Some hours later, Clay returned to Rodcliff. The sunlight was already fading, but he’d had a fairly productive hunt. He’d found and killed another four of the wretches, two more with the bow, and another two with his spear. They’d been hard to sneak up on, and even harder to reach at close range, but it was doable. Now he just needed to give the others a chance.
When he reached the edge of the town, he found the others waiting for him in a small bunch, along with the remaining [Guards]. To his surprise, the adventurers seemed to be sullen and resentful, while the [Guards] looked angry and agitated. He frowned as he drew close. “Something happen while I was gone?”
Jack spoke up, while Anne curiously avoided his eyes. “Unfortunately, someone happened to mention her [Class] to the locals, which meant they started asking questions about the rest of us.”
Clay blinked, but before he could ask another question, the leader of the [Guards] stepped forward. His expression seemed just as shell-shocked as he’d been hours before, but his face now flushed with anger. “Sir Clay, if that’s what I should call you, we need real adventurers here. Not [Knaves] and [Burglars] who are going to take advantage of a bad situation. We’ll let you stay the night, but after that you’ll have to—”
“You’ll let us, Captain?” Clay felt his own sudden flare of anger, and tried to rein it in. The man had seen a quarter of his town, and the baron besides, die to an invasion of monsters. He deserved some consideration. “We don’t need your permission to be here, and we certainly don’t take orders from you.”
The [Guard]’s face turned a darker color of red. “Adventurers have to follow local authority.”
“The baron had authority to order us. He’s not here.” Clay let a bit more steel leak into his voice. “We are here by direct request from King John. Are you claiming we should listen to you instead?”
The question brought the [Guard] up short, and Clay’s friends hid smiles behind their hands. Clay watched the man open and close his mouth a few times, and then look away. He looked around at the rest of the [Guards], who seemed uncertain now. “We are going to destroy the monsters threatening the town, and only when we are done are we going to leave. We need a place to stay and enough food to keep us moving. That’s all we’re going to need from you.”
Angry mutters started up among the [Guards], and Clay raised his voice a little. “If you don’t give us that, or if you interfere with us in any way, then I’m going to start having members of the town come with us to help fight. If you don’t want our help, I’ll at least try to teach you how to help yourselves before we leave, because there won’t be any more adventurers coming to save you.”
One of the [Guards] spoke up, her voice high and shrill. “You can’t make [Commoners] fight monsters! We’ll be killed!”
“Why not? I’m a [Commoner] after all.” The announcement seemed to strike them all dumb for a moment, and Clay pressed on. “I’m hoping that won’t be necessary, though. Just give us what we need to do our job, stay out of our way, and we’ll put a stop to this. That’s all we want. Understand?”
He waited until the [Guards] all nodded, and Clay turned to the adventurers. “All right. We need to set up for the night, and then we’ll get started tomorrow. I think that house over there is empty; we’ll stay there and keep watch.”
Xavien spoke up, his voice calm. “Did you see anything out there? What are we fighting?”
“Looks like flame wretches. We’ll check the books to see what else we can find about them, but they don’t seem too bad.” Clay shook his head. “They were all over the place, though. Already killed five just in the time I was out there. Didn’t see any bigger ones, but they could show up soon too.”
He heard murmurs from the [Guards], but he ignored them. Clay hadn’t dismissed them because he wanted them to see that the adventurers were handling the issue. Hopefully, it would reassure them and let them know things were being done.
Natalie seemed to have perked up at the mention of the monsters. “So tomorrow we’ll all go out together?”
“No.” Clay smiled at the disappointment on her face. “I’ll take each of you out with me for about an hour. The rest are going to stay here and guard the town while we try to push them back.”
Lawrence glanced to the north, his expression a little worried. “Are they really getting that close?”
Clay nodded. “Yeah. I took one of them about ten to fifteen minutes from here.” The murmuring from the [Guards] cut out. When he glanced at them, they seemed stricken. “We don’t want them getting behind us and hitting the town while we are out hunting, so until we push them back, we’ll want to have most of us stay close.”
He didn’t point out that he wanted to give them a bit of experience hunting first, too. The Academy training was good, but it wasn’t everything, and he was sure that if they could earn the [Achievement] for killing ten of the wretches before committing to larger hunts, they’d do much better in the long run. Especially if their efforts started attracting attention from larger monsters.
