Chapter 512: What Silas Would Want

A solitary gust of sub-zero wind scoured the lip of the northern shelf, whistling through the empty leather stirrups of Valkyrie’s saddle.

The Blessed wolf stood still with her forepaws braced against the permafrost and her ears twitching forward and back in rapid, agitated ticks.

She lowered her broad muzzle, drawing in a long draught of air from the disturbed snow where Silas had stood less than three seconds prior.

There was no coppery scent of torn flesh and there was no spatial residue of warped mana either.

Behind Valkyrie, the detachment hung suspended in the violent momentum of their halted sprint.

The silence lasted only a heartbeat before it fractured.

"Lord Silas!"

The Princess’s voice snapped through the cold like thin crystal breaking on rock.

She scrambled out of her saddle before her mount had even fully settled its hindquarters with her heavy boots catching in the deep snowdrift as she hit the ground running.

Her azure traveling mantle flared behind her, catching on the jagged spurs of black shale, but she tore it free without looking, stumbling toward Valkyrie with both hands outstretched as if she could gather the empty air back into the shape of a man.

"Lord Silas! Where—where did he—" Her fingers clawed through the empty space above the saddle, meeting only the bitter drafts of the basin.

Her breathing hitched, turning shallow and frantic with the color completely draining from her cheeks until she was as pale as the falling powder.

She whipped around, looking at the stone walls, up at the leaden sky, and then down into the sheer drop of the eastern gorge where the remnants of the monster horde still churned.

"He was right here! He held up his hand! He gave the signal! Where did the mist take him?!"

Beside her, Aeliana slid from her mount with her book slipping from her numbed fingers to tumble into the red-stained slush.

The high-elf secretary didn’t bother to retrieve them.

Her slender hands shot up to the frames of her spectacles, shoving them hard against the bridge of her nose as her silver-gold eyes dilated into wide trembling rings.

"S-Spatial displacement..." Aeliana stammered, her voice thin and high-pitched, vibrating with an edge of terror. "The atmosphere didn’t register a rift... there was no fold... I didn’t feel a tear in anything! If he was drawn into a—"

"Quiet down, long ears," Morwenna’s raspy voice cut across the panicked babble like a lead pipe striking gravel.

The Pirate Queen didn’t dismount.

She sat high on her wolf, leaning forward with her black hair whipping across her gray eyes and her calloused fingers remaining firmly wrapped around the hilt of Tidebringer.

She wasn’t scanning the empty air where Silas had been as she was watching the high basalt ridges and the retreating edge of the whiteout.

"Panic burns breath, and breath is what keeps your blood from freezing in this ditch," Morwenna said, her tone level and completely dry. "Look at the mount."

Tasmin, who had melted into a low crouch five paces to the left with her twin void-daggers cocked in reverse grips, flicked her amber eyes toward Valkyrie.

The dire wolf had stopped sniffing the ground.

She wasn’t howling either and she wasn’t throwing her head back in the death-wail that bonded territorial beasts gave when their master’s life-thread snapped.

Valkyrie shook the dry snow from her shoulders with a violent concussive rattle of her harness, let out a deep annoyed snort that blew two neat holes in the snowdrift, and turned her head back toward Eluned.

"The bond holds," Tasmin rasped, though the muscles along her jaw remained coiled like steel cables. "His core hasn’t flickered... If he were bleeding out, the contracts would be burning cold or that’s how I know this stuff works so he’s alive."

"Of course he is," Thor’s booming voice rumbled from Titan’s back, sounding too casual for the sudden disappearance of their commander.

The God of Thunder leaned back against the high pommel of her saddle, folding her massive muscular arms over her leather cuirass.

She watched the Princess’s frantic pacing with an amused, half-lidded squint, completely unbothered by the sub-zero squall that made the other mortals shiver.

"The man survived a slap of mine into the courtyard without losing his balance, and you think a puff of damp northern smoke is going to digest him?" Thor snorted, shaking her blonde mane. "He’s stubborn as an ox and twice as thick-skulled... If whatever swallowed him tries to chew, it’s going to break a tooth so sit down before you twist your ankle, little royal. You’re fluttering like a sparrow in a thunderstorm."

"How can you be so callous?!" The Princess rounded on the giantess, her small fists clenched at her sides with her royal posture completely shattering beneath raw distress. "He is our leader! He brought us into this frozen wasteland, he took the point position to protect us from that horde, and now he is gone! We don’t know where he was dragged! We don’t know what kind of horrors are in that mist! We have to search the gorge! We have to dig into the fissures! We can’t just stand here while he—"

"Princess."

The word was spoken softly, yet it carried an immovable weight that seemed to vibrate straight out of the earth beneath their soles.

Eluned urged her mount forward by two paces.

The Goddess sat with her spine straight, her emerald-threaded traveling cloak falling in neat unhurried folds over her knees.

Her porcelain face was remarkably serene with the glow of her eyes fitting it well.

She reached out with a pale, slender hand, resting her palm gently atop Valkyrie’s silver head.

The wolf leaned into the touch, letting out a low rumbling whimper of acknowledgment.

"Silas gave standing operational protocols before we embarked on this mission," Eluned said. "Do you recall them, Tasmin?"

Tasmin kept her gaze fixed on the northern pass, answering without hesitation.

"Section Four, In the event of command separation, isolation, or unresolvable spatial fracture, all subordinate units are ordered to execute an immediate fighting retreat toward the territorial perimeter... We fall back to the Keep, consolidate with the rest of the girls, and hold the gate until contact is re-established."

"Precisely," Eluned said with a faint, graceful nod. "If the commander is cut off, the squad preserves the asset line and pulls back to the fortress."

