Three weeks passed in a fashion that soon became humdrum. I would wake to notifications of kills from my snares, gather the bodies and gleefully hoard my Souls. Then a quick breakfast and a long, long walk. On an evening I would set traps once more and then fight against the other warriors.
I carefully limited my strength and speed in our training bouts. I wanted to learn what I could from them and I quickly began to pick up their fighting styles with maces and spears. They favoured simple striking blows to the head, knee or elbow with the blunt weapons. Their spear technique was more complex as they tended not to fight in ranks like European spearmen in an army might have done.
They favoured a flowing style where the butt was used as much as the tip and the spear seemed like a living thing in the hands of the most talented of them. Jandak was far superior to the rest so he and I sparred regularly. I felt a lot more confident with the weapon now than when I had faced down the bear.
In terms of knife fighting and hand to hand I was the reluctant master and they quickly fell into the roles of students. I was far from a master by the standards of Earth in unarmed combat but here I was a passable journeyman training relative novices. With the knife I was a terror, none of them could match me. Sometimes firearms are too noisy or impossible to get close to a target so a blade in the dark had been my modus operandi for a lot of jobs back home and I felt completely at ease with a short dagger in my hand.
We had headed steadily north-west to skirt around the worst of the hills, one of which had been where I arrived on this world. Fording the river, known as the Grethnillik according to Kril, had been a challenge. Keeping the cattle together as they waded knee deep across the shallowest stretch had taken everyone working as a team.
I’d been taught how to guide the aurox, taking my turn at handling the long whiplike branches that were used as goads, as well as more mundane tasks like the cooking and cleaning with fire ash. We were all travel stained now. Our tunics were dirty and marked by the filth of the journey but we had gelled together as a group. The distance between the women and the men was a marked difference to what I would have expected on Earth. Their culture was highly stratified by sex and while the warriors now all joked with me and called “Mond” to mimic my habit of skipping the family denominator in their own names, the women had remained aloof from the camaraderie that had come to dominate our conversations I was no longer considering ditching them and running south again. The idea of mammoths, extinct for so long back home, also intrigued me.
After passing the river we switched to heading directly north and the land began to change. The grasslands and tiny forests began to be dominated by larger trees. Kril assured me the forest would fall away behind us when we reached the ice-plains. From his answers to my questions I came to expect a vast tundra beyond the hills and trees where we would hunt his great-tusks.
We had donned heavy furs as we moved deeper into the trees. The air had become chill and the lack of direct sunlight left us cold at any time other than the peak of the day. We were travelling through a stretch of thick forest, forced into single file by the thick trunks and steep slope, and I was once again trying to quiz Kril about the lands to the south.
“You’ll get there eventually. You’ve responsibilities with us to deal with first.” he snapped. His good humour had become more and more rare as it got colder. I had grown close to the Hatrik people and Kril was beginning to feel almost like an old acquaintance, a replacement for Jimmy. Even Gedrik had grown in my affections, becoming something of an annoying little brother in my mind. I still had my impossible task to achieve though and I wouldn’t be held back by my new friends. It felt strange to think of them as friends but it was the closest word I could find.
“Kril. I have a mission from the gods,” I said quietly, hoping an appeal to his piety might sway him.
“Fuck them all except Aresk. He sent you to us. He wants his people to rise like the southlands have these last few generations. You can make that happen, boy. Spoke wheeled chariots, improved bow designs, Shop bought bronze, all your ideas can be made to work. When we ride south you’ll be a mighty warlord, lad. Not a knife in the dark,” he grumped and pulled his fur jacket tighter around his chest. He coughed, a wet sound, as he cleared some mucus and spat it into the woods that fell away to our left hand side.
We were traversing a narrow path through the trees. To our right a steep slope rose up and to our left it fell away sharply. Both sides were thick with vegetation so we could only see a dozen metres or so either way.
Despite bickering with Kril my senses were alert as this was dangerous ground, unsuitable for the spearwork the Areskyn favoured against the local wildlife. I can’t be sure if I was the first to spot the danger but I am certain I was the first to react.
A shadowy blur launched itself from a nearby branch with a yowl that spooked the cattle. They surged and stamped as Jandak, leading the team at this point in the day, struggled to wrestle the beasts into staying on the track.
My spear left my hand as I surged forward. The black shape was descending on the ladies to the rear of the cattle. Haylin pulled a short dagger and aimed it at the descending monster clasped in both hands. My spear struck the beast's chest before it reached her. The stone tip sank deep into its flesh, passing through where I hoped the heart would be.
Momentum is not so easily thwarted however and the beast, though mortally injured, cannoned into Haylin and skidded across her as she was crushed under its weight. Gardel was thrown to the side and a panicked aurox lashed out with its hind legs, one hoof connecting with the woman's head and spinned her body viciously with the impact of the blow.
I arrived and sank my dagger into the back of the beast's neck then wrenched it to the side, snapping half of it off in the big cat's spine. Sound of fighting ahead and behind rang in my ears but I had a sense the others were doing well from the pained snarls that cut across the angry shouts of the warriors.
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Vilis Felis slain.
Eight souls gathered.
“Get her!” yelled Kril as he stumbled towards me. I turned and found Fayala had been knocked off the trail and lay tangled around a trunk several metres down the hill. With the remains of my dagger in hand I leapt down the slope and skidded to a halt next to the seemingly broken body of the woman with the dazzling eyes.
