Day 12, 6:35 AM
“You hurt. It's okay. I hurt too. Hold my hand.”
— Neil Gaiman
The day I dreaded has arrived. I open my eyes, and I know; there will be no breakfast today. The food we bought from Alek and Dorna is gone, eaten. Well, I ate my share, Manuella still has enough for two days.
Thinking back, Alek, Dorna, and their kids were sweet. They tried to give us the provisions as a token of gratitude, but Manuella insisted on paying. We took what we could carry, paying a token price compared to Hella’s skinning service. And I’ve already eaten most of it. I get up with a sigh and start stretching.
We left town six days ago, and we haven’t covered two hundred miles. I bite my lip and glance down at Manuella, slowly working my shoulders. Her stamina is horrible. Hmm… Princess was slightly better; slightly.
Whenever we took forest shortcuts, I was constantly turning back and checking whether she’s still there. Well, it makes sense. I’m Aang the porter. It implies a lot of walking and above average stamina. And I should stop worrying about food. Manuella said we’re reaching Zenmir today.
Manuella yawns. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. Eat. I’ll be done by the time you finish breakfast.”
“I can share some?”
“Nah, relax. I can go for days without food. I won’t be happy, but I can do it.”
She nibbles on her ration while I squat, stretching my hamstring when BSD flashes before my eyes.
[You have leveled up.
Select a skill within sixty seconds or a random one will be assigned to you.
Forager - You are better able to find food in natural environments.
Streetwise - You navigate the streets better, instinctively finding the best path towards your goal.]
Sixty seconds or get one at random? How does that work for people who don’t see the blue screen of death?
“Forager,” I say, a tad too loud, and Manuella shoots me a look.
“I should start foraging for food. It will make forest survival easier. There must have been dozens of edible plants we passed, and I ignored them because I had some food in my sack.”
She stares at me a moment longer, then nods; slowly.
I finish my stretches by cracking my spine and whisper, “F1”.
[Name - Aang Ree
Class - fugitive slave level 1
Health 18/18, Strength - 20, Agility - 19, Physique - 21, Wisdom - 19, Intellect - 18, Willpower - 21, Presence - 20, Charisma - 21, Composure - 15
Abilities - Literate, Forager
Attribute points remaining - 1
To level up, stay on the run for thirty days
Statuses - none]
I need to survive a month on the run? That doesn’t sound too hard. It seems leveling up as a fugitive slave is easy. And I got an attribute point.
“Increase intellect,” I whisper, and the attribute improves to nineteen.
I feel no change. My mental capacity should have increased by twenty-one percent of an average human’s intelligence, yet nothing seems different.
I need to establish some mental exercise so I can see whether there’s any difference. Maybe guesstimating square roots of random three-digit numbers and seeing how many tries I take?
Manuella and I step onto the road and keep walking in silence for another half an hour, each entertaining our own thoughts. I hope mine are more erratic; for both our sakes.
Suddenly, I catch the distant beating of hooves.
“Hide,” I use my superior intelligence to deduce that hiding in the bushes while a random messenger dashes past is much better than staying in the middle of the road to meet the potential cavalry battalion chasing after us.
Manuella shots me another of her looks, but follows behind me.
“Why are we hiding?”
“Wait a bit, they are getting closer. There should be more than one rider.”
She frowns, straining her ears. Time passes, and her brows creep lower and lower before finally shooting up, her pupils wide.
“I hear it,” she says several seconds later, and another half a minute passes before three horses canter past us.
Their riders are armed and armored, wearing that yellow tabard.
“We should keep to the forest from now on,” she says, and I nod.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“You know what would be funny?” I ask, and she cocks her brow, the gesture at odds with the rest of her proper mannerism. “Imagine them asking Al and Dorry about our destination, and they told them Zenmir, because they wanted to help us.”
Manuella stares for a moment, then chortles. She asked Alek for directions to Springmir, hoping to cover our tracks if any pursuers ran into them.
“That would be funny,” she says. “Ironic too.”
Suddenly, I hear a hound howling in the distance. She jolts, her face pale, she must have caught it too.
“Run.” She dashes deeper into the forest. I follow, glad I took the bandit’s boots. They may be below inferior on Manuella’s scale, but certainly beat peasant footwear.
“The bloodhowler is very far away. We have hours of head start.” She tries to reassure me, but a plant with long, blade-like yellow leaves grabs my attention.
I can eat that root, if I cook it until it turns brown.
The random thought confuses me, and she thinks I have nothing to say.
“We have had more than one day’s head start, maybe even two. The guards are gaining on us. They probably kept tracking us with torches while we slept.” Panic tinges her voice, and I don’t say the obvious, that they are gaining on us because she’s slow.
“Calm down. They should be slower than us. Are there any large rivers around? That should help mask our scent.”
Manuella shakes her head, slowing down. “Running is futile, unless we take a boat or a carriage. Father bred bloodhowlers, humans cannot escape them on foot.”
“They are living creatures. That means they tire out, the guards can’t keep chasing us without eating and sleeping. Come on, we just have to outpace them until they give up.” I’m lying.
She knows it, but still nods.
We need hope. Just sitting and waiting for the guards to catch us means we’ve already lost, but if we keep trying a miracle might happen.
“We’ll go through dense bushes. It won’t slow them much, but if we’re lucky, the bloodhowler’s leash will snag on branches. Each time that happens will buy us a few moments, several minutes if we are lucky.” She picks up the pace, and I stay a step behind her, entranced by a swirling world of random thoughts.
