Chapter Seventy-five

The elven ranger sprinted towards us, slaloming and ducking randomly. He levelled his long spear, aiming for Krissy, no doubt — it seemed the unfortunate sod had drawn the short straw and ended up doing the frontal assault. Two of his team-mates were lurking behind the trees at the edge of the clearing, but I wasn’t sure where the fourth and fifth members of their team were. It didn’t matter — if I had learned anything from the dozen or so teams that had had a go at us today, it was their attack patterns. The rest of the team would be coming as soon as their poor decoy-boy engaged us.

Ten metres. Eight. Six. Five. The guy with the spear was finally within the agreed range, and I lashed out with two, Mana-gloved tentacles. The blue sheen of Mana was a dead giveaway, and he dodged the first of the buggers — whether by skill or sheer luck, I wasn’t sure — and I was about to tap him out of the fight with the second, when a blunted arrow panged off the Mana-Armour enveloping Krissy and Kiwa.

Krissy was sitting more or less comfortably in the makeshift wheelchair I had made for her, and Kiwa had been promoted from bodyguard to care worker, or nurse, pushing her around like a true NHS professional.

‘Damn, where did that come from?’ Krissy shrieked, turning her head around to look for the archer.

That arrow had distracted me just enough that my second tentie missed the ranger as well, and I had to employ a third one to tap the guy out.

‘Over there,’ Kiwa pointed to a couple of trees some fifteen metres from us.

Another arrow whooshed forth from that direction and bounced off my Mana-Armour. This time I was looking, and I saw them moving between the trees.

A real evil spirit wouldn’t have bothered to protect its possessed host or hosts to this extent because a few arrows wouldn’t have been enough to stop them. The best they could do was to distract the spirit — in this case, me — for a short period of time, giving their team-mates a chance to get closer.

I quickly tapped the spear-guy on his chest with my third tentacle, Mana shimmering on contact. He made a face, dropped his weapon, and by the time he sat down on the ground, his spear-wielding colleagues were charging us, while the two, hidden archers kept peppering us with the blunt sticks.

I wasn’t impressed. They had mistimed their assault; they should have gone on the attack before I had “killed” their decoy.

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure why we were doing single-team exercises. Three or four teams working together would have been rather difficult to fend off, but a single team? I didn’t see how they could ever neutralise Krissy, playing the possessed host. In a wheelchair. Maybe Fenar and Sivaren Rols had decided to show their men the futility of attacking the invisible beasts with just one team, and tomorrow they’d up their game and send at least three teams to test themselves against me.

‘Drink him!’ Mr Instinct cried, trying to push me to gobble up the sitting ranger’s soul. He should have known better by now.

‘We’re not doing that, Hank!’ I yelled at him. ‘And you mean “eat him”, not “drink him”.’

Absolutely no eating or drinking people! Krissy thought-yelled at him, too. And … Hank? You named him Hank?

‘Yeah. He’s a hungry gank, so “H” for hungry, “ank” for gank, and now he’s Hank.’ I explained, suddenly not so confident in the name I had bestowed upon the unwanted companion I shared my invisible body with.

It’s not a bad name. Tilry stated, and Kiwa nodded in support.

It was heartwarming to know I had such supportive companions. And that I had found good use for orkish swear words.

‘Fuk yu! You all suck.’ Hank lamented our cold and heartless refusal to let him feed on the souls of the rangers. Then he added, ‘I’m Hank.’

At least he seemed to like the name.

The archers didn’t let up the barrage of arrows, changing positions quickly at the edge of the clearing, and the other two spear-guys were going to arrive in range in a few seconds. I prepared to intercept them with my tentacles without paying much attention — my mind was suddenly elsewhere.

I had returned from the Spirit World only two days ago, so not a long time, really. But Hank had, for the lack of a better word, evolved considerably since then. His vocabulary had not only increased, but he was using words correctly, apart from a few verbal mishaps here and there. He had also become better at understanding contexts, some concepts, and frankly, he had become ruder as well.

The way we had left things, I was sure he wouldn’t be able to keep eating my soul, not unless I let him, so I guessed he was listening and learning, using what he had already taken from me to facilitate his own mental advancements. And he was advancing, there was no doubt about that. That was the reason I had connected not only Krissy, but Kiwa and Tilry to my comm node as well, so they could hear the critter and confirm my suspicions.

