"Do you see that in the distance?" Venamo asked while riding.
"Sure looks like a cliff." Varma said when she peeked from behind Yilka.
"Finally. I'm tired. Let's just get this over with." Yilka said.
"We'll go up the cliff first and find the wax from the bees. From up there we'll scout the area and see where the guards are based and what routes they take." Venamo planned.
"And then I'll sneak into the camp and steal three of their weapons. It's morning and everybody will be tired and not paying attention. This will be easy." Varma suggested.
"But aren't you tired too? Can you pay attention?" Yilka asked.
"I'm just fine. I could go another night without sleeping if I have to." Varma assured.
"She is younger and more energetic than us. And also smaller and lighter. But her last attempt at sneaking around didn't go so well." Venamo said.
"Well, as long as this place doesn't have anyone who can blend into the environment, I should be fine." Varma argued.
"I know it wasn't exactly your fault back then. And just like last time, we will stay close by." Venamo replied.
"Glad that we agree on that part but how do we actually get up that cliff?" Varma asked as she looked ahead at the tall and sand coloured cliff ahead.
"We'll get a better look once we're actually there." Venamo replied.
And so once they arrived to the base of the cliff, they saw that this tall, oblong, rough edged stone slab wasn't only one cliff, but rather a wide ring with natural walls made of stone, and this was the tallest point of it.
"I suppose we could get on the lower part before we start climbing to the top." Yilka said once had hopped off his mount and was looking up.
"Well, obviously." Varma added.
Yilka gave her a tired glare.
"Anyway, what are you looking for there, Vena?" Yilka shouted to Venamo who was rummaging through the bags hanging from the sides of his mount.
"Seeing if we have any rope to help us climb up or any bottles to help us store the wax." Venamo replied.
"Well, do we?" Yilka asked.
"We have a leather satchel full of liquid. We could empty it, but then we'd have no water for the rest of the journey." Venamo said and pulled out the satchel in question.
"No, I want to empty it right here and now. It's been too long since I last drank anything. Maybe we should quench our thirst now and we should be good for a bit." Yilka suggested.
"Yes! My throat is drier than this cliff!" Varma added.
"Perhaps we should." Venamo said and chucked the satchel to Yilka.
Yilka started chugging water from the satchel and sounded very pleased.
"Leave some for the rest of us!" Varma complained.
Yilka stopped himself and chucked the satchel to Varma and felt ashamed. Once everybody had taken a drink and the satchel was empty, they all heard something. It came from above.
"Is that... music?" Varma asked as she listened to what sounded like a string instrument playing a tune up on the cliff.
"It sounds like it." Yilka added when also heard it.
"Hey! Could you throw down a ladder for..." Varma began to shout up there before Venamo blocked her mouth with his palm.
"You don't know who is up there. Could be someone who is guarding the place." Venamo whispered to her.
"What are you folk doing here?" A man said as he came from behind where Yilka was standing.
The man yanked Yilka by the right shoulder, and as he did that, Yilka spun around almost instinctively and hit the man in the jaw with a spinning elbow strike. The man fell to the ground before Yilka even knew who it was.
"I think he's fine." Varma said as her eyes were wide open in surprise.
"Shouldn't have touched me in that specific shoulder." Yilka said bitterly.
Venamo walked over to the man on the ground and inspected him.
"He's alive, but knocked unconscious. He won't be out for long, so we'll have to get out of his sight before he wakes up. His coat has the royal crest on it. He's a guard." Venamo said and then inspected the poleaxe that the man dropped as he fell.
"I don't know what this engraving on the blade of this axe is, but I assume it's the one that the Crown's forces use. I expect this weapon to suffice for the Road of Blood." Venamo said and took the poleaxe.
Varma walked over as well and compared the symbol on her metallic arrow to the symbol on the poleaxe.
"Not the same symbol. Drat. I don't think mine will count." Varma said.
"Ow!" Yilka shouted and the others looked at him.
A rope ladder enforced with planks had been dropped down and as it came down, the bottom plank hit Yilka in the head.
"Oh. Whoever is up there actually was kind enough to let us up." Varma stated.
