[Beastborne: Voracious] (Book 5) Chapter 28

Tristal watched in complete astonishment as Hal used a Gold Founder’s Mark. He completely fixed the Kinslayer as if he was a fairy godmother granting a wish!

Is this the power of the Gold Mark? she found herself wondering.

Gold was the highest Founder Mark and rarely granted at that. The Shard was not known to be very giving.

Tristal had seen the extent of the woman’s injuries. Even the surface level that she understood was so far beyond her skill to minister that she was shocked Hal could do anything.

And yet, it hardly took more than a snap of his fingers to make her go from gray and near death to full of color and stable. She was obviously injured still, but the worst of it was over. She would live.

Tristal still wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. She didn’t fully understand what went down between the two, but she wished again that she could have come alone.

You may have gotten yourself in over your head here girl.

The two circling dragons descended and landed lightly—for dragons at least—on either side of Hal. They were majestic and gorgeous and very, very terrifying.

The dragon whose scales gleamed like ice on a frosty winter’s morning grinned in a very unfriendly way. “Shall we snack on these interlopers, Hal?”

The golden dragon, picking up on the other’s cue, grinned as well. He looked like a shark the size of a house.

“No.”

Though they looked as if they could have snapped up Hal without batting an eye, both bowed their heads respectfully and resumed their vigilant gaze.

“There were no further disturbances in the trees,” the golden one said. “We can guard these three. They will be no trouble.” His tone suggested that he would very much like that to be put to the test.

The aura of malicious glee coming off the pair of them was almost unreal. Tristal swallowed loudly. “You wanted to talk?” she prompted.

Hal was staring at a half-finished carving of the mountain when she spoke. He turned back to regard her as if remembering she was there for the first time.

“One moment,” Hal told her. He looked farther along the mouth of the valley where dozens of people were rushing toward them.

Tristal had heard the rumors of a powerful clan of dwarves supporting the new Founder, but she had thought it was circumspect at best. Dwarves attended their own affairs and left the Founders alone. There were no dwarven Founders and there likely never would be.

Odd.

If she had waited just a moment more, she would have found that the word was better used when Hal simply disappeared out of nowhere and reappeared further up the valley in the midst of the running bearded faces.

Being as tall as he was among the dwarves, he was still easy to pick out even if you didn’t notice the way everybody unconsciously gave him room. Tristal was having to repeatedly update her opinion of the man every time he spoke or did something other than she expected.

Rinbast was a cruel and calculating man, but he was also predictable. That made dealing with him rather straightforward and, if not easy, then at least understandable.

Hal was an oddity to be sure. He tried to kill the Kinslayer, then healed her, even though he could have let her die and nobody would really have done anything.

The poor girl had even welcomed it!

No, things were definitely not going the way Tristal had expected. Not at all.

“He is magnificent,” the Kinslayer said softly. “I… can barely feel the gaping wound where my Beast was.”

“It is just a wound like any other, right?” Tristal turned to look down at her. “Perhaps he has a healing Class.”

“No,” she said. “This is… secret. Something far deeper was wounded. He could have fixed up my body like it was new and I would still die. A Beastborne needs their Beast, it’s in the florking name!” She deflated a little. “And there was a ring of truth to his words. He does not know if I can be saved, and he is tethering me to him partially out of mercy.”

“And the other part?” Tristal couldn’t help herself from asking.

“To kill me if I make the slightest move he does not wish me to.” She looked over at her with a wry grin. “Surprised? He is not as kind as he seems, which is good. A Beastborne that is unfailingly kind is an idiot. He understands the threat I pose and I doubt he has forgiven me for my attack. His words… rang a bit too true for my tastes.”

“You would rather be a weapon that has no will?”

“There is much you do not know about the Kinslayers,” she said. “We are already much like that. Rinbast controls us in a thousand little ways. Besides, who would shelter us if we fled? We cannot revolt against him, he is far too strong. So what are our options? We are weapons, whether we wish it or not. Better to resign ourselves to that fate than to fight with no hope of a home.”

Must be pretty grim if you dream of being an unthinking tool instead of dreaming of a better future.

Not that Tristal would say that aloud. These two had, at her behest, done just that. Though, now that she thought about it, they didn’t seem to be very optimistic about their chances.

Given how Hal reacted to them, especially to the woman, it was well within the realm of possibilities that he would just kill the pair of them.

That wasn’t exactly what Tristal would have preferred, but it was far from the worst outcome that she could think of. And she had a very active imagination.

