Cal's own roar died in his throat as the cheers crested and broke, the energetic chorus trailing off into the misty air. For a heartbeat he had been part of it: the wild, primal exultation of survival, of seeing his enemies broken and fleeing before him. It was euphoric. The adrenaline had merged with the cheers into a potent cocktail that left his blood charged in a way he'd not felt since the battle with Astrin, and even that paled in comparison.
He lowered his bloody spear and shot off another [Spiritual Pulse] in a wide-area sweep. The bandit auras scattered through the forest like sparks blown from a fire. Twenty-some F-tiers along with a handful of E-tier, the survivors of the rout converging as they fled deeper into the trees.
The auras on the northern flank moved due north in a straight line. The auras on the southern flank, including the remaining D-tier, moved east first, parallel to the road for perhaps two hundred yards, then peeled north. He could see them down the road as they crossed to the other side.
They were converging… the main camp likely somewhere to the north. Where they'd have supplies and be able to rest and regroup. Lick their wounds and rebuild strength, all so they could hit the next caravan even harder.
Unless someone stops them.
Cal looked down at his hands. His perfectly steady hands cradling his spear despite the giddy energy still coursing through him.
He had felt… powerful. The kind of powerful that meant Corinne was alive. That had kept Christoph alive, and Mahina alive, and a few dozen other people who would have died if he hadn't put in every grueling hour to work and study and train.
Fierce pride and purpose rose in him. Until he looked up, and the harsh reality of this world knocked him back down a peg.
The road was a charnel scene. Bandits sprawled in clumps where his arrows and spear had taken them, their blood running in rivulets off the fused stone of the road to pool on the shoulder. Mixed among them were others. That merchant in fine green robes now lay half out of his wagon, one hand still clutching the lip of the seat, the back of his skull caved in. A dedicated guard slumped against a wagon wheel, his shield split clean down the middle, his eyes open and seeing nothing. The young man Cal had watched fall off his pony earlier was on his back near the rear of the column, motionless.
Travelers moved through the wreckage in shocked groups. A woman knelt beside a still form, her hands pressed to her own mouth. Two merchants supported a third between them, his leg hanging at a wrong angle. Steinar barked orders somewhere up the line.
More were standing than Cal had expected, though. The grit of these travelers had surprised him. But still, too many lay dead, and the victory he'd treasured became a little hollow.
He walked back to Corinne and Christoph.
Corinne had blood drying on her sleeves and cheek, none of it her own from what he could tell. Christoph's silver hair was plastered to his temples with sweat, and his elegant tunic had a dark stain spreading across one shoulder where he'd taken a glancing blow.
"Cal, that was—wow!" Corinne spoke in a breathless rush. "You were everywhere at once, like a one-man army! And that shot that started the battle, the one got the Piker guy in the woods? Then how you stuck the other one, the bark-skin fella? You just ended them! Bam! Just like that! Like you were tossing out a drunk who can't pay his bill!"
Christoph gave a shallow dip of the head, his expression grimly appreciative. "Lad, your combat effectiveness is exquisite. A truly remarkable display of martial aptitude."
"I'm just glad you're both safe," Cal said as he took in their states. "And not seriously hurt, I hope?"
"Aye, lad." Christoph had lost his silken polish and looked to be running on fumes. "Bruised and tired, but whole."
"I'm fine," Corinne said, searching his face. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine, Cor. And beyond that, well… I'm going to go after them."
"You're, WHAT!?" Corinne almost dropped her spear. "Cal, no! They're running and we won and Steinar said we should—"
"I can't stand just leaving it like this." Cal looked north into the woods. "Their base is out there, somewhere. If we walk away they'll probably hit the next caravan with a grudge. But if I can track them and give the Legion their location..."
It was the least he could do. They had come for Corinne; heck, they had come for all of them. He refused to turn his back on that. Not when he had the power to do something about it.
"You can't go alone." Corinne stepped in front of him, her free hand catching his forearm. "There is still a D-tier out there, plus the rest of those—those, rotten bastards. Even if you could find it—"
"Corinne." Christoph rested a hand on her shoulder. "I just watched this young man somehow kill a D-tier with a bow and arrow from seventy yards with no visibility. Then I watched him kill another one who had shrugged off my best entanglement Spell as though it were a mild inconvenience. I do not believe a reconnaissance mission is beyond him."