The others nodded, and as they started off to the empty house—the most northern building in the town—Clay turned back to the [Guards]. “Did you have anything else you needed to say?”
There was a pause, and then their leader shook his head. The [Guards] dispersed, leaving Clay to stand on the edge of the town alone. He looked back north and shook his head. The wretches had been dangerous, sure, but he had trouble picturing how they’d killed a [Noble], even an under leveled one. Something else was going on here, something he didn’t understand.
He turned to follow the others. Whatever it was, it could wait until the morning. Behind him, a chill wind rose, promising a grim night of cold.
“So all we’re doing is hunting monsters. That’s great. Perfect, really! Just a few monsters and we’ll be back home. Great.”
Clay breathed out slowly, trying to be understanding. Anne had drawn the first straw for the day, and it was early. She’d joined him just as the sun was starting to rise on another cold day of early winter, her longsword at her side and a longbow in her hand. A quiver of arrows was strapped to her back, something he hadn’t seen her use before. When he asked her about it, she’d shrugged and said something about noticing the need for long range attacks during the Melee.
Now she was chattering to herself—babbling, really—as they moved through the snow-covered forest, searching for wretches. Clay had looked up what he could find about the creatures in the translations of the manual that Olivia had found and had seen a typically brief description. They begin as wretches, using camouflage and stillness to ambush prey. Their tongue is like a strong whip, and they spit fire when disturbed from afar. Their hide can turn aside a weak blade or an insincere attack. Kill from a distance, take care at close range. Armor is nothing before their bite. Watch the shadows.
The others hadn’t been inspired by the information, or by the drawing of an adventurer catching a ball of flame on her shield, but Clay had felt it gave good advice. Every piece of knowledge helped, even if it wasn’t entirely complete. Now all he had to do was calm the [Burglar] down before she alert every flame wretch inside of a league that they were here.
He glanced at her as she scanned the forest and muttered to herself. She had the longbow out and was trying to walk with her hand already in the quiver. It kept throwing her a little off balance, and every gust of wind made her jump a little. Clay sighed. “Anne, you’re going to be all right. I’m right here with you.”
Anne gave him a brief look. “I know that. It’s just… just…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to let the team down. To let you down. After all we did to get here…”
“You’re going to be fine. I know it.” Clay nudged her a little. “Were you always this jumpy back in Crownsguard?”
“No! Of course, back in Crownsguard I always knew where we were and we didn’t have all these darn trees everywhere. Why did they bother planting all of these, anyway? They get in the way of everything.”
He considered trying to explain that the forest was something that had always been here, but she continued without his input.
“But yeah, back home, I always knew where everything was. Which streets were safe, where the freshest water was in the fountains, which [Guards] were mean and which weren’t. I even knew which bakeries threw out their bread early, and which ones occasionally left their doors unlocked.” She paused, and then blushed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to…”
Clay blinked. He realized that she’d actually stolen from people back in Crownsguard. She’d had to get the [Class] somehow, but he’d put it out of mind. “So you used to… take things? But now you don’t.”
Anne nodded, a hollow, defiant look in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s right.” She set her jaw, as if expecting an argument. Clay just turned his attention back to the terrain around them, making sure some monster hadn’t snuck up on them. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to her about her past. She’d never stolen anything since he’d known her—aside from the occasional bread roll at dinner—and he had every confidence that he could still trust her now.
Eventually, she sighed. “Look, growing up, we didn’t have much. Just me and a few brothers. We were always hungry, and some days it was steal or starve. I chose the one where my brothers’ bellies were full.”
Clay nodded slowly. “I see.” Another thought occurred to him, even as his senses began to sing to him again. “And at the Academy…”
“We had all the food we needed. Why steal anything?” He heard her sigh again. “I mean, yeah, I did sneak some food out to my brothers on occasion, but I don’t think that counted. The food was there for us to use. Why wouldn’t I share it?”
It made sense. At least he could see the logic behind it. What would he have done, if he’d been starving on the streets, and Will or Saphy had been starving with him? He started to say the same to Anne, but his eyes caught on something in the snow ahead.
He stopped dead and motioned for Anne to stay low and quiet. She nodded, her eyes wide. Clay motioned for her to get closer, and she did, cautiously.
