by J. R. Ford
We had agreed Farrukh would keep the earnings from selling his cantrip, though Ana hadn’t let the profits go without a fight.
“But who else is an Alchemist?” Heather asked. “No one needs Alchemy mana but me.”
“Not yet,” Ana said. “But there must be more Firehearts, somewhere. And when someone finds them, they’ll need potions too. How much did the Health Potion cantrip cost you, Farrukh?”
“Just doing some special quests for a hermit apothecary.”
“Think he would sell you a Mana Potion recipe cheap?”
He shook his head. “Not without more favors. Maybe 150 gold otherwise.”
Ana whistled. “Steep for what I admit is a dicey business venture. Let’s put it on hold for now. But I have another idea.”
She paused, making sure she had our attention. “We buy equity in other parties.” She held her hands out, as if she expected us to be impressed.
“What’s equity?” I asked. Heather and Farrukh looked equally dumbfounded.
“Think of it as ownership. We pay parties now for dividends on their profits later. They use the cash to equip themselves better, so they have a better chance of success, and then when they succeed, we make money! Everyone wins.”
“Sounds complicated,” I said.
Farrukh nodded. “And it doesn’t earn us any points.”
“How would we make sure they pay us back?” Heather asked.
“You don’t think the Foresters would do us dirty, do you? Or Jeremiah and his rebels? Besides, if they tried to renege, we could take them.”
“You’d really be okay with killing them?” I asked.
“Not killing. Hard to make money from the dead.”
“You sound like a mobster,” Farrukh muttered. “Is that what your family does? I suppose it suits you.”
Ana laughed. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me. But no.”
“We should be focusing on ourselves right now,” Heather said. “We aren’t exactly rich after yesterday.”
Ana waved her hands as if clearing the air before her. “Fine, fine, forget I said anything. Come on, let’s keep hunting.”
We pressed on, eyes in the pines. No orcs.
The foliage thickened as we neared the river. Tributaries grew from hoppable streams to formidable currents. The one we followed flowed clear over smooth pebbles. Across it, trees choked the hillside. Ahead, there was a bright patch bare of wood.
“Hold on,” Farrukh said, then slipped between the branches.
“Don’t mind us,” Ana said.
“You’re one to talk,” I said. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t cool her down.
We worried away a few minutes. Farrukh returned as unceremoniously as he had left. “Two orcs up there. I didn’t take the shot. One could run, warn the others.”
“What others?” Heather asked.
Farrukh shrugged. “Whoever they’re keeping watch for. This isn’t a highway. If we want to kill both simultaneously, we’ll have to get close.”
“Are we sure we want to take them out?” I asked.
Farrukh looked at me like I’d suggested taking them out to dinner. “We came here to hunt orcs, didn’t we?”
“To find orcs,” Ana said.
“Well, unless we get past these two, we aren’t going to find out how many more there are.”
“What if they’re in view of their friends?” Heather asked.
Farrukh shrugged. “We’ll have to evaluate. But how are we going to get close?”
“I can help with that,” Heather said.
“Right,” Ana said. “Turn into a panther and sneak up on them.”
“I was thinking something different,” Heather said. “Follow my lead.” Then she glowed yellow and a white mountain goat stood in her place. She bounded into the trees.
Farrukh shrugged and followed her, silent as my terror.
“She's picking up his bad habits,” Ana said.
“And how is it different from what you did against the Enlightened, or the orcs? Charging in without a thought for us?” I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
Ana's lips tightened. “We didn't have time to talk about it. Those apprentices were right on top of us.”
“And with the orcs, you charged right into their trap.”
“My mistakes don't exonerate his.”
“I thought we were talking about Heather.”
“Her too. Both of them.”
“She looks up to you. You’ve been paying that much attention, I hope. I know you're more of a doer than a talker, but if you want them to listen to you, you're going to have to talk to them. For everyone's sake.”
She clasped my shoulder, and I jerked back. “Relax. She'll be fine.”
I made an effort to let my shoulders and jaw rest, for what little good it did. Heather could be moments from death. I tried to get a better angle through the trees.
“What are you going to do from here?”
“I just want to know.”
“You're going to make noise. Don’t you trust her?”
Silence, when unoccupied by imagination, is just a blank screen. I shut my eyes rather than gaze into my reflection there. I would’ve twiddled my thumbs if I’d had more than one.
The thrum of Farrukh's bow broke the silence. I nearly fell over in surprise.
“Come on,” Ana said. She waded into the tangle of branches in time to run directly into Farrukh. He had a giant grin on his face.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The thing tried to pet her, if you can believe it. She changed back and put her spear through its face. I got the other one clean. Heather finished him. Didn't so much as make a sound. Allah is great, but I’m a damn good shot.”
“We didn’t doubt your skill, nor Heather’s,” Ana said, giving me a pointed look.
Through the tangle, I made out Heather in her blue dress and scrambled up to meet her.
She had a defiant look in her eyes, a far cry from the terror and tears from when she had first wet her spearpoint on an Enlightened newbie. His blood had stained the hem of her dress; now blood spattered her front. It made her yellow eyes seem brighter. She didn't say a word.
