural oils far better than Mahn. I even wanted to see what pretty gizzard stone she holds. Like a precious pearl."

It was too much. She felt faint just knowing that they had the same horrible thoughts as she had when first encountered Violetta. Though she knew that those words contained some innuendo, and what terrible implications that meant, not even Locke dared speak of it. Violetta went white at the casual brutality being described and the joyous tone in the Kithe’s words.

"What a sadistic Kithe." Sig forced an uneasy laugh, "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"Oh, that is easy." Cake grinned at the ambiguity of her own answer, "Just treat me like your mother."

Sig rolled his eyes at that and let it be. He waited until everyone was ready before continuing on. As the sun began to dip in the west, the sky began to change from blue to orange with bands of red.

"Looks like the good weather will hold for another day." Violetta said as she noticed it, "If we are quick and make good use of the night, we should make it back in a day or two. We do need to find a place to camp soon. I rather not use the entrance to the cavern again."

"Then how about the soldier’s camp? They have tents." Cookie pointed in the direction towards a dark green forested hill with wisps of smoke rising above the canopy. Several smaller trails went up throughout the forest, "It seems lively over there."

That was where the warren was hidden, her stomach started to sink as she knew that the central plume of smoke was too great, too black to be anything like the fires in the settlement. She rushed ahead and turned back to Violetta, "The warren… it is on fire!"

The wind carried the smoke away, but somewhere in the midst of the forest and its clearing was the warren. She knew they were getting close to the entrance of the cavern, but she wanted to rush home now.

"Ah, General Stronghold sent about fifty men to deal with those who attacked the ambassador. Well, it is just a warren. Not your warren. No need to rush to every burning village in the midst of war." Sig looked at her, but seeing her reaction caused him to realize that was precisely the problem, "This your warren!? A Gobbo who knows of Stele, who is a priestess of Belos… Oh no, you were that first Gobbo that Lady Hightower admitted into the settlement."

"Yes." She turned to Violetta ready to run home, "I need to go. The Great Mother-"

"Not alone you aren’t." Violetta’s voice was stern, "If you go alone, they’ll kill you just like the rest. We will all go together, as Lady Hilda directed us to."

Sig said as he looked at the rising smoke, "If it has already begun then it is probably too late."

“Calm, my friend,” Violetta said to her in Gobbo, “Together. We go together.”

“Violetta.” She nodded, “Together.”

"Oh great, two of them speak Gobbo." Cookie sighed, "Making me feel left out of the moment."

"Let’s hurry." Violetta said and looked to her, "Show us the fastest way to get there, Rayne."

She did not need to be told twice, as they rushed forward as a group up towards hill and into the forest where the warren lay.