Orlogne's Secrets

Vera hadn’t talked to them since yesterday. She presumed it was Antoine avoiding her. However, steadfastly so, she resorted to maintaining her regular routine: waking early, getting dressed, eating early, and then praying. Their roots were rooted in religiosity though fading. Vera let the woods be her Eldant. The crickets and waking birds sung her hymns and orchestrated music. Let this be a good mission. Let this be a fast mission. Let this be an honorable hunt, Venan. The wind swayed the branches, and she opened her eyes when a flock cawed above her. Her ears perked at a snapping twig. Other gruff swears, and she knew it was them.
“We’re here,” Antoine announced. Percy shushed him to which Antoine scoffed: “It’s not like we’re in an Eldant. It’s the bloody woods.”
“Oh, like you haven’t given me shit for interrupting you,” Percy hissed.
Vera sighed. 
“It’s fine, I’m done,” Vera sighed.
When she turned, Vera spotted three horses posted behind the duo. Antoine presented them as though the image of three horses surrounded by spruce and two sinewy men was a grandiose painting to behold. Vera draped her pendant over herself.
“Our horses, milady,” he said.
“My lady. Did you bring gold?” Vera said. “There’s an inn between here and Chantal.”
“We normally stay in Cuverhalle,” Percy said.
Percy shifted in the warm morning light. What she knew of the Aysalian was minimal besides the brief description De Luc offered her. He worked in the archives at Chateau-de-Blanc before moving south, but beyond that, he was a mystery. Physically though, Vera could admit from the elegant dark curls around his long tan face and slightly humped nose between two beautiful hazel eyes, that he was attractive.
“No, we can go to an inn,” Antoine said.
“Why?” Percy asked. “You said we’re broke?”
“Well, I didn’t say that, and Vera’s… not used to Orlogne. I think an inn would do better,” Antoine said.
I’m not used to Orlogne? What does that even mean?
“I’m aware of Cuiverhal—”
“Cuverhalle,” Antoine cut in “It’s a covert post when heading Chantal’s way. We can go to the inn though. I know which one your talking about,” Antoine assured.
“We should save money in case of injuries,” Vera insisted agreeing with Percy.
Antoine gave a long winded sigh. I’m a Black Chasseur. I can handle some countryside, Vera thought.  She wasn’t so posh or city born she couldn’t sleep in some woods. Percy pointed to Vera and smiled.
“See, she has some sense,” he said.
Antoine eyes darted between them before he sighed. He turned towards his horse and mounted. “Let’s go.”  
They began their trek through the tunnel and parting through a curtain of ivy to the forests of Orlogne. They  road down cobble roads and over white river rapids full of leaping fish. They followed along that river then, the Weissfall. She once even heard that it had the most waterfalls in the empire’s lush landscape. Which made enough sense with the towering blue Riesse mountains as it’s terrain. 
Nicolas, Antoine’s older brother, told her in the training yards of the Chateau-de-Blanc, all about Orlogne. They’d sit on the walls and she’d listen to his fear of avalanches and mudslides brought on by torrential storms. Just looking at the mountains scaled above her made her sense of megalophobia sink in. She shivered. Her gaze traveled up the road to Antoine. The enormity, it was like nothing else. He rode steadily ahead of her, so she dared approach.
“Antoine,” Vera began.
Antoine didn’t say anything. He rather raised a brow whilst giving a sideways glance. Sometimes, she found it hard to look at him. It was as though she could see Nick. His features they were both slim. Sharper, but the key difference between them were their eyes. While Antoine had icy blue eyes, Nick’s were a russet brown. 
She swallowed her pride.
“How has Mondruhe treated you?” Vera asked.
Antoine turned his head looking into the woods. 
“Horrible, but that’s typical,” he shrugged. “Does Tressaint treat you and Leon well?”
Her son. He’d be five when autumn came. He was a glad child. Always curious and ornery. “We’re happy. Lorraine came to visit. She’s nearly done schooling.”
Antoine smirked faintly. “She wrote she had an apprenticeship offer.”
“From the likes of a good house. The Van Deist. With how her professor speaks of her, she seems destined to prosper.”
“Isn’t he the painter?” Percy interjected.
She nodded. 
“I heard they’re shit. A bit too vintage for the likes of court,” Antoine grumbled to himself.
“As if you’d recognize good art, Antoine. Do you know who would? Lorraine.”
Vera laughed. That was true.
“She has good reason to be confident. I hear conjuring is one of the harder dialects of sorcery.”
Antoine shrugged. “I’m aware, I worry she bites off more than she can chew at times.”
“You’ll find that trait in most sorcerers.”
Antoine went silent. With that, he glowered at her before kicking back his spurs and set his horse running in the distance. She sighed remaining with Percy in his dust. He glanced to her as they went on the road together.
“Does he do that a lot?” she asked.
