The Krakos: Book Two of The Legend of the Artificer

Chapter 10

"Well, there's Sorncrest," Grim said distastefully as Tibalt ignored the warmth in his thighs and backside that told him he should be in pain.

"Why is the gate so far away?" Tibalt grumbled as he wiggled in the saddle. Junebug's ears twitched in annoyance, and he patted her neck in apology.

"The gate is so far away because trolls have rules," Grim replied. "If you want a settlement near a gate, it needs to be at least five miles away. Since settlements expand, most put themselves a good twenty away, and Sorncrest isn't as big as Vengyll."

Tibalt frowned as he looked at the settlement from the top of the hill. It didn't look like much.Well, that wasn't true. It was right on the coast, a vacation resort, and he found it hard to believe that it had a gang running it. Shining and clean, cobbled together of white stone, it was a shining beacon, and everything about it rubbed him the wrong way.

"It's literally on the coast, how can they even blame a storm on a mage when it's practically jumping the ocean's bones like this?" he complained as he stood up in his stirrups to get a good look at the far away ships collected in the port. "I don't get it. It looks fine."

"It has excellent mages that specialize in clean up after a storm," Angel said as he pulled up alongside Tibalt. "That's the main reason, but it also has shielding to protect from hurricanes. Whatever the spell was blew right through the defenses and flooded the whole thing. A natural storm couldn't do that."

"That just sounds like they were fucking with nature and got their asses bit," Tibalt complained as he flopped back in the saddle, his temper already rising. Really? Magical defenses? Why didn't they just design the infrastructure with proper drainage? Just throwing up shields sounded like it didn't fit well with the present ecosystem.

"Well, don't say something like that in town," Grim said, and urged Cairn forward. "They're sensitive and not above underhanded revenge just because they were slighted."

"Who's sensitive?"

"The mages here," Grim replied. "This is a resort town and a bastion of learning elemental weather magic."

"All that tells me is there are more suspects than we thought there were," Tibalt grumbled and urged Junebug down the hill. "And we're going to be searching for a needle in a haystack."

"That's not necessarily true. We don't need someone to take the fall for it," Grim said, and Tibalt glanced up. "We just need to prove that it wasn't Innes. Who it actually was doesn't matter, so long as it wasn't your pet krakos."

"Call Innes a pet again," Tibalt threatened. "I dare you."

"Okay, but are we actually going to discuss what we're all doing?" Elmer interrupted as she urged Tots to catch up with the bickering duo. "We have no plan."

"Well, we need to appeal to the Yssilmu first," Grim said casually, and Tibalt froze up.

"What?"

"Whoever framed Innes, regardless of their reason, set up the opening act for a full blown gang war between the Vengyll Syndicate and the Sorncrest Yssilmu," Grim explained.

"Oh, yeah, that would be a problem," Angel said faintly. "No wonder Sophia let us go."

"Exactly. The Syndicate has several masters, and a savant, and influence across the full continent because of their location," Grim supplied, and Elmer hummed as she stroked at her lip with one talon.

"Meanwhile, the Yssilmu has a monopoly on imports through the Southern Sea. Their main base is in Sorncrest, but they're spread out over the full coast," she said thoughtfully. "If the two get into a full scale war, the entire black market might crash. They have a truce now, but if that fails, we'll be in big trouble."