Rewrite That Witch
CH1051 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1051: Azima’s Discovery

The path grew rougher as they climbed.

Tangled vines choked the slope and the trees thickened until they formed a canopy so dense that only slivers of grey sky showed between the leaves. Azima’s one consolation was the absence of snow. The Months of Demons touched these northeastern slopes of the Kingdom of Dawn lightly — none of the crushing white weight that buried the Impassable Mountain Range. Had it been otherwise, they would have waited for spring.

That was the only comfort. Walking through the mountains was not easy.

From the foot, Cage Mountain had looked like a smooth slope, unremarkable and almost gentle. That impression died inside the first kilometer. There was no path. The forest swallowed direction. On the first day, three soldiers went down before the group had climbed two kilometers — a twisted ankle, a bad fall, a gash from a hidden root. In desperation, Sean had left the main troop encamped in the small town below and selected a handful of elites.

Five of them now: Knaff, the local guide. Rother, a God’s Punishment Witch. Marl, a liaison from the Tokat family. Sean. And Azima.

A strange team — though “strange” barely covered it.

The God’s Punishment Witch was officially here to keep Azima company among so many men, which was polite fiction. Azima had no illusions. The moment she tried to run, Rother would break her legs without hesitation and carry her the rest of the way up.

Marl Tokat was nominally the King of Dawn’s representative, but what could a liaison accomplish on a mountain? He had refused to wait in the town, which meant he had his own reasons — he was the Tokat family’s eyes, and he had already proved useful enough that Sean hadn’t quietly had him removed. Yet.

As for the soldiers — these men were nothing like the miners and laborers they dressed to resemble. Their shovels could double as weapons. When mounted knights of some local lord had shadowed them on the lower slopes, the soldiers had watched them with the flat, unhurried readiness of men who expected violence and were not afraid of it.

Nobody in the team knew what they were searching for. Not even Azima. She only had the small coin in her palm — not gold, not silver, not copper, not iron — and whatever the green light in it meant when it brightened.

“Wait.” Knaff raised his hand. He was walking point. “Stop. Traps.”

Azima heard clicks behind her. Rifles being cocked. Sean had spent much of the past month talking to her about the First Army’s capabilities, and she had learned to listen when their hands moved.

Rother was already walking forward.

She crossed into the danger zone without a word, her tread slow and deliberate through the dense weeds.

Knaff inhaled sharply. “Hey — I said—”

A snap. Then a squeal of rope friction overhead, like a viper uncoiling.

The tripwire released. A cluster of sharpened stakes launched from the branches above.

Rother drew her sword.

What followed happened too fast for sound. The God’s Punishment Witch held the blade with both hands and batted the stakes from the air as if swatting flies — stakes that would have driven through a skull or throat. Most shattered on impact. The few that got past her buried themselves in the earth.

When she stopped, the grass around her was a ruin.

“Trap’s cleared,” Rother said, sheathing the sword. “Let’s move.”

Knaff sat down hard. His legs had simply refused him.

“Aha — I knew it, I knew great lords would have extraordinary skills!” He had recovered his voice by the time they rested, and found in it a quality of obsequiousness. “Such swordsmanship — legendary, truly legendary—”

“Save it.” Rother crouched in front of him. “Tell me why there are human traps on this mountain.”

The wooden stakes hadn’t been set for animals. They both knew it.

Knaff explained quickly — too quickly, like a man relieved to talk. The mountain range ran from the sea almost to the old Holy City, a natural dividing line between Dawn and Wolfheart. But Cage Mountain’s south face was a gentle slope. Easy to descend. Over the decades, Wolfheart refugees, hunters, and bandits had filtered down through it — at first only taking from the forest, then raiding villages. The local lords grew weary of it. Their solution: abandon the mountain. Plant fast-growing vines and weeds. Set traps. Seal the pass.

“Generation after generation did the same,” said Knaff. “That’s how Cage Mountain became what it is.”

If it were Roland Wimbledon, he would not choose to do so.

The thought arrived uninvited. Azima turned it over — that man who had explained her task with his gaze fixed somewhere beyond her, as if he were already looking at the next problem. He always looked into the distance.

Why am I thinking about him now?

She shook her head.

His Majesty was her employer. Nothing more. She needed to finish this task and return to Doris and the others on Sleeping Island.

They encountered two more traps before nightfall. Both accomplished nothing against Rother.

Then — as the last grey light leaked from the canopy — the coin in Azima’s hand blazed.

She stopped.

The green light pulsed, brighter than she had ever seen it. And there, through a break in the trees, another light answered: a dazzling source, distinct and still, connected to the coin’s glow by what appeared to be a bridge of floating luminous points.

The source material.

She had found another source.

The team pushed through the tree line and stopped.

A building sat half-buried on the mountainside — old enough that the forest had nearly digested it. A stone gate, still standing, led into shadow. The columns flanking it were carved with symbols that bore no resemblance to any script Azima had seen — not the church’s letters, not the merchant marks, not anything.

They had clearly not been made by nature.

Azima stared.

His Majesty had sent her to find a strange ore. Not a building. Not a ruin that had clearly been here for centuries, perhaps longer.

Why was the source inside something like this?

Discussion

Suggest a change