by Noah Layton
Tobias and I were too large and lumbering to chance a look at our target, but fortunately I had Cass by my side. Her nimble figure crawled like an animal up the ditch, and she steadily lifted her head, inch by inch, to get a look.
Swiftly she drew back into her hiding spot and nodded at me.
This was it.
I gave the single nod to Lara above me, then across the road to Tobias, who delivered it to Elera and Ariadne above him.
The tough wooden wheels rolled along the road, approaching us as they bumped over rocks and clods of dirt. Steadily they were joined by the sounds of heavy footsteps.
I positioned myself at an angle as they grew closer, ready to count the numbers we were dealing with.
Fifty yards. Forty.
First carriage – one driver, two horses, one guard either side.
Second carriage – one driver, two horses, one guard either side.
I frowned and scanned the scene more closely. The guards were huge, fair enough, but only six of them?
Wait…
Thirty yards from where we were hiding, another carriage came into view.
It was half the size of the carriages that held the enslaved warriors, and a huge tarp was tied over it, covering the contents.
It was pulled by a further two horses commanded by a third driver, and another two guards stood either side.
Three drivers. Six guards. Six horses.
And this final carriage.
Why go to the trouble of covering it up?
I glanced over at Tobias. He looked as confused as I did, but the sight of his caged kin had him raring to go.
I shook my head over at him. He was a vicious warrior and a tactician, but a large part of his tactics revolved around working as a group with his people.
The sight of them was making him angrier and angrier.
Don’t let your emotions fuck you over.
No, I mouthed over at him. Not yet.
Tobias gritted his teeth and managed to keep his cool.
Twenty yards. Fifteen.
It was almost time.
Then-
An explosion of noise suddenly burst from the caravan. It was coming from the final carriage.
Barking roars shattered the peaceful solitude of the forest.
A cluster of green birds flew quickly from the high reaches of a tree further back down the trail.
The caravan came to a stop.
‘The hell is wrong with them?’ One of the guards at the front shouted.
‘Shut the fuck up, halfwit,’ a guard at the back shouted. ‘Something probably just spooked ‘em.’
‘You mean how bad you fucking stink? Enough to spook anybody…’
Scattered laughter came from the guards and the drivers.
‘Hey, fuck you. How about I set one of my boys on you, sure that would shut you up.’
And it did. It really did.
The guard at the back on my side unlatched the tarp from the bottom of the cage and pulled it off in one fell swoop.
A torrent of barking coursed out again from the cage as I finally got a look at the creatures inside. They were huge, rabid dogs with enormous teeth. Their bodies were red and hairless, and the three inside were practically throwing themselves against the bars of the cage in an effort to get out.
‘What’s wrong with them anyway?’
‘They can sense something in the forest is what,’ he said, looking around. ‘There’s something out there.’
‘Like what, a rabbit?’
‘Something bigger.’
‘Well let ‘em out. Saves me getting dinner for them as long as they can find it… And as long as you can get them back into the cage.’
‘They’re loyal to their daddy, don’t worry.’
He was going to unlock the cage. We would have our cover blown the moment they got out; I could practically see them staring me down as I waited in the shrubs. They were looking right at me and barking like crazy.
Cass, Tobias and I were all in mortal danger. We would be ripped to pieces in seconds by these things.
How the fuck do I do this?’
I pulled back from the roadside shrubbery and dashed past Cass.
‘What are we doing?’
‘Get ready to attack.’
I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t know whether it was getting to get me killed.
But it was stupid enough to work.
I drew my sword and readied it.
Arcing through the forest, I could see the image of the guard retrieving his key from his inventory.
I sprinted forwards, burst from the forest into complete view of everybody, and drove my sword straight through his spine.
The guard groaned out in confused pain, his mind unable to detect what had happened to him as he fell to the ground.
I didn’t have time to pull my sword from him, but that didn’t matter – I needed both hands.
I switched sharply to my Telekinetic power stone.
‘Telekinea! Telekinea! Telekinea!’
Three bursts of energy exploded from my free hand towards the caged dogs. The first shot threw the dogs against the opposite bars with a pained yelp. The second pushed the wagon off its wheels on my side, teetering towards a peak.
The third pushed it to its limit, but it needed one more to send it over.
‘Telekinea!’
The fourth cast sent it toppling completely, releasing a terrified yelp from the guard on the other side as the whole cage came down on top of him, dogs and all.
BOOM.
The driver of the carriage screamed out briefly as he was thrown from the wagon, falling beneath it before being crushed as the cage toppled onto him loudly.
Dusty dirt plumed into the air. The force of the carriage coming down brought the guard driving it and the horses pulling the wagon over in a screaming heap.
I couldn’t believe that it had worked.
But as I looked left, I now realized that I had two more of these assholes on my side sprinting towards me.
I dodged backwards, pulling my sword free from the back of the first guard that I had struck, and turned to face the two approaching.
But two quickly turned into one.
