In the valley below roamed herds of hopsitaca, tickled and petted by many a farmmage. Three or so farms clustered themselves close, as to maximize the herd of these incredibly delicate masses of pink blobs floating eye level to their handlers. This area was good for their huge lungs. A clear crisp breeze sailed over hills and valleys, spreading the perfume of wild flowers from the higher white cliffs. It tasted sweet and pure, refreshing their breaths with an energy from Dureyr itself.

As far as the eye could see ran rolling hills of green and lavender like sea billows in permanent crest. This was C’fev, the valley off the Sinizac Mountains. White-washed cliffs surrounded a round of hills blanketed by sweet wild flowers. Thickets where the rosemines tunneled hugged its southern edges.

“Something’s off toward the mines.” Whispered a pair of berry-stained lips over to the Prince and fellow knifehand, Kai.

“I see it.” Kai whispered over the bridge of his bowstave. The hill grass was a natural muffle against the noise of cocking weapons.

“I think it’s a Caknot.” Another beside them guessed.

“It doesn’t move like a Caknot.” Kai worried.

“We have Caknot in Cat’a that sort of move like that...” She started.

“Which Cat’a? Bencata Holi, Shiro Kancata, or just--” The other one toyed.

“We’re all one Cat’a—“ She bit back, the Isam flair in her eyes just barely caught by that knifehand. He hushed his next quip.

“There’s another one.” Kai furrowed and scooted more forward.

“Kawa Kapawa.” The rouge-lipped woman commanded.

The knifehand lying on the other side of Kai snatched two kawa stones from his pouch. They hopped to a hover between two floating Grui.

187

As he spoke into the stones, Agent Kapawa at the bottom of the hill with three knifehands to his left looked up to the watching few and nodded. The farmmages, Kapawa and company were chatting with, stopped talking and followed his glance. Kapawa started to move the party back toward the houses.

The dark young Isam woman cited what looked to be a shoulder shimmering like blue oil in the thicket. The hint of that oily skin hulking between two trees hit her eye and she knew it immediately. “Oli-Caknot.”

“All the way up here?”

Kai could now see the right side of the creature as it lumbered along the tree line. “That troll’s still not moving right.”

“They’re not moving right.” Another knifehand corrected.

“How many do you sight?”

“Well, four now...”

“That’s way too many.” Kai summed.

“I agree.” She whispered jumping to a crouch and gathering up small balls to screw onto the ends of her arrows. “If it were one, maybe, but this doesn’t feel like a scouting trip. They’re too many of them.”

“We may have to kill’em.” Kai concluded.

“Aw, but their Caknot and the oli kind...” The knifehand at the stones whined. “Whose going to keep our rosemines?”

One of the trolls grunted and a plume of black smoke puffed as he exhaled.

“They’re gaes’d, Kendal.” Kai said regretfully, “I don’t think they’ll care about our rosemines.”

Kendal sagged for a moment then began to prep his armaments.

A Hopsitaca squealed and burst into gobs of pink flesh and greenish orange gases as one of the Oli-Caknot rushed its backside

190

from the trees. “Oh , faetz, now we have to kill them!” The rouge- lipped Averi yelled.

Kapawa drew his crimson blade and shouted orders to both farmmage and knifehand alike. Quickly the scene fell into tactics and sniping aims.

Kai on the hill above took three quick fiery shots toward the three trolls following the first. Their glistening skin flickered and lit to a yellow blaze as they lumbered toward more livestock. As he jumped up to tear down the hill he could see in full view what looked to be...the whole of the thicket moving toward the farms.

Agent Kapawa stared into the eyes of the beasts. Their eyes were not there own.

Kapawa cried ’Stringwood’ and a sudden movement of all the farmmages took aim as roots started peeling away from their stations. About five mages ran toward the moving forest as the creatures sent roots crawling into the field.

Several of the knifehands threw heated blades at the onslaught of trolls all a-lit by flaming arrows. Only one was felled. It was growing trialing to keep footing as the crowd of beast and wood advanced like a small army upon them. The knifehands and mages quaked with every earthshaking step the creatures took.

A pair of flanking knifehands were backhanded by a flaming troll to the feet of Kapawa standing center-field. He shielded them with a mage’s ward to afford them time for healing concoctions. His ward held as he huffed out curses and well practiced cants. All Agents were imbued with some form of magery, Agent Kapawa happened to be proficient in conjuring forces that mimicked solid forms. A skill in which the knifehands assigned to his command were dearly grateful.

How quickly the fray became a mess of what used to be peaceful fields and clear crisp air and lovely white flowers dotting the hills. Kai took to a clumsy run, tripped on a rising root and shot off two bolts into the chests of walking branches. They burst as the tree in the suburbs did. He huffed a chuckle at the luck of his aim.

187

“How are they all possessed?” One of the knifehands called also chuckling from disbelief next to the Prince.

“I wish I knew.” Kai scrambled to his feet.