The two rangers were coming fast, and I tapped them out the moment they were in the agreed upon five metre range. I might have been a bit careless and applied more force than I had wanted to, for they both groaned in pain as they dropped their spears and fell to the ground, cursing under their breaths, looking at my host sitting in a chair with small, wagon-type wheels attached to it. Not my best work, but then again, I wasn’t a wheelwright or a carpenter, and Krissy wasn’t complaining, not yet anyway.

The two archers signalled that they were giving up — there wasn’t much they could do by themselves — and Hank of course tried his luck again.

I was sure he knew I wasn’t going to eat anyone here, and he still tried. What was it Einstein had famously said? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? It seemed Hank was a long way from becoming a genius.

This new friend of yours is annoying. Krissy commented, fidgeting in her chair.

He … I mean Hank, makes me uncomfortable. More than you. Tilry said to me, joining the conversation, which had become a more frequent occurrence since I’d returned from the Spirit World.

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She was finding her voice it seemed, and to my delight, Kiwa was encouraging her to speak up even if she didn’t have anything urgent or world-shattering to share. It was working out nicely.

‘Yeah, well, we’re stuck with him. It’s all under control.’ I assured the four-armed familiar hovering over her host’s shoulders.

‘Control. Hah! Weeping.’ Hank grumbled.

I was not at all sure what he meant by this. In fact, I wasn’t sure if he himself knew, but as long as talking rubbish was the only thing he did, I could put up with him.

The three rangers I had “killed” picked themselves up and regrouped with the archers. Master Fenar and his aide rushed out of the woods, followed by some other, high-ranking officers, and began chewing the losing team out with rage-filled enthusiasm. The masters of the rangers had been watching each team getting slaughtered in completely unfair fights, and I was beginning to feel sorry for the grunts. Then again, I supposed that might have been the point: fights against an evil spirit were always going to be unfair, and rangers had to be prepared to give their lives in order to defeat one.

‘How many more today?’ Kitala Iwani asked, sounding bored.

I had no doubt she would have preferred to be an active participant of these mock battles, rather than just pushing Krissy around in a makeshift wheelchair.

‘Uhm … this was the … thirteenth team, so two more,’ Krissy said, sighing.

‘Teams, teams, no food. This is stupid,’ Hank grumbled.

‘It is what it is, buddy, just bear with it,’ I told him.

Master Fenar’s outbursts of constructive criticism came to an end, the rangers walked away enveloped in an aura of shame and failure, and he waved to us to get ready for the next team.

***

Dinnertime was upon us by the time we got back to Fifth Ranger’s compound, and I was more than ready to take possession of the cafeteria’s kitchen. It had been a hard deal to negotiate, but at my behest, Krissy and Kiwa had managed to convince the guys running the place to let us use it after the local trainees’ dinner-rush. We had maybe an hour before I would finally get to return to the one thing I had always considered to be my comfort-zone as a human. And to hopefully impress my companions.

Kiwa parked the wheelchair at the door of the barrack we were staying at, and helped Krissy limp to our room. I wasn’t surprised to find Toven and Deni waiting for us in the corridor; we had been told they’d arrived yesterday, and we were all sure they’d drop by soon.

Toven was here because he was going to take part in tomorrow’s drills, and then the upcoming expedition. As to why Deni had accompanied her husband, I guessed that she wasn’t going to miss a chance to go around Sek Artem and sell as much Earl Grey as she could. She had proved to be a shrewd businesswoman.

What surprised me was the presence of Akela and one of his pups, Loki. Why were they here? And if he was going to take his kids for a trip, then why only Loki? Had he and Misty broken up and his lawyers messed up at court? As intriguing as the thought was, I was sure there was a more reasonable explanation. And I wondered if wolves would eat pancakes.

I quickly made two threads to connect to the wolves. I had never spoken to any of the pups, so I was curious if Loki had anything to say, or how he would react to my voice in his little, wolfy head. I reached out with two of my tenties and attached my threads to the appropriate nodes inside their souls — by now I was able to do the whole process in seconds, and I was done with it before Krissy could even recognise who our visitors were.

‘Hey buddy!’ I greeted Akela.