Farrukh clapped her back. “That was brutal! Even if you did steal my kill.” Then he knelt to loot the carcasses, filling his quiver with arrows and taking more in the fist holding the bow. These orcs didn’t seem as formidable as those we’d fought two days prior. One was a brute, sure, but the other probably would’ve been considered a kid by our standards. It was hard to tell, with its face half-destroyed by a spear.
We army crawled to the hilltop ridge, keeping low and quiet. Well, Farrukh kept quiet. The brush poked at me, but I had greater concerns.
I was never good at visualizing numbers, or numberizing visuals. I settled on a nice, round number.
There were a thousand orcs down there.
Canvas tents were scattered haphazardly across the wide gully. The river flowed past at the bottom, tugging at tied rafts.
“This is an invasion,” Ana breathed.
6
“It’s not worth it,” Farrukh said. “Leave them.” The sun glistened on his straining back muscles as he drew his new bow.
“Shut it!” Ana said. “Pav, ready?”
I nodded. Our final drill of the session had been nullifying sword strokes while striking with gauntlet-dagger simultaneously. My mana had depleted from 100 to 94 while changing into my swimwear, but 94 was plenty.
We stood on a ledge overlooking the river. The waters sparkled in the afternoon heat, enticing me.
I shook my head. “Why can’t we just jump in?”
“We’ll jump when you do!” Ana said.
“You can do it!” Heather said.
The sight of the two of them in bikinis certainly inspired some facade of courage. I cycled through the fifteen hand positions for redirect, lingering on the final pose. I could form my execute symbol, with ring and pinky fingers bent. My mana would be dispe
lled as a torrent — redirect mana. But if I pulled that, Ana would just grab the stick and drill me until I had 100 mana again.
Weary as I was, there was something tempting about the image. If I could convince her to let Heather run the exercise, and I could watch her form in the sun...
But it would just be delaying the inevitable. And what I really needed was to enter that cool water, where I could truly embrace her. The other option was to make an additional, optional symbol before my palm-out execute pose: redirect momentum.
“Do it, coward!” Ana shouted.
“I'm going to!” I said, shaking away my trepidation. What were a few moments of terror compared to the bliss of my reward?
I made the final two shapes and blasted off.
It wasn’t as if I’d jumped with superhuman strength. More like, one instant I was still, the next I was sailing out over the river. I kept my breath in on the way up and loosed it as a scream as my trajectory arced. The drills paid off, and the three pings of nullify momentum came quick. I slapped the null ring to my side about five feet above the river. I stopped as if I were still standing on the bank, except that I was screaming.
The nullification felt like being suspended in nothing. Flailing in the void would be fruitless, so I curled into a cannonball and sucked in air before gravity caught up and plunged me into the river.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was enveloped. The water washed away my fears and worries until I was nothing.
When I opened my eyes, the water was clear and didn’t sting. My companions had kept their word and jumped in after me. I appreciated Heather’s lithe form as I swam up, getting a double feature with Ana beside her.
Ana had been fit when we’d met — strong legs to carry a strong frame. Now she boasted an Olympic body.
But my lecher’s gaze fixed on Heather. She was so beautiful. When we’d met, she’d been just another cute girl. I’d stared at her enough even then to know she hadn’t changed much. Still small. Maybe her chest had developed some.
Though she hadn’t changed much physically, at some point, she’d become the most beautiful young woman I’d ever seen.
I wondered if the most appealing quality of a girl was being into me. I didn’t have the experience to tell. But, knowing she cared about me, merely looking at her brought an idiotic grin to my face.
Keeping our cameras off had been a good idea. It meant a longer leering window before guilt could turn to shame. I surfaced lest I drown in my rapture.
“Great job,” Ana said. “But we should work on the screaming.”
“I never get used to falling,” I said, front-crawling straight to Heather. We started splashing around.
Farrukh came over, ditching his bow for a pole and settling on the ledge, downstream of us. I wondered if my chest would grow as hairy as his one day. “I bet you’ve scared all the fish.”
“When have you caught anything anyway?” Ana said. “Jump on in. The water’s nice.”
“I’m good. Can we talk about what we’re going to do now?”
“We have a tradition of swimming before important decisions,” I said.
Farrukh ignored me. “What has Bluehearth ever done for us? Leave them to the wolves, I say.”
“There are thousands of players there,” Heather said. “We could barely take six of those orcs, and we’re the strongest party around. Bluehearth would be razed.”
“Bluehearth will be fine,” Farrukh said. “Its walls fry anything that touches them. Worst case, the orcs take care of the Enlightened and Azure Lance for us. What good would warning them bring?”
“They could prepare,” Ana mused. “Stock up on food and firewood. Send out parties to harass and thin the orcs.”
Farrukh laughed. “You think Edwin has the organizational skill to manage a campaign like that?”
“Absame might. He seems like he has a good, if big, head on his shoulders. And he seems to care more about protecting the city than stopping Edwin.”
“But then Edwin will crush him and take over the city,” Heather said. I took her around the waist and held her close, not just because she was warm and the water cool. She wrapped her arms around me, then fell back and plunged both of us under the water.