"But Uncle—"
"I'm afraid he is not asking permission, my dear. He is simply informing us out of courtesy." Christoph looked up at Cal. "I will speak with Steinar and Eris. I expect they will want to press along the road for another few hours before making camp, putting distance between us and this... carnage."
"Yeah…" Cal breathed, glancing toward the bodies. "That's probably a good idea."
"I will also see to the collection of spoils while they prepare. You have more than earned your share, lad. I'll ensure it's kept safe for your return."
"Hey, that's great Christoph! I totally forgot about the loot! I really appreciate it."
Corinne squeezed his arm, then let go. She didn't look happy, but she didn't argue further either. That was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all, because it meant some part of her trusted him to do the crazy thing he was about to.
No, not crazy. This is totally rational. I have the power to do it and my conscience says that power comes with the responsibility as well. I'm totally not being reckless again. Nooooope. Just get in, scout the location, get out. Easy.
Cal retrieved Nen'tae from where he'd placed it across the driver's bench, sliding it back over his shoulder. Then he walked among the bandit corpses without ceremony, undertaking the grisly work of recovering arrows from the bodies they had ended. Managing to reclaim enough to refill one of his quivers, he stopped beside the bark-skinned D-tier last, glancing once at the ruin of the man's eye socket before bending down to loot his body.
He didn't find much. The man seemed to rely on his bloodline armor and claws for his fighting style. There were a couple of red E-tier spirit stones and a handful of gold and silver coins.
When he turned back to Corinne, he gave her the smile he used to give Katie when he had to leave for a business trip. The smile that said 'I'll be home for dinner.'
"See you tonight."
"Yeah, and you better bring me a souvenir." Her quip came out a little wobbly, but she kept her chin up. "Something nicer than a bandit's ear, too!"
He laughed, surprised at the dark humor. Then he jogged into the northern trees, quickly disappearing into the forest.
The sounds of the caravan died behind him within a minute, eaten by the moss-draped trunks and the dense undergrowth of ferns. All that remained was the soft crunch of his boots on damp soil and fallen needles, and the constant patter of moisture dripping from unseen branches above.
[Spiritual Perception] painted the fleeing bandits for him, and he picked up his pace to a steady lope. He couldn't catch them in open pursuit without burning through his Stamina, and he didn't need to. He wanted them to lead him home.
He pulled three purple essence stones from Selara's silver void ring as he jogged, quickly absorbing the Vitality and clearing out his channel erosion. [Moving Meditation] and a ration bar helped him get back up to top shape while he continued on.
As his body settled into the pursuit, his mind began to dissect the fight. The D-tiers had been dangerous, sure, but they felt… brittle. They were strong, but they lacked the terrifying depth he’d sensed from the nobles. He remembered the casual and overwhelming power of Team Zenith, the effortless way Aurelian had commanded his fire and how his sister had dueled a freaking dragon to the death. Those bandits were nothing like that.
To be fair, taking an arrow that might have dented a tank through the head would probably drop anyone who wasn't expecting it. Especially when it comes at you in what you think is a covered position. Still, though…
The disparity gnawed at him. He hadn't seen Aurelian or the Zenith members use any obvious bloodline Abilities, but Selara's phoenix rebirth was a power so spectacular she'd essentially been kidnapped for it. Even the nobles back in Deadfall possessed bloodlines that acted as huge force multipliers.
So is that the difference? Just… bloodlines? Or is it the training and the gear? The access to Skills and Spells that cost a fortune?
Cal shook his head ruefully.
Probably all of the above. I guess I'll find out eventually.
He didn't have the answer, but the question itself felt like progress. He was getting stronger, fast. He knew he couldn't touch a high noble in a straight fight. Not yet. But after today, the gap felt smaller. It felt like a distance that could be crossed.
And with that in mind, he finally turned to his waiting notifications.
