Chapter 69: Spy Comes Home
Skrit crossed the border at dusk.
He didn’t plan it that way. He’d been walking for three days straight — through grassland, across two rivers, over the rocky stretch between Demeterra’s outer farmlands and the unclaimed territory that served as buffer. His legs had stopped hurting on the second day, which was worse than the hurting because it meant they’d gone numb. His travel pack was empty. He’d eaten the last of his dried grain two days ago and had been surviving on river water and the desperate stubbornness that kept Kobolds alive in environments that should kill them.
He felt the border the way drowning people feel air.
One step — the foreign press of Demeterra’s Growth domain, that warm-wrong sensation in the soil that he’d endured for three months. The next step — the Voice. Not words. Not instructions. Just *presence*. The familiar divine warmth of the Grand Ordinator’s territory flooding back into his body from the ground up like an incoming tide.
Skrit collapsed.
His knees hit the grass. His hands hit the dirt. The divine bond reconnected — a thread that had been stretched gossamer-thin for ninety-one days snapping back into full contact, pouring warmth and recognition into a body that had been running on nothing but discipline and fear.
He wept. Not from pain or relief or exhaustion. From the specific, overwhelming sensation of being seen again. For three months, he’d been invisible — no blessing, no bond, no divine awareness watching over him. He’d prayed the Iron Devotion every night in whatever ditch or barn or empty field he’d slept in, whispering the words into the dark, knowing that no one was listening. The faith had held. But the silence had been the loneliest thing he’d ever experienced.
Now the silence was over. The god was there. The god had been waiting.
A border patrol found him twenty minutes later — two Lizardman scouts on the grassland circuit. They carried him to the nearest outpost, fed him, wrapped him in a blanket, and sent a message to Ashenveil.
Krug arrived the next morning.
***
The debriefing lasted six hours.
They held it in the Chapel’s war room — Krug, Harsk, and Skrit around the table, maps spread between them. Skrit’s hands shook when he pointed. Krug didn’t mention it.
"Four Root Cradles," Skrit said. His voice was hoarse — three months of speaking only in whispers and measured sentences had stripped his vocal cords raw. "Deepwell in the south is the largest. Three thousand soldiers at any time. Rotational — troops cycle through for blessing and training, then deploy to garrison posts. The other three are smaller. Maybe a thousand each."
He moved his finger across the map — plotting locations from memory, since he hadn’t been able to carry written notes without risking discovery.
"Total army. Frogman heavy infantry — they’re the core. Three thousand, maybe more. Phalanx fighters. Disciplined. The blessing makes them tougher — denser muscles, faster recovery. They’re not as well equipped as our minotaurs, but they don’t need to be. There are just *more* of them."
Harsk wrote as Skrit spoke. Clean, efficient notes in the shorthand he’d developed during his own years in Demeterra’s intelligence apparatus.
"Human infantry. Twenty-five hundred. Border garrison soldiers, mostly. Less blessed than the Frogmen — Demeterra prioritizes her core race. The Humans get stamina blessings and basic wound recovery. Standard iron weapons, leather armor. They’re the holding force — they dig in, hold the line, and let the Frogmen do the killing."
"Gnoll and Beastmen skirmishers. Fifteen hundred combined. Fast, aggressive, poorly disciplined. She uses them for raids and flanking operations. They break things. They’re good at breaking things."
Skrit’s finger stopped at a mark near Demeterra’s territorial core.
"Minotaur siege units. One thousand. Under a commander named Durnok — a vassal god who commands stone. His minotaurs are siege specialists. Battering rams, wall breakers, heavy assault. They’re the ones she’ll send when she wants something destroyed rather than captured."
Krug absorbed this in silence. The numbers were worse than projected. Ten thousand total — eight thousand core plus vassal contributions. Against Zephyr’s twelve hundred.
"The Thornwyrm," Krug said.
Skrit went quiet. His hands stopped shaking — not because the fear passed, but because a different kind of stillness settled over him. The stillness of someone recalling something they wished they hadn’t seen.
