The Elementalist

Chapter 9

"And why hadn't you killed it before now?" The Adept huffed.

"Because it's new."

"Don't waste my time with lies, Chapter Master."

The chapter master pulled out a stack of papers from underneath his desk and, after adjusting the comically small glasses, he put on, began to read. "The first sighting of a Beast matching the description of the Beast now dignified as 'Grimrider' is from a routine patrol about two weeks ago. Notably, Grimrider lacked the armor-like plating and was of a size consistent with a Juvenile roughly three days of age." He sets both the paper and the glasses down on the desk. Leaning forward, he continued, "A Beast barrels through, killing more than a dozen people and one of our own. We looked into it."

Daniel looked a bit guilty when the knight mentioned the death of their subordinate. I put a hand on his shoulder.

As much as I find the knight's incapability to do their job competently annoying, Daniel still must have liked them to some extent if he felt sad about the Outrider's death.

Lantos still didn't look convinced, "If that was the case, then why had it been able to pierce the boundary? Furthermore, Juvenile or not, you still should have killed the bloody thing."

"Sir Adept, you know that's not how these things work. And for the boundary, we don't know. Then again, the how doesn't matter. We have a Beast that is both aggressive and dangerous with the ability to bypass it. Its death is all that matters. How it got through is the Margravine's problem."

I had to resist rolling my eyes, as if "aggressive and dangerous" isn't just the default with Beasts.

Seriously though, what does he expect us to do? Lantos is busy babysitting Daniel and me, for lack of a better term. Who couldn't fight. Well, we couldn't fight well. Couldn't fight well against Beasts. 

We got into a surprising amount of fights in hindsight. Did we even lose any of those? We were bruised, but they had broken something, usually their nose. Not my fault they couldn't take a punch. The point is that both of us would be next to useless, if not downright detrimental.

And while they say if we help them with this, they'll guard us to San'kis. The only real option was to decline and find someone else to protect us upriver. So, of course, Lantos agreed to help them, 'Cause Zefra hates me.

—

We sat in the ruins of a farmhouse only a couple of minutes away from the boundary.

Luckily, if there were any, the bodies were already removed, and there were no apparent stains. So there's that, at least.

I could do without the hole in the wall, but beggars are stabbed in alleyways, apparently. On the bright side, we're under a roof. The bare minimum for a house, really, but I liked how it kept the rain outside. Not nearly as leaky as I thought it would be. Really let me be dry and miserable instead of the alternative of wet and furious.

Maybe Lantos would have answered why he brought us with him on the dangerous mission to kill a Beast if I were angry enough.

But I wasn't, and he didn't, so here we are. Something about it being a learning experience on how Elementalist-knight operations work. 

Daniel, for his part, had taken the whole thing in stride. He simply asked the chapter master if he could borrow a couple of things from their armory and came back with a shield and a hammer of some kind I don't know the name of but am pretty sure you're not supposed to use in one hand.

He had a solemn eagerness as he waited, leaning next to the door. Occasionally peeking out a window. Before pushing off the door frame and walking over to the hole in the building.