Clay kept his voice to a whisper. “Do you remember what the notes said?”
“About breathing fire? Gods yes.” She was also whispering, though her breath was coming too fast. Puffs of steam drifted away from her mouth, rising into the winter sky.
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“Not that. These things like to ambush people. They hide and change colors to blend in.” He waited until she’d nodded, and then he pointed at a small mound of snow up ahead, one that was barely overshadowed by a handful of bare branches. “It also said to watch the shadows.”
“So they like dark places? Then why…” Her voice trailed off as a gust of wind moved through the trees. The branches swayed overhead, and her eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t look right.”
He nodded. “They match the colors around them well enough, but if shadows shift around them, it doesn’t look the same does it?” Clay turned back to where the flame wretch was hiding, its scaled skin a mottled white that should have helped it hide—if it hadn’t been for the shadows of the branches that had caught its disguise wrong.
Anne nodded slowly. Her fingers crept back to her quiver and drew out one long arrow. She nocked it, never letting her eyes off the creature. “Will one shot kill it?”
“One of mine did yesterday. Your bow is a bit stronger, so we’ll have to see.” He drew his shortbow out of the sheath, and nocked an arrow. “If you miss, or if it comes after us, I’ll finish it. Just focus on your shot.”
She nodded, pausing in place as the wind gusted again. Some of her hair brushed against her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she just waited for the breeze to die down, letting the branches rock back and forth for a moment.
Then, in a single movement, Anne the [Burglar] drew the fletching to her cheek and shot.
The arrow sped across the snow-covered terrain in a flash of motion. Clay braced himself to draw and shoot as well; Anne was a level one adventurer, and she didn’t have all the boosts that he did when it came to hunting their enemy.
His caution was wasted, however. A fraction of a heartbeat later, Anne’s arrow caught the beast straight in its swiveling eye. It twitched once, sending up a flurry of snow around it. Then it collapsed and went still. Anne let out a breath, steam gusting into the air again, and turned to look at him.
“So that’s what the notification looks like. Never seen it before.”
Her voice was filled with a cautious kind of wonder, one tempered by disbelief at seeing a long-held dream come true. Clay smiled at her and nodded. They shared a joint moment of victory.
Then he motioned for her to follow, and they set off again on their hunt.
Three hours later, Clay led Lawrence through the woods, searching for yet another wretch to kill.
Anne had killed her second monster before he’d taken her back. Xavien had been next, and he’d been able to help the [Oracle] fry another two wretches with well-placed bolts of lightning. The man had been a bit more solemn in victory than Anne had been, but he’d gone back to their temporary home with far more of a spring in his step than before.
Lawrence seemed nervous, but the [Occultist] had been following his directions with utter and complete seriousness. He watched the woods with a determination that belied his inexperience, and unlike both Xavien and Anne, he seemed to know a little more woodcraft. Clay remembered that he’d spoken of life in a small village, but he didn’t seem like much of a farmer or a hunter.
Still, the middle of a forest filled with monsters was not the place to discuss such things, so Clay just reminded himself to ask at a later time. Unlike Anne and Xavien, Lawrence had no long ranged options—his only [Charm] was one that could fog an opponent’s vision, but it couldn’t actually kill the things for him—which meant Clay would need to get him to within range where the quarterstaff could be put to use.
He'd just started to sense that now-familiar ethereal song, right at the edge of his senses, when Lawrence paused. “I think I see one.”
Clay looked over in surprise and then traced the path of the [Occultist]’s line of sight. There, tucked into the hollow formed by the roots of a tall tree, was a flame wretch. He could just barely see the grey of its swiveling eyes.
He turned back to the [Occultist]. “Good catch!”
Lawrence grinned, his expression a little bashful. “I was just thinking of where I would hide if I were one of them. Part of my [Subclass], actually.”
“Really? You never mentioned it.” Clay turned back to study the creature for a moment, trying to find the best way to reach it.
“Yeah. I guess I don’t talk about it much.” Lawrence hesitated. “[Empath] just doesn’t seem like it would count for much, honestly. Outside of manipulating people, of course.”
Clay grinned at him. “Well, that and finding monsters. Come on, I think we can get at it if we circle around. Keep your staff ready; you’ll want to hit it as hard as you can before it can uncoil.”
