He was grateful that the rotten dogs hadn’t so much as glanced at the Thousand-Mile Cloud, but the unfortunate reality remained. They would have to breach the warding circle to get to the cloud, and they needed the cloud to leave.
“I’ll rely on you, then,” Lindon said. “If I may ask, how long will you need?”
Yerin closed her eyes again and steadied her breath before answering. “A day or thereabouts. My madra’s in better shape than my body, but I should have everything stitched together come tomorrow’s dawn.” The loops of her red rope-belt squirmed away from the roots.
The dogs hissed again, just far enough away that he couldn’t quite touch them if he extended his arm. One of them lay down on its paws, staring at him with fever-bright red eyes.
On a sudden impulse, Lindon looked past the dog to try and see its aura. It was easier the more he did it, but this time he didn’t know what to make of the vital aura gathered around this monster. If identifying other types of aura was like reading simple characters, this was like trying to read a page that had been sliced to pieces and glued back together in a random order.
The aura gathered around the creature’s shoulder swelled like a blister, slick and crawling black. This aura felt like death and decay, like a maggot’s corpse. The deep purple aura around the dog’s ribs was stringy and muscular, like roots or snakes, and it somehow gave off the impression of chains held in powerful tension. Deep red aura dripped from the hound’s mouth, and Lindon could practically smell the coppery tang of blood.
He let the vision fade, thinking. He'd heard of blood madra, which supposedly held all sorts of sinister powers over living bodies, so he assumed that's what was running from the dog's jaws. But what was the rest? If he had to give a name to the bulb over the shoulder, he'd call it “death aura,” but that was based solely on the feeling it gave him. He'd never heard of death madra or any aura of death, and he wasn't entirely sure what such a power would do. Likewise, he had no clue what his mother would call the tight aura chains. Connection aura? Binding aura?
There were more aspects of vital aura surrounding the dog than just those, and the unity of all those different powers in one body meant something significant. He just wasn't sure what.
But it might be the clue that let them out of here, so he meditated on it. Cycling didn't take much of his attention, as he didn't have to pull aura from the atmosphere and could focus solely on his own madra. He retrieved the parasite ring from his pocket, slipping the scripted circle of twisted halfsilver onto his finger.
Instantly, his madra turned sluggish, as though his madra channels had all halved in width. He had to force his madra to cycle, pushing it through the pattern described in his Heart of Twin Stars manual as though forcing syrup through a narrow tube.
It was twice as hard to cycle with the parasite ring on, but the exercise was supposed to strengthen his spirit twice as fast. He had just reached Copper, but that didn't mean he had time to rest. It was the opposite, as he saw it. He was years behind every sacred artist in his clan, so he had to work harder than anyone else to catch up.
Though it was harder now, cycling still didn't take much of his attention. It was a difficult task, but not a complicated one. His mind was free to ponder the mystery of the hideous sacred beasts with twisted auras.
As the day crept on, with dogs snapping and growling every few minutes, a new concern revealed itself: thirst. By late afternoon, he and Yerin had finished the last of the pathetic handful of water remaining in his bottle, and he had become painfully thirsty.
It was there that he missed his home so much that it hurt. He hadn't slept a full night since leaving Sacred Valley, he was only feet away from monsters held back by nothing more than a flimsy, invisible barrier, his entire body was cramped by a night crammed between rocks and roots, and the stress was wearing on his mind. Back home, no matter how badly the other members of his clan thought of him, at least he had all the water he could drink. And tea at every major meal. He could taste the flowery scent of his mother's tea, could even hear the whistle of the kettle...
His eyes snapped open at the same time as Yerin's, and this time the revolting appearance of the dogs didn't catch his attention. He craned his neck to the left, ignoring the dark shapes slithering through the bushes, until he saw it. A bright green shadow appeared under the afternoon sunlight, waving the claws of a centipede in the air and undulating like a snake.
The Remnants had found them.
Yerin braced herself on the trunk as she wobbled to her feet.
“It's nothing to worry about,” Lindon said, trying to reassure them both. “The circle is intended to protect us from Remnants, so it should work even better against them than against the dogs.”
Yerin limbered up her right shoulder, wincing as though it pained her. “Yep. They're not so strong as the dogs.” She drew her pale white blade, and this time Lindon noticed the icy, razor-edged aura that clustered around the weapon so dense that he could barely see the sword itself. “But they're smarter.”
He understood in an instant why she was concerned. The dogs hadn't left them alone because they couldn't break the circle, but because they didn't know how. These were the Remnants of a couple of Lowgolds—they would be stronger and smarter than any spirits Lindon had seen in Sacred Valley.
The circle might stop them for a while, but after enough time, the Remnants would toss some dirt over it. Lindon pushed himself, slipping off the parasite ring and gripping his halfsilver dagger instead. He'd withdrawn the weapon hours before, comforting himself with the thought that he could protect himself if the dogs managed to break through.
He looked past Yerin, deeper into the scene, trying to catch a glimpse of the vital aura around the Remnants. But he was sidetracked, staring at Yerin's waist. Or, more accurately, at her belt.
He'd known it was some sort of construct Forged from red madra, and had wondered if she wore it as some kind of fashion on the outside. Maybe sacred artists in the rest of the world distinguished themselves with clothes made of Forged madra, instead of the badges.
But looking at it now...it was a dense rope of congealed red power, identical to the aura dripping from the dog's mouth but a thousand times more potent. He could practically taste the blood coming off of it, and it made him want to vomit. Visions of slaughter, of an army's worth of corpses, filled his vision.
How could she wear that? It was like having a river of blood wrapped around yourself.
Lindon retched, as suddenly as though someone had punched him in the gut, but nothing came up. He was glad for that, not only because he didn't have the water to spare, but because the sudden impact of the motion knocked him out of his Copper vision.
Yerin watched him from beneath her straight black hair, eyes understanding. “Knew we'd come to this bridge eventually, but let's cross it later. Agree?”
Lindon refocused and steadied his knife and his breathing both. “No, that's not necessary. It's none of my concern, and I apologize if I've given offense.”
She watched him for a second longer, then hefted her white sword and turned back to the advancing Remnants. “We'll talk,” she said.
Then the acidic green Remnants were there, pulling themselves along on their centipede legs. The rotten dogs turned their tails to Lindon and hissed, lowering themselves as though preparing to leap and attack.
In response, the two Remnants made the motion of snapping their jaws open and shut, but there was no sound. They might as well have been the shadows of serpents biting at nothing. Afterwards, they did make a cry: the same whistling teakettle noise that had pursued Yerin and Lindon since their camp.