Drake crouch-walked a good ten paces left of his former position, then took a deep breath. He popped up with his crossbow ready. An arrow immediately whistled past his ear.
He spotted a distant shadow. He pressed the trigger. The crossbow thumped in his hands as the shadow vanished, but he didn’t think he’d hit anything.
He dropped back into the tall grass, fumbled through his pack for a bolt, then remembered he’d have to “cock” the crossbow first. He wrestled with the apparatus as Anna crouched and Jeremy gazed lazily at the sky. It wouldn’t move.
Why wouldn’t it move? Did it have a safety like a gun? This was the worst time to try to puzzle out how to reload a crossbow! He tossed it to the ground and grabbed his club.
He could simply creep up and club the archer in the head. No reloading required. It also might help that this particular archer seemed to be a terrible shot.
Then again, so was he.
“Crawl after me,” he ordered Anna. “You too, Jeremy. Crawl. Back the way we came.”
The shooter might expect him to head toward Heart Grove, so maybe he could lose them by going the other way. At least, in the forest, they’d have cover.
After one last look back to confirm Anna and Jeremy were coming, Drake crawled forward on elbows and knees with his club clutched to his chest. He felt like a soldier in an old war movie, crawling through the tall grass under heavy fire. He’d made it maybe ten paces before multiple stalks of grass ahead rapidly began to turn white.
Ice crackled with ominous intent. The grass was freezing. “Halt!” he whispered angrily.
The icy stalks spread to surround them, and those stalks were slowly encroaching inward. It seemed this archer also had a rarity called freeze grass, and while that might not be intimidating in other circumstances, Drake was now in a whole field of it.
How sharp would frozen grass stalks be? Hard enough to slice through his new armor? Even if he’d be okay, these would slice Anna and Jeremy to bits. Dammit! Trying to keep everyone else alive while staying alive himself was a massive pain in the ass.
Drake couldn’t let them continue to freeze grass until it killed them. He’d have to risk another look around. He rose from the grass, spun, and took a snowball directly to the face.
The cold snow did no damage, but it did send him stumbling. There was no snow out here, so was this another rarity? Did someone have a rarity called snowball fight?
The icy grass stalks froze closer. Drake had no choice but to crawl back to Anna and her father. Now surrounded by icy swords, he pointed for them to cower together and crouched beside them with his club. So this was how they’d die? Cut apart by grass stalks?
Oddly enough, he felt no burning rage. So what was his new rarity doing? Slacking off? He was obviously being threatened now, and the inconsistency of his new rarity was vexing. He didn’t want to wolf out and kill everyone nearby, but he needed to have the option!
Whatever had triggered his werewolf powers last night wasn’t working. So maybe he could only wolf out at night? Or if he was directly injured?
That must be it. He must have to actually be wounded before he could rip and tear. Being wounded would hurt, but if this went anything last night, the moment one of those grass stalks cut him, he’d be free to murder his attackers.
But what if he also murdered Anna and Jeremy?
“If I turn again, I need you to run,” Drake said. “As far and fast as you can go.”
“I will, lord!” Anna assured him bravely.
He had nowhere to go. Nothing else to do. Just when he was readying himself to stand and take an arrow to trigger his rarity, the freezing grass stopped.
Icy stalks surrounded Drake and his charges on all sides for as far as he could see, but it wasn’t encroaching further. There was just enough room for him. From just beyond the frozen white stalks, a welcome and familiar voice called out.
“Give it up!” It was his catgirl. “We’ve got you! Surrender, and I might not eat your—”
Drake hopped up in delight. “Sachi?”
Another snowball hit him in the face. He angrily swiped it away, and then he heard ice crackling and some very loud cursing from beyond his sight. Was that a woman cursing?
As he brushed snow from his eyes, icy chunks of grass visibly collapsed all around them. Soon there was an open crop circle surrounding them in all directions. As Drake stared in wide-eyed relief, not one, but two women stepped into plain view.
The first was Sachi. She looked the same as she had four nights ago, though her dark leather armor was scuffed a little. The second was a tall, curvy woman in battered feathersteel armor. She had pale skin, icy blue eyes, and flowing white hair that billowed dramatically when the wind caught it. She also looked rather cross with him.
This had to be Valentia. Sachi had successfully rescued his missing battle maid. And now she was... tossing snowballs at him?
Sachi scampered forward on all fours, then hopped back onto two legs directly in front of him. She came so fast and stopped so close Drake recoiled. Her puffy black tail twitched madly as she stared hungrily from way too inside his personal space.
