Two days ago, the armies of Duke Barach and King Iltor had decided to chop each other up in the fields outside the town of Agrakin. Of course, both armies stripped the countryside of grain and cattle at sword point when they marched in and tried to carry away anything of value when they left. Both armies left most of themselves dead and the battle moved away to somewhere else.

After the armies, the scavengers came –camp followers and grave robbers looted the bodies of everything obviously valuable. Crows ate until they couldn’t fly, and picked the corpses for delicacies. Wolves dragged away the fresh corpses even before the soldiers left the field.

Kit had waited. The sun was set. The chill of night was descending with a low fog settling across the battlefield. The quiet squawks and scrabbles of crows and the buzz of flies filled the air. Kit shivered.

Skirting the edge of the battlefield netted hard bread and water flasks, but no valuables. Now it was time to go deeper in. At night, the other two legged scavengers were mostly gone and the crows slept. Kit skulked carefully across the field of corpses, stopping at each one and looking for a piece of hope in the form of a stray coin, a forgotten ring, or a salvageable weapon.

The mist congealed on Kit’s skin, leaving a sheet of silvered droplets in the moonlight. The fog washed everything in shades of black and white, but Kit was careful to listen for the sounds of other creatures and avoid them. One body at a time, the search continued.

Kit’s rag wrapped feet picked their way forward from corpse to corpse under the moonlight, until a flash of motion and a glint of silver caught the light. An abnormally large crow picked apart a corpse, oddly stripping meat off the hand. Kit froze low to the ground.

The crow moved with curious intent. It would peck and strip a scrap of flesh off the hand, then cock its head to eye it carefully, before choosing a new bit of flesh to remove. A silver wedding band stubbornly held to the corpse’s finger buried in the bloated flesh.

Kit studied the crow, judging the odds. One hand grasped a broken sword, snapped off flat 6 inches above the guard. The weapon was heavy, ungainly, and hardly sharpened. With luck, the crow could be startled away and the ring claimed. A silver band was perhaps the cheapest promise token available, but Kit knew it could be traded for warm clothing, shoes, and even a decent knife, if it could be sold properly.

The crow made a cheerful squawk as it tore the ring free, and Kit broke free of distracting daydreams of warm clothes, warm food, and warm sleep. The crow startled into the air as Kit broke from hiding and charged it, holding the sword awkwardly by its overlong handle.

The chase was on as the crow shot across the ground, laboring under a full belly and resting start. The ring glittered in its beak as the muffled beat of its wings drove it through the air scarcely higher than Kit’s head. Kit sprinted after it, almost immediately feeling lightheaded with hunger and fatigue.

At first, Kit almost caught it, missing with a clumsy overhead swing, but seconds later it seemed the chase was doomed to failure. Kit almost quit and gave up the foolhardy venture, before the crow dived into the ground.

“Hsh! Get back here you stupid chicken!” Kit hissed, quiet even now for fear of other scavengers.

For a moment, Kit was certain the bird had actually been swallowed by the earth, before practically tripping into a hole. The tunnel looked like something a badger or other large burrower would make and Kit scrabbled down it with the ease of a child long used to fleeing into narrow spaces to avoid those who were bigger.

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A dim sourceless light diffused the air, making navigation by sight just barely possible, and Kit focused everything on keeping track of the ring. The tunnel widened, but Kit paid it no mind. The sparkle of silver disappeared around a wall of some kind, but Kit was close behind.

The next section of the tunnel felt almost like an obstacle course, forcing Kit to change direction almost every other step, with only brief glimpses of the crow. Just at the end of long step, Kit was preparing to pivot to go around yet another wall, only to find nothing underfoot.

For a long, heart stopping moment, Kit felt the squeeze of terror. A wall careened out of the darkness too fast to be guarded against and a starburst of brightness was the last thing before unconsciousness. The small body tumbled the last few feet into the pit bonelessly and lay very still.

❦

I put my skeletons on standby at the edge of the pit and silently urged Fide to fly faster, while I readied myself for a violent confrontation. The unknown creature had unexpected speed and unknown ferociousness.

Then, the little two legged creature collided with the stepped into the pit  and collided with the baffle in the middle before it dropped the half dozen feet to the bottom like a dead man. Fide arrived at my core and flapped to a stop, cocking his head back and mantling in preparation for the enemy. For a heartbeat, I didn’t know what to do.

Curious, I stretched out my senses to the small two leg. Deeper mana at the bottom of the pit made it difficult to clearly see, but the creature appeared to be a small human in most respects. It had two legs, two arms, a head, and the common sensory organs preferred by ambulatory creatures. Blood leaked from its skull in a very tasty way and I idly devoured it. The taste was heady and far more energizing than the rocks, dirt, or dead flesh of my regular diet.

The thick mana at the bottom of the pit made certain things even clearer, such as the fact that the creature’s mana system was much stronger than Fide’s and the way it was guttering and draining away as I watched.

Bemused by the sudden turn of events, I pressed with my own mana and shattered the fragile barrier surrounding the creature. From there, it felt entirely natural for the surrounding mana to fill in as its own mana left, but that ease soon ended. Soon felt the density of mana at the bottom of the pit reached equilibrium, but the sensation of broken vessel bleeding mana didn’t stop. The creature had apparently taken some kind of serious hurt from its madcap dive headfirst into a dry pit. Without considering it overly, I exerted myself to fill in its mana system, breaking and rewriting the remaining holdouts within and repairing cracks and damage by the forceful application of extra mana. Where necessary, I shored up the mana patterns that supported its flesh, particularly around the head and neck.

The ambient mana had done most of the work, or I didn’t think it would have been remotely possible, but eventually, the little human-like creature stopped leaking mana and blood. I had become more tired than I expected from the exertion. I would soon sleep.

Shiny? Fide asked. I had been ignoring him while I was engrossed in my sudden project and now he stood directly in front of my core and thrust the a small band of metal toward me.

Yes, shiny, I replied.

Fide deposited the small band of metal at the base of my pedestal and hopped back, mantling his feathers proudly. Shiny good? Fide good?

Fide is good.

Fide seemed content with that small bit of praise and turned to fly out of the cave again. Flesh eat. Bones get.

Okay, I acknowledged. I took a moment to devour the small hoop of metal.

New Material Gained – Silver

An electric thrill ran through me as I digested it. The metal was rich in mana. I estimated that that little ring of metal contained the same mana as all the stone I’d devoured so far or more. I immediately stopped consuming, leaving the rest of the now shining silver ring untouched. Such a thing was obviously valuable and hard to come by. I could certainly eat dirt and rocks whenever I wanted to regain mana, if I ever ran low of resources, but this ring had potential to be something more than just food.

Before I allowed myself to slumber, I sent my newest skeleton to clamber down into the pit and retrieve my new two leg. He would be one of us when he awoke and I wanted to see if he was smarter than Fide.

I smiled to myself thinking that once again I had succeeded in emulating those few exceptions who cared for their own. I had clearly saved the little human thing when it would have died and now it would owe me its life. Wouldn’t I have another faithful brother in arms now?

I drifted asleep with such rosy thoughts in mind.