If you’re ever on the edge, and all the plans in the world have fucked off without you, buy time. – The Shepherd
----------------------------------------
I scouted the rock face before me, mentally tracing my route as I would traverse it. It was fairly simple, with big jugs of jutting rock for handholds most of the way along, and the solid granite made for confidence in the rock. The last thing I wanted was to alert them with a falling rock, or gods forbid slip and land on my ass in front of them. That would be an inauspicious start to my ambush.
I noticed a thick ledge running along the rock about 5 meters up and terminating just a few meters shy of their current position, now that they had moved closer to the cavern. It seemed Sven was trying to make sense of the field given the sundering of the earth from the cavern’s immergence.
I silently thanked whatever god had engineered that feat, as clearly the movement of the earth had thrown any tracks I’d made into disarray and was causing Sven quite the difficulty in figuring out my path. Sven seemed to be of the opinion that I’d not ventured into the cavern itself and was trying to convince the others of this, if I’d read the situation correctly. That was hard to do when I was a good 40 meters away by the tree line, but I would chance it. In the end I didn’t really care what they were discussing, as long as they continued doing it without looking up while I approached.
I traversed in as close to silence as I could manage, controlling my breathing and taking care to prevent my shield or the two bangles on my left wrist and the broach securing my cloak from knocking against the rock – the scrape of metal on stone would surely alert them to my presence, while the soft hiss of leather and cloth could be safely ignored.
I made slow, steady progress, trying to coincide the more dynamic movements with the moments that clouds passed by the sun. It was painful work and with each moment I was convinced that one of them would look up at the cliff face and spot me.
The sun hadn’t moved in the sky, and Sven and Francis had only managed to exchange a few dozen sentences by the time I was in position. No matter how quiet I was trying to be, 40 meters of climbing was a quick affair to my enhanced body, further boosted by skills and ample experience.
I hung silently a few meters above the group, watching them talk with bated breath. My knife whispered from its place lashed to my belt, the giant fang nearly as long as my forearm. My shield was gripped firmly in my left hand I could see my spear laying in the ground a dozen meters away, hidden behind a small boulder and a bank of grasses.
Sven was moving methodically closer by the moment though, and I knew it would not take long for him to find it. Francis was still examining the mouth of the cavern and the carved steps within while talking to Sven, and Rank was next to him…scratching his balls. Gods I love that man – a true hero, doing my work for me. Suitably distracted, he would have been a great target, but he was the lowest on the priority list to take out, and I would only get one shot at this.
Francis was unfortunately out of reach, closest to the cavern as he was, and I was not confident in reaching him without my presence becoming known too early. Sven was within reach though, and crouched as he was to the ground, he would have no way to avoid the swift death I would deliver to him.
I licked my lips, resisting the urge to spit to the side, my saliva thick and sour in my mouth as always before a fight. I drew deeply on my mana, activating Heart of the Hills to keep my excitement under control, and readied myself for a fight. I saw Francis stiffen, turn, and start to speak.
“I feel something, ready yourself-”
I leapt before he could finish his warning, my legs propelling me from the rock and twisting around in the air to face forwards as I rocketed out towards where Sven crouched. He was already rising and turning towards Francis when he caught sight of my body hurtling towards him but was too slow to react with anything other than a shriek before I slammed into him. My knife silenced his scream as it tore through his windpipe and out the back of his neck, and I yanked it to the side as I hit the floor, already rolling as his throat was torn open in my wake.
The next thing I knew was a weighty impact, and I was groggily raising my head from the earth, blood trickling down my face and the entire left side of my chest screaming in protest. I coughed, spit and phlegm and blood coating my chin as I struggled to draw breath and pull myself up from where I lay.
My vision swam and I realised the figure slowly walking towards me was not in fact swaying from side to side, but instead I had simply taken a blow to the head. I felt panic clawing at me and activated Heart of the Hills again, relishing the feeling of distance between myself and the pain in my chest.
Francis strolled leisurely towards me, and I could now see Rank pawing at the body of his companion, frantically trying to stem the blood leaking from his ruined neck. I worried momentarily that I had failed, but the faint ringing in my mind confirmed that I had killed the man, and I felt a flash of cruel satisfaction at the realisation. Rank seemed unable to believe it though, as he wailed at Francis a moment later.
“Help me! Boss, help! We can still save him. Please Francis…”
His cry, so tortured and raw that it shook me from the spiteful thoughts and brought on a brief moment of shame, quickly became begging as he saw Francis entirely unmoved by his plea. The older man just continued to walk towards me, never looking away from my eyes as he replied over his shoulder.
“Leave him Rank, he’s already dead. He was the moment this one marked him out I’d wager.”
