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Chapter 33: Ambush
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“And who is to say: ‘Things ought to be this way, you ought to act civilized, pursue this, ridicule that?’ Are you God? There are several, is any one decree more pertinent than another? And speak not of Noronabi, his is a useless name to call upon; the dead hold no sway over the living. No, I will follow my own path. Wherever the fancy takes me, there I shall make my way; Begone with you.” ~ From: “A History of My Master” by Kan.
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“Mikey? You in there buddy?”
Silence. Logan frowned, stepping over a branch. What’s wrong with him?
“Howdy! Yeah… I’m here!” His response came late, and his excitement sounded forced. He sounded—what? Scared?
“Uh, hi. How are you? I haven’t heard much from you in a while, it’s like you’ve fallen off the face of the Earth. Everything good?” Following Huck’s back in front of him, Logan ducked under the curving bridge of a root that came up out of the ground, made a head-high 'n' shape, then returned beneath the dirt.
The terrain here was so unlike anything on Earth, it took his breath away; if it weren’t for the carnivorous monsters lurking everywhere and the constant threat of death, he’d have liked to hike it for fun.
They were moving for speed and efficiency now, travelling in a tight column. Synec took the lead scouting several tens of meters in advance with Tarn leading the front of their group. Huck and Ryan were in the middle, hopefully the most well protected, and Logan took up the rear. The knowledge that he had no one watching his back unsettled him, and he made a habit of peaking over his shoulder every few minutes.
“We’re not on Earth anymore Logan, you’re going to need some new idioms. I’m okay; ever since you got this ‘rei’ or whatever though, I’ve been thinking. I’m a celestial… my kind deal with trillions of souls, but I’ve never heard of rei. My coworkers used to talk about Tiris, Zandar, Yndra, they said there were other types of intelligent souls here, but no one ever mentioned rei. No one ever mentioned gods, for that matter, but Tarn has been talking about them like they’re trivial—common knowledge.”
Logan continued trudging along, dodging stones in his path, avoiding stepping on glowing mushrooms, keeping his head down and staying apace with the others. For missing an arm, Huck still moved quickly. His stats made the physical effort of the hike negligible but avoiding the obstacles while staying quiet and tactical was not easy. He let Mikey speak, glad that the celestial was finally talking again.
“I’ve been thinking; why hasn’t anyone come looking for me yet? I’m just an entry-level worker as you’d call it, but there aren’t many of us. The Tiris Guide, the Tiris Branch should’ve detected my presence here. There’s just so much that I don’t understand; I’m starting to feel just as lost as you are. I feel the rei inside of our body, Logan, and it’s nothing like the power that I used to wield—the power I gave you. And there are gods? We were never taught about gods. There’s The Company, and that’s it. But now I’m learning that maybe that’s not the case, and I just feel— I don’t know.”
For a celestial being that couldn’t decipher a surprising majority of the turns of phrase in the English language, Mikey sounded remarkably human: vulnerable, and scared. Logan of all people could understand what he was going through; his life was turned upside down and suddenly he was thrust into a new world, forced to learn new rules. Now Mikey, someone that had already been comfortable with the idea of thousands of planets, magic, and whatever else, was learning that his understanding of everything was fatally flawed.
“It’s alright, Mikey. We’ve got each other, man. Whatever happens, we can figure it out, right partner? Nothing we can’t handle.” Logan spoke the words in his mind, but somewhere even more private he knew he didn’t really believe it. He was just as concerned. The strange ring on his finger, the words of the woman that’d given it to him, the world that kept expanding with every person he spoke to; how could they deal with it all? How could they ever catch up? If rei was as powerful as Tarn and Synec seemed to believe, then how could he ever grow strong enough to protect himself? How could he protect Ryan?
You get out of this forest, that’s how. Leave Woolam, cross the mountains. Move to a big city, get information, get stronger. Build something worth having; make Tiris your home.
“Thanks Logan.” Mikey was silent for a while as Logan continued walking, following close behind Huck and turning over his shoulder, bow grasped tightly every so often. “Do you think if you learned how to use this rei thing we could find away to get a body for me? I’d like to be able to… explore. Figure stuff out. Two of us able to move and fight would be more useful, right? I don’t know if that’s possible, but Tarn made it sound like anything might be.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Logan hadn’t even begun to consider what he might be able to accomplish with rei, and the suggestion shocked him. Could that be possible? His “affinities” were space, thrive, and fire, but he really didn’t know what that was referring to. Maybe he would find a way to make a body for Mikey—they were talking about essentially magic after all.
“If we can, we will. For now though, we need to get out of here. One step at a time. Let’s keep thinking on it though; I’m sure we can find out more once we cross the Sukos.”
Mikey agreed, and Logan felt at ease knowing that his bodily companion was back with him. The feeling was quickly replaced by fear as a rustling from beside him wrenched his attention. In a blink he’d nocked an arrow, firing into the bush. His arrow hit nothing, and a rabbit—a regular one, not the rabid variety—broke into a run, hopping hastily away.
Logan’s heart raced as he lowered the bow. Fucking hell. Huck had stopped in front of him, turning to regard Logan’s rigid posture and scowling face, then looked at the bush. “Got something against shrubbery, lad? Come on, Tarn’s leavin’ us behind,” he said, gesturing with the shortsword that Logan had given him at the receding circle of torchlight. He’d never used a sword, he’d said, but even armed with a weapon he was uncomfortable with was better than nothing. Ryan crouched nearby, bow in hand, keeping a lookout in the surrounding darkness. He glanced at Logan as if to say, “hurry up, let’s go.”