“I can’t believe my eyes, lord, but I can certainly believe the smell. Did you roll in corpses? What have you been doing out here?”
“Trying not to die.” Drake blinked between an overexcited Sachi and a visibly standoffish Valentia, who hadn’t moved from where she’d first emerged. “How did you find me?”
“I wasn’t even looking for you, lord! Thank goodness we wanted to capture you!”
“Wait. You missed on purpose?”
“I don’t miss, lord.”
“And if you didn’t want to capture me, you would have just murdered me?”
“I kill Redbow soldiers. You’re dressed like one. But we wanted to ask you some questions, so fortunately for both of us, you’re still our manor lord.”
Valentia, in the distance, finally decided to approach. Her rarity, flashfreeze, must have frozen the grass. She and Sachi made a good team.
“But if you were trying to capture me, why was Valentia lobbing snowballs?”
“Oh!” Sachi started cackling again. “Those weren’t snowballs, lord. Those blocks of solid ice were meant to knock you senseless, yet every time she tossed one, it turned to snow.”
“Sachi,” the approaching woman warned.
“Old Val was good and pissed about that, I tell you.”
“Please don’t belittle me in front of our new lord.” Valentia came close enough to eye Drake and folded her hands in front of her waist. “I’ve suffered enough embarrassment today.”
Now Drake understood. Valentina, unlike Sachi, was still bound by all aspects of the blood pact, including her inability to harm her manor lord. Her rarity had canceled itself out when she attempted to use it against him. Lucky for him.
Also, Valentia didn’t bow to him. That was the first thing he noticed. She hadn’t been updated on his new orders, but she didn’t bow to him. She merely looked annoyed.
This battle maid had more leeway indeed, because as Lydia had pointed out, she could freeze a human solid with a snap of her fingers. He’d have to be cautious with her. Still, it was refreshing to meet someone from Gloomwood Manor who didn’t fear him on sight.
“So you’re the new lord of Gloomwood Manor,” Valentia said calmly. “A pleasure.”
“Thanks.” He offered a respectful nod. “I’m glad Sachi was able to find you.”
“A search you ordered, even though you can no longer command Sachi.”
“I can’t compel her. There’s a difference.”
Valentia’s practically unreadable features gave no clue as to her feelings about his new decrees. Her face was pretty much an ice sculpture. “Well, we would like to know.”
“Know... what I’m doing out here?”
“If you’d cared to share it.”
“Lord?” Anna asked timidly. “Are these your friends?”
Sachi dropped to her knees to grin at Anna. “And who’s this little blond morsel? She looks delicious.”
Drake might need to explain a few things before Sachi attempted to eat his newest recruit. “This is Anna, Sachi. She’s the reason I’m out there.”
“Oh?” Sachi rose. “And who’s the other one?”
“Jeremy. Her father. I rescued them. It turns out I’m actually a hero.”
Valentia watched him calmly. “Are you?”
Drake glanced at the distant road, the setting sun, and then at his huntress. “Are there any more Redbow soldiers in the area?” He trusted Sachi to know.
“None back the way we came, lord. They’re all dead back there. However, we do need to hunt down the rest of them before they scuttle back into their little burrow. I was tracking the rider we let lead us to the rest when you offered yourself as a target.”
So that was the man who’d ridden, terrified, into the camp yesterday. “No need to worry about the rest. I killed them. But we should probably compare notes.”
Sachi’s ears twitched as she offered a wicked grin. “You killed them? All of them?”
“Yes.”
Sachi’s deep purr was both flattering and creepy. “Oh lord. That pleases me.”
Drake decided it probably would. “So... where can we talk?”
“We’re the only threats for a league around here, so we can sit in this nice open circle if you like. Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been up to?”
Drake was glad to sit down, especially with Jeremy now curled into a ball. He chose to sit down by Anna, just to make her feel safe, and then relayed all that happened between Anna’s arrival at Gloomwood Manor and Valentia trying to brain him with an ice cube.
When he finished, Sachi looked visibly impressed. Valentia was watching him with fresh eyes as well. He hadn’t been sure how he planned to impress his latest battle maid, but apparently “I wolfed out and tore through twenty guys” was a good way to start.
“Shifter rarity,” Sachi whispered enviously. “I would love me one of those, lord. As nice as you humans smell, you’re so gamey. Bigger teeth would be a big help.”
