Chương 206: 7.7

Valasect had collectively ended up buying four more of the white giants that the peddler called Prized Epirus Cattle. Jewel and Paul's Dowery had been skimmed for the actual coin to pay the peddler of course. These additions to Jewel's Demesne were then split between the families with grazing that had been too rough for anything but goats until now. It had been impressive to see how sure the hooves were of such massive beasts on even rough terrain.

The shining white of their milky fur over muscles flexed and showed the fitness of the beasts. And the show of their agility and strength had stilled concerns from Adorján and the Shepherd's wife while delighting the rest of the village. Jewel's main contribution to the exchange was to insist they share no close blood relations between the beasts. Now it was evening and Jewel needed to discuss what her husband had heard gossiping with the Mercenaries.

"I've sent birds to the farthest contacts I have to the south and west. As close to the under and over ways that lead into the lands of Cantor or its great sea as I can trust. We will need to make a tour to exchange birds for some of them. Their replies will be the last they can send." Jewel sighed heavily before taking a long and savoring drink from her evening stew pot. Only just taking the time to actually chew and taste the meat and vegetables.

"The wings of the dove are already faster than I can fly. But what of the mercenary's word?" Paul took a heavy breath there.

"I don't doubt his words, the other mercenaries and the peddler and minders speak similarly. My mother's men also agree that it's the same news they were spreading when they first made their way through Kaeketeh. Beyond that though I can't say, we don't get a lot of travelers out here in Valasect." Jewel took another long sip of her stew. Focusing on slicing through the soft vegetables with her teeth, the flavor of the meat, the roots that had been cut up and cooked soft.

The flavors of the pork fat and stewed marrow. She was not certain but Dariusz' cooking might be getting better than his mother's! Which was astounding and something Jewel was intending to verify on her visit this Debt's Season.

"And none of them know what he meant. about the 'yolk' being something peculiar?" Paul sopped up the last of his own stew with a piece of bread.

"No more than he himself had to say Jewel. I know you heard the same as me even before you went off to watch the bulls jump and vault along the rocks." She sighed, her Husband could do much but there was little that could be squeezed further but the concern that somehow someone had found a way to force wyrm hatchings left her yearning to stay braced for danger. Her neck strained to twist back into a tight spring ready to bite or annihilate with her flame.

Wings wanting to flex wide in preparation to lift her clear and away into the sky. Jewel forced herself to relax, there was no immediate danger here. Nothing that she could do until messages arrived from afar. Whether by bird or rider or slow plodding foot she could only wait and all her panicked posturing did was cramp her muscles and ruin her sleep. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. She took a heavy deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"Very well, Were there any other messages that came late in the day? I must admit I was distracted by seeing such bulls frolicking like goats." But before Paul could finish chuckling there was a sound! A great and terribly wet sound like someone had sank an entire herd of the heavily muscled Epirus bulls into a cloying mire and then all as one heaved them up and into the air. Water did not merely pool in the still freshly hewn stones of Jewel's feasting hall.

It burst and squeezed and bloomed like some black sulfurous flower. Slapping wet and meaty strands of barely flesh like vines that scrambled blindly around before finding one another and binding close and tight! The slick oozing sound was familiar and bizarre. Jewel had witnessed a far more careful and composed form of it many times. But this was not how Tsulogothulan had ever arrived before. The fierce immediacy of it coming on so rapidly Jewel had been completely caught off guard.

That it also took the Weird of the Uloghai Bog several seconds to fully compose into even their more casual and inhuman shape left Jewel in growing unease. Paul was far less used to the comings and goings of her many year friend. But she would forgive him the maiden like squeal. After the great eye of the Bog Wizard had finished blinking open and rolled around to focus Jewel tried to ask what had Tsulogothulan in such a hurry. But words burbled over in a torrential rush. Like heavy rains they came in torrents.

Thunder on the horizon. Warning dire and ominous latent in the tone before Jewel even fully apprehended the other more mundane meanings." Countess Bathory is dead! Slain by one of her own footmen! They stabbed her through the heart, The people of Kaeketeh have torn her to pieces and are burning her remains on a pyre as we speak!" Jewel only realized she had rushed forward through her dining table after it was already done. The frail wood rendered asunder under her weight and motion like a bundle of straw.

The sound of clattering bowls and spilled stew. The feel of it between her toes was slimy. There was only one thing that filled her mind though." The Dungeon! Does Jaksa still secure the Dungeon!?" Her friend shook their head in a way that made Jewel's flame go cold. The feel of it suddenly burning like snow when Gem had first played in winter." Jaksa the Red and all of his charges are already gone from Kaeketeh. He took them and fled as soon as Bathory perished.

By his claim they will be gone from Viznove and all of the Realm of Cantor Reborn in three days' time." Jewel felt a terrible fear ease ever so slightly. Kaeketeh was not an abattoir of torn apart husks drained of every scrap of life. There was not an imminent army of ever hungering living dead running like the wind for the people of Rochford. The sudden silence was disturbed by the strained voice of her husband.

"My wife, good wizard for those of us that don't speak whatever tongue that is, could you please explain what is going on?" Jewel blinked. Tsulogothulan stared at Paul then turned back to Jewel.

"Jewel, when did you learn to speak Uloghai?" To which she could only stare back in absolute bafflement. What was the Weird talking about?

"I didn't?!"