CHAPTER 13
The next day Glint felt guilty for attacking weaklings, but he received three copper coins from the old barkeeper, who wanted to keep him on permanently. Glint refused politely, telling the man that he was on a journey and although he liked the town, it wouldn’t be possible for him to stay in this place for long. The hard eyed man took Glint’s hand in his and thanked him deeply for his help, although he added, “Twenty years earlier I woulda taken them on myself,” adjusting his bright blue bandana crossly. It seemed mercenaries were the bane of the simple man’s work, for they turned into bandits more often than not. That Glint remembered from his own time in the Boar.
The man’s wife, a kindly old lady whose hands shook at times, took Glint to a table more secluded than the others for his breakfast. There he had relative privacy, for this tavern was usually busy. The table was situated in a nook under the stairs leading to the rooms upstairs, and there she served Glint one of the finest meals he had ever had: assorted cooked hams, cheeses, and breads, topped off by a few fresh juices. He ate his fill, and when he was done, the old Lady gave him a very deep look and asked, “I heard you talking to my Gared, said you were on a journey.... Are you following your heart, boy?”
The warrior was taken by surprise by the question, but it seemed to Glint as if the hope in her tired old eyes was going to swallow him whole, and he thought about it seriously. It had been his dream, surely for years, to join Quicksilver, but his recent months had shown the young warrior that there was less honour left to the guilds of this world than he would have hoped. Still, he answered a firm, “Yes,” for her sake and the lady’s smile lit up brightly, taking years off her face.
“I knew a man who was like you once, child,” she said, and Glint paid attention to what he divined to be a good tale.
“Bless him, he was a ferry man, in a port town far south,” she started, taking a seat opposite him at the circular table, “He was strong and brave, and kind as well. It was his dream to sail across the whole of Shien’s rivers on a boat of his own. But he never got to do it. No, he got into trouble with some bandits for saving a girl they were bothering. They broke both of his kneecaps, and in a way he’d never fully recover from no matter how long he rested or which Normal physician he went to. The local Healer’s guild was too expensive to ask for help. Poor Gared had to put his clever hands to other uses, and there went his dreams.”
She went silent, and Glint thought about the tale for a bit. Had Gared been stronger, he could have protected both the girl and also become a sailor. He could have been truly happy, perhaps. “Food for thought,” the woman added, cackling at her joke regarding Glint’s unfinished breakfast. Then, more seriously, she pleaded, “Use what you have before you regret it, and remember what’s most important to you. Someday you might need to sacrifice things for it.”
Glint had one question he wanted to ask “What happened with the girl?”
The woman winked. “He married her, and better for him too. Although she didn’t think inheriting her father’s tavern was compensation enough for what he gave up.” With that said, the woman walked away, perhaps remembering happier times. In the dim light Glint saw in the old lady’s stead the shadow of a far younger woman, with bright eyes and a spring in her step. Maybe happiness comes in many forms, the warrior reflected again, not just ones that we strive for.
The warrior finished his meal and went outside, giving the barkeeper a friendly wave as he went by. Old man Gared grumbled pleasantly back at Glint, who pushed the old creaky plank door open, his eyes squinting against the brightness of the day. There was snow everywhere, which made the sunlight seem that much more blinding than usual. But such weather was good for hunting, since the snow had stopped and so wouldn’t cover his prey’s tracks.
Glint went about two miles out into the forest, leaving the noise of the village behind him and returning every hello with a wide smile. There weren’t many people living in the tiny village, so he was instantly recognized as an outsider, yet folk were friendly enough.
When he had gone far enough down the road that no one could be seen in the distance, Glint veered off to the left, leaving the path and wading into the leafless depths of the forest. Deeper still he went, ignoring all normal tracks, until he spotted claw marks against a large elm. Kneeling in the snow, he took a closer look. The marks didn’t look like any wolverine he knew of, for they were far too large to be normal. It occurred to him that Mark and the others had been right after all. Or maybe this was a bear; Glint was no expert tracker.
Cold air bit into Glint’s chest as he looked around, trying to look for better tracks to follow. An indentation on the white carpet of snow revealed where a large animal had gone on four feet, before its footsteps were covered by the last day’s downpour. The marks again seemed strange, almost disfigured somehow, with one part going much deeper than the others. He eyed them uncertainly, then sighed, stepping over to follow it.
After a few hours, Glint started to seriously doubt that he was actually tracking a wolverine: it was all blown out of proportion, as if the tracks had come straight out of a child’s nightmare. In fact, they reminded him of something he had seen in a monster’s depiction. The thing had been all eyes and fangs, trying to rip its way out of the portrait, and Kob had laughed at him when he didn’t want to carry it for the large man.
A growl drew Glint’s attention to the left, where far off in the distance he saw a shape biting into a carcass: it was large, black with white lines going along its dark fur in some areas. It had a long snout, like a dog or wolf, and obscenely large claws. Glint had no doubt it was one of the beasts he was looking for, although not the one he was tracking. This one was larger than a dog and its tracks still weren’t as deep as the ones Glint was following. Still, this animal was certainly not a creature nature would willingly give birth to.
