Chapter 34: We Followed the Mirehorn’s Blood Trail Into a Leech Nest

The terrain began sloping downward an hour later.

Blackthorn grew wetter, and the mist thickened between the trees until it reached their knees in some places. Light filtered through the canopy in gray columns, with tiny reddish particles floating inside them like motionless ash.

Raven asked what they were.

Roland answered:

"Spores."

Raven stopped breathing for half a second.

"Toxic?"

"Not these."

"Sure?"

"I’ve been to Blackthorn twelve times."

"That doesn’t completely answer the question."

Roland looked toward Valeria.

"I’m starting to understand why my lady looks tired."

"Traitor," she said.

"I’m trying to survive."

Raven nodded.

"Good judgment."

Valeria looked at both of them.

"Fantastic. You’re getting along now."

Raven didn’t answer.

There was something more important.

The blood.

The Mirehorn’s droplets were appearing more frequently.

On a root.

Then across some ferns.

Then an entire smear over a rock.

The wound was getting worse.

Valeria noticed too.

She touched one of the drops with two fingers.

Her magic reacted.

This time, the reddish circle around the blood was more complex. Three rings rotated slowly while small markings appeared around them.

"It’s close," she said.

Raven crouched.

"How close?"

"The blood is approximately eighteen minutes old."

"I meant distance."

"The magic doesn’t work that way."

"Disappointing."

"I can tell you it’s still alive, under stress, and has lost enough blood to weaken it."

"That’s better."

Valeria raised her fingers.

The droplet stretched.

Formed a very thin thread pointing northeast.

"I can also tell you which way it went."

Raven looked at the thread.

"I withdraw the disappointing comment."

Valeria smiled.

"I’m going to remember this moment."

"Don’t exaggerate."

"Raven Ashford admitted my magic was useful twice in one day. It’s practically a declaration of affection."

"Your emotional standards are disturbingly low."

"Only with you."

That made Raven look at her.

Valeria held his gaze with a calm smile.

Beautiful.

Aware of it.

And probably enjoying the fact that he knew it too.

Raven looked back toward the trail.

Attraction wasn’t tactical information.

Although it could become a tactical distraction.

He filed it under future problems.

"Let’s move."

"Coward."

Raven looked at her again.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Valeria’s smile said otherwise.

---

The flooded quarry appeared shortly afterward.

From above, it didn’t look like a quarry.

It looked like a black lake trapped inside a circular wound in the earth.

Rock walls descended in terraces toward dark water. Trees had grown across some of the abandoned levels, and thick roots broke through old stone stairways.

A partially collapsed wooden structure stretched across the western side, remnants of some system once used to extract ore.

The lower half was underwater.

Mist drifted across the surface.

Raven didn’t see the Mirehorn.

He didn’t like that.

He didn’t see any birds either.

He liked that even less.

Roland raised a hand.

Everyone stopped.

Raven already had.

Predator’s Instinct was reacting.

Not to one specific direction.

Several.

"We have company," he said.

One of the guards looked around.

"More Rippers?"

"Don’t know."

Valeria closed her eyes.

A drop of Mirehorn blood she’d preserved floated above her palm.

The red thread began to rotate.

First toward the quarry.

Then it changed.

Left.

Right.

Down again.

Valeria opened her eyes.

"That shouldn’t happen."

Raven looked at the blood.

"What does it mean?"

"There’s too much blood from the same source scattered in different directions."

Roland moved closer.

"Is the Mirehorn moving?"

"Not that fast."

Raven looked at the water.

Then the terraces.

"Something is carrying its blood."

Valeria followed his gaze.

Silence.

A bubble appeared in the center of the lake.

Small.

Then another.

Raven stepped backward.

"Get away from the edge."

One guard obeyed.

The other hesitated for half a second.

The water exploded.

A long creature erupted from the surface.

No legs.

Far too many teeth.

Its body was black and segmented, like a leech the size of a man, with six short appendages surrounding a circular mouth.

It launched itself at the nearest guard.

Valeria moved one hand.

A blood spear punched through the creature.

It hit the stone.

Kept moving.

Roland cut off its head.

It didn’t die.

The mouth continued snapping.

Raven brought Stonehide down on the front segment.

CRACK.

Now it stopped.

"What the fuck is that?" he asked.

Valeria didn’t answer immediately.

She was staring at the water.

More bubbles.

Roland went slightly pale.

"Blood Leeches."

"How many?"

"Normally one or two."

The water began churning.

Raven counted five shapes beneath the surface.

Then eight.

"Looks like they violated some social convention."

Valeria raised both hands.

The Dusk Ripper blood she still carried suspended around her began multiplying into different shapes.

"They’re feeding on the Mirehorn’s blood."

"That explains the trail."

"And probably why it’s still losing so much."

A second leech emerged.

Raven used Kinetic Acceleration on a stone.

Threw it.

CRACK.

The rock punched into the soft body.

Not enough.

But it knocked the creature off course.

Roland finished it.

Two more emerged.

Then three.

"Back," Valeria ordered.

This time, Raven didn’t object.

Not because he worked for her.

Because the order made sense.

They retreated toward a higher terrace.

The Blood Leeches climbed after them.

Slow on land.

Fast when they jumped.

Raven noticed an important difference.

They weren’t intelligent predators.

They didn’t analyze.

They simply reacted to blood.

That made their behavior simpler.

And stupider.

Useful.

"Valeria."

She looked at him.

"What?"

"You can control blood outside a body."

"Depends on the owner’s resistance. Corpses and spilled blood, yes."

Raven pointed left.

"Put it there."

Valeria understood before he finished.

Smiled.

"Now that’s a good idea."

She drew blood from the first dead leech.

A surprising amount.

The creature had practically been full.

A dark-red mass rose into the air.

Valeria threw it toward a narrow section between two rock walls.

The blood splashed across the ground.

The leeches reacted.

All of them.

Turned.

Raven watched them abandon the humans and crawl toward the blood.

"Stupid."

"Hungry," Valeria corrected.

"Often the same thing."

Once five had clustered together, Raven raised a hand.

Ember Spark.

Valeria looked at him.

"Blood doesn’t burn well."

"I’m not burning the blood."

Raven aimed at an old wooden structure above them.

Oil.

He’d noticed dark residue inside a broken container.

Probably some form of industrial lubricant from this world.

One spark.

FWOOM.

The structure caught fire.

Raven used Kinetic Acceleration on a large stone.

Not to throw it at the leeches.

At the support beam.

CRACK.

The beam gave way.

Burning timber collapsed onto the group.

The Blood Leeches writhed.

Valeria looked at the fire.

Then at Raven.

"You enjoy setting things on fire far too much."

"It’s cheap."

"That’s your defense?"

"It also works."

Valeria moved both hands.

Blood spears formed above the trapped creatures.

They descended one after another.

Raven watched each projectile pierce more than one body.

Precision.

Force.

Economy.

Valeria wasted no movement.

He liked that.

The guards finished off the remaining creatures.

Silence.

Smoke.

Blood.

The smell was horrible.

Raven looked at the corpses.

The interface displayed several options.

Nothing worth prioritizing.

He closed it.

"We keep moving."