There’s Been a Murder

Later in the night a low rumbling spread through the earth. Barely noticeable, the ground shook ever so slightly, walls swayed, and vertigo affected many.

A patrolman sat behind the wall. His eyes at the perfect level allowing him to see through the minute cracks deliberately created within the wall. In his hand was a curved blade, a dagger, short and sweet.

It had a ring on its end and the soldier's thumb was pushed through it, letting him spin the knife around in professional fashion.

Suddenly, a much larger quake shook the wall and bits and pieces of stone crumbled away, delicately landing on the soldier's head and falling onto his shoulders.

He raised his head and peered through the cracks, but an extremely long, serrated claw burst through the crack and pierced his eye.

The midnight black claw was smooth and sleek, like a sword it was one single extension of claw with razor sharp teeth erected on one side. Its tip was jagged like a fish hook and once it penetrated its victim, it would spin violently and tear away at the prey's innards.

The black claw instantly ran through the soldier's brain and retreated just as quickly. There was no noise, no sign of conflict, the soldier's body merely rolled off the stool he sat upon and crashed into the ground.

Somewhere down the line, another soldier stationed on the wall heard the crash. He turned his head and looked down the wall. Through the darkness it was difficult for him to see his fellow soldier, as he narrowed his gaze and strained his eyes a black shadow tore into his ear before disappearing.

Then, he too collapsed off his stool and hit the ground hard. By the time morning emerged the many stools that lined the wall of the camp were vacant and a river of blood flowed from one end to another, created by the soldier's corpses that bled every twenty feet apart.

***

*Bang Bang Bang*

"Sir! There's an emergency!"

*Bang Bang Bang*

Emile opened his eyes in response to the panicked slamming at his door. He untangled his legs and stepped off of his bed, although Emile didn't need to sleep he still filled the time with a sort of mindfulness activity.

He would close his eyes and inspect his soul core, hyper analyzing his flow of essence, the various new nodes that rest within him, and practice his level of control over essence and muscle integration.

Last night, he focused on the saplings. First, he summoned as many as he could, which was a hundred, as the ability name suggested.

However, he found out he was able to get around the soft cap on saplings by growing some of them to maturity. Basically, if he summoned one hundred Red Dollop saplings, he would not be able to conjure a one hundred and first, but he could grow one of the saplings into a tree and then summon another sapling.

For some reason, his Gift only took into account the tree's sapling form and not their mature counterparts. On the other hand, the amount of essence required to summon the subsequent sapling increases with each already existing sapling.

So, for example, if Emile summons one Red Dollop sapling and doesn't germinate it, i.e. keeps it as a sapling in his pocket or something, then the second Red Dollop sapling would require more essence to summon; but if he grew the first sapling into a tree, than that second sapling will not cost more and instead will require the same amount of essence as the first.

So even though there are a handful of restrictions limiting what Emile could do, there are just as many ways to get around said restrictions, it simply comes down to Emile's own ingenuity.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Emile groaned as he grabbed his door's handle, "What happened?"

"The wall's been breached!" The soldier's voice shook uncontrollably and his facial features were tense beyond belief.

"What?!" Emile shouted accidentally.

The soldier led Emile through the camp and they cut through every shortcut possible, invading the canteen and workshops alike to arrive at the base of the wall.

As they approached, Emile scratched the back of his head in wonderment; the wall was clearly still standing — but as they approached even closer Emile's nose picked up the rich aroma of iron and sweat.

Very quickly the pale bodies littered on the floor came into view and Emile's heart sank. He pushed past the soldier escorting him and sprinted towards the wall.

Mariah and Sam were already present, the two of them stood above a fallen soldier with a dagger still in his hand. For some strange reason, this was the only soldier with a weapon drawn across the entirety of the wall.

"Spright!" The two women saluted in unity.

"What the hell happened?!" Emile exclaimed while kneeling over the soldier's body.

"Sometime last night all the men assigned to the wall were killed in silence. When I returned from my morning scouting, they were all already cold," Sam said.

"They must have been killed shortly after the night cycle arrived for them to be this cold already, the issue at hand is we don't know how or who even killed them. If you turn his head over he was struck through the eye, down the line another was pierced through the ear; they all died in one strike and without resistance," Mariah quickly added.

"Do you think it's the work of a single enemy or multiple?" Emile asked the most important question he could think of.

The number of adversaries completely determined how they should approach the situation. If it was only a single enemy they could mandate everyone travel in pairs, that way the assassin would have to be even more patient when it came to its killings.

But if more than one beast struck at a time, depending on their number, no matter how many people stuck together it wouldn't mean much in the face of total domination.

"I believe it's only one attacker," Mariah concluded.

"And why is that?"

"If you look at all the corpses, many of them are looking at each other. They probably heard the crash of another soldier falling off the stool, but it was too dark to see clearly twenty feet down, so before they could determine what happened, they were executed."

"I agree —" Sam spoke up, "the soldier at the far end of the wall was much warmer than at the other end. The killer went in a line from one end to another."

Emile grit his teeth and stood up, "How many were lost?"

"Twelve," Mariah responded immediately, "if we add the losses from yesterday, twenty-three members of the expedition have been lost."

"Damn —" Emile spat out, "that's a quarter of our forces. Put everyone in lockdown, bring them into the canteen and barricade the doors. When you're done with that, I want each squad leader to select their second best and meet me in the camp's center. We just need to hold out until tomorrow."