As they made their way towards me on my side, they failed to hear Cass’s nimble feet sprinting up behind the second of the two. She didn’t go for the neck – that would be too kind. She sweeped out at the back of his lower legs with her short sword, slicing through the guard’s heels, and bringing him crashing down, literally unable to walk.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tobias plunging his sword over and over again into the gut of the guard of the centre cage, then withdrew it one final time and sliced his head clean off with a vicious war cry.
The guard coming at me was huge, swinging his axe like a madman, and I couldn’t outpace him.
Looking past his shoulder, I saw the driver of the second wagon jump down and go running into the trees to the left of the road.
‘Cass!’
She looked over her shoulder and caught sight, then spun on her heel and went sprinting after him.
My attacker slowed as he approached me, showing some semblance of self-awareness.
I had to make him lose his shit, otherwise there was no way I was going to get close enough to him without risking being sliced in two.
I crouched down and grabbed a rock from the road, then hurled it straight at the merc’s head.
It struck him hard on the nose, releasing a frustrated moan. His eyes refocused on me, a look of explosive rage rising in on his face.
He jumped forwards, swinging his huge axe in a wide sweep. I leaped to the blind spot on the left and slammed my blade down into his neck, cutting into his torso.
Blood sprayed from his mouth, and he tried desperately to raise his weapon, but his hand went limp and the axe slammed loudly to the ground.
I withdrew it with a spray of blood and abandoned his body, rushing to the front of the caravan and darting t
o the other side to flank the remaining two guards; the driver and the left-hand guard of the wagon bringing up the front.
I was met by a torrent of yelling and screaming.
Another arrow flew down and slammed into the running guard, hitting him in the shoulder and slamming him against the bars of the cage.
Tobias leaped into action and dealt with him swiftly while I turned my attention to the driver.
I expected a surrender, but he wasn’t going down. He turned to me and swung his short sword.
I dodged back, missing the tip of his blade by inches. Just as I did, a bolt of frost flew out of the trees and struck his arm.
He screamed out and the sword clanged to the ground loudly as he cradled his frozen arm.
He was the last one, but I wasn’t giving out any life jackets.
I swung wide and almost decapitated him, the force of the hit so hard that he slammed into the front of the wagon and crashed to the ground in a pool of blood.
I looked over to see Tobias plunging his sword into the chest of the final guard. The death rattle of the driver at my feet sounded for several seconds before he drowned in his own blood.
Tobias and I shared a look. We were both spattered with blood, looking like serial killers, but there was no time to waste.
A single nod, between warriors and we got back to work.
‘Is that all of them?’ Lara shouted down.
‘That’s everybody,’ I called up. ‘Let’s get this place cleaned up before somebody finds us. Tobias, loot the bodies and find the keys. Where the hell is Cass?’
‘Still in the forest, I think,’ Elera replied, landing in the forest and making her way up to the road with Lara.
I crossed to the other side and looked out.
‘Cass?’
There was a yelp, and the smash of a sword’s tip against a rock, then rushing footsteps.
I took a step back as a precaution, keeping my sword ready as a shape appeared.
Cass suddenly remerged, wiping her sword off with a handful of leaves.
‘And that’s all of them,’ she breathed. ‘Nice work.’
Tobias rushed from corpse to corpse, looting each body until he found the respective keys with each driver.
He unlocked both cages, and his people rushed out in a flurry of happy cries and hugs.
They might have been warriors, but this was a reunion they probably never thought they would have.
All were unarmed, but I realized quickly that they vastly outnumbered my group, likely in both skill and ferocity.
I needed them on my side, and I hoped to hell that Tobias would stick to his word.
I met up with him in the midst of the large group. He finally turned to me, as did many of the warriors.
His face was still stained with bloody warpaint as his damaged eyes stared back at me, but a smile eventually appeared.
‘This man has saved us, and we owe him our lives,’ he commanded deeply. ‘He has offered us land and refuge, and we will accept it gratefully.’
The temperament of every one of the warriors changed. It was a subtle shift, but totally unmistakable.
They stuck to Tobias’s word, and as long as I had his loyalty, I had theirs too.
‘Your loyalty will be well-rewarded,’ I replied. ‘Help me clean this place up, and fast. We don’t want to be caught here right now by anybody.’
There were nine mercs in total whose bodies we had to shift quickly, but with the help of the warriors we got the job done quickly. After looting their bodies for weapons and gold, which I was happy for the warriors to take, we picked them up by arms and legs and carried them quickly into the depths of the forest, at least 100 yards from the road.
This wasn’t the first time that I had done this, and while we could have covered our tracks more effectively by burying them, we didn’t have time to hang around, even with the help of the warriors.
Besides, this far into the forest I knew that there were enough beasts waiting to come out at night that there would be next to nothing left by the morning.
Once the bodies were gone we kicked away any of the blood-stained dirt and rocks, and turned our attention to the last problem – the dogs.
‘We can take care of them quickly,’ Tobias said, gesturing to three of his closest comrades.
