Free Web NovelChapter 19: Three Way
"That’s fire."
One of the four summoners said it while riding atop a beast with a frame built entirely from bone, its joints grinding softly with each step. He tilted his head toward the orange glow pushing through the canopy ahead.
"Some reckless fellow trying to burn down the forest."
"We should check it out."
The summoner beside him spoke without looking away from the center of the group, his gaze already drifting toward the figure riding at the front.
Vincent said nothing immediately.
He had pulled these three together specifically for this. Tracker types, all of them, their summons built for following a trail through difficult terrain rather than direct confrontation. Finding one person moving through a forest full of people wasn’t simple work. Having the right tools made it manageable.
"It might even be the troublemaker," he said after a moment, steering his beast toward the direction the light was coming from. "Better than walking around aimlessly."
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They arrived at the depression some time later.
A cloud of smoke rose steadily from the hollow below, thick and dark at the base, thinning as it climbed. Beneath it, waves of heat rolled upward in visible distortions, the kind of output that didn’t come from a campfire or a controlled burn. Something down there was producing serious flame.
"That’s a lot!!"
One of the summoners from Jacob’s family coughed, pressing the back of his hand against his nose as he leaned forward to peer over the edge.
Two figures were visible through the haze below.
One was a giant salamander, its hardened scales catching the firelight in dull flashes, its chest still heaving with each breath it expelled. The other was....
A man.
Or something shaped like one.
"Humanoid creature."
Vincent’s voice came out sharper than the others. His hand pulled the reins back and he was already moving, dropping from his mount before it had fully stopped. His feet hit the ground and he crossed toward the edge of the pit without slowing.
"We found him."
They descended to the floor and moved closer.
Vincent’s eyes caught a second exchange happening deeper in the pit as they closed the distance. Two figures trading blows at a speed that said neither of them was holding back. His gaze narrowed as he tracked the movement.
One of the summoners beside him went still.
"Isn’t that Eric?"
He was pointing at a young man standing at a distance from the larger figure, his body held upright but wrong, the posture of someone being supported rather than standing under their own power. Something was there beside him. A body that curved into human shape from the waist up and tapered into a serpent’s length below. It had its hands on Eric’s frame, steadying him.
It wasn’t a summon.
Vincent registered that immediately.
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Across the pit, Ethan had one hand pressed hard against a gash in his stomach.
His eyes were fixed on the two figures opposite him, working through what had just happened, replaying the sequence without letting it go.
The opening had been there. Clean. Real. He had seen it and moved on it and then the creature had simply appeared, no warning, no sound announcing it, just a serpentine body dropping into the space between his strike and its target and absorbing what would have ended the fight. Eric was still standing because of something that had no business being in this forest, something that wasn’t a summon and wasn’t a beast and had no reasonable explanation for being where it was.
He hadn’t noticed the arrivals from Jacob’s family yet.
"I think it’s best you leave."
The voice came from beside him, feminine, level, carrying the particular quality of someone stating a fact they didn’t expect to be argued with.
He turned his head.
Hela stood close enough that he could see the short dagger still loose in her hand, her eyes already moving past him toward the group that had just reached the pit floor.
She had been there.
If she hadn’t been, the creature would have finished what it started. He had no doubt about that. He held onto that fact for exactly one second before setting it aside.
His gaze followed hers toward the new arrivals.
Vincent.
His eyes moved across the group and landed on the figure at the front, taking in the posture, the quality of presence that came off someone who sat at a different tier than the people around them.
"So the glorious heir has aligned himself with a Demi-human."
Vincent’s voice carried easily through the pit, the mockery in it sitting right at the surface without pretense. His summons had come to a halt behind him, the smoke and the burning at the edges of the hollow not registering as a concern.
"What a shameful day for the first elder."
The words landed in the space between everyone present and sat there.
The alliance lines inside the Algar clan weren’t something discussed openly, but they weren’t hidden either. The fifth, sixth, third, and second elders ran one current. The first, fourth, seventh, and eighth ran the opposing one. They kept it civil at the surface level. Beneath that the tension had been building for years, patient and ugly, each side waiting for the moment the other gave them something usable.
Eric had just handed Vincent exactly that.
Working with a Demi-human wasn’t a minor transgression in the kingdom. It carried weight that went well beyond personal reputation. And Vincent was not the kind of person who would let a moment like this pass without making full use of it.
"Fuckers!!"
Eric’s voice tore out of him, the composure he had been holding shredding in an instant.
"You’re all dead!!"
He clenched his fist and the aura came off him in a sudden wave, his own output mixing with the Demi-human’s beside him, the combined pressure of the two pushing outward through the pit in a surge that made the air feel different.
The situation had shifted entirely.
Three parties now occupied the hollow.
Eric and the Demi-human, standing with the giant salamander at their back.
Vincent and the three trackers from Jacob’s family, their summons positioned and ready, their attention divided between Eric and the humanoid figure Vincent had come here specifically to find.
And to one side, unassuming, not drawing the eye in any obvious way, Ethan and Hela.
A person looking quickly would not have placed either of them as significant to what was happening. That assessment would have been wrong.
"We’re off."
Hela said it without raising her voice.
Something grabbed at Ethan’s collar with a force that didn’t ask permission.
—woosh
White light swallowed them both.
’White Transit.’
The pit was gone.
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"Keep moving." frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
Hela’s voice came immediately as the light faded, her grip already releasing as her feet found the forest floor. She didn’t look back.
"Eric doesn’t easily let go of a grudge."
The words were still leaving her mouth when a sound tore through the sky behind them, something between a scream and a roar, raw and uncontrolled, the particular sound of someone who had just watched what they wanted disappear and hadn’t accepted it yet.
Ethan looked over his shoulder without slowing.
Eric had cleared the pit.
He was in the air, eyes locked onto them, the distance between them already closing faster than it had any reason to.
Behind him, Vincent and the trackers had broken into pursuit as well, their summons moving through the trees, two separate groups moved from the same direction for entirely different reasons.
Ethan faced forward and ran.