"What else can we do but trust them? I'll go first, just in case." Venamo said and started climbing up the rope ladder.
The others looked up as he climbed and once he made it to the top, no words came from to the top for a moment, making Yilka and Varma worried.
"It's safe to come up!" Venamo's voice shouted down after a moment.
Yilka and Varma climbed up there as well one at a time, and at the top waiting for them was a man with long and shiny white hair and white robes sitting on a rock and playing a string instrument on his lap with his eyes closed. The man seemed to be peaceful and focused on what he was doing. His three guests looked at each other as if to ask how to approach him. Venamo stepped forth and decided to speak to the man in the Holy people's language.
"Did you help us?" Venamo asked the man.
"Yes. I did." The man calmly answered in the Holy people's tongue.
"Thank you." Venamo said.
The odd man continued playing his music and kept his eyes closed.
"Are there bees here?" Venamo asked.
"Yes." The Holy man answered.
"Where?" Venamo asked.
"They nest on the walls of the cliff." The Holy man answered.
"Well, this won't be easy." Venamo said to himself in his own language.
He wanted to ask the Holy man about borrowing the ladder but he didn't know the Holy tongue's word for Ladder, so he couldn't. He backed off from the man and looked down from one of the edges of the cliff. Down below he saw the quarry, where men, women, children and elders were beating rocks, wheeling carts and dragging large boulders. Observing the work were guards armed with poleaxes and crossbows. And on the cliff wall below him he saw a buzzing nest of bees sitting on a foothold of the cliff wall.
Yilka and Varma joined him at the edge and looked at what he was looking at.
"Well, how do we get down there?" Varma asked.
"I suppose all we can do is borrow that ladder without permission." Venamo reasoned.
"I'm sure he won't mind." Yilka commented.
"I don't think he'll even notice." Varma added.
"You're both right. Let's do it like this then." Venamo said and went to get the rope ladder.
The rope ladder was being held in place by having its end trapped under a large waist-high boulder. The problem was that the boulder was on the opposite side of the cliff from the beehive.
"Is the ladder long enough to reach the beehive from here?" Yilka asked.
"We don't lose anything for trying." Venamo said and started pulling the rope ladder up.
He draped the rope ladder over the surface area of the cliff's top and made it hang down from the opposite side. When they all looked down, they saw that the rope ladder couldn't reach low enough for the beehive.
"This might prove challenging." Venamo commented as they all looked down.
"What if we get the ladder out from under that boulder and then bring the ladder closer to this side? Two of us can hold it while one of us climbs it down." Yilka suggested.
"We can try that." Venamo replied.
They walked over to the boulder where the end of the ladder was trapped.
"Alright. I'll raise the boulder just enough that one of you can snatch the ladder from under it." Varma suggested.
Venamo and Yilka looked at her without saying a word.
"How about me and Yilka will lift the boulder just enough that Varma can grab the end of the ladder from under there." Venamo suggested.
"Let's do that instead." Yilka replied.
They both crouched down and put their hands to a low part of the boulder and began lifting up with all the strength they had. The boulder didn't rise a millimetre. The sound of pained grunting drowned out the sound of the string instrument being played. The pained grunting turned into loud screaming when the boulder simply refused to rise no matter how much the brothers tried. The Holy man cleared his throat loudly and seriously, and the brothers stopped trying to lift the rock.
"Well, what if I use Varma's arrow to fish the beehive and hope that they don't sting me." Yilka suggested.
"That seems a bit too risky." Venamo chimed in.
"Maybe it does but what else can we... wait..." Yilka said and went quiet.
They all quietly listened and heard the faint sound of bees buzzing. The sound was coming from the direction of the hive and it got closer every second. The music of the Holy man had changed its tune and the the bees from the hive flew to the string player and circled him in a peaceful rhythm.
"Is he trying to help us?" Varma asked.
"That's a lot of bees. I bet that's the whole hive of them. This might be our best chance to do it." Yilka said and went over to the edge.
He requested the metallic arrow from Varma and received it.
"I think it's best if I do this." Venamo requested.