[Your proficiency with Power Shot (E) has increased to Practiced]
[Your proficiency with Combat Analysis (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Crimson Overdrive (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Liminal Breath (E) has resolved to Practiced]
[New Ability Gained: Rapid Fire (E) - Novice]
[Your proficiency with Steady Draw (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Nock Arrow (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Marksman's Eye (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Smooth Release (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Follow Through (E) has increased to Adept]
[Your proficiency with Rapid Fire (E) has increased to Practiced]
[Your proficiency with Acrobatics (E) has increased to Practiced]
[Your proficiency with Tumbling (E) has increased to Practiced]
[Your proficiency with Lancing River (E) has increased to Adept]
*Sheesh, who knew the combination of [Liminal Breath], [Crimson Overdrive], and a bow and arrow would be so deadly? And it looks like all I really needed to get some Skills to Adept was a life-or-death battle. Good ol' Veraxus!*
The ground sloped gently upward as Cal continued on, and the canopy thickened until the air took on a permanent dusk. His perception kept the receding auras pinned. They had slowed considerably. Most of the F-tiers had been running at full sprint and had blown out their Stamina. They were walking now, converging on the commander at the center.
All of them, but one. A straggler. Cal slowed and approached the lone man at an angle.
The bandit had propped himself against the trunk of a spruce, both hands clenched around a mangled left leg. The man's trousers were soaked dark from mid-thigh down, and a jagged splinter of bone showed white through a tear in the fabric. He'd taken a fall, probably, in his blind sprint through the underbrush. His shortsword lay six feet away in a patch of moss.
The bandit flinched and looked up as Cal stepped into view. His face was middle-aged and ruddy, framed by a scraggly black beard. His eyes were brown and very wide.
"P-Please—" he managed. "Please, lad, I got—I got a family."
Cal stopped six feet away.
The bandit raised one trembling, bloody hand, palm out. "Please. I never wanted—they made me, the captains, they—"
Don't do it, Cal.
Caleb Foster had been a man who had argued at dinner parties that capital punishment was a moral failure of a society, that no government could be trusted with the absolute power of execution. To him, a wounded, helpless man should not be killed.
The bandit breathed in panicked gasps. He was younger than Cal had thought at first glance. Maybe thirty. A scar twisted up the side of his neck.
He's begging and helpless, man. You can take him back to the caravan. Let him face Legion justice.
For a long moment Cal stood there and stared, the man he had been and the man he had become at odds.
Then he thought about Narbok. About what Legion justice looked like in the streets of Deadfall.
He thought about the dead from the caravan, the ones who hadn't been able to run or defend themselves. The merchant who had died with their hands upraised. He thought about how Mahina had looked when this man and his friends had come howling out of the trees with murder in their eyes.
Veraxus, he thought, sighing, isn't Earth. And these men aren't standing trial with too little evidence, facing death row. They came to kill us. Heck, his sword still even has blood on it.
The bandit saw the change come over Cal. His face went slack with terror, and he opened his mouth one more time as he put up his hands. Cal stepped forward and drove his spear through the bandit's neck.
It almost sickened him that he barely felt any regret.
Almost.
After the man went still, Cal pulled the spear free and wiped it on the dead man's tunic. He glanced at the shortsword in the ferns and walked over to pick it up, turning it over when it felt familiar. Stamped just above the cross-guard, almost lost under a layer of grime, was a small mark. A spear crossed over a shield.
Huh. Was he a deserter, or had he come across the weapon by some other means?
Cal stored the shortsword in his silver ring and turned north to keep moving. [Spiritual Pulse] updated his mental model and showed the main body of bandits had stopped moving at the edge of his range. It was time to go Full Ninja Mode.
He focused his Intent inward, preparing to cloak his spiritual signature. The process brought back the memory of Narbok’s clumsy probe back in the Deadfall training yard. At that time, instinct and desperation had led him to harden his aura into a wall as [Aura Shield].
The Legion scouts had taught him a far more subtle art. He’d practiced their technique, [Aura Suppression], for hours, learning to reverse the natural outward flow of his aura and pull all of its energy back into his spirit. It was a delicate, mentally taxing process, like trying to hold his breath with his soul. He'd need it if Gasto and his cronies weren't going to notice him snooping about.
He drew on the lessons, pulling his presence inward until his own power became muted and contained. The world felt slightly more distant, his connection to it intentionally frayed. He was a hole in the ambient spiritual currents. As he held the technique and began to move, a notification chimed.
[Your proficiency with Aura Suppression (E) has increased to Practiced]
He was still a long way from the perfect invisibility Hope used in the dungeon, but this would have to be enough. He continued his approach, a spiritual void using [Stealth] to move silently through the trees.