She was unconscious and I quickly checked her over. A branch had pierced through her stomach, protruding slightly from her back. With a curse I threw aside my furs and using the stub of my dagger I cut the cleanest parts of my tunic into long strips. I pulled back her furs and then cut away her clothes to reveal a blood stained midriff of smooth muscle. I quickly bound the improvised bandages around her torso. She groaned in pain but I pulled them as tight as I could, forgetting my impossible strength in the heat of the moment.
I used the edge of my broken dagger to trim the end of the branch sticking out of her back and then gently turned her on her side to slide the wood out. There was no fountain of blood which gave me some hope. No major blood vessels had been damaged. Perhaps in this world with active gods miracles did sometimes happen. I wadded up the rest of my tunic and pushed it tightly against the wound to stem the bleeding. This wound would likely still lead to a slow painful death as her guts must have been damaged.
She was just a mortal. The thought rang in my head over and over. I might survive a wound like this but I was stronger and tougher than I had any right to be. She was just a delicate, if arrogant, creature whose eyes had entranced me from across the fire every night for weeks.
“She won’t survive that. Shit. A dead princess…” Kril muttered as he stumbled down next to me.
“Bring her up here,” Hatrikilo called from above. His voice was thick with grief. He’d seen the injury as I worked, I guessed.
“Not safe to move her yet. Not like this,” I muttered. I checked my Soul balance. I had three hundred and twenty four Souls carefully saved up from my weeks of travel.
I opened my status screen and spent them lavishly.
Level 20
Primary Stats: Body: E Mind: D- Soul: F
Available Souls: 72
Secondary Stats
Physical strength: 16 Reflexes: 15 Health: 120
Magic strength: 10 Focus: 10 Mana: 200
Affinity: Fire
Summon fire: Range- Touch, Intensity- +8%,
Fire Resistance- +2%
Projectile: Speed- +3%, Detonation- 1 metre cubed +0%.
Fire Wall: Area- 1 metre squared.
Affinity: Life
Heal (self): 10HP and 40% increased recovery rate for one hour. Seals moderate wounds.
Enhancement (self): 2%, lasts 5 seconds
Resistance (all): 1%
Projectile: Speed- +3%, (heal other)
Rapid Growth: Area- 1 metre squared.
Imbue.
New Affinity unlocked.
Enchantment unlocked.
I bought seven levels to get to 20 and gained fourteen stat points. I put two each into Magical strength and Focus and dumped the remaining ten into mana.
Then I opened my affinity screen and bought all the bonuses to healing strength I could. It cost two hundred and sixty Souls all together but I didn’t care as I raised a hand and two balls of green light flew from my palm and soaked into Fayala’s wounded stomach. The flesh began to knit slowly together, the blood flow completely stopped and I sat back with a loud sigh.
I took a moment to gather myself and carefully picked her up. I slowly climbed to the top of the slope and laid her down at Hatrikilo’s feet. He was staring at me wide eyed.
“What did you do?” he grunted.
“Healing magic. I kept enough mana to help the others as well. How are Haylin and Gardel?” I asked.
“Haylin will live. Gardel is likely dead.”
“Likely? So she’s still breathing? Where is she?” I demanded.
“Where she fell, Shikrakyn. She lies where she fell,” Hatrikilo said sadly.
I ran over and found that she had a large lump already growing on the side of her head. The warriors had gathered round to keep the aurox in place. The scent of the vile-cats spooked them and they were skittish, mooing and grumbling, unable to stay still.
Fearing her neck might be broken I examined the rest of her as best I could without moving her body. I’d seen her body pivot while in the air from the strength of the kick. I glanced over the warriors and saw there were only a few cuts and bruises on them. They seemed fine so I chose to spend my mana to try and save this girl's life.
Two balls of green light shot from my hand into her head. The egg sized lump began to shrink and I tentatively felt around her neck, looking for signs of some internal injury.
“Don’t move her. Put something on her to keep her warm,” I ordered Hermald who nodded jerkily and stripped out of his fur jacket to lay it over her. He badgered his cousins and they did the same.
“Why can’t we move her?” asked Kril as he arrived next to me.
“Might be a broken neck. If it is she’s fucked but if we move her and make whatever damage there is worse then she’s got no hope.”
“You’re a healer as well in your world?” Kril asked. The warriors were all looking at me in awe after seeing the magic.
“I was a killer. Before that I was a soldier and I learned a few things on the battlefield. Anyone in my world can take lessons in simple first aid like this. Without the magic.” My hands were roving gently over Gradel’s shoulders and collar bones. I couldn’t feel anything broken. With luck she would wake up in the next few hours and we could think about moving her to somewhere more comfortable.
“Set up here! Warriors, watch the fucking trees properly this time! Kril and I will tend to the injured. Hermune, get a fire going and boil some water!” bellowed Hatrikilo. “Shikrakyn, where will you be?” He ended in a much more respectful tone than he had ever directed in my direction before.
“Wherever I’m needed. I can cast heal a few more times if it’s necessary before I need to regain mana. I’ll watch over them.” I gestured to the two women laid out metres apart on a narrow path in the middle of an untouched forest. I began to shiver as the adrenaline faded and the cold crept into my body. What had I done? Why had I been so desperate to save Fayala? What the fuck was this mark doing to my mind?