Patrick still looked shocked and confused when Eirian spoke to him, but Emmy managed to shake herself out of it. "The guards. When you went inside, Captain Li sent guards around the perimeter, and we went with them to help. They went back to guard Marian and Anna when you guys didn't come back out, and we stayed just in case you guys came out the back."
"Did you see her bury them?"
Emmy and Patrick shared a worried look. "Her?"
"We ran into Song Ran inside. She's unpleasant to say the least. Kang and Miki went missing inside the manor." Yuze joined them and Lord Zhao drifted over, more openly curious than Eirian had even seen him.
Emmy and Patrick looked shocked and shook their heads. "No. We were walking the perimeter. We didn't notice anything until just now. "
"Yeah, we even looked in the well yesterday and there was nothing around it." Patrick added. "I was just going to rest my feet when I tripped over them."
"How the hell did she get them out of the house then?" Lord Zhao wondered as Chenzhou, Lord Yin, and Lady Yang joined them.
"I think we're still inside the house." Eirian deduced and then couldn't help but grin at the fear that came over all of them as they looked around. "I don't know if she has the same amount of control or influence as she does in the parts that are still standing, or maybe it's the sunlight, but this was all part of the same building before the attack and the fire. You can see the burned wood in the dirt."
"Maybe we should move?" Lord Yin suggested. A sheen of sweat covered his face, and his eyes darted around betraying his nerves.
"We need to find that storage cellar." Eirian argued. "She called it cold storage, but if it's real that might mean there's more than one."
"They could have stored the village records underground." Chenzhou picked up her chain of thought, nodding. "But we still don't know where the magistrate's house was. Song Rui didn't answer, and Song Ran was so angry I doubt she heard the question."
"She definitely didn't." Eirian agreed. "But based on what's left of the village, an underground cellar is our best chance to find anything that would have survived."
"The tribes would have targeted the magistrate. They know how our villages are organized and what our leadership tends to look like. They do the same thing in pitched battle." Yuze and Chenzhou shared a frown.
"I have lost several good commanders to their tactics." Lady Yang agreed, and Lord Zhao and Lord Yin nodded in agreement.
Eirian sighed. "Which pretty much guarantees that anything above ground is gone. I can make digging a bit easier, but if I use too much magic, I might destroy whatever's under it."
"No, we brought shovels." Chenzhou jumped in. "Better to be careful. There's no second chances."
Yuze sighed. "If everyone chips in, it shouldn't take too long."
Li sent the wounded back under the leadership of his senior guard and remained with a small group to help search.
Lady Yang expressed her concern over their low numbers, with the remaining guards split between those at the manor, Anna and Marian who'd been moved outside the gate, and the horses and supplies at the water hole. "We are spread too thin. We need to condense our people."
"Anna and Marian can come back in, but the horses will spoke if they're brought to close and it's too dangerous to risk having to walk back to the Camelia." Chenzhou put his foot down as Li's soldiers started unpacking the shovels and picks, they'd brought.
"Try the northwest and northeast corner's first." Eirian instructed. "No point in making it harder than it needs to be." She pushed her magic into the dirt again, just enough to try and locate the disruption underneath as the soldiers started digging test holes, trying to locate the cellar from the top.
"It had to be connected to the manor somehow. They wouldn't have put it so far away that they'd have to leave the building to access it." Chenzhou studied the ruins of the manor. "They would have had to guard it too. If it was outside."
"We have no records that show how big the manor was at its greatest point." Yuze sighed, rubbing forehead. "We can guess based on the remains here, but this is still a decent amount of ground to cover. And we don't know how far down they made it."
"The tribes use shallow cellars." Lord Zhao shifted the dirt with his boot. "Usually, they're only a foot or two down because they move so often."
"They usually go back to the same ones over and over. Like watering holes. There are rules about taking from and adding to them when others use them." Yuze added, giving the Lord a thoughtful look. Lord Zhao glanced at him and nodded in agreement.
"Yes, they call it wandering hospitality. Or, well, that's the closest we've been able to translate what they actually say." Lord Zhao studied Eirian as she crouched with her palms on the ground. Her magic was visible when she did this, as it hadn't been visible when she was doing the same at the front of the manor. She probably looked odd to someone who didn't know what she was doing as she stared so intently at the ground beneath her fingers. "Simply put, you must replace whatever you take, but you are welcome to take anything. If you can't replace it for some reason, you owe the family who put whatever you took inside a debt of gratitude."
"Among the tribes a debt of gratitude is usually repaid with physical labor or an animal of some kind later on. They don't keep records or anything, but they shun those who take advantage and never repay." Yuze stepped closer to Lord Zhao, studying him as he watched Eirian.
The lord was so distracted watching Eirian that he didn't seem to notice Yuze at all. But then, Chenzhou was too distracted by Eirian to notice Lord Zhao.
Yuze sighed. Something was brewing that wouldn't mean anything good.
~ tbc