He'd crept forward nearly twenty minutes when the wind shifted and brought him the smell of unwashed bodies and an overflowing latrine pit. The bandit camp was nearby.
Cal pulled up well short of the perimeter and circled wide. He found a thicket of young hemlock on a slight rise about a hundred and twenty yards from the camp's southern edge, screened by a tangle of bracken and the trunk of an old fallen spruce. The cover was excellent. The angle let him see the bones of the camp through the gaps in the foliage.
He settled into a crouch and got his first proper look.
The camp was a makeshift settlement. Crude wooden lean-tos had been built over muddy canvas tents, all of it draped with branches and forest debris to aid against the rain. Cookfires smoldered in shallow pits. Men in mismatched gear walked between the structures, some carrying water from a stream he could hear but not see, others tending to wounded comrades from the road.
This was enough to give the Legion, but he wanted the rest of the picture. Stepping further back into the forest, he lifted his hands and began to cast [Portal].
The Spell came together easier than ever as a stable mess of glowing blue-white glyphs. Pushing his Intent toward the western edge of the camp, his perspective warped. The view was perfectly clear in his mind: a small shelter with three men sleeping inside, a stack of crates marked with merchants' guild seals, and a barrel of something that was probably cheap ale.
With a grunt, he severed the Spell. The construct dissolved and he immediately dropped into [Meditation].
Crumb, this is going to take a while.
He let [Perfect Memory] stamp the visual into his growing mental model of the camp while he waited for his Mana to refill so he could cast again. A different angle this time, targeting the eastern edge. Two more sentries. A pen with three mules. A track leading north out of the camp toward the latrine.
Continuing to map the camp, his mental endurance began to strain. Even with [Savant of the Mind] seeming to buffer some of the side effects of casting he had limits, and he felt them being tested. By the fourth scry, the constant recycling of his entire Mana pool gave him a headache. By the sixth, his left eye began to twitch.
It would be incredibly convenient, he thought as he meditated yet again, if I could just lift the scrying piece out of this spellwork. You know, strip it down to the essential scouting function and build something new. I'm totally doing that as soon as I can find a moment and some privacy to experiment.
By the time second dusk had bathed the forest in red light, his survey of the camp was nearly complete. Three dozen structures. Twelve cookfires. The latrine pit to the north. The mule pen to the east. The water-fetching trail to a stream on the western edge. Gasto's command tent at the rough center.
And one anomaly.
A well-trodden path led from the camp's southwestern edge toward a blank spot in his mental map. The path was clearly used, the vegetation beaten down by repeated foot traffic, but his vantage couldn't get an angle on whatever lay at the end. Three big ancient spruces stood clustered together, their lower branches forming a natural barrier.
He repositioned. The change cost him a few minutes of careful scuttling through the undergrowth, working around to the camp's southern edge. He found a fallen log behind a thick stand of tall shrubs and hunkered down. From here, the blank spot was revealed.
A tent. Larger than most of the others and set apart by perhaps thirty yards from the rest of the camp. Heavy canvas, dyed dark, the entrance flap pinned shut. Two bandits stood outside it, both E-tier and looking bored. Oddly, they held cudgels rather than swords.
Cal didn't like the looks of it.
He returned to his original hiding spot and cast the Spell to let him see inside. The interior of the tent was lit by a dim runelamp hanging from a center pole. Seven women were chained to thick wooden posts driven into the dirt floor. They wore rags, and their hair was matted with filth. One had a fresh bruise rising purple across her cheek. Another's wrists were scraped raw and bleeding under her iron cuffs. Their eyes were all empty and glassed-over.
As Cal watched, a side flap of the tent rustled aside and a bandit slipped through. He was working at the buckle of his belt as he walked, his other hand already reaching for the laces of his trousers. He crossed toward the third woman from the left, his belt half-open, everything about it looking routine.
Cal could hardly breathe.
These women were someone's daughters.
That immutable fact rearranged every other consideration in his skull. He thought of Katie at sixteen, the age Corinne was now. He thought of Evelynn. He thought of every blank-eyed woman he'd just seen, and he thought about what their fathers would do if they could see what he was seeing now.
All thoughts of returning to the caravan and leaving things for the Legion fled his mind.
