Chương 93: The Two Dying Fields

Following the blocked channel downstream brought them to a field of white flowers. None were in bloom. Every bud at the end of the stalks had curled inward and dried brown. When Kichan touched one leaf, it crumbled beneath his finger.

"This is molly?" Seria lifted a withered stalk.

"Yes. It is eaten as food and used in medicine to bring down fever." A human farmer sitting on the edge of the field closed one fist around the soil.

"They released poison upstream."

"Who did?" The farmer jerked his chin toward the far side of the channel.

"Who else but them?" Kichan gave no answer. He pulled up one root. Its tip had softened into black rot. When he brought it to his nose, the sweetness was followed by the smell of rusting iron.

"What happens if someone eats this?"

"It upsets the stomach. If it is bad, they burn with fever and their hands and feet lock up."

"I saw people like that in the shelter." Theor nodded.

"They ate molly porridge." Kichan placed the root in a separate outer pocket of the magic bag. The human farmer shot to his feet.

"Where are you taking that?"

"The other side."

"To give it to them?"

"Why would I give them a rotten root?"

"Then why-""To compare it." Kichan crossed the channel without listening further. The marsh on the demihuman side swallowed his feet to the ankles. Mandragora roots shaped like human faces showed between broad leaves. Roots that normally would have screamed when pulled hung limp without moving. An herbalist raised a short sickle when Kichan's party approached.

"The human army blocked the water."

"I already heard that."

"What?"

"The other side says you poisoned them." The herbalist's ears flattened. Kichan laid the molly root beside a mandragora stalk. When he cut away the rot with the tip of his knife, the same black spots spread through both interiors.

"They died the same way."

"You are saying that human weed is the same as our medicine?"

"The plants are different. What killed them is the same." Kichan looked upstream.

"Let's go up." The channel divided in two behind the hill. One branch descended toward the molly field, the other toward the mandragora marsh. The farther they climbed, the murkier the water became. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Valkyrie settled at the edge. The moment one side of its small body touched the water, the surface turned dark red. Valkyrie pulled away at once and climbed onto Kichan's wrist.

"That hurt, didn't it?" Its body trembled once. Kichan did not touch the water himself. He dipped in a branch. When he drew it back, the bark was stained black.

"This wasn't poured in recently." Seria studied the stain.

"How can you tell?"

"Fresh poison wouldn't cling to the soil like this." Kichan scraped the black residue from the channel bed with the tip of the wake-up rod. It had baked on like mud.

"It was buried for a long time. Then the water dropped and exposed it." Farther up the hill, they found a half-buried metal plate carved with an ancient magic circle. The bones and rotted hide of a horned monster were tangled beneath it. Theor knelt and wiped dirt from the markings.

"A mana dispersion plate from the old Kingdom War."

"Dispersion, my foot." Kichan tapped it with the wake-up rod. Black water seeped from the gap.

"It's doing a great job spreading poison." Argaon started to reach over the plate, then stopped and moved his nose.

"The smell of winter water has dried into this." Beside the carcass, a waterline remained as high as an adult's knee. The line on the metal plate was lower, and layers of black residue had baked into the cracked channel below. Kichan pointed first at the waterlines, then the black grooves.

"The water dropped a little at a time all winter. Every time more of the plate and carcass came out, the mana residue dissolved and leaked into the channel." The tip of his rod followed the two branches.

"And both fields were at the ends." Kichan searched the magic bag. He took out a piece of wyvern horn and a bundle of black roots.

"Riphiel. Grind this."

"Why must I do it?"

"Should I leave it to Dust?" Dust, which had been running toward the gleaming plate, stopped. Riphiel accepted the mortar without another word. Kichan cut the black root and pressed out its juice. The wyvern-horn powder caught scattered mana, while the root juice made the poison clump together. He released the thick mixture into the channel a little at a time. At first, nothing happened. Then small grains formed in the dark-red water. They stuck to one another until they became lumps the size of a palm.

"It works." Kichan lifted one out with the tip of the wake-up rod. The water pooled upstream surged forward all at once.

"Wait." The poison that had not yet hardened rushed toward both branches. Kichan moved stones into place, but the gap was too wide. Batu planted one forepaw into the bank and packed down the earth. Water still leaked through the middle. Valkyrie leaped from Kichan's arm. Its small body pressed into the center of the channel. Even stretched to both sides, it could not cover the entire gap. The current pushed against its surface, making its body tremble.

"Valkyrie, get out." Valkyrie did not let go. Instead, it swelled. A body barely larger than a palm spread until it could cover a child. Its thin surface sealed the cracked waterway. Clean water divided into the two branches, while black residue remained in the central pool. Kichan stared with his mouth open.

"Did you do that on your own?" Valkyrie's edge lifted once.

"Hold on a little longer." Kichan and Riphiel cleared away the hardened lumps. Batu trampled the bank and packed the collapsed soil. Dust dove toward a shiny piece in the water, only for Kichan to catch it by the scruff.

"That isn't food." Dust paddled its legs through the air. Once the last lump was removed, Kichan lifted Valkyrie from the water. Its enlarged body sagged and slowly shrank. It lay flatter than usual across his palm.

"Why would you do that without saying anything?" Valkyrie answered by clinging to one finger. Kichan placed it on his shoulder and followed both waterways downhill. Clear water filled the dry furrows of the molly field. Water free of the black smell soaked into the mandragora marsh as well. Dead roots did not revive at once. But the small new leaves stopped turning black. Kichan chopped healthy molly leaves and pieces of mandragora.

When he matched their properties into an antidote, the result was an ugly gray-brown. The human farmer wrinkled his nose at the bowl.

"You put that root in it?" The demihuman herbalist picked up a molly leaf.

"Why is a human plant in our medicine?"

"Don't take it if you don't want it." Kichan gave the first dose to a human patient at the shelter. The locked fingers slowly uncurled. The fever also fell in the demihuman soldier who drank the same medicine. Neither side said anything more. Kichan looked at what remained and smiled.

"They work together better than I expected."

"Both sides will dislike that choice of words." Riphiel spoke.

"Why? The medicine works." One messenger from each side arrived near sunset. The human messenger said their commander had classified the incident as residue from an old battle rather than an attack.

"The hardliners..." The messenger bit his lip and swallowed the rest. The demihuman messenger handed over a similar document. The tribal council had asked their commander why there had been any reason to save the human field as well. Kichan looked from one document to the other.

"Why are they being blamed for saving fields?" Seria could not answer at once. Between them, the clean water continued flowing into both branches.