A Long Road Chapter 10 Ficbit – Summons

Not the easiest summons he’d ever done. The surface of Haven was – not polished clean of resentment, but almost; the execution ground’s restless energies shifting this way and that over the echoing chime of hooves like mist in a mountain pass. The streets out of the square led by their meandering ways to the temples and spun from the Palace that guarded the Companions, and spiritual energy flowed from both.

He had to dig under the streets. Where trickles of the Terrilee seeped into the soil, untamed by man or Companion, and the earth itself cradled the bodies of the executed dead.

The Yiling Patriarch knew how to dig.

Show me your hate. Show me your wrong. Show me your resentment.

Tell me how to reach the Heralds so they’ll never see it coming….

A spectral hand pulled free of the earth under the gallows, fangs gaping in its wake as the ghost wriggled free. Then another, and another; some mere billows of black smoke, others formless wraiths of misty shadow, still others with each prisoner’s smock and broken neck outlined in vicious detail.

Wei Wuxian felt Wen Ning tense behind him, and couldn’t blame the man. The ghosts here had been building a long, long time. Many – too many – felt old, so old; tattered bits of hate for Heralds and all they stood for, even if those Heralds might be a thousand years dead and buried.

Too old. I need someone who knows the Heralds today.

He poked and prodded with deliberate notes and his own trained will. Who knows the Heralds of Haven-now? Who knows their spies?

Wraiths and smoke hissed, shoved at him-

Wei Wuxian cut a glance at each, eyes glowing red. I’m waiting for an answer. If you want revenge, tell me what I want to know. Now.

A great murmuring, like the river in flood. Moments passed.

The echoes of footsteps cut through the spectral crowd, as a tall, muscular specter shouldered its way to the front. He wore leathers like a mercenary, face seamed down one side with the scar of a blade. Bracers clasped each wrist, flickering with the ghostly outline of hidden knives. His neck was bruised from the rope… but this one’s anger had kept his memory of life, before his dangling final moments. “Who the hells are you?”

Wei Wuxian lowered Chenqing to his chest, wearing his most cocky grin. “Me? I’m just a passing traveler. With a grudge. Several grudges. I think we have that in common.”