Voice. Here. Good. He said, wagging his tail and lifting his head, his red eyes almost glowing in the dimly lit corridor.

Who? I heard Loki’s rough but child-like thought-voice for the first time. He was turning his head left and right, looking for the source of the voice in his head. The pup had grown since I’d last seen him. What a handsome, young wolf.

Voice. Friend. Akela sent the thought, looking at his kid.

Loki stopped moving, taken aback by the presence of a second voice, then he looked at his dad. I wasn’t sure how, but it seemed he instinctively knew whose voice it was.

My companions had of course heard our little thought-conversation. They stopped, just a couple of metres from a serious looking Tovaron Ento and a grinning Devalet Niraki. I wasn’t sure which of them worried me more. Also, I had to wonder how Toven had managed to get the guards to allow a hellhound and his pup to come in here. Black wolves with red eyes had a bad rep in the world — most people believed they were creatures of hell whose sole purpose was to serve evil spirits. Either Toven carried some serious clout around here, or said guards didn’t have the balls to stop a hellhound. Either way, Akela was here, and I was happy to see him.

‘Weird creature,’ Hank commented, sounding rather amused, and I could almost feel his attention snapping to the wolf.

‘Says the weird creature,’ I retorted.

‘Hah!’ was all the bugger said, and it seemed he was content to leave it at that.

Upon recognition hitting Krissy, she and Deni entangled themselves in a hug, in sharp contrast to the quick exchange of nods between Toven and Kiwa.

A short and enthusiastic discussion later, our visitors let Krissy and Kiwa go take a quick bath before heading over to the cafeteria to sit down for an evening of catching up.

***

For a former, material creature with four limbs in total, I had become rather good at using ten tentacles at the same time. Well, nine tentacles, since one of them was connecting me to Krissy. Regardless, multitasking was the name of the game, and I was on the road to mastery — I wasn’t a Level 34 Tentacle Horror for nothing.

I wasn’t sure if a physical brain would have been this adaptable, but the part of my soul that had taken over that function had proved to be more than capable of handling things. After all, I was making pancakes in the cafeteria’s kitchen, using all my tentacles, while listening to the discussion at the table on the other side of the counter, and also listening to Akela complaining about the woes of being a husband and father.

Pups. Tiring. Mate. Tiring.

He wasn’t big on details, but with a little imagination I could picture him worn out after a long day of playing or instructing the kids in the way of wolfhood, and also having to meet any demands Misty might have.

And just to prove my imagination right, Loki jumped at his father in a playful attack, growling and biting at him in the most adorable way possible.

Loki had grown. Still as cute as a button, but I had no doubt he’d become as large as his dad in a matter of a few more months, if not larger. He kind of looked like a smaller version of Akela already — black and dark brown fur, orange-y, almost red eyes, and the same, menacing face. I suspected the resemblance would only grow in the future.

I fished out a large piece of dried meat from Jack’s Room and tossed it to the pup. It was a suitable distraction, and the kid set about devouring it.

Food. Nice food. The pup commented with delight, and Akela let out a mental sigh of relief.

In the meantime, I finished making the pancake batter, using the large mixing bowl as well as the flour and eggs I had purchased a few days ago. I took the frying pan and cooking oil from Jack’s Room, put an extra piece of wood on the fire under the stove, and I was ready to make the first batch of pancakes.

‘So, are you going to stay at … the house, or are you guys going to settle in a forest?’ I directed my thoughts at Akela quietly, so as to not disturb the conversation Krissy and Kiwa were having at the table.

Pups. Hunting. Mate. Hunting. The wolf stated, his thoughts sounding determined, but his ears and tail were drooping.

‘Are you ready to give up all the free food and Toven’s lovely little garden?’ I asked, having an inkling what the answer would be.

Akela let out an audible whine and hung his head.

Yeah.

‘Well, it sounds like you don’t have a choice.’

No. Said the most perfect image of a sad, sad wolf.

‘Kevin, is dinner ready yet?’ Krissy yelled to me from the table on the other side of the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area.

They were on the second round of Earl Grey already, waiting eagerly for the fancy food I had promised would go well with the tea.

‘Ten minutes.’ I replied as I took the first pancake out of the pan, using a couple of Mana-gloved tentacles instead of a spatula.