Chapter 4-3

Anjanette and Milly, the latter still wiping vomit from the edges of her mouth, leaned over his shoulders to read the result of the augury.

Two lie in the hands of hunters

One sits in the beating heart of sin

One rests with the men of the earth

One is inside the silver city.

One lies within Vampire’s Tooth

One can be found in the tiger’s tomb

“So... what the hell does any of that mean?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Milly. “For starters, Vampire’s Tooth is the tallest mountain in the Soleias range. They must have given that one easy because it’ll be so damn hard to get to. A lot of these are old references as well. ‘The Silver City’ is an old name for Nareiv, back when it was the second biggest city in the Allerian Empire instead of the capital of the world like it is today. ‘The Tiger’ was a hero from several centuries ago, taking his name from a rare Durobian beast. When he died, the Kendranians built him an ornate tomb. As for the men of the earth, I can only assume it refers to dwarves.”

“Wait, dwarves?” interrupted Leonas. “We don’t even know if dwarves still exist. They sealed themselves off so long ago...”

“Well apparently they have a book,” said Milly. “As for the others, I’d guess that ‘the heart of sin’ refers to Heka, unless it’s actually in Hell... and I dearly hope it’s not. The two in the hands of hunters have me worrying though.”

“Why?” asked Anjanette.

“Well, if you add this all up it refers to seven books... so ours is included. Now since we’re not in any of the places mentioned, unless I have something wrong, that means that ours is ‘in the hands of hunters’ – people looking for the books. The only problem is, it says there are two of them in those hands.”

Leonas nodded. “So we’re not the only ones looking for these.”

Milly bit her lip. “No, and the other guys are just the only ones who’ve found ones. You can bet that there’s more than two groups hunting for the books. It’s right up there with the Sword of Henry and the Cyril Horde for treasure hunts.”

“Well, let’s just hope we’re better than them,” said Anjanette. “So we know, roughly, where all these things are. Where to first?”

Milly got out a map and marked down the locations of the five books they had found out about. “Looking at this, the quickest route would be to start out in Nareiv and head west. That way we can get them all in a straight line without backtracking.”

“Except for the one our friends have already gotten,” said Leonas. “We saving that for last?”

“May as well,” said Milly. Her usual hesitant tone had vanished. “We don’t know where they are, and they might grab one or two before we can. No avoiding that.”

Anjanette nodded. “Well, this sounds like fun. Looks like we’re gonna see the world after all, Leo.”

“It will be good to get out of the fucking Dutchies for once,” says Leonas. “Now if you excuse me, I have to go wash all this blood off my hands. Really, whoever came up with these demonic rituals obviously didn’t consider the mess they make.”

“Maybe they did,” said Anjanette. “They are demons, after all.”

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