He decided to just assume she was joking about actually eating people. “The problem is, I can’t seem to activate it unless I’m wounded. It’s not like that with yours, is it, Valentia?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s like that with anyone.”
He noticed something else right then. Valentia didn’t call him lord every other sentence. Maybe he could get her to give the other battle maids lessons. “So... how about you?”
“Us?” Valentia eyed him inscrutably.
“You’re alive. I’m glad to see that. But were Redbow soldiers behind your ambush?”
Valentia’s calm features remained unchanged. “They did ambush us and did abduct me, but we do not know why. We’d hoped to obtain that information from the ones up ahead.”
Her implication was clear. Soldiers couldn’t talk if he slaughtered them all.
“I had the same thought. So, can either of you make any sense of these?” He fumbled around for his pouch, dumped out the letter he’d opened, and handed it to Sachi.
Sachi took one look, scoffed, and tossed it to Valentia. She caught it neatly before it could flop to the earth. Her ice-blue eyes visibly skimmed it before she neatly tucked it back into its envelope and looked directly at Drake. “This is from their captain?”
“Took it right out of his personal tent. Figured it was a contract or letter.”
“It’s code.” She paused to consider. “But it might be a good find.”
“So it is code,” Drake said with relief. “I was worried I suddenly wasn’t able to read the language here. I seem to speak it just fine, but I imagine there’s multiple languages here. I still have no idea why I can speak to you people, but maybe it’s more magic?”
“Lord?” Anna asked quietly. “Can I ask a question?”
“Not now, Anna.”
“But it’s about your rarity. Your... were thing.”
“Werewolf, Anna.”
“Well it’s just that, lord. You didn’t...” She winced. “When you tried to eat me, you didn’t look much like a wolf.”
He frowned at her as Sachi loudly proclaimed “Oh, he tried to eat you?”
“What do you mean?” She couldn’t lie, could she? “I know I wolfed out last night.”
“You changed lord, you did! And I did see you fighting those mercenaries. But you weren’t a wolf, lord. At least... you did not look like a wolf.”
Drake was now both curious and confused. “So what did I look like?”
“A rat.” Anna stared. “You were a giant, hairy, scary rat, lord, with huge front teeth.”
As Drake stared at her in disbelief, Sachi began to laugh uproariously.
Drake crouch-walked a good ten paces left of his former position, then took a deep breath. He popped up with his crossbow ready. An arrow immediately whistled past his ear.
He spotted a distant shadow. He pressed the trigger. The crossbow thumped in his hands as the shadow vanished, but he didn’t think he’d hit anything.
He dropped back into the tall grass, fumbled through his pack for a bolt, then remembered he’d have to “cock” the crossbow first. He wrestled with the apparatus as Anna crouched and Jeremy gazed lazily at the sky. It wouldn’t move.
Why wouldn’t it move? Did it have a safety like a gun? This was the worst time to try to puzzle out how to reload a crossbow! He tossed it to the ground and grabbed his club.
He could simply creep up and club the archer in the head. No reloading required. It also might help that this particular archer seemed to be a terrible shot.
Then again, so was he.
“Crawl after me,” he ordered Anna. “You too, Jeremy. Crawl. Back the way we came.”
The shooter might expect him to head toward Heart Grove, so maybe he could lose them by going the other way. At least, in the forest, they’d have cover.
After one last look back to confirm Anna and Jeremy were coming, Drake crawled forward on elbows and knees with his club clutched to his chest. He felt like a soldier in an old war movie, crawling through the tall grass under heavy fire. He’d made it maybe ten paces before multiple stalks of grass ahead rapidly began to turn white.
Ice crackled with ominous intent. The grass was freezing. “Halt!” he whispered angrily.
The icy stalks spread to surround them, and those stalks were slowly encroaching inward. It seemed this archer also had a rarity called freeze grass, and while that might not be intimidating in other circumstances, Drake was now in a whole field of it.
How sharp would frozen grass stalks be? Hard enough to slice through his new armor? Even if he’d be okay, these would slice Anna and Jeremy to bits. Dammit! Trying to keep everyone else alive while staying alive himself was a massive pain in the ass.
Drake couldn’t let them continue to freeze grass until it killed them. He’d have to risk another look around. He rose from the grass, spun, and took a snowball directly to the face.
The cold snow did no damage, but it did send him stumbling. There was no snow out here, so was this another rarity? Did someone have a rarity called snowball fight?