His next statement was addressed directly to me, and I felt a shiver at the evenness of his tone. He sounded different now, the mask of a hard-bitten mercenary falling away to reveal a strangely well-spoken man that dripped disdain with each word he spoke.
“I imagine you targeted him because he was the only one of us with skill in tracking? A bold plan. I must confess I didn’t think you had it in you, coming back to face us again. I thought we’d have to run you down over the next several weeks.”
He wasn’t worried. He was curious, almost impressed, but not for a moment did he seem to feel even remotely threatened by me. This man was far beyond my ability to harm. I hadn’t even seen him act, but whatever he had done had cracked most of my ribcage on the left-hand side, making raising my left arm almost impossible. My shield was now useless, and I felt so nauseous that I doubted I could walk in a straight line right now, let alone fight.
I cast about my body, searching for what had knocked me over 5 meters away from Sven’s body and almost surely ended the fight before it had truly begun, but I saw nothing.
“What…what did you do to me?” I croaked, having to clear my throat of more blood before I could complete my sentence. The metallic taste almost made me gag.
He chuckled, no more than a couple of meters before me now, and crouched down to look me in the eye. “Nothing special, a skill of mine if you must know. Really, you never had a chance Lamb – that should have been obvious since the day we took you. Why you insisted on this drawn out farce is beyond me.”
I kept my mental skill active, my faculties returning to me moment by moment. I was surprised to still be alive at this point, but I knew I needed to keep him talking to keep it that way.
“Why am still alive? What do you want with me Francis?” The question seemed to amuse him more than anything, and he rocked back on his feet, sitting down against a small boulder opposite me. It was bizarre how casual this conversation seemed if you only considered him, and not my bloody mess of a body as well.
“I doubt there’s much harm in telling you, it’s just you and me now anyway. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on you from now on, and you’ll not have another chance to slip away this time.”
My confusion must have shown on my face at his words, as he smirked and sighed, turning towards Rank as the man looked over at us with tears in his eyes and blood coating his forearms. Francis gestured lazily and a meaty smack echoed around the gorge as Rank collapsed forwards, a thick-hafted forester’s axe embedded in the back of his head.
I gaped in confusion before the axe whirled through the air and into Francis’s palm, at which point he wiped it on the grass and sheathed it through a leather loop at his belt, all the while maintaining a pleasant smile.
“What? He’s useless to me now, and we’d have had to leave him behind anyway. We’ll be moving faster than he can keep up, and he’d die in a week if left alone in the mountains. He’s not a survivor like you.”
“Huh? Isn’t he your...what? your companion?” I asked, frantically trying to untangle the web of confusing information with half my mind while the other half just screamed that it was irrelevant and to get the fuck out of there. An argument that the first half of my mind shut down simply by asking how. The silence to that was deafening.
“Oh no no, he was just a new recruit, barely a year out of the academy. I’d only known him for a few months and I’d categorise him as thoroughly incompetent without the help of his smarter friend there that you so unhelpfully killed. Nothing to be done about that though. Unlike Rank there, you still serve a purpose.” He slapped his knee and made to stand.
“What purpose? Why do you need me? What could I possibly offer that’s so important that you’d risk taking me further? After what I’ve done?” I was of course playing for time, but it wasn’t hard to inject the curiosity and desperation in my voice.
“Ah well that’s a good question Lamb, and you’re right, I did say I’d answer, didn’t I? It’s simple, you’re god-touched.” I waited for him to continue, and he rolled his eyes at my expression after a few more heartbeats with neither of us speaking. “Oh alright. The Duke has found a ruin that appears to be from the later-Ashkanian Era and it’s locked in the usual way. He wants god-touched to help him open it up.”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
I stared blankly at him, and he seemed genuinely surprised at my lack of reaction. “Oh really now? How is one as powerful as you so uneducated? I’d assumed you were the son of a wealthy trader, or perhaps even minor nobility in one of the larger cities, but that idea’s out the window now. How did you get this far with such a poor knowledge base? They really are uneducated outside of the Sunsets, aren’t they?” The last part was said more to himself as an afterthought than to me, but he soon picked up the tread of his explanation.
“It’s definitely from the late period of the Ashkanian era, and that’s when the empire had fully mobilised for war with the multiple calamities they were facing. They left a series of vaults – small cities filled with weapons and supplies, magical knowledge and other wonders to help them rebuild if their civilisation should fall. They are legendary but notoriously rare, only a few being found this era, and all of those by already powerful factions. It should be obvious why my employer would want to get inside one of them.”
He raised an eyebrow at me mockingly, as if daring me to be that stupid. I rolled my eyes, wincing as the gesture caused a sharp pain in my skull.
“Yes, but why me? What has my title as god-touched got to do with breaking into an old ruin?” I rasped, feeling beginning to return to my left arm, although breathing was still tight and painful.