“His mood will pass when he’s had food,” he said.
“I’ll pray it does.”
They rode on parting to the right side on a forked road. The serpentine paths grew darker and rougher while the sun began to set casting the sky like a ripe peach. Hues of orange and pink shone tinting the sparse clouds with yellow light while their undersides were dark pink. The forest thinned around abandoned houses conquered over by ivy and leaf litter burying them in shallow graves. They stopped with Antoine dismounting as he hauled off his things. Vera looked around with furrowed brows. She had expected something different. An actual village.
“Is this the covert post?” she asked.
Antoine nodded. “Yeah, tomorrow we’ll come off the mountain, and we’ll reach Chantal in two hours.”
Vera wasn’t sure if they should stay in ruins. She presumed a proper house would be ready for them. Not this. Not ruins. The further she looked the more she saw. Shattered windows, rotting timber, and caved roofs. Antoine pulled his horse down a small cobble path lining a creek surrounded on both sides with stone walls. Vera scrunched her face seeing water turned bright orange with the center where it was deeper being a murky brown. The edges and stone turned yellow. Antoine walked right past it turning past the pond it poured into.
They came into a house that was surrounded by earth. Half of it’s roof was caved in with ferns and ivy growing above. The stone threshold was carved with Elder runes. The keystone bearing a hound symbol in it. This really is the post. They had plenty places like this that the Chasseurs could nestle in if they couldn’t make it across long distances. Some were there simply as points to rest in away from villages for privacy. They began setting up as she took off the musket slung on her shoulder to hold it.
“I’ll do a perimeter sweep,” she said.
For all she knew in this abandoned village, anything could be hiding.
“We’ve stayed plenty in this village. If anything was here, it would have made itself known, and those runes were placed by our high sorcerer, we have nothing to fear,” Antoine assured.
“It’s good to be sure,” Vera said.
Antoine sighed tossing his bag. “We are sure, and besides, Orlogne isn’t the same as your fancy city. We're better staying put in here.”
She raised a brow. “It’s standard procedure.”
“So?”
“It’s placed there for a reason.”
“Because it works so well?” Antoine grumbled.
“Thank you, Vera. We’ll set up your spot for you,” Percy cut in.
Antoine crossed his arms and turned from her. She did the same.
The sun was nearly set. The trees shadows morphed into a blanket of shade while a chill wind went with fluttering birds above. The light chatter of crickets quieted with each path she came up on. The homes for most of it were clear. Their rotting floorboards still bore what remained of furniture. She closed the doors if she could on the homes. She checked them for any nesting creatures that would creep upon them, or any people hiding that would rob them. All clear. Quiet. She was so used to the noisy stone forest that was Tressaint that she nearly forgot how much she appreciated silence.
“Vera!” Antoine called.
“I’m almost done!” she called back.
By the Elder, he’s worse than my cats, she thought. Always whining. She came around a corner finishing up her perimeter from the house. In her path, she saw chips of white. Her brow raised while she looked over at the ground. The wind had a strange song. Rattling above her. All around. She raised her gaze to bones tied together like wind chimes. She shuddered grasping her gun as she stepped back.
“What in the…” she began.
Her gaze traveled down to the a circle of stones stacked with rusted lanterns and branches twined together in wreaths with silver rings surrounding a pile of human bones. She took a step back as a hand grasped her shoulder. She jolted twisting around seeing Antoine. He stepped back with his hands raised.
“Vera?” he said.
Vera panted. The way it was, it was so similar to what she’d seen in Tressaint. Deep beneath the catacombs where she lost nick. The bones rattled when anyone or a light breeze swept through. 
“Vera?” Antoine whispered.
His hands seized her musket while she panted. Her eyes scanned over the bones piled in the middle. The mound of skulls, rib bones, and all sorts. Some reverence was put to it. Old candles melted and in rusted candlesticks scattered near the rocks encircling them. 
“Vera,” he repeated. “Shit, it’s okay. We’re safe.”
“Sorry, I,” she cut herself off and shook her head. She didn’t want to look incompetent. “Antoine, what is this?”
Antoine eyes settled over the bones. Hip bones spread around at the base at best. It was almost ritualistic. 
“We call them a morakreis. Souls that didn’t go through proper rites of death, the Eldants here will build them to protect the souls from corruption and corrupting. They’re will be more, so you should stay close. Falling into one can lead to all sorts of things can happen.”
Vera’s stomach tightened. She’d wondered what happened to the villagers, but it seemed the citizens of Cuverhalle were with her now. Their souls trapped within the boundaries of the stone circle and totems. Tears near welling up in her eyes. Antoine turned her away with him and walked with her then. Her gaze remained transfixed. Going up the skulls to see the smaller ones, the children, were placed on top. She couldn’t bear to look.
“Why?” she whispered.