He poured his Intent through the Spell construct and the [Portal] snapped open behind the bandit in the tent. Cal lunged from his side of the doorway and plunged his harvesting knife up into the base of the man's skull, not even taking the time to pick up his spear.
[New Skill Gained: Knife Thrust (E) - Novice]
The bandit's body went limp without a sound. Cal caught the weight against his arm before it could fall, then yanked back through the portal, dragging the corpse with him into the forest.
The body slumped onto the ground at his feet, and Cal drew a breath as he continued to hold the portal open. [Savant of the Mind] blared a warning at the edge of his fury. If anyone in there talked, if any of them survived and described the man who came through a hole in the air they could connect [Portal] to Cal Valorn. He wouldn't get to keep that secret anymore.
Cursing under his breath, he fished a preservation cloth from his pack and tied it around his lower face while his back was to the hole in space. It covered his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes and a fringe of auburn hair visible above it.
Then he turned and stepped back through the portal with his spear, laying it down.
The smell was blessedly muted by the cloth. It reeked of sweat and unwashed bodies, the air so foul he could almost taste it through the cloth. None of the women moved. None of them even seemed to register his arrival or the bandit's death. The one the man had been approaching just stared through Cal with eyes that had nothing behind them, her cracked lips parted.
Drugged, maybe. Or just broken past the point where a stranger appearing through a hole in the air was of import.
It didn't matter which. He was not leaving any of them behind.
The knife Skill gain at the end here is an example of part of the Skill retcons/edits that I have in the works. This won't be Cal's first knife Skill once we're all said and done. For example, he's going to gain one or two when Narbok ambushes him in the alley early in Book 2. I don't have time to get them all implemented yet but wanted to get this one in as it went live. You'll get the big dump in an author's note... at some point. :)
I appreciate everyone's feedback on the last chapter, especially about whether to take the RR readers out of their misery about Selara. As of writing this, I'm planning to keep to the scheduled release window (although I did at least try to give them some encouragement in an author's note). Part of that is due to agreements I have in place for swapping shout outs with other authors (those advertisements to fictions on RR in the pre-note of each posting). It will also invalidate the amount of chapters ahead we are on Patreon; at least for a few days until they're caught up on Friday. Unfortunately, I just don't have the Patreon chapters ready to post in sequence. Small logistical things like that make it a hassle, and I want to honor what's in place. But there's more than that...
Yes, I'm bleeding some followers and getting rating/review bombed and people are mad and threatening to quit the story, etc. But I'll be honest... people have threatened to drop (and have dropped) the story since the beginning. I think the first major point of contention was the goblin hunt, and how Caleb didn't fit some people's idealized version of an MC. How some of the combat choreography and decision making went. Some people hated Chapter 40 and the remembrance ceremony. Caleb/Cal not killing Narbok sooner. The list goes on.
While I know it will read better when it's a completed book, and there's an argument to be made for releasing the chapters faster... I also don't want to start a pattern of doing early releases for chapters when people are angsty. That could create an expectation for the future, and the last thing I want is to reward people who are threatening to drop the story in the comments. Capitulation to threats is not the way, and that's what it would feel like to me. I pushed out an extra chapter to speed it up on Patreon because I consider y'all my Super Fans and you have supported me financially (<3 <3 <3) and I wanted to ease the pain here cuz you're the best. But setting a precedent that I cater to the free reading crowd more generously than my subscribers is something I won't do.
I'm going to stick with my gut on this one, for better or worse. I love how empathetic many of you are for your fellow readers. Y'all are seriously the best. And I get it, I really do. I've been there as a reader myself, and DNF'd books when something I hated happened. But I'm starting to understand the other side of it too... why Robert Jordan was famous for telling people to Read And Find Out. It's hard to articulate, but there's a part of me that's almost OK with letting people fall away from the story. I don't know if it's burgeoning artistic pride? A growing confidence now that I've gotten this far? But it's the idea that, while I can't quite put my finger on it, essentially means "I'm good if people stop reading, because the ones that love the story enough/trust me enough to continue, will continue. And those are the people I'm writing for."
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Love ya all.
Jon
PS - speaking of Robert Jordan, there's another Wheel of Time Easter egg in Friday's chapter. Bonus points if any of you beat Muntu at finding it.