Francis tsk'd at me in rebuke as he spoke. “It’s ancient, not merely some old ruin from a few hundred years ago, boy. As for your involvement; all god-touched display strange abilities above and beyond the purview of the system. The most common by far is the ability to read, comprehend and sometimes speak almost all languages, especially those that date back from before the system was instituted. Based on the way your eyes widened at that, I can assume that is the ability you possess as well, which is lucky for me. Don’t look so shocked, you’re painfully easy to read.”
He sighed in contentment before continuing. “I’d get paid either way mind you, but if you can actually help the exploration efforts, I’ll get a lovely bonus. Perhaps the Duke himself might even advise me on breaking through to the 3rd tier – I’m right on the threshold, you see.”
Fuck, that’s not good. He gave me a wink, and I had no doubt that his smile was entirely due to the reminder of the power disparity between us. Although I’d already received ample evidence that this wasn’t an opponent I could kill when he took me out of the fight completely before I could react.
I wracked my brain, trying to think up a way out of this situation, but my options were limited. I still felt woozy, and it was hard to get my thoughts in order over the ringing in my head-
…gods I’m a moron.
I tried to keep my face neutral as I focused on the system notifications I’d received, acknowledging the prompts relating to my new level up and upgraded skills before sending a silent prayer to all the gods in existence upon seeing the name of my newest class skill.
Skill ‘Heart of the Hills’ has increased in level. Heart of the Hills – level 6
You have killed a Human (Crimson Fang) (level 31). Experience gained.
You have reached level 30. Attribute points available for allocation.
Skill gained – Faultline. Open skill slots available, skill integrated.
Faultline – Active. The hills rest on foundations of stone, and you have gained a minor understanding of this unassailable truth. You have witnessed the earth rupture and navigated the twisted pathways that have resulted. Use this skill to gain a mild level of stone-sense, and the power to impose your will upon it. Further levels increase both your sense and control of the stone beneath and around you and will broaden the possible applications of your basic earth manipulation.
I felt the skill lock into place in around my core, bringing the circle of six skills back into balance as a seventh joined the wheel. Understanding unfurled within me, and the calculation of the whole encounter now changed yet again.
I was struggling with the feeling of whiplash from the many ways this plan had gone awry already, but no plan survives contact with the enemy, doubly so for any that my tiny pea-brain could formulate.
I continued the conversation with only half an ear, happy to note that the man seemed keen on talking now that his companions – more like underlings by the sound of it – were gone. “So why kidnap me and refuse to tell me why? Why not just pay me like a regular fucking person?” I asked, actually kind of angry now that I thought about the simple solution.
At the same time, I activated Faultline for the first time and felt a new sense bloom in my mind.
As a human, I relied intensely on my vision. Surviving for months in the wilds had heightened my sense of smell to some degree, and I also made good use of my hearing, but my eyes were the way I really understood the world. That was probably why this new sense appeared to my mind so much like a vision.
In my mind’s eye the world below me was mapped out in a 3-dimensional relief of the stone, fault lines highlighted and different densities and impurities in the rock contrasting against one another to giving a feeling of texture rather than colour.
It was confusing, and I had no doubt that without the system’s help it could take me years to make sense of the whirl of sensory data. As it was though, I had a cognition attribute of 25 which seemed to be doing the heavy lifting – filtering out useless information, allowing me to focus on the new sense and contrast the vision in my mind with the location that I lay on. The stone beneath was a clusterfuck of upheaved slabs of granite, cracked along pre-existing fault lines by the opening of the chasm ahead.
I traced one such weak point as Francis answered my question, probing at the fracture in the rock beneath me and comparing it to the position of the carved steps leading into the cavern. If I was right, they extended down into the earth a few meters to my right, with only a few meters of earth and a meter or so of solid stone between us.
“Yes I understand you may find it a little frustrating, but there is a degree of secrecy about this. We have found that most god-touched are rather touchy – ha! – and tend to refuse offers such as the one you suggest. In either case, we are not in the habit of letting them back to wherever we picked them up from afterwards until the ruin has been fully excavated. It wouldn’t do to have the secret leak early, and some powerhouse from the larger factions outside the Sunsets sweep down upon us, now would it?”
His insinuation that I’d not be leaving after performing my duties hardly fazed me at this point, given everything I was currently experiencing, but I did remember to act surprised enough for him to hasten to reassure me.
“No no, don’t worry yourself Lamb, I don’t mean that you would be killed. Simply, we would require your services for longer than you may want to give them, and so you will have to stay with us for perhaps a few years. Nothing for a strong fighter like yourself – perhaps we could arrange appropriate training for you to reach the 2nd tier while with us if you behave, hhmm?”