"I saw it once. From two kilometers. It was sunning in a cleared field outside Deepwell." He swallowed. "It’s... large. Longer than any building in Ashenveil. Serpentine body, covered in bark-like plating — not plant material, organic armor. Thorned ridges along the spine. When it breathed, the ground around it grew — grass, moss, flowers, all accelerating. The Rootmother’s power concentrated."
"Handler?"
"Frogman. Name is Siltjaw. He stays within fifty meters of it at all times. Some kind of command bond — the Thornwyrm responds to gestures. I watched Siltjaw direct it to move positions with a hand signal. It obeyed."
The room was quiet. Through the bond, Zephyr processed the intelligence and compiled the threat assessment:
[INTELLIGENCE REPORT — Demeterra’s Military]
[Source: Agent SKRIT — 91 days behind enemy lines]
[Frogman Heavy Infantry: 3,000+ (core force, Growth-blessed)]
[Human Infantry: 2,500 (border garrisons, standard iron)]
[Gnoll/Beastmen Skirmishers: 1,500 (raiders, low discipline)]
[Minotaur Siege Units: 1,000 (Vassal Durnok, Rank 2, Earth domain)]
[Total Estimated Strength: 8,000–10,000]
[Divine Creature: Thornwyrm (massive, Growth-domain) — Warden: Siltjaw (Frogman)]
[Root Cradles: 4 active training/blessing facilities]
[Vassal Gods: 6 confirmed]
[Recovery Status: ~70% (estimated 4 months to full strength)]
Against this: twelve hundred soldiers, a Hydra, and a god who’d just hit Rank 3 four months ago.
[RANK 4 — Urgency Assessment]
[FP Required: 80,000]
[Current Reserves: 58,000]
[Deficit: 22,000 FP]
[Estimated Time: 60 days (realistic) / 8 days (spending freeze)]
[Window Before Demeterra Full Strength: ~120 days]
Two months. If everything went right.
***
Skrit was still sitting at the table when Krug returned an hour later. The maps had been cleared. The candle had burned down to a stub. The Kobold hadn’t moved.
"You did well," Krug said. He placed a bowl of stew and a piece of bread on the table. "Three months behind enemy lines. Alone. No blessing. Most soldiers I’ve known wouldn’t survive a week."
Skrit picked up the bread. Looked at it. Put it down.
"The Rootist farmers," he said. "The ones on her border villages. They’re not evil people. They’re just... people. They farm. They pray at their shrines. They love their families. Some of them helped me. A woman in a village called Stumphollow gave me a bed for two weeks when I was sick — fever, from the river crossing. She fed me. Gave me her son’s old blanket. She prayed to the Rootmother every morning for my recovery."
Krug sat down across from him.
"And I was there to count her village’s soldiers and map the shrine location so that we could undermine her goddess’s hold on her territory." Skrit’s voice was flat. "She was kind to me because she thought I was a lost Kobold. I was kind to her because it maintained my cover."
"You did what the god asked you to do."
"I know."
Silence.
"The Voice promotes you," Krug said. "Crucible Initiate. It’s a rank within the faith structure — ordained, recognized, granted access to deeper blessing tiers. You’ve earned it."
[FAITH PROMOTION — Individual]
[Believer: Skrit (Kobold)]
[Previous Rank: Fanatic]
[New Rank: Crucible Initiate]
[Role: Dark Operations — Deep Infiltration Specialist]
[Blessing Tier: Elevated (enhanced sensory, stamina, recovery)]
Skrit looked up. His eyes — large, dark, the Kobold eyes that saw better in shadow than in light — were steady.
"Will I have to go back?"
Krug didn’t answer. In the silence, the gold flame on the Chapel altar flickered in a draft from the door. Through the bond, Zephyr was quiet. Not because he didn’t have an answer. Because the answer was yes, and saying it too quickly would cheapen the weight of what Skrit had already done.
Skrit nodded. He picked up the bread and ate.