Stringwood, like walking branches enveloped Hopsitaca like a long forgotten delicacy, gobbling them whole in one scoop. Bursts of flame and casts of prismed light cracked bark and slapped at oily Caknot to set them all afire.

They still advanced.

Kapawa sighed and dropped his reserve. He took to ending this onslaught. Not all trolls were the kill-on-sight sort. These were Ashok’s Oli-Caknot, teal trolls, who lovingly chiseled out lovely rosestone geodes from their rosemine homes in exchange for foods and company. With a mercifully skilled slice of his blade he opened the flesh of three flaming trolls advancing on a farmers door. They fell in heaps just as Kai ranked up with him firing seven shots toward the Stringwood following.

“Have they ever attacked in droves before?” Kai rushed.

“The Stringwood yes....but never our trolls.” Kapawa assured.

“What is possessing them?”

“Sub-Nature? Walking voids? I don’t know.” He seemed genuinely peeved he even had to lay crimson steel to them. As the Prince and the Agent and the farmmages on field fought, with great challenge, the beasts clearing the pastures of their precious Hopsitaca, the rest of the knifehands tossed blades and sliced and climbed Stringwood branches intending to split them down middle to end there march.

Hopsitaca that could fly away fled to the backs of the barns and houses And those that couldn’t laid splayed out wheezing within the muffling grasses.

Kai was too charged to be confused and too focused to be afraid of the trolls a-lit with flame and stringy roots flinging themselves while still advancing. He let fly bolt after feverish bolt in

190

an almost frenetic blitz as target after target burst into splinters. He shot off three bolts down the center of one teal troll and it fell over crushing two Stringwood tearing up the pastures with their pulling roots.

Then a deafening blast of prismed light crashed against his ears to the right of him. Were he not so focused on his front he’d have seen a great walking tree advancing on his flank. It lay there, at her feet, where it had crashed to the ground in a pile of its own roots. Kai flashed queried eyes over to his saviour.

Her skin was so dark; like the annoying Isam maidens by the tree he split and the rouge-lipped knifehand by his side earlier. Set against the blue of those eyes smiling back at him, the dark of her skin arrested him more than any of those before. The rosestones in her simple bone choker gleamed against it. Her tontantoa, contrasted it; coils of teal and peach etched into her perfect skin, blending in with the pulsing prism veins at her dark temples and wrists. Her black hair framed her dark round face; parted down the middle and bone straight, save the ends. He felt himself furrow. Her ends were curled and tipped with teal. He recognized her station. This woman dressed in simple tan and cream suedes had already achieved a master mage’s status, yet she couldn’t have been older than he. Even as she broke her soft gaze with him her hands were already starting to weave healing balls of yellow and white.

He resumed normal breath and could see it all now. A field of livestock on the ground puffing out small noises of pain. The hopsitaca were almost all injured. He watched her hustle over to their bodies and with the aid of four other men she slid whimpering blobs of pink off of toppled fences and sheds slowly down to flat pained comfort.

Kapawa broke the young Prince’s watch of her with a sheathing of his blade. Kai turned a startled expression back to his commanding Agent then to the field beyond. They were all dead— the Caknot; smoking there in the fields. Then the smell hit him.

187

He held his upper sinuses as Kapawa huffed in frustration, “Something wicked must be getting through the burning wall.” Kapawa opened. “The Caknot live so close to it.”

“Someone must be letting it in.”

“How many times has this been?” The rouge-lipped woman questioned.

“Somewhere around fourteen possibly, maybe, fifteen.” another knifehand recounted.

“Nothing like this though.” Kapawa looked up the hill to the dot in the middle of its crest that was Anter. “Nothing with our Oli.”

“Sooner or later war comes to every land.”

“Leave a detail to help the farmmages.” Kapawa ordered.

Fifteen or so knifehands and askari broke away from the company to scatter about the fields in aid to the farmmages. Some of them had their faces covered with masks as Hagoniel hands removed toxic organs carefully from those hopsitaca that didn’t make it.

“Well I can say the askari and the knifehands have filled out their ranks. We definitely needed the warriors.” Kai waved about a limp hand.

“Of course, we’ve been a nation at silent war for what now, almost three cycles?” A ranking knifehand reminded.

“You mean like the rest of Dureyr?” Kapawa scoffed.

“Well it’s apparent we know where the sister Wolf gets her Fangs from, eh Kai?” The knifehand complimented with wide eyes.

“And a terror at that... your sister would do well to keep you on close guard.” The rouge-lipped knifehand flirted.

“Kawa the rest of the Agents, one of us will need to investigate.” Kapawa commanded. One of the knifehands nodded and spoke into a stone. Kapawa wasn’t a new Agent anymore but he did lean heavily on the wisdom of his formers. Here, in the light of scattered skirmishes and wayward sympathizers he found himself

190

reporting all findings to those even outside of his command. His belly ached with the thought of sick ends approaching this day.

187