Logan nodded and took off behind them. Silence returned to their party as they continued through the forest. The trees, great titans looming high above, slowly began to admit the first soft rays of sunlight. The forest lightened from pitch black to a paling grey, and Logan started to feel himself relax. Miraculously they’d made it through the forest without being attacked by even a single rabid rabbit, boar, panther, or sworp. The lack of monsters was odd considering they’d run into several on their trek to the clearing. Maybe they all sleep during the night? Something about that conclusion felt wrong, but Logan dismissed it and accepted their fortune. We deserve the break; we can’t take much more. Huck puts up a good front but he’s on his wit’s end, and Ryan’s so on edge he could snap if anything else happened to his dad.
They were huddled against a boulder whose overhang provided them a measure of faux safety, taking a rest. Tarn sat on a small rock, resting; he had propped the baby llort up against the boulder, allowing him to lean against the stone wall as it slept. With his chainblades being used to carry Pug, Tarn was relegated to Torch Duty and was useless in a fight unless he wanted to risk the llort running away or attacking them.
Huck also leaned against the boulder, changing the bandages over his stump. It’d stopped bleeding and the potions had helped the skin to seal, but it was still a bright pink and sensitive, so he kept it covered. Now that they were resting, his façade had fallen and Logan could see the weariness in the lines of the man’s cheeks, the slowness of his movements, the slump in his shoulders. He needed a good night’s sleep and a real meal. Logan had looted the two llort bodies out the front of the cave and had taken away several valuable spoils including a plethora of coins, but no more potions.
Logan and Ryan watched the perimeter, bows in hand and eyes locked on the grey darkness beyond, waiting for Synec to return and tell them the coast was clear. After ten or fifteen minutes, they concluded their rest stop and reformed the column, continuing their journey out of the forest; Judging by his map, Logan knew that they had only a few more hours to go before reaching the edge.
Ryan raised his bow, shouting in alarm as something came crashing through the underbrush before them. Logan dashed up, readying a heavy, two-handed ax, getting in front of Huck. They were finally being attacked; in a way it relieved him; the anticipation of an encounter was almost worse than the eventual fight itself. Synec burst through the bushes, and the four of them eased, lowering weapons, their bodies sighing in relief. The baby llort on Tarn’s back mewled loudly. Just Synec. But why had he been so loud? That was unlike him.
Huck grumbled at him. “Synec, friend, don’t scare us like that; what is it?”
Synec scanned their faces, his cloak settling, his breathing inaudible even though he’d clearly sprinted here. “We have a problem,” he said slowly, calmly, gauging their reactions as he spoke. Logan’s stomach twisted. People only spoke slowly like that when they had to deliver very bad news.
“We’re surrounded. I spotted five or six lying in wait, but there are doubtless more. I’m familiar with their tactics, they’ll have scouts far behind us; if we’ve made it into their trap already, then they would’ve known we were approaching for a while already. We’ve missed our window to slip away, we have to fight.” He spoke quickly, but coherently—calm and collected. He locked eyes with Logan. “I recommend we attack. If we can break through their front, we may have a chance to escape.”
Logan didn’t know how to react, didn’t know half of what Synec was talking about. “Surrounded by what? By whom?”
Synec regarded him quietly for a moment, his cool eyes contemplating something unknown—calculating—then answered. “Snilbogs, Logan, a troop of them: thirty at least. We have less than a minute before there upon us. We have to move.”
Logan’s heart raced, his hands suddenly growing sweaty. Snilbogs… Huck had mentioned them before. Apparently, his dad had fought them in his adventurer days, they were short, primitive green humanoids with a thirst for violence. Calm down. There’s no use standing here worrying. Protect them.
“Okay,” he said, doing his best to project confidence. The eyes of the group that’d all been locked on Synec a moment before, fervently following his words, turned to Logan. Tarn squatted down and muttered something under his breath, his chain blades shifting, returning to their weapon form in his hands. The llort stumbled around, then fell to its butt with a thud. Ryan looked around warily, shifting in place, his eyes darting between shadows
Logan spoke quickly, trying to stay calm. “Okay,” he repeated, “Tarn, you’re with me; we’ll lead. Synec, Ryan, Huck, stay close behind us. We’ll keep the llort in front, maybe it can scare away the snilbogs or help us fight them.”
They moved into place, Tarn corralling the llort. Pug seemed to follow him and vaguely understand his guidance. “Straight ahead, right?” Logan asked.
“That’s the best way,” Synec affirmed, taking off his flowing cloak and rolling it into a ball that he handed to Logan. He wore a longsword on his hip with an intricate pommel: a carved wolf’s head with a glowing sapphire embedded in the cross guard. Even sheathed, it radiated an elegant danger. Logan put the cloak in his inventory, nodding at the Sellis.
“Let’s go.”
They took off at a dash. The area of forest they entered was slightly less dense, more open air and less cover. It really was an ambush. But why? Pug the llort ran out in front of them, spurred on by Tarn behind it. Logan traded his ax for a bow, preparing to fire at the first snilbog he saw. But he didn’t see them. He saw only their arrows as a rain of short, black shafts and glinting metal heads sliced through the air towards them.