Storm's Eye Hill
Two sorcerer-engineers of The Xuan Wu Academy stood at the bottom of a hill in the misty morning. The night had seen three mortals killed, adding to the toll of eight from the two days before. The road they'd been building was a ruin, as well, and the same was true of their raw materials. Inam Niu, the elder of the pair, sighed. "We'd better alert Master Rivers."
Hatsu Shi folded his arms across his chest. "Hardly necessary. We can deal with this ourselves. If we just summon a few more jokun..."
"We can't. With the construction we're doing all across Marukan, the local courts are tapped to their limit. Any more elementals taken from their given tasks and Master Storm says we might disrupt the balance of Heaven."
"How does this not disrupt the balance of Heaven?" Hatsu Shi gestured to the chaos; the tightly-packed earth that had been thrown apart, the timbers splintered, the paving stones crushed to dust. The bodies of the men were worse; their throats had been torn savagely open, and rancid green poison dripped from the wounds and foamed in their mouths.
"The balance of Heaven..." Inam Niu bent down and touched a stony hand to the poisoned flesh of one of the men. "They walk through our fortifications like they're not there, they hate the works of men..."
The elder sorcerer-engineer stood. "Dogs of the Unbroken Earth."
Hatsu Shi twisted his lip. "Nature spirits."
"In abundance. But..." Inam Niu walked to the top of the hill. "The wind falls away here. It blows on every other side of the hill, in from each direction, but the top of the hill is like the eye of a storm - calm.
"I'm not sure yet," Inam Niu said as he took a crystal from his pouch, "but I'd wager that this is a demesne."
"Surely we would have noticed before now," said Hatsu Shi.
The other shook his head as he peered through the crystal. "Not if the Dogs have been hiding the Essence flows from us."
Hatsu Shi cast his eye behind him, down the half-built road destined for Celeren and leading back to the Eye of Hiparkes. He sighed. "We'd better alert Master Rivers."