The icy grass stalks froze closer. Drake had no choice but to crawl back to Anna and her father. Now surrounded by icy swords, he pointed for them to cower together and crouched beside them with his club. So this was how they’d die? Cut apart by grass stalks?
Oddly enough, he felt no burning rage. So what was his new rarity doing? Slacking off? He was obviously being threatened now, and the inconsistency of his new rarity was vexing. He didn’t want to wolf out and kill everyone nearby, but he needed to have the option!
Whatever had triggered his werewolf powers last night wasn’t working. So maybe he could only wolf out at night? Or if he was directly injured?
That must be it. He must have to actually be wounded before he could rip and tear. Being wounded would hurt, but if this went anything last night, the moment one of those grass stalks cut him, he’d be free to murder his attackers.
But what if he also murdered Anna and Jeremy?
“If I turn again, I need you to run,” Drake said. “As far and fast as you can go.”
“I will, lord!” Anna assured him bravely.
He had nowhere to go. Nothing else to do. Just when he was readying himself to stand and take an arrow to trigger his rarity, the freezing grass stopped.
Icy stalks surrounded Drake and his charges on all sides for as far as he could see, but it wasn’t encroaching further. There was just enough room for him. From just beyond the frozen white stalks, a welcome and familiar voice called out.
“Give it up!” It was his catgirl. “We’ve got you! Surrender, and I might not eat your—”
Drake hopped up in delight. “Sachi?”
Another snowball hit him in the face. He angrily swiped it away, and then he heard ice crackling and some very loud cursing from beyond his sight. Was that a woman cursing?
As he brushed snow from his eyes, icy chunks of grass visibly collapsed all around them. Soon there was an open crop circle surrounding them in all directions. As Drake stared in wide-eyed relief, not one, but two women stepped into plain view.
The first was Sachi. She looked the same as she had four nights ago, though her dark leather armor was scuffed a little. The second was a tall, curvy woman in battered feathersteel armor. She had pale skin, icy blue eyes, and flowing white hair that billowed dramatically when the wind caught it. She also looked rather cross with him.
This had to be Valentia. Sachi had successfully rescued his missing battle maid. And now she was... tossing snowballs at him?
Sachi scampered forward on all fours, then hopped back onto two legs directly in front of him. She came so fast and stopped so close Drake recoiled. Her puffy black tail twitched madly as she stared hungrily from way too inside his personal space.
“I can’t believe my eyes, lord, but I can certainly believe the smell. Did you roll in corpses? What have you been doing out here?”
“Trying not to die.” Drake blinked between an overexcited Sachi and a visibly standoffish Valentia, who hadn’t moved from where she’d first emerged. “How did you find me?”
“I wasn’t even looking for you, lord! Thank goodness we wanted to capture you!”
“Wait. You missed on purpose?”
“I don’t miss, lord.”
“And if you didn’t want to capture me, you would have just murdered me?”
“I kill Redbow soldiers. You’re dressed like one. But we wanted to ask you some questions, so fortunately for both of us, you’re still our manor lord.”
Valentia, in the distance, finally decided to approach. Her rarity, flashfreeze, must have frozen the grass. She and Sachi made a good team.
“But if you were trying to capture me, why was Valentia lobbing snowballs?”
“Oh!” Sachi started cackling again. “Those weren’t snowballs, lord. Those blocks of solid ice were meant to knock you senseless, yet every time she tossed one, it turned to snow.”
“Sachi,” the approaching woman warned.
“Old Val was good and pissed about that, I tell you.”
“Please don’t belittle me in front of our new lord.” Valentia came close enough to eye Drake and folded her hands in front of her waist. “I’ve suffered enough embarrassment today.”
Now Drake understood. Valentina, unlike Sachi, was still bound by all aspects of the blood pact, including her inability to harm her manor lord. Her rarity had canceled itself out when she attempted to use it against him. Lucky for him.
Also, Valentia didn’t bow to him. That was the first thing he noticed. She hadn’t been updated on his new orders, but she didn’t bow to him. She merely looked annoyed.
This battle maid had more leeway indeed, because as Lydia had pointed out, she could freeze a human solid with a snap of her fingers. He’d have to be cautious with her. Still, it was refreshing to meet someone from Gloomwood Manor who didn’t fear him on sight.
“So you’re the new lord of Gloomwood Manor,” Valentia said calmly. “A pleasure.”
“Thanks.” He offered a respectful nod. “I’m glad Sachi was able to find you.”
“A search you ordered, even though you can no longer command Sachi.”