For one, each of its claws was longer than Glint’s fingers, and its large mouth could gobble up a small animal in one bite. Thankfully Glint was downwind of the animal, and far enough away that it couldn’t see or hear him yet. He was glad once more for his exceptional senses.
The warrior approached silently, for his prey was focused on devouring whatever it was that it had killed, and was not going to be aware of any looming danger around it anytime soon. He thought about moving over as fast as possible and cleaving it in half in one deft strike, but the thing was more than a hundred feet away. The warrior couldn’t get there fast enough for it not to notice him, especially not without activating his armour, so Glint decided on the silent approach.
He moved over to the right, keeping the beast upwind from him so it would not smell how tense he was, a thousand scenarios going through his head. Circling around the beast, Glint wished he had a bow or an art that dealt more with ranged abilities, knowing how dangerous it could be if he failed. Going closer, the smell of blood drifted to him, and he remembered Mike’s words from the previous night. There have been many a folk going missing this past month. He may have just found the culprit.
Glint closed on the animal, appreciating its true size, the rippling of its muscles, the awkwardness in its movements, and how out of proportion its head was to the rest of its body. It almost looked as if the thing could chomp a person in half with ease. It reminded the warrior of how children drew people: heads so large that in reality they wouldn’t be able to support them. It looked horrendous and comical all at once.
Getting closer, the musk took over everything else, even the stench of blood. Glint was two steps behind the beast, but he hadn’t activated his armour yet, despite opening up his bracers’ power to his own and letting it course through him. He tried hard not to allow the snow beneath his feat to crunch, and so proper footing was difficult to find, yet finally he thought himself in range and steadied his breath. With a powerful exhale he slashed down hard at the wolverine’s back, trying to cut right through it, but his blade went only a quarter of the way through before being stopped by corded muscle, causing it to get stuck as the
beast let out a feral scream of pain. Glint was astonished. He should be able to cut through metal, with this blade and his power .Could the wolverine’s muscles be thick enough to stop a strike that powerful?
The wolverine spun around, fast, forcing Glint to let go of his sword and roll dodge to his left as the beast stumbled over to the other side. Glint eyed it warily while it tried to orient itself, finally fixing yellow eyes on him. It leapt over to him, claws trained on his chest, and Glint rolled to the right, thinking on his feet.
It was fast, he decided, incredibly so. He could barely dodge the blows with just the energy output he got out of his now double bracers. What’s more, his sword was stuck in its back. There was very real danger here, more than Glint would have expected out of any animal. How did it get like this? He thought to himself as he kept dodging the beast’s blows desperately.
He could win if he activated his armour, but he had promised Azrael he would fight while making sure he looked like a Normal, as part of his training. He needed to use just the energy he got from his plain silver bracers to its highest effect, and to utilize proper tactics. Focusing harder, he dove into his bracers and let lightning sprint through his body. Such power he had, and still he could not prevail…
Just then, Glint got an idea. He ran past the monster and scampered up a nearby tree, kicking up snow as he went. The wolverine leapt after the warrior, jaws wide for the chomp and yellow fangs looking eager, but it couldn’t quite reach him. From the branch he was in, Glint surveyed the beast, and confirmed his theory: its head was so large that it couldn’t support its weight properly, and couldn’t look up at him. It yelped in pain when it tried to do so, shaking its head furiously to try and dislodge the large sword stuck in its back.
From there, Glint simply dove unto its back and pulled his sword out of its shoulder with both hands. He allowed the animal to bleed itself out whilst dodging before putting it out of its misery with one more thrust through the back. The youth surveyed the beast lying prone on the ground, confirming that it wasn’t breathing anymore. Red blood steamed upon white snow, mirroring the fogging of his own breath. Glint removed a claw as proof of the deed, and relaxed a bit further away from the body for a few minutes, leaning against a tree. He pondered hiding the body or burying it, but decided that other wildlife in the forest would take care of his job for him, just as the wolverine had been doing with its victim when he found it. His blood pumped with the euphoria of battle, and he had to stifle a laugh.
It’s nice to see even Ability users need to use battle tactics when they fight. That had actually been worrying him somewhat. Glint realized that even had he used his armour’s abilities, he wouldn’t have gotten enough of an edge in this battle. Even with creating other weapons out of the armour itself, he wouldn’t have been able to penetrate the animal’s defences any better than he had with the sword.
The warrior needed to observe more, and play his strengths. His mind was his finest weapon in battle, and he would die if he went against a proper opponent rashly. This was probably something he would have been taught sooner or later, but felt good to discover on his own.
If each wolverine had a fatal flaw of its own, Glint thought, he might barely be able to finish fifty of them before Azrael came back. He stood up and kept going in the direction of the wolverine tracks he had been following earlier.
The Final Life Page 26
