Chương 1210: Chapter 10.5: The Price of Good Luck

The pressure arrived from the far side of the ruined camp. It settled across my shoulders before any branch moved, and the repaired axe hung useless in my hand. I turned towards the ravine path and found a woman standing beside the broken shelter. The mud held no prints between her boots and the higher stones. She looked close to my age until I met her eyes.

Dark brown hair had been tied behind her head with a plain strip of leather, allowing rain to run from the loose ends onto a fitted travelling coat whose seams belonged in a cleaner place. Gloves covered both hands, and a narrow sword rested at her left hip in a sheath without jewels or bright metal. The grip showed years of care; the boots showed mud only at the edges, where each step had found stone before the ground could shift.

The absence of pointed ears brought a brief, embarrassing relief after the two days behind me. Then the weight around her pressed harder and made species feel like a poor measure of danger. She carried no visible pack, blanket or cookpot, only the sword and a narrow belt pouch whose clasp had been made too carefully for Dunmere. Either she expected to reach shelter before dark or the forest had fewer rights over her than it held over me.

Her gaze moved from my axe to the pack strap beneath my hand, then stopped on the sleeve hiding my wrist.

"You put the heartwood in your pack." Her voice carried the clean certainty of someone accustomed to having lies corrected before they reached the end of a room.

"Tell me you used the oilcloth."

"I used two layers." I shifted until the cold firepit stood between us. Ten paces separated the axe from her throat, with broken canvas at my left and loose stone under my rear foot. If she drew the sword, none of those measurements would matter.

"Good. Oilcloth slows the first contact, though it will not hold the affinity forever. Did you touch the wood itself?"

"No." The answer was true and still sounded like concealment. I kept my hand on the axe because removing it would have admitted how little use it was. She watched me for another breath. A slight smile touched one side of her mouth and disappeared before it became friendly.

"Good. I watched a man burn through a glove with a weaker core. He thought leather made him cautious."

"Do you know what happened here?" I nodded towards the flattened shelter and the blood left without bodies.

"The tracks go north, then turn back into the ravine."

"Three people were alive when the first shelter fell. They made it as far as the northern road." Her attention passed over the blood-dark blankets without lingering.

"The thing that struck the camp followed for a while, then turned back towards the ravine. I came to see why."

"What followed them?" I asked. Her eyes moved towards the northern road before returning to the ruined camp.

"I have tracks, damaged bodies and several poor explanations. A name would make me sound more certain than I am." She stepped around the firepit and stopped beside the place where the bundle had rested. One gloved finger touched the oil-dark impression in the mud.

"The heartwood remained here after the attack. That matters." Her answer carried uncertainty without making her smaller. Talvek used office when he lacked facts; Merris changed the price; this woman left the missing part in the sentence and expected it to stay there. The pressure around her remained controlled, though every instinct I possessed treated the distance between us as borrowed. She crouched beside one of the prints and measured its depth with the tip of her gloved finger.

Her coat tightened across one shoulder, revealing a darker patch where the cloth had been repaired from inside with stitches too fine for field work. She noticed me looking and stood before I could decide whether the repair meant injury or concealment. The easy expression returned with the same precision as a knife entering its sheath.

"Is it yours?" I asked.

"No. I would have stored it in stone, away from food, cloth and my spine." Her gaze returned to the pack.

"Do you know what blood affinity means?"

"That it reacts to blood," I said.

"Appraisal gave me no purpose beyond that."

"Sometimes. It can also recognise lineage, carry a working from one body to another or feed on whatever answers it first." Her eyes dropped to my covered wrist again.

"Until you know which, keep it away from those markings." The charcoal beneath the sleeve had tightened until the skin pulled around it. I moved my arm behind the axe haft.

"You know what these markings are."

"I know what they resemble, and resemblance is not enough to name them." The polish left her voice on the final words.

"Keep the core wrapped. Find a fired-clay jar or a stone box when you reach town. If it becomes warm enough to feel through the container, put it down and move away. Do not open it again until the heat stops." The practical detail made the warning easier to trust.

"Why leave it here?"

"I didn't." Her head turned towards the higher ravine, where the cedar trunks narrowed into wet shadow.

"Someone carried it into this camp. Whoever attacked them ignored it, lost it or wanted another person to pick it up. I dislike all three possibilities."

"Are you going to take it?"

"No." She adjusted one glove at the wrist.

"It has already reacted to you, and separating active blood material from the first person it answers can make the reaction worse. I would need better tools than I brought into the rain." The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The core had answered me. Appraisal pressed against her and returned fabric, maintained steel and a wall of pressure the ability could not enter. No name, rank or threat measure appeared.

I had compared every stronger person to the Iron scale until then; Talia supplied no useful number at all.

"Who are you?" I asked. She studied me before answering.

"Talia."

"Only Talia?"

"It is the only name I am giving you." The smile returned briefly.

"You still have the axe between us." She did not ask for mine. The omission sat awkwardly between us because strangers usually wanted a name before giving warnings that specific. I could have supplied it and chose to keep the same small protection she had kept for herself. Talia watched my silence for a breath, then returned her attention to the ravine. I looked past her towards the ravine. The smell of blood remained stronger farther in, mixed with wet fur and crushed cedar.

"Whatever attacked the camp went that way."