"Fine, we don't have time to argue about it. You do it then since you're so much better at everything." Yilka replied in a snarky manner and handed the arrow to his brother.
Venamo quickly and skillfully climbed the ladder down, reached down to the hive and hooked the hive with the arrow and used the arrow to chuck the empty hive up where Yilka caught it with his hands, and just as quickly Venamo climbed up.
"Varma, you hold the satchel. Yilka, you hold the hive and I'll scoop up all the wax from there with the arrow." Venamo commanded like an experienced captain.
They all followed the instructions and soon enough a fourth of the satchel was filled with chunks of wax
"That's all I can extract. I'd think that's enough for at least three seals." Venamo said when he pulled out a clean arrow from the hive.
"Good. I don't want to hold this hive for a moment more. I don't know when that man will stop playing that tune. I'll just set this down here. The bees will be able find it from here." Yilka said and put the hive down.
They walked away from the hive and the Holy man changed the rhythm of his tune, and the bees returned to their hive.
"We've got it!" Varma exclaimed.
"And now we need two weapons from this camp." Venamo reminded them.
"Ready to go sneaking down there?" Yilka asked Varma.
"I... just got an idea. I can't believe we didn't think of this before but, couldn't we have just stolen the uniform of that man that Yia knocked out? Vena could have worn it and just walked into the quarry." Varma suggested.
"You're right! By now he should have woken up but we might be able to catch him before he gets out of our reach. Let's go down." Venamo said and set the ladder on the correct side again.
Venamo looked down and saw something that he didn't like seeing.
"Hmm. This is not good." Venamo said when he saw the earlier knocked out guard now digging through the side bags of the beakmounts that had been left down there.
"We can't exactly surprise him from up here. He'll notice us climbing down." Yilka pointed out.
"But we can threaten him from here." Varma said and pulled her bow from her back.
Venamo pondered for a moment silently.
"I suppose we have no better way to go about this." He admitted.
Varma took and arrow and looked down at the guard.
"Hey, you down there!" Varma shouted and drew the string of the bow back.
The guard looked up and squinted his eyes.
"Take off your coat!" Varma demanded.
"What?" The guard shouted back.
"I said! Take off your coat and leave it on the ground or I'll take it off your dead body!" Varma threatened and tried to sound powerful.
"He can't understand the words you're saying." Venamo said to Varma.
"Well, can you tell him to leave his coat on the ground?" Varma asked.
Venamo told the man at the ground exactly what Varma wished for.
The man at the ground was alone and unarmed, and couldn't really argue. He took off his coat and left it on the ground as told.
"Now run away from here! And don't even think about going into the quarry!" Venamo shouted.
The man ran away from the whole area around the quarry without his coat.
"It worked." Varma said calmly and proudly.
"Good idea you had." Yilka said proudly at Varma.
"As if I have any other types of ideas." Varma replied smugly.
"We can't celebrate just yet. Let's not waste time." Venamo said seriously and started climbing down.
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At the bottom Venamo had put on the guard's coat and hid his sword under it. He held the poleaxe in his hand and stood with a straight back to look serious and legitimate.
"You two keep watch here. If somebody finds you, don't come looking for me. If they outnumber you, ride to safety." Venamo advised.
"We won't have to ride anywhere." Yilka said and swung his enhanced glowing cudgel at the air.
"Listen to your older brother. If they outnumber you, no amount of magic will help you." Venamo said seriously.
"Fine, fine. Of course, of course." Yilka said and felt tired.
Venamo understood that as an affirmative answer and went off to look for an entrance to the quarry.
He found a wide gap in in the rocky border surrounding the quarry. The gap seemed to function as the entrance to the quarry, as it was guarded by two men with similar coats and poleaxes as Venamo. One of them raised a hand, signalling Venamo to stop. And so Venamo stopped to listen.
"Did you find Galba? He still hasn't returned?" The guard asked Venamo.
"Unfortunately I did not. That's why I want to go request some aid in finding him." Venamo quickly lied.
"I don't think the chief wants to sacrifice manpower for finding just one man, but go try anyway. Galba owes me money." The guard said and allowed Venamo to enter the quarry.