“I can’t compel her. There’s a difference.”
Valentia’s practically unreadable features gave no clue as to her feelings about his new decrees. Her face was pretty much an ice sculpture. “Well, we would like to know.”
“Know... what I’m doing out here?”
“If you’d cared to share it.”
“Lord?” Anna asked timidly. “Are these your friends?”
Sachi dropped to her knees to grin at Anna. “And who’s this little blond morsel? She looks delicious.”
Drake might need to explain a few things before Sachi attempted to eat his newest recruit. “This is Anna, Sachi. She’s the reason I’m out there.”
“Oh?” Sachi rose. “And who’s the other one?”
“Jeremy. Her father. I rescued them. It turns out I’m actually a hero.”
Valentia watched him calmly. “Are you?”
Drake glanced at the distant road, the setting sun, and then at his huntress. “Are there any more Redbow soldiers in the area?” He trusted Sachi to know.
“None back the way we came, lord. They’re all dead back there. However, we do need to hunt down the rest of them before they scuttle back into their little burrow. I was tracking the rider we let lead us to the rest when you offered yourself as a target.”
So that was the man who’d ridden, terrified, into the camp yesterday. “No need to worry about the rest. I killed them. But we should probably compare notes.”
Sachi’s ears twitched as she offered a wicked grin. “You killed them? All of them?”
“Yes.”
Sachi’s deep purr was both flattering and creepy. “Oh lord. That pleases me.”
Drake decided it probably would. “So... where can we talk?”
“We’re the only threats for a league around here, so we can sit in this nice open circle if you like. Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been up to?”
Drake was glad to sit down, especially with Jeremy now curled into a ball. He chose to sit down by Anna, just to make her feel safe, and then relayed all that happened between Anna’s arrival at Gloomwood Manor and Valentia trying to brain him with an ice cube.
When he finished, Sachi looked visibly impressed. Valentia was watching him with fresh eyes as well. He hadn’t been sure how he planned to impress his latest battle maid, but apparently “I wolfed out and tore through twenty guys” was a good way to start.
“Shifter rarity,” Sachi whispered enviously. “I would love me one of those, lord. As nice as you humans smell, you’re so gamey. Bigger teeth would be a big help.”
He decided to just assume she was joking about actually eating people. “The problem is, I can’t seem to activate it unless I’m wounded. It’s not like that with yours, is it, Valentia?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s like that with anyone.”
He noticed something else right then. Valentia didn’t call him lord every other sentence. Maybe he could get her to give the other battle maids lessons. “So... how about you?”
“Us?” Valentia eyed him inscrutably.
“You’re alive. I’m glad to see that. But were Redbow soldiers behind your ambush?”
Valentia’s calm features remained unchanged. “They did ambush us and did abduct me, but we do not know why. We’d hoped to obtain that information from the ones up ahead.”
Her implication was clear. Soldiers couldn’t talk if he slaughtered them all.
“I had the same thought. So, can either of you make any sense of these?” He fumbled around for his pouch, dumped out the letter he’d opened, and handed it to Sachi.
Sachi took one look, scoffed, and tossed it to Valentia. She caught it neatly before it could flop to the earth. Her ice-blue eyes visibly skimmed it before she neatly tucked it back into its envelope and looked directly at Drake. “This is from their captain?”
“Took it right out of his personal tent. Figured it was a contract or letter.”
“It’s code.” She paused to consider. “But it might be a good find.”
“So it is code,” Drake said with relief. “I was worried I suddenly wasn’t able to read the language here. I seem to speak it just fine, but I imagine there’s multiple languages here. I still have no idea why I can speak to you people, but maybe it’s more magic?”
“Lord?” Anna asked quietly. “Can I ask a question?”
“Not now, Anna.”
“But it’s about your rarity. Your... were thing.”
“Werewolf, Anna.”
“Well it’s just that, lord. You didn’t...” She winced. “When you tried to eat me, you didn’t look much like a wolf.”
He frowned at her as Sachi loudly proclaimed “Oh, he tried to eat you?”
“What do you mean?” She couldn’t lie, could she? “I know I wolfed out last night.”
“You changed lord, you did! And I did see you fighting those mercenaries. But you weren’t a wolf, lord. At least... you did not look like a wolf.”
Drake was now both curious and confused. “So what did I look like?”
“A rat.” Anna stared. “You were a giant, hairy, scary rat, lord, with huge front teeth.”
As Drake stared at her in disbelief, Sachi began to laugh uproariously.