I could eat that tree’s bark raw if I remove the gnarled layer. Those leaves have a numbing effect when chewed…
Soon I discover the forest is literally overflowing with edible or medicinal plants, but the assault of information is overwhelming, and sudden realizations impact my ability to think and speak.
We rush through the food and medicine, aiming for the most impassable terrain, but I don’t dare get my hopes up. Instead, I prepare myself for the restart. I memorize as many plants as possible and decide I will not select this distracting skill in my next run.
It’s probably not that bad if you already know the plants? Maybe the messages are so explicit because of my high wisdom?
My guess was correct. As I start differentiating plants on my own, the weird, intrusive thoughts disappear, and I just know how to use the stuff surrounding me.
All right. It’s not that horrible. Now, to get to know more about Manuella.
“Can you tell me what happened to your family?” I ask what I believe will give me the greatest insight into her mindset and current situation the next time we meet.
She turns around to look at me.
“You still have the breath for idle chatter?”
I shrug. “Never mind. How about you tell me when we stop to rest?”
Her face goes blank for a moment, but she nods and turns around, hustling once more.
I think we’ve made good progress before sundown, at least half as much as usual, but it’s difficult to measure. I drink water while she catches her breath, my godly physique flaunting its obvious advantage.
“What do you want to know?” she finally asks as I pass her the half-empty canteen.
“What happened to your family? Why did you fall out with the king, how did it happen?” Since I can’t ask about her imprisonment, I should at least understand how it happened.
She keeps gulping down water in the dark for a long while. She’s buying time to think.
Despite knowing what she’s doing, there’s no reason to force her. Finally, the wooden bottle is empty, and she speaks.
“The king was getting old and sick. He thought he would die soon, so he wanted to clear out the kingdom and make it easier for his son to inherit the land. My father greatly expanded my family’s ancestral holds and influence during his seventeen-year-long reign, so the king thought we would rebel and try to carve out a kingdom of our own.”
She pauses and maybe shakes her head, based on the rustle. “I do not know what father intended. But I know the king still lives, while my father is long gone. All because of me.”
She pauses once more, and I consider placing a hand on her shoulder, but it’s dark, and if I pat her boob instead she’s gonna explode, especially at a time like this. So, I keep my hands to myself and wait patiently.
“The knight I brought into the household when I was twelve years old betrayed us during the siege. He killed father, opened the gate, and traded me to the king in exchange for viscounty. I trusted Sir Gohen with my life, but after years and years of cruel captivity, I realized he may have been the king’s man all along. He probably planted him and staged everything while we fumbled through his web.”
Her voice is bitter, and she’s not making much sense.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Sir Gohen saved me when I was a girl. Bandits assailed my escort, slaughtering everyone, but I escaped. Then Sir Gohen appeared and returned me home safely, risking his life along the way.”
Wait, that story sounds very familiar. I can’t help recall Princess pointing her finger at me and denouncing me as a spy right before I died. Is that what she thought?
I can’t see Manuella in the dark, but I can picture her, and the image overlaps with Princess’s.
Was she afraid I would kill her father and capture her?
I try to recall everything that happened between us. She wanted to trust me. When I was weak, she helped me, but somehow I always put her on edge. I kept calling her Little Missy, it’s a totally bandit way to call a young noble lady, and I failed to notice it, thinking it was some kind of dialect or local etiquette.
She was afraid. She was afraid for herself and her family. I realize I’m feeling slight guilt for killing the backstabbing bitch.
“What about you?” Manuella asks, snapping me from my thoughts. I heard her talking some more about her situation, but it became a background drone about everything she and her father had done for Sir Gohen.
“I think I was a slave,” I tell her honestly. “I woke up in a slaughtered caravan twelve days ago. My head was bloody, and it hurt like hell. By chance, I stumbled upon a young lady, who called me Aang the porter, and explained I was her family’s slave. I tried to help her survive, but she abused me, and I killed her. The rest of my life is more or less what happened between us.”
There is a long pause. I don’t find it particularly awkward, more meditative, a moment in which we both consider what has happened to us, and how we got where we are.
“You will die,” she says suddenly.
“Everyone dies,” I shrug, and realize the line sounds freaking cool. I feel like the macho protagonist missing the last airplane to freedom with an indifferent puff of a cigarette. I didn’t know people could be like that in real life.
“Don’t you regret it? You might have escaped on your own. I can tell you can run much faster than me. You could just abandon me here and run.”
She makes sense. Maybe if I leave her in a tree, so that wolves and wild beasts can’t eat her…
“What happens to you if they catch us?”
She’s silent for just a tad too long before she speaks in a flat tone. “I will survive.”
Yeah, nothing good.
“I won’t leave you behind, and I’ll do what I can to protect you.” Under normal circumstances, I would think my words a load of heroic bull, but she’s just a kid, and she’s already been through hell.
“And when, no, if they catch us, I will fight to the death. I won’t know who’s my friend and who’s my enemy, so stay away from me. At least thirty yards away. And if I die fighting, and drag them all down with me, I expect you to run, stay alive, and stay happy.”
I can’t really tell her about my suicide bomber move, but this should suffice as a warning.
Killing all pursuers should give her enough head start to escape for good.
“Take these.” I give her the sack with money and the dagger. “If we make it together, they are with you, and I got away from carrying all that junk. If you’re the sole survivor, they are with you.”
I can hear the clatter of metal falling on the ground, and she’s hugging me.
“No wonder you are so naive. You are only two weeks old.”