"Then you should take the southern slope back to Dunmere." Talia stepped close enough to press the torn corner of the abandoned oilcloth flat with her boot.

"The tracks cross one another twice below the narrow stones. Something large died there, and the thing that killed it may still be close. Leave the carcass alone." Her final command made it clear she expected me to look. The irritation of being read so easily almost covered the warning.

"If someone in town knows what the heartwood is, I'll need to show them."

"Show them the wrapping first. Watch whether they reach for it before asking where you found it." Her hand rested near the sword without touching the grip.

"And if they call you lucky, leave."

"Why?"

"Luck is what idiots call a bill before they learn who sent it." Talia turned uphill. She crossed the loose stones without sending one into the ravine, then passed between two cedars and disappeared behind the higher ground. I waited until the pressure withdrew from my shoulders. My fingers ached when I loosened them from the axe. The southern slope began behind me. I took three steps towards it before the blood smell thickened again from the narrow part of the ravine.

Talia had said something large had died, and the pack on my shoulders contained two rabbits, one dangerous core and enough spare space for the kind of material Merris priced in copper. I set the axe against my shoulder and went far enough to see the carcass. The Ashfang lay against the stone wall where the ravine narrowed. Grey-black fur covered shoulders broader than a cart horse, while one foreleg had folded beneath the body and the ribs on that side had collapsed towards the spine.

Its throat had been opened deeply enough to expose pale bone. Three cuts crossed the upper back with edges too clean for claws and too far apart for any blade I knew. APPRAISAL RESULT You have identified the carcass of an Iron (late) Ashfang. The pelt remains valuable despite severe damage near the throat and spine. The wounds were inflicted by a force beyond your current combat capacity. I should have followed Talia's route.

The pelt could buy a sound replacement haft, leather that covered more than my forearms and enough food to use the four nights at The Cataract for sleep instead of hunting. Each practical use made the carcass harder to leave. I put the pack beneath a stone shelf, kept the heartwood wrapped and began cutting. The hide resisted the knife even after death. Iron density turned familiar seams into tough cords beneath the fur, and the collapsed ribs left no space for my hand where I normally separated skin from flesh.

I worked from the rear leg towards the damaged shoulder, freeing broad sections before touching the blood-soaked throat. Every few cuts I stopped, listened and checked whether the oilcloth bundle remained cool beneath the shelf. Fear made my first line shallow and the second too deep. Skinning corrected through pressure rather than thought, guiding the blade flatter where the tissue tightened and slowing my hand before it entered the valuable undercoat. I still damaged one edge near the spine.

The rest came away in a heavy sheet that dragged both arms towards the ground. ABILITY ADVANCED Skinning has advanced from Iron (early) to Iron (mid). You can now better preserve material from damaged, high-rank or partially ruined carcasses while working under fatigue, poor light and immediate threat. Dusk had entered the ravine by the time I rolled the pelt. The bundle weighed enough that I had to leave the Ashfang's claws, teeth and every salvageable piece of meat behind.

I tied the pelt above the pack, shifted the rabbits to one side and kept the heartwood upright between cloth wraps where the heavy hide could not crush it. The load pulled hard against my injured ribs before I reached the first rise. The pelt caught on every branch wide enough to reach the trail. Twice I had to lower the pack, free wet fur from cedar twigs and lift the whole load again without twisting the repaired axe or reopening my side. The second lift darkened the bandage beneath my coat.

I shortened the chest strap, moved the axe into my left hand and accepted a pace slow enough that the forest had time to become dark around me. I used the southern slope as Talia had ordered, marking each turn against the cedar line so darkness could not steer me back towards the camp. Nothing followed. I still checked behind me at every switchback, searching the dark between the trunks before giving it my back again. The Cataract's lamps were burning when I reached Dunmere.

I carried the Ashfang pelt through the side passage rather than the common room, climbed the stairs one at a time and locked my door before lowering the pack. The room slate downstairs promised four nights. The core inside the oilcloth had remained warm throughout the return, below the heat Talia had told me to fear and still far from anything dead. The Ashfang pelt filled most of the floor between the door and the bed.

Wet fur gave the room a rank animal smell, while diluted blood ran from one folded edge towards the boards. I wedged a towel beneath it, opened the shutters far enough to let the damp escape and checked the corridor before touching the pack. Nobody had followed me upstairs, and no voice below had changed when the pelt passed through the side door. I should have found a clay jar before opening it.

Instead, I set the wrapped bundle on the floorboards, placed the washbasin between it and the bed and peeled back the outer layer with the point of my knife. Dark crimson heartwood lay inside, dense enough to pull the cloth flat beneath it. Vein-like lines travelled through the polished grain and brightened once when my marked wrist moved closer. APPRAISAL RESULT You have identified the object as a Refined Heartwood Core. The material is strongly conductive and carries a blood affinity.

Further properties remain concealed. The core heated before I could close the cloth. Crimson lines rose beneath the skin of my wrist and ran towards my elbow, following the charcoal veins with enough heat to buckle my arm. I dropped the knife, seized the oilcloth and threw the bundle into the empty washbasin. Wood struck metal with a single hard note. The red faded from my arm in slow branches.

I wrapped the basin with the room's spare blanket, shoved it against the stone hearth and sat on the floor until my hand stopped shaking. Beneath the blanket, the heartwood gave another pulse, and the washbasin answered with the same hard note.