“You won’t like it,” he said. “My father once said. Some things are better left not told.”
She wasn’t a child though. Her hand wondered to her stomach and it made her long to be home. “I want to know.”
Antoine sighed. “You won’t like it.”
“I’d prefer to be informed than ignorant.”
He pressed his lips into a fine line and bowed his head. For a moment, he looked like Nicolas.
“Fine, when my country was taken by yours, if our local lord didn’t bend the villages paid with everyone’s life, but when they did bend, it was just the men till the country surrendered,” Antoine said. Her lip trembled at the horror. Did people have such little respect for each other then? He sighed. “I knew this would upset you.”
A snake bite would have made her flinch less than the way he hissed his words. He turned walking ahead of her. It was like him. To place the blame for something that she didn’t know. All she wanted was for things to go back to what they were. When they were simply friends.
“Its description just said it was an abandoned mining town, I just thought the ore ran out,” Vera said. “I didn’t know.”
“I know, but I told you to not bother doing a perimeter sweep. You never listen,” he snapped. He then turned pointing back at it. “The truth is often buried. You have to dig to find out what’s hidden. How else can we move on, and what’s hidden is people following orders they shouldn’t have, but you’re all about following orders, remember?”
Vera went silent. Well, that’s unfair, she thought. She followed him by his heels. They weren’t talking about the morakreis anymore. It was about his brother Nick. What happened to him and what happened between them. Neither addressed it since, but Vera wouldn’t live in silence. With the black coat she donned—she earned and waited—she could do right by Nick. He’d get justice.
“I couldn’t do court martials, trials, suspensions… Our family needed me, yours. I was only able to get a chance to do this now because I stopped. There were more important things.”
Antoine turned back towards her shaking his head. He laughed.
“We had a lead, a witness beyond ourselves, and I… I lost my parents, my brother to that woman and when we had a chance to catch her, you tossed it.”
Her mother had come to her privately and demanded that she stop. Orders from the Blanc Chasseur. The threat was simple. Non-compliance would be a suspension, and if she were to ever mess up again it would be court-martial. The order lacked both resources to be patient, and forgiving. It was non-negotiable for Vera. The only mistake was asking grand-father about it. They were suddenly stationed apart. All their evidence discarded as they deemed the cases closed. But, now they were here about to have their first investigation together in three years. Together, they settled into the warm glow of a fire set in the middle of the stone floor. There Percy remained close to it spinning a small pots contents. Bobbing squash and leek floated in the fragrant broth. She wiped her nose sitting down.
“Are you two alright?” Percy asked.
Vera glared at Antoine while he set down her musket and things. He pulled out a rolled quilt and laid it smooth across the floor.
“She saw the morakreis, that’s all,” Antoine remarked.
That’s all. He’s acting like its just nothing, Vera thought. Percy scrunched his face.
“I was also shocked when I saw one. I was unlucky though because I tripped into one, so Antoine had me go to an Eldant to get treated.”
Vera furrowed a brow. “Treated?”
“Lorraine explains it in a much better way, but I guess souls need a body in this realm or whatever. Two souls cannot exist in one body, and that’s what happened to Percy,” Antoine said laying down.
“You got possessed?” Vera said. 
I should probably learn as much as I can about him. I don’t even know what type of Chasseur he is. If he’s a scout, cartographer, messenger, linguist, or bestiary, Vera thought. Percy glowered whilst pointing a spoon at Antoine. He sat towards him confused. 
“If he wasn’t being such an arsehole I wouldn’t have left for a walk and tripped into a ravine. I had no idea that Orlogne had a million gorges,” Percy said.
“I warned you twenty times. Gods know how many people vanish in these woods because of them.”
Vera managed a smirk which in turn made Percy smile. She straightened her posture trying to stave the heat rising her cheeks. She coughed into her fist.
“People go missing here often?” she asked.
“It’s worse near the border which makes sense. Strixany makes a few attacks, people die, and so on,” Percy said. “People though, also like to make jokes that you must follow the rules of these mountains to keep living in them. If not, the giants swallow you." 
“They’re rules for people that aren’t familiar,” Antoine said. “And they’re practical. Like not going places alone.”
“That doesn’t stop people from going missing. Remember what Dufresne said to us. Our whole case is about missing friends…”
“Dufresne works here now?” she asked.
She knew that name. He was stationed with her in the Chateau-de-Blanc before she was made into a Black Chasseur. Last she remembered, he was one of the candidates with her, and by Idelgar, the god had forged him strong. He wielded a large hammer if she remembered correctly. She only was picked above him because of her experience with higher level cases. She didn’t doubt her parents had something to do with it too. It helped to have two Black Chasseurs as parents. 
“Ugh, we forgot to tell De Luc what Dufresne said. Do you think he’ll be mad?” Percy said.