Before I could even discuss who was going to put these feral, deadly creatures out of their misery, the three warriors crossed to the cage and stabbed them through the bars, cutting them down as quickly as they could.
Holy shit.
‘There,’ he continued. ‘We should get moving, no?’
A small part of me should have been intimidated, but I wasn’t. They were warriors. This was their way of life. The dogs’ bodies followed their masters.
The freed warriors moved like marines in further dismantling the caged wagons, striking them until they broke into bits that could be thrown into the forest. After setting the horses free into the wilds, there was little evidence that anybody had been here at all.
Chapter Twelve
We hit the road quickly and got moving at a military pace back to the new land. I was muscular but had leaned out a little since arriving in Agraria thanks to all of the cardio that we had to endure.
The warriors took this way of life in their stride, their focus set on the road ahead. In our journey we took a road west before we reached the trading post and passed the homestead in the mid-afternoon, then headed through the forest to reach the new land by the mid-afternoon.
I climbed over the fence to unlock the gates, then opened them to welcome the warriors into their new home.
They examined the place in small scattered groups near to the wagons, scanning the area and seeing what it had to offer.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Tobias. ‘There’s a mine right over there that we’re working on, room for homes, barracks…’
Tobias was tough as nails, that I already knew, but it looked like he was about to cry.
He turned to me, gulped, and placed his hand upon my shoulder.
‘This will do, tribe master.’
He looked like he was about to hug me, but I knew that was against his temperament.
I took the pat on my shoulder to be the equivalent. Tobias moved away from me, and as he did another member of his tribe took his place before me and placed his or her hand on my shoulder.
‘Tribe master.’
He headed away, and a female warrior appeared.
‘Tribe master.’
From all around me they appeared, placing their hands upon me before stepping away and returning to their examination of the land, all until they had each carried out the same act.
I had been calling them parts of Tobias’s tribe, but they no longer were – they were a part of my tribe.
After giving Tobias building rights upon the land, I, Ariadne, Lara, Elera and Cass headed back to the main land, arriving just as night fell. We each washed down quickly and turned in to bed, passing out pretty damn quickly after a day of fighting and traversing the roads.
***
I slept late into the next day with my wives, only rising from my bed and heading out to my land after midday.
The air felt much colder than usual, and the sky was overcast with clouds.
Artrix had definitely been right – a colder season was approaching.
Everything on my land was in order, all except a single large object that stood out of place, because it hadn’t been there at all yesterday.
A small tree standing around three yards high had sprouted up right next to Talia’s small house, and she, Tormus and Eri were all staring up at it with admiration. It was scattered with wolfapples; large, ugly, red, irregular orbs that were sat about the thing complacently.
I smiled and headed over to them.
‘Did this grow overnight?’ I said in disbelief.
‘Indeed it did,’ Talia replied. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think… How? How did you possibly grow
this overnight when it takes weeks to grow a patch of moonseed?’
‘Quality over quantity, my dear,’ Eri said, ‘this will get you drunk.’
‘But,’ Talia added, ‘The fruit isn’t the tastiest, as I’m sure you know.’
‘But it gets you drunk?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Then it’s fine by me. I’m sure that I’ve drank worse. What kind of fruits do we need to grow to make something sweeter?’
‘Ones that are more expensive and only flourish in a hot climate,’ Tormus said. ‘And I’m afraid timing is not on our side. It is getting colder.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Talia, you gather up the wolfapples for the cider. We want enough to create a barrel so that everybody can have some, especially on a day like this. Tormus, get the satyrs to harvest everything they have and plant everything that you can. We don’t know how much of this weather we’ve got left.’
Everybody got to work, including myself and the girls. Once I had checked up on the daily operations and ensured that everything was running smoothly, I let the satyrs take a break for lunch then recruited them, and the fox-people who weren’t on lookout duty, to help with the digging of the trench.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I started, gathering the five satyrs and three of the fox-people. ‘Keeping the tribe safe is the most important thing to me, and that doesn’t just mean the safety of our food stores, it also means protecting the perimeter so that any attack is stopped swiftly, or at least put through its paces.
‘We’ve got a wall and we’ve got pikes sharp enough to skewer our enemies like kebabs, but the most ambitious part of our work is this.’
I pointed down to the trench that I had dug.
‘A… big hole?’ One of the satyrs said in confusion.
Some of the other satyrs laughed, but not in mockery – more in shared confusion.
‘Pretty much,’ I chuckled. ‘This damn trench took me twenty minutes to dig, and I almost keeled over in the process. There’s almost a mile of this that needs digging, and as my imp kindly told me, I can’t do it on my own.’
‘I did say that to him in fairness,’ Alorion said, looking down from the northern lookout post.
‘Exactly. But together we can get this thing done a lot faster, and it will keep all of us safe. We’ve got new recruits, warriors, who will be able to speed up construction considerably, but right now we might as well get started on it. And once we’ve got enough done, there’s a barrel of cider waiting for us on the land. Not the best stuff in the world, but there’s plenty of it. Sound good?’