Inside the quarry Venamo could see how tall the rocky walls really appear from down there. They seemed like uncrossable borders that his people were familiar with, blocking any view of the outside. In the quarry were hills, piles of crushed rock and holes leading underground. None of the labourers looked at Venamo as he passed. Venamo figured that it must be taught behaviour. Seeing the peeled skins in their hands and the blisters on their heels and the bags under their eyes made Venamo angry inside, but didn't let it show. He knew that he had to keep his disguise. He saw ahead of him two men dragging a wooden cart behind them, and what was inside of it interested him.
"You two there. Halt!" Venamo said to them in the Vastusarian language to keep his disguise.
They seemed to understand him, and so they stopped. Venamo looked at the contents of the cart and ran his hand across it.
"Are these fine salts you're dragging here?" He asked the labourers.
"These are the fine salts we must deliver to the stop. We have the permit seals." One of the labourers replied to him in a weak but understandable effort to speak Vastusarian.
"Ah, yes. Of course. Look for a man with long black hair and a girl with short brown hair outside the quarry. They will take the cart to the... stop." Venamo said to the labourers, not exactly understanding what this so called stop even is.
"Of course, master." The labourers both said to Venamo and got back to dragging the cart.
After surveying the quarry some more, he saw some labourers shoveling crushed rock from a pile into a cart, and supervising them was a short, weak and freckled young man who seemed to be around the same age as Yilka. Venamo saw him smack the blunt end of his poleaxe on the back of the knee of one of the labourers.
"Faster, weaklings! I'm tired of watching you already." The freckled guard shouted after the labourer dropped his shovel as a result to the hit.
Venamo walked up the young guard and turned him around to face him.
"What did we tell you about needlessly beating the labourers? Hm? You're slowing down the work when you do that." Venamo said to the young guard with a commanding and serious voice that demanded respect.
"I-I'm sorry, master. This won't happen again." The young guard nervously promised.
"I know it won't..." Venamo said and snatched the guard's poleaxe away.
"...Because you'll only get this back once I grant it back to you." He continued, and then walked away from the situation with two poleaxes now.
When Venamo was walking around with two weapons, one in each hand, he realised that he looked suspicious and stood out. He didn't go looking for a third weapon because he didn't want Varma to join the Road of Blood to begin with, and decided to head out of the quarry. Right as he was approaching the exit, he felt the tip of a metal staff touch his shoulder. He stopped walking.
"What have we said about headwear?" A voice behind him asked.
Venamo didn't reply.
"Turn around. Now." The voice commanded.
Venamo didn't want to cause a scene, so he did as told. The man that Venamo now saw in front of him ripped the headband out of Venamo's forehead.
"That's better. And why are you carrying two..." The man was saying but stopped himself when he saw the mark on Venamo's forehead.
"Infiltrator!" The man screamed loudly and every guard and labourer turned to look at Venamo.
The man tried to hit Venamo with his staff but the strike was blocked by the poleaxe Venamo had in his hand. He then kicked the man in the gut and caused him to fall down. Venamo turned around and ran towards the exit, but by the exit the guards were still stationed. When Venamo was almost at the exit, the two guards pointed their poleaxes towards him. Venamo knew that he couldn't just run past them. He dropped his own poleaxes and pulled the Defiance from under his coat. He charged at the two guards, and when one of them tried to swing at him, he ducked to the side and slashed the guard's weapon in half. The other guard saw the glow of Venamo's sword and got frightened by it enough that he didn't stop him from slipping past. Venamo saw more guards running from inside the quarry and he had no time to stay still. He ran as fast as he could where Yilka and Varma were waiting.
"Get mounted! Now!" Venamo shouted at them.
They didn't argue, but jumped on the beakmount that they came with and waited for Venamo to also mount his. Once everybody was mounted, they sped away from the location.
"I didn't get the weapons, and I lost the one we had. We can't return to this place either. I'm sorry." Venamo said while they were riding away from the scene.
"So where do we go from here? Do we go look for more weapons from somewhere?" Yilka asked.
"I say we return to the Road of Blood and ask them to forge us the permit seals. We wouldn't have to steal disguises anymore." Venamo suggested.