Lawrence nodded, and they moved through the forest. The [Occultist] did a fairly decent job of trying to avoid making noise, though he still slipped and brushed against things a bit too much for Clay’s tastes.
They moved quietly around the tree, their feet crunching softly through the snow. Occasional gusts of wind stirred the snow, and the branches moved and whispered above them. Clay paused every few steps, listening for sounds that would tell him that the wretch had moved, but he heard nothing. The forest wasn’t quite empty of wildlife—there were still some squirrels and such darting around—but the lizards had already made it a far more silent place than it should have been, even in winter.
During one of those pauses, Lawrence shivered. “It shouldn’t be like this. Where are the animals?”
Clay looked back at him. “Monsters eat them as much as they do us. The Tanglewood had nothing living in it but trees and spiders. Even the trees were dying near the center.”
The [Occultist] shivered a second time. Clay didn’t think it was from the cold. “They really are wrong and evil, aren’t they? Part of me wondered if they were just misunderstood. If they were like… well…”
Like him, Clay realized. He shook his head. “A person is more than their [Class], Lawrence. I’m as good an example of that as anyone.” Then he looked back at the tree where the creature waited. “These things, though… they don’t belong here. All they do is destroy, and if we let them, they’ll kill everyone in Rodcliff and us with them. When we reach it, don’t hesitate and don’t sympathize with it—because if you give it the chance, it will not hesitate to kill you. Understand?”
Lawrence nodded, and Clay watched him a moment longer to make sure the lesson had been heard. Then they stalked forward, drawing closer and closer to the spot.
When they reached the spot, Clay gestured for the [Occultist] to move forward. He drew out his shortbow, nocking an arrow just in case. It would be risky to shoot near an ally, but it was a better chance than Lawrence would have if things went really wrong.
Clay watched Lawrence draw close. The [Occultist]’s hands were wrapped tightly around the quarterstaff, which was angled back across his shoulder. It had been carved from the same dark wood as Clay’s spear haft, and the one time Lawrence had let him test it, the weight of it had surprised him. It made him wonder how well Lawrence could swing it, at only level one.
Lawrence took another step, and then another. He paused, shifting his grip on the staff to give his strike more leverage. The [Occultist] lifted it off his shoulder, glancing up to make sure the weapon wouldn’t get tangled in the branches above.
Then Lawrence brought it down with all the force of a hammer smashing an anvil. Clay heard the sound of crumpled bone and a short wet cough. Lawrence brought his staff up again and hit it a second time. Then again. After the third time, he jerked and looked to the side, as if someone had grabbed him by the shoulder.
Then he smiled and nodded to Clay. “One down. One more to go?”
“At least.” Clay smiled. He gestured for the [Occultist] to join him. “Let’s be about it.”
By the time the sun was starting to fall towards the horizon, Clay was feeling the drag of exhaustion. Lawrence had managed his second kill, and Jack had been able to pull off a couple of kills in the hour after that.
Which had left him with only a single member left of the team.
Natalie had given herself better long range options than Jack or Lawrence had. She’d brought a small collection of steel-tipped javelins from Crownsguard, and she’d already put one of them through the head of a flame wretch a few minutes before. She hadn’t been as nervous about hunting, either; it seemed like she’d talked with the others while he was out with Jack, and she’d seemed both eager and confident as they had stalked through the forest.
Now, though, she seemed a bit more solemn. It was as if that first kill had made things real for her. Clay tried to ignore the sudden change in personality and kept his focus on the task at hand.
Then, as he eased his way around a tall tree whose empty branches spread across the sky above, she spoke up. “Is this how it was for you? When you started?”
Clay glanced back at her in surprise. Then he chuckled. “Not exactly.” He looked around at the snowy landscape. “It was a lot warmer, for one thing. Also, I was using a woodaxe and a pitchfork, so…”
He hefted his spear to emphasize the comparison, expecting her to laugh. She just looked back at him, her expression still serious. “You still survived, though. Without any training, without anyone helping you. How did you do that?”
Uncomfortable, Clay shrugged and returned his attention to the terrain. “I just did my best with what I had available. It wasn’t like it went smoothly, either. I think I nearly died probably three or four times.” His shoulder ached, and he grimaced. “Probably more. And I wasn’t completely alone. Even if they weren’t in the forest with me, I had people helping me.”