Her hair floated around her head. She ran her hands down the length of my body, feeling my arms, sides, down to my legs.
We emerged. “You know we can see you, right?” Ana said. Farrukh laughed.
I blushed. “That doesn’t mean you have to look.”
“What about the innocents?” Heather asked, offering us a way out. “Most Bluehearthites don’t belong to either guild.”
Farrukh bit. “And what will they do with the information that a legion of orcs is coming to burn their homes?”
“They could avoid adventuring out into orcish territory, for one,” Heather said. “Others might flee, to Frostbank, or the Sunlands.”
“And who says those cities aren’t facing hosts of their own?” Farrukh said. “If anything, we’d want to rally the citizens to fight.”
“And who would lead them?” I asked.
“Jeremiah,” Ana suggested.
“As if their group has the influence to contest Absame or Edwin,” Farrukh said. “They’d be crushed underfoot.”
“Maybe, but if there’s anyone who we should tell, it’s them. I trust Jeremiah.”
Farrukh scowled. “Is it really worth risking our lives over? It won’t earn us any points.”
“Not all of us are mercenaries,” she said.
I could tell from the way Farrukh’s eyes narrowed that her slight had found its mark. But his next words weren’t a reprisal. “It won’t get us any closer to the Knucklebones, either.”
Ana looked at my stump but didn’t say anything.
“Quit hiding behind your promise!” Heather said. “I want Pavel’s hand back as much as anyone, but you know warning them is the right thing to do, and we’re the only ones who can do it! It’s our responsibility.”
Ana hesitated.
“Well, it’s my responsibility, anyway. And I’m going.”
Farrukh shook his head. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’m level 1. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not it,” he said and didn’t elaborate.
“You just want to see Priyanka again,” she said, splashing him.
He yelped and gave her a hurt look, as if she’d betrayed him.
Ana chortled and joined in the splashing. “Farrukh found himself a girlfriend? Maybe you’ll stop being so dour all the time.”
“I’m not dour,” he said, discrediting himself. “And she’s not my girlfriend. It’s just nice being able to speak Telugu with someone who can talk back for once. You guys don’t think about it because it’s your native language, but English is a lot of effort for me.”
“Is that why you have a crush on her?” Ana asked and splashed him again.
This time, instead of flinching, he gathered his line and stomped over to the range. After he’d restrung his bow, the thwack of arrow into wood broke the silence.
Heather turned to Ana. “Jeremiah’s your friend.”
“Yeesh,” Ana said. “No need to guilt trip me. You’re right, we have a responsibility.”
Which left me. Heather’s gaze made me sweat. “Don’t act like I have a choice. When you make a decision like that, you make it for all of us.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” she said.
“We’re all safer when we’re together, and Chen said the path was crawling with monsters and Enlightened.”
“I’ll be fine,” Heather insisted.
“Think about it from my point of view,” I urged her. “How could I forgive myself if something happened to you, something I could’ve prevented?”
I caught Farrukh outside while Heather made dinner and Ana cleaned her armor. He was practicing with a javelin against a stack of logs.
He held his arms out in a T-pose, the javelin balanced in one. He g
uided the javelin forward, then his whole body twisted, his arm a blur for a split second. The javelin thunked into the target fifteen feet away and stuck there.
“Why are you practicing with those, when you have your bow?” I asked.
“Remember back at Tyrant’s Vale, when that giant broke my arm, and I had to throw my poleax to save Ana? It never hurts to practice.”
“Where did you learn?”
“Same place I learned to shoot, camping in Nallamala. Sitting around not catching any fish can get boring.”
“Can I try?”
I adopted the T-pose, then threw the javelin with all my strength. It went straight into the ground five feet away.
“The motion of your arm is circular, so you have to aim it with your fingers and wrist to get it to fly straight.” He indicated the motion with his hand, rocking the fingers forward to send the javelin on its way. I tried again, and this time the javelin almost made it to the tree.
“You’re still angling it downward a bit too much. It’s not like bowling. And all you need is one moment of force.”
He showed me again. His arm didn’t move slowly, but nor did it move quickly, at least until his hand was roughly over his shoulder. Then his arm jerked forward, his wrist flicked, and the javelin flew straight into the target, sticking in at stomach height. He wrenched it out and handed it back.
“Now try again, and this time put some effort into it!”
I didn’t tell him that my previous attempts had been full strength. But I tried again, only really throwing at the last second, and this time it flew true. The point stuck in, but the shaft clattered against the ground.
“Keep practicing, and maybe work out more.”
He grabbed his poleax and started practicing beside me, throwing it headfirst. It flew awkwardly, but still better than my attempts. After embarrassing myself some more, I figured it was a good time to gossip. “So, are you actually going to go for it with Priyanka?”
He scowled. “I teach you, and you tease me in return?”
A grin cracked across my face. “I’ll only tease you if it’s true.”
“Not a word to Ana, all right?”
“Deal.”
“The truth is…” he threw his poleax, left-handed this time. It glanced off. “I don’t know.” He chuckled and looked at me earnestly. “I don’t think I’m very good with girls.”
