301. OUTLAW: TABITHA

I was clothed in my leathers when Wiremu got back. Wiremu inspected the leathers as if looking for damage. He’s trying to figure out why I wasn’t wearing them earlier. I smirked.

“Hi,” he greeted me, “Good to see you’ve re-covered.”

The smirk turned into a withering look. He smirked.

“Were you injured?” Ruku asked.

“No,” I said.

“She was just exposing some of the bare essentials,” Wiremu said.

Ruku looked at him funny, and I rolled my eyes at him.

We were saved from any more of Wiremu’s humour as Lee arrived, helping two obvious prisoners, one of whom was barely walking. I led them to where we were keeping the other prisoners. The prisoners were grumpy that we wouldn’t let them free, but that couldn’t happen yet. We would work with the ones we could, but we had to stop word from leaking about this, and most of the prisoners just wanted to head home. Modrica had bashed a few heads to get the message across, and Težka and Tāoke then stood guard.

“Dusk is on her way back,” I said, heading for the broken gate. Wiremu followed, and Dusk galloped up. She had blood splatters on all her legs, and I wiped blood off her mouth. “Come inside, girl, and I will get you cleaned up.”

I led Dusk inside to the well while Wiremu stayed to examine the broken gates. The road to the well was littered with bodies and spikes. I led Dusk along the edge, where I sensed some resistance from Wiremu’s Phantasm rocks. So that is how he got people to stay on the road. When we got to the well, I stepped through the gruesome remains of a trap. If we don’t clean this up, we are going to have a really bad time. I tried lowering the bucket into the well, and it stopped less than halfway.

“Wiiirrrreeeemmmuuuuu!”

I then cleaned Dusk as he started disabling unsprung traps. Ruku and Modrica bribed some prisoners to stack bodies and start cleaning up. Umreti is on watch on the wall. Ruku hosed down the burning barracks so the smoke would not alert others in the area.

Once the traps were cleared away, Wiremu went to get some rest. Tomorrow, he and Ruku would start removing Slave Classes. These were level 1 slaves. It does not get any easier than this. Lee was setting up the old Officers' quarters as a recovery area. They were the only major accommodation building left standing after Wiremu’s fires. Wiremu made a large pit in the Granite to bury the bodies. He might get Puia to burn them, but I am not sure.

I watched Wiremu walk Ruku through the ritual to release his first slave. He had the energy to do two before he needed a rest. Wiremu could free three, but we spaced them out, so they always had spare energy. With rest, Ruku could free three a day, and Wiremu could do five. That meant ten to twelve days of work with lots of downtime between slaves.

The slaves had no master after the death of the Taskmaster, and some had been individual officers’ slaves. We found it best that Ruku or Wiremu would become the Master and then release the slave from the class, so we were the master and the imitation taskmaster at the same time.

Wiremu and Ruku both had Sense Spiritual at the upper journeyman levels and on the first day, Wiremu caused Spiritual damage to two people and Ruku only one. The damage was not too serious and would self-heal over time. With Wiremu’s Analyse Bond Skill, he could sense better than Ruku, and on the second day, there was only one ex-slave each with spiritual damage. We would aim to reduce that, and rest was an important part of that.

I left them to it and took Dusk out to bring our wagons into the compound. I then took turns on the wall, giving Umreti a break. I didn’t have Farsight, but Nne and Tano were out scouting, so we should have plenty of warning. I took the night shift as Umreti only had Nightsight, and I had Darksight. Night sight was good for most things and did pair with his Farsight, but the hornets were day creatures, so it worked out better.

Just before dawn on the third night, Nne’s bat bond delivered a message.

“Imperial Courier inbound fast. Two escorts.”

I sent Nyx to wake Umreti and Modrica and moved to above the gate. Umreti came running up onto the wall while Modrica and Težka joined Dusk by the gate. Umreti had his bow. He was reasonable with it like he was with every weapon I had seen him with.

I soon saw dust rising on the road, and three horses came galloping up. What would be so urgent? This wasn’t a regular courier. They slowed as they approached the gate. The Courier was a small woman on one of their specially bred courier horses. The other two were larger but also on fast horses.

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“Courier. Open the gate,” Umreti yelled, loud enough for them to hear.

The courier stopped about twenty metres back from the gate and looked up and down the wall. What does she see?

My Hearing Aid picked her out, saying to her companions, “Something's wrong. We run.”

They spun their horses and started to gallop away. Umreti loosed an arrow, but it glanced off the armour. I started running for the gate as I glanced at the wall. What she didn’t see was the problem. There were no guards except us two.

Dusk stopped just outside the gate, and I dropped onto her back. Then we were away after them. We could not let a word escape about this place. I heard Modrica and Težka lumbering after us. They would lag behind, but it meant I didn’t have to go for kill strikes. They could mop up after me.

Dusk lengthened her stride as we moved into a ground-eating gallop. The Courier woman was pulling ahead of her two guards. She was lighter, had the superior horse and probably had a higher levelled riding Skill. They were all fast. The horses were bred to travel with speed over long distances.

