Omega's Rebirth-Chapter 412: A Suspicious Group ()

Neveah breathed a quiet sigh as the pain resided slowly, her airways clearing up so she could finally breathe properly.

It was already late into the night, Neveah had been out her for over an hour already but Menarx was out on patrol and so Neveah was grateful he would not notice her long absence.

Neveah got up to her feet, dusting her clothing with a sigh of exhaustion.

It was impossible to get the mud off of her leather breeches and so Neveah just gave up on it, leaving it as it was.

It was only now Neveah glanced around her surrounding to see how far into the forest she had come with pain clouding her senses and sure enough, Neveah was not certain what part of the forest she was presently in at all.

Neveah exhaled heavily, she could at least recall what direction she had come from so all she could do was head back in that direction for however long it would take to get back to the camp.

Neveah turned around to return to the camp but paused in her step when she picked up on distant voices and footsteps.

Neveah listened for a moment, the voices were really far off and she could not pick up what was being said but there was the barest traces of a scent in the air that Neveah recognised to be dwarves.

"How come they are so close to our camp?" Neveah murmured in suspicion.

The dwarves did not know exactly where the dragons were camped at, the dragons had tricks of their own to keep the exact location of their camp hidden, however they knew this forest was closely monitored by dragons.

Dwarves would not venture into this forest if they still valued their lives, it was just beyond dwarven territory and they had no protection here.

Picking up the scent trace of dwarves this close to camp, it was certainly not something Neveah could overlook.

Neveah trailed the scent and the sound of voices quietly, hidden in the shadows of the forest, she kept her movement soundless and went towards the source of the voices.

It did not take so long for Neveah to arrive at a small clearing where a group of dwarves sat around a small campfire.

Neveah was quick to hide away behind a large tree before her presence could be noticed, watching the dwarves in bafflement.

"They are not even worried about drawing our attention to them, they even have a campfire going... the audacity." Neveah thought to her wolf.

"I do not think that is a usual fire, Veah." Neveah’s wolf thought back to her.

Neveah peered around the tree, taking a closer look and sure enough, though the fire burned visibly, the light it provided was dim and there was no smoke coming off the fire, neither was there any wood to ignite it.

Instead, there was a strange instrument set on the ground from which the fire was produced.

Neveah frowned slightly, it did not seem like magic, she would have at least sensed some magical trace, Neveah was slowly growing conversant with magic.

Neveah could tell it was some sort of mechanism that gave the illusion of a false fire, with the dim lighting and warmth that could fend of the winter chills, but other than that, there was no other characteristic of true fire.

It could have been a mechanism powered by magic or some technology the dwarves had developed, but whatever it was, the dwarves seemed pretty certain they could go unnoticed.

Which brought Neveah to the question, why were they even here in the first place?

If the dwarves were from the outpost and hoped to spy on the dragon camp, this was certainly not a good position for that.

"They do not seem to be dwarves from the outpost, given their uniforms." Neveah’s wolf thought to her.

Which meant they were dwarves from the Citadel, dwarves from the Citadel did not even need to spy on the dragons since they were quite safe in their Inner Citadel which they believed no one could find.

Dwarves from the outpost guarded the mine outpost and were completely different from Citadel dwelling dwarves, and dwarves stationed at the outpost could not venture into the Citadel until their service time was up which was a few decades at the least.

The few altercations in these weeks had been with the dwarves guarding the mine outposts on the other side of the forest beyond the plains, serving as decoy to deter the dragons so the supply teams from the Citadel could pass through unnoticed.

Of course, Neveah could see through their plans and only indulged them on purpose.

’If the dwarf king wants entrance and exit of the hidden city to remain unnoticed, I assumed he would be smart enough to restrict it to supply teams.’

’This is no supply team, so who are these dwarf guards and what is their purpose?’ Neveah thought to her wolf.

Neveah soon got the answer to her question when a group of outpost dwarves walked into the clearing, carrying with them a small wooden cage where an unconscious child was chained up in.

Neveah’s eyes widened in horror as she watched in silence.

The child was of Fae blood, Neveah could pick up his scent. He could not have been more than seven summers in age, fast asleep despite the situation he was in and in that moment, Neveah recalled another child she had found in not so different a position all those months back.

Roman... the little boy the dwarves had abducted back in Maneward, he had been held in a cage much like this one, fast asleep exactly like this.

Suspicion grew in Neveah’s heart, it could not be that the dwarves would abduct two children in a similar styled cage of a similar age range in two completely different parts of the stronghold all by coincidence...

There was something going on here and whatever it was, Neveah knew it could not be any good.