“Who cares? He’ll pop a vein with anger whether we do what he wants or not,” Antoine said reaching towards the food.
Vera raised a brow. “What did he say, if I may ask?”
Percy hit the spoon hard against the cauldron and he squinted his eyes. He scratched his temple saying: “He said something like ‘Oh, if De Luc needed some help he’d help her out with the investigation and then he made a strange comment akin to something like —”
“He did not say all that,” Antoine cut in. A smile peaking on his face.
“What do you mean?”
“Percy, he did not say all that—”
“Well, anyway, he said something like: ‘I’ll send some Chasseurs out to find Favager, and Roethlisberger’. Not that I think he will. I don’t how he remains so muscled for how lazy he is. All his Chasseurs tell me…”
Percy trailed off talking with Antoine about the Captain. It was concerning that he even knew the information, although he was the Captain of Kajensee region. The intel could be exchanged between De Luc. Despite that, Vera still felt concerned. They’re efforts were meant to be covert. Despite her knowing that it was proper to explain their purposes in his region, De Luc had ordered her to not consult him so she obeyed.
“Vera, what can we expect at the Colonel’s Encampment?”
Vera raised a brow. “Pardon?”
Antoine laughed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Antoine raised a brow. He laughed. “Some soldiers were saying you were there. What are you talking about?”
“I haven’t even formally met the Colonel.”
Vera tensed. Antoine lifted his bowl of soup and drank some broth. He swore saying that the soldiers must have had rotted brains and some other insults. He moved on quickly and settled into his spot to sleep. Percy reached over and began pouring himself more soup.
“So… How did you two meet?” Percy asked.
Vera managed a smile. “His brother, Nicolas, and I were partners, and he took me to Wolkistadt to meet his family…” she let her words trail off.
The events that led to their marriage were more akin to an arrangement than anything akin to romantic love. She did love, Antoine, as a sister might, but she doubted Antoine held affection for her even as a friend. It wasn’t so bad in the beginning. He came as a man of his word would and for that she respected him. She always thought she might marry Nick. 
“I’m told Nick was very kind,” Percy said. “That he was a man I’d like to meet.”
Setting her own bowl down, she sat forward with a smile.
“He was.” 
When she began as a Chasseur she was one of the five women training at the Chateau-de-Blanc in her year out of thirty. Since they knew each other through their parents, they were familiar. She smiled at Percy. He bore similar kind eyes. Lashed heavy and darker. He was the first Aysalian she’d ever met too. She imagined his journey north must have been fascinating.
“Do you mind if I ask you questions? I just, I’ve never thought I’d meet an Aysalian this far from Rehdan?” she asked.
He nodded. “What do you want to know?”
He picked out the scraps of his soup. Tender squash and onion at the wooden bowl’s rim. She cocked her head.
“Where in Aysal are you from?”
“Dahiz,” he said.
Vera repeated it in her head. Daa-hees. She didn’t want to make another mockery of herself like before with Cuverhalle. She smiled grasping her knees. Though she wasn’t as far from home as he was, this place did feel so distant to her. The mountains and it’s thick woods, it was nothing like the plains and meadows outside of Corrance and Tressaint, of which she was raised between. Always within the walls of the Chasseurs. To see so much of the world, it seemed so foreign.
“How does an Aysalian become a Chasseur? I thought Chasseurs haven’t been posted yet in Aysal?”
Percy went pale. Eyes wide like he’d seen some phantom or spirit. Vera wouldn’t be surprised with a place as desecrated as this town. She wondered if all the spirits that should haunt the place were trapped in that morakreis. She could imagine them clawing at the barrier waiting for someone to step inside. Craving what flesh they’d lost. The thought alone made her turn behind her. There was nothing.
He drew in a long breath. He adjusted as Vera raised a hand.
“I apologize, I overstepped—”
“No, it’s just… I’m an incarcerated recruit. I can’t say joining was the happiest moment,” Percy itched the back of his neck. 
Vera didn’t know how to respond. The Chasseurs was an option for incarcerated prisoners to avoid the gallows. Whether that be murderers, prisoners of war, or other worse crimes. It didn’t matter. Most first years died in the winter. Those that did had to survive at least a decade of service. It made her examine Percy for scars that might tell her what he did. Near his hair line was a scar. Nearly like something skidded on the side of his head. Percy coughed into his fist.
“Why did you join?” he asked.
Vera looked at him. “I enlisted.”
With that, the both of them went to bed. Neither wanting to speak. Vera laid on her side away from the fire similarly to Percy. She focused her gaze among the dark forest. Midnight settling in with the frequent noises all across. Even the sound of the water trickling from the stream afar and crackle of fire kept her awake. She turned her gaze higher meeting with the glint of eyes. An animal watching in the distance. It shifted, and she leaned towards it. 
What is that? She smelled the air and it reeked. Something long dead watched.