We were gaining on them, but not quickly. The riders at the rear were keeping an eye on us. As we came within five meters, one of them turned and tipped a bag on the road behind him. Caltrops fell onto the road for Dusk to cripple herself on.

We had no time to swerve or jump to avoid them which is why he waited until we were so close. Dusk and I worked together, and Shadow Stepped twice, and we were over them. It looked like we were running on the ground, but the Shadow Steps were raised slightly above the metal caltrops.

Dusk increased speed, even when I thought she was already going as fast as she could. I lashed out with my two-meter-long, five-prong whip when Dusk’s head drew level with the other horse's flanks. I had metal hooks sewn into the prongs. Three of the prongs caught in his armour, and I yanked hard on the whip, and it almost unseated him. Two of the prongs gouged the hide of the horse. I flicked the whip again as he tried to veer the now panicked horse away from us. This time, I aimed higher, and two prongs caught his armour, one in his neck and one in his helmet, with the other going over his head. The horse veering away from me meant all I had to do was keep a tight grip on the whip handle, and this time, he was unseated, landing heavily, and I really hoped he had broken something.

I couldn’t stop. His horse veered into the other guard’s horse, causing it to stumble. The guard had already drawn his sword and swiped at me. It was sloppy and misaimed, and miss it did. I flicked the whip, and the prongs caught the sword. I pulled on the whip and disarmed him. I noticed one of the prongs was mostly cut through by the sword.

I steered Dusk closer, and he tried to dodge and angle his horse away from the road. I think he was trying to give the Courier as much time as he could. Dusk and I had been practising Agility Riding, and Dusk had no problem closing the gap. I spooked the horse with a Shadow Puppet lunging at her like a predator, and the rider was almost unseated as the horse didn’t move where he expected it to. My whip sent him flying as well. I then spooked the horse so it would keep running.

I directed Dusk back to the road and the courier, who had increased her lead. I crouched over Dusk, and Shadow Merged to reduce the wind resistance. Dusk closed the gap slowly but surely. The rider glanced back and saw us gaining on her, and she looked surprised. Few horses could catch a Courier-bred horse.

We closed the gap to five meters, and I regretted not having one of Ruku’s longer bullwhips with me as they were coming into range. I will be carrying one in the future and practising with it. Instead, I reached out with my Binding Shadows to grab her, and I missed. I don’t know if it was chance or she sensed something, but she had directed the horse to veer left tighter than I had expected. Horse and Rider were both good, and she made a series of tight turns in an attempt to avoid me. The training Ruku had suggested for Dusk and I was now showing its use. It was not just fun.

Dusk followed the twisting and turning horse. One miss-step and it would have a broken leg. I gathered my feet under me, trusting Dusk. I judged it carefully. As it came out of a turn, I launched myself from Dusk’s back. I flew to the other horse, grabbed the rider, and let our momentum drag her from the saddle. Her foot got caught in the stirrup, and her body twisted violently under me, and she was pulled away.

I Shadow Merged into a roll and came up running. The courier was being dragged along the ground, her foot still caught in the stirrup. Her head and body were being violently bounced against the rocks and ground. Without a rider, the horse was just galloping straight now, and a riderless Dusk came alongside and steered it around in a circle back towards the fort. The foot slipped from the Stirrup, and the courier lay still. The horse slowed to a trot.

I trotted over to the fallen courier. She was definitely dead. I was a bit sad about that. She hadn’t had to die. She had been an excellent rider. I went through her pockets and then lifted her up over my shoulder and went to meet Dusk. The other horse had come to a stop some distance away and was breathing hard. I lay the body over Dusk’s flanks and mounted her. The other horse was wary of us, but I got hold of her reigns. I transferred the body to the other horse, and we started heading back at a walk.

The second guy I had unseated was trying to recatch his horse. He was limping, so it was not going well. All the fight left him when he saw me leading the horse with the body. I sent Dusk to go and round up the horse as I had the trooper disarmed and walking in front of me.

The next person we met was Modrica riding Težka. They had a body behind her as well, so the trooper must have tried to fight. Or maybe he just mouthed off at her. We stopped and collected the caltrops as it would be nasty to leave them on the road. I am glad that one is dead. His horse was wounded, and we put it down.

We returned to the quarry slowly. I checked my status, and I have a new speciality. Mounted Outlaw. It gave one attribute to Physical Agility, one to Physical Perception and one to Spiritual Perception. One attribute was free. I felt it could have been a specialisation of either Thief or Rider, but it came under Rider, probably because of my recent actions. I just rode down and robbed a lawful courier. Mounted Outlaw is an appropriate name.

The skill that came with it was exactly what I wanted. Mounted Speed Boost did exactly what it said for short sprints. It was like a short Agility burst to both the rider and the horse. The duration of the Speed Boost was a function of the Physical Agility attribute, and the speed it gave was a function of the skill level. It wasn’t a complicated Skill, but we would be levelling it up fast.