His tone was becoming more familiar as time passed. I could only assume that once he had dropped the act that he put on for the others, his true personality was coming to the fore.
“You began this by saying you were simply a mercenary working for an employer. You sound awfully familiar with them now; ‘we this’, ‘we that’. I’m starting to suspect you are more involved than you let on.” Contrary to my expectations, he seemed delighted by my question, his face lighting up in a satisfied smirk.
I focused again on the stone, tracing the fractures already present and confirming once more that my hunch was correct. I knew he could feel mana usage, and so I would have to be careful, but the small trickle of mana required to sustain the sense part of the skill was likely impossible for him to distinguish from that of my continuous activation of Heart of the Hills.
I sat up, propping my arm behind me to help take the weight from the left side of my chest that still pulsed in pain, even through my mental skill. He raised an eyebrow again at my movement, but didn’t interrupt himself, mid-way through his sentence as he was.
“Yes, well, perhaps I have some minor financial interest in the endeavour. You will not know this of course, but the D’Sware house is heavily invested with Duke Ryonic, and helped finance his rise to power. We stand to gain a lot from his success. My father was a casualty in the Sternsbridge massacre actually. Mother was ever so worried when I signed up for the academy, but I said I would follow in his footsteps, and I have done so.”
I looked up at him, at the proud tilt to his chin, and despite his words earlier it was the first time a truly realised that this man was, for all his armour and weapons and levels and terrifying power, simply a pompous noble – a posh boy hoping to make his dead father proud.
I smirked then, a malicious grin that caused the now dry blood on my face to crack and twist. I laughed, levering myself to the right a few paces as I started to crawl towards the fault-line and the steps below.
“Sternsbridge? Isn’t that where an entire company of 2nd tier veterans was defeated by some farmers?” His head snapped down towards me, the superior smirk gone from his face and shock in his eyes. He strode towards me, reaching out as if to grab my robe in his hand but stopping several meters away.
“What was that? What would you know of Sternsbridge?”
I could see a hint of uncertainty in his eyes now, and perhaps it was fear that was holding him back. After all, how could a random newly arrived god-touched know of such things? Was I maybe a spy of some foreign power, that he’d just spilled state secrets to? Or one of the ghosts of Sternsbridge, back for revenge?
It didn’t have to make sense, but the seed of doubt had been planted and now his imagination would get to work conjuring scenarios based on his insecurities.
“I know enough, Francis, you fucking parasite. I know that your da was a murderous cunt just like yourself, and that when he got put in the ground, the world was better for it.”
I grinned up at him through bloodstained teeth as he roared and took a step forwards, winding back a punch that would surely shatter my face. My grin didn’t fall though, as I said one last thing.
“Vera’s coming for you.” He staggered to a halt, arm raised above his head and shock once again replacing the rage. “She’s out there Francis, and she’s coming for every single one of you.”
If I’d ever had doubts about Vera’s reputation in the Sunset Kingdoms, the horror painted across his face now put all of that to rest.
I then took a last gamble and jutted my chin over his shoulder, saying; “Heads up, there she is now.”
The oldest trick in the book and it still worked, the older man whipping around like a startled cat to stare wildly behind himself. The spectre of my friend was long, and she’d done me one last favour by distracting the man.
I activated Check-Step and gritted my teeth against the pain as I had to let Heart of the Hills subside. My mana control was growing, but keeping two active skills going was already straining things – a third was currently beyond me. I lunged forwards across the several meters separating me and my spear, grasping the haft even as Francis whirled around and thundered after me, alerted by the mana usage. I wasted no time in turning to face him however, and rolled aside again, trying to put as much distance between myself and the spot my spear had rested on as possible, regardless of where Francis was.
Half expecting to feel the bite of an axe into my back at any moment, I was gratified to hear a familiar whistling noise of claws passing through air, and I turned in time to see Francis leap back from a wild swipe by the remaining Autumn Forest Wraith. I’d caused it to reanimate when lunging for my spear, and it had come alive just in time to distract Francis before he could kill me for my comments.
Skill ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ has increased in level. Guerrilla Warfare – level 9
I spared no time feeling proud of myself for the successful trap, the system notification further reinforcing that Simple Traps didn’t just encompass using sharpened sticks and rock-rolls. Time to try and upgrade another skill then.
I focused back on Faultline, which I’d kept active the entire time to guide me into position above the hairline fracture running through the ceiling of the cavern below, and with a flex of will I pushed mana into the skill and focused on widening that crack. My intent was singular, my objective clear, and the rock below me obeyed.
I just had time to look up to meet the furious gaze of Francis, mid-battle with the Forest Wraith, before there was a deep, grinding scream of tortured stone.
Then the earth below my prone form gave way, and I plummeted into darkness.