"While you were gone, two men hauled a cart of fine salts for us. They had seals on them made of the same wax that we have now. I pressed into my memory what the seal looks like, and I think I can forge us our own now." Yilka replied.
"That better be true. That should save us some some time. I say we return to Ku. She has a safe place where we can work on the seals in peace." Venamo suggested and nobody disagreed.
"Oh. I also stuffed the side bags of my mount full of the fine salts. I'm sure we can do some bartering with them and still have some left for Nofa." Yilka mentioned.
"That is excellent." Venamo simply replied.
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Once it was clear that nobody was chasing them, they slowed down. The day was already bright and the weather was improving as a sign of spring coming. The mood among the three Uhmakians was frustrated at their failure, but not hopeless. Soon their mood turned curious, when a piercing, whistling sound blared across the skies and the hills. It was unlike any sound they had heard before, and didn't sound like it even came from a living creature.
"What was that?" Yilka asked out loud.
"I do not know, but I don't think we have the time to investigate." Venamo replied.
"I've never heard that sort of sound from any living being. Could they have found another Grand Beast that they're now trying to murder?" Varma wondered with worry in her voice.
"I don't know what else it could be." Yilka chimed in.
"Well, we can't just let them do it! We have to go stop them!" Varma insisted.
"I think we all agree with that." Venamo said and redirected his mount to the direction where the sound came from.
Once they had crossed a certain hill, they saw ahead of them a crowd of people, but more interesting than that was the long metal monstrosity that they were looking at. The beakmounts got left at the hill as Venamo, Yilka and Varma made their way to join the crowd. Venamo cut a piece of his coat to make a new headband for himself. People in he crowd were talking to each other about the big machine in front of them. It was a black metallic oblong house on wheels with a tall chimney on its roof, and the whole machine was on rails with several carts attached to its back part. The machine was guarded by armed men rocking the royal crest on their coats. On top of the machine were guards armed with crossbows looking over the entire crowd. A woman who had black hair tied into a bun and a robe maid of gilded mail with the Royal crest on it climbed on top of the machine and beat a stick into the metallic chimney to get everybody to quiet down.
"It is a great delight to see so many people travel out of town to witness the arrival of the Continent Crosser to this part of the Kingdom. The construction of the railroad has now advanced here, and for the first time the people of Uhmaksar get a chance to see the Continent Crosser with their own eyes." The woman spoke proudly.
"They've renamed this land Uhmaksar?" Venamo quietly asked himself.
"What is the meaning of that?" Yilka asked.
"Sar means Land in the language of Vastusar. But the name of our tribe is still in the name that they call the area. Hmm." Venamo replied and kept listening.
"The dedicated researchers at the King Sibisek Academy have known for years now that the Fire Feather would die soon, and so the dedicated and intelligent engineers of our great kingdom began innovating and designing a new type of machine. A self moving, environment heating machine that crosses the entire continent and melts winter away when the time comes. And now that the Fire Feather has perished, the Continent Crosser will be more needed than ever to banish winter and bring spring. It was constructed by the hardworking, honest and noble labourers of Vastusar and it is powered by the moss naturally growing in the beautiful and precious caves of this fine province of Uhmaksar, and finally you people get to reap the benefits of your of your province's resources. In addition to travelling the land to warm the air, the Continent Crosser will also move people, goods and resources across the realm, making the realm more connected than ever and starting a new era in trade. Aid to famine and drought struck areas will arrive in one day at most, when previously it would have taken weeks. People can be evacuated in large numbers from areas threatened by nature's forces or hostile rebellions. The ideas, visions and work of the Vastu man, with the guidance of our Royal Dynasty will make the Sisters and their Grand Beasts obsolete yet, and one day the Vastu race will truly be the lords of the land, because where our supposed creators and providers fall short, we deliver!" The prestigious looking woman spoke with conviction, and right when she finished, the Continent Crosser pierced the skies with its whistle again, amazing the people.
"And now it makes sense why they want the Grand Beasts and the Sisters out of the way." Venamo said to Yilka and Varma.
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