“Really? Who?”
“My family, for one.” Clay smiled at the memories. “My parents were always watching out for me. I might have starved from neglecting my farm if I hadn’t had them to keep me fed, not to mention helping me stay sane. There was a [Guard] too, named Herbert. He patched me up when I got injured and tried to cover for me with the baron. The Baron helped too, in his own way.”
He fell silent, remembering. “There was a girl too, in our village Shrine. Without her, I don’t think I would have survived very long on my own. She’s the one who helped me find those notes and translated them for me. Helped me learn [Chants] too, even if she couldn’t use them herself. Without those, I’d have been spider food for sure.”
Natalie was quiet for a few more moments. “Sounds like someone pretty special. She lived in the Shrine?”
“Yeah. Olivia Newfeld Shrinekept.” He smiled a little at the memory of when he’d met her. So much had changed since then. “Maybe you’ll get to meet her someday.”
“Maybe.” The [Alchemist] seemed a little doubtful as she said the word, probably because she knew it wasn’t true. Even if Olivia was chosen as an adventurer, there was little chance they’d run across one another. There was probably even less of a chance if Olivia was a [Commoner]. At least, unless the Council put their plan into place.
He was grimacing again when Natalie spoke up again. “Do you know what happened to her family?”
Clay paused, and when he stepped forward, it made a bit more noise than he’d expected. “Her family?”
“Well, yeah. She’s Shrinekept, right?” Natalie stepped along behind him, her eyes alternating between searching the forest and peering at him in curiosity. “She’s probably an orphan, or from a family that decided they didn’t want her anymore. People don’t end up taken in by the Rectory without something like that in their background. Either way, there’s some story there, right?”
He felt like a complete moron.
He’d known what it meant to be Shrinekept. Like Natalie had said, the Rectory took in those with nowhere else to go, and tried to give them a place at least until the day of their Choosing. Many Rectors had once been Shrinekept, though many others went on to find other occupations. There were even many heroes that had once been Shrinekept.
Knowing all of that, why hadn’t he ever asked her about it? Why hadn’t she mentioned it? Had she been waiting for him to ask?
Did he even really know her at all?
Clay became aware the silence had gone a bit too long. He winced a little, searching for the words to change the subject. “She… didn’t talk about it much.”
Natalie gave him a skeptical look. “I see. I guess I can understand that.” She paused, looking at a spot where the wind had just pushed a clump of snow off a branch. “I saw someone get shipped off to the Rectory back when I was growing up. Family had too many mouths to feed, and then the parents got in some kind of trouble with the local baron. They had to give her up. It wasn’t pretty. I guess if it was something like that…”
He felt a hollow, guilty hole open up in him. “Yeah. I guess.”
There was another silence as Clay inwardly flagellated himself for being such a shallow friend. How could Olivia even pretend to be interested in someone so thoughtless?
Then his eyes settled on a small spot where the shadows didn’t make any sense. He felt a burst of relief at finding the monster, and motioned for Natalie to come and see it. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the single, shifting eye the creature had left exposed.
He waited as she drew out one of her special javelins. They were heavy, sturdy things, but she had pointed out that she wasn’t going to be finding anything of a similar quality while they were here. Each one needed to last, unlike the arrows he and Anne used. Natalie balanced the weapon in her hands for a moment, reassuring herself of its weight and shape.
With a sudden burst of motion, she hurled it at the target. The wretch barely had the time to twitch before the javelin caught it in the midsection, burying itself deep. Clay watched as it thrashed for a moment, belching small bursts of fire in all directions. Then it went still, and Natalie sighed in satisfaction.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “You know, if you shared some of those magic spells Olivia taught you, I wouldn’t have to walk all the way over there to get my javelin back. Are you still worried about Syr Katherine coming after you?”
Clay waved for her to get moving. “I’ll think about it. Now that we’re out here, fewer people might ask questions, but still…”
“Yeah, yeah, have to be cautious. [Chants] are dangerous, somehow. I get the picture.” The [Alchemist] started forward, staying alert for other dangers as she approached the corpse. Clay watched their surroundings too, looking for any sign that the monsters were waiting for her.
At the same time, the problems she’d brought up continued to torment him, long after he led her back to the house where they had set up their camp.