The Proving of Champions, Chapter 16

Movement and sound drained from the faces of the camp members, like the blood disappearing from pale faces at the news of the sorcerer. Even Ogden sat in stupefied silence without a whisper of complaint. Soldiers and scouts rushed back to work, sawing furiously to pump the blood and courage back into their system, running drills a hundred times to chase out a hundred phantoms. Their eyes were narrowed to the task, ignoring the looming shadow of a monster they knew they could not kill.

Terrel frowned at Fleta's plan, but the leaders of the camp left the meeting without anything more clever or confident. Fleta, so happy and proud of herself in the moment realized, as soon as she walked out of Terrell's tent, that her idea was hardly plan. As her mom would have said, it was less a recipe for success and more a vague notion of where the kitchen is. Still, it was a direction, and the direction of the leaders bled into the purpose and focus of soldiers and scouts as they cut, wove, and drilled.

Bertram gave up on trying to kill the tarasque with traps, instead planning for how to hammer it with as many bruises as possible. Word by word, he dragged the story of Alexei's fight with the tarasque out of the taciturn gladiator and gleaned one helpful idea. They could use the monster's weight and momentum against it. Sharpened logs would be half-buried at strategic points. Fleta could run between them, but they would lodge in the tarasque's feet like splinters. The effect would be spread out over the monster's six feet, but it might do enough damage to a couple of them to slow the monster down.

A few sharpened logs could be lashed together to swing into the tarasque. At first, Bertram hoped maybe to be able to stagger the beast, but a quick calculation of the beast's approximate weight in relation to the logs convinced him that, at best, they would simply be a slight sting, best deployed before ground spikes to distract from the buried spikes.

Lorens needed little help leading the men in creating large, sharpened logs. Bertram, abhorring simplicity, fiddled with different ways to carve the logs to produce extra splintering. When Marina came to collect Bertram for another project, he handed this design off to Lorens with dissatisfied muttering.

Before they had been attacked by a sorcerer, Marina had the idea of trying to recreate the scent of a doru tree. The tarasque had stopped chasing Fleta once to consume one; perhaps a similar scent could distract it. Between Marina's knowledge of preparing and ointments, Bertram's adapted and improvised tools, and herbs collected by Fleta and Leanna, Marina thought the disciples might come up with a powerful concentrate to throw the Tarasque off their scent.

Marina and Bertram prepared it in a makeshift laboratory they constructed a good hour away from camp. Marina put on a stoic face but emanated nervousness on her first trek through the jungle since they found her in the ruins of the Undora camp. Bertram put an arm around her shoulder as they walked. Fleta circled, and Leanna took a point. The journey was safe enough; the beasts around camp were cautious after several of their predecessors fell prey to Valcot traps. 

After they finished the faux doru concoction, Bertram prevailed on Marina to create the most noxious possible scent, concentrating the awful-smelling ferns Shaw had used into oil that left the entire group teary-eyed, with aching heads and weakness. Bertram and Marina prepared the concentrate in makeshift aprons, and they all washed in afterward creek to avoid tracking the scent back to camp. As they washed, they stood back to back to back as much to watch out for chimera as to give each other privacy. 

When the lift hauled the tired brewers back into camp, Fleta saw Alexei sitting quietly with Welkris at a water break. After a minute, Alexei returned to arrange logs for the cutters. His ability to grow muscle and limbs on demand allowed him to take the place of three men. Fleta's speed did not avail her much in the heavy work of creating large, sharpened logs, so she checked in with Lorens. Lorens charged her with keeping the makeshift ovens fueled so they could fire-harden the tips.

The two days sped by, and Daralis woke Fleta in the darkness a few hours before dawn. Fleta grumbled.

"Pssst, Marina," Daralis said. "Time to head out and parlay with the colonies." The Undora first disciple rose gracefully and quietly to a sitting position. Fleta hated her just a little. Daralis continued.  "Terrell's still not recovered from past marches, plus he and Bertram agreed we should not put all our eggs in one basket. We move in a small group. I take point on negotiations, and Fleta takes point scouting and draws the tarasque away from us because chances are good, and we'll see it before the end of the day. Marina, would you be willing to see if your powers work on the colonies? They could be helpful for negotiation."

Marina nodded.

Fleta zipped through her preparations and rebraiding her hair, and she was out next to Daralis at the moment.

"No soldiers or scouts?" Fleta asked.

"There's a Valcot soldier, Sabaston, and a scout, Ingrit," Daralis said. "Bertram wanted to come. He said someone from the Valcot camp should observe the colonies, but I don't think that's the only reason he wanted to go. Terrell wanted to keep as many people working on these oversized pickets as possible, plus I think he's nervous about losing all the gifted if things go bad. Bernia also volunteered. Said she wanted to get a look at the creatures who got Teon and Wade killed. Wanted to look them in the eyes, but I told her they don't have any."

"Alexei?"

"Terrell wants him here for camp defense in case the tarasque shows up. We're not being exactly quiet around here, and the Valcot traps seem to be filling up with beasts almost as fast as they can reset them."

"So... it's just the six of us?" Fleta said.

"Yep, champion. And you're the muscle."

Fleta did not feel very muscular, and her stomach was too tight for an early breakfast. She picked a long spear out of the camp's weapons shared weapons, helped pack food and water for a day of 16 hours of hiking, and met Daralis, Marina, and Sebaston at the lift as the guards on duty let them down hundreds of feet to the dark forest floor below.