Chapter 14

With the meeting concluded, we said our goodbyes to Vestra and planned our next steps.

“Well, I am not sure that went very well, but I guess that we will soon see,” I said with a sigh.

Janet nodded, “It is done, the next step is figuring out where the Voguel are hiding and launching their attacks from.”

“It was easier in Bardack due to the smaller number of Voguel attacks,” I said as I pondered the problem. “You have centuries of such attacks and they keep coming back. We would need to pour through all of the data Vishant has to even have an idea on where to start.”

Ingrid raised her hand, “What if Janet and I meet with the commanders and you and the rest of the girls go to the historical offices inside of the city?”

“After what we said and did in the presence of the Dran, I would be surprised if we are even allowed in,” I replied with a laugh. “I am sure he would take great pleasure in denying us.”

Faye laughed and said, “Very true, but news got around of your fight, as well as you lifting the portcullis. I do not think anyone would stop you at this point, not unless they had a few battalions behind them.”

With our plan of action set, we left and went about our business. There was no difficulty getting into the city and we wove our way through the town to the historical offices. When we entered, we expected there to be no one around but we found a woman tending to it.

“Oh,” the woman exclaimed as she turned and noticed us. “Welcome to the historical records repository. My name is Elinia. How may I help you today?”

I smiled and said, “Hello, my name is Davik. I am working with the Torgal and I wanted to get some information. Do you keep records of the Voguel attacks?”

“We do,” she relied with a nod. “However, the current Dran has not seen the importance of maintaining those records. He has fired or moved everyone but me out of here and I am sure, soon enough, the same will happen with me.”

“What about animal movements? For hunting and migrations purposes?” I asked.

“We did that as well,” Elinia replied, “but that stopped as well. What is it you are looking for, there?”

I smiled, “Wolf pack movement patterns. Specifically where they are keeping away from.”

She looked at me with curiosity, “Why would that have anything to do with the Voguel?”

“We noticed something odd when dealing with the issue present in Bardack,” I said, as I started looking along the various shelves of books. “Wolves, real ones, stay clear of areas occupied by the Voguel. They seem to sense that they are a threat and steer clear. Wolf packs will go out of their way to not get within a thousand meters of an area full of Voguel.”

Her eyes widened in shock, “By the gods, how is it no one has thought of this before?”

I turned to her and replied, “Your people have been tormented by these beasts for over a millennium. They have kept you on the defensive and kept their movements silent and untraceable. The one that had tried in Bardack was a bit clumsier and did not always attack during blood moons. This lack of pressure from him allowed us to look for signs and led us to find this clue.”

I turned back towards the shelf I had been searching and the others spread out through the room to search the other bookshelves. After an hour of searching we had collected fifteen books covering mostly the movement patterns of the fauna in Vishant. I was surprised at how much information was gathered, despite the constant threat of Voguel. The rest were documentation of the various attacks of Voguel over the last two or three centuries.

We dove into the books, looking for some clue as to where to start our search. Even Elinia helped search for the information and she documented every piece of information we found. It was close to evening meal when we finished, and we all thanked Elinia for her help.

“It was my pleasure,” Elinia replied with a smile. “I will continue to look through these documents and books for information for as long as I can. Let me know where to reach you and I can send what news I learn through a carrier bird.”

We agreed and thanked her again before making our way back to the inn. Janet and Ingrid were on their way back as well and from what I was sending, things did not go as she had hoped. I had not been able to follow what happened, as I had been distracted with our own tasks, but I was sure I would hear about it very soon.

We entered the inn and went directly to our rooms. Faye left to give them our meal orders and the rest of us waited for Ingrid and Janet to return. It took about half an hour before they arrived, and Janet burst into the room. We were waiting at the table with the food we ordered, and I got up to embrace her. I could tell that she had been visibly upset and even the link could not calm her down.

“What happened love?” I asked softly, hoping that my voice would soothe her a bit. “What has gotten you so upset?”

She buried her face into my chest for a few moments, then replied, “It was a disaster. They did not want to hear anything I had to say. Instead they hounded me about your abilities and where they came from. While the display had dealt with questions about your ability to fight the enemy, it also put a target on your back. When they started actively talking about ways to possibly capture you, I broke the table in half with my fist. They all looked at me in shock and terror. I looked at all of them and told them we are here to kill the Voguel. The Dran had stated he does not care about a cure, only protecting his own interests. You could see how he separated the people of his capital. Those loyal are protected by giant stone walls and those who show dissent have been exiled where they are easier targets. I warned them that if this continued, we would leave and take the ability to defeat the enemy with us. The cure was only one step and all the enemy has to do is wait a century or two for them to become complacent. Then it can start all over again, but this time we would not be there to help.

“I warned them that I would ensure that Bardack closed its borders to Vishant and that they would post military ships along the lake to prevent anyone from crossing. They all looked horrified by the prospect and began telling me that I was over-reacting. They questioned why I would be protecting a foreigner over my own people. I reminded them that you had saved my life and that I swore a blood oath to you. That finally shut them up and they knew that I was serious. I told them that we would look for our enemy’s base and when we found it, we would be ready to strike. I did warn them that the Dran will possibly try to stop us, as freedom from the threat of the Voguel means that his people would turn their eyes on him, and he would find himself out of a job very quickly. I left it at that, but I had a feeling that they would still help us, though the relationship I had with them before would now be strained.”

I hugged her for a few more moments and then guided her to the table. Once seated, we began enjoying the meal while I went over what we had discovered in the historical records office.

I ate a mouthful of food and began. “It seems that they have not really been keeping records within the office for the past decade. People have either been fired or transferred out by the Dran. One woman was there, Elinia, who helped us in our search. I promised her we would give her our next destination so she would be able to send any information she may discover after we leave. What we did find out is that there is a fifty to one-hundred-year gap between when one attack ends and the next starts. Given we do not know how long a Voguel can live, we do not know if they are only rebuilding their forces or if they are also rebuilding their hierarchy. From what I was able to figure out, their attacks always originate in the northern section of the province, however they are spaced out and random before getting more frequent as they near the capital. This can mean one of two things.

“The first is that they build a momentum as they attack and build their forces, meaning that their hidden stronghold is in the north. The other is that they are traveling north from somewhere and are hiding somewhere within the center of the province.

“The problem is that it is relatively hard to know which is correct until we find out more information. I have Elinia looking for more animal information in regard to the wolf packs in the region, but there seemed to have been even less information than the attack records. One thing I did notice is that they rarely attack the capital; in most cases they are pushed back before they reach that far, which is odd. One would think that they would want to topple the Dran as soon as they could. Still, it begs the question, why are they not attempting it? Is there something here that they cannot deal with and thus stay clear? Could they be working towards something that we may not foresee? Could there be a limitation that we do not know about in regard to the Voguel? They have been pushed back time and time again. Only recently has your government developed a method to test for the curse, and the Torgal were only formed in the last year or so. Still, we know more now than we did before. I brought the books about the animal migrations with me, hoping that we might find something out from them about where wolves would be actively trying to avoid.”