The Princess stared at her, her jaw slack with disbelief. "Pull back...? You... you want us to turn around? Leave him behind?! In this cold?!"

Her voice cracked with indignation, tears of frustration prickling at the corners of her azure eyes.

"You claim to be his wife! You spent the entire night curled against his ribs, begging him to feed you with his own hands, and the moment he is taken, you recite protocol like an uncaring court clerk?! You would abandon him here?!"

Aurelia stepped between the trembling Princess and the Goddess, placing a gentle armored hand on the young maiden’s trembling shoulder.

The Saintess’s touch was warm, radiating with the soft glow of the Argent Flame, easing the hysterical shiver running through the girl’s spine.

"Be at peace," Aurelia murmured softly. "Listen to the whole thing before you judge Miss Eluned’s heart."

Eluned didn’t take offense.

She merely offered the Princess an indulgent smile... the look of an ancient entity humoring a frantic child and her emerald eyes sparkled with a strange, amused warmth as she gently stroked Valkyrie’s silver ears.

"You misunderstand me, little royal," Eluned purred, tilting her head toward the dark northern horizon. "I recited his orders merely to acknowledge that he gave them but I have zero intention of obeying them."

Morwenna let out a sharp raspy bark of laughter.

"Knew it. A good sailor knows when to throw the captain’s rulebook into the drink."

"I am ignoring the retreat order completely," Eluned stated, her tone as matter-of-fact as if she were discussing the afternoon tea service. "Silas expects us to be sensible, which is precisely why he won’t be surprised when we are not but more importantly..."

She closed her eyes, raising her chin toward the biting wind.

From the tip of her wooden staff, a translucent green root sprouted, coiling into the frozen air before disintegrating into tiny specks of emerald mana that drifted northward, caught in the currents of the high-altitude squall.

"I can feel her," Eluned whispered, her eyes opening with sharp, divine clarity. "The Goddess of Beasts... The resonance of her slumbering presence in the Forever Ice is quite weak but vibrates through the permafrost, through the dormant root networks that sleep beneath the rock... I do not need that little avian to find the descent path as I can guide us straight to her chamber."

"And what of Lord Silas?" Aeliana asked, her voice still trembling as she retrieved her spectacles from the snow, wiping the slush onto her sleeve. "If we march to the goddess... we are moving away from where he vanished."

Eluned turned to the high-elf, her lips curling into a smile of absolute, unshakable faith.

"Do you really believe that man was taken to be slaughtered?" Eluned asked softly. "Think about who he is..."

She looked back at the six women, her gaze fierce and filled with certainty.

"I have faith in Silas," Eluned declared. "He is not cowering in a dark corner waiting for a rescue party. He is marching forward. In fact... knowing how his pride works when he is left alone, he will likely carve his way straight through whatever abomination rules that mist and arrive at the Beast Goddess’s tomb long before we even reach the descent lip."

The Princess blinked.

The suffocating knot of panic in her chest loosened slightly, replaced by the infectious ironclad confidence radiating from the Goddess.

Morwenna gave Tidebringer’s scabbard a loud echoing smack against her thigh.

"Aye. The weed’s not entirely useless after all... The Captain’s probably cursing our names right now for not keeping up with him since he hates doing manual labor without an audience."

Aeliana let out a quiet huff that sounded remarkably like a chuckle, her shoulders finally dropping from their rigid posture.

"He does prefer to have his drink poured."

Even Kadi, who had been quietly keeping watch on the rear slope, let out a nervous breathless giggle as she dusted the sand from her leather bracers.

"He’s probably looking around for someone to give him a clean towel right now."

The tension that had threatened to tear the squad into paralyzed fragments evaporated into the crisp mountain air.

The women straightened their backs, the discipline and mutual trust they had built over a long time of territorial labor snapping back into place like a drawn bowstring.

"Mount up!" Eluned commanded, taking the vanguard lead alongside Valkyrie. "We move north! Full lope! Keep the spacing tight and your blades loose! If my husband arrives at the prize before us, I will never hear the end of it at the dinner table!"

"HYAH!"

Eight pairs of powerful hindquarters drove into the permafrost simultaneously, launching the pack into a thundering coordinated gallop along the high shelf.

Behind them, three mutated crawl-scavengers attempted to scramble up the scree in pursuit—

FZZZZZT-CRUNCH!

Kadi didn’t even look back.

A sweeping wave of pressurized golden sand detonated from her palm, scouring the rock face and pulverizing the beasts into red mist before they could crest the rise.

"Rear clear!" Kadi shouted, her voice ringing with newfound confidence.

At the head of the column, riding neck-and-neck with Valkyrie, Eluned looked up at the bruised northern sky with her green hair whipping in the gale as she whispered to the wind.

"He’s probably having fun right now..."

SWOOSH!

A razor-thin crescent of pressurized aqua energy cleaved through the lightless gloom with a deafening high-pitched shriek.

SPLAT-CHOP!

A four-foot-wide bloated fog-aberration... resembling a grotesque, multi-segmented leech with eight blind sensory stalks and a circular maw of needle-teeth was sheared cleanly in half along its horizontal axis.

The two severed halves of the monster tumbled out of the air, splashing into the thick creeping carpet of white mist that covered the cavern floor.

Dark oily ichor sprayed across the black shale, sizzling softly against the permafrost before the fluid dissolved into gray foul-smelling vapor.

Silas flicked the golden mythril longsword in a crisp downward arc.

CLACK!

The blade was immaculate, the golden mana radiating from his Mythic Gold Core actively repelling every stray drop of visceral filth before it could touch the steel.

He drew in a slow icy breath with his golden ringed blue eyes gleaming in focus.

’It’s actually a bit fun,’ Silas thought, a wolfish smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.