She turned, folded her hands at her waist and waited for Hal to return. When he did, the majority of the people who had come to see him were returning back into the wide bowl-shaped valley beyond the mouth.

“You have until I finish my work to make your case,” Hal told her. “For your sake, I hope you’re as good as you seem to think you are.”

Tristal fought the blush that colored her cheeks. Impudent man! And then she saw him looking at her out of the corner of his brown eye and thought better. Perhaps you’re not so innocent after all.

The crowd that had gathered was still there, though at a respectful distance. However, you could never forget that there were two dragons larger than houses nearby.

Their breathing disrupted the natural breezes and air currents of the place. You were always aware that they were there, and if this was intentional on Hal’s part, she would have to tread very carefully indeed.

Just as she was about to speak, he held up a hand and copper lightning lanced out like fine threads of glowing orange light. Whatever she was going to say died on her lips as she stared in awe.

Just who is this man? she found herself questioning.

Wherever the light threads touched, the stone was carved away as if he was using a hot wire on foam blocks to carve a diorama. Only the ground shook and trembled as the stone cascaded free of its earthly bonds and tumbled to a pile at the bottom of the mountain nearby.

He paid her so little attention that it was almost insulting, only the way he looked back at her curiously suggested that he wasn’t ignoring her altogether.

So he’s working while talking to me to let me know that I’m not very important and that his time is valuable. She tapped her bottom lip in thought, an idle habit that she had tried forever to break and eventually just gave up. It helped her think.

And he’s displaying godlike strength using what… looks like a Copper Mark on his other hand? I’ve never seen somebody with two Founder Marks, how is that possible?

All the while she was trying to think of something to say while Hal did the work that a team of expert stonemasons would have taken years to accomplish. Sure the designs looked rough, but he did the work in minutes compared to days.

That told her that he didn’t care to display his power in front of her, meaning he didn’t perceive her as a threat. That set her a little at ease, but then again that meant he was confident enough in his own strength that any possible danger she posed was minimal.

Not good.

He was so far from Rinbast that it was astonishing.

Rinbast was the sort of man that would fold his hands and look out on his kingdom, on the balcony high up somewhere and ponder things while you spoke to him. He always replied promptly, but you got the impression that he was looking out over the entire world and listening with only half an ear.

He never worked or did any sort of magic that she had ever seen in her decades of knowing the man.

And yet here was, by all accounts, the weakest Founder of all and he was terraforming this frigid landscape as if it was nothing, all while turning his back on two Kinslayers and another Founder. Granted, he did have pet dragons guarding them, but that was just another ridiculous feather in his cap.

He was showing off without showing off, and that took some cleverness that Tristal had never thought to ascribe to the man. Besides, he was in the middle of nowhere, right? That had to mean he was aware of his position’s weakness.

But it begs the question: what if he is out here because it’s far away from everything and he has the room to tame the wilderness? What if he chose this place, not because it was safely out of Rinbast’s grasp, but because it offered him a challenge unlike any other?

Careful didn’t begin to describe how she’d need to be here. This was a more dangerous man than she had even feared.

All of which went through her head in a matter of a minute or two while Hal carved the mountains into stone castles, keeps, turrets, and whatever else he had in mind. She was envious. This was a power that she’d never seen before, much less witnessed firsthand.

How is he fueling all of this? There’s not enough [Magicite] in all the Shard to keep somebody going at this level for so long!

“Are you going to speak, or are you just going to watch me work?” Hal gave her a boyish grin. “I don’t mind, but I meant what I said. If you haven’t convinced me by the time I’m done, you’ll have to go. I won’t risk my people.”

Folding her hands demurely, she gave up all hopes of pretending to be a Founder capable of helping him tremendously. She still knew she could, but there was something about the way he moved that reminded her of a refined version of the Kinslayers.

He was danger walking, and a very small—but not small enough for her tastes—part of herself feared him and gibbered at her to run away and get very, very far from him.

“What did our guide tell you?” Tristal asked. That seemed a pretty safe place to start. Find out what the man said, do damage control if necessary, and always be truthful.

She froze stock still. I did not think that last bit. Where did that come from?

When Tristal studied Hal, he didn’t seem to have taken notice. And the voice sounded like hers, only slightly… off.

“He told me him and his tribe pledge themselves to the Bravers,” Hal said without turning to look at her. “Apparently the Aza’dun—that’s Poisonhearts, in their tongue—have been looking for my group for a